Noro longies finished

Thank you to all of you who responded to my what should I do about these pants. You were all right, they look cute I think!

Yarn: Noro Kureyon 132 and black Lamb's Pride

It was a bit of a pain in the ass to get the legs to match all the way down. I pulled out 2 small balls and started in the same place, but toward the end, after the red, the purple stripe wa a lot bigger on 1 side than the other, and the place where the black stripes started would have been purple without any green, (that ball barely had any green on it at all) So I frogged back and took out some of the purple stripe, and then grafted some green from somewhere else in the yarn to get it to match there.
Here's the back. You can see one set of short rows fall between the black stripes, but I think it works well. They've gotta go somewhere!
Detail

I *really* like how these came out.

Stitch 'n' Sip

Our local group of knitters went to a little get-together thing at Eric's house yesterday

It turns out that people don't drink or eat that much when they're knitting. But it was a great time anyway!

You know, I had my camera with me the whole time but I kept forgetting to take it out and get some pictures of the party. whoops. I should have Kinneared everyone.

Our local chapter of Project Linus put out a request for some Colt's colors blankets. Peyton Manning and some other Colts players will be handing them out at a local hospital.

We pooled some yarn and this is what we came up with yesterday. I'm hoping we have enough for 2 blankets eventually.

Incidentally, my daughter who is autistic got a Project Linus blanket at the end of a special needs camp this summer. She chose a nice thick quilty PINK one, and she loves it! It was really awesome to see all these special kids get their own blanket and walk away with it. They were all full of smiles. It's a great charity so if you have some extra yarn or fabric, go make a blanket!

I was going to finish the Noro longies but after doing only a couple rounds and making a mistake before I'd even had a drink, I decided to put them away for some plain knitting.

I cast this sock on at Eric's and this is how far I got. I haven't made a plain sock in so long, I'm impressed with how fast it went! And I really like the colors together. Go Gryffindor!

While I didn't drink a LOT... I did have a couple margaritas and a beer so I decided it best not to try to turn the heel, so instead I cast on this scarf for aforementioned daughter (did I mention she likes pink a LOT?)

It's impossible to photograph this particular pink. It's neon but not as amorphously bright as it looks. And it changes colors a bit, though of course all I got through was the really bright part. It's better in person. This is that yarn that was originally $32 and I got it free. I love free!

Not bad for 1 day! I was there from about 4-10:30? more or less. I also wound up a couple skeins of laceweight and stopped to eat occasionally. It was great, and after I got home I didn't have to frog anything (even better!)

Stitches 'n' Scones booty

I went with DD and my friend Angela and her daughter to Stitches 'n' Scones this morning for the big sale. They give away 75 gift bags, first come first served. So we were there when they opened (but we weren't the first).

Here's what we came up with....

The pink fluff on the left was in my goody bag. I has a tag on it that says Yarn Baby and nothing else. The original price on it (which I didn't realize until I got home) was $32!? I really like the yarn, and I picked it to make a very very pink scarf for my special needs DD2 who love love loves pink. But still.... $32?! Shouldn't it be cashmere or something?

The fiber on the top is Fleece Artist Merino. C picked out the greenish one, I picked the pink. Those weren't on sale but they were still a great price.

The middle stuff was in the clearance section and my yarn pusher friend Angela and some other yarn pusher friends talked me into buying it. It *was* a really good deal, but I still felt guilty because it was NOT for *ANYTHING* in my queue and I'd made a rule about that. But, it was really cheap and it was pink (and DD2 really really REALLY loves pink... did I mention?)

The fluffy ball on the bottom right was in DD2's gift bag. I have no idea what she's going to do with it, it'll probably be a scarf some day, but she's a bigger collector of fiber than a knitter of fiber. (I don't have *any* idea where she might have gotten that trait from.)

The really dark green and grey balls are wool for a Dark Mark scarf. I've been looking for the perfect colors for that, and I haven't wanted most of the greens I've seen. That one is almost black it's so dark. I love it. (It's Galway, btw).

And the red and yellow balls are Fortissima Socka, for Gryffindor socks, of course!

All that was $65, which is cheap but I was feeling guilty about it until I got home and saw my very first license purchase in my in box... yipee! So I came out pretty good for the day, not quite even, but I'm very happy. And now I wish I hadn't put back that gorgeous lavender wool from the clearance rack that I just wanted to cuddle with.

Hedera

I finished Hedera socks a few days ago but had to get help for the photo shoot.

In honor of the absurd pictures on the pattern...
Because the upside-down, sandal wearing photo showcases the knitting *so* well...

They really are SO much better than they look on the pattern pictures.

And believe it or not, I didn't alter them. Well there are a few less repeats in the ankle, because I like shorter socks, but, that doesn't even really count.

The yarn is really so very cool. It's Vlnap a.s. Sockenwolle Unipo Superwash, and I don't know where I got it. It is actually mostly purple and green and not really very blue at all.

To Janet

Who said in the comments:

"I KNEW that ultramerino was what you were wanting for Fawkes!"

I say:

Yes but did you also know that I would get it home and then decide that it wasn't really quite the right color and have to re-dye it?

I wrapped it around some canisters carefully to match the colors up again.

Both skeins re-skeined with the colors matching. See it's too *pink*
There it is after dipping half of it into some red. I *love* it now...

Conversation in our house the other day

The first full day of school for my older kids, I want to take my 4 year old out for the day.

Me: First we're going to the yarn store and then we're going to go to the play ground.

DS: But why are we going to the yarn store?

Me: To get yarn. (Duh ,right?)

DS: (Gesturing wildly) But we already have ALL these yarns around here!?

He spent the whole car trip there telling me about how we already have Yarns, we don't want any new Yarns, there's no place to put any more Yarns, we can't possibly need more Yarns.

And to those of you thinking he just wanted to go to the playground, he didn't. He didn't even want to go to the playground after we left the yarn store (he did enjoy it once we got there though!). No, he just couldn't wrap his brain around the idea of more yarn.

My son doesn't get me....

Finish and Start

The OVERWHELMING response to the Noro longies was keep going with the stripes, so I did. I'll post them Sunday hopefully. They're looking pretty cool, thanks for the advice!

So I'm on this big push to reduce the number of WIPs in my Ravelry page.

These are Caitie's tube socks. They're more like slipper socks. I started them early last spring. A lot of my hibernating projects are cool weather projects and it got too hot for me to want to finish them.

Made out of cheap acrylic yarn that she liked. No idea where I got it.

She loves them, and has slept in them twice since I finished them.

There was a little drama in the finishing. I went out with a friend for coffee last Sunday and decided to take them with me to finish.

The needles weren't in them but I was pretty sure I was working them on 3's, so I took them with me and worked on them for a while.

4 inches later I discovered something critical. Just because you use your needles so much that the writing rubs off doesn't mean the mm on there that you can't see anymore doesn't matter.

Size 3 needles and 3 mm needles are not the same thing.

But, they're finished now. And I had coffee with a dear friend, and I was knitting. so it wasn't like it was time wasted.

These washcloths are lovely and addictive until you've made 5. I'm pretty sure they wear off after 5. I had to force myself to finish the second one of these.

I'm just not as charmed by the simple and lovely pattern now. I still really like them, but, well I've made 5. And actually I really want a black one. I think what's fun about them is seeing what the color combinations will come out like, but then once you do 4 inches you know what they look like....
Last weekend I went to the Knit Stop because they were having a sale.

Ended up without any sale yarn (1/2 price). I kept picking it up and putting it back. I do not need more yarn that doesn't go with projects I already have in mind. And I have 148 projects in mind. (How shocking is THAT to know?!) SO I'm sticking with those. 150, yep, that's my limit. Err, maybe 160. But that's all.

So I got this Baby Alpaca for Branching Out, which I'm making for my mom's birthday, in November.

And some Cascade 220, boring, but I needed it for something. This is the insanely too tight ball that they wound for me. I've already re-wound it, I couldn't stand it. Be nice to the wool!

Today I met my long lost friend Julie who moved to Texas at Mass ave and got this.

The green Flake Cotton was recommended by Susan as a substitute for Euroflax in the Dragon Skin wand holder from Charmed Knits. I'm just not going to knit a wand holder with Euroflax. I like the skin on my hands where it is.

The other is Artyarns Ultramerino for the Fawkes socks.

It is taking ever ounce of will power in me not to completely drop my other projects and start those Right. Now.

And can I just say how very much more I like Mass Ave than Knit Stop. Seriously. Worth the drive in the wrong direction from everything else.

Opinions?

What do you think of these pants?

I really love the top part. I had thought I would make the majority of the rest of them with the noro (stripy) yarn and put another pattern on the bottom 3-4 inches and black cuffs. But now I'm worried they're going to be TOO stripey for pants and look silly.

These are size Large, so... like 12-18 months-ish. I've joined for the legs and done about an inch on the right leg (left on the picture). Should I keep going? Or I could back up to the pick and black stripe and make it them black. I'm worried about having enough yarn though.

Would you buy them?

Edited to add: I did pull off the and match yarn into 2 balls so that I can make the stripes on the legs match if I continue them the way they are.

Oh yeah, the other thing...

I remembered what it was I forgot to blog about. But, it really needed it's own post anyway.

So, I took my 9 year old to knit night this week, she worked on a little crochet, and brought some stuff to read. We're all sitting around knitting and she says "Oh Woah! This is a giant knitted bunny!"

So I'm thinking... ok... it's going to be a big stuffed rabbit.

She hands me her National Geographic Kids that has this picture in it. It takes a minute to get a sense scale. Go ahead and look. Look at the house. Look at the person on the belly. It's freakin huge.


You'll probably think, like I did, that it's probably not knitted.






But you would be wrong.

We of course had to google it when we got home. It's an "art" project by a group called Gelitin. (Be warned there are some *very* weird and not very child appropriate things on that site, though, if you decide to go poking around)

Not only is it knitted, but it appears to be all *ribbing*. Think about THAT the next time you complain about all the miles of ribbing you have to do on your project.
How would you like to be the one who had to graft all those seams?

This thing is over 150 feet long and 20 feet high. Made of an unknown amount of pink wool and stuffed with straw.

It is so big that it can be seen from space. Seriously, that's not drawn on there, that's from Google Maps.



And yet look at the gauge. It's not THAT big.

Can you imagine?





Wait, it gets weirder...

If you look really close you can see that the rabbit is actually dead. There is a huge wound on his left side and guts area spilling out on the ground. (They're knitted, too, by the way.)

As someone from from knit night wondered, I'd like to know where they got that much pink wool in the same dye lot.

Sheepy Sack pattern

I've written up a free PDF pattern for the Sheepy Sack.

It's quite simple and a good project for a beginner knitter. Enjoy it!

I won! and other random stuff

Sarah Hope from What If Knits had a little contest and I guess I was the fastest googler... Squee!
Here's what I found in my mail box today.

There's a lovely knit washcloth (which is somehow so much cooler because I didn't knit it! I've never had one that I didn't make myself...) and some stickers (which my kids adored) some little M post-it's, and a cute little tin box which I am way more excited about than is probably called for, but hey, it's cute.

Thanks so much!






This came up at knit night yesterday. Apparently there are those of you who have finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but who haven't yet read the J.K. Rowling interview. So go READ IT. (Do NOT read it if you don't want to know what happens because she tells you everything about everything in this interview).

I got some new sock yarn off of e-Bay that I'm itching to knit. Yeah that ravelry thing is working out. I've already added it to my Stash though!















Some of you have caught on to the fact that there are things over in my ticker thingy that *say* they're 100% done that I've never posted. Here's one of them.
It is Susanfrom the Daily Knitter. Believe it or not, I pretty much just followed the pattern. I did leave off the kind of sad looking scraggly fringe, though.

The yarn is Cottontots. Super cheap and not at all hard, but I really like it. It's the perfect thing when it's 90 degrees outside so you're wearing a tank top but the building you're in is 65.



I feel certain there was something else to add to my random blog post, but I can't remember it now so it will have to wait for later. And before that will come something else new.... :)

Calla and Cargo

I finished this a while ago but didn't get pictures up of it.

It is Calla from Magknits, made from Debbie Bliss DK cotton.

Modifications: I knit this in the round, and changed the central cable motif.

I also took out the eyelets in the pattern and added a braided cable instead. I didn't particularly want a row of holes going up over my boobs.

And I made the back a little shorter (lower) than the front.


I was trying to take pictures of myself in the mirror when my kids offered to do it. Most of what they took looked like this
Funny to see the 4 year old perspective of you. None of the managed to include any part of my head.

Oh, btw, that dragon is a henna tatoo I did for the Harry Potter book release. I had several, but they're all gone now. Henna only lasts a few weeks.
Here are pics of the pants that I finished a few days ago. I just listed them on Etsy today.

Found!

The long lost snitch washcloth was discovered today at the bottom of a knitting bag. No word yet as to why the snitch didn't appear in the bag the last 3 times it was searched. Possibly it was in fear of bludgers.


The pattern is from InsanKnitty. I left off the HP and centered the snitch motif, and also changed the back wing a little to look a little bigger, just a few stitches different. If I had it to again I'd move a couple purl stitches on the front wing too. The shape is kinda weird.

But C doesn't mind, she thinks it's sooper cool.

Your life as it has been, is over.

(This is a text heavy post. I'll try to throw in some fibery pics just to break up the monotony.)

Well, I've been away for a bit, haven't I?

First, it's summer. I have 3 kids, one of them special needs. It's busy.

Then, there was the Harry Potter mania. Which means I did nothing but read for 2 days. When I do nothing but read for 2 days my house completely falls apart in a way that takes me 8 days to recover from. Do not try to figure that out, it doesn't make sense. But it's true anyway.

Then I fell down the rabbit hole that is Ravelry. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go, check it out. I'll wait. (BTW, it's still in beta, so you can't get on, but you can get on the waiting list and you might get in sometime, eventually. Do it cause the list will only get longer and you'll regret it later.)

Basically, it's a database for knitters. It has inside it all the yarn and patterns and projects you can imagine. Well no, really it doesn't, but it can, because if it's not there, you can put it there, and then other people can find it. And eventually every yarn ever spun and every pattern ever designed will be assimilated within the Ravelry universe and then the knitters can take over the world!

Seriously, though, it's pretty cool. You get a little virtual notebook where you can organize your projects. That's where you start. You think you don't have that many projects, but then you start entering them in. And then there's a place where you can drag and drop your pictures from Flickr into your project page. And now you have a nifty little thing that shows all the things you are knitting, and you realize how very many of those things there are. Yikes.

THEN, there's a place for you to enter all of your yarn, (called the Stash). Seriously. Ok well I'm never going to enter *all* of my yarn. But I did put in quite a bit. And then I had to take pictures of it all. And there's a lot.

So, I've been using my Ravelry time to organize everything else. I took out the yarn to photograph and sort and put it back. I sold some of the unloved stuff to someone else who will love it more. I donated some acrylic to a lady who is making bears for sick kids. I cleaned out the WIPs and figured out Just. How. Many. there are. But at least I know they're there, you know what you're up against, and where they are now. You can become one with your projects.

And THEN.... Here's the real time vortex. You get a queue. Every pattern you want to make. Or think you might want to make. Or you want to remember where it is. Or yarn you want to buy. Put it in your queue. Add in all the stuff you might want to know, what kind of yarn it needs, where the yarn for it IS (behind the curtains, under the bed...) Plus, you can go through and look at what other people are making. You can find out what the monkey socks look like in 903 different projects. You can find out that Hedera is way cooler than it looks in the really dorky pictures on Knitty. You can figure out just how much sock yarn you have and which ones would look good knit in Hedera, and even though you just found out that you have 19 WIP's, you can start Hedera anyway.

I really love them.

I have also been using this time to organize all my patterns. I have a very many patterns. I picked out several to give away because I just don't need THAT many baby sock patterns. They aren't that different. I still have very many patterns. But now I know where everything is. So that's cool.

I have 27 projects. 175 stashed yarns. 138 projects in my queue. Just in case, you know, you were wondering.

OOOOH and I forgot, I'm a *DESIGNER*. I feel all official now. I have my own special designer page. With 1 lonely pattern on it. Now I'm feeling like I really need to finish writing the other 5 or 6 patterns I have plans for. Cause, you know, it's Ravelry, and I can't resist.

Resistance is futile. **

Meanwhile....

Life has apparently continued on. My blog has sat, blogless. I have finished some pants that I haven't even mentioned starting, but, they were in my Ravelry :) I finished 1 Hedera sock and decided I had to finish the pants before I could make another one. I'm determined to cut down the number of WIPs to a more manageable number. Then I have 138 projects to make. And I'm quite sure there are things that still aren't in there.

I'll be back to regular entries here this week. Probably with fresh pictures. School starts next Wednesday (WHOOO!). I have lots of work to do between now and then.

For now, here are some Q&A from the comments.

Did Spike's sweater survive the remainder of the winter?

It did! I was thinking I should probably make another one so I can alternate them when it gets wet. He really likes it when it's snowy. I wish I could figure out how to make felted booties for his poor little feet. It's hard to think about snow when it's 100 degree heat index though!

Re: the Harry Potter knitting:

What are your thoughts after the whole experience?

I assume you meant the midnight book experience? It was fun and I'd totally do it again. C was so excited she couldn't stand it. They interviewed her on the news twice. When she actually got the book she was screaming and squealing like mad.

Also, the book was awesome. I loved it. Everything I knew would happen did, everything I thought should happen, did, but there was still a lot of stuff I couldn't have thought of, and that was cool, too. I'm kinda sad that it's over. And I need to knit a beaded bag. In a bad way. Make that 139 projects in my queue.

By the way - what exactly is a Pygmy Puff?

It's a miniature Puffskein. That clears it up, doesn't it? Basically, it's a little tribble. One of the characters has a purple one as a pet (Arnold).

Hope the Snitch washcloth turned up!

It didn't. Bummer. It only took an hour or so to make, though, so it's not a huge loss. Not like the original Spike sweater or anything.... *sniff*

** 10 points if you can spot all the geeky Borg references in this post.