Knit n Things

Well you'll be happy to know that I made it back from my first ever skiing excursion with all my limbs in tact. Sore as all get out but unbroken. You all remember that hat I slaved over to get finished on time for my ski trip?? It got left at home by accident - doesn't it just figure?! I had a really great time but I learned something VERY important....people that ski are completely insane (my apologies if I've offended you) the mountains are ridiculously high - some of those slopes go straight down! Who the devil wants to do that for fun?! I was terrified of the dam bunny slope I couldn't imagine attempting a double black diamond! My girlfriend Marie & I decided to be brave and try a green slope higher up the mountain...took us two hours to get down - we were so scared we were tempted to ditch the skis and walk down! We dam near rolled down the mountain we got to laughing so much about our predicament. Can't say I'll be doing it again soon but I did have a really good time.

Anyway onto the knitting - see this little tangle of yarn here? That is the beginning of the MS3. Very possibly the most obnoxious thing I've ever attempted. And between you & me I didn't knit that. After several hours & many failed attempts I called in reinforcements. The Knitter came to my rescue & got me started. It made me feel immensely better to find out that it took her several hours to get her own shawl started so when she offered to get me going too I could've kissed her feet. Luckily that wasn't necessary & because of her (THANKS D!) I now have this! I think it's going to be pretty and who cares that I cheated & had someone else start it for me. I don't even know why I felt the need to confess except to express my extreme gratitude to D for hooking me up! I guess I just a little bit annoyed that 4 needles & 8 stitches so completely kick my ass. Oh well - better to suck it up & admit defeat then have no pretty lace shawl to play with.

Olympic socks are done!! After some playing around I finally got the toes not to look like alien chicken feet. I'm happy with them. Tisha is going to flip for them! Can't wait to get them to her. Coolest part is I'm done in time to share them with you & head out for Vermont tomorrow with no worries! There were a few stressed minutes today when I thought I'd be finishing on the bus and then trying to convince you all on Monday that I really did finish in time (I know you'd never believe me) but luckily I don't have to go through the drama cuz I'm done **doing the happy dance!** Are you done with your Olympic project yet?

I've been working on Kiri for ages it seems and have made no real progress. The reason being I've been using grandmother's needles.
These are monster 14" needles which I thought would be better to use when knitting lace (what do I know it's my first lace project) I however knit continental which involves needles flying all over the place, lots of wrist twisting and general chaos, so these 14" needles were a real drag - I could knit maybe two rows before my wrists were tired & I had to put it away.

So I got to thinking - does it really matter THAT much??? If this shawl takes 100 years to complete am I gonna really give a hoot that I made it on vintage needles?! If I loathe every stitch made with those long ass slippery as hell aluminum needles is this shawl ever going to get done?? Well of course it's not - so I gave it up and went and got some bamboo circs & let me just say that I will stab myself with a knitting needle before I EVER attempt to knit lace on metal needles again! What a freakin difference! I was able to do an entire pattern repeat (7 rows I think - that's just the right side so maybe more like 14) in one sitting!!! No fatigue no cursing & much love for the fuzzy goodness of this yarn. I'm much happier now!

I finally finished the ski trip hat and as always I'm just in time - I'm leaving for Vermont on Friday afternoon. Nothing like not owning one warm hat to get you motivated. I must say that if I had seen this hat on a live person I probably wouldn't have made it.
It fits weird - the space between the ear flaps in the back is so little that unless you actually tie the ties (which have been added since this photo) your ears aren't really covered well. Of course when I started this hat a million months ago I really didn't have a clue what I was doing & just thought the cables looked really cool (which they still do despite turning the wrong direction in several different places - but that's just between us.) I like the hat but it isn't my favorite thing I've ever done.

The Olympic socks are coming along well - I've got the heel done on sock number two and the gusset stiches are all picked up. I'm in the home stretch! I'm not even sure when the Olympics are over (I suppose I could check the Harlot's counter thing) but I'm shooting to get these done before Friday. I'm probably going to wind up ripping out the toes on the first sock because I'm not really satisfied with them (without feet in them they kinda look like chicken toes). I've got some ideas to make them better so if the toes on sock #2 are better then #1's are getting ripped. I might actually write down what I do this time too so that I might actually be able to duplicate it! I have no clue what I did with the first foot which is ok since I don't like it anyway.

**Note - I actually wrote this post on Tuesday but Blogger was being evil & wouldn't let me add pictures & I didn't want to post without them.
Because of the many inches of snow we got this weekend I was able to kick butt on my Olympic project. This is a new record for me. One sock in one weekend - I'm very pleased. Originally I had wanted these socks to be for me, but after the first inch of leg was completed I decided that these weren't going to be my socks at all. They screamed out to belong to Tisha. So being that they're going to be Tisha's socks I had to make them into some sort of toe sock (I'm holding off the grafting until I make sure they're going to fit ok).
For some reason when I picked this pattern & this yarn I really thought that they would be striped. Despite having seen the yarn worked up in photos I still really thought it would stripe...dumb ass. Anyway the yarn is Knitpicks Dancing and obviously it does not stripe so the cool wavy thing that is in the pattern is totally wasted but they're still lovely and perfect for T! She's going to flip when she finds out I made her socks! I'll let you know how the fitting goes.

**Fitting went great she almost cried she was so excited! I'm just about ready to start the heel flap on the second sock so I'm making great time. I even managed to finish an old UFO stories & pictures coming as soon as I do the seaming.

To the nut house! Have I ever mentioned that I am a complete lunatic??

I just came back from JoAnne fabrics and found this.
Now I am funny about novelty yarn - I DO NOT like it if it feels weird, stratchy, platsticy (is that a word?) or in any way unpleasant. So this cuts out pretty much all fun fur and eyelash yarn and of course Red Heart Supersaver (which isn't novelty yarn I know but it's still nasty - falls into the plasticky category). Anyway this stuff is just as nice as the Firenze that I paid 4 times as much for for 1/4 of the yardage (which just kills me!) So I've decided my friend Cathi (who is hitting a milestone b-day) would love a scarf from this for her birthday. Which incidently is Monday.

Have I mentioned that I joined in the Olympics? I'm sure you've seen the buttons over there --> You'll here all about it when I'm franticly knitting my socks - cursing my SnB buddies for talking me into this insanity.

I've also joined this Mystery Shawl Along thing (button coming soon) which starts next Friday. Did I mention in addition to being nuts - I'm also a sucker for peer pressure. The Knitter talked me into this one. You can see a test swatch of what were doing on her blog - go look I'll wait....... cute huh? I just want to mention that I have made one lace item (which is not finished) and also that every test swatch for this thing looks different. The technical discussion on why they all look different made me cry. I think I'm in trouble in more ways than one!

In other knitting news....my girl Tisha made me this.
How cool is that?! It's custom made for DPN's with the pockets wider than customary so I can keep them in their packages (yes I'm weird - I know this). She also made me another shorter one for my crochet hooks. *Teach sewers to knit they 'll make you cool stuff!

Honest I had every intention of coming home last night, finishing the decreases and posting pictures. But in my rush I goofed and had to rip back a few rows. So I spent an hour tonight unknitting then another hour reknitting and ...tada!















Must give props to mom for taking like a million pictures of me (doesn't it figure that the only pic I like is fuzzy!!) I did take pictures of the gorgeous decrease swirl but none of them turned out very well so we'll just skip that part. Oh and also please note the insanely small amount of yarn left over - this made me very nervous as I began the decreases and caused the screw up. See - somewhere in my insane logic I figured if I knit faster I wouldn't run out of yarn (stupid - I see that now) so I rushed in a race against the dwindling yarn and didn't count and was so out of whack by the time I was 4 rows from done that I couldn't even fake it anymore.

Overall I LOVE this pattern - it's easy and quick (like 6 hours if you don't screw up) and the yarn is sooo yummy, and the beads really give it that something extra. It does kinda makes me look like a conehead but that's not the hat's fault. I actually might do this one again - which for me is very high praise indeed!!

Wait till you see what I did this weekend...you'll be impressed and amazed. Well not really but a girl can pretend. I'll give you a little hint. Have you seen this pattern yet? Isn't it pretty? Don't ya just love the cute little beads... and that delicate swirl. And guess what ... my LYS - the one I complain about all the time... they had Rowan Cashsoft (wait till you see).... I can't show you now because #1 blogger refuses to communicate with my work PC & #2 I forgot the camera with the pics at home. But I couldn't wait till later to tell you about it. And the yarn is soooo yummy! This is my first expericance with Rowan yarn... let's just say I know now why people become addicted to the stuff. I'll edit this post later to add the photos.

I don't know how much more of this I can get away with before the powers that be catch up to me... but until they do I'm livin' it up!!! I came home from work today and this was in my driveway. A secret pal present =) yea!! That looks like a little worse for wear...wtf???





My mother ran over the package with her car!! How the hell do you miss a big white box?!? Needless to say when I saw this there was definitely a fair amount of freaking out and several curses. I couldn't even open the package right away I was so scared there would be something in there that was irreplaceably damaged! (you might have read about a woman stabbed viciously with knitting needles in tomorrow's paper if there was)After a half hour & lots of prayers I finally screwed up the courage to open the box. This is what I found...


Lots & lots of healthy, squishy, non-tire marked yarn. = ) And buried in the bottom (I didn't even see it right away & totally started squealing when it was finally revealed.)
Ya know where I'm going after this weekend - to get me some circs! Did you see the kool-aid she sent to dye this amazingly soft and squishy Merino (can't wait to try that!). And candy - did I ever mention I love candy? As I type that bag of sweethearts has already seen some serious casualties. Thank you so much Palie!!

My secret pal rocks!!