A Little Yarn On The Side

The shawl is no longer with us. I thought about trying to fix it, but this is not the first problem I've had with breakage in this particular yarn.  In fact, the current ball was actually wound into a ball instead of using the swift and ball winder because it's the only yarn I've had that broke repeatedly when wound with the swift.  So, since the shawl was intended to be a gift and I would just be freaked out all the time that the yarn would keep breaking and popping holes all over the place, I decided to cut my losses and move on.  Being of thick, wonderfully soft yarn, the balaclava got a lot of attention yesterday, and I am just loving this thing.  The yarn is Elann's Limited Edition Rossini and I adore this stuff.  It's unbelievably soft, and I'm actually sorry that I have now used up the first of the three balls I own.  Knitting World, please go buy up the rest of their stock so I will not be tempted by it.  Literally, I want to live i...

I think amongst the knitting world, the Knitting Gods are known to a cruel and vindictive lot.  Boast even the teensiest amount about one's own cleverness or how well a project is going and SMACK--the knitter's needles or yarn or BOTH are bound to break, or a wave of moths are about to descend.  They're a cantankerous lot at best. However, I think they might have met their equals in the Physical Therapy Gods. Remember me saying that I had to walk so slowly on Friday that I didn't even boost my circulation?  Yeah--big mistake.  That slow walk actually threw my hip back out.  I thought maybe it was just sore, but by Saturday night--it was definite.  Luckily, I have been shown how to force my hip back into place with my new toy Unluckily, the very concept of having to move bones about is generally enough to make me want to hurl, but it turns out that pain is an excellent motivator and Valium can take my mind off anything--even consciousness. So, I was...

....and I might be a little bit behind. Theoretically, if I want to finish 12 sweaters/shawls in 12 months I would be really close to finishing something right now.  On Friday Theo helped me with the fronts of the mohair sweater and we did make great progress, but that still leaves those pesky sleeve things to be done.   And I don't know about Theo, but I need breaks from working with mohair.   So, I've been working on one of the shawl WIPS, and I am on the final part of one side of the cream shawl, but then there will still be a second side to finish, which even strikes ME as a lot of knitting to do in 3 days.  Especially when there is a balaclava getting some knitting action.  I went for my first walk outside yesterday, and since I have firm instructions from the therapist to walk slowly and gently, this also means I'm walking WAY too slow to get the circulation moving enough to not freeze while walking.  I'm thinking the balaclava will do a m...

Yesterday started off with a trip to the dentist.  It was just a cleaning, and I really like my dentist, but I still don't think a REALLY good day starts off with a visit to ANYONE in the medical profession.  Then I ran some errands, came home, hauled bags in, then headed to the gym to swim for 30 minutes and walk laps for 30 minutes, then intended to come home and make soup.  That was the intention.  I was so tired by then that I seriously considered crawling into bed, even though it was barely after 4:00 PM.  I didn't even have the energy to do my physical therapy exercises.  This health thing is really a full-time job some days.............

So, I think I've decided to frog the vest and start over.  In order for the current stitch count to work, I need it to stay at the same gauge as the ribbing with the smaller needles, and that seems unlikely.  I think taking out one of the 18-stitch repeats will make it work, especially since patterns tend to loosen rather than tighten upon washing.  So, this poor little ball of yarn is going to be knit for the THIRD time, and since I try to use the yardage tally to accurately represent what has been taken out of the stash, I won't get to count it AGAIN.  Maybe I need to start keeping a "frustration tally...."

Bright and early, Andy made me some new table legs: There's a wooden dowel inside the pipes to give it some additional strength.  The table is now 36 inches tall, and I love it!  It's a bit less stable than it was before, but not much.  So I spent much of the day straightening the sewing room, getting the final place mat and the batting cut out, and even got a bit of sewing done.   I think I'll do some sort of decorative stitching to keep the batting in place, but I think they'll be quite fun.  I even tried the coasters: and after figuring out that a half-inch seam allowance was more appropriate for making a small heart ornament, I think I got everything figured out. I had the good day. Theo, on the other hand, had a rather bad day.  The sewing room table is one of his favorite spots to hang out, and where I keep his water glass: He has a water bowl, of course, but only uncultured kitties drink out of a bowl, and giving him his own glass ...

We're trying to interest one of my nieces in knitting, so I picked out some yarn that I thought might be most interesting to her without being the knitting horror that so much novelty yarn really is.  Her favorite color is pink followed by purple, so I thought this would make a nice combination.  It's not quite as satisfactory as buying yarn for oneself, but it takes up less room, involves far less guilt, and fits in nicely with my plans to convert the rest of the world to the yarn arts.  World domination--just a few garter-stitch scarves away..........

Yesterday Boise got its first real snowfall of the year--dumping around 6 inches in one day.  I hurt my back two months ago.  A smart person might have though this would be a good way to get out of shoveling snow.  And what did I do?  Check with my spine doctor ahead of time to make sure it would be okay for me to shovel snow when and if we ever got any. WHAT WAS I THINKING??????????????????????????????? Even better, remember the balaclava I bought yarn for in my self-pity order in November--the one I was going to make because my face gets so cold when shoveling snow?  Not even started.  Maybe I should round off all this idiotic behavior by casting on something involving size 0 needles and cobweb yarn for my 12 sweaters in 12 months challenge--wouldn't that just be the final touch? 

After reading my post yesterday about needing a taller cutting table, RobinH sent me this link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/xixstar/2557752709/ Now how clever is that?  And that's even the EXACT table I have, so we know the PVC pipe extensions will work for it.  Now I just need to do enough excavation in the sewing room to find the legs and let Andy take care of the rest.

For the green vest, I selected this pattern   for an overall cable and rib look.  I decided since there was some variety to the cables, I didn't need other patterns involved.  Since I'm making this up as I go along, I diligently swatched, and got 4.5 stitches per inch with the size 8 needles I'm using for the body.  I thought I'd aim for a 43-inch circumference, as the future recipient might be just a shade larger than Andy, and Andy's last sweater I made for a 42-inch circumference.  4.5 x 43 = 193.5 stitches.  Adding a 10% ease for a cabled pattern and working into the 18-stitch pattern requirement, I originally decided to cast on 216 stitches.  THEN I started measuring and second-guessing myself, and thought that maybe 10% wasn't enough ease for such a scrunchy pattern, so I then decided to cast on 234.  In the ribbed part, the gauge is 6 stitches per inch.  That made me a bit nervous as 234 divided by 6 = 39 inches in circumference....

Just in case you haven't tried it, walking in a pool for an hour is exhausting.  Or it is if you've spent the majority of the last 7 weeks laying on heating pads.  I think, though, that it is helping my back, so I have been able to do another small sewing project: Music coasters.  I've made two sets of 6--one for us to keep and one to go in the gift bin.  They aren't very elaborate, and I could only sit long enough to sew one set at a time, but somebody was very happy: I think he might have enjoyed "get well kitty" status, but nothing compares with sewing.  Taking advantage of a day without any need for even the smallest bit of Valium, I finally did the math and laid out the plans for the Valentine's basket vest, and have almost completed the ribbing.  I've decided on a pattern that will have the ribbing stretching into a ribbing and cable pattern, so I think only two inches of ribbing with the smaller needles will be necessary.  I haven...

So, if you had injured yourself about 6 weeks ago, had undergone physical therapy for the past month, and your therapist told you that getting stronger through exercise would really help your progress, what would you do?  Start slowly?  Remember that your injury might still be healing and act accordingly?  Or go hog-wild with a week of Pilates, walking, hill-climbing on the treadmill, weight-lifting and the elliptical trainer?  Anyone want to take a guess which was my approach? The spine doctor was concerned about the other hip turning, but thinks that I probably overdid (me?) and that the treadmill was too much impact for my hips at this stage, so I have been given permission to 1. swim, 2. weight lift with only low weights and large numbers of repetition, 3. do beginning Pilates.  NOTHING else.  And have earned myself 4 more weeks of physical therapy for my misbehavior. The funny thing is, I did know I would be relatively dangerous to myself when I ...

Meet "the sulks" knitting: Yesterday--after waking up two mornings in a row with painful back spasms, which hasn't happened in at least a month or more--I had my last physical therapy appointment, only to discover that the other hip had turned slightly, and was causing the same problems on the other side of my back.  I see the spine specialist today, but how the other side has gotten turned is anyone's guess, because the physical therapy exercises have worked both sides equally, and I've grown so strong that some of the exercises have had to be made more difficult.  I came home depressed, to say the least, and curled up with my self pity and knitting. The yarn is Knit Picks Decadence, which was discontinued quite a while ago, and as the balls were leftover from a sweater I made, I hadn't bothered to add them to Ravelry, but since I still have quite a bit left now I have added it.   I think I can get a second hat out of this, so perhaps it won't b...

I really, really was working on the mohair sweater yesterday.  I promise.  However, it turns out that when I take a drink of coffee and end up with a mouth full of coffee grounds, my natural impulse is to spit it back into the cup.  Not exactly worthy of Ms. Manners, but perhaps understandable.  This probably works with normal coffee mugs, but when one is drinking out of a travel mug complete with lid , the coffee's natural impulse is then to splash off of the lid and onto the nearest, whitest object.  Which explains why this spent yesterday being rinsed and dried, and why there is now a second birthday sock in progress which also was not in my Valentine's basket.  I was at first a bit concerned that the socks won't get to count for anything on my 12 12s list, but as they were in progress before the start of the year, I'll count them as one of my 12 WIPs.  I may regret that later, as I'm hoping the need for finished WIPs will eventually drive ...

After two years of frantically completing as many projects as possible, it's still odd to be working on something as large as a sweater--which might explain this: Another men's mock aran hat!  At least this time it was actually from yarn that was already in my Valentine's stashdash basket, but it did leave the mohair jacket neglected and alone all day yesterday.  I have determined, however, to not be seduced by any more hats for at least a week, which should give me time to finish the back and start the fronts of the jacket. If it takes me an entire month to finish a sweater in bulky yarn, I am indeed in trouble this year!

Yesterday I decided to face the worst and finally check the inventory of my lace weight bin, and can now say that there were at one point 7 hanks of the green laceweight, but the first hank used on dem fischer sin fru seems to be too old to be frogged and is coming off in small bits and pieces, so there are now officially six hanks.  It's the Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud, which is really one of my favorite yarns and I really love the color, so I'm not sorry to have a lot of this yarn--though I might be slightly glad to have not discovered 8 or 9 unaccounted for hanks.  I am happy to report that I did not discover any more 1375-yard hanks of forgotten cobweb lace yarn.  One should not find more than one of those hanks per month.  I do admit that I did not choose to explore any more yarn tubs.  I think I'd like to see a bit more yarn on my "knit up for the year" tab before I find myself blindsided by some mystery yarn of which I have no recollection or thought. ...

....but not to anything in my basket.   Actually, I'm probably not being "monogamous" as that probably means only one project and I am working on two, but announcing that I am being a bigamist just doesn't sound right.  But it is sort of like progress to be keeping myself committed to just two projects.   It's somewhat easier to not be seduced by anything else in the stash, as I don't think the stash is playing nicely today.  Remember this? The 1375-yard hank of cobweb yarn that wasn't on my Ravelry stash?  It has a friend.  At least one.  I had finally steeled myself to dig in the laceweight bin to see how much of the green yarn from dem fischer sin fru I really had, and ran into a second 1375-yard hank of yarn that isn't on Ravelry.  It must be breeding.  I decided that perhaps I didn't really want to play with the laceweight after all if THAT was the sort of behavior I could expect.  As a consequence, the mohair jacket has...

The Valentine's Stash Dash challenge, which I am leading, kicked off on January 1.  In less than 24 hours, I was cheating on my basket: I think that might be a new personal record.  I'm not sure if I just wasn't in the mood to design a vest, or if I'm just in a selfish mood and wanted to make something for myself, or if I was seduced by the idea of making a sweater in bulky yarn so my sad little "used up" tally could actually have some numbers on it, but whatever the case, this seems to be helping me get past the "must finish as many projects as possible" mindset and transition to "sweater" mindset.  At least it has for the past 24 hours, but that obviously means nothing.  If I have cast on a new shawl by this time tomorrow, then I think there might need to be a bit more transitioning.... I'm making the Maggie Rennard Jacket from Knitting Today's Classics , but there's an odd pocket detail which would be (from what I u...

Admittedly, part way through the year, my one-thread-per-month-on-the-dang-cross-stitch resolve fell apart--probably when canning season kicked in, which is what did in everything else.  BUT, it probably got more attention this year than it has in the previous 4 years combined, so I thought it was time to check the progress. What it looked like at the beginning of 2011: What it looks like at the beginning of 2012: Hm....maybe I stopped sooner than I thought.............