A Little Yarn On The Side

I have done pretty much nothing today.  No canning, no gardening, no cleaning, very little knitting, and aside from having finished reading my book for book club next week, my sole accomplishment for the day was to pay bills.  I don't know what happened to me.  Luckily, yesterday I did get some kitty-free sewing in, so the stockings for Andy and I are progressing, and I finished what started out to be ornaments but I think will be hung as stockings for Theo and Calisto: In the teensy, tiny amount of knitting I've done today, I started the heel of the Christmas stocking:  Since it isn't a sock anyone will ever actually wear, I can knit the stocking flat and just sew up the back side and bottom, so the heel isn't overly tricky.  I'm not working from a pattern, and when I'm making things up, I find it best to be sort of simple if I want to create a second one that will come close to matching.  I think I'll start a holly berry repeat as soon as I pick the ...

Thanks to making a mistake that set my progress back last night, I was up until 2:00 AM this morning finishing the soup.  The good news is that if I get a cold from the lack of sleep involved in making chicken soup, at least I now have chicken soup to eat while having a cold.  So, I've been a bit tired today and have made several mistakes, so the stockings aren't nearly as far along as I had hoped, but at least I now have the tree motif done. I'm really pleased with how they are turning out, and I'm hoping I'm taking enough notes to be able to recreate them at a future date.  I think I'll do another holly leaf set before working the heel, but I haven't decided about the foot yet.  I tend to lean toward plain feet, but that might look a bit plain.  Maybe a holly motif of some sort?

So for Finishing Friday I was really hoping to dazzle everyone with a display of finished projects--and to be fair, the green scarf did get finished late Friday night, so there is a finished project number 10, which puts me slightly ahead of my goal.  Only very slightly, but I have a feeling this year will be a "grasping at anything" sort of year. Finishing Friday is the day of the week when my optimism is at it's highest.  Could I just work on the pink jeans jacket?  Oh no--that would have been far too rational for a woman facing an entire day of crafting freedom.  Instead.........In my very last fabric shopping trip of the year, I came across these: in the clearance racks.  The lavender is 12 yards of nice satin that I scooped up for $1 a yard and will be converted to a Halloween costume.  After one disastrous attempt to make a costume with cheap "costume satin," I have learned that cheap fabrics are never worth working with, so I hunt for good fabric...

Sigh..... Since there could be no sewing, late last night I got the latest ostrich plume scarf done which currently looks a little ramen-noodle-ish, but should be quite marvelous when blocked.  I had hoped to pick up Jeeves today, and since I couldn't, I consoled myself with this Yes!  It's another ostrich plume scarf!  Though this time with little white seed beads--which you probably can't see as they never show up in pictures, but they're there on every-other pattern row.  I'm sure it will be a lovely scarf & will make a nice gift for someone, but the light pink is just a little too girly, so I decided to cast on a wool scarf as well I'm using the leftover yarn from my January Aran sweater which shows stitch definition well.  I'm using something called the "wickerwork pattern" from the second Barbara Walker treasury.  It's not a pattern I would normally use, but I think it will make a nice scarf.  Hopefully Jeeves can come hom...

This week's Craft Boot Camp was tons of fun.  We made curtains monogrammed pocket squares a wooden Christmas tree and there was even knitting--though amazingly I have no pictures of it.  We had a great time, though I think we were all pretty exhausted by the end.  And look what they brought for me:  Yarn and yarn dye!!!!!!!  I haven't ever dyed my own yarn--aside from the random accidental coffee stain here and there--so I'm quite excited.  And it's NEW YARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the March Project of the Month has been getting a little attention today I'm liking the idea, but there are some things I'll change in the next version.  But it's knitting, lace, and beads.  How bad could it possibly be?

The new scarf is really coming along nicely I'm using Alpaca Cloud yarn and using the Ostrich Plumes pattern, and the slight fuzziness of the yarn works really well with the delicate pattern.  Or I think it does.  It's framed by a seed stitch border just to stop it from rolling like crazy, but the bottom is only 6 rows, so it's short enough to allow the pattern to pull the entire scarf edge into a scallop.  MAYBE--if I continue to like how it's looking--I'll show some sort of dedication to this & finish it in the next couple weeks........?  Stranger things have happened after all.  Like the cleaning of the sewing room................................

Well, the bronchitis is still with me, but the knock-out drugs are all gone, so I'm coughing but not sleeping all the time.  I don't know if it's an improvement or not, but I have to be getting close to the end of this.  According to the handout I got from the doctor's office, viral bronchitis generally lasts 10-14 days, and I'm probably at 12 right now.  (Not counting the weeks of a cold of course).  This is beginning to make surgery recovery look speedy! Since I can't really sew--or do much of anything else--I have been knitting.  The latest project is a faggoting sampler scarf which is just over half done now.  I'm not sure how well you'll be able to see it, but I started with a k2tog, double YO pattern (purling even rows): then after a stockinette break, moved on to a k2tog, YO pattern on every row: then to a K2tog, YO on right side rows and purling wrong side rows: then to my new favorite, [k2tog, Yo, K1] on every row I think it will be...

And it's even blocking without kitty assistance!  How did I manage this amazing feat? It's on top of the ironing board! Not that Theo can't or hasn't gotten up on the ironing board many, many times.  He is just unaware that there is knitting on top of it.  Okay, I admit it....I REALLY enjoy it on those rare occasions when I can outsmart Theo.  It doesn't happen very often....

Frogged.  Twice. As soon as I posted yesterday, I dug out the yarn for Andy's sweater and cast on.  Knit two rows, checked gauge, WAAAAAAAY off, frogged.  Dug out needles two sizes smaller and cast on.  The gauge is fine but You know how stockinette rolls if it doesn't have ribbing attached?  Well, the designer doesn't.  I was willing to give the designer and Interweave Knits the benefit of the doubt here since there is ribbing on both sides of the stockinette patch, but NO.  Like ALL stockinette, it rolls.  I have frogged it for a second time, and cursing all designers I cast on a lace scarf instead.  NO designer to mess things up or not double check.  Just a stitch pattern I like, a nonrolling edging, and I'm a happy woman. And it's NEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So....I didn't have the cast-on frenzy I thought I would, and technically am only at 11 WIPS right now, and I might just finish this scarf before having another go at th...

I decided my nephew's blanket is large enough, so I've started the decreases, and I'm about 4 rows away from using up my 35th skein of yarn for the year, which is the most excitement garter stitch projects can offer. Even though he prefers sewing, Theo did consent to being my knitting sidekick for a couple hours yesterday: He's such a gracious little animal.....

While he refused to help me with the washing & blocking process, Theo did decide that the new shawl needed the all-important "furring" step: which coincided almost exactly with the moment I decided the shawl was ready to be picked up & folded away. That did cause a bit of a rift with Theo, but a little catnip goes a long way.... Not even chocolate makes me look that...contented. Why isn't there people nip? The shawl is "Faroese-Style Lace" by Myrna Stahlman, which can be found in this book: which is one of my FAVORITE knitting books. I've made at least four of the shawls in this book, and have plans for at least three more. LOVE this book! Today's knitting project has been the simple & mindless blanket for my nephew: who is not simple & mindless, thankfully. I haven't decided exactly how big the blanket will be, and I'm now thinking maybe more rectangular than square. It' just garter stitch with two rows in each color, a...

I was having such a fun time with the striping of the Baby Surprise Jacket that it set me thinking....wouldn't that make a cute baby blanket....???? So, ignoring the 13 WIPS already in progress, I have started this I might get tricky and make it rectangular--or just square--and maybe a crocheted border in blue? I think it's pretty cute. The cats are a little less enthusiastic... I don't know what's wrong with them--they just don't like knitting half as much as they like sewing.....maybe it's because I won't let them play with the yarn.......

--which took an entire day and a great deal of measuring just to locate as the darn thing was actually within the wall where it was merrily leaking vast amounts of water through a big hole every time the outside faucet was turned on--for the general lack of knitting & blogging. Andy was able to replace it, and since it's the pipe for the OUTSIDE faucet, it is now wrapped in INSULATION, which would have probably prevented all of this in the first place. And this is our new house guest which actually has two friends down in the crawl space helping to suck up the water our little pipe problem caused. I realize construction is almost synonymous with cutting corners & doing things as cheaply as possible, but we bought a builder's OWN HOME so I would have thought he might have paid more attention, but as builders aren't actually licensed here in Idaho, maybe he never built a house before he became a builder. I did manage to ge the reversible scarf done and it looks g...

This might lead you to think I have Knitter's ADD....and you'd probably be right, of course...but THIS TIME I do have an excuse! The lovely lady who loaned us her condo last week refused to take any money for it, so I wanted to knit her a scarf, but have frogged the first two attempts. I thought she was in Arizona until sometime in later April, but it turns out she has returned early, and I want to have a gift for her when I return her keys & everything. So, yesterday I dug these out of the stash, and with size 8 needles to speed things along, I've been knitting and beading like a mad woman. The cats seem to have forgiven me and have been lending their moral support Or perhaps they just know that I am the bigger softie on tummy-rubs. And I swear that having the Kauni cardigan bogged down in the gold & orange colors has nothing to do with this.......