Screw that noise!

OMG what have I done? I am in bad bland project land. I finished the blanket of doom. It came out beautiful and I am thrilled with it.

but now I am left with a lack of complex project. I have a faroese shawl on the needles but strictly in garter

and a sock that no matter how hard I try does not want to be knit. The yarn is serenity and I find the colorway to be shockingly ugly. Why did I buy this yarn you ask? Well it's simple. The yarn was on sale and it was the best of a bad selection. So I am being very stubborn and continuing to try to make something out of these socks (no matter how mad I get!!!!)

Try 1: Self designed top down zig zag (frogged because the heel was too small and then I decided to start over instead of a controlled tink.)

try 2: Toe up plain ( frogged because it was too big)

Try 3: Top down plain (frogged because it looked ugly and was too small)

Try 4: top down on 4 needles one at a time (frogged because it would have taken forever!!!!)

I will try the self design again. Hopefully I can decipher my own notes.

Ok back to my cyclical work on projects....

Catch up! Hurry!

Okay I feel a bit in over my head. I decided today that I must finish things faster. My method of working on 4 things at the same time is not at all efficient. My usual setup is to surround myself with 1-2 works of fiction, a project book for either research or to follow a pattern, have the tv on and paused at various times to stop knitting and read from one of the 3 books around me, my computer to um... "do research", and my iTouch to play games. Now see I do a cycle... and I feel frantic. I put down one thing and start another only to forget what I really meant to do. For example, today I was working on my Zig Zag Lacy socks and then decided to take a break and make an    eyeglass chain, but as I was looking up the pattern on my iTouch I got notified that something in some game was done... so I went to check that out, followed by a quick glance at facebook and then I proceeded to knit the ruffle scarf near my socks. That wasn't even close to what I intended! The good news is I finally have cast on for the eyeglasses and am making speedy progress.

Ok end of rant. I feel better. At least I don't feel as stuck anymore. There is a way out of this mess. Scheduling my time better and also not have so many friggin things around me at once. grr argh.

Finishing

I finally blocked my Coquille shawl from knitty first fall 2010. I used Mini Mochi to make it. I have to say I am in love with the ruffles. Not the best picture but I am having trouble getting the right lighting.

I finished another pair of vanilla socks from sock yarn I found at Tuesday Morning. Over 400 yards for $7.99. I believe they are Poem Marathon socks. They are very light weight and feel like a nice big foot hug. 

Knitting On My Mind

I am so behind again on my in-law''s blanket. I have not picked it back up since I started playing with wire. I also am suffering from some seriously dry hands. To remedy this dry hands problem I have been using Berts Bee's lemon cuticle cream and almond butter hand cream. I then place my hands in a cotton glove over night to seal in the moisturizers  I have had to do this for 15 minute mini sessions too lately. It is helping but jeeze! I don't remember the last time my hands were this bad.

To be knit list

1. Eye glass necklace (I am becoming an old person that cannot remember where she put her glasses)
2. Zig Zag Lacy socks
3. Ruffle scarf
4. Ruby.

I am not starting anything new until Ruby is finished. No matter how tempting. Also socks count on this one.
:( Guess DH will have to wait for his second pair of socks just a tiny bit longer.

Fancy

So I decided to take a picture of my pins in a way that you can kinda see the progression. The three on top are my favorite and the first two were created yesterday. The other two were experiments and I am not sure how I feel about them.

Close up of the top two pins.

I wore the loopy one today (first picture with the green yarn) and I felt like a million bucks. I gotta say it took me to a new level of pride. I was strutting with my hand made socks, pi shawl and hand made shawl pin. :D Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture. But you get the idea.

New, Old and blue?

I have been busy making shawl pins, blocking projects and knitting too many things at once. My goal is to sell the shawl pins...I hope they turn out.

New and Blue

This is my first shawl pin that I made using a wire jig and glass beads. I am having a lot of fun bending and playing. I took down my set up this afternoon so I do not have pictures of my work station or tools but I am having blast!

Marty picked out the color of the beads for this one. I think it kinda looks like a heart with a circle attached to it.

Old

This morning I woke up and decided to check on what I blocked last night. These two socks cracked me up. I made the green, blue and purple socks in 2011 out of fixation. They are really comfortable. The sock next to it is Marty's. It is hilarious how much of a size difference there is!

Making Old New

Our apartment does not have a good spot to enter so you don't track in mud/salt from winter. We have been using a towel as a  matt and it honestly drives me up the friggin wall! I decided I would finally make a plastic rug out of old bags we have collecting around the place. Here is the project so far.

Last but not least I played with a stitch dictionary (Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker) a long time ago back when I still worked at mosaic. This is long enough and wide enough to be a stole and is cuddly. Made out of Malabraigo Worsted.

Knitting On My Mind

My mom asked me to make her a ruffle scarf. I figured it would be a quick easy project. I was right but it is not me at all. Ruffles and Melissa do not go together. I cannot wait to finish it and send it off. 

I am getting somewhere with my socks. I am trying to decide if I want to undo them because I found a mistake or if I don't care since it goes on my feet. Also do I want the top of the foot lacy like the top? 

I really want to do some color work but for some reason when I am about start I feel like I need to work on my in-law's blanket so I don't. Must finish the blanket!

Girls just want to have fun!

I have been on a huge knitting/ finishing kick. I am so happy about this! I have had some of my FO's in the to be blocked/ wash pile for too long. I am designing, thinking about making shawl pins, and doing a bunch of random research. I also want to finish my level one TKA master's program. So lots of progress and new stuff to blog about. I also have a fun long rant about my hair. :D

Knitting On My Mind
I am kicking butt and taking names on Ruby. I have officially past the half way mark! If I keep this up I may actually finish this some time in March. That is only 3 months late.... I know it is worth it and my in-laws will love it!

I have been on a sock kick lately. After making a bunch of vanilla socks. I decided to try selecting a pattern stitch from Ann Budd's "Getting Started Knitting Socks" it is a 6 stitch repeat and I have done gauge swatches both in pattern and st st. It's so funny how important the gauge suddenly becomes when you are the one working from scratch. :P I had to wonder to myself does this count as designing my own sock? I am not sure.

What I do know is I did try to do some variations to make it more original for example...I wanted to do some different kind of cast on like the slip knot cast on designed by Jeny Staiman which was featured in knitty 2009. Here is a link to her blog entry and video for the cast on. http://curiousknitter.blogspot.com/2009/09/jeny-stretchy-slipknot-cast-on.html  

I fully intended to use this but I got impatient and decided that learning how to do lace socks with an unfamiliar pattern was enough new stuff to throw at myself without the added frustration of learning a new cast on. But I will keep it in mind for future use. 

Some other original/ different thoughts for my new sock are going to be to try a different heel than the slip stitch heel  maybe go with the partridge heel. I may or may not do a different toe...

Knit's on Parade

1. I finished the wool peddler's shawl from Folk Shawls. I did it in silky wool and it was amazing to work with and blocking was very easy. I cannot wait to wear this! MMMM warm.

2. I finally got pictures of my July Pi shawl from Elizabeth Zimmerman's knitters almanac knit in noro silk garden sock. Sorry for the blurry picture this was the best I could do by myself. It is not even close to the correct colors. You can see the neat back and the pretty ruffles. I want to make this again. It is definitely my go to shawl when I am cold in the house. The colors make me happy and it is warm without being overwhelming.

3. Behold a more accurate look at the front of my July Pi Shawl. My shawl pin is actually a bracelet from my 2nd birthday and a bobby pin that I straightened. I am impressed with my creativity/ thinking outside the box skills! The pin made me smile because the bracelet used to be so big on me it would fall off or slide all the way down to my elbow. Look at how small that is! It is one of the few things I have from when I was very young.

Curly Girl

People that know me are very familiar with the fact that I am pretty low fuss about my look. I am a t-shirt and jean, little to no make up kind of gal. More often then not I am wearing my hair in a ponytail.

My hair has been transformed by a new hair care method called curly girl. The funny thing is I found this method by accident. I was joining groups on ravelry and I found one for curly haired people called curly girl. I thought to my self... you have curly hair why not join? Little did I know this was an amazing method for treating your curls! Read all about it at this website http://dormroomcurly.blogspot.com/2008/12/style-definitions-table.html. I am sure I will be talking about this in the future.

Naturally when I found the curly girl method I was very hesitant. I didn't want to consider adding much more than shampoo and conditioner to my hair regiment. I was quickly swayed though by the before and after pictures from people on ravelry. Still I held out for another 5 months because I didn't want to invest in all new hair products. The total cost was about 9 dollar for all of it. The products were found at places like walgreens. I did not know it would be so inexpensive! I have to say the results are amazing. I went from wavy straight-ish hair to this.

TCB

Yep I am taking care of business. I am posting this using my iTouch so we will see how this goes.

Finishing
First up I finished Marty's socks and blocked about 6 pairs. Here is Marty bravely modeling his new sock! He wanted to wait until the ends were weaved in but I would not let him. :P

To-do
Block and take pictures of....
Bigger on the inside
Estonian lace beaded shawl
Rust stole
Pinkerton sweater
Other shawl I cannot remember name of
Stephen west shawl

Finish ruby my in-laws 40th anniversary blanket.

Knitting on my mind
I have also decided to frog my "just go with it" raglan sweater. It was the idea of casting on using very little math and randomly adding design elements as I felt like it. For some reason it made my tummy look fat. Boo to that!!!! I think if I make it smaller and get rid of the side ribbing it will hang better and not cling strangely.

I felt very silly in it so these are not the greatest pictures ever. But it just was not working.... Please ignore the background.

LindaNeedles

I went to a knit night for the first time in over a year last night. It was so great to see everyone. I really missed the wonderful ladies and their great sense of humor. I laughed the night away. :D

LindaNeedles from ravelry told me I need to update my blog more. So this entry is for her.

Thanks Linda for reminding me that people like the blog and want to hear more about my knitting adventures.

Definitely Lost It

So now I have cast on and frogged/tinked/ripped/add your way of undoing here, the sock of doom. It is not even a hard pattern straight vanilla two at a time on circs. This is doing nothing for my sock skills self esteem. In fact I am going into the danger zone of crazy town deciding that the yarn is in fact alive and has a vendetta against me. I will not let it win! I WILL NOT!

I cast on 46 stitches.. what the hell was I thinking? 46! I am not that small.. and I know my math skills are not that bad. 8x7.5 does not equal 46! So now I have cast on 60 stitches (which is what 8x7.5 actually equals!) and then I realize oh no what about the -10%! So I decrease... and now I somehow went from 60 to 46! and I swear to you I only decreased like 8 stitches which should have given me 52 which by the way is what I wanted. GRRRRRRR cursed yarn!! cursed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You'd think by now I would give up but no! I have to prove something. I hate the sight of this yarn. It makes my stomach clench... It makes me want to go on weird mohair yarn binges. I HATE THIS YARN! a sane person would just put it away but not me... nope... because IT. CANNOT.WIN.