Monthly Archives: March 2008


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the one that should have been posted friday march 14

BUNNIES!

I tried to knit just one…but you know how they multiply! 🙂

I have an old friend from high school who moved away a few years ago and got married. She came into town recently with her 2 and a half year old daughter, and I had a chance to catch up with her for the first time since she’d moved. I brought Jakob with me and was pleasantly surprised when my friend presented Jakob with a gift. I also felt bad, because I was empty-handed. I emailed her that afternoon to ask what her daughter’s 3 favorite colors were, and I cast on for the bunnies as soon as I heard back with a reply. (It was pink, purple and blue…I think those are the obligatory favorite colors for all girls under the age of 8).

I used Kate’s Bunny pattern, and a 4.5mm needle. (Or a 4mm. Shoot. My notes are downstairs. If anyone really cares, email me and I’ll check). The first one was knit with purple Fun Fur only, and while it was fast and easy to knit, I HATED the seaming. I think I’ve mentioned here before that I enjoy seaming, and my preferred method is to mattress stitch. With this fuzzy yarn mattress stitch is not an option (at least not without some really good light and a magnifying glass), so I had to seam with a whipstitch on the wrong side of the work. It came out ok, but I didn’t want to have to do that again. This wasn’t Kate’s fault, it was mine for forgetting that I hate to seam with Fun Fur.

I also wanted a bigger bunny. The pattern comes in 3 sizes (Baby, Mama and Papa), and the purple one was knit to the Mama size. I didn’t want the Baby bunny to be any smaller than the Mama already was, so I went stash-diving and came up with some white Bernat baby yarn.

This blue bunny was knit to the Papa sized pattern. Same needle size as the purple one, but this time I did 2 rows of the smooth white yarn only, and 2 rows of the white with blue Fun Fur carried along. I wound up with a bunny that was much bigger than the first one (which was what I wanted) and also with a bunny that allowed me to see the stitches so I could work a mattress stitch seam (which was really what I wanted). The nature of knitting fur-type yarns has most of the fur wind up lying on the purl side of the work, which was the wrong side for this pattern. I had the option of turning it inside out before seaming, but I liked the less-fuzz/more-stripes look of the right side.

 

The pink bunny was knit exactly as the blue one, but with (duh) pink Fun Fur carried along. She is also knit to the Papa bunny size.

I was going to give them eyes but I didn’t feel like embroidering them, I don’t know where my sew-on googley eyes are, and sewn-on buttons made the bunnies look dead. So they will remain eyeless.

I tried to get something in the photo that would show scale, but I couldn’t figure out what I owned that would be standard everywhere. (Now that I’m typing this, I am coming up with a ton of items I could have used. Ah well. Hindsight/20/20 and all that). Here you have the Bunny Family with Yannick’s sunglasses.

And yes, it was done deliberately that a blue Papa and pink Mama make a purple Baby. ;]


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getting there

I’m catching up slowly. I thought I’d do more but it’s late and I want to go to bed. I’m going to try to get through the rest tomorrow. In the meantime, there are 2 new posts below this one to keep you busy until I get back. Good night!


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the one that should have been posted on thursday march 13

Remember how I mentioned the Shiva in the last post? Here’s where it becomes relevant. Three of us from playgroup went to the Shiva house (house of one of the mourners where family/friends come to pay their respects. We each brought our kids. One woman’s son spent the entire time sleeping in his portable car seat. He was the lucky one. The other 3 kids (Jakob and 2 little girls) all ended up with GASTRO.

Oh I am so sick of gastro. There’s nothing worse than watching your helpless little baby’s body heave and shake while he throws up, and you know he doesn’t understand what’s going on, and he’s scared and sick and sad.

Jakob woke up fine Thursday morning, drank his bottle, played with us as usual while waiting for Yannick to wake up enough to give him breakfast, when suddenly he started to throw up. I stayed home from work with him and when he continued to lose everything we gave him to eat/drink I made an appointment for him at the doctor’s that evening. By the time we got to the doctor’s office he had a fever of 101F, and by the time he went to bed that night it was 102.5F.

When he wasn’t actively sick he was in relatively good spirits. At one point I had put him down, seated, in his crib to play so I could have my hands free for a few minutes. When I came back to get him I found him like this:
For the first time ever he pulled himself to stand up in his crib. He was so proud of himself! Unfortunately the excitement didn’t last long, as the sickness had completely exhausted him

He ended up spending the rest of the day and all day Friday like this:

(Mommy with Jakob at 43 weeks).

I felt horrible that he felt so bad but at least I got to spend 2 days curled up on the couch with my sleeping baby. Nothing beats that.


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the one that should have been posted tuesday march 11

I’m going to try and recreate a week’s worth of posts tonight before I go to bed. I had a lot of stuff I wanted to share but didn’t, and I know if I keep putting it off then I’ll never get around to it, so I’m going to try and get as much out as I can remember.

Last Tuesday Jakob and I left work in the early afternoon to attend the Shiva for the grandmother of one of the other moms in my playgroup. I mean Jakob’s playgroup. Yeah – it’s for him. I mention this because it will become relevant by Thursday. This was my little guy all dressed up for his big day. (Thanks for the vest Debbie!)
p.s. these are Yannick’s legs!!
Anyhoo…Tuesday night was the March MKG meeting.
This month instead of having a topic discussion we were all encouraged to bring some random stash yarn that would add up to a chunky weight, and we were to knit 1 hour hats which would be donated to a charity. I brought these yarns:
I know the thin glitter strand is from my Bubbie’s stash that I inherited. I’m pretty sure the burgundy tweed is from there too, and the peach polar fleece was a thrift store find. The two thicker yarns were not ones I could ever see using on their own, and I threw in the glitz to keep myself awake while I knit the hat. Because I spent most of the meeting helping one of the members with a crochet pattern I didn’t get the hat knit in one hour, but I DID finish it when I got home that night.

Voila-
I wasn’t consistent about what order the yarns landed in on the needle (sometimes the peach was first, other times the darker one) which is why the hat doesn’t have a uniform color. When the peach was first the burgundy became the predominant color on the following row, and vice versa.
It is a simple stockinette stitch hat, knit flat and seamed up the back, with a rolled brim.
This is why I’m glad it will be given to a charity, and is not intended for me to wear. Man I look stupid in hats. :] I’m 1 step away… LOL

(Although I think this one came out kinda cool).


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today’s post brought to you by the letter "and"

27 letters in the alphabet. Yup. That’s right. What? You only counted 26? Oh, well, you forgot the letter “and”.

This is a clip from Sunday night’s episode of Big Brother 9. Oh. My. God. That Natalie is really something huh? They cut out the part of the exchange where she couldn’t count to 4 (she thought that the red, blue, yellow and green bars of a toy in the hamster cage were “3 different colors” and how that was very significant), but at least they kept in the alphabet thing.

(p.s for those of you who don’t feel like watching the whole clip, once it loads you can skip ahead to somewhere around 3 min 45 seconds and just watch the end from there. That’s when Natalie shows up).


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today’s post brought to you by the letter "and"

27 letters in the alphabet. Yup. That’s right. What? You only counted 26? Oh, well, you forgot the letter “and”.

This is a clip from Sunday night’s episode of Big Brother 9. Oh. My. God. That Natalie is really something huh? They cut out the part of the exchange where she couldn’t count to 4 (she thought that the red, blue, yellow and green bars of a toy in the hamster cage were “3 different colors” and how that was very significant), but at least they kept in the alphabet thing.

(p.s for those of you who don’t feel like watching the whole clip, once it loads you can skip ahead to somewhere around 3 min 45 seconds and just watch the end from there. That’s when Natalie shows up).


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presenting…

…the swatches! I am so happy with how the yarn turned out! I think I’ve been over using the word “love” lately (I love the yarn, in love with certain patterns, love the way things come out) so I don’t want to sit here and say there’s yet another thing I love. I might have overstated my affection for some other projects. There might be projects that I merely like, projects I wouldn’t mind seeing again, and projects I think I might have a future with. But this yarn? This yarn I really do love!

I did the swatches with a 2.5mm needle (my usual for socks) and on 64 sts, which, depending on the pattern, is roughly my size.
Here’s the Black Cherry. This photo shows a pretty good variation of color, but is lacking the deep tones of wine that permeate every strand, even the deep blacks. This will be stunning with either an open lace or a cable pattern. Yannick would like to claim it for himself but it is mine! This is one side of my Oxford swatch. I took a photo of each side to show you how the yarn will behave on a larger swatch (or a sock). You see how the black-striped section starts at the lower left and moves up on a diagonal to the top right? And how the colored section with no black seems to do the same?
Here’s the other side of the same swatch. # 1 had one dark section in the middle. # 2 has 2 dark sections, one on top and one below, with a lighter middle. What I’m trying to show here is that the two areas of color will spiral around each other, and around the sock.
Look at this! It worked! I can’t believe it worked! I made a self-striping yarn! There is so much I enjoy about this one, especially the palest row of green right above the darkest one. Something about the way one looks near the other really tickles me. If I was to do this again I would only change the concentration of dye to water to try and get another shade in there, as I feel 2 of the rows look the same. It might be related to where I cast on from and how the yarn is wrapping around itself, though.

I have been knitting Bunnies for the last week. The pattern is great, but I’m knitting in Fun Fur which is such a pain! I knit the first one only in the Fun Fur stuff, but seaming it was NOT fun, so I knit the second with the FF held along with a strand of white dk weight acrylic. It made the FF somewhat more bearable.

I’m knitting the Bunnies as a gift for a friend’s 2.5 year old daughter, who brought a gift for Jakob when we introduced them, and I unfortunately showed up empty handed. I found out her favorite colours are pink, purple and blue (is there any 2.5 year old girl who doesn’t have those as her favorite colours?) so I’m knitting a pink mommy bunny, a blue daddy bunny, and a purple baby bunny. As of tonight only the pink is left to knit. Photos tomorrow after the Guild meeting.


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the one with some yarn and a wave

Last night, after Jakob was in bed and Maaike had left, I commandered Yannick’s arms (I still don’t have a swift) and wound up the yarn I dyed Monday night. They wound easily but it was quite a sight to see Yannick standing with both arms outstretched and the Celery colorway wrapped from arm to arm, around his neck and under his foot in an attempt at keeping it taut. (I don’t have a niddy noddy either for rewinding a smaller skein). MUST add those items to my stash soon!

Well, without further ado, here are the yarns I dyed:

BLACK CHERRY

I love how this came out. There are some true black spots, and some raspberry areas, but most of it is a tone-on-tone mix of black/red and red/black and it is so subtle and striking. Did I mention I loved it? Unfortunately it is really hard to take a good photo of at night and indoors, so this is the only shot you get. The other angles came out really dark.

CELERY

This came out exactly how I wanted. It is a soft transition from the darkest to lightest shade of a, well, celery green. (Or is it sage? Or moss?)
There isn’t a lot of variation, but I wanted a yarn where the colors had interest but wouldn’t compete with the stitch pattern. I think this might work perfectly! (I love it too).

OXFORD

This yarn came out really funky. I’m reserving my opinion until I work up a good swatch, but I think I’ll like it no matter what, if for no other reason than the fact that I made it.
If things worked out correctly than the black third will spiral around with the colored two-thirds. It will be busy, but it was designed to work with a plain stockinette stitch sock.

I made sure to post this tonight because Yannick’s parents are sleeping over tomorrow night and I don’t know if I’ll have time to get to the computer before they go to bed. I know it is a short post, so to make up for it I’m leaving you with a video of Jakob. I took this on Feb 29th (the leap year day) at work- you can see my messy desk in the mirror. Just about a week ago and he was waving with minimal coaching. Now he’ll wave for fun, if you say the words “hi” or “bye”, and when he doesn’t want to eat any more he waves “bye-bye” to his food. I think it is the most adorable thing!

(Don’t you find he waves like the Queen? You know, that “arm in the air, wrist moving back and forth” thing”? I love it!)

p.s. I posted this at 12:43 am EST. Youtube takes a few minutes to process the video once I upload it, so if the link isn’t working for you just yet, please wait about a half hour and try again. Thanks!


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how to get around the big brother rules

I was just leaving a comment on the Yarn Harlot’s blog when I typed up the following paragraph:

You can never have too much yarn with you! I was daydreaming the other day about what it would be like if I was in the Big Brother house and realized that I’d be sneaky and hit the thrift stores before leaving and find some mens’ 3X knit sweaters to put in my luggage, so once I was in the house I could unravel them and have something to knit. I’m still working on what to use as needles since you’re not allowed writing implements. I could probably sneak in some dpsn as hair sticks though, or as shawl pins. I think I’ve been thinking about this too much! 🙂

It’s sad but true. I really was thinking about that the other day. I mean, they go through your bags and veto what you can and can’t bring. Plus you only get one small duffel. So bringing in obvious yarn would be out of the question. But they can’t stop you from unraveling your own shirt, can they? I mean, as a last resort I could even finger knit it…

(Let’s ignore the fact that I would never be appearing on Big Brother because it is a US show, as if that was the only reason).


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no idea what title to put

Here’s Mommy with Jakob at 41 weeks (last week). I know it’s not the clearest of photos, but I love the way he’s cracking up, and couldn’t resist posting it.
Here’s another shot. I know he’s not looking- but guess why I posted it? I’m wearing the Kosher Sweater! You can see here that the sleeves are a little baggy, but otherwise I love the sweater. It’s great to throw on with a pair of jeans, but boy- the Decor yarn is warmer than I’d thought!
Here’s a photo from today, of Mommy with Jakob at 42 weeks. I need to start wearing makeup, or tanning, or something- I look so pale and washed out!

This is a photo from yesterday. Jakob was having fun sitting and “hiding” in his little tunnel, and popping his head out to “surprise” me. Did I mention that he crawls now? And he waves to EVERYONE. I have it on video, I should post it one of these days…

So is anyone out there wondering what I did on Monday night that I was so excited about? Get your minds out of the gutter- I dyed yarn for the first time! Maaike and I went over to Gillian’s house (another member of the MKG) and Gillain taught us how to dye yarn. We used regular dyes that we mixed with rubbing alcohol (as opposed to Kool-Aid or natural dyes) then heated them in the microwave to set them, and we each dyed 3 skeins.
This is what mine looked like after I got home, re-nuked them, did a few rinses and hung them up to dry. The one to the right I dyed in an attempt to get a fake “Fair Isle” look like the self-striping Regia yarns. I find the colors look very “preppy”, so I call it my Oxford yarn. The one in the middle is my Black Cherry yarn; it is mostly black with random splashes or Madder and Grenadine colors. The one on the left is my best achievement, I think. It is dyed to be self-striping (the stripes are longer than the number of inches it takes to work 1 round) and goes in 5 shades of green from dark to light. I worked hard at watering down the colors to get a subtle transition, and I LOVE it. I also dyed this yarn, my Celery yarn, with a specific project in mind. I’ve wanted to knit Mona‘s Embossed Leaves Socks (ravelry link) for the longest time, but have mostly striped or patterned sock yarns in my stash, and wanted something a little more solid or subtle to let the lace show up properly. I also wanted something “leafy”, be it green, brown or orange tones. Well, I can’t wait to start those socks now, because this yarn is exactly what I was looking for!
I should have taken photos of the yarn twisted into traditional skeins, but I forgot. Anyways, here’s Oxford. I know it looks weird to have the solid section and the striped section. I’m hoping that as I knit it will make 2 spirals up the foot, one solid, and one patterned.
Here’s Celery. This photo actually shows a pretty accurate color. I don’t have the stripes lying in order, but you can kinda see the transition from one shade to the next.
Finally, here’s Black Cherry. I love this color too! I’m hoping to find a good pattern for this yarn, something with cables maybe, or perhaps lace…but something that works well with a more solid yarn. I can work a project like the Jaywalker Socks (Ravelry link) in any old striping yarn. The pattern for this sock has to be special!