I haven’t posted in a while, although I’ve been really busy. I haven’t done much actual knitting this past week, but done much work about it!
Between Wednesday or Thursday I managed to turn the heel on Yannick’s 2nd “Fair Isle” socks, the ones I don’t work on much ‘cus they’re the only project small enough to keep in my purse for occassions I have “found” time, like an unexpected wait. They don’t usually get much progress, ‘cus I tend to always have my knitting bag with me too, so other stuff gets worked on. I made them a bit of a priority this week because I’d like to give them to him with the thrummed pair as his Christmas present. The heel is turned and I picked up the stitches, so now I just need to work my decs back to my starting number, and then whip around until I get the same # of rows as the other sock.
On Friday I finished the first of the thrummed socks. You know, I absolutely love the Fleece Artist yarns. This one is black and so soft, and the fleece is nice masculine deep blues and greens. But I can’t stand their patterns that come on the paper around the yarns. The part of the pattern for the mittens I gave my dad was just plain wrong (take 13 sts from a holder, CO 13 sts = 26. Next k2tog, k13, k2tog, k13. HUH? Math anyone?) and now for this one…well. On his foot the sock looks perfect. When he takes it off you can see the huge flaw- it looks like an elf sock. It just needs the bell on the end. The pattern has you decrease on each side going inwards like a nice raglan armhole…so basically the toe comes to a triangle point. I was too embarassed to bring it to my knitting class this morning for “show and tell”. I know I could have tinked it, but I don’t want to start undoing knitting with the thrums there…afraid to get it all tangled. I would have loved to use my Ann Budd book of patterns for a generic sock pattern, but the &(*#^#( patterns from Fleece Artist NEVER give the quantity of yarn! They don’t even tell you usually what the weight is in case you’d want to use the pattern again. So without knowing how much yarn was in the skein I was afraid to stray from their pattern and then run out. My LYS only has one kit in each color so I wouldn’t be able to buy more. RRR
From the bad news, to the good!
My grandmother is a knitter and crocheter. She’s also a dog lover. So naturally her dog wears a hand knit sweater. Well, she brings her dog regularly to a really cute store that sells pet accessories, mainly clothing. Earlier this week they told her how much they loved her dog’s sweater, and when they found out she knit it, they asked her if she’d be interested in knitting sweaters for them to sell. She said “No way!” Note: this Bubbie is very active. Between bowling, plays, her boyfriend and her dog, she doesn’t have the spare time to sit around and knit dog sweaters. I, on the other hand, do. (Yes I have the boyfriend/job/friends too, but I always make time for myself to knit, it’s my de-stresser). So she mentioned to them that I’d be interested (and probably bragged a bit too, as Bubbies are wont to do), and they said they’d be interested. Everyone’s interested.
I called them during the week to find out their ideas, and went in on Sunday with my books of dog sweaters to see what they like. I met a really nice woman named Michelle and she gave me some great ideas for what works, and what doesn’t. So…today at my LYS I picked up some yarn and I’ll be making 5 or so samples to a) time myself and see how long each pattern takes, and b) present to them so they can see if they think I’m talented enough. If “a” and “b” go well together and we can work out a good price for each sweater, then Baby I’m in Business! Yay!
And if that wasn’t good enough, my knitting classes started again this morning and I was finally able to work the yarn over button holes on Justin’s Hooded Sweater so all that’s left is the seaming and I can gift this baby! Woo hoo!
jeloca.com 