quiz results:

You may not be a granny, but you’ve got the

mentality. Hard work and artistic vision lead

to your beautiful knitted results.

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Are you a knitter?

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The other night Yannick and I were doing a crossword puzzle together. The clue was “wool”, and the word was 8 letters, starting with a “c”. After 1/2 an hour Yannick finally came up with “cashmere”. The word never once occurred to me, the knitter/crocheter/crafter/artsy-fartsy person. I’m not fit to hold needles. 😦

1 body, head, ears and snout done, 4 legs and 1 tail to go! (Although I might re-do the snout. I made the head/body larger than the actual pattern, but forgot and did the snout the original size. I think it’ll be cuter oversize so I’ll make it up and see at the end.)

Currently on the needles:

1) Justin’s Hooded Sweater- stalled waiting for Monday so I can work out the button band at my LYS.

2) Entrelac Throw- stalled ‘cus it’s my “when there’s nothing better to knit” project

3) Booga bag- stalled until Monday so I can pick up an addi turbo to knit it on, ‘cus the kureyon is sticking too much to my Denise interchangable needles.

4) Yannick’s Fair Isle Sock- stalled ‘cus it’s my “take along” project so it languishes in my purse until I’m stuck somewhere without any other knitting.

5) Birthday Suit swatch- stalled

Everything is temporarily stalled because I have a special gift to make. I’ve made the crocheted children for work, and a family member has asked me to make a custom piggy for his grand daughter. So I’m putting that first for now, and I really want to do a good job. I’m still bringing some knitting to work for when I get a break, but I won’t bring the pig ‘cus my dad smokes at work and I don’t want the pig to smell roasted.

I just started knitting my first-ever booga bag, and it’s also the first time I’m using Noro Kureyon. I’m using color

124 which is an incredibly yummy mix of shades ranging from plum through berries of all kinds, all the way to cherries and back. The yarn doesn’t actually smell…and if I hold it to my nose it just kinda smells like hands. But I SWEAR that as I’m knitting I can’t stop smelling the scent of raspberries. When I stop to smell the yarn it obviously isn’t fruit-scented, but then the minute I start knitting again I guess the visual of the color overpowers my senses and I start imagining I smell fresh raspberries.

I’m getting hungry.

I can’t post any pics of latest progress, because this really hasn’t been much of a knitting week. I did get the ribbing done on Justin’s hood, but only managed to get through picking up 50 of the 90 sts for the button band when felled by yet ANOTHER migraine. I swear it’s been like 2 a week for a month now. So instead I amused myself by taking pictures of my stash.

These 2 FULL skeins are left-over from my To Dye For Sweater. I don’t know what I’ll make from them, although Yannick thinks the softness is incredible, so maybe I’ll make him a pair of socks. “Mohair” socks anyone?

I bought this cotton dk stuff over the summer to make the Shapely Tank/Tee available for free at White Lies Designs. I don’t know if I’ll like the slubbiness of the yarn, hence the hesitation to begin.

This is the 1/2 skein or so of mohair left over from my grandmother’s scarf. I don’t know what I’ll do with it yet, maybe cuffs on a pair of koigu gloves?

This abundance of yarn is the 22 skeins of Sisu Yannick bought me to make my birthday suit. The lonely little ball of Eros Herwool on top is to make a scarf to go with it to add a bit of color to the all-black suit.

The pink Patons Canadiana I bought yesterday ‘cus I might be hired to make a stuffed pig. I’ll know today if I get the go-ahead, and I’ll be ready to start tonight.

All I need to make the Velvet Oblivion eye mask from Knitty (pattern here). Maybe with all these migraines I should get a move-on on this!

More wonderful Regia self-patterning sock yarn, this time in blues to make myself a striped pair.

A bunch of Patons Aran Fisherman Style to make my DKNY Landscape Cardigan.

3 extremely yummy skeins of Noro Kuryeon to make myself a booga bag.

1 skein of Koigu that I’ll admit I didn’t think through before purchasing. I wanted to order some to see what all the fuss was about. I now know what the fuss was about…except that I don’t have enough to fully enjoy it! I don’t even have enough for a pair of socks or gloves. I might just need to order more. 🙂

The 3 skeins of Sirdar Snuggly DK are to make the pink baby onesie and booties for the girl twin of Yannick’s cousin. The creamy yellow and soft pink Sirdar Snuggly 4ply are to make the sundress and hat for the other baby girl from his other cousin.

The 2 brown skeins of Bernat Soft Boucle were gifted by my cousin Robyn. I already had the cream skein, so I’m using the 2 together to make the messy blob in the middle- my entrelac throw.

Last but not least Robyn also gifted me these 3 skeins of Red Heart Light & Lofty, which I’d like to find a v-neck pullover pattern and make a top for myself, ‘cus I like blue shirts against my blue eyes. I heard it pills though, so we’ll see.

I gave my first secret project to the recipient, so I can talk about it now. It was a scarf for my grandmother ‘cus she bought me the great “Knitting-Pattern-A-Day” 2005 calendar for my bday. One day she came into the store and told me about a yarn she saw someone knitting with and that it was really pretty. By the description I knew right away it was the railroad yarn, so I picked up some Eros Herwool and mixed it with a black mohair to make a really elegant scarf. Happy birthday Bubbie!

The technique I was referring to for Yannick’s surprise holiday mittens is called thrumming, and there’s a great explaination/tutorial here on Stephanie (the Yarn Harlot)’s blog.

I’m almost finished Justin’s sweater!

This pic was taken yesterday, so it doesn’t show the beautiful seaming (grafting?) I did to join the hood. Instead of casting off the two sides I put them onto holders, so my seam is much thinner and neat. I rock! This morning I picked up the sts for the ribbing around the hood, and once that’s done there are just the button bands and side/underarm seams! Woo hoo! Now I can start a new project…

I have never used as much math in my life as I have since I started knitting. And so far I’ve been fine with it, really. Until today.

I paraphrase from my pattern for the birthday suit:

(p.s. you have 308 sts on the ndls, and 10 markers placed around the body)

“dec 1 st on ea side of ea marker (20 decs)”

-ok, so I take 20 sts away from 308 sts and end up with 288 sts. So far so good.

“work even for 6 rows”

-duh. Still working with 288 sts. This is easy.

“repeat dec row”

-no sweat. I take 20 sts away from 288 to get 268. This is a breeze!

“work even until blah blah inches”

-could do in my sleep. Still 268 sts around. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

“inc 1 st on ea side of ea marker (20 incs)”

-ok, so I add 20 sts to my 268 to get 288. I see where this is going…

“repeat inc row every 6 rows…”

-so far so good. I work 5 rows plain, and work the inc row on the 6th row, right? Ok, moving on.

“…twice more…”

-uh huh, so now after adding the original 20 sts I’m adding another 20 and 20 (2 more inc rows) and 12 more rows of knitting…which brings me to 328 sts.

BUT

“…ending with 308 sts”.

–HUH? How can I start with 308 sts, take away 20+20 to get 268, and then add 20+20+20 and wind up back at 308?

Hence the confusion. If anyone reading this has any clue where on the web to find errata for SandnesGarn pamphlets, in this case specifically issue 0309 pattern 12 page 10, I’d REALLY appreciate it.