Birthday feet redux. 

Birthday Socks

So, Thursday afternoon I decided that I had procrastinated long enough, and I cast on the 2nd Woolease sock for Dave's birthday (Friday).

Gotta love knitting socks with a worsted weight yarn. I was chugging right along, on schedule to finish them in time to be wrapped and given at dinner, but I underestimated the time and energy that I would need to bake a birthday cake with a 3 and 5 year old.

Anyway, they were "done enough" to be wrapped and gifted, with a promise that they would be done by the end of the evening. Birthday movie of choice: The Village.

Creepy movie=fast knitting=finished sock.


Happy birthday feet!

Stressed Out

Turns out, the year that I really, really, truly give in to the fact that it is difficult to get quilting done, and I'm ok with that, I have a decent number of quilting opportunities come my way.

So, I've said yes to a commission that I need to get done in a few months. It was just an opportunity that was too cool to pass up. More on that later. But until I get the design done and know that we are on the same page, I'm a little stressed.

Combine that with a mention from a preschool teacher that a certain (loveable) 5 year old, is talking back and being disrespectful in class.

Well, there have been big-time changes our family this year, so I'm just trying to handle everything one day at a time....

In knitting news, what's a stressed-out girl to do...


Cast on another sock.

Would this be the mate to the green Koigu sock cast on last week? Would this be the mate needed to complete the birthday Woolease sock pair (needed Friday morning, by the way). No, this would be just another random first sock. This is grey varigated Opal. Yes, I need to get a better way to photograph these socks as I am not capturing the color successfully, sorry about that.


In Mariah news, I'm almost ready at the point on the body where you attach the sleeves. I'm making this slightly shorter than the pattern. I'm making the body length 22", which I'm a little nervous about, since it will be my shortest sweater. I normally make the body length 23" or 23 1/2" on my "short" sweaters, which hits me at the high hip. But after trying on a couple of sweaters that length, I really think this one should be shorter so that cable/ribbing will go more around my waist, rather than fall lower over the hip.

Crossing fingers.

Can 'O Beans

Ok, I've been flirting for the past week with lovely accessories, but now I am back to my committed relationship with this sweater. I have to admit, I have issues with the name of this sweater, Mariah.

When I was growing up, my dad used to watch this old Clint Eastwood musical, "Paint Your Wagon". Over, and over, and over. That was before we had a VCR, before there were more than four channels, so, I swear, it must have been on TV every freakin weekend.

Anyway, there is a song in the movie "They called the wind Mariah". This is the only time I have heard the name, Mariah, so of course, I am knitting the sweater, and constantly hearkening back to the movie. The problem comes in, with the ubiquitous rousing, catchy song (ala "Surrey with the Fringe on Top"). In this case, it was "Hand me Down Dat Can O Beans", and goes something like this:

Hand me down dat can o beans
Hand me down dat can o beans
Hand me down dat can o beans,
I'm throwing it away....

Out da window go dem beans,
Out da window go dem beans....

And so forth.

So I'm knitting Mariah,
I'm thinking about the movie,
I'm humming the song.

For several hours.


So here is progress made on the body of the sweater. About 6 inches or so. Mariah is posing with aforementioned sock-in-progress.

LOVE THEM!

For a close up, scroll down to previous post. Thanks to Jody for such a beautiful pattern!!!!

Ta Da!

Last night I finished gauntlet #1, and semi-secret sock #1. What will I cast on next? Gauntlet wins! It rocks, and I can't wait to wear them! I really really would have liked to wear one gauntlet today, but just one would have been a little weird.

I also finished my figuring on knitting the body of Mariah in the round, cast on and knit about an inch. Its slow going on the rib with cables, but after the rib ends, I'll knit like the wind on the stockinette portion. At least, thats the plan.

Getting a Little Knitting In

I usually get a little knitting in, about 1/2 hour or so, in the morning during breakfast, and while I am cleaning up the kitchen and getting the kids ready for school. But it has to be mindless knitting, or it ends up in frustration.

So this morning I woke up and these were my WIPs to pick from:
Mariah: Need to cast on body, concentrate, and count stitches.
Natalya gauntlets by Savannahchik: Just started gusset before bed, need to concentrate and count rows.
Pink Rebecca sweater (see January 8th post): Need to cast on sleeve or back, its been a couple of weeks, forgot what I'm doing.
Dave's sock (see yesterdays post): He knows he's getting socks, since he asked me for them, and I did risk him seeing them by posting about them last night, but I don't want to be THAT blatant about it by knitting them right in front of him.

Four projects on the needles and not one of them can be picked up immediately for mindless knitting, so what do I do?

PANIC!

Then, cast on another Koigu sock.



This is where I was by 9am this morning. Will post a more realistic picture of the color later. They are green with highlights of black and khaki.

Alert! Alert! Finished Objects!

In a frenzy of Mariah procrastination, I finished and started accessories.


Finished the second of my beautiful blue Koigu socks. Sweeeeeet!


Cast on Dave's birthday socks. Wool-ease in navy, green, charcoal. I know, I know, WOOL-EASE? But, after knitting brother-Christmas-socks, it'll be a long time before I knit big, honkin, man socks on 7-8 spi in a boring color. But these are his first socks from me, so he is not a sock aficionado, yet. He will love them.


Cast on Natalya gauntlets, in black Karabella Aurora 8 from stash. I love this yarn!!! It is the softest merino I have tried. It was going along so swimmingly I knit 1/2 inch past the place for the gusset, so they will be 1/2 inch longer. I can't wait to finish these and wear them. Ethan saw the picture and asked me "Mommy, is that a bad guy?"



For anyone awaiting a Mariah update: I finished the sleeve to where it attaches to the body. I have decided to knit the body in the round (since it's knit that way after you attach the sleeves) and steek it. How daring! How exciting! Yes Melody, I will take pictures! It will go so much faster, as I knit a lot faster than I purl. At least, once I adjust for my slightly-off gauge, my slightly-off size, readjust to get the cables all lined up right, get all the stitches cast on and make sure I have the right number. Did I mention procrastination? See projects above.

Warning. Warning. All knitting stops here. Personal content below. I realize that the only people delighted by the following will be Ethan's doting aunt and uncle, but hey, that comprises 2/3 of my readership, so here goes:


Tigers



Lions



The tiger, himself.

Quickie Mariah Progress Update

I am zipping along on Mariah. I am almost to the spot where I set the sleeve aside and wait to attach it to the body. Here is the sleeve. It looks very long and narrow to me, but my calculations promise me that it will grow with washing and block out.




Here is a close up of the cables:


I was a little freaked out about the break in the cable , but now that I have two of the repeats it looks really cool!

Yarn Party!

Yesterday it was a yarn party at Gretl's house. Sorting an enormous stash by color. And a fabulous lunch with good girlfriends. Sigh. What could be better?! I could only stay for an hour, so I didn't actually partake of the sorting part, only(!) fabulous lunch. For a full report, as always, Melody has it!



Sophie is ready to go, decked out in knits head to toe, as all the girlfriends will be. (Baby Albert bunting-the baby bunting version of the Einstein coat from "The Knit Stitch", booties from "Knitting for Baby", and fairisle pompom hat-no pattern.) She was a dream baby and slept upstairs while the girlfriends gabbed.




Baby close-up!



Melody and Frieda wearing beautiful knits. Melody's was knitted herself, and Frieda's inspired me to get another fair isle goin'.



Here I am, wearing lavendar cabley goodness. That's Manos. Hmmm, speaking of lavendar cabley goodness, here is the progress report on Mariah.



I blocked Mariah on the needles, to see how well behaved the cuff edge would be. It worked! I have made some progress on the sleeve since this picture, so more photos tomorrow.

And here is a beautiful free pattern for cabled gauntlets by Savannahchik that might sidetrack me this week.

Progress Photos

First of all, I want to give a big shout out to my friend Melody
who has held my hand during the blogmaking process. Also, a big hug and kiss to my most excellent husband, who took 2 of the 3 nuggets to Uncle Tony's house yesterday and enabled my bloglearning.

As promised, I cast on my 3rd project yesterday evening: Mariah from Knitty

and made a few inches of progress. I always hate the wonkyness of the edges if they have cables in them and fiddle quite a bit with these. I might try something different with the other sleeve, casting on less and increasing right below the cable. (?) But anyway, I think these will look much better when blocked.

If you are familiar with the pattern you will notice that I crossed all the cables the same direction, instead of alternating. Its just my own personal taste that I like it better that way, plus I forsee less headaches of laddering back to fix wrongly-crossed cables.


I made a little progress on the blue Koigu sock, while talking to my mom and sister on the phone. They live in Muncie, Indiana, and have been without power for four days, after a major ice storm. They are cold, dirty, and longing for hot food. My sis has been knitting by flashlight. Go girl! Lets hope it comes back on today!


My knitting bag, with my three current projects. One of the other reasons I flit between projects is for a change in color. These three are so beautiful I have a hard choice deciding! Yum!

My First Real Post!

I usually have at least 3 projects on the needles at once. Different kinds of projects, different stages of completion. People often ask me how I get so much knitting done with little kids and I think this is a major reason. I never have to wait until after the kids go to bed to figure out that cable chart so I can knit. I can always knit RIGHT NOW, because I always have something that is in easy-boring-stockinette mode that I can knit on, while paying attention to something else.

Anyway, today I only have 2 projects on the needles, the pink Rowan Cork sweater from the current Rebecca magazine, and the blue Koigu sock. I gotta remedy that situation by casting on at least one other thing today!

Here are photos of my current projects, plus a couple others finished this week:


Artfully arranged pieces (at least I thought so while I was taking the picture) of Rebecca magazine sweater. It is saying: "Block Me!"


Up close and personal. The color is delicious.



I made this hat last week when my sister Allison was here. She made one and I had to make one too. The yarn is Noro Big Bebe (discontinued) and was half price. As quick and easy as it was, I did have to finegle (will look that spelling up later) to keep the colors from pooling and making ugly black zigzags.


See how pretty it will be with the Rebecca sweater!!



Another current work. Koigu socks.

Christmas sock for Allison (its the second sock, she unwrapped the first sock and took it with her.) Finished last night.

A Fresh Start

Here are some random project pictures, things I already had on the computer, for me to test loading pictures.


Current UFO. Summer tweed sleeve.


Molly in Anouk finished Spring 03, just in time for our quilt show trip to Paducah.


Molly dancing in yellow poncho

Molly in hat 2002

Molly in her Halloween costume 2003. She liked it so well she wore it again in 04. Black turtleneck and tights, ladybug wings from Old Navy, and ladybug hat made from Cascade 220 from Zoe Mellor book (I think it was "Animal Knits"-not totally sure as I got it from the library.).