Wool and projects everywhere

and not a one of them finished!

We were crazy this weekend - shopping, cooking, eating, visiting and potty training - but I still had time to finish Louise's Christmas pressie - a hat to match the Muppet Roadkill scarf - tres chic!
No pictures yet - just in case anyone decides to snoop.......
I finished Mom's vest a week ago, and blocked it this weekend - now I just need buttons. Why does finishing take longer than knitting - I don't think I'll ever understand that.
I knit all of Bobby's teddy bear over a month ago save one ear and it's still waiting patiently to be sewed up.....poor guy. At least I finished the aran sweater - used up almost every last inch of that Rowan DK. And it was worth all the sweat and worrying. It fits Ciara instead of Cian and she wears it on the weekends when she's staying over. I simply didn't say anything about who the sweater belonged to - I just told her to try it on and told her she could wear when visiting. No problemo - besides, I made her a fuzzy, mohair and very pink hat with matching scarf to wear in the cold weather that showed up so suddenly over here - I think she's sated.




My current book stays at home these days so that I'm motivated to work on Peggy's socks on the work commute.
Aaaaand - most importantly : I've started my first knit along project. I'm making the Shhh sachet/pillow/doorknob hanger thingie with Yentala - I'm doing the duplicate stitch now (which I've learned is not my favourite piece of wool-play. Blech!
Hope to post more pictures soon!
Until then check out this item on Ebay: Feral Fawcett
She gives me such a chuckle and really gives the dolls personality.
Enjoy and keep warm!

I'm all out of love.....

Not that I've fallen completely out of love with knitting. I have no intention of dropping my current project and still gaze longingly at my piles of wool dreaming of UFO's. But halfway through this stinking Aran pullover, I realized that I was no longer excited about it. This is the pullover I was so keen to begin that I rushed my raglan cardigan (doing permanent damage in the process) and the second I sewed the last button on, I was immediately casting on for cables and diamonds - even though it was past midnight on a "school night".
But now I am starting to wilt. I think it might be because I'm not excited about seeing the UFO on anyone. It's too big for Bobby and David's nephews and wouldn't suit HRH Erika or Ciara. It was meant for Cian and I can't imagine having a sweater that he can only wear twice a month - it's crazy. I was thinking I could pick another recipient, but there just isn't anyone. Drat - will have to figure out how to get myself excited about this sweater!!!
a pic of the sweater

UFOs and Roadkill!

I think a UFO would totally make me feel better. I fixed the blue/white old-lady cardigan but still haven't sewn the buttons on - I think I'm afraid to finish it because I think Finishing = "promptly send your hard work away in the post."

I have also knitted everything for the Mr. Bean Teddy Bear (save one ear) - but that's different. I'm not so worried about sending that one away - I just have total sewing angst. The directions came off of the internet and I think the finishing section relies on the knitter having a lot more basic knowledge than I. I seem to sing this song a lot these days....

The Aran is coming along nicely - definitely not trying to hurry myself on that one. It's certainly not going home with the little blonde monster (also known as Cian, Dave's 2 yo son) because the ex would felt it in a heartbeat and send me a swatch of blue woolly gunk in two weeks. She's already shown her distate for anything I've ever bought or knit the two kids. So I started knitting in super-wash. Which is exactly why this aran isn't leaving my house unless it's on Cian or Ciara to be worn for the day and brought immediately back home. Snobbish? maybe - practical? positively!
Finished Product:


In other news, I found a ball of fuzzy blueish stuff at the Woll-Eckla that I absolutely HAD to buy and knit. I was thinking sweater, but after starting my swatch, I realized you couldn't pay me a million dollars to knit up a project with this (ok, maybe a million....) so I kept on knitting my swatch until I started a decent looking scarf - will have to buy more balls to finish it and I think I know exactly who is getting it for Christmas....... (but I'm not going to tell her upon receipt that we've nick-named it Muppet Roadkill Scarf - because it looks like someone ran over Grover - NEAR.......FAR!!!)

Decisions, decisions, decisions

Well, I finally decided to do the Elizabeth Zimmerman I-am-the-boss-of-my-knitting cut on the button bands. I cut both right below the neckband and ripped all the way down until the waist ribbing. Then I knit those bad boys at the same time and sewed them to the sweater-sides in intervals. Knit, sew, knit, sew. It wasn't until I reached the top that I realized my left-side button band had been cut all funky and grafting the buttonband to neckband was an exercise in extra sewing on the spots that I voted most-likely to come loose. Now I know it won't come loose, but my grafting (which I took to quite quickly I might add) won't win any beauty contests in the near future. I know I did it right and maybe it looks fine, but after the first viewing of this sweater, it hurts my eyes to see the bastardized band :(
I haven't sewn the buttons back on yet because I can't bear to look at the sweater - will probably cross that bridge at the end of this week.

In much more interesting news, I started my first Aran sweater last week. I found an old kids pattern during my Isle of White trip in July and the gauge matched perfectly with the Rowan DK newwool that I practically stole from some nice woman on Ebay. 11pds for 400 grms - it must be a sin! I've done one pattern repeat so far and I can't wait to knit more everyday. The only bummer is that I need to read the pattern constantly so working on this in the U-Bahn and during the dead-times at work does not happen often. Speaking of which.....it's pretty quiet now - no phone calls, maybe I could pull it out for a couple of minutes......

Lopsided is "in," right?

I knit and knit and knit, then I seamed and seamed and seamed and trimmed edges and darned extras and I was so proud when my stripes lined up (surprised is more like it!). And we took pictures of the cutest cardigan you ever did see. Then I went to sew my buttons on (which, miraculously fit perfectly with the button holes) and my button bands have a difference in length of about 2 inches. Gah! I was speechless. I don't even know where to start to fix this. I ended up sewing the buttons where I thought they should go in relation to the stripes. And now I've got to figure out some way to fix the button band with the buttons!!


Here are my ideas:
Solution 1: pour hot water on selected areas of the button band to shrink the wool
Solution 2: send the sweater to my mother and she can use her sewing machine to stitch selected rows together and then cut off the extra wool
Solution 3: rip up the neck band and reknit the button band - but I'd rather send a kid around with a lopsided sweater than do that!
Solution 4: fuhgetaboutit and send some poor child to school in a sweater that looks like I knit it while riding the special bus (in between drooling on myself and licking windows ).
HELP!!!!
Did I mention how happy I was with the seams and really, really want to wake up tomorrow and realize I was just looking at it from the wrong angle....

Tea for two and two for tea

And 2 sweaters I've finished that I'll actually let people look at!
The first is Sweetness from www.knitty.com. I knit it out of a mohair/acrylic yarn from Sirdar - Mum found it at an age concern and sent over almost 1500grams. It was super quick and fun to knit and gave me confidence to knit on and make another sweater.
After that, I read my first Elizabeth Zimmerman book (Knitting Without Tears) and started my second sweater with more confidence than practicality. I plugged the numbers into the EZ formula for a yoke sweater and I think I made it just a bit wide - the shoulder part looks kind of funny, too - but that could be due to my using the Wendy Velvet Touch wool I received from MIL-to-be (that's optimistic thinking). Judge for yourself : http://community.webshots.com/album/77714133OuVwgi
Other than that I've only done one pair of socks this summer after finishing up the MIL/Traveler's-Socks/Nightmare-In-Blue (picture of those to come soon). I tried the refootable sock from Socks Socks Socks and I'll be using this method for all of BF's future socks. Loved it!
I was dying to use the Rowan DK new-wool I won off of E-bay and after swatching it with some white merino and blue 3-ply (another age concern snatch!) I decided to use the 3-ply and the merino to make a girl's cardigan. I'm finishing up the arms now and it looks like this particular piece of knitting will be better suited for a small lady (Helen or Mum!) than a youngster. I'm glad it's a small sweater though - knitting with this wool for anything larger could take a lifetime!! I mean I like knitting, but I like finished-objects even better! :)

Mother In-Law Socks

Okay, she's not my mother-in-law yet. Maybe that's why I'm trying to kiss up by knitting socks for her. Even worse, I'm trying to crank a pair out in 2 weeks and I chose the somewhat complicated Traveler's Stockings from Nancy Bush's Knitting On The Road book - your basic in-law nightmare. Tomorrow's the big day and, needless to say, socks won't be finished - I'll just have to show her my progress and make some noises about measuring her feet before I finish the product. Let's hope that comes across as well-meaning and I intend it.
In the meantime, I'm begging to the knitting Gods that my Denise needle set arrives soon and I can start a couple of sweater projects that I've been waiting to do. I definitely don't want to have to seam any more knits than I can help.
Maybe mom's wool will show up soon, too and I can at least start planning a project for it.
Maybe, maybe, maybe!!

Hello World!
This is the first entry into my new knitting blog. Mostly this will be a place to post pictures and hopefully share techniques with other knitters. Case in point- here is link to a picture of my nephew Bobby showing off the socks I sent over this spring. Adorable, simple to knit and extremely rewarding to see on the wearer ;)