Christmas Knitting

I finally finished the only true Christmas present that I'm knitting this year. I can't post pictures of it yet, because the intended recipient might happen to peek in on this blog. But I can post pictures of Sarah with her blankie, taken at my house last Wednesday while her mommy too HESI at school (we all kicked butt on that test btw). Here she is being so cute it practically makes your ovaries cramp. These were taken during the 5 minute period I was able to put her down without her waking up and screaming.
Kiddo was with me for almost 4 whole hours on Wednesday and did nothing but scream and cry unless I was holding her. The hazard of babysitting at my house, no swing, no bouncy seats, thank goodness for the rocking chair from bfs grandmas house. It was a real wake up call, really helped push the snooze button on my biological clock. But she's still sweet, and she's still always welcome at my place, along with her two older brothers.
Just ruined my first batch of cookies. I've been baking cookies for years and years and have never ever screwed them up this badly! They look like dark brown lace with a tan blob in the middle. Its gross, needless to say I'm a bit ticked off. Oh well, I'm done trying, I'll give them another shot tomorrow.

Announcing

We have wonderful news here, the arrival of Sarah Elizabeth. She decided that today was a great day for a birthday and all 6lb6ozs of her arrived at 7:06 pm. Approximately 10 minutes after her second log cabin blanket was finished (sorry Dina). I kid you not, this kid knew what she wanted, even though this blanket was supposed to be for another kiddo...but Sarah wanted it so bad that I thought it only fair to give it to her. After all, she waited for it to be finished before she would arrive. Guess the Yarn Harlot was right, babies don't arrive until their knitting is finished.

Here she is looking so cute it hurts, wrapped up in her newest blankie (we may have cheated and wrapped over the hospital blankets, but oh well). I thought her mommy was going to throttle me when i told her that she probably could've had the baby earlier if i had only finished the blanket...but I thought the baby/knitting theory only worked if the knitting was for the baby in question. If anything I was trying to make her jealous that I was knitting for another baby. Didn't work. But she's here now and we're all thrilled, and mommy and daddy are exhausted.

Here I am holding little miss, she fell asleep on me for the picture. Babies seem to find me boring on a cellular level, they always crash when i'm holding them. My own children in the future won't have the decency to do it, I can feel it. It's Murphey's Law, every child but my own fall asleep the minute i pick them up...Oh well. Anyway, off to bed!

9 whole days

I have 9 whole days without the bf in the house, I don't know what I'm going to do with my new found freedom, but I bet that knitting will occupy plenty of my time. The beaded MS is crawling along, we had a quick little visit to the frog pond, and I'm trying new beads that like to jump out of the container. But I'm almost to where I was before I ripped the thing apart, pictures to come. I'm also trying to puzzle out the best way to do felted Christmas stockings for us to use. Since neither of us has stockings of our own that coordinate. I have a beautiful cross stitched one that my grandma made me, but I want to keep that with my mom and dad for a while. His will still be needed at his parents house too, so either we buy some, or I make them. And I would much rather have cute, handmade Christmas stockings than something 200,000 other people can pick up at a store.

Anyway, we went to Universals Island of Adventure and had a blast! It was so different from Disney that I think we were in culture shock. Maybe we'll have to get season passes for this park next year, the question is with Disney, or instead of?

Here we are with Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Cat in the Hat. I'm not normally a Thing 1 or Thing 2 fan, but they were so cute in person that I couldn't resist getting a picture with them.

All in all it was a pretty fun day, even if it did rain for a few minutes that evening. We were originally going to go for another day, but rain possibility was ridiculously high and sure enough it started pouring early and didn't stop. Good thing we decided to go shopping instead...

Finished!

I finished the MS10 while riding home from Orlando yesterday. The bind off took forever, but is very pretty, and it was so exciting to dump it into the bathtub. The pinning was less exciting, but I know it's nessecary, that took about 45 minutes, and I hope it will be ok. I chose not to pin out every single loop of the bind off, it would have taken me 2 hours and more pins than i posess.

This is the shawl unblocked lounging on the floor in the living room.

Here it is taking a good long soak in the bath tub. I follow the wisdom of the yarn harlot on this, its her favorite method and it seems to work well for me too. It looks kind of disgusting in this picture, but it's worth it.

Here it is all pinned out. It took about 45 minutes to pin it out and its still not perfect. But it's close enough for me, I think its beautiful. Renee outdid herself with this, it's gorgeous. And here's a close up of the blocking shawl. I'll get a modeled shot when I unpin it. In the meantime, back to the Halloween shawl

Lace

Though a relative newbie to the world of lace knitting, I find myself hypnotized. The skinny yarn, the impressive results, the relative economy of it. What other project can take one ball of yarn and make a beautiful garment that makes people wonder? Ok...so it sounds like knitting socks too, a little bit. But with lace you get ooohhhs and aaaahhhhs, and with socks you tend to get a lot of people asking why you bother. Or the patronizing nods as you explain the positives of hand knit socks (until you finish a cute pair that the person just has to have).

I find myself particularly drawn to the mystery shawl concept. A person designs a shawl pattern, and delivers it to the knitter in installments. This keeps my interest, and doesn't present me with a huge pattern that I tend to feel lost inside.

This is Mystery Shawl 10 (the desginer's 10th, not mine). So far it's gorgeous in sock weight yarn. I can't wait to be finished and get this blocked so I can wear it. I envision myself wearing this in the evenings when we go on our caribbean cruise in Feb. I can't believe I may actually get to wear something I've knit in public...other than socks that is.

And here is the Halloween Mystery Shawl of 2008. It's been a blast to knit so far, and I'm going to be sad when it's finished. It is my very first beaded project ever, and a great one to learn the technique with. It's like the Yarn Harlot says about color work, each row seems to take longer, but they pile up so fast. The same thing has been happening with the beading, it feels like it takes me so long to knit a row, but it's growing really fast.

And here's a closeup:

I really need to borrow my mothers camera for these closeups, its so hard with a point and shoot to get good clarity. And on this particular section the beading isn't very obvious, but they're there. The second clue kicks the beading up several notches and it begins to get more obvious.

Several lessons have been learned during this project so far:

1. Size 12 steel crochet hooks can be really hard to find, and are the only size that works with size 8/0 beads.

2. Cats in the lap and beading do not go well together

3. The cat seems to know this and only wants to sit in my lap when I'm knitting this shawl.

4. Magnetic chart keepers usually used by cross stitchers are invaluable while knitting lace, much better than 20 post its.

3 Years

Today bf and I have been together for 3 whole years! Its amazing how it seems like forever, but not possibly as long as 3 years all at once.

This is the very first professional picture we had taken. I'm pretty sure this was the picture on our very first Christmas card as a couple.

And here's a picture of us from last January. I like this picture, but my strap hanging down my shoulder really, really bugs me. And it bugged me even more at the time, because the photographer really should've noticed that it was hanging and fixed it... But we won't dwell, because she is quite nice. Its funny to see how much we've changed even in 3 years. People always say how much we change while we grow from babies to children to adults...but we change a lot once we hit adulthood too.

Still waiting for my yarn from Knit Picks, which is unusual. Usually it arrives very quickly, but I'm starting to think it got caught up in mail forwarding by accident. I'm wondering if I remembered to fix the shipping address. I did get my beads for my Halloween mystery shawl, they're Gorgeous! But I'm really afraid of beading, this is my first beaded project. But I think I can find enough info online to get me thru it. Everyone always seems to be afraid at first, but find it simple once they get the hang. So fingers crossed thats the way it really is.

In the meantime, since my yarn is being pokey getting here I started an Adamas in Helen's Lace. I figure maybe mom would like it for Christmas.

Here it is being stubbornly hard to photograph. I have no clue how close I am to being finished,
I'm just kind of knitting until I feel like stopping. Anyway, back to studying.

Found

Good thing I didn't order a new set of DPN's. As it turned out the missing one had only gotten sucked into the vortex that is my purse (bf calls it the black hole). It was wedged in the cash holding area of my wallet...found it today. I have started another pair of socks, blue and white ToFutsies yarn. They're turning out cute so far, I'm past the heel and moving faster than I usually do with DPN's. Very strange.

Missing In Action

I would like to report one of my knitpicks dpn's missing. I had it when I was doing the heel on my Aunties socks (pictures later, once bf fixes the memory card reader issue again), and the next time I picked up the socks to continue knitting on the heel it was gone. Vanished. I've literally turned my purse upside down looking for it to no avail. The couch cushions are totally coming off next, and I might even move the couch to make sure. I still have a workable set of 4, but I really dislike working with 4 dpns total. I tend to have sloppy areas in between needles as it is and with 4 instead of 5 it just gets worse. I am willing to put up a reward of home made brownies if anyone has seen it or has information as to where it might be. Ok, maybe thats too much. Guess I'll just have to order another set from the site and keep the 4 set as a backup.

My First Sweater

Ok, so it's not technically my first sweater ever. I've made one baby kimono sweater from Mason Dixon Knitting. But it is a first sweater of sorts... Its a doggy sweater. Knit for the dog of a good friend of mine.
Angel is a little bitty tea cup Yorkie. Which means she's really cute, but gets really cold really easily. And in Northern Michigan where snowdrifts are often well over her head....she needs sweaters to help keep warm. My grandmother first started knitting this pattern a few years ago. She experimented with the different sizes and the smallest one fit their first dog (unfortunatly this dog was killed by a neighboring dog) perfectly. I figured that Angel deserves her own sweater, so I tried the pattern out. I'm currently making another one with the prescribed cable down the back in a light pink and am setting a goal for myself to make as many as I can stand. They're great for using up single balls of yarn.

For My Own Good

Maybe things that are lost should just stay that way sometimes. I am speaking of couse of my mystery shawl that I unearthed several days ago. I've been knitting merrily away on it, only to reach a point in the chart last night where I realized it wasn't going to add up. Somehow I am two stitches short on a portion of the chart that I am positive I am on. I did consider the possibility that perhaps I had jumped a row unintentionally, but unfortunatly I don't think it is so. And I went over and over the row in question before I tinked it back (which was about as fun as a root canal with no anesthesia due to tons of double decreases) and could not find a counting error on my part. So I followed the chart as it was written, either I can't count and read a chart at the same time, I am a row ahead of where I'm supposed to be, or there is an error and I didn't know about it. But nobody else seems to be having this issue so I'm thinking its just me.
So I'm punishing the lace with a crocheted baby blankie I started years and years ago. It is also pink (though more of a rose than a bright pink) and lacy. It would be more lacy but when I started it I had no concept of gauge and how important it is, and it was way too done before I finally saw the light. Not worth ripping it out just to get more drape, it'll be fine the way it is. And it only needs a border! Maybe my cousin will like it for her little girl. We'll see, either way it'll be cute and finished and maybe then the lace will behave.

Lost...

And Found. I had been working on a Mystery Shawl, and totally misplaced everything. The yarn, the pattern, the whole shebang. I was digging through my closet last night and saw a backpack I don't typically use. Curious I decided to see if anything was in it, and lo and behold! My missing Mystery Shawl.
Seen here in a scrunched and bunched state. Sorry, I'm using Boye Interchangables and they're not the most flexable of cables (and I chose a shortish one). It'll be gorgeous if I ever finish. I'm at the very beginning of clue 3 of 5. I remember now that I took it up to northern Fl when I went with bf. They go hunting up there every year and we were bringing their new camper up there to get it set for this season. And it's not real interesting for me...so I brought lots of projects, including this one. Which I didn't work on because I forgot post its to mark my row and I get lost in charts without post its. Anyway, guess I forgot to unpack the whole backpack when we came home. Probably just got lost in the shuffle of moving bf into the apt, and then having to move me in a few weeks later... I'm thrilled I found it, since I just signed up for the newest one and still have the Anniversary Mystery Shawl to do too... It's gonna be lace central around here for a while.

Photo Finish

I finished the blanket with a mere 15 hours to spare, maybe not as dramatic as the Yarn Harlot who is capable of pulling these types of feats with mere moments to spare...she posses a magic that i know not. But either way, it is finished along with another bib and a pair of baby socks.







Proud mama to be seen here examining the right side of the blanket (which means I got a shot of the back. But I figure that people want to see how things are made up and finished and all that jazz so here ya go.
Here's the right side (notice that she's modeling the bib :-p) Cute eh? Pattern is Courthouse Steps from Mason Dixon Knitting. Kind of modified it to fit my own needs and voila! I thought she was going to have a coronary over the bib, then she found the socks and she was really excited, and then she got to the blanket and I was worried about her going into labor. But it's nice to have handknits appreciated. Wait until she finds out that I still fully intend to knit her a literal stack of bibs. Later on she can always use them for washcloths if she wanted to. I'm bummed that I didn't get any pictures of the little socks, but they're adorable! If I have enough after making a grown up pair I will do another set.
Managed to convert another "muggle" to a knitter. One of the girls in my class has been watching me knit for 6 months and decided that she wanted to learn how also. I almost started pushing websites and books on her but figured that the best way to keep her interested was to back off and let her figure things out for herself. Thats my method with bf's sister too, leave her to her own devices and see what happens.

Bibs, Bibs and More Bibs

Once I finished the original bib that I started way too long ago to admit to, I've been churnin em out like they're going out of style. Which they might, we all know how picky babies are these days...

This was a teaching tool for my bfs sister. She decided that she wants to knit (yay) and that I need to teach her (uh...ok). I figured this would make a good starter project, its got minimal shaping, but is interesting to do and is garter stitch. And she'd have a baby gift for someone out of it. She's decided that her bib is more of a washcloth, which is fine. After all it is a beginning project, it can be whatever she wants. But this was made for my good friend in nursing school who is expecting (the same one the blanket is for).

She will probably kill me for posting this if she ever finds out... But here's the "baby" modeling her new bib. I'm planning on knitting a pile of bibs for this baby. She will never want for clothes protectors.

This bib is for my other friend that just had a little girl in June. The uneven coloring of the red and blue make it look very country to me. Kind of like painted wood that has been distressed. Its right up her alley, and is just too dang cute for words, especially with the little star button.
These bibs have given me my very first experience sewing on buttons, and apparently I need practice. But they'll stay on and its a live and learn moment. I also didn't know that buttons could be so expensive! I'm a sock knitter mostly and it never occurred to me that buttons were so pricey. The star buttons were worth it, they're so cute. I also have little yellow flower buttons for some of the bibs with yellow in them. I'm excited, but I've also got to hurry. These presents have a due date of exactly one week from today. We'll see if I make it, it's gonna be a close one.

Baby on The Brain

Let me start with announcing that I am Not pregnant! The projects mentioned in today's post are for a good friend of mine who is expecting a little girl sometime this fall.
This is the bib from Mason-Dixon Knitting, made with Peaches & Creme on size 6 needles. It still needs a button, but its so adorable it hurts. Its actually brighter in person, but since the computer doesn't want to read the memory card properly I had to make due with a phone picture. Sorry, I'll try to be a better blogger next time.

This is the yarn for the aforementioned baby's blanket. I was glad I asked her mommy what colors she liked, because she said brown and pink...and I was going to do a wild multi colored blanket similar to Noah's. I'm still doing a blanket from the Mason-Dixon team book, but I'm using Courthouse Steps instead of a traditional Log Cabin. I'm not doing the pattern exactly as written though, I'm kind of making it my way. It's turning out cute though, I'll get a picture of it in progress as soon as i finish an entire round. It's a weird thing, I hate taking pictures of these blankets if the round isn't complete. Something about it bothers me, I don't know why.
Fay totally missed us, a whole lot of worry about nothing. It didn't even rain on Tuesday! We are feeling her a bit now, it's been windy and stormy for the last few days, but nowhere near what they were predicting for our area. The barometric pressure changes have made for a few interesting evenings at work though :-p

Hurricane Party!

Oh goodie, tropical storm Fay is out there waiting to come ashore. Just in time for the kids to go back to school...lucky little kiddos. Getting a bit nervous, this is my first ever real tropical storm, we've been lucky the last few years and they've all passed us. But it might mean massive amounts of knitting time if we have to stay in all week.
I finished mom's first Christmas sock, I've nick named them the Ho Ho Ho socks because they seem like socks Santa would love.




Regia Nations, I think its supposed to be Italy, but don't quote me on it. I'm not really very good with international flags. I was in a LYS with bf's sister showing her the ropes (she wants to learn how to knit) when she spotted this and exclaimed over how cute the Christmas sock yarn was. I corrected her that it was actually flag themed, but saw her point when I looked again. So Christmas socks they became, and my mother has no idea they're actually for her.... Knit on them in front of her the entire trip, listened to her hint about how much she loves them, and managed to not blow the secret. This is a first for me, usually I can't keep a secret.

Edited to rotate top photo of Ho Ho Ho socks, genius that I am put in on here sideways and never noticed.

Back to Work

Or so I thought...sorry to interrupt the knit blog with a work issue, but it's so stupid that it bears repeating. I've been on orientation at a local hospital for quite some time now (first job as a nurse) and was unceremoniously kicked out of the loop last night. I get up to the floor, split the assignment with my preceptor so I have my own patients that she can check on if needed. Do my initial assessments and vital signs, come back to the desk only to find that the floor manager has called. Her brilliant command to the charge nurse? Send me home after an hour and a half! And she knew I was coming in earlier and never said a word! She let me drive to the hospital, establish a relationship with my patients and then sent me home.... Interesting approach, if my mother didn't work at this hospital too I'd probably have pitched a massive hissy fit on the phone with this woman, but she does and I got the job partially on her recommendation. I don't really mind the orientation bit, but I didn't sign up for any hours the next 2 weeks because I was planning on orienting still! Major problem, improvisation is needed now to figure out how to make this work. Almost feels like losing the job, even though I haven't. Maybe I'll get lucky and get called in for OT.
Anyway, rant over. On the knitting frontier I've gotten totally addicted to baby socks, they're so fast and so adorable! And so great for leftovers from adult pairs. There are only a few issues with this:
1) Not having babies, which means I either have to store all of these or give them to friends that do, which leads to;
2) Not enough people I know reproducing to merit this number of baby socks planned. The few I do know mostly live here in FL, not a whole lot of call for wool socks in 90 degree weather.
3) Which leaves charity, but these are bigger baby socks, probably around 6 mo, and I work with newborns (and the FL thing comes up again here).
So I guess I'll just send out as many as I can stand to and keep as many as I have room for. Gotta start making some boy socks though, so far they've all been girly. This makes it seem like I've made 20 pairs already, which isn't even close, but they're all planned. Shame I can't seem to finish any pairs for adults that would count for Summer of Socks. I am still at 0 for pairs completed! I do have 1.75 socks completed...but they're each singletons. Oh well, it's still been fun to participate in an online event. Must light fire under own behind to complete pairs.
Next post will have pictures I promise, I haven't taken any lately and my computer is not loving my memory card right now. So as soon as I get it figured out there will be photos.

Welcome to Hell

That was my first thought last night as my cat decided to meow every second she wasn't touching my person. She played a fun game all night too, here's how to play (for all the cats out there that want to mess with their owners.

1) Meow when not in presence of human pet
2) Jump onto bed
3) Walk in circles for a few minutes
4) Decide that under the covers is where you really want to be
5) Nudge human pets head until she lifts covers
6) Crawl underneath and fall over
7) Decide 5 minutes later that its too warm under the covers
8) Crawl out
9) Roam apartment
Repeat steps 1-9 until human pet is driven so totally insane by this pattern that she decides to cave and sleep on the living room floor. By the way, my living room is quite a bit cooler than the bedroom for some reason, so not only was i on the floor, but i froze. Was the vacation worth all of this?

Yup.
View is from the top of this lighthouse:

On different days obviously. This is the lighthouse on South Manitou Island in Northern Michigan. My dad is the maintenance supervisor of the island, so we got to go to the top before the tour. And get pictures like this one:


See us up there? We're the specs in the somewhat middle of the lighthouse. Cool eh?

Announcing

The Arrival of Mr Noah Benjamin. He arrived among rather tragic circumstances within the family, but he is a very welcome addition.Cute as can be, and I'd be willing to bet he'll be as sweet and smart as his older brother is.

Seen here together in this heartbreakingly adorable picture that I just can't stop staring at. I've met so many babies through the years but never has one touched me the way this little guy has.

And here is Noah's Blankie, all finished and given to the little guy. I was going to try and get a picture of him with it in the hospital but I had already given it to his mommy, it was 4 am and I was Not waking her up! Sorry about the weird edge appearance, they are actually straight... I just didn't straighten them enough for this picture.

Pattern: Log Cabin Blanket

Book: Mason Dixon Knitting

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft

Colors: White, Soft Yellow, Mango, Lime and Blueberry

I loved this pattern and fully intend on making another blanket for a friends baby that due this fall. Thank goodness this new little one will be a girl baby. New color palate to play with, but this blanket matches his nursery almost exactly, totally by accident.

Anyway, tomorrow we leave for Michigan for 8 days! I'm so excited I can hardly breathe, and I have no clue how I'm going to fall asleep with my heart beating out of my chest.

Josephine

I have coveted this sweater pattern since it was published in Knitty in the Fall of 2005. It's knit with a bulky yarn though and I'm kind of afraid of bulky yarn because I'm afraid of looking, well, bulky. I'm not exactly small and fear that a bulky cabled sweater might make me look like a marshmallow person. But with knitpicks Wool of the Andes Bulky being as inexpensive as it is I've decided that it's worth the risk. This is going to be an interesting ride...might want to stick around, it could get ugly.

Pics from the 4th

Here they are, the long awaited pictures from the 4th! Just kidding, but it is a good time to introduce 2 of the nephews (his not mine) that figure pretty largely into my life. We spend quite a bit of time with these little guys.

Curtis just about to burst with excitement and anticipation. He had been looking forward to sparklers all day.

Curtis getting his dearest wish, he finally got his sparkler lit. He was so excited he promptly dropped it in the bucket of water we had standing by.

My artsy shot of Caleb (Curtis' little brother) with his sparkler. I tried to get one that didn't include mommy's legs, but it blurred. Oh well, its still neat looking.


Here's Caleb in a shot where you can actually see his face. And what a cute little face it is.

We never did actually formally go to any firework shows, but while we were driving over the bridge to come home we saw two seperate shows, one on each side of the bridge. It was pretty neat, couldn't hear the booms though. Oh well, can't have it all.

Summer of Socks

I am a participant in Summer of Socks 2008, and am hopelessly behind. Most people have knit whole pairs of socks by now (its already 2 or 3 weeks in) and I'm still on first socks of both pairs! I blame work, school and knitting for the new baby thats due into bfs family in a few weeks. I'm trying to work through my shame at being behind this far, but its not going very well. I'm also trying to bribe myself into finishing the first socks of the pairs so I can start the second, so I can move on...but thats not working either. We won't mention how I'm choosing to bribe myself, it makes me seem insane... Anyway, time to have a hit parade of a few things i have actually made progress on in the last couple of weeks (since I have no sock progress to brag about)

These are the last pair of socks finished before summer of socks started. These go quite well with my pink scrub pants, and I can see the great sock thief (aka my mother) trying to steal these. I'm sure that topic will be elaborated on in later posts, for now lets just say that she ain't gettin em.




These are a pair of No Purl Monkeys, the picture is awful but its the best I can get for now. Maybe I can con bf into helping me get a better one. These are also for me (which seems selfish, but mummy dearest has her fair share of socks that were supposed to be for me) though I'm not very happy with how they've been washing and wearing. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill supersocke and it just seems floppy. The stitch definition is great though so it might be a decent trade off.
Pictures to come of nephews blankie, its grown substantially since the last picture i took.

First Post

Ok, hopefully third try will be the charm. I was hoping to be a better blogger/historian with my second try, but since apparently either my username isn't in the system (when i try to sign in) or it is (when i try to sign back up). So I've gone thru the back door and created a whole new website...again. Anyway, it's getting harder and harder to name new blogs so if this one doesn't work it's all over for me.
I named this place what it is because I am a knitter, and I'm under 30 (which always seems to shock people). So I'll admit, not the most creative name ever, but see above paragraph about how hard its getting to name these things. I'm also an RN student and am currently working nights in a local hospital as an LPN, which means the stress level is about thru the roof over here. I have become famous in my classes for always having at least one sock in progress with me and I'm participating in Summer of Socks this year. Personally I see this as the perfect reason to buy loads of new sock yarn and needles, so I can use them up this summer. We won't discuss how counterproductive it is to try to use up yarn while buying more all the time, makes me feel bad.
Anyway, fingers crossed this blog makes it longer than the 2 posts i did on the second. Here's hoping...