What's going on?

So what's going on with me? Not a whole heck of a lot. I'm still plugging along on my first Bayerische sock. But not enough to post another update. 

I'm mostly waiting for the weather to get nice.  And when I say nice, I mean *really* nice.

As of right now my area is under a later winter weather storm warning.  Joy. ... or not.

*ahem*

On Good Friday this year I had the day off from work and my son had no school.  The weather was gorgeous. So gorgeous that we took two walks that day.  And Saturday, March 30 we took a short walk and came across this on our road.

So totally random that I love it.

I haven't met all my neighbors so I don't know who was whimsical enough to make these guys. You can't tell but the one on the far right is actually a dog. Totally made me smile.

After the nice weather of Easter weekend the weather pattern has shifted again and while we are still in the 40s, it's a windy, damp 40s temp. 

But you know the saying about not liking the weather; wait a day or two.


At the end of March we sold our minivan.  We immediately had regrets.  Actually, we told the couple that came to test drive the van that we had made the decision that if they didn't purchase it that we were just going to keep the van.  Well, the people loved the van and bought it much to our chagrin.  I'd say within 5 minutes of signing the agreement DH and I were like "Oh no, what did we just do?"  Seriously, the van was that good.  It was pretty sad to see the van drive away and know it was going to a new home.  I was consoled by the fact that it was going to be much appreciated by the new family.  They currently have three kids under age 6 (I think) and those three kids, who were all still in carseats, had to share the backseat of a Cavalier.  Eeks!  That's not much room.

DH hit the Cr*aiglist listings and we ending up purchasing a truck.

It's a 2002 Ford F150 (boy I hope I have that right.)  It's in pretty fabulous shape and a metric TON of fun to drive. It gives a fantastic ride.  It's already been fitted with a ladder rack and she's (Yes, it's a she) ready to start hauling all the things we will need for the dream deck that is being planned for the back of the house and ...

a chicken coop.  Yes, we are going to get some chickens.  This past Monday I went to the local feed store and put an order in for 10 Silver Laced Wynadotte chicks and ...

six Guinneafowl. I'm not sure what breed of Guinnea fowl we are getting though ... the guy didn't ask and I didn't know enough to be specific.  No biggie.  They are due to be delivered on April 30.

We can't wait.  My DH has been doing research and has already got a pretty firm idea of what kind of chicken coop he wants to build.  I'm pumped because we are gonna have chickens and the Guinneas are going to eat all the bugs and ticks.  If this is the peak year for tent worms, the Guinneas are going to gorge themselves silly, I think.

While I did some research on these two breeds I came across a good YouTube video about the Wynadotts and a cute video about a Guinnea stealing a dog's food right out from under his nose.

There hasn't been much baking going on.  I guess I'm feeling to antsy about the changing seasons.  I just can't wait for the warm temps and the sun.

Service project

Back in March one of my knitting friends sent out a call asking: "Will you join me for a service project?"

One of her friends was collecting little afghans/quilts to donate to her local local hospital for the NICU and for the hospital to give out those those have suffered the loss of their child.  The smallest ones being 8" x 8" and up to regular sizes.

I thought "Hey, I can do this." and I said I would help.  I made three blankies and sent them off in the mail yesterday.

This was my first blanket. It was 8" x 8" and made from some leftover acrylic yarn I had used to make my son a cabled hat. It's pretty soft.  After I made the main part I was stumped for a border.  Remember, I'm a newbie crocheter so I needed something simple.  One of my friends came to the rescue and taught me a border.  Thanks! :-)
 

I made two blankets out of this yarn.  They were both 12" x 12"  The picture doesn't show the true color, unfortunately.  It's a soft green color. The yarn is Bernat Baby Coordinates and here's a better "color chip" courtesy of the Bernat site. The color is called "Iced Mint".

 
 Love and kind thoughts were crocheted into each stitch.

Bayerische sock update II

After fighting with the increase row on the Bayerische sock and then realizing that I was messing up the cable twists I frogged the sock after the third or fourth row.

Woe unto me.

After telling some of my friends that my hands were sore after working the increase row and my difficulty in making the increase stitches they all told me I was knitting too tight.

After pondering some of the stuff that is going on in like I have to agree that I was knitting too tight.  I don't know if I always knit that tight or if I was knitting tighter than usual because I felt I should because of using  US size O needles.

In any case I cast on again and was sure to knit l-o-o-s-l-e-y.


The second time around I kicked that increase row's butt.  HARD.  I rocked it.  No foolin.

I have now completed two repeats on the cuff of the sock.  I'm ready to split for the heal

Unfortunately you can't really see the pattern in a picture.  I'm not sure if it's the lighting or the variegation of the sock yarn.

I also color coded that pattern.  There was no way I was going to make mistakes on the twisted stitches again.

I'm still goofing up.  But I'm catching it fairly quickly and not having to tink a lot of stitches back. Twice, at the end of rows I was adding on a second purl stitch.  So I have a design element because I was not going to tink back and get rid of the stitch.

I now know that I can *not* work on this sock when my son has decided he needs to talk.  When he gets going he is *quite* the chatter box and I very easily lose track of what row I'm on.  -- EVEN THOUGH I've got color coding going on, row is marked with magnets *and* I've got a row counter going.

*sigh*

Once I got going on this sock I am pleased to see that the rows are going quickly.  It's nice.  After taking more than an hour to do the increase I was worried each row was going to take *forever*.

Bayerische sock update I

My hands felt better today so I started working the leg of the sock.

Why?  Why am I making this sock?

Oy ... Four charts with cable chart things that I'm not used to working with.

Then, I ended the first row with two extra stitches.  Oh my word. ... and I'm *trying* to keep the stitches nice and loose.

I think these socks will be my Mt. Everest.

I thought making the WendyKnits Pi shawl a couple years ago was tough.  Uh uh.

I'm gonna have to tink back this whole row ... and try it again.

Crafting update

Friday night I cast on for the first Bayerische sock.  That was a whole lot of 1 x 1 ribbing.  This morning I worked the increase row before starting the leg of the sock.

Ouch!  The purl 1 increases kicked my butt.  And trying to twist and increase those tiny stitches made my hands ache.  I'll be taking a break from this until tomorrow, ... maybe. 

I haven't had the chance to do any spinning but since I had been talking about spinning recently I thought I'd post a recent picture. 

I'd say it's a heavy lace weight.  I wish I could remember what the fiber is, but I don't.  It was stuff I dyed myself for Tour de Fleece 2012. Perhaps in my notes from last year I wrote it done, but I don't feel like looking it up right now.  The fiber is soft and easy to spin with.  I do enjoy seeing the subtle changes of the blue to green and back.  It's quite calming to spin.

And introducing ... the Angry Birds. I enjoyed working each one of them, but I was glad to finish the last one.  My son is asking when I will crochet up the "King Pig"  I have no idea if I will make a second pig or just plunk a felt crown onto the pig that's already made.

 

Here's the yellow Angry Bird.  He was fun and quick to crochet up.  

Here is the blue Angry Bird pattern.  I  need to fix one of the eyes and re-sew the patches below the eyes.

The white Angry bird was the first one I made.  It turned out much bigger than I expected it to be.  But it was still adorable.  My son loved it.

The green pig may be my favorite.  I love that the face.

But the one that cracks me up the most.

It's this one.

The boomarang bird.   The nose absolutely cracks me up.

 

The nose is HUGE and I'm sure will be the subject of  many jokes down the road. 

All the patterns I used were easy to follow. That was really nice since I'm still learning how to read crochet patterns. 

I made the birds using Red Heart acrylics.  Is it just me or has Red Heart gotten softer?

Bayerische KAL

I'm going to be participating in a Bayerische sock KAL over on Nimblestix .  I think it's going to test my skills as a sock knitter with all the cables and twists and turns of the pattern.

Photo from www.eunnyjang.com

The original "pattern" is over on Eunny Jang's website. There is a recreated pattern in a  toe up version, here on the KnittingSwede's old website. 

I don't have any metal US Size 0 DPNs but my DH found me a set online and ordered them for me.  I do have a set of wooden DPNs but I can't see myself using wooden one's long term. I can be a tight knitter so I think they probably snap while I was working on these socks.

I dug through the stash and pulled out a skein of sock yarn that I got last summer from the Forbidden Woolery "Hansel and Gretel" yarn club.

Colorway: "Into the Woods"
Yarn: Wrath base, 80% SW Blue-Faced Leicester; 20% bamboo
100 grams/435 yards.

It's super squish and soft.  I can't wait to ball it up and start working with it.

Court House square

Last week I made a second square for the "We Can Do it!" skill builders SAL hosted at SewnByLeila.

This one was almost as easy as the first square. It did come out a bit wonky. I was being interrupted a bit and I wasn't sewing as carefully as the first square. I'm still pretty happy with it.

Log Cabin square

Monday night I made my first quilt square for the We Can Do It! Skill Builders SAL by sewnbyleila.


Log Cabin Square
Finished June 20, 2011

Thoughts? I loved it! I had so much fun sewing it. I did the cutting Sunday night so Monday night I just had to pull out the sewing machine, set it up, sew, iron, repeat.

This morning I cut and pieced together the bits I need for a courthouse square. It *might* get done tonight. :-).

Fabric for We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler

On Friday I went up to the Wal-mart in the city next to me. None of the bolt fabrics caught my eye. I meandered around the aisles and came across a wall of fat quarters.

I had no idea they sold them as singles or as packs. I grabbed a pack that had some prints and a pack with some coordinating solids. I love the floral prints. To me they are timeless and traditional. You would be able to pass on to someone and more than likely it would fit in somewhere. Specially since you put in a lot of time and effort into what you make.


These colors go with my living room, I think. Even though it was just a little bit more to purchase the 7 packs of quarters to me it was worth it rather than trying to pick and choose through the singles. I didn't want to grab a jumble of different colors.

Skill Builder Sampler sew along

I came across a skill building sew along over on Sewn by Leila a few weeks ago. I am just pumped over this. I've been wanting to make a quilt for years. But have not known where to start or what skills I should have.

This gives me the perfect opportunity. I can work at my own pace, one block a month, and she will be giving us step by step directions. Awesome!

I still haven't picked out the fabric because I'm not sure how much I want to get for each pattern/color. I will do that after the directions for the first square comes out.

I mentioned this over on my knitting group and a few of the ladies are going to participate, which makes me even more happy. We can go through this process together and help each other out.

Now I got my little blog badge over on the right side. I feel so official! :-)

Wendyknits summer mystery shawlette

In May Wendyknits.net announced a a summer mystery shawlette KAL. Since it was a shawlette I knew I would be able to keep up. I did! I am so proud of myself.

It started May 15, 2011 and I finished June 3, 2011. One day after the final clue was released. Something came up the day of the last clue so I wasn't able to pounce as soon as the last clue was released.

Knit with US Size 7 needles

Yarn is from Forbiddenwoolery.etsy.com

Sock yarn. I misplaced the ballband so I can't say the colorway just yet.

It blocked out to 62 inches, tip to tip, and 23.5 inches from top to bottom.

I am quite pleased with the pattern and the finished product. It started out a bit rough but smoothed out as soon as I got past that first row.

Waltzing scarf

Me and a bunch of my online buddies did a KAL/swap and used the Waltzing scarf. It's a fabulous scarf pattern.


This was my first time using Malabrigo yarn. It was divine to work with. I don't remember what the colorway was called. But it was mostly blues and some purple bits. And so soft. So very soft.

I believe I did 35 repeats. By the time it was blocked out it was at least six feet long. Blocking was a bit interesting because I couldn't find any T-pins. I may need to invest in some blocking wires. I did do a couple modifications. One purl between the repeats instead of three.

The people I showed it to loved it. It was hard letting it go but I did ship it out this past Tuesday. My swappee got it yesterday. She loves it! Which makes me really happy.

The knitting doldrums

So the last several weeks I haven't had it in my to knit or spin. I did both but my heart was not in it. For a long time my two projects was the Adamas shawl and the vanilla sock. The vanilla sock is hardly anything to get excited about and when I made the mistakes on the Adamas shawl and had to frog I felt all my enthusiasm deflate.

Combined with the other stuff that is going on my life I decided to just set everything aside and decompress.

Well, it worked, I think. I've been enjoying all the stuff that we have been doing at our land. The garden is doing great. I took photos but they came out all blurry. But I have actual veggies growing. We've got peas, beans, little baby cukes and one tiny little tomato so far. DH and DS have been out hunting raspberries the last week or so. We thought we'd have to bring raspberry canes in and to our happy surprise there are raspberry canes all over the place. So the plan is to get some blueberry bushes and strawberry plants for next year.

So after decompressing I've felt pretty great the last few weeks. I gradually moved back into spinning and it's been great. Tour de Fleece has really helped with this.


The fiber is Gillyweed from theforbiddenwoolery on etsy. So far I've split it into thirds and I'm still working on the first third of the braid. I've been spinning at least 20 minutes most nights. It's been pretty great.

And I've started working on a shawl out of some acryllic yarn. The Simple, Yet Effective shawl.


This pattern has been exactly what I needed to give my knitting mojo a boost. It's mindless but not too mindless. I've been working on it since middle of last week.

When this shawl is done I think it may be an office shawl. ... Not completely decided yet. After this I suppose I should start thinking about any Christmas knitting that I may do this year.

Playing catch up

Or as one of my friends would say, a state of the knitting.

Well, that fiber that I got at at the beginning of the month was spun up into 2 singles.



159 yards of yumminess. I got it from forbiddenwoolery. Not enough to do a pair of socks like I had hoped. I didn't figure the WPI for it either. I think I can make a cowl with the amount of yardage I have.


While we are on the topic of spinning. I have something to share:


This is about 28 yards of what I would call lace weight shetland yarn. Last year another SIL gave me a couple fleeces from one of her friends who has a few sheep. I took a bunch off of the fleece and processed it. Then spun it up on my wheel. No plans for it whatsoever but I sure felt a sense of accomplishment with it. Next year I think I'm going to get a drum carder.

I've also been working on the Adamas shawl in a KAL with my BBs.

Yarn is Knit Picks laceweight that I dyed myself.


A close up. Don't you love the varigation?

I'm also working on a couple of gift knits so I don't want to post about them yet.

I also have a sock on the needles. Just about ready to turn the heel on it.

I'm using this pair to figure out my very own vanilla sock pattern. First time I have taken the time to count the rows on the leg and the heel flap. But it has made things easier. I'm knitting the sock in a 2 x 2 rib. It's gonna be so snug! I'm debating on continue the ribbing through the foot.

I also knit a pair of worsted weight socks for my SIL for her bday. A pair of lovely purple socks in Berocco yarn. Alas, I forgot to take photos of them. But trust me, they were very nice :-).

Well, I guess that's about it for now. When I put it all down it sure seems like a lot has gone on the last month, but I feel like I haven't accomplished much.

Off to a shaky start

My Olympics project that is. I swear, I can over analyze a thing to death. I did a crochet provisional cast on directly onto the needle. Then I didn't know what to do after that. So I think I sat there for quite a while. Then I "got it" and I have three rows of Ice Queen done. Then I quit for the night.

The opening ceremonies were beautiful. I loved how they integrated the First Nations into the program. I was surprised at the time when it was all done. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't stay up that late normally.

Knitting Olympics time

Are you ready? I sure am. ... Well, lol, maybe not completely ready. I still have to learn a provisional cast on and I need a US 5 16-inch circular. But that needle is for the cast off and it's on order over at my LYS. Maybe if it doesn't come in time I can just use DPNs. ... maybe :-)

I am NOT waiting til opening ceremonies to cast on. I have to figure out the provisional cast on and I figure that could take me a while and I have to cast on 150-something stitches for Ice Queen.

It is going to be an exciting two weeks.

Olympics knitting project

So the BBs decided to have a Olympic KAL/CAL. I'm majorly excited about it. I stopped the the LYS today and got yarn to make the Ice Queen from knitty.com. I have beads, though I'm not sure if they will go with the pattern. I may be making another trip to the LYS.

I think this is the yarn. It's from Skacel knitting.com.

We have so much fun in the bunker. It's a great group of ladies and gentleman. Stuff going on all the time. This is the first time I will be able to participate in a KAL there. I was going to do the Febuary Lady sweater KAL, but I didn't have the right yarn.

The importance of guage

I decided to participate in a KAL for the February Lady Sweater by flitknits.com. I have a bunch of acryllic yarn that I decided to use for it.

Not too long ago I was listening to the manicpurl.com podcast and Chrissy was talking about qauge. She had decided to do a gauge swatch for a sweater and take all her measurements, etc. and she was surprised at good the sweater turns out when you take the time to do a gauge swatch, prep it properly, and take down all your measurements. With this still fresh in my mind I started swatching Saturday.

I swatched on size US 8 (Got 14 stitches for 4 inches), then size US 6 (Got 14.5 stitches for 4 inches) and finally US4 (Got 16 inches for 4 inches). Some told me that I was a loose knitter.

I watched my guage swatch go from loose and drapey, to smaller, dense and kind of stiff.

I asked for input and came to the conclusion that this yarn was not for the "The Lady" I figured that there was just no way that I could be that loose of a knitter. The knitting sure didn't feel loose on Size US 4 and US 5.

On a "Oh for the heck of it" moment I dug a small ball of Cascade 220 that I have and started a small swatch. I got a couple inches into it on US 8 and measured. Guess what? I got 17 inches to 4 inches. So I'm only guessing that if I dropped to a US 7 I would get guage.



So I pondered this for a few moments and got up to go get the original yarn. I compared the yarns side by side. The yarn I origianally swatched with is MUCH thicker than the Cascade 220.

No wonder I wasn't getting gauge. Now I have to decide if I want to continue with the yarn and just try my hand at a smaller size or buy new yarn.

This weekend taught me that not all yarn weights are the same even when they both say that they are the same weight.

Progress ~ Serendipity

I figured I'd share a photo of the progress on the MS KAL 4 (Serendipity)

If you can see the measuring tape on the side you will see I have about 8 inches done. I'm about 7 rows or so into clue three. (Row 79 or 80)

Now that I'm sharing about Serendipity I guess I will also share that I'm having a bit of a hard time with it. I count the stitches when I finish a row. I *very* carefully make the stitches on the right side. Count the stitches, purl on the other side, count the stitches and go back to the right side and then have an extra stitch somewhere. *This* confounds me. I usually end up doing a K2tog but it does not happen too often.

If anyone else has that problem, please let me know that I'm not alone!

So far I've been flying without a lifeline. This amazes me as well. Especially considering all the problems I had with Seascape. Lifelines saved me some grief there.

FO alert! Seascape stole

Can you believe it?! I finished my Seascape stole yesterday right before going to an open house Christmas party.


I'd say that it was Wednesday I picked it up and felt my knitting mojo just go to town. I finished the last repeat and Thursday night and Friday I finished the ribbing part on the end.

*doing happy dance*

Now I can concentrate on the MS KAL4 stole. I don't think I've taken any photos of it yet, but only gotten as far as finishing clue 2 on one side. I printed out clue three the other night and am excited to start it up again. Specially now that I'm to a point where there is no beads. They slow me down something fierce.


In Christmas knitting news I've finished all that I'm gonna knit. I took photos for most of it and will eventually post them, lol. But I did have to get the word out that I finished Seascape. :-)