The knitting has not been going well lately. I seem to be making miscalculations or mistakes or some other problem and I feel like I will never ever finish anything again. Unless you count frogging everything finishing ...
Courtney's mitts are not going well and will not be done for another few weeks at least. I ripped the second one back to the cuff, added stitches for the circumference and did the thumb gusset differently. I plan to start the flap/ inside section seperation as soon as the thumb gusset is finished and make the whole mitten wider. When this one is done I will rip the first one back and re-work it. Sigh. I should have chosen a pattern instead of mixing 2 to get what I wanted.
Bob's Escalator socks get frogged also. I should say the second one was frogged. It kept coming out too wide despite needle size changes. It turns out that I neglected to record using fewer stitches in the leg. 56 stitches instead of 72 makes a huge difference. :-(. Another deep sigh. At least now it will go faster.
I have signed on for a new sock race/swap on Ravelry. No, I haven't finished my Tour de Sock socks yet. Why do you ask? I just couldn't help myself. The plan is that you have 4 team members. There will be at least 6 patterns to choose from. You are encouraged to discuss and select sock patterns/colors that your team mates like. You knit 1 sock, send it and the yarn to the next person in line. Then you knit 1 sock of the next pair (all different patterns) and send that sock and yarn to the next person. Same thing with a third sock. Then you go back to the first sock you were sent by a team mate and knit the match for it. The second follows, as does the third. There are prizes along the way and it sounds doable and fun. So I will be in sock knitting mode starting on January 1.
Later in January I will be resuming my KAL with Angela. We were going to knit Capall Dubh togehter and along with the Carol Feller group. School was too much for her this semester so we will do our own KAL in the new year. I am looking forward to that. The sweater is sooooo pretty!
I have a gazillion things on the needles and a gazillion things more that I want to knit. Every time I think I have a plan figured out for my knitting projects, I get side tracked and do something else! I'm not even going to throw a p,an out there at this point. It will just be blown away. I guess I'll just say that I hope to finish some things between now and the end of the year.
I placed an order with Knit Picks today. I have been trying to yarn diet and have been pretty successful. This yarn, though is for a Christmes gift, a sweater for Bob and, yes, a sweater for me. It's a good knit picks sale, though, so the prices were great and most of it is not for me. :-)
ETA On November 29. The Knit Picks order has arrived and I love everything! I also went to my LYS today to support small business. I picked up Cascade 220 superwash in navy and white to make a hat for my brother, 3 skeins of Mirasol Miski (shade 150, which is a teal color) to knit the Shawl collared Cowl and one ball of Lima to knit fingerless mitts. They had a sample of the mitts (Calypso Knits Easy Fingerless Mitts) on the table and they felt wonderful!!!
I started another pair of Mountain Man socks. This time they are for my brother. He has had a recurrence/metastasis of cancer and will be having to go to treatments in the winter this time. He is always cold anyway, so I am knitting the socks and plan the hat (listed above) for him. The hat will be knitted with Cascade superwash (since I know how he will wash it) in the closest thing I could get to NY giants colors - navy and white.
We had a good Thanksgiving though I missed visiting with younger son due to a trip to Target that lasted longer than I thought. We wanted to get an I pad Air for DH since that is the best way for him to read given his vision problems. We got a good deal but I still wish we had not been gone. We don't normally shop on Thanksgiving day and I don't plan to repeat that any time soon. :-(
Tomorrow we plan to buy our tree. I hope to get it set up in the house within a week. I baked cookies yesterday (they came out good for a change) and tonight we are having lobster! It was on sale at the store and we can't resist.
I hope you all enjoy your holiday weekend.
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Sunday, November 09, 2014
It's fall!
The weather out there has been rather chilly lately! Leaves are all over the ground, though in some areas, like our street, there are still leaves in beautiful fall colors clinging to the branches. I need a jacket or warm sweater to walk the half block from my new office to the hospital to see patients. I spent part of the afternoon yesterday pulling annuals and cutting back perennials for the year. That's always a sad time for me. I love fall but I hate to loose the pretty blooms and foliage
My castonitits seems to have eased a bit. I still want to cast on but not as urgently and I have been enjoying finishing things this week. Regarding those cast on items, I finished the socks I cast on for Bob. They are sleep socks, knitted with worsted weight wool, so it's not really miraculous that I finished them in less than a week. :-) I followed the mountainman sock pattern and it worked well.
I also started a pair of slippers, and I finished the first one and have started the second. I have made
progress on Courtney's convertible mitt (the second) and have completed the ribbing, established the cable pattern and started the thumb gusset. Those were things I concentrated on knitting this past week and I feel good about my progress.
I made a repair to a pair of my wool socks and put them back in action, repaired a hat belonging to eldest son and, the big accomplishment - I grafted the Lebowski socks back together!!!!!
I had knitted a pair of Lebowski socks for eldest son last year and discovered after I finished them that I left out a whole colorwork section and the corresponding stripes so that sock was about 1.5 inches shorter than the other. I wanted to fix that but did not want to reknit the sock. I consulted my knitting expert Karen and she advised me on how to do surgery on the sock. Actually, she visited here (she lives in California now) and made the actual snip that started the unraveling after I placed the needles in the stitches. It took me all this time to get up the nerve to try the re-attachment but I did it in 2 sittings and now they are a matched pair. :-))
This weeks plan for knitting is to continue to work on Courtney's mitt, finish the slipper I started, and work on another WIP - maybe socks, maybe the Coast Starlight shawl, maybe the Leaves hat. I'm not sure which. If I feel the need to cast on something, it will be either a hat to be knitted with my Cascade Lana Bambu or the Derica Kane sweater, to be knitted with silky wool from my stash (a previous sweater that didn't work out was frogged).
I spoke with Mom yesterday. She is feeling good, doing pretty well in her new apartment. I think she did very well adjusting to moving from her own, individual house to a downstairs apartment. I am not sure I would have done as well after more than 50 years in the same place.
I thought I would leave you with a few photos that I took while in Montauk. I had a great time taking photos and have a few taken in the same place but in different weather. I'll have those ready for the next time. Have a great week.
My castonitits seems to have eased a bit. I still want to cast on but not as urgently and I have been enjoying finishing things this week. Regarding those cast on items, I finished the socks I cast on for Bob. They are sleep socks, knitted with worsted weight wool, so it's not really miraculous that I finished them in less than a week. :-) I followed the mountainman sock pattern and it worked well.
I also started a pair of slippers, and I finished the first one and have started the second. I have made
progress on Courtney's convertible mitt (the second) and have completed the ribbing, established the cable pattern and started the thumb gusset. Those were things I concentrated on knitting this past week and I feel good about my progress.
I made a repair to a pair of my wool socks and put them back in action, repaired a hat belonging to eldest son and, the big accomplishment - I grafted the Lebowski socks back together!!!!!
I had knitted a pair of Lebowski socks for eldest son last year and discovered after I finished them that I left out a whole colorwork section and the corresponding stripes so that sock was about 1.5 inches shorter than the other. I wanted to fix that but did not want to reknit the sock. I consulted my knitting expert Karen and she advised me on how to do surgery on the sock. Actually, she visited here (she lives in California now) and made the actual snip that started the unraveling after I placed the needles in the stitches. It took me all this time to get up the nerve to try the re-attachment but I did it in 2 sittings and now they are a matched pair. :-))
This weeks plan for knitting is to continue to work on Courtney's mitt, finish the slipper I started, and work on another WIP - maybe socks, maybe the Coast Starlight shawl, maybe the Leaves hat. I'm not sure which. If I feel the need to cast on something, it will be either a hat to be knitted with my Cascade Lana Bambu or the Derica Kane sweater, to be knitted with silky wool from my stash (a previous sweater that didn't work out was frogged).
I spoke with Mom yesterday. She is feeling good, doing pretty well in her new apartment. I think she did very well adjusting to moving from her own, individual house to a downstairs apartment. I am not sure I would have done as well after more than 50 years in the same place.
I thought I would leave you with a few photos that I took while in Montauk. I had a great time taking photos and have a few taken in the same place but in different weather. I'll have those ready for the next time. Have a great week.
Monday, November 03, 2014
A disappointing football weekend
All of the teams I was cheering for lost yesterday! I am, of course, most disappointed in the Ravens very poor performance. I don't think that any of their players did a great job. In fact, I think they mostly played poorly. It's a good thing I had knitting to sooth my tattered spirits. ;-)
I have developed a permanent (it seems) case of castonitis. I resolve to finish this project or that before starting something new and in the new 24 hours I cast on at least one new project! What's up with that?!
I finished a knitted project! I finished Cinder, a lovely soft and cuddly scarf I knitted with Malabrigo Merino worsted in Paris Night. I don't have a finished photo yet but hope to get one, maybe later today.
It's blocked and ends are woven in, so it's ready to wear. :-)
I also finished the first of the convertible mitts I am knitting for Courtney (except for the thumb). I plan to wait on the thumb while I figure out if I want to do the flip top for the thumb too or just knit the thumb plain. I cast on the second mitt and hope to get the ribbing for the cuff finished over the next few days.
I blocked the O's scarf I knitted for eldest son. It feels nice and soft now. I have to embroider the year on it and sew the ends closed.
I am going to put my Capall Dubh sweater aside for now. I was doing this as a KAL on ravelry but also as a KAl with Angela. Angela is overwhelmed by school work and keeping up with family stuff right now, so we will do our own KAL in January. The yarn is Blue Moon Silky Victoria. My colorway is Tempest and I love it!
One of the projects I cast on over the weekend is the Tricky Dick slippers. I want to find some slipper patterns that I can make for the people I love to keep their feet warm. Everyone seems to be keeping the heat turned down to save money and I thought this might help make it more bearable. I am at the heel of the first slipper.
I also cast on sleep socks for DH with some worsted weight yarn. He is always warm but his feet are cold. They always have been and being a diabetic has made that worse. A nice pair of warm wool socks should help. The yarn is Elsebeth Lavold favorite wool in the Prussian blue color and I used the Mountain Man socks pattern to start. I switched to 2x2 ribbing after about 2 inches of 1x1 ribbing for the cuff just because I hate 1x1 ribbing.
I ripped out my Viajante because I didn't like the yarn I had selected and started again with a solid green yarn. Pictures when it's big enough to show something. This is a long term project, one I don't even count in my WIP list.
I have made no progress on the mohair loop with beads. I haven't quite finished ripping my Driftwood but most of the yarn is in little balls. That will be re-knit but not now. There are so many projects to knit on and not nearly enough time. (I know. It's everyone's complaint about their leisure activities).
I would like to say that I am going to finish 3 things before starting something new but that almost guarantees a new cast on project! LOL!
My new job is going well. I enjoy going to work (though I am home today with a cold. I have no voice and a very sore throat).
DH is working on an extended ramp for our boat to sit on in the yard that will prevent it from having to sit in the mud on the trailer and yet allow us to use the parking pad for cars. I can tell when he's been working on that project when I get home. He aches all over and doesn't move as well as normal. ;-) Poor guy. He will hurt like that tomorrow. It's move the rock and tamp it down day and he has to do the work alone since the rest of us go off to work. It will be ibuprofen time at dinner tomorrow!
Mom seems to be doing well in her new apartment, though she is very unhappy with her upstairs neighbors. They do seem to be a bit heavy footed and apparently their grandchildren visit often and like to run around the apartment. Sigh. Nothing we can do about that. Mom is not able to handle stairs so moving her is not an option. She will be coming here for Christmas! I am looking forward to spending time with her for the holidays.
Have a good first week of November and I hope you don't have too hard a time adjusting to the new time.
I have developed a permanent (it seems) case of castonitis. I resolve to finish this project or that before starting something new and in the new 24 hours I cast on at least one new project! What's up with that?!
I finished a knitted project! I finished Cinder, a lovely soft and cuddly scarf I knitted with Malabrigo Merino worsted in Paris Night. I don't have a finished photo yet but hope to get one, maybe later today.
It's blocked and ends are woven in, so it's ready to wear. :-)
I also finished the first of the convertible mitts I am knitting for Courtney (except for the thumb). I plan to wait on the thumb while I figure out if I want to do the flip top for the thumb too or just knit the thumb plain. I cast on the second mitt and hope to get the ribbing for the cuff finished over the next few days.
I blocked the O's scarf I knitted for eldest son. It feels nice and soft now. I have to embroider the year on it and sew the ends closed.
I am going to put my Capall Dubh sweater aside for now. I was doing this as a KAL on ravelry but also as a KAl with Angela. Angela is overwhelmed by school work and keeping up with family stuff right now, so we will do our own KAL in January. The yarn is Blue Moon Silky Victoria. My colorway is Tempest and I love it!
One of the projects I cast on over the weekend is the Tricky Dick slippers. I want to find some slipper patterns that I can make for the people I love to keep their feet warm. Everyone seems to be keeping the heat turned down to save money and I thought this might help make it more bearable. I am at the heel of the first slipper.
I also cast on sleep socks for DH with some worsted weight yarn. He is always warm but his feet are cold. They always have been and being a diabetic has made that worse. A nice pair of warm wool socks should help. The yarn is Elsebeth Lavold favorite wool in the Prussian blue color and I used the Mountain Man socks pattern to start. I switched to 2x2 ribbing after about 2 inches of 1x1 ribbing for the cuff just because I hate 1x1 ribbing.
I ripped out my Viajante because I didn't like the yarn I had selected and started again with a solid green yarn. Pictures when it's big enough to show something. This is a long term project, one I don't even count in my WIP list.
I have made no progress on the mohair loop with beads. I haven't quite finished ripping my Driftwood but most of the yarn is in little balls. That will be re-knit but not now. There are so many projects to knit on and not nearly enough time. (I know. It's everyone's complaint about their leisure activities).
I would like to say that I am going to finish 3 things before starting something new but that almost guarantees a new cast on project! LOL!
My new job is going well. I enjoy going to work (though I am home today with a cold. I have no voice and a very sore throat).
DH is working on an extended ramp for our boat to sit on in the yard that will prevent it from having to sit in the mud on the trailer and yet allow us to use the parking pad for cars. I can tell when he's been working on that project when I get home. He aches all over and doesn't move as well as normal. ;-) Poor guy. He will hurt like that tomorrow. It's move the rock and tamp it down day and he has to do the work alone since the rest of us go off to work. It will be ibuprofen time at dinner tomorrow!
Mom seems to be doing well in her new apartment, though she is very unhappy with her upstairs neighbors. They do seem to be a bit heavy footed and apparently their grandchildren visit often and like to run around the apartment. Sigh. Nothing we can do about that. Mom is not able to handle stairs so moving her is not an option. She will be coming here for Christmas! I am looking forward to spending time with her for the holidays.
Have a good first week of November and I hope you don't have too hard a time adjusting to the new time.
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