Rip, Rip and Rip Again

So, I'm working on this lace sweater for a friend of mine who was supposed to be coming sometime this week. Apparently he's not. THANK GOODNESS as I am having a heck of a time with this pattern. I had to rip the back at least 4 times before I decided to utilize stitch markers to mark the pattern and keep me focused! I need one of Lynn's magentic boards so I can leave the repeat as the only thing I can see on the pattern and prevent any further confusion.

As you can see, I've come about halfway up the back in this picture. There's also a picture of the sweater I'm working on. It's Reid from knitty.com. It's CUTE AS CAN BE and I know she'll just LOVE it. I love the color, too. I can't wait until it's done, but at this rate that will be in like 2 months. I'm being such a slacker on my blogging that I can't remember much of what transpired that night. I don't think there were any memorable quotes, but if there were I can't seem to find them.

OH, I

finished

and BLOCKED the 30 stitch cable scarf. Here's a picture of it finished. I think it looks pretty cool! I might make another one in a darker color for a guy. Maybe a navy or something.

Dead Silence Fills the Air

Okay, it was just toooooooo creepy that there were NO CUSTOMERS Thursday night. We had the whole upper deck of Starbucks to ourselves. That was just weird. There was LOTS of knitting on our top down raglans. I was dilligently trying to finish the cammo baby sweater so I could get cracking on mine. The yarn is so pretty!! *giggle* This is a very interesting angle of me knitting on the baby sweater. I finally finished the durn thing this week. I forgot to bring it on Thursday so you can see how cute it is!! I will have to bring it next week.

I also started my top down raglan sweater. I've put it on hold because I'm trying to make a baby sweater for my friend who's supposed to be here sometime soon. It's a rather lacy pattern that I've had to frog three times already. I'm slowly working on it so I don't mess up the pattern. I think I will be able to finish it in time now because my friend has to have physical therapy for his back.

There was lots of sock knitting that night. Judy wanted to see someone's socks but she was eating Quiznos. Hence the quote, "Come here you Quizno's greasy handed girl!" Then there was talk about someone going to the middle. At this point, I can't remember who was talking about it. My brain is like a seive. Anyway, we were talking about there being more deaths from auto accidents than from acts of terrorism. Which lead to this quote, "When they blow up the busses, is that a traffice accident?"

This last one, I have no idea what we were talking about. I just thought it sounded REALLY funny. "I think I have the chicken on Russian Prime."

The Adventures of Knitting Girl!

Nina, Dione, myself and a few others were discussing the adventures of Knitting Girl! Mild mannered LYS owner by day and ruthless knitting vigilante by night! She knits garments and nets to capture crooks in her busy metropolis. We were trying to think of a name for her nemesis, Crochet something, because crochet is evil! *giggle* She knits nets and garments. We figured sweaters would be good because then they could just go to the homeless after the crook has been removed from the hand knit item.

We were also talking about our quirky cats, mostly, but other pets were mentioned I believe. *waving to Lynn and her cresteds* LOL Hence this quote from Dionne, "It's a saucy rat. It must be punished!" I'll just leave it up to your imagination what were were talking about. I'll give you a hint, it's a cat toy.

Nina is working on the perfect sock pattern for her foot. I think we should all alter patterns to fit is more perfectly and socks are an excellent item to play with to cater to your foot size and shape. She hand-dyed some yarn - a very pretty variegated green and other colors. However, only the cuff was knit in that yarn because, as she put it, "I didn't dye the white."

I finally finished my purse scarf. Now I just need to get some more yarn to start another one and keep it in my purse. I need to block it, though. It's a 30 stitch cable, crossing 15 stitches. It was much easier to do with a stitch marker than a cable needle. I guess if I had one of those U shaped cable needles, it might have been easier. Anyway, here's a pic of me wearing it and a somewhat close up of the cable part. I need to block it so you can see the cable crossed. It's very loose. I really like it and might make another one like it. Here's a pic of me holding it open as if it was blocked. I want to block it open enough so you can see the cable being turned, but want to try and keep some of the fluidity of the scarf. It looks really interesting NOT blocked, too. Hmmmm...what to do?

I'm still working on the cammoflouge baby sweater for my friend that hunts with her brood of boys. It's so cute! I will hopefully finish the hood tonight so I can bring it in for show and tell tomorrow. Then I'm going to make a pair of matching CARGO PANTS from Knitty.com. They are SO CUTE! Then it's on to the top down raglan. I'm a little paranoid on this one. I haven't knit without a pattern so it should be interesting to see if I can pull it off. I need to go back and re-read Svetlana's directions.

Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!

Well, actually it was a flying pig, seal, and many other creatures that were either knit or crochet. We talked about naughty knits and knitted lingerie. It was a very interesting to find out about those books. I can't wait to get my hands on one and see what's in it!!


I was working on a sweater for my friend in the Bernat camouflage yarn. Her and her whole brood of boys hunt and I thought it would be a cute gift for her. I'm going to make the kntty.com cargo pants for her, too! I know at least 7 people who are preggers right now, so I will be knitting my hands away.


I purchased this cool yarn while in Pennsylvania. It's Sofa yarn. I looks really cool! I called the store and ordered a different color to make a scarf for the lovely lady I'm staying with. She has a camel colored coat that this yarn would look AWESOME with. Here's the green color. The beige is soooooo pretty, too! I just got it in the mail today.


Christine was making this cool bag out of recycled plastic bags from the grocery store. You fold the bag and cut them into strips and then knot the strips together to make the "yarn." It's really cool looking. Here's a pic of the bag. That's me sticking my face through the hole. It's actually kind of a cool looking bag for the market and stuff.

So, I also went to the Socks and Lox at Wegman's on Sunday. It was a nice relaxing Sunday morning just running our mouths. I had some french bread and low fat Muenster cheese. YUM!! So there's one quote from Cindy that day. "Every time I measure it it's 11"!" She's making this GORGEOUS cowl. I can't wait to see it when its done.


Some other quotes from the Thursday night meeting:

"There's a book about Twinkle?" I know, it just struck me as a funny sentence. I immediately went to elementary school when I had to learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 7 different ways. Gotta love piano lessons.


"If nobody made it for us it's not that important." That's just a good way to look at life. We all meet to make hand made goods for our friends and families. It nobody made it for, then it's just stuff and has no meaning. I love it!


"We don't need no stinkin pattern!" Yes, we're doing a raglan top down patternless KAL. I'm scared sh*tless! I've never made anything without a pattern. I hope it works!!


"It's a voodoo seal!" Yes, we had little figures knit or crochet. The seal did leave something to be desired. It was cute, but, like we said, if we had seen a picture of it beforehand, we probably wouldn't have made it.

Lots of Pictures Tonight!

Okay, so I missed our meeting last week. Some people know why...if you don't just ask. I'll tell ya! So, last week I intended to show off the possum merino yarn that Mom brought back from New Zealand. *giggle* My friend from there thinks I'm nuts for having a wool fetish. *giggle*

I had also planned on showing off my attempt at Kool-Aid dying! It was soo much fun!! And messy! The microwave is a little dyed itself. LOL The yellow was lemonade. I put it in a jar and followed the directions completely, but I guess the skein was too big and it came out slightly mottled. So, I thought, why couldn't you try multi-colored? So I did! The one on the right is Orange and Black Cherry. The black cherry never did turn clear after about 10 minutes of dying. I had Lemonade in there, too, but it didn't come out right so I stuck the whole skein in the Black Cherry and let it cool in there. Don't know what I'm going to do with the yellow one, but I'd like to make a pair of socks with the two skeins on the right. Yes, there's two there. Hope there's enough for socks!!

Okay, so I was on this scarf exchange. I suggested it on an MB that I'm on and someone took it and just ran with it! We had a GREAT time with it and plan on having a dish cloth swap in April sometime. I receive this GORGEOUS scarf in the mail, (thank you Laura) and have worn it almost every day since! It's SUPAH warm and just beautiful! The general consensus is that it's Malabrigio. I haven't heard from her as to whether it is or not. As soon as I find out, I'll update this post.

There are a couple of quotes from that night, but I didn't bring that bag with me. I will post them with next week's quotes. Here's a link to the pattern that was used for my scarf:

http://firebrunette.blogharbor.com/blog/FREEPATTERNS

Okay, here's a picture of the scarf I made for my exchange person being as I had to send it off without getting a picture of it!

I'm a Slacker!

So, this post belongs with the group meeting from January 25. I'm a slacker, I know. BUT I have a good excuse...I work in an accounting office. That means 10 hours days and 5 hour Saturdays, which I WILL be looking forward to this weekend. Those that know are giggling to themselves right now.

So, here's a picture of the shrug that I wore to the VERY interesting Operation Smile benefit January 20, 2007. I spent most of the night staring at the wall listening to lots of famous Vietnamese people talking in Vietnamese. I have no clue what they were saying, but the food was decent. My co-worker and her date had the most fun I think. There's a picture floating around the office of him pulling a dollar out of her cleavage. It's very funny, but I didn't post it here. This is a PG rated blog!!

Things overheard while I was there that night:
"The Knitting Nijas!"

Poor Lynn was playing air hockey puck with her car in Maryland and was all battered and bruised from her seat belt and air bag. Someone suggested, "You could say it was a sexual asphyxiation accident."

"So if I knit that I would I look like that?"

"We should have head we can stick in there." This is the picture that prompted that last quote. It's a recycled sweater tote and the collar is a
pocket at the top of the bag.

Went to Mom's last weekend we took pictures of us in our matching turquoise sweaters. Doesn't she look like fun? She's just the most awesome Mom!!

I can't wait to see what everyone thinks of the possum merino that Mom brought me from NZ this week!!

A Trend Has Started!

So the shrug was ALMOST done for me to wear tonight. I have like 30 more rows before I can REALLY cast off, but I tightly cast it off and used a pin to keep it on my shoulder. It needs to shrink a little so I might toss it in the washer and dryer when I'm done. It's always a toss up if the sleeves will fit my batwings or not. I will finish it before Thursday and get on with the scarf exchange scarf I'm working on. As we're chatting away the night, everyone is listening to the good quotes to post on the blog. I, luckily, had a book and Judy had a pen so here are some of the goodies that spewed forth on Thursday night:

"Sometimes you gotta have hot pink toes." Ain't that the truth! The pattern calls for X amount of yarn and for some reason or another you just don't have enough. For those that buy hand dyed yarsn...well they're screwed! You can TRY and match the same dye lot or just go for the hot pink toes!!

"You say that like making your child look like an artichoke as a bad thing." That one's just a visual quote. Imagine it...all green and spikey.

"If I sat papason style, I could fit all of my inside and there's a LOT of me" Okay, imagine the HUGEST sweater known to man!! Well, not THAT huge, but I think a few of us could have fit into it at the same time. It looked so puffy warm too!!

"You're good at math." "No I'm not." "You know how to count." Okay, that one needs no explanation.

Knitted Thongs and Other Topics Discussed Last Night

I'm not exactly sure how we got on the topic, but it was a rather hilarious one. Apparently, there was a knitted thong on display at a LYS. The discussion turned from innocently discussing it's whereabouts and why it was taken off the shelf to someone trying it on to see if it fits. "Honey, I think you need to add a few more short rows." Because short rows are necessary to make it larger...I'll let your imagination wander on why one would need short rows.

Then there was a mention of the thong being felted and why in the world would you want to felt it? It should be an open weave!! *giggle* To allow things to breath!! That only seems logical to me. Well, from there it all went downhill!! I don't think I've laughed so hard in a looooooong time! Tears were streaming down my face. I'd like to find that pattern, though. *giggle* I bet I'm on someone else's blog about things they overheard US say Thursday night!!

So, the person that never has more than one UFO going at once, now has three. I started a sweater for DH. Then needed circulars to finish the sleeves so I started my scarf exchange scarf. Well, then the Knit Picks Shine came in for my shrug that I need next weekend so I started it. I have to finish the shrug first! I need it for my shoulders on the blue velvet dress for the Operation Smile Benefit we're going to. This is one of the two sleeves I finished. I started casting on the back, but started

to doze whilst counting and that NEVER works.

So upon looking at the pictures from Thursday night, this picture just made me LOL. My father used to do things like that when he saw a group taking a picture. They never noticed him at the time, but I'm sure it made for some funny pictures when they developed them.

Things Overheard at Starbucks

I think I'm going to write a book called, "Things Overheard at Starbucks and Other Knitting Tales."

Jan 4, 2007 - "Like, I don't like using my brain."
Jan 7, 2007 - "Just tell Brian I'm gay."
Jan 7, 2007 - - "No, I didn't do Felicity." <-- talking about the TV show, mind you!!

I may have to compile a spreadsheet and somehow post it for peeps to see so they, too, can enjoy my eavesdropping in conversations at Starbucks. It's amazing what people will talk about in public and I'm VERY good at listening. *giggle*

My Thursday night knitting group is a hoot! I always have a GREAT time and no matter what mood I'm in, I'm always in a better one when I leave. I just could not imagine knitting without them!! As you can see, I'm laughing in the picture. I don't remember why. I was probably laughing at Judy taking the picture.

Now, my online knitting group is the most giving peeps I know and I am totally honored to be part of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Shawl. I've knitted on two so far, one of them going to a member in the group for her difficulty. We're getting ready to start two more. How MANY shawls can be traveling at one time? Who knows! I'm sure we'll try to set a record. Now if we could only get on Oprah... *giggle*

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year! I went to Mike's in Springfield for an early dinner after returning home from DM (dear mothers) house. I told her I'd drive up and check on the house while they're in the land Down Undah! It's still in one piece. *giggle* She left some money to go out with for doing that so I splurged on Mike's. I LOVE their crabcake and filet mignon combo even though I hardly ate any of the filet.

Came home and watched the TV, put in a couple of movies and watched the last hour of Carson. Popped a bottle of mead and toasted the New Year! Yipee!

Now on to more important issues. Seriously! Just because it says no dye lot doesn't mean you can change the thickness of the yarn!! The new SUPAH HUGE skein I purchased to finish DH's sweater has a TOTALLY different guage than the one I bought previously. What is that about? Just to drive me insane?? Well, it's working!! I'm going with it anyway. He's not gonna notice. I'm the only one...well and fellow knitters would notice the difference and I'm sure they're not going to be pawing at my DH!

Paton SWS

So, I’m on this scarf exchange on a message board and my secret Santa person likes pink. Well, a couple of weeks ago, Linda (one of the ladies at my knitting group) gave me a skein of this BEAUTIFUL pink, cream, and green colored SWS. It is DIVINE! So, I thought that would be perfect when I read that my Santa likes pink. I thought I’d try this modular cube thing where you start with an 8x8 square then cast on 8 on either end and then cast on another 8 at either end then cast off 8 at either end. Etc etc etc. It looks SUPAH cool!

I finish the first square of 8 and start to cast on another 8 and the stupid yarn just falls apart in my hands. WHAT THE? ARGH! So I figure, “Well it’s technically at the beginning of the row and I can just act like I’m starting a new skein.” Which I did. I’m going along well and cast on another eight and cast off eight, then I go to cast on another 8. Same thing happens! *SIGH* I worked a good 8 inches on the stupid thing when I decide that I didn’t like the way it looked. That technique would look good on a more modern type of yarn, but not this BEAUTIFUL SWS. So I frogged it and started a drop stitch pattern instead. It looks gorgeous and I can’t wait for my secret Santa to get it!

The finished Siera Cardigan from IK Falls 2006 for Mom. She's gonna LOVE it! November 16, 2006. 

Yummy pumpkin bread I made for the group. December 7, 2006. 

Me knitting a scarf for my co-worker for Christmas. December 7, 2006. Love the drunk look on my face. 

Nina weaing the hat I made. November 30, 2006.

Cammo hat and scarf I made. November 30, 2006.

Me wearing the finished Fair Isle Sweater from IK Fall 2006. I was cold! November 30, 2006. 

Series of recycled sweater totes from AlterKnits. November 30, 2006. 

Series of recycled sweater totes from AlterKnits. November 30, 2006. 

Series of recycled sweater totes from AlterKnits. November 30, 2006.