Rejoining the World of the Knitting

The house has sold, the move is done (goodbye St Louis, hello Knoxville), and I am officially a stay at home wife, or at least until I become a stay at home mom. I'm just not sure it would be worth finding a job when I think we might be moving in a year or two, with an unknown period of time before the move. So, while I haven't been blogging, I have been knitting:

So
here we have a baby hat loosely based on the umbilical cord hat and matching magic slippers pattern, another hedgehog for our little girl, a gorgeous Aeolian shawl, and the Stella cable cardigan from French Girl Knits.  I think I need to reblock the sweater, since it is a little pointy on the sides, but it should do nicely this winter, especially if the baby belly doesn't recede as quickly as I would like.


Blogger also seems to be doing some odd things with the formatting here, so it is not intentionally odd.


I'm currently working on a BSJ for baby girl, and I need to get buttons on the Presto Chango sweater I made for her with leftovers from the Stella sweater.  I'm also working on a hat concept that I've had in mind for at least a year, and trying to decide what I will do with it once I get a pattern written up.  Should I submit it to a free pattern e-zine, like Knitty?  To a pay-per-pattern e-zine like Twist Collective?  To a traditional magazine like Interweave Knits or Vogue Knitting?  Or should it just be offered on Ravelry as either a free pattern or for sale?  I guess I figure it out after I've got it done.


We had a trip planned to visit Seattle at the end of the May, and it is likely some stash enhancement occured, even though we don't really have the room for it in our townhouse.  (We'll need all the room we can spare for Baby Girl's things.)  The food is really great there as well.  Sometimes I miss living there, but there have been good and bad things about all the places I've lived so far.  We definitely had fun revisiting some old haunts and visiting with a friend still in the area.  It's likely our last big hurrah before Baby Girl is born.


I'll have to write another post including my new stash yarn and hopefully a few baby sweaters with buttons.  We'll see how much more I can finish before the next few weeks!

Knitting and Sugar

So I have finished the Laminaria shawl...it is still in it's unblocked, lumpy lace state. I still like it, even though it is mistake ridden and unblocked. The reason I picked this shawl was because I liked the look of the lacy edging, but after knitting it I have fallen in love with the star pattern in the center of the shawl. That star pattern is definitely aiming to be in something else I knit.

I have also knitted a little pig for my brother's kitty. She apparently loved the mouse toy I had made Jack, so I went through my stash to find a female kitty yarn color. Pale pink is perfect for a little girl kitty, right? Only after I finished it, I realized that instead of looking like a cute pink mouse, it looks more like a pig. So I curled up the i-cord tail for a cute piggy photo. (I apologize for the poor lighting. I didn't get all the photos before the sun went down.) Even with my limits on knitting time, it was a pretty quite project...only 90 minutes (a day and a half for me).

I am starting to work on a neckwarmer made out of some lovely hand painted spun silk purchased at the local weaving guild sale. It is from Coloratura Yarns, although I cannot find the yarn type on their website. Isn't it the most gorgeous blue?


If only I could have counted right for the first row I was doing...I think I have cast on for this about 5 times. I've finally gotten farther than the first row, so hopefully everything will go swimmingly from here. I hope I can find some gorgeous buttons for this; I'm knitting it flat with buttonholes because I'm not exactly sure how far the 160 yards will go, and I want a decently tall neckwarmer. If I like how this turns out, it may have to be knit again so a decent pattern could be written.

So I, like many others, preordered some of the Sock Summit Dye for Glory colorways from Three Irish Girls. Just so you know, they are running crazy behind where they thought they would be. I think Carolyn got a bit miffed at me for emailing to ask about the status; I just wanted to know if I should expect it this month or the next, or sometime after that, since I hadn't seen an update anywhere about how far they were through their orders. I wasn't trying to annoy them or insinuate that they weren't working hard (which they are...12-14 hour days 7 days a week per Carolyn's email, which is way too long for anyone to work). I was particularly worried about the neighborhood dogs getting into the package while no one was around...it would be a nightmare going around trying to find salvageable yarn if several dogs had ripped the package to shreds. It makes me cringe to think about it. So apparently I should be getting yarn this month, which is exciting. I just hope no one there is too ticked off at me. Blargh.

On another note, I have also been baking. I made these cookies for our Christmas Goody Day at work. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of them, but obviously they didn't look quite as pretty as the one in the magazine. I totally burnt the first batch, and I think the others were burnt around the edges. Who would have thought the bake time would be 6 minutes or more less than suggested? They seemed like an awful lot of trouble, especially when they didn't taste as spectacular as I thought they might. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely tasty, but they took forever to make, so I'm not sure the time/taste ratio was enough in favor for these to become a part of my repertoire. I was super excited, though, to find out how to candy citrus peel. I ended up cutting the peel off of my morning grapefruit and candying it. Then dipping them in chocolate. What can I say? (Here they are getting ready to go into the fridge so the chocolate can set. This might be a dangerous addiction...hide your citrus!)



If you find the peel missing on your citrus, look for the candied variety to appear in a day or two!

New Computer=Regular Blogging?

Thanks to the fact we have a new faster computer that doesn't leave me wanting to kick it down the stairs, I hope to become a more regular blogger.

A few personal updates first. Hubby and I are trying to figure out where we really need to be, since there doesn't seem to be any available job opportunities for him in the area right now. Unfortunately (or fortunately, whichever way you see it), I really do like where I work and the people I work with. Boo on highest unemployment rate since I've been born. At least I have a job though.

In knitting notes, it has been long enough that I actually have a decent amount of FO's. I particularly like this shawlette (Fountain Pen Shawl).



Elizabeth Zimmerman's Snail hat is a little silly looking when someone is wearing it, especially when it is bright orange. But I have to admit, it is warm.



I also did a very modified version of the Shopping Tunic, which I have already worn several times. It does require a camisole beneath it, since the armholes are a little gappy. By the way, isn't that just a lovely example of bathroom mirror self-portraiture? Note the artistic angle, which gives it just the right effect.



On the needles now I have Laminaria. I have unfortunately made quite a few mistakes on it, and hope that no one is so bold as to point them out to me if I do decide to wear it. Only about ten more rows to go on this shawlette, and I am not frogging it to go back and fix the mistakes. I can live with them. At least, I hope I can. If not, Laminaria might reappear in a different color later in the blog.

After Laminaria, I'm going to use some fantastic silk yarn to make a neckwarmer. The yarn is from the local weavers guild annual sale and is a lovely watercolor sky blue. Just the thing to spoil oneself. I hope that I can find some fantastic buttons to go along with it as well. If it turns out, I might just write a little pattern for it. We'll have to see.

Now, it is already past my bedtime, so anything else must wait for a later date.

The gift scarf, and, A sock a month for 11 months?

First off, here is a photo of the gift scarf while being blocked. It didn't turn out quite as long as I would have liked (apparently I overestimated how far 440 yards would go on size 0 needles). It is definitely wider than I thought it would be as well...thank goodness it came out okay after blocking. I thought it was going to be ridiculously short. It still is on the verge of needing a shawl pin, and I might still get one before it is gifted. Next time I think I'll used bigger needles; maybe a size 2 or 3. Overall I am pleased with the result and am amazed at the power of blocking.

The LYS, Knitty Couture, is having a pair of socks a month knitalong this year that I decided to join midway through February (of course I would, it is the shortest month!). After knitting this sock to the beginning of the toe and deciding that it swallowed my feet, then starting over and somehow casting on one to few multiples of twelve and having to rip this out after the heel turn, I started over on my first sock. On the 19th. My first sock was done on Saturday the 21st, and I finished the second sock just in the nick of time on the 28th. I probably would have been done sooner if I had been able to continue at the same pace, but my hands were hurting and I took a few days break. I can't figure out if my hands hurt because of the yarn, or because I was using dpn. Either way, I love the result.

I just love the rainbow heel. DH picked out the yarn for me, and it is a super happy yarn (Ripples Craft, Carnival colorway). The pattern is the Rib Fantastic from the book Knitting with Handpainted Yarns. I think my sock posing turned out rather well.


Somehow yesterday I got conned into making a pair of socks for my husbands size 14 feet when we were in the yarn shop and he was looking at the blue sock yarn. In order to make sure that one sock is not significantly higher than the other, I am starting my first pair of toe-up and two at a time socks. Right now this only covers three of his toes.


I really love the yarn...it is certainly a lot softer than the previous sock yarn I used. Knitting with this yarn with the two circulars doesn't bother my hands as much either. Thank goodness for that. I don't know if I will do a stockinette foot or start a 2x2 rib on the instep that will be continued up the leg. I do want to try a short row heel, which will be another new experience for me. My goal is to have this pair done within four weeks, so I will have some time to start the next pair (for me) before the end of March. Don't worry, that is allowed. I also want to work on a hat pattern that I would like to submit to Knitty, but I will probably post it here if it doesn't make it. I'm also working on trying to figure out my first cardigan; hopefully some progress will be made before winter rolls around again. So, all in all, there is a lot on my knitting plate. Oh, that I had stayed a monogamous knitter!