Knitting Update.

Here's what I've been working on:

The EZ Baby Surprise Jacket. I'm concerned that I might run out of yarn (Lorna's Laces Worsted in 912 Kedzie, lot 1747... in case you have it). Hopefully, I'll be able to find more soon.  This is what it looks like so far, I added a panic thread, in case I have to pull back to incorporate a new dye lot or something. I think I marhed the pattern where I place the thread, so I don't something twice, or not at all. It Looks really funny to me but ...

This is the drawing I've been presented with in the book. Helpful.

The Paternal Twin Shawl A is coming along quite nicely. The rows are getting longer, at this point there are 11 repeats in each row, then there will be 12 then 13 until I run out of yarn. Honestly, I love it. I was frustrated with everything, wait till you see what I have next, so I picked this back up and finished a whole section in 1 day.

It turns out that you can use a gram scale to make sure you have the same amount of yarn per Mitt. LeAnne from knit night brought her scale (and cupcakes!!!) so I could divide my hand spun for the Jane Austin Mitts. LeAnne asked me if I had my own digital scale last week and I looked at her for a long moment before responding "no...? I'm not a drug dealer...?" The whole table started laughing so hard I thought we would get kicked out. LeAnne replied, "neither am I, they are useful to knitter too!" huh, learn something new every day!

I seriously was having way too much fun being the human swift. The yarn kept pulling off and then I'd laugh and look a little bit manic. It was awesome.

All my balls on LeAnne's scale. I'm trying to tell you, Knit Night is so much fun, I'm surprised Huz lets me leave.

That's Wanda in the back enjoying her cupcake a lot, the Las Vegas Spin Fairy and I love her. She brought me the yarn featured in the bottomest photos. LeAnne brought them because I was came to knit night the week of my birthday and no one knew and she needed an excuse for cupcakes. I provided said excuse. They were from a place here in Vegas called Nothing Bunt Cakes and they were the most amazing cupcakes I've ever had.

This sweater went from here...

...to here...

...by way of her. Lol. KaBean had a lot of fun helping me frog the Borealis Sweater. It felt really good to get that yarn back...

...there was a whole lot of it, and I love it, and it's too pretty to be stuck in a UFO that will never get finished.

 

I just thought this was too cute. Love this girl!

Wanda gifted me with some gorgeous, custom, hand painted yarn in my perfect colors. Probably a little less than 250 yards of beautiful. I chose to do a really neat Moebius Lace pattern, but as I knit along, I realized that I really really hate the purl side of the pattern and need to rework the whole thing.

I LOVE the top, the lace pattern shows really nicely on the knit side, but I feel quite sure that there has to be something that will look better for the bottom section. If you don't know anything about the wonder that is Moebius Knitting, stay tuned, I'll have a whole bunch of posts about it coming up, it's the most amazing, frustrating, tricky things I've learned in a long time.

It Has Come To Pass...

On the first lace row of the last lace repeat, I messed up again. Stupid fucking shawl. Well, not really, I made the mistake of taking it to knit night where I tried to knit and discuss awesome things like the foot ware of various Companions of the Doctor (it was decided that Donna had the most sensible shoes) and the merits of the various yarn storage techniques, a split between cakes and skeins... Turns out I am not at all awesome enough to work a 12 stitch repeat and carry on a conversation at the same time. bastard knitting. I'm so close to being done with section 1 it hurts. I wanted to stay up last night till I got to the seventh row of the last repeat with color A, but when I saw at the beginning of the 2nd row of lace, which is my favorite because it goes k3, tog, k3, yo, k3, yo, repeat. it's fun. But aperently, I still can't count and so it's fun and wrong. So I am about to frog the whole first row of lace back to the plain knit set up row and recount and check the pattern and hope I didn't just ass up and miscount or knit 2 stitches together by accident or anything. Because I'm like that.

I went back to the Knit Night at Panera this week. I was very proud of myself for going back and very glad I did. It was a lot of fun and the ladies that go are all really nice and funny. Turns out that Knitting in Public is a lot like Nursing in Public. Especially in a group like this. We get funny looks and stares, but in this particular Panera I think they might be used to the knitters gathering in the corner because the employees never really look twice, even when I walked in with my whole knitting basket under my arm. It is really nice getting out and speaking to people face to face that aren't Huz of Jump (Jump for Joy). I fel more patient with the kids and more eager to actually do things around the house. Like laundry. Although I still haven't cleaned out the fridge... We did put a real desk in the Yarn Room... Although I'm sitting on the floor in Huz's office typing right now.

Hmm... I'm going to go play, because that can be done anywhere and the kids are done with their snacks.

Cabin Fever

These kids of mine are going stir crazy. I try to take them out every day, at least a little. A stroll around the neighborhood at least. Or to the grocery store. Or on the bus. But it isn't enough for my free range kids. I can tell we are having more power struggles as KaBean starts to get older and needs more freedom but is receiving less. Since I know we will not be here in Las Vegas for very long, I am reluctant to put her into any type of activity or class environment lest she becomes attached to it because leaving is hard for her. This is not a place I will put roots down, so... so why put down roots? Hopefully in a few days we will go Home for a week to get our car and see our friends. And when we come back, we will have a car and can do more stuff. Like the Children's Museum and the climbing gym. And more Farmer's Markets. And I'll be able to go to spinning night at Wooly Wonders, and knitting night with the Sin City Knits folks off Ravelry. For now, though, we're stuck at home, trying to find creative ways to pass the time and beat the heat. 


We play Candyland endlessly, and matching cards, and we color and paint, I even let the kids play with their very own wool. But I'm running out of ideas that don't involve water and wont leave a horrible mess for their dad for me to clean up. We wrestle, we read stories, we play with the geometric magnets on the fridge. They chase Isis, they share, the beat the crap out of each other... I wish I had a picture of The ManChild's mystery black eye. He's just at that height where everything will hit him in face. It's a Fun stage.  


Do any of you sneaky readers have ideas I could try? I know you folks look here occasionally, so maybe you have some ideas. and while I'm at it, How do I get The ManChild to stop eating crayons?




ps- for those interested- I LOVE the Martinmas Shawl again. see that?  can refer to it without resorting to name calling, that's how happy I am with the pattern right now. I love it. Once I got the gist of the pattern... well, tomorrow is Wooly Wednesday over at spinspiration so you'll just have to wait till then.

Still Carless, But I Needed Needles.

Oh my goddess, I've done it. I took public transportation for the first time since I lived in LA. many many moons ago. I went on 2 separate bus trips (but blogger deleted almost this whole post, so this time, it'll just be about the first trip), all for the love of wool. It's true. I wouldn't take a bus to the post office, I'll wait for my car, even though I promised some hand spun to Taryn. I wouldn't take the bus to the book store or Trader Joe's or the Children's meuseaum, but tell me I don't have the right size needles for the Ugly Misunderstood Hat, and I'll take 3 busses across town just to see if the first yarn store I could google, Gail Knits, had them. without calling ahead. 3 busses. for needles, not even yarn. 3 busses for needles that were too expensive after my $5 bus fare. I was a little miffed, but I knew I'd need 6 1/2 inch US 3 DPNs for Kiely's thigh high socks. They had those in my price range, so it wasn't a totally wasted trip.
On the way there, I missed my first transfer stop and had to walk 87 2 blocks back to the street I needed to be on. On the way back, I compensated for missing that transfer stop, so I got off 1 stop too early and had to walk even further to get to a stop that had the right line coming to it. It was 91 degrees that day, but I was alright, I brought water... that eventually turned into iced coffee...

I knit on the bus(ses).

I can't decide if this is the Ugliest Hat Ever, or just misunderstood. If it turns out to be horrible, I can only blame the yarn for being so amazing and demanding to be knit wether I had found the right pattern or not. It's the yarn's fault.

I took pictures of distant mountains and empty fields lots.

Apparently it is considered sideways-glance worthy to knit, take pictures, take pictures of knitting, while on a bus. Who knew?

I came home to this:

That would be my amazing 4 (almost 5, not really, but she insists) year old learning to write. Her 3 favorite letters are 't' 'O' and 'H'... they used to be 'K' 'A' and 'y'... 

Look! I am 100% certain that she wrote 'HOt' intentionally, with no help at all. because she is totally brilliant.