Needles and Wool

Felted Tote

Well I can't find a felted tote that is exactly what I want... which in itself is amazing with all the free patterns on the net plus the books I have. So I guess I will try to come up with something myself. Of course this is the second time I am trying this, the first time being last year sometime. I believe I threw away that little experiment gone bad. Second time's a charm, right? I know you're thinking that is suppose to say "Third time's a charm" but nope.... that's only for people who need 3 tries. I only need 2. :) (No need to remind me I said this if I happen to be wrong)

I am making good progress on Shore Thing. Really it's all I have been working on lately, so things move at a pretty good pace when you only work on that one thing. I think I will start Charlotte when I get back from Missouri because I am getting antsy to see how hard it is and what my colorways look like when knit up. Plus I seem to be getting hooked on shawls. I am fairly certain I am going to make another Suede one too. I would really like to have one from the denim suede. I just love that yarn even with all the snagging it does on your hands while knitting. It doesn't seem to snag at all once it is made up.

Well that's all for me until I get back. I can't wait to see my son as I haven't seen him since Christmas. There is still no word where he will be stationed as they have decided to send him to another 6 week class in Missouri after his little 4 day break.

Have a great holiday and Happy Knitting!

At long last

Well they are finally done! I attempted to duplicate stitch the name of Eric's platoon just under the cuff but didn't like how it looked and so ripped it out. It was my first attempt at duplicate stitch and it looked it. I don't plan on starting another pair of socks any time soon because I am just socked-out and small needles are killing my hands these days! You'll note the pattern changed quite a bit after I turned the heel but I was too sick of them by then to mess with them. I can be such a lazy knitter! Looking at them in the picture makes me think of when I was a kid and would spin myself around and around on a swing and then try to focus on something while being all dizzy. Hmmm... sure hope he likes them.

I went right back to work on Shore Thing and have finished up the diamond shape on the sides. The picture was taken before I got this far. Right now I am trying to figure out how much longer to make it before I start the armholes. I also washed a small spot of the wonderful black line I managed to put in it with my lifeline and it appears that it will come out. It had better!

I started a cabled winter hat to take on my flight this coming week to MO for the graduation. The pattern and yarn is from Green Mountain Spinnery. I also have some cotton chenille for the Flower Washcloths from Knitters Stash I will probably take too. I want to make a few more this year as Christmas presents. I made two last year and they were a pretty big hit. I should probably take the Kureyon for the felted bag as it is made on bigger needles which are easier to get on a plane but I haven't decided exactly what I want for a bag yet. It's so hard to decide what to take as you never know what the airlines will deem acceptable. When I fly to DC to see my daughter they don't blink an eye at my size 1 sock needles but the airport in Las Vegas said no way. You would think the airport in DC would be the most strict, wouldn't you?

Hope your weekend was awesome! Mine just flew by. I have been much too busy these days and look forward to life slowing down a bit soon.

Happy Knitting!

Checking In

I toyed with the idea of joining the Charlotte Knitalong but I don't know when I am going to be able to start mine and with my luck everyone would be done before I even got started. So I decided to wait; one of these days the timing will be right to join a Knitalong. Or maybe there is never a good time and you just have to do it...I don't know. All I can seem to concentrate on these days are these never ending socks, my sons (Eric) graduation, and where they are sending him. On Monday I mailed him and his friends about 6 or so dozen chocolate chip cookies and a cranberry bread (his favorite).

I do have exciting news.....I am just about at the toe deceases of the socks! Yes, yes it's true! I bet you are as happy about that as I am so you won't have to hear about these darn socks anymore huh? :) This coming weekend is the last one I have to work on them.... as Eric's graduation from AIT/bootcamp is the following Friday. He still hasn't been told yet where he will be stationed... I bet you can figure out where I am praying he won't be sent.

And in case anyone has been having trouble finding Alysia like I have lately, her URL changed slightly and if you haven't been there yet...well go check it out now and see what you have been missing!

Happy Knitting!

Darn feet sweaters!

I remember after I finished dh's socks for Christmas I said I wouldn't make any more socks for men...especially men with BIG feet. Well clearly I forgot the pain of those socks because here I am doing it again. I wouldn't mind so much if I could put them down when I am sick of them (which I am right now mind you) and work on something else. But I can't because I have a deadline. I hate deadlines! Normally when I start a project that I know has to be finished by a certain date, such as these, I try to give myself plenty of time. But what ends up happening is that because I know I have plenty of time, I only work on them sporadically until I realize all that time has dwindled away and I better start scrambling if I want to finish them on time. I do it over and over to myself as I did with these socks. I really should be more disciplined...but then that takes a lot of the fun out of knitting for me. Or maybe I should just stop knitting gifts and start buying them.... then I wouldn't have these deadlines! I don't know what the solution is.... all I know is I am very sick of these socks!!!!

Happy Knitting!

Nabbed!

Yesterday I went to my LYS to pick up a 40" circular needle. My guild is teaching the magic loop Tuesday night and I didn't have anything that long in my needle collection. Although now that I think of it, I could have made a needle that long with my Denise set but for some reason that didn't occur to me. I planned on being in and out of there is under 5 minutes and I was NOT buying any yarn. I even went so far as to tell dh the very same thing. That was my first mistake. I tried, really I did. But these skeins of Kureyon kept following me around the store taunting me. They were relentless and I was weak, so they came home with me. They want to be a felted bag. I tried to get them in the house on the sly seeing as I told dh before I left that I really was not buying any yarn. But there he was standing right in front of the garage when I drove up. Just my luck! I thought of pushing the bag under the seat but didn't think of that in time and he would have seen me. So I just got out of my car and strolled by him ever so nonchalantly with my little bag that bulged a bit more than it would have with just a needle in it. DH said "I thought you weren't buying any yarn" and I said " I couldn't help it, it was on sale".... and he just laughed and shook his head.

Isn't it pretty?

It is color #52. I don't know what bag pattern I am going to use yet. I want to make it to replace my canvas small project bag which is starting to fall apart so I am going to aim for the size of that and see what I can come up with.

Hope everyone had an awesome weekend. Mine was very busy!

Happy knitting!

Will Friday ever come?

Has this not been the longest week of all time? No? Well it has for me..... I don't know why it has but it surely has. Although I think I think this way every Thursday. I worked on the socks at SNB last night. The balls of yarn are almost gone and I am just a little past the heel. I have never used more than 2 - 50 gram balls of yarn before for a pair of socks but I am definitely going to run short this time. I made a pair for dh who has feet that rival Sasquatch's...although now that I think of it I did put contrasting toes and cuffs on his. Yep that'll help. Anyway, I knew I had 2 more balls of this yarn but I bought them at least 6 months apart. I went searching for them as soon as I got home from work tonight and lo and behold, they are the same dyelot! What luck! So I am relieved they are not going to be totally different colors from the heel down. All is well in Karen's knitting world today.

My daughter Amanda is coming down (up?) for a little visit the first week of June. Did I mention she said she was thinking of giving knitting a try? Damn! I thought I would never hear her say that. Of course, I know that doesn't mean she will actually like it.... although I don't know how you could try it and not get hooked.... but I am trying not to think about it too much in case she doesn't like it. She is thinking she will try a scarf first. Seems reasonable to me. So I am trying to think of the most fabulous yarn I can so I can have it ready for her and when she touches it ....she'll be hooked. That's not bad, is it? I don't think she will want any eyelash type yarn.... and she has this thing about thinking all wool itches so I would like to prove her wrong there. Hmmm and the plot unfolds... :) If anyone has any ideas for a good, soft, fall in love with yarn for a scarf...and if it's not too much trouble maybe needles that knit by themselves and pick up dropped stitches for you too..... drop me a line please.

Happy Knitting!

Knitting Class

Saturday was my class with my newly found Guild, The Nutmeg Knitters. It was taught by Candace Eisner Strick and was a great class. The first part of the day was dedicated to "25 Slick Tricks of the Trade" and covered things like different types of cast-ons that I always read about and for some reason never try, knitting and purling backwards, cabling without a needle, a neater one row buttonhole and many more slick tricks. The second part of the day was "From the Bottom Up", which concentrated on necklines and hems. I learned so much my brain felt like mush when I got home. The all day class was only $20 which seems very reasonable for the amount of material it covered. Candace was a great teacher and is coming back in November to teach a class on the twisted stitch patterns of Austria. I don't know if I will attempt that one yet as it is geared for the experienced knitter.

I've been working on my camo socks and got both heel flaps and one gusset done in the drive down and back to see my Mom. (I wasn't driving ;)) It was a nice Mothers Day. My wrists are killing me again tonight so I don't think there will be much knitting accomplished here this evening. I am thinking I need a little break again from socks after I finish this pair...although I really should finish the second of my lace socks. We'll see I guess.

Happy Knitting!

TGIF!

I thought I would show you the Koigu colors for Charlotte's Web I got from Threadbear. Aren't they yummy? I really like them and can't wait to get started on it but I am not going to start it until I get the camo socks done. I have to have the socks done by the end of May for my sons graduation. I am still on the heel flap of them and haven't touched them in weeks. I always seem to stall when I get to the heel flap for some reason.

I also wanted to show you my progress on Shore Thing.

I messed up the eyelet part on the sides (more than once actually) and so I put a life line in so that I could rip it back easily. I grabbed the closest yarn to me to use as the life line, which happened to be black Cascade 220. Can you guess where this is little story is going? I fixed the boo-boo and now have this lovely pale black stripe going across it. Arrrrgh! I am hoping this is going to come out in the wash. I do the dumbest things sometimes but I can assure you I will never repeat this one again. Just for good measure I have since messed up the eyelets yet again. Apparently counting from 1 to 20 and back again is an issue for me. Charlotte's Web should be a fun ride ....yessiree. I have read quite a few times that people purposely put a little mistake in their knitting because only God creates things that are perfect. Well, I have yet had to worry about purposely adding a mistake to my knitting. I only have to worry about how many mistakes I am going to fix and how many I am going to let slide.

Have an awesome weekend and Happy Knitting!

Las Vegas

Well I am back from my trip. I am still tired and a bit out of it from the time change.....I just got used to the 3 hour difference and now I have to get un-used to it again. Las Vegas was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. It is definitely a different world there, but I had so much fun and am very glad I went. I took a bunch of different knitting projects but the only knitting I did was on the plane. I really wanted to work on the camo socks but the airline wouldn't let me take skinny metal needles in my carry-on luggage so I had to pack them away. I brought along some Lopi and size 13 bamboo's just in case that happened to start a new pair of clogs for hubby so that is what I worked on. I only copied the main pattern however and forgot to copy the little insert that has the cuff and finishing instructions (duh) so they are complete only up to the cuff. But they will be a quick finish when I do decide to pick them up again. These will be dh's second pair as he wore his first ones right out.

I dragged dh to Gail Knits on the very first day we were there. The Mapquest directions I had printed said we were only 10 minutes away and while we tend to walk a lot when we are away, we took a cab because you had to go down a busy highway for a bit. What we didn't realize was that it was rush hour with a zillion lights. So it ended up costing us $25 to get there. Ouch! We took a bus back to the strip at a whopping $1.25 each. That was an expensive lesson! Gail Knits was a very nice shop and if I happened to live in Vegas it would most likely be my favorite. They had a really nice selection of yarns and the staff was very friendly. I picked up some Rowan Summer Tweed in Ghost that was on special there this month. I don't know what I am going to do with it as of yet but right now I am just enjoying having it in my stash.

The rest is vacation blabbing... and very possibly boring to you....read at your own risk:

One afternoon we went out to a horse ranch for a 15 mile sunset ride in the middle of the desert without all the lights from the strip. Then we had a campfire steak dinner. I haven't ridden a horse for quite a few years, as was the case with most of the people there, so it was pretty funny to watch all of us take those first few steps after dismounting.

I also had my very first rollercoaster ride of my life there. Dh talked me into riding the one on the top of the Stratosphere, which is the world's highest rollercoaster. It was scary but not as bad as I thought it would be. I was feeling pretty cocky after that and went over and rode the Nascar Speed rollercoaster which goes from 0 to 70 mph in 4 seconds. I screamed for pretty much the whole ride while dh laughed. The Nascar ride does not make for good hair either and dh seemed to find that pretty funny too when he saw me after the ride was over. I do believe dh has created a rollercoater junkie though.

My impression of Las Vegas: it was dirty (meaning a lot of litter), fun, and I have never seen so many brides at one time in my life. Every time you turned around there was another one. DH's impression of Las Vegas: he has never seen so many large chested woman in one place in his life. :)

I got good use out of my shawl. I wore it every night because it gets chilly there when the sun goes down and inside too because the A/C is always blasting. Funny how the finish is worn off all those tushies don't you think? :)

Happy Knitting!