Frogging is ever so much fun

Ok, so I actually don't mind frogging. I've knit entire sweaters and frogged them with no qualms. Frogging can be healing, inspiring, even fun. I've already frogged the pi shawl's with horrid edging. But the fun's not there in this one. This one just pisses me off. I should've known better. I saw the pictures, knew something wasn't working out right and kept on knitting. AGAIN. Just a few short months after the pi shawl incident. See those 12 rows of ribbing above the cables? Yes? They shouldn't be there. There should be cabling from the very start. damn damn damn. Well, all I can say is God Bless Ravelry and God Bless Ravelers! A very sweet raveler messaged me that she did the same thing it looks like I did, misread the pattern to think the first 12 rows of ribbing in the pattern meant an actual 12 rows of ribbing instead of the first 12 rows of the pattern as it really did. Damn. Thank God for her as this saved me from knitting cables and increasing and such through the yoke and THEN finding out something wasn't working right. A few evenings' work is much less to frog than a few week's worth.

I know it's hard to imagine, but I'm a diehard optimist. I ALWAYS see the good in things. It can be quite nauseating, actually. It's this little voice that tells me if I just hang in there and stay positive, things will work out. Things always work out, right? I think it comes from a love of disney movies. I still freaking cry at each cartoon. Yes, even stupid non-disney ones like Kung Fu Panda. I can't help it. Even though I'm looking right at something not quite right (like an appendage on a shawl that does not call for such a thing) I keep knitting. Just keep knitting, just keep knitting. Believing it will work out. It must be a "ta-da" moment at the end, right? Kind of like the magic of the EZ baby sweater. Ta Da! I am GOING to realize that most patterns are NOT baby surprise sweaters. If something doesn't look or feel quite right, it's probably NOT quite right. I'm going to take my patterns and my knitting to a knitting friend (it's not like I'm not surrounded by amazing knitters, you know) and ASK SOMEONE's ADVICE. That's my resolution. My August 25th resolution. My New Year's resolutions never stick. Maybe my Aug 25th one will.

So, tonight it's off to the ball winder, or yarn baller, as Jeff calls it, to unknit this beautiful cabled masterpiece. Thank God someone got to me before I got through the rest of the yoke and then had to frog the whole thing. Ah well. Live and Learn.

On a brighter point, my aunt from California is coming to town! She's the one that said she retired to become a "knitress." I love that. Of course, she now travels the world to knit and live life to the fullest. She's off to Italy for the SECOND TIME for a knitting class. MAN I've got to get myself retired soon. I'll be bringing my aunt Dot and my KC aunt out to MisKnits on Wed. night for their UFO Night. Come out and say howdy if you're in the area.

Can you spare a square? Or give me back my sockyarn?

OK, so I know it looks like the earlier pictures, but it's BIGGER now. It's now officially baby blanket sized. If I were a good aunt, I'd gift it to my niece-to-be so that the child can grow up chewing on fabulous wool sockyarn. But, I'm not giving this blanket up yet. It's a memory keeper of all the socks I've knit. When I go over it I can tell you what sockyarn each is, where I bought it, when I knit it, whom for, and usually a story of what was going on in my life at the time of the knitting. Of course I can't tell you where I put my keys and have lost my wallet IN MY HOUSE again. I've done that 4 times in the last 3 months. cripes almighty. Hey, I can't put gas in my truck, but I can tell you what yarn I used to knit Joey's sk8er boi socks. Yes, that's helpful in everyday life. Ah well. I have decided the baby girl to be needs a garter stitch blanket, and have one in progress. I've started on my 2nd square for this sockyarn bits blanket and hope to make 4 and seam them together with possibly some more blocks around the outside of the whole whopper once it's almost couch potato lounging sized.

Anyone catch the Elaine Spare a Square Seinfeld reference? Yes, bathroom humor at its finest. SO, a couple of weeks before the dancing incident, I was taking a creative knitting break. On super stressful days with monster deadlines hanging above my head I need a little help to calm down and tackle the work. I take a break. I knit. Stall knitting. Hey, we've not got a nice lobby or anything, and this whole working-full-time thing is seriously cramping my knitting time. Knitting is my prozac. You won't like me when I'm not knitting. You work with what you've got. If Bathroom Knitting a few rows keeps me from killing people, I think that's a small price to pay, don't you?

ANYWAY, I'm quietly sitting and knitting. The sockyarn ball had a little snag of a knot in it, when I gave a tug, it popped out of my bag and rolled over to the lady sitting next door. There's a little "uummmmmmmm, is this yours?" and the ball is handed back to me under the stall wall. I say "thanks." She says, "You're not crocheting in there, are you?" laughing nervously. I laugh back and say "of course not, I'm knitting." Laughter stops. Dead silence. Welcome to my world.

I've also been working on this and that when not knitting away on my sockyarn blanket and daughter's K State socks. Lady February Sweater in orange Cascade 220, the neck of Wisteria in cascade 220 heaters, from the Twist Collective, have you SEEN that site? Oh I am in love! Also bought the new book from Wendy Bernard, Custom Knits, which I had to call all the bookstores in town to find. The Barnes & Noble in Town Center in Leawood, KS had a few copies when I snuck out for a "quick break" and hauled ass across town to get my book! Cast on for Slinky Ribs last night with some sunflower yellowish silky wool from the stash. OH MAN I love this book. It's right up there with my love of Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel.




Speaking of Stefanie Japel, you know a woman just can't have too many sleeveless wool sweaters. Right? Well, a fabulous YARN SALE at Knit Wit in Olathe, KS is now the reason I'm knitting matching sleeveless mock turtlenecks from Fitted Knits for my daughter and I. Scored some purple frog tree worsted wool at half price, HALF PRICE I SAID, and as soon as I can get some knitting done on these projects they will be the next to be cast on. Measured my daughter and think making the body skinnier will be easy, no real waist shaping needed, but will have to figure out how much to shorten her diagonal armpit to shoulder raglan seam.

Knit Wit has apparently lost her next door storage space, so is putting a LOT of yarn at half off. I saw Frog Tree, Nashua, cashmere, all kinds of goodies. Get out there and check it out if you have a chance. She's also got a ton of plastic tubs full of yarn for $3/skein as well.

I also felted up some bags. I made four of the little bitty ones that still need icord straps knitted and felted.




Happy weekend, happy shopping and happy knitting everyone!

At least I'm a graceful knitter

Have you ever leaned over the bathroom counter to the mirror to check your eye makeup, kicked your leg out behind you for balance, then thought Hey, that felt like a ballerina, pivoted around on your toe, doing a little kick swing thingy to get your spin just right, decided that By God, you WERE a ballerina and did a full spin with your hands in the air above your head in a graceful swan lake kind of style, ending up facing almost exactly where you started out only to hear not imaginary applause, but a gasp and see some woman standing there holding the door with her mouth gaping and moving like a big fish out of water? Yeah. me neither. That's why I now have to go to the bathroom on another floor in our office building.

You know, back in the 90's when aerobics was king, I tried. I really REALLY tried. My gym asked me to go to the "special class" just because I would get carried away and really into the music, kicking and grunting and doing all that crap, while wearing leotards and leg warmers --I'm sure they were acrylic ACK-- and would OCCASIONALLY grapevine the wrong way and knock many, many preppy leotarded women flying in all directions. Preppy, leotard clad women don't like getting knocked off their plastic steps onto their cute little butts. Jazzercise in the early 2000's wasn't much better. But at least they were smart and you put a lot of space between each of the exercisers. I did much less damage there, but decided maybe that wasn't the thing for me either.

Grace is not my thing. I turn corners and hit my shoulders on the wall. I've been known to fall off a barstool while NOT drunk. That's another reason I love knitting so. With yarn and needles, I can make anything. I swoosh, I click in rhythm, it's soothing. It's beautiful. It's graceful. I create beautiful, graceful things. (usually)




The start of the February Lady Sweater, (ravelry link) in the coral cascade 220 given to me by Chery. I do love garter stitch. Chery's almost finished her sweater in a gorgeous kettle dyed green. Mine is just getting fun. 2nd buttonhole on the next row! I'm using Elizabeth Zimmerman's Difinitive One Row Buttonhole from her Knitter's Almanac July chapter. Genius. The star is a bit of the fiddle faddle from August's chapter. I've also got two green trees, but left them at home so they didn't make the photo shoot.

Oh and I get my best photos on the sidewalk outside my building. The light's fabulous. Filtered, indirect, beautifully shows off the stitches. Yeah, can you imagine what they think of me now? Oh, that dancing-in-the-bathroom woman? She's the same one that crawls on the ground taking pictures of yarn? Oh.....Yeah......Her.

I forgot how much fun this could be!

Pre-sewn up and pre-felted, can't wait to see how they turn out!

At this stage, pre-felted knits are like cute little babies. You still have such hope for their futures. Your visions of what these little things will become is rosy, you can't wait..... They haven't gotten warped out of shape where you have to tug and pull and fight the fiber, cursing and crying and stomping around.... or am I the only one that does that when parenting felting? Can you tell it's been a long couple of weeks? :)

Holy crap was it hot at the lake. The WATER was even hot. We'd boat for a little bit, pull over into a cove, hop into the water and cool down. As we would swim, there would be HOT spots. Not a little warm, not eeeeewwwww why's the water warm over here, but WOW that water's HOT, HOT HOT HOT and everyone would go swimming over to where somebody else hollered "there's cold water over here!" then "OH NO, it's HOT again!" No visits to the hospital, so it was a good weekend all in all!

no pics, heading to the lake

OK, so I'm in a rut, not sure what to knit. So, I go stash diving. It's ever so much fun. Go ahead and try it yourself. It works best if spouses are traveling. Then you can get SERIOUSLY stash messy. Piles everywhere. Even though I have almost everything on ravelry, it is so much different to be putting your hands on the yarn, squooshing the yarn, smelling the yarn (GOD there's nothing like the vinegary smell of Schaefer yarn!). I didn't actually roll around in the yarn, so it wasn't that bad. I was really tempted to pile all of it up and jump off the bed into it, but figured with my luck and lack of any grace what-so-ever and the fact that we really don't need to go to another hospital for a while, thought better of the idea.

I've now got 3, count them 1-2-3 big ass bags ready to felt. I haven't felted a bag since I first started knitting and moved on from the schaefer anne scarves phase. They are fun, dammit. I didn't even realize that I'd missed them. Pics soon, I promise.

We're off to the lake for the weekend as a last-minute-decided trip. Crossing fingers and needles that no one busts any part of their bodies, gets stung, bitten or chewed upon by anything poisonous or creepy, and that no one barfs in the minivan.

I'm off with NO SWEATER or large project on the needles. I'm almost done with the 2nd K-State sock for Elizabeth and have NOTHING going. NOTHING. I am seriously out of whack. I've got about 3 projects' patterns printed out, yarn wound (using the "yarn baller" from Jeff. I can't even remember the name ball winder, yarn baller is so much more descriptive), ziplock bags packed. We're off! Have a good weekend!

OH and thank you to everyone for the good wishes and prayers for Joey. The boy did fantastic in his surgery. Things healed well, nothing horrible was cultured up in there and the MRSA Staff infection he cultured in his lungs last time didn't even read on the cultures from the surgery. WOO HOO! Now we've survived a week with a VERY active boy who can't run, jump, get out in the sun or basically be a boy. The leashes are off and he's off and running again.

Wishing us all a weekend with NO TICKS and LOTS of knitting time!