Newspaper Clipping Archive

p.s. pattern for Belle Shrug nearly ordered. Workable yarn partner found for chocolate alpaca. Snicket sock into frog pond to provide said yarn partner. MS3 progress stalled due to exhaustion, crossed eyes, and inability to read a knitting chart with botched vision. We shall see what tonight brings.

Happy Friday the 13th!

I myself have never believed in the whole 'Friday the 13th' malarky - for the majorly huge reason that I myself was born on a Friday the 13th. So you see, for me, it was a very very lucky day.

No real knitting progress to report here - I proctored a friend's exam today for him and was able to get in an hour's progress on the Mystery Stole3 (I'm now up to row 60 with nary a hitch, I'm pleased as punch to say!) and about 45 minutes of work on my Designing Sock project.

All quite boring blog stuff, as a picture of one will just look like a pearly grey scouring pad and the other can't be shown.

Well, I can at least show you a nicely artsy shot of the yarn I'm using - that would at least be a nice bit of colour on an otherwise text-full page!

There is an extremely good chance that I might have already showed you this picture already. If so my apologies - I didn't sleep all too well last night and waking at 5 to hear the sound of rain pitter-pattering down (a simultaneous joy and horror to me - joy because we're long overdue for a nice soaking - which is exactly what we got - and horror because I knew that at least two of my car windows had been left completely wide open) didn't help.

I had a friend over last night to do some knitting with me after the Munch went to sleep, but alas the little guy knew that I was eager for him to zonk out - with the end result being that he finally fell really & truly asleep around 10:30 - my friend having pleaded exhaustion and left a full half hour before that. I felt so bad that once he was finally down I went downstairs and made a batch of cherry vanilla cookies for her, and this morning packaged up a half dozen to bring in to her as a "sorry!" sort of gift. Don't you know they're still sitting on my kitchen counter?

**headdesk**

In the comments from the last post, my Mom (also known as Oma Annie) asked about a child's raglan cardigan pattern - as she has many many little ones to knit for. I gave her some recommendations - one of which being the Baby Surprise Jacket from EZ (I know, not a raglan, but it fit her other knitting requirements!) and suddenly I'm BURNING with the desire to get working on one myself in this otherwise somewhat dry knitting time. I could probably churn one of those babies out in just a week or two using some of the Gedifra yarn that I have a total plethora of - and my Munchkin can always use a new jacket come cooler weather, plus it would really eat a nice hole out of some of my stash yarn, which I'm trying really really REALLY hard to currently work from, having spent enough money lately on MS3 supplies and name tag bits and bobs.....

But as I have neither the Opinionated Knitter nor the Knitter's Almanac (the February Baby Sweater is also something I'd love to knit up!) I've ordered both books via ILL and will have to sit on my hands and wait until the former shows up. So I'm going to start a pair of Snicket Socks out of some amazing Sundara sock yarn

(the yarn is actually much more chocolate and less orange/red than this pic shows)

in the meantime, but as we all know very well that socks don't count I think I might also start a shrug - either the fabulous Drop Stitch Shrug by Meema Spadola in some chocolate

alpaca that I've got or the Twin-Set Shrug by Sharon Shoji in some slate



grey alpaca that I also have - both from the Misty Mountains booth at Maryland Sheep & Wool. I could wind either or both of them up tonight into center-pull balls while Peggers cooks dinner and then I could cast on one or the other during our after-dinner movie entertainment.

Why all the sudden starter-itis? Because I've recently finished so many things and it feels just BIZARRE to be without my normal number of WIP's. I'm a girl who likes her knitting variety, after all, and to be knitting only a mystery stole and to have only a few inches of P's vest left to finish feels like a knitting desert to me - not nearly enough to fully immerse myself in. So now all that's really left is peeking over these two patterns for the rest of the afternoon and making my choice!

{sigh} I've got such a tough life on a balmy Friday afternoon, don't I?????

O-U-C-H

Munchkin, having a fantastic time this weekend at the beach...

I'm not exactly sure why, but I ache everywhere. My back, all along my spine, is stunningly sore. My knees, hip joints, neck, and the left hinge of my jaw aches. My shoulders ache too. When I mentioned this fact to the Munch's daycare provider this evening as I went to pick him up, she said that maybe I had fibromyalgia. Or else maybe I had previously-undiagnosed rheumatoid arthritis and the incoming thunderstorm (and corresponding change in barometric pressure) was causing it to seriously twinge.

Cheerful, isn't she?

Peggers has it too, tho' - when he came to get the Munch he said that he too aches all over - mostly in his back - which makes me wonder if this isn't the start of something ickily viral that we've both caught and will soon fully come down with. Either that or else we've been bitten by the same tick and both have Lyme's disease. I'm guessing it's viral, myself.

Damn viruses.

It's not only achy and potentially stormy here, it's also STUNNINGLY hot. Today's heat index was 102 degrees, with almost 100% humidity. And while I went for a walk/run yesterday the warnings against such strenuous activity were just too obvious for me to do so again today. So rather than come into work a wee bit early and get in a run/walk (I work until 9 PM tonight, so I got to stay home until the early afternoon) I instead sat on the couch in my central-air-conditioned house set to a lovely and low-humidity 81 degrees and started watching the second season of Deadwood while I worked on a new pair of socks.

New socks that I can't show you, as they're an *original design * (Say it all together, now: "ooohhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhh") of my own that I might - just might - submit for publication somewhere. Depending on what my design workshop folks tell me. Even if they're not accepted anywhere, I really really really like them - which is good - because no matter what at the end of all this I'll have a nifty & beautiful pair of handknit socks for myself, which is always a good thing, right my lovely ducklings?

New stamp, stamp pads - black and brown - and twill tape. All 15 feet of it.

I'm also currently working on writing up the pattern for my Screw-y Socks - one that Gryphon might take as a pattern to sell on her Etsy shop. I'm having fun typing it up and making it look all magazine-y and official. When I'm done I'll put it in pdf format, so it will look really and truly special and official. (Again, everyone: "ooooooohhhhhhhh....................aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!") To help me in this endeavor I was able to steal back the original pair of Screw-y socks from their gift recipient which is extra extra extra helpful - nothing like actually physically counting stitches and poking at a gusset to help you to remember what you did while knitting! That also means that I can take extra pictures, which is always good as well.

Speaking of extra pictures, here are some recent ones from my digital camera taken over the weekend, this morning, and this evening:

A finished sockpal sock heel. More pictures will - of course
appear here eventually. Many, many more. :)

Beautiful, beautiful, smooth organic woven cotton ribbon/twill tape.

Pink sockpal footsies.

Remember how I won a contest at Mim's blog? My gift box from Miriam came! 2 skeins of Claudia handpainted sock yarn ('Chocolate' colourway) plus real chocolate as well! That's in my tummy - so no pics of that, I'm afraid.....

A shot of how I more (or, in this case, less) managed to get
the cuff of my sockpal socks to match.
Sorta'.
Kinda'.

And I have a confession to make about Mystery Stole 3. I've frogged it. Again. You cannot cheat with Ms. Mystery - she's not a Birch or an Icarus that is quite so easy and forgiving as those two kind, kind souls. There is no room to craftily hide your lack of attention or your extra stitch or missing yarnover - she's a demanding, demanding snippet of a mistress. Every stitch, every row, has to be carefully counted, watched, looked after and scrutinized. And what that means for me is a book on CD or iPod (goodbye 2nd season of Deadwood - you and I shall henceforth only meet over vests and socks!), a cookbook holder used to prop up my chart and written directions, a pencil to shade out my knitted rows/stitches so that I can better keep track as I go, and - last but certainly not least - a lifeline every 10 or so rows. I'm personally a lifeline virgin - I jumped right in to the lace game with Birch and never looked back - in fact I even arrogantly scoffed at lifelines when it came to knitting Icarus - and either because Mim is extremely kind or else I just got very very very lucky - I never needed a lifeline for either lace project.

But Ms. Mystery - she is a-kickin' my ass - and with her I need all the help I can get.

I just might - maybe, possibly - start her tonight. Sitting comfortably propped up in bed, embroidery thread poised & at the ready to be my first lifeline somewhere around row 10 or 15 - with Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix (read by the superb Mr. Jim Dale) keeping me company while an achy hubby peacefully snoozes next to me..........

Holy Knit One Purl Two!

My sockpal socks are done. Both of them. Holy knit one purl two speedy knitting, Batman! (The blog post title refers to this lovely little snippet that Peggers e-mailed me earlier this week while I was home on full-time mommy duty. Amusing to see how we knitters are shown as total psychopaths, huh?) They are currently at home, washed and blocking. The second cuff was snipped, the top cast-on edge taken off, and then I did a horridly inexpert job of picking up the stitches. Well, I picked up the k2 stitches easily, but I'll be damned if I could find the purl stitches - so I kind of had to make it up as I went along - which took me two separate attempts - and even then I knit it once, cast off, and then glared at it, as it looked so half-assed'ly done. So I undid the cast-off, ripped it back down, and tried picking up the stitches again, doing a better job this time with the cabled stitches and did the cast-off with EZ's sewn cast-off to make sure that the edge was nice and stretchy. They still don't match perfectly, but they're much better than they were before I tried, so that's a good thing. Otherwise I think they're near twins which is always a nice thing in socks. And appropriate, seeing as how my lovely sockpal is mommy to twin girls herself!

I immediately pulled out some stash yarn and started knitting away on a new WIP - but one that I can't post about here as it is ultimately destined to be a gift knit for someone that I know reads the blog. For those of you in Ravelry (and said gift recipient is currently NOT yet in Ravelry) take a peek in my projects notebook to see it - my Ravelry username is susanb.............. However the knitting of these is going so quickly that I'm guessing I'll be finished in the next two weeks and so they will be unveiled quite quickly. So for those of you that are impatient and not yet in Ravelry, there won't be much waiting.

I am half done with the First Clue on my Mystery Stole. I'm somewhere around Row 56. I think. The First Clue goes all the way up to Row 100 - and Clue #2 comes out tomorrow. I obviously won't be ready to start the Second Clue tomorrow, but that's okay. I'm still having loads of fun with this and am just in seventh heaven with the softness and colour of the yarn.

Happily enough, the chart has also been kindly posted in written-out form - BUT - it was written out (for the first time that I've ever seen!) in the way that I write out charts - in column form instead of lengthwise. I cannot tell you how lovely this is going to be - to be able to have someone else write out these charts for me! I can most certainly work from charts - I just prefer not to. Finding this out today and seeing other folks' finished Chart 1 work in the Yahoo Group for the project has totally spurred me on to work on this tonight, if I'm able. Go on and join - you've only got until tomorrow to add you name to the group before Melanie shuts the group to all other joiners!

Other than my finished Sockpal socks, my new secret WIP, and my Mystery Stole 3 progress my other Big News is along the finishing school line of thought. I've seen several knitters out there who have spent some major money buying their own custom name tags to sew into their pieces of handknit. One of my absolute favorites, hands down, is Caro's. However while I'd love to have something similar, not only am I currently trying to pay off my current yarn bill but I'm also not sure that I really and truly know what I'd like to have on this ol' name tag. And while the name tags aren't like buying a car or anything - they're not exactly cheap. Well, once again thank goodness for the collective knowledge of knitters and crafters out there. Parikha of The Brown Sheep is both a knitter and a crafter - so she keeps her eyes on blogs that would otherwise go totally unread by yours truly.........and while reading a Shim + sons blog post from last fall she read about the option of using a custom-designed stamp (less than $5, generally), some heat-set ink pads, and twill tape and making your own............

Photo used with extremely kind permission.

Doesn't it look fantastic? I ordered the heat-set ink pads in both black and a chocolate brown, and my stamp is identical to Parikha's - { by susan}. I know - not terribly original - but I tried loads of variations - *astericks*, ::colons::, carrots>< - you name it - and nothing looked good. So I went with what I liked.

Now I just have to be patient and wait for everything to arrive in the mail.

So if you'll excuse me, I have to leave work now and go check my mailbox.

;>

A Toast!

A toast to MS3 & Collective Knowledge Between Knitters!

Thank you thank you thank you everyone to the advice about my too-short sock ribbing. As little as I was favoring the idea of unpicking that persnickety cast-on edge, even **less** was I favoring the idea of unraveling the entire sock and starting over.

No, that's not quite accurate - in fact that wasn't even an option as far as I was concerned.

But to hear that I had an even easier option - to snip a stitch one row below the cast-on, unravel, slip exposed stitches to my circs, and then just start knitting? BRILLIANCE.

And that is exactly what I shall do, once I'm finished decreasing down along the gusset of the sock (which is where my progress currently is on said knitted item) and finished with the foot and finished with the toe decrease and the kitchener graft.

Hip! Hip! Hooray! Hip! Hip! Hooray!

I get to spend the next six days out of the office and with the Munchkin - daycare is closed as she's taking a vacation up to see her family and so I get to spend some fun Mommy/Munchkin days at home, roaming town, taking in the zoo, hitting the beach, etc. I'm looking forward to it (altho' I should probably warn my husband that on Monday or Tuesday it's almost certain that I might need to go out & drink at least one cup of coffee on my own just to get a break in there somewhere! The nonstop questioning of a 2-year old can drive even the most saintly to start daydreaming about the financial viability of adding at least one soundproof room to the current layout of their house... )

While I am doing all of the fun Mommy stuff - making muffins, playing playdough, using my son as a perfect excuse to buy some Boardwalk Fries while we are down at the beach, etc. I shall also be working not only on the previously-mentioned Sockpal sock (I'm hoping to have it done before the end of next week) but I shall also be knitting away on the First Clue of Mystery Stole!

What is Mystery Stole, you ask? I cannot explain it nearly as well as Melanie can - so I'll simply point you in the right direction, urge you all to sign up, and show you my current progress to date:

These are my two MS3 swatches that I finished knitting just this very afternoon.

(Ever block a lace swatch on your office chair? No??? You should - go on - don't be afraid!)

After some pondering & some friendly consultation, I have decided in favor of the swatch on the left - which was knitted with:

.....this oh-so-lovely and HEAVENLY soft skein of Lane Borgoseia Cashwool that I ordered from The Loopy Ewe. This was my first time ever ordering from the Loopy Ewe & it was lovely and everything that everyone has raved about. I might have found my permanent online store from here on out, methinks...................

Like to see that incredible softness again?????

I'm so loving the colour I chose!

The swatch I'm choosing was knitted on size 4's - my new Crystal Palace circs, no less. Again, a splurge from the Ewe. I went with the Crystal Palace ones because the yarn was so happily inexpensive - 1400 yards of glowing "Pearl" laceweight (100% merino - Italian merino!) for only $14. Talk about a steal!

I had been anxiously awaiting my order since about, oh, 5 seconds after I placed it - and by Tuesday night I just **knew** that it should be waiting at the house. So I asked Peggers when he went home (I work Tuesdays until 9 PM) to please call me as soon as the package arrived. No call. I got home and was seriously bummed - all we had apparently gotten was some junkmail and a bill.

So I soldiered on as best I could Tuesday night, working away on my Sockpal sock, while the boys slept all around me:


In a move that should shock no-one, the dog fell asleep first.

Peggers was next. (Hmmmm....think we need a bigger couch? The man is 6'4" - that's TALL, folks!)

And giving in to peer pressure, Ella (one of two felines in the house) finally allowed herself to doze off a bit.

It was only the next morning when I went out into the front perennial bed to cut some flowers for a friend of mine that I turned around and found this on my front steps - where the postman had cleverly hid it behind a large potted trailing rosemary and some elephant ears!

Woo-hoo!!!!

So the First Clue is due out tomorrow for the stole - which means that I get to spend six happy days Playing Mommy, knitting away on a variety of very fun projects, and (hopefully) amassing some truly decent blog fodder for when I return! I also have a lovely story to tell everyone about my new label options, but that will wait for another day (and another package from the post office!)

Can you swear in a blog title?

I mean, I know it's totally ok to swear in the body of a blog posting, but what about in a blog posting title - what's the 'netiquette on that?

;>

Why, you might ask (o' my ducks) do I want to swear? Why, in the face of such general goodness & triumphant knitting progress?


One finished ribbed baby jacket....

...complete w/ intarsia heart on the back.....

.....Munchkin, wearing his new bike helmet, as he helped me to "pound" (aka knead) the dough when he and I made a triple-loaf producing batch of the world's BEST EVER Oatmeal Toasting Bread.

I might send a loaf of this to some friends to thank them for loaning us a movie, but then again I might be greedy and hoard it all for ourselves. We're having BLT's this week one night for dinner (altho' we never actually have real BLT's - Peggers normally has a BBBT {bacon bacon bacon & tomato} while I have a BCT {bacon, cheese & tomato} and the Munchkin normally has........well, maybe these days a bite of bacon, or a sliver of cheese, or a crumb or two of bread. And then after such a dramatic intake such as that he promptly asks for..............oh, cookies or muffins or juice or other things that he KNOWS full well he's not allowed to have - much less at dinnertime!) and the idea of a warm, fragrant, drippy sandwich like that doorstop'd on both ends with oatmeal bread just sounds as good as good can get.

.....my recently-organized knitting basket that I keep next to the couch, in which you can not only spy the lovely little gift (lavender 'home fragrance') that I got from a friend this weekend as thanks for letting her use some of our not-in-use baby gear (honestly, what was so hugely generous about such a loan? Let someone use your baby swing because they just had twins or let it sit in the attic and get dusty because your own screaming one is far too big to fit in it anymore - - is that even a real choice?????) but also the purple raglan sweater that I'm in the progress of happily unraveling - I told you guys I would frog it! You can likewise see the recently-purchased lime green Cotton Ease skeins with which I'm currently knitting up a half-finished Debbie Bliss boatneck baby sweater for the newest male addition to Peggers' Buddy Boy Crew..............

Admiring the pinkness & cabled twists on Sockpal sock #2.

....and then finally my most triumphant piece of the week.

I decided that given my current list of WIP's.................

* 3/4 done with Peggers' vest
* 1/2 done with the boatneck baby sweater

..................and given my current list of projects that I'm about to start.....................

* Mystery Stole #3 (more on this to come later this week!)
* Picovoli

......that I should get cracking on that second sockpal sock ASAP. So crack away I did - I cast on for it Thursday night and by last night you can see the progress I had made - the heel flap has been started!!! I was sooooo pleased with myself (To the heel flap already? On a knee-high sock???) that I tried them both on at the same time to admire them.

(Pride goeth before a fall.)

And swore.

And swore.

And took a deep breath and swore again.

Why?

Did you not see it immediately either? (It took me a bit of looking as well before I caught it.)

Let me show you again.

On the left is sock #1 with all six or so cuff rounds of RT, p2 ribbing. On the left is sock #2 with only four rounds of the same damn cuff.

What to do? What to do?????

It should be obvious to everyone by now that I am not not not ripping this out and re-knitting from the beginning. In fact after I discovered this snafu of mine last night I still continued knitting on the sock - and did another good hour or so this morning in the Toyota dealership while waiting for an oil change.

My current thought is this - can I carefully un-pick my cast on row, slide all of those stitches to my circulars, and knit, er, up the needed extra rows before casting off?

Will that work?

What say you, O Knitting Gurus?