finished projects!!

Just a quick post tonight b/c my alarm is going off in 6 hours and I'm not in bed yet--yeah, that's gonna be a problem in the morning! Ugh. Oh well. I would have been in bed sooner, but. . . .

TA-DA!! It is finished. . . almost. I still need to weave in like a million ends and and then do the webby black stripes on the outside, but it is sooooo close to being finished, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It MIGHT actually be finished in time! WOOHOOO!! He's gonna love it. He's seen the picture on the pattern, and he saw me working on it, but he has no idea that it is this close to being done. I'm hoping to give it to him at his birthday party (he just turned 6! My baby!) on Sunday.

This is my other finished project, a chevron scarf for my 3 year old. She wants to wear it now, even though it is still 80 outside. LOL. This was my car knitting, super simple. I'm working on one for me now, in different colors (U of M sock yarn! GO BLUE!!).

I feel so good about finally getting something [almost] finished! Now I have a couple of projects for a group on ravelry that I'm in, then I'm going to start some socks for myself to celebrate.

YAY. Ok, gotta go to bed or I'm gonna sleep thru my alarm . . .

I'm FAMOUS!

OK, not really, but kind of. My name is in a book, does that count? Anyway, several months ago I got the opportunity to do some production knitting for a book on eco-friendly knitting by Vickie Howell. It is called AwareKnits. http://www.amazon.com/AwareKnits-Crochet-Projects-Eco-Conscious-Stitcher/dp/1600594697/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254267527&sr=8-1 The book came out so now I can say what I did. I knitted the Cloud Cover Wristwarmers on page 38/39, and my name is even in the back of the book on page 124! WOOHOO! I know, I'm a dork for being this thrilled, but hey! This is as close to being famous as I'm likely to ever get, so bear with me!

in other news, I'm almost done with that tedious Spiderman Blanket. . .

Terrible photo, I know, but I was being lazy and didn't feel like getting out the camera. This was taken with my phone. I'm on the last stripe now, not shown in this photo. It's a red stripe, then bind off in black. I'm on round 6 of 14, so getting there. His birthday party is Sunday so I'm gonna knit like crazy to get it done, not sure if it will be done in time or not but I'm gonna try. He knows I'm working on it so it's not a surprise, but he doesn't know I'm hoping for it to be done by then. He's in kindergarten, and since they are there for a full day, they take a rest time. He's got a small blanket that he uses but it's just a plain blue fleece with a bunny on it, not really very cool LOL. Spiderman will be much cooler! I started it several months ago but abandoned it after a horrible case of startitis in which many other projects somehow jumped into my hands. The night before school started we were looking for a blanket to take, and he said "I know, why don't you just knit me one?" although I was flattered at his confidence in my knitting abilities, I had to inform him that it would take me longer than one evening. I assured him I'd get started on it again though and finish it as quickly as I could. Well, that was 6 weeks ago. Hey, I've got 3 kids, not a lot of time for knitting (or blogging for that matter), In fact right now I'm typing while holding a squirming almost 5 month old on my lap. She's making it difficult though, she keeps grabbing my fingers as I type! LOL.

Off to feed my family. Happy knitting!

finally some pics :-)

Today was a big day. My oldest started Kindergarten. I managed to put on a brave face for him, but started bawling as soon as I got back to the car LOL.


This is me and my son just before leaving for school. :*-(

These are his first-day-of-school socks. made out of Pagewood Farms Chugiak. I forget the colorway, but they matched his shirt wonderfully!

This is my new Yarn Caddy 3000. Thank you to John Francis for the inspiration (no, I'm not giving you royalties, but I will happily give you the credit LOL).

I got the plaque at Hobby Lobby and the cheapy wooden TP holder at Lowes. Painted and stamped it myself to make it pretty :-) Totally loved this project, and it works great!

This yarn (more pagewood farms!) is becoming a shawl. The "Go Fly a Kite" shawl from Ravelry to be exact. I'm adding beads too, silver ones. So far it is turning out very nice if I do say so myself. Hopefully I get it finished before I lose interest. That is my knitting-when-I-can-concentrate project, since it involves beads and lace and charts. Not a project to do around kids. I'm hoping that since both girls still nap, I'll have some free time during the day when my son is in school. I also dug out the spiderman blanket, at his request, because he needs a blanket for school rest time. Of course by the time I finish that blanket, school may be over for the year! Ha ha not really, but it will take me FOREVER. I'm hoping to maybe have it done by his birthday in a month. Then I started a pair of socks for my easy, portable project. I'm using Flat Feet, a birthday gift from my friend Dawn. I think they are going to end up having a lovely tye dye effect to them. I'm going to do a very simple lace pattern on them Wendy Johnson's Waterfal Socks.

Well, off to go out to lunch with my hubby and our girls. Hopefully will get some knitting time in this afternoon.

broken needles = NO LACE

I finally decided to jump back into lace knitting after seeing a friend's Fern Lace scarf last week. It was a simple pattern that looked absolutely beautiful, so I thought "I have all that sock yarn sitting there, might as well use it for something other than socks. . . " We were going on a trip to Houston, about 3 hours from our house, give or take 2+ hours for potty breaks, snack breaks, change the DVD breaks, feed the baby breaks, and find-my-toy-under-the-seat-before-I-pop-a-blood vessel-breaks (traveling with 3 kids is SO fun--NOT!). There was also one little stop for Momma at a yarn store I don't get to visit often, Yarnorama in Paige, TX. Great store, and she has sock yarn that my LYS doesn't carry (like I NEED more, but who can resist!! Tofootsies and Panda Silk, mmmmm). Of course I walked away with several skeins. But anyway, so I figured the Fern Lace was a simple enough pattern that I could tape it to the dashboard and, with the use of post-its to mark my place, knit it in the car. It worked great, and the colorway of tofootsies I used (an almost-solid lilac color) it was turning out beautifully. However, I made the mistake of stashing my knitting bag in the narrow space between the couch and the wall at the hotel, dummy that I am. With kids like mine, I should have known that the space was prime floorspace, great for looking out the window at 6:45 am in order to prove to your sleepy parents that the sun IS in fact out, and therefore it is wake-up time. When I pulled my knitting out later I was horrified to find that my needle had snapped in half and the lace was a mess. Luckily I was only about 7" into the scarf, because I never have been able to perform lace surgery and would have been a lot more upset if I was further into it. Made an emergency trip to a local Hobby Lobby (after explaining to my husband that no, it simply was NOT possible for me to just not knit.) I was unable to find suitable needles in the size I needed, so I got bigger ones and some cotton that matched out kitchen and started potholders. The good news was that I got 2 pot holders done on our trip and started a towel! The Fern Lace was frogged and re-wound onto the skein. ::::::sigh::::::

Then yesterday I went to my LYS and picked up some new Pagewood Farms lace yarn. Thought it would be perfect for a lace scarf for my mom, and found the Tiger Eyes pattern online. Started it last night and got 2 repeats done. I carefully stashed my knitting bag under the end table so that it wouldn't get stepped on. However, apparently it was on top of a much-needed toy and was thus removed from it's safe position this morning and relocated to the middle of the living room floor. Of course, when I pulled out my lovely scarf, the needle was broken. ARRRGGGGG. I love love love my knitpicks harmony needles, but apparently the smaller sizes are just too fragile for my household. While I have informed the short people living here that if one of my needles gets broken again, someone may die, I think I will be replacing them with something stronger just in case. If you know of any good metal ones that the coating won't wear off, making them sound like nails on a chalkboard when used, please let me know. Someone reccomended Aero needles, so I'm looking for those. I'm also waiting for knitpicks to come out with their acrylic ones this week, but I think those might only be available in interchangeables. For small stuff I prefer not to use circs.

Off to finish my towel. Good night!

aliens are multiplying!

Remember how I said that I was having knitting mojo problems because of the heat? Well, I found a few projects that I could knit that didn't make me thing of winter weather. First, I started a lace bookmark. However, I didn't get very far on it because a friend passed along this pattern http://blog.fuzzymitten.com/2009/07/mini-alien-pattern.html Wow, these are cute. I thought "hey, I could make one for each of the older kids, they'd like them." Well, "two" has turned into "five" with no end in sight. At first my son didn't want one, and my daughter said she wanted a blue one. Made the blue one. Then she said she wanted a green one too. OK, no prob. Then my husband wanted a green one too. OK, sure. Then my son decided to join the craze and wanted an orange one. Lucky these things are quick to make. Then I made myself a purple one. Now my daughter is requesting a red one and the boy wants a multi-colored one. They take about 20 min to knit up and about 10 to complete (seaming, stuffing, adding eyes and mouth.) but they sure are cute! Hopefully I will finish them soon so I can start on other stuff. I do have a wintery project planned, but I think it will be easier to get into than other cold-weather things right now because it is for Christmas--I'm going to knit stockings for my family. Simple ones made out of Lion brand Homespun, red for the girls and green for the boys. The cuffs are all going to be white and will have everyone's name embroidered on them (probably in intarsia, actually) in the opposite color. Will be cute, I think.

Ok, off to knit some more little aliens!

No Mojo

I've got no knittin' mojo. Zero. Tonight was the first time I've knit in like, 5 days, and even then I only got about 4 rounds done on my tunic. It's not for lack of available projects, I have a whole closet full of yarn and needles and patterns. I just can't seem to find something that can keep my attention. I like the tunic but not the length of time it is going to take to make it. I thought about a pair of lace socks that I've been planning to do, but I didn't understand the pattern directions. I could probably figure them out, or at worst get some help from one of my fantastic knitting friends, but I wasn't up for that much of a challenge. I thought about doing another pair of socks but then I thought that it's too hot for socks anyway.

Hold on. Wait a second. I think I'm having an epiphany.

Yep, I understand now. I know why I can't knit. . .


IT'S TOO FREAKING HOT. It is hard to even think about things like scarves and sweaters and wool socks when it is 104 outside, every day for 2 weeks. Even holding the yarn makes me warmer, something I'm trying desperately to avoid. OK, now I understand. I'm not having knitter's block afterall! I'm just having, hmmm, what shall we call it? Summeritis? Sure, that works. I have summeritis, where I don't want to do anything that isn't summer-related, anything that would be reminiscent of cooler weather. Because in cooler weather you want to be warmer, and I REALLY don't want to be any warmer right now.

OK, I feel better now. I was getting worried, concerned with how long this horrible condition might last. At least now I know. I'm sure when it starts cooling off I won't have any problems thinking about nice warm items.

:::::::WHEW:::::::

back to your regularly scheduled blogging. :-)

It's my birthday and I'll knit if I want to

(knit if I want to, knit if I want to. You would knit too. . . ) OK, do you have the song stuck in your head yet? LOL.

Today is my birthday. I'm officially 29. For real. I'm not pretending to be 29 when I'm really older. However, I have decided that I am STAYING 29. I will still celebrate my birthday because, hey, I love presents and cake, but I am not going to get older. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. . .

Anyway, I'm hoping for some knitting time today in between feeding the baby and doing laundry and (hopefully) getting a shower in some time. I finished a blanket square last night at my knitting group, which sadly took me 3 days to complete. I used to be able to finish them in an hour or two. Oh well. After it was finished I began knitting a hanging towel for my kitchen. Very simple projects. I'd like to say I'm doing simple projects because I'm going back to my beginner knitter roots and re-learning techniques to improve my knitting skills or some crap like that, but I'm not. I would LOVE to start the Aeolian (sp?) shawl that everyone at my LYS is doing, but I know I'd screw it up somehow or lose track of where I was because a kid would take the post it note, or else it would take me 8 months to finish and I'd get bored and forget it. So for now I will recognize my own limitations and knit simple items that can be finished in a reasonable amount of time, thus giving me some satisfaction. And hey, simple can still be cute and functional!

I've also been strangely monogomous to my knitting, which is rare for me. Usually I have 8 projects going at once and about 10 more on my list of "next in knitting!" but lately I've been focusing on one thing at a time, maybe 2 at most. I kind of like it, I get things done quicker than I would if I were knitting multiple things at once, but it still seems weird to me. After I finish the kitchen towel I'm planning on dedicating myself to my tunic.

Well, off to browse the web a bit more then hopefully knit.