Disaster!

I borrowed some metal circs to finish Hoover from MIL, since the yarn really was sticking to the bamboo needles I cast on with. I worked a few rows with the new needles and was really noticing a difference in my knitting. I was looking over my work and noticed the stitches were twisted on one edge causing a lump in the join. I can usually just drop down one column of stitches and pick them back up with a crochet hook. Well, I tried this technique last night and did not figure that I would have to twist the back and the front stitches together. No matter what I tried I could not get it to look right. So unless I can fix it today, I am going to have to frog rows and rows of double knitting...once again...fuck. Hmm, after looking at the picture it does not look as bad as I thought...And I am finally seeing some progress... but then again...those are some uneven-assed stitches...anyone know how I can be assured my knits are the same size as my purls? besides practice? I need some knittin' magic!

random blogging

Well, With the KO project complete, I thought it was high time I started something else, (UFO's what UFO's- I am pretending you do not exist) so I decided to knit a little baby argyle sweater for a 2nd cousin (born in December) Since I loved the Minisweater so much I decided on a top down raglan. I also want to try argyle (since baby's parents are such the argyle wearing type) I thought pink and black would be super cute and what is arglye without a little faux fur fun... here is my progress so far, and I am pretty happy since I am not using a pattern for this one! yay me!

I am planning to put the diamonds along the bottom, put fur on the cuffs and little black buttons down the front. Playing with the idea of a few decreases along the top of the sleeve to make little puffy shoulders. So far I am tickled pink y'all. (Y'all know I just realized that I have been spelling Y'all wrong all this time?! What kind of self respecting southern gal cain't spell y'all? - I am by no means the best speller in the world, but I hate to see things misspelled- even in chat it drives me crazy- I am sure my Momma is hanging her head in shame. Well, I have learned the error of my ways and vow to never spell y'all wrong again!)

Anyway, since I am a really nosy sort of gal, and really want to see where everyone is knitting I am sharing my cozy kniting place. If ya'll are reading this consider yourself tagged! I want to see your spots, too!

I think you can even see my assprint on the sofa! and just cause I know y'all are all dying to know what all that shit is....Purple folder and notebook hold all my patterns and ideas. Remote controls right where I can reach 'em. Red snuggly blanket (Thanks you MIL) to keep me nice and cozy. I put my yarn balls in the silver bowl to keep them clean and in one place while I am knitting. The beginnings of little sweater are on the needles. A few of my needles and a crochet hook to pick up stitches are in the cup for easy access, and the ever-present-while-knitting-at-night libation (tonight's selection is brought to you by Stoli and tonic with a slice of lime) is in front of the pink yarn. I actually knit that bag (from leftover yarn in my stash) hanging off the arm of the sofa to keep all my knitting things in one spot. And I know y'all all want my vintage 70's shag multicolored carpet....believe me it hides everything!

Well, ladies and gents, I must clean up today or The Gaming One is going to fire me, so I must back away from the computer and resist the temptation to sit and knit (have I mentioned I am childless today? and I have to spend it cleaning?! There is NO justice in this world!) Off to fold Mt. Washmore!

GOLD!

I am finally finished with Lolita Legs ( with three days to go no less!) and I am so glad it was an Olympic Knitting project otherwise I really do not think I would have ever finished. After, oh, about the ankle on the second leg I was so bored all I could think about was what I want to knit next. But I do think they are super cute! I will probably wear these right below the knee (even though you can't see the fishnet pattern as well) because they really do not stay up right above the knee, they tend to slip down as I walk.

411:

Pattern: Lolita Legs

Yarn: Cascade Yarns, Fixation (98.3% cotton, 1.7% elastic) 2 balls for size small and I only had about 6" leftover

Mods: I followed the pattern until I got to the leg portion, I just continued from there in Fishnet Patt 1 until piece measured 1" less than the measurement from heel to calf.( I also noted here how many pattern repeats I did so each leg would be identical. Count the holes) Then I did 1 set of increases on the back center of leg as follows -

needle 1:*YO, K2tog*

needle 2:*YO, K2tog* (4times)M1, YO, K2tog, (this is where the back center if leg would be, and it may be in a different place if you are much taller than I am) YO, K2tog, M1,*YO, K2tog* (4times)

needle 3:*YO, K2tog*

next row: K across

next row: needle 1:*YO, skp*
needle 2:*YO, skp* (4times)M1, K, YO, skp, (this is where the back center if leg would be, and it may be in a different place if you are much taller than I am) YO, skp, K, M1,*YO, skp* (4times)
needle 3:*YO, skp*

next row: K across

Continue working in fishnet pattern 1 until piece measures 2" below the knee (again note number of pattern repeats). Work 2 sets of increases, like above but make sure that the increases are on the center back of leg. This time mine happened to occur between needle 2 and needle 3.

Work Fishnet pattern 1 three more times.

*K,P* rib across 18 rows

eyelet row:*YO, K2tog*

K across next three rows and BO all stitches.

well, that seems about clear as mud...

Here is another pic of my favorite new sweater since I know ya'll all want to see it on me! Look Ma, no bra straps! I know she is so proud!

Well, Ya'll I am off to cast on a baby sweater that has been on my mind for the past few days, maybe I can finish it too before the end of the Olympics!

Wait a minute... a post with no curse words or mention of alcohol?? That just cannot fucking happen! Where is my damn drinky-poo?

day 12

Still knitting along on lolita.... I realize that the knitting elves ain't helping me at all, I guess they are too busy helping olympic knitters that really need it... ya know the ones that have jobs and families and PTA meetings that are also knitting complex sweaters with lots of intarsia, or fair isle and crazy stitch patterns...ah well fuck those little elves, I don't need them anyway! I WILL finish lolita before I go to bed tonight. So expect some FO pics tomorrow from this little knitter. Last night, while knitting I thought I would watch the IFC Movie I had saved on DVR (I always save random uncut IFC movies in hopes that I will see something good). Well last nights flick was called Birthday Girl and was about a British bank teller that orders a mail order Russian bride (Nicole Kidman)... after picking up his blushing bride from the airport he realizes that *gasp* she cannot speak English, even though all their correspondences were in English. When he gets her home lo and behold she busts out the knitting needles to knit him a sweater...This is when I got really excited! Even The Gaming One noticed the needles! I thought to myself "uh-oh the curse of the boyfriend sweater!" Turns out the curse was true! She was just scamming him so he would rob a bank for her and her Russian captors... but she knit throughout the whole movie and I thought that was really cool... Not only did she knit a sweater for her man, she knit a baby sized one too! turns out she was knocked up! But it had a happy ending-unlike most IFC flicks and I managed to knit about 4 more inches on lolita while watching!

Day 11

All is going well with Lolita...I must admit though, I wish the knitting elves would just come and finish them for me 'cause I am bored to tears! I am about 80% done and all I can think about is other things I want to knit...but at least I have (almost) finished what I set out to accomplish. I now have the confidence to knit socks, I can pick up stitches in a lace pattern, and dpn's are now my friend! I will try my best to finish them today or maybe tomorrow just to have them off the needles and on the legs where I can put them to good use! Off to KnitPicks to buy yarn for The Gaming One's Mr. Rogers -gonna bore me to tears- cardigan! Also gonna pick up something lovely to knit a Clapotis for my MIL for Mother's Day. She is also a knitter and I think she will appreciate the work that would go into it. Gonna give my MIL the clap for Mother's Day hahahaha! Sometimes I crack myself up! speaking of cracking up at my MIL's expense, she is also fond of roosters and has all these rooster figurines, so whenever I see roosters when I am out shopping with The Gaming One I quip...Look at that big COCK! I bet your mom would love it! haha

Day 9 & 10

I *know* I should be Olympic knitting, but I only managed to knit another few inches on Lolita this weekend. What am I thinking?? I am thinking I must have the Anthropologie-inspired capelet. I keep seeing it on Craftster and gracing the blogs of many lovely ladies out there in blogland, so I decided it would only add to my sweet victory for Team Sandbagger, and with 6 days remaining I have more than enough time to finish lolita. Let me tell ya'll, I love this little sweater! Now I finally have a little something to wear with my tanks tops and jeans! It is so snuggly and has a wonderful drape! I simply love the way it fits and feels on my body!

here is the 411:

Pattern-Anthropologie-inspired capelet by Julsey723. I pretty much followed the pattern as far as cast on and needle size (I even knit a swatch!) I preferred the knit side of the fabric, so made it the right side of my work. I added a half an inch to the collar rib for the neck, and also added a few rows to the arms so the stripes would be the same width on the body and the sleeves. I also added some length to the body because 1)I had enough yarn and hate to have little bits left and 2)I wanted it to be a bit longer to cover a bit more. So I have more of a minisweater than a capelet. The bottom two stripes are also in k1p1 rib instead of just the few rows called for in the pattern. Great pattern and a super easy knit!

Yarn-Filatura Di Crosa Tweeddy 100% wool(the darker grey, I am not sure of exact color-perhaps the color was Tweedy as well),Colorado Yarns Vail 100% superwash wool(light grey), white mystery cotton yarn from MIL. Since I did not have enough of any one yarn in my stash, I decided stripes would be quite nice, of course the yarns that would make lovely stripes were not the same weight, so I decided to hold the Vail yarn with the mystery cotton for the lighter stripes.

Have I mentioned I love this sweater! I will make more of these maybe throw a little variation in there to keep it interesting hmmm...cables perhaps? This sweater was finished within a 24 hour time period so I have no excuse not to make more!

Day 8

In just one day of knitting on leg two of lolita I am at the same point as I was on day three of the first leg! Since both legs look the same I am going to be lazy and not take pics of leg two until I am all finished. *knock on wood* so far I have made no time consuming mistakes even after drinking waaaay too many Canadian Club and gingerales last night! If ya'll like whiskey you should really try it! mmm-mmm good. The Gaming One turned me onto them last night (cause they are what his daddy used to drink). I mixed myself 3 or 4 while he was gaming and I was watching the olympics and knitting. *and no, I am not an alcoholic, I am a lush. Alcoholics go to meetings and want to quit, lushes enjoying drinking!* When he finished playing he mixed himself one and commented how good it was...
him: baby you should taste this, it is the perfect mix! (hands me his glass)
me: (slurp) mmm that is good (hand him my glass which is mostly melted ice) here try mine (giggling on the inside)
him: ick yours is really watered down (this is when I get up with his drink in hand and announce that I am going to take a shower) Hey that is my drink!
me: now it is mine...(drunken giggling)
him: bitch (gets up to mix himself another drink)
me: (more giggling)
Good thing I am cute and he loves me so!
Thanks for the comments yesterday! Persnickety Knitter...my legs are not really all that long...I am just 5'2, I think it is the trees in the background playing tricks on the eyes. They actually are comfy! Much more so than my other fishnets cause my toes are not trying to escape and they are much warmer too! Emmie...you are too kind! (I am blushing) Glad ya find me so amusing! I am going to your blog to vote!

day 7

Well, the first leg is finished, but instead of thigh highs I ended up with just over the knee fishnets...I still love it and can already see them paired with a short skirt.

I cast on the second leg last night after working 5 rows of Hoover.... I think I need to pick up a pair of metal circs to work the rest of hoover because the yarn just isn't sliding over my bamboo circs as easily as I would like and is making my stitches a little wonky, not to mention making my wrists hurt...not a good thing.

day 6

All that stands between me and the completion of the first leg of Lolita is this little ball of yarn hiding behind that quarter! Woo-Hoo!
After a visit to Anny Purls I picked up the handy dandy Olympic Knitting countdown bar over in my sidebar. Thanks Anny Purl! Since I know exactly how much time I have left, I think I may knit some on the neglected Hoover blanket. I must admit all this holey knitting is getting really repetitive and becoming sorta mindless (to be read as "I am not paying attention to what I am knitting and I am frogging much more than I should be"). Besides I would really be departing from my true self if I do not procrastinate just a little!

day 4 and day 5

I have realized that while The Gaming One is on vacation this week I have lots more time to knit...could that possibly be because I have to share the computer and cannot spend countless hours being inspired by the creative force that is Craftster. And his computer time is seriously cutting into my quality reading time (blogs are quality reading, don't you think?) I guess I should thank him for it, because just another 2 or 3 inches and the first leg of my modified version of Lolita will be finished...Go Team Sandbagger! I am really convinced I would be finished if it were not for all the *ahem* frogging practice I have had on this project. I am just thanking my lucky stars I had the foresight to pick up a pair of size 1 dpn's (jaywalker, I'm coming for ya next!) when I got my size 4's because seriously ya'll, they have spared me so much cursing you would not believe! anyway...here is my day 4 progress

and here is day 5 progress....which would have been much more had I not had to frog two whole inches at 12:30 am after I realized I added a stitch...when I realized it my conversation with The Gaming One was something like this....

me:fuck!

him:what happened?

me:I somehow added a stitch about two inches ago and now I have to pull out all I knit today. dammit!

him: well, don't you count your stitches after each row?

me:(icy stare in his direction)you would think so wouldn't you?!

argggggg oh well...after this I am going to be crowned Queen of Picking Up Stitches in Stretchy Black Yarn, but I think I may also be half blind by that time and have to knit with one of those magnifying glass contraptions that little old ladies that really are half blind use to cross stitch with. Ya'll it really is that hard on the eyes.

In completely unrelated knitting news...I got my first copy of Vogue Knitting today (my sister bought me a subscription for christmas) and besides the fact that it looks like someone had been chewing on it and the cover was creased all to hell, and yes it was still in the plastic, I was pretty excited to see it. I really liked a few of the patterns especially the yoke pullover and the trapper hat. There was also a shaped jacket I looooved, but if I knit it in the suggested yarns (17 balls Lang/Berroco Cashmere-Luxe and 12 balls Berroco lazer FX) I would be spending almost as much as my mortgage payment on yarn, for one project. Ok maybe not a mortgage payment but pretty damn close! I showed jacket to The Gaming One and he naively said...why don't you go ahead and order the yarn for it? It's really pretty! I just smiled and told him how expensive the yarn was...needless to say I am not going to be making it in the suggested yarn...well, off to get a blog fix before The Gaming One comes in from his yard work!

day 3

I did not get too much accomplished on day 3 of the Knitting Olympics....I made mistakes in the damn pattern on 3 or 4 rows that I (of course) did not notice until I knitted a few rows. Ya know, it really is amazing how much a single incorrect stitch in a lace pattern matters! I think I spent more time frogging and picking up stitches than I actually did knitting. I did manage to knit about 3 inches, but all in all things are going well, and even at this rate I should have no problem finishing in time!

day 2

And it only took 3 hours to figure out that heel...sheesh

Knitting Olympics: Day 1

So far so good!

24 hours until cast-on...

The opening ceremony for the Olympics is just over 24 hours away and we all know what that means....knitters all over the world are gearing up to cast on. I have everything I need to start, pattern, yarn, needles, libations. I am so excited to start. After looking at the pattern, I think I may tweek it a bit as I really do not like the lace-up back, I would rather have more "traditional" thigh-highs, but we will see how that goes. Last night I also had an idea for a knit garter belt to go with them. I think I could knit it in the round from the waist down...

I am just 4 rows shy of being back to where I was on hoover before I ripped it all out due to mistakes, and I must admit it does look better the second time around. It looks like hoover will be put on the back burner until after the olympics, though.

Visiting leaves little time for knitting...

I broke away from my hermit-like existance this past weekend and had visitors over the weekend, two of which I had never met. My friend J that lives in Hotlanta came for a visit with her boyfriend and a friend of hers visiting from London, England. We had a great time, lots of drinking, dice playing and chatter. The Gaming One decreed that there was to be no knitting while we had visitors (he thinks it is rude to knit when others are around- God forbid I try to knit in public!) and I complied. So my hoover blanket sat abandoned all weekend crying out to me "don't you still love me? why have you forsaken me?" I quitely assured hoover I would be back on monday.
Monday rolled around and I went to visit my parents while they were in town. They are long haul truck drivers and I only get to see them every 6 weeks or so. After spending the whole day at their house with all the noise that goes with it I was ready to reunite with hoover and a very stiff vodka tonic. I knit, watched Medium and sipped my VT, happy as a pig in shit. As I finished my VT I looked back over my progress thus far. Keep in mind, I was not only double knitting, I was working a star chart as well, so I would not get bored with straight knitting and purling. This is when the cursing started. I realized when I lovingly looked at hoover with its beautiful stars shining on their reverse backgrounds, that at the beginning of the last five rows I knit I forgot to twist the yellow and blue yarn at the edge. Well, if you have ever double knit you will realize that in doing so, I was not connecting my front and back pieces. Furthermore, I had no clue as how to join them, so I did what I usually do when I make a big mistake since I hate picking up stitches, I frogged...all six inches of my blanket. And I thought I was going to cry. Seriously ya'll I wanted to cry. But I didn't. Instead I sulked, drank another VT (The Gaming One brought me one before I could even ask!) and passed out on the sofa. I really wanted to have hoover finished before the start of the Knitting Olympics, but looks like that ain't happening now....

On a slightly different note I stumbled across this quiz What Kind of Knitter Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla



You appear to be a Knitting Adventurer.
You are through those knitting growing pains and feeling more adventurous. You can follow a standard pattern if it's not too complicated and know where to go to get help. Maybe you've started to experiment with different fibers and you might be eyeing a book with a cool technique you've never tried. Perhaps you prefer to stick to other people's patterns but you are trying to challenge yourself more. Regardless of your preference, you are continually trying to grow as a knitter, and as well you should since your non-knitting friends are probably dropping some serious hints, these days.
http://marniemaclean.com

Ahhh...so true!

Eve is finished...

I finished Eve last night for the Girl Wonder. She was so excited for it to be finished she ran into her room to put on a pretty dress to wear with it! This is the only picture that she even slightly liked...More to come if I can get the cooperation of my model...I ended up using a cameo her dad gave me when we were married for a brooch. She was thrilled to know it was real gold! She was really pleased with how comfy and soft Eve turned out.

on another note...My yarn arrived from Webs yesterday for Lolita Legs for the Knitting Olympics, so I am all ready to compete. It turns out that the yarn for my double knit scarf will end up way too thick for a NC winter so I am going to knit Wavy instead.