Merry Merry Christmas!

Our tree finally has an angel.  Wanted to share this with you and wish you the merriest of holidays ever. 

Slow but steady wins the race

AAnt's afghan is actually being worked on.  I'm using up all my old acrylics for it in a queen sized bedspread/blanket.  The yarn skeins are nice and wonderful colors, especially for him, and I'm thrilled to have the excuse to use them all up (that whole "moved on/destashing" kind of thing) and I'm crocheting them one line at a time, either single or double crochet depending on how wide I want the stripe.  It takes a while to do one stripe so I think he'll get it birthday of next year.  It was supposed to be his birthday gift last year with this year as an alternate but I've since gotten realistic and discovered how much fun reading is.  Thus, I'm doing a line whatever night I feel like doing it and enjoying watching the skeins slooowly disappear.

There's also been a sock-in-progress traveling around with me and I'm very excited about it.  It had started as another plain toe-up sock in a lovely skein I had picked up a year ago while visiting LMSS.  The yarn was so expensive I split one skein to make a pair of ankle socks but have since realized that if I throw a lace pattern on the top of the sock foot and leg I can spread the yarn out more.  The Bee (SuperGirl) picked out the lace pattern she liked and I got to work.  It's turning out beautiful and works wonderful with how the yarn's colors are placed. 

A field of color

And now presenting the scarf for the nephew. It is crocheted width-wise, chaining in the blue until I had my length (roughly 2 yds since he is only 5 but I would like him to have the option to continue wearing it as he grows), with the end of each row leaving 5-6 inches of tail to have instant fringe when I finish, and single/double crocheting wherever I wanted in whatever color I wanted until it was balanced and wide as I wanted it. A great project to finish on the way home from Baton Rouge (took a little over 4 hours) and the crocheting was a great way to help massage my sore hand muscles from the frantic sock knitting. I had never thought I could get lactic acid build-up from knitting...

As for the Christmas project update, another sock ambition bit the dust and the person is getting a dishcloth instead. The dishcloth is a color I love (red) in a pattern I love (Debbie Bliss is amazing in her design; highly recommend her dishcloth pattern in her Spring/Summer 2009 magazine) and I'm nearly finished with it. I think she'll appreciate it over the socks, even though she had requested the socks 6 months ago. This will make an unexpected surprise and she'll still get her socks one day. Mother's Day maybe? (it's not you, Mom, as you know since I brought the dishcloth to knit at your house.)

Anyway, once I made that executive decision I felt tons better and finished the socks for my niece gladly, putting the sock knitting supplies away for another sock hiatus while I tackle the baby gifts that were next on my "to knit" list. That means the Christmas presents will be finished before Christmas Eve and I can go back to knitting at a slower pace. Well, maybe not. I'm still pretty depressed and project-hyper but that should work to my advantage. These gifts are for babies that have already been born so I'm late getting them finished anyway and even if I decide to avoid them and do something completely different (as long as it's stuff I already own, nothing new bought), things are still getting finished and there isn't a deadline to those that are on the list. Well, there is but who's counting? The older the babies get the more they'll appreciate it anyway and the gift really should be for them, not the mother, right? Hah, who am I kidding, but it should be like that.

Never again... until next time

This weekend was an interesting one. Great trip, wonderful seeing Hubby's older sister and family, and they enjoyed their presents. Only one present took A LOT LONGER than it should have and I was worried I'd have to stop at a convenience store to save my skin.

It might have been the setbacks because my family had to eat, thus I had to cook, thus 1-2 hours were subtracted from the "knitting time" allotted. It might have been the numerous times doing all the little things for the laundry and the kids, again subtracting knitting time. It could have been the Friday night supper with one friend invited over ended up a dinner party. So the sock which should have been finished Friday night was still a work-in-progress not only during the whole 4 hour trip to see them but the 2.75 hours we visited. I feverishly knit the whole way down, feeling my shoulders getting closer and closer to my ears, wrapped the finished sock when we pulled into their driveway, handed it to her saying "Merry Christmas. Here's the first half and excuse me while I finish the second half in your living room."

There was a posting on the Yarn Harlots Page-a-Day calendar this past week about unrealistic deadlines and for some reason the closer the deadline, the more in denial we get about REALLY, how long does this thing take and if we just concentrate harder, we can get it done in a fraction of the time. I should have taped the thing to my forehead.

All I asked for was to not have to take the socks back home and mail it the next day. Thank goodness I didn't and above is the picture of her modeling them. They turned out great and her son was REALLY interested in them and how warm they were. (Apparently he is always wearing her socks.) She ran off to hide these after I snapped the picture and I am thinking about a gift for him next year. He hunts and even here in southern Louisiana it gets cold out there in the deer stand. Hmmm... camo? High enough to line the boot legs? At least I have a year to figure it out.

The ride home I celebrated by looking at the knitting books they gave me for Christmas and crocheted a scarf requested by one of Hubby's 5 year old nephews. I can't turn down a personal request, especially when he knows the colors and design he wants. It turned out really cute and masculine, something I was deliberately trying to do because he wanted the colors of the rainbow and there are some family members who wouldn't take too kindly to a gay pride scarf.

In the meantime, I've dwindled my Christmas projects left down to 3: 2 socks and 1 purse. The purse is cut out so I'll finish that today and the socks have at least 4 days EACH to finish. No more of this 3 day maximum thing. Next time I WILL do a mercy run to the convenience store.

Rounds all around

... and it is done! I finished it Tuesday and lovingly sent it home to the Crochet Queen via her husband who is the best handyman in the WORLD!!! Thanks to him I have a hall light that turns on and off from BOTH ends of the hall, a closet ceiling no longer threatening to cave in, and a link to another guy who does seamless gutters, thus eliminating the slight flooding of our front porch every time it rains hard. This is Louisiana. It rains. And it rains. And then it rains some more. We would like to utilize our front porch double rocker without the complimentary shower, thank you very much. Now to do something about the mosquitoes...

Anyway, back to the blanket. Crochet Queen said she went on ahead and gave it to her sister the next night and she loved it. She called it her "Old lady blanket" and Crochet Queen said "Watch it!" I laughed because it was crocheted by us two and we are a long way away from being old ladies. I love the Granny Square anyway because it looks like flowers.

As you can see there was still a ripple effect in trying to block the original diamond and get the dimensions of all sides to match. There also was a "wing" effect on the ends but putting a few rows of single crochet all around helped out. The scallop edge also was more forgiving and hid any bumps/ridges left from the attempt at blocking out the edges and done in that blue was darling. I really liked how the double rows of Granny Sqaures finished out the blanket. It really ties everything in and frames nicely, even though I didn't do it on all sides.

More Christmas projects are underway and being worked on/finished as I write. I'm really excited about some of them. Now to have them all finished before the holidays hit...

Present, Past, and Past Imperfect

Things had gotten desparate. The angles were ok (and I hestitate to say that; they might seem ok to someone who had never made anything in their life and didn't have an opinion on irregular borders, i.e. someone who doesn't pay attention that this thing looks like a lopsided mass first project of a kindergartener [not a comment on you, Crochet Queen, a comment on my wacky irregular stitch decreases when I should know better]) but I didn't like it. I didn't like working on it and it, again, was taking way longer than I thought it should take. So, I made a call to Crochet Queen after putting Sgt. Cribb on pause (it was at a part I felt I needed to pay attention to anyway) and asked her if she cared if the blanket turned out in an oval shape. She didn't really but wasn't going to be picky. I told her no, if she wanted a rectangle, by golly she was going to get a rectangle, not matter what. "The blanket has gotten to you, too, huh?" she said. I didn't want to confess to my impulses to light fire to the thing, even though Crochet Queen had already confessed her sordid ideas, but I did. We had a good laugh and I told her it still would be finished and not to worry.

I had the blanket laid out on the floor and was looking at it on the floor when I decided to try something I had thought of initially when the mitered corner idea took over. I could mark the tentative side point(s) (it's flatter there so I could fudge a little), start there by picking up a stitch and crocheting rows, picking up every other stitch along the sloping side as I came to it, keeping the border side straight, and increasing 1 stitch next to the slope side every few rows. I started, fully prepared to rip it out, and guess what. It has, for the most part, worked!

So, here is the blanket. The first picture is the current progress that is (thankfully!) working. The second and third are views of the mitered corner that I thought was going to work and didn't. I posted them because I wanted to show the whole blanket and my first attempt at the corner. I'm sure I could find a way for the mitered corner technique to work if I felt like doing the math and really thinking about it but I don't feel like it and it takes to long to miter once I actually start crocheting. The top picture method is working out better but still isn't as rectangular as what would be perfect. However, it is more of a rectangular shape and will have corners, plus I'm still going to crochet a border, add a row of Granny Squares already crocheted by Crochet Queen, and then see what the blanket wants for a grand finish. I asked CQ if her sister liked frilly (I like doing scalloped trim on Granny square blankets; I have one of my own that's king sized that was a huge stash buster and preggy project to use up all my acrylic yarn I still loved but would never use 2-2.5 years ago. It would be our current bedpsread (and I would have had made no attempt to make our lovely quilt) if Hubby tolerated that sort of thing. He drew the line at Granny Squares, thus the quilt idea was born) and she said not really but her sister wouldn't care because her blanket was finally going to be finished. The scallops don't really say frilly but I'm not going to decide yet. The blanket will tell me what it wants.

I've also had some more success on the quilting front: I've found the patterns I want for the Christmas fabric I had that was unearthed in Mom's fabric stash room (yep, those dresses I was going to whip up for Bailey that never happened... oh well, she would have outgrown them long before now) and the cute cotton prints I've been collecting for some reason. I had to take both groups out of my stash drawer (more like pry the drawer open and liberate them so the drawer didn't explode at some random, inopportune time) and put them in covered bins that are now hidden, um, STORED under the bed so that I had more clear space in the lived in part of the house. They now have their plan and I'm so excited! I've told myself not to start them till after I finish everything else I've started so we are looking at 8 months from now. Let's see if I actually wait till then.

The lastest addition

So far my plans are working. Doesn't look as nice and neat because the angle on one side is different from the other but hopefully by the next corner I've got it. I'm almost through with one corner (about to turn Sgt. Cribb back on and work away) and the verdict will be made at that time.

I now have a little friend living on my kitchen counter. It's a sourdough yeast starter. It's really a fairly large friend because it's in a big jar. I showed it to Hubby, said "It's alive" and he looked at me partially in wonderment (I hope) and partially in disbelief (probably more like it) that I would take on another living thing that requires attention, feeding, and care. Right now it's happy, bubbly, and I have to stir it once for 4-7 days. Then it will be old enough to use in my bread recipes. I'm watching it to make sure it doesn't turn purple. Apparently if it does that, it's gone rogue and must be done away with.

Speaking of bread, my fabulous family, I have made a REALLY GOOD bread using pumpkin and other yummy spices like nutmeg, honey, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. It doesn't taste like pumpkin at all and the spices only add a hint of sweet loveliness so it's a slightly sweet, moist bread that still can be eaten with dinner, not necessarily as dessert. It reminds me of those really good rolls they made when I was really little in elementary school, pre-3rd grade. I hope all of you have as fond a memory of those rolls! Expect it at the holidays!

Foiled again

Remember how I said I had it all worked out in my mind for Crochet Queen's blanket and it seemed to be fitting into reality nicely? Hah. I got down to the last 5 rows of squaring off and checked everything to see how it was shaping the blanket. Um, it was shaping the blanket but in the wrong way. With every getting-slightly-larger row it was subtly pushing the points of the blanket out, thus making this corner REALLY wide, as in becoming 1/6th of the blanket rather than the approximate 1/8th it should be. (And don't anyone go saying that when dealing with approximations and depending on how large your whole is 1/6 could actually be an approx. 1/8!) There was some consideration of still doing the other corners the same but there was concern on how the end shape/result would be, especially since the parts I was crocheting on were at a slightly tighter gauge than the rest of the blanket, thus less resistant. So I frogged it all (sniff! good-bye 2 evenings of hard work!), went up 2 hook sizes (gauge now matches), and am simply putting lines that get slightly smaller and will eventually end in the corner point. No clever little mitered corners but at least maybe the blanket will shape up normal.

Guilty, guilty

Hee hee...

So, you know my ever-long list of things to knit/make for Christmas in order to be frugal? (Don't ask me where buying the Noro Silk Garden sock yarn came in to the frugal part... maybe because it was on sale? but I'm not using it for any gifts... yet...) Anyway, I have this list and I'm working my way through it marvelous-ly and I've decided to take on one of Crochet Queen's guilt projects that has been living and loving like a kracken in her house for a year and a half. She's expecting her #2 child in a few months, is having pre-term labor, and I decided this is one way I could help. It's a lap blanket for her younger sister that she started as Christmas present, I think, and it's prolonged itself to possible gift 2 Christmas's later. In the normal theme of Crochet Queen's projects, the pattern is totally of her own devices. She learned how to make Granny Squares from me and made a whole bunch of them only to take one and start crocheting around it (again, sort of with my help because she was tired of crocheting Granny Squares and had started something more blanket-with-less-holes like and wasn't sure where to go with it) which turned into a slightly irregular long diamond. It was starting to aggravate her and I am now taking that and squaring it off by adding triangles to the straight lines of the diamond (I'll post pictures; I'm quite proud of my crochet innovation and I hope it works on all the sides. So far it's working on the first one) and will use the Granny Squares as a border, throwing in a few single crochet lines to hold it all together.

We'll see how it goes... Little Guy is still sick so all this is being done to the theme of "Charlie and Lola" and "Sgt. Cribb", but not simultaneously.

I promised pictures!

Ok, the first group.
#1- Hubby's sweater so far. Doesn't look like much but every round is done with love and lots of time. :) I didn't use a smaller needle for the ribbing because that would have meant US#0 needles, plus he didn't want it to cinch in; he only wanted it to form fit.

#2 & #3- "Sedna" from a Yarn Forward magazine or my Amazing Technicolor Dream Cardigan. Imagine 2 more colorways thrown in and you will have an idea of how it will shine finished! It's fun, the cotton is amazing to knit with even if it does split more than I would like when knitting the cables and bobbles. Not sure why #2 came out sideways... hmm...

#4 & #5- AAnt's Afghan so far. It will finish a queen sized bed when finished. Large, a little boring, but not too bad. The colors keep me thinking because I change them with every row. I did consider doing fringe at the color changes but I don't think the recipiant of this gift would like that.

More to come!

Saturation Point

I think I've hit project saturation. I was thinking this yesterday and shared the revelation with Hubby. He gave me a look and said "Do tell."

I honestly can't start another project until I finish at least ONE thing that I'm currently working on. I'm working on the following (and yes, I confess to knitting ADHD and a little lunacy on top of that, but really I'm very happy doing all this at once... if I had all the time in the world, no housework, and no one's else's housework, and no people to chase):

• Hubby's Sweater: dark gray/brown, stockinette (and only stockinette with a little ribbing on the edges, my pattern to his dimensions knitted all in one piece attaching the sleeves EZ style) knitted on US#2 circulars
• Calming Wrap: (waiting for Phoebe wrap) Bee stitch, dark blue and light blue
• Socks: I have 2 started and one nearly finished
• Phoebe's blanket (starting to warm up to cables that seem to last forever thanks to Sedna)
• Sedna, or my Amazing Technicolor Dreamcardigan (posted on Ravelry)
• AAnt's Afghan (I'm actually crocheting again!)

Those are the ones I've started. I've also unravelled a skein of cashmere/silk for a lady I met in the Knit Shop. Can you say HEAVEN?!?! I also got paid for it! Hubby said he wouldn't be surprised if he came in to find me laying in the middle of the floor, purring, tossing it around. I also have several dishcloths to make for Christmas presents, a dragon scarf for Mom, an alligator scarf for the knit shop, another pair of socks to knit for that charity auction, a pair of socks for M-i-l and another for one of the nieces (probably more Christmas presents, due to our financial position), and I'm sure I'm leaving something out somewhere. There's always something coming up.

I love the knitting. I really do. I love that I will never, ever be sitting somewhere bored because I will always have something portable to work on and something more complicated waiting for me at home. I just need to clone myself so that at least the socks get finished in half the time.