I HATE Flickr!!!

Don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I hate that site! And it's one that I have to use for Ravelry, and I did something wrong on Flickr which caused all my pictures on Ravelry to magically disappear.

Apparently there is a beta group who can post things from their own web space - I'm there. Sent the email, just waiting for the response.

Grrrrr.

Down to the wire

Finally finished the armwarmers for the nieces. I'm not totally happy with them, but they're damn good for a first effort with something like that on small needles. And if the girls want better I can make more for next year ;-)

Still need to tuck some ends on the clapotis (clapoti?) I made for Mom, MiL, and Dan's aunt. Given that it's all of maybe 2-3 per, that's not going to be a big problem. I want to do some blocking of them, but not full-on pinned down.

Have things for other niece and Dan's dad, too. Still need to finish the thing for my dad. Debating making a scarf to match what I made for the nephew.

I'm debating what to make after this. I do know one thing, it will be something just for me.

Gift knitting

We went to my parents' for an early Thanksgiving celebration the weekend before. I'm glad I decided to go ahead and try one of the in-process arm warmers on the nieces, because while it fit the younger one just fine, it didn't even come close on the older one. She's in competitive gymnastics, and, wow, that girl has some muscles.

I also decided to switch yarn for the older one's set. I had been working on her pair, and she didn't seem to like the yarn much. And after I thought about it, it's really not her. So I dug into my stash and came up with some jewel toned sock yarn that will be perfect for her. I'm on the first set of decreases already, which is pretty good since I didn't start it until Thursday.

I screwed up on the decrease section of the younger one's armwarmer, so I'm tinking back. I can't quite figure out where it is, but going back to the last decrease should help. I've been a little too mindless in my knitting on these, I screwed up on the older's one, too, but decided that a well placed-decrease would fix the extra stitch that creaped in there. And given how long it took me to find the increase, it won't be an obvious thing.

Still haven't made a final decision on the nephew's present, other than a funky hat of some sort. He's 15, almost 6 ft tall, and occasionally needs to be taken down a peg. I took the Wii with us, and he was being way over competitive until his dad took him down in a big way playing cow racing. Heh.

I had started a clapotis for Dan's aunt, but while working on it discovered that I seem to be allergic to alpaca. I had the whole itchy, watery eyes and itchy hands going. So I have some other yarn to use for it, now. And I think I'll make one for my SiL out of some Brooks Farm yarn I have in my stash.

Still not sure what to make for Dad. He's always a gift giving challenge.

I am feeling better, slowly getting back to decent energy levels. Had a sleep study awhile back and I will be getting a CPAP on Tuesday. I hope that helps the levels, too.

Still kicking

And I've actually been knitting up a storm - I'm almost done with the second Clapotis. Knitting's about all I've had the energy to do, to be honest. I did bake 2 pumpkin pies yesterday, and that was more than I should have done, so today is back to watching documentaries and knitting.

Surgery was a week ago. Other than some serious breathing issues when I first woke up after surgery, I've been OK. I guess the anesthesiologist missed the fact that I'm asthmatic - d'oh! There's nothing like swimming up to consciousness feeling like you're choking and can't breathe and having someone yelling at you to take deep breaths. Then having to have the nurse hold the nebulizer do-hicky because I was too weak to do it myself.

But I'm OK now. Some pain, of course, and 4 holes in various places with stitches. I forgot to take out my belly button ring, oops. They did it for me, without breaking the bead, even. Put it in a hazmat bag with my name on it :-D

Mom came up for a few days to help us out - Dan had to go to school on Friday and I wasn't supposed to be alone yet. She did a lot around the house, which I was most appreciative of. Dan and I have muddled through this week given that I do most of the cooking. He's managed to feed us most evenings, and I'm doing a bit, too.

Hopefully I'll be up to taking and posting some knitting-related pictures soon.

Wheeeeeeeeeee

Saw the surgeon yesterday - surgery is on Thursday. He gave me stronger hydrocodone to last me till then, and yeah, I can tell it's stronger, just look at all the pretty colors!!

I finally finished something (other than I need to tuck the ends). The first clapotis is done, and I love it! I've started the second one for my SiL, and the colors are just gorgeous. I'm using some DK weight from Cherry Tree Hill that Dan helped me pick out.

I'm glad the pattern is easy to memorize and do the repeats - I'm so whacked out I'm not sure I could do anything more complicated.

This week is so fired

It's not been a good week, to put it mildly. I spent a few hours in the ER Wednesday night, with some serious pain. ER doc thought it was my gall bladder, called surgeon, told me to get an ultrasound today (they don't have a tech on at night, how weird is that?!).

Got the ultrasound done, talked to the surgeon tonight. Ultrasound is normal, of course. *headdesk*

I've had issues with right side pain for well over 20 years, on and off. The pain that started Wednesday night, however, is the worst it's ever been, as well as the longest time it's hung around. The morphine they gave me last night helped a lot, the hydrocodone I'm taking now isn't helping nearly as much.

So anyway, we talked to the surgeon about the history, and we all decided that removing my gall bladder is a good idea at this point. But we need to make sure we give the insurance company whatever information they'll need to cover it (as in do we need to do further tests, etc). I'm supposed to call the surgeon's office tomorrow to make an appointment for Monday and to start the ball rolling on the insurance stuff. The hard part will be that Dan has to go to school on Monday, so I have to schedule my appointment around that, since I'm not going to be in any shape to drive.

More than likely surgery will be Tuesday or Wednesday.

Of course, this is sucking for work. Yes, I work from home, but I need to be in better mental shape and not in pain to work. I don't know how much PTO I have, and since I'm hourly if I don't work and I don't have PTO I don't get paid. *sigh*

We were just finishing digging out from the unemployment period. Figures.

So anyway, I'm trying to figure out if I can actually knit while impaired. I'm working on the clapotis right now, since that's a fairly simple repeat pattern. I'm not going to seam more of the hoodie, since I want those seams to look good, and it's the first time I've seamed something up in a long time.

And all this is on top of some other health news I got yesterday that I'm not ready to talk about yet.

Sheesh!!

I'm almost done

Have I mentioned that I've never actually completed a knitting project yet?

*waits for the laughter to die down*

No, really, I haven't. Until I started on the projects I've documented here, all I've done were scarves that bored me to death to the point I frogged them or hid them in the closet.

All I have left on the hoodie is some seaming and 3 rows of knitting I can't do till I seam the hood. Given that I woke up at 4am for no good reason and I'm a bit fuzzy, I've put it aside for tomorrow or Saturday to finish.

While working on the clapotis, Dan asked if I would make one for his mom, too. So I just ordered that yarn. The one I'm working on is over half done.

I've been flipping through the projects on Ravelry to see what else I want to make for holiday gifts. I want to use some of my stash yarn, so the fact that I can search based on type of project and weight of yarn really rocks.

And tonight I have a sleep study, so to entertain myself after I get there I'm taking my knitting. Given that, I probably will be brain dead tomorrow (and might take tomorrow afternoon off work) I'm thinking the seaming will be on Saturday.

Yesterday men in trucks came and cleaned up our front beds. They were a complete and utter mess, weedy, unkempt. Dan and I hate yardwork, and it showed. Since we're going to sell the house in the spring, we decided to get it landscaped now to give the plants time to establish themselves. I think they did a great job. We'll have them back in the spring for touchups.

Hello, hello again

Am still here, just been busy. I have made wondrous progress on the hoodie, only one and a half sleeves to go plus seaming. It's going along better since I got my KnitPicks Options set. I got the nickel-plated tips for now, but I will probably get some Harmony tips, too. The yarn is sliding a lot easier on them than it was on the Denise set.






I know it's a little hard to see the detail, I suck at pictures. But that's the body and the hood, with the sleeve on the side.

I've also made good progress on the Clapotis. I'm on the straight part, and I have the pattern repeats down so it's somewhat of a mindless knit. The hoodie is top priority right now (the kid is growing, after all) but the Clapotis will be finished next.



The color is a bit off in this picture, it's better in the following one:



I've been adding tons of sock patterns to my Ravelry queue, because once I get all the holiday knitting done I'm going to make myself some socks. I have the yarn, after all ;-)

And I love knitting during conference calls. Since all of my meetings are via phone, I get a lot done. Most days I have at least one meeting, and there are very few of them that I have to give my whole attention to.

That was fun!

I flew out to LA last Thursday to visit a friend. I won't say to meet her, because I've known her for several years, but we hadn't actually ever seen each other in the flesh before. I had no trouble recognizing her at the airport, though.

We spent a large portion of our time playing with fiber - she spun roving, which fascinated me, and I worked on Mom's clapotis. I also had some animal time, since she has 4 cats and a dog. I don't get any animal time at home, since Dan's allergic to pet dander, so I take advantage of friends' pets whenever I can. I was warned that the 2 kittens really like fiber a lot, so I took a zippered bag to hold my project bags.

I needed help with an increase technique that I hadn't done before - it wasn't hard, but I wanted to see someone do it, and the video on Knittinghelp didn't help a lot. And I watched her spin and asked inane questions as she made a gorgeous yarn from some red/pink/black roving.

And Rainy introduced me to Deadwood. Yummmmm. And took me shopping at her LYS, A Mano Yarn Center, where she forced me to buy TOFUutsies and Trekking. You would not believe the arm twisting that took! Really!! When I have some time I'll take pictures of the pretty pretty sock yarn I bought.

It was a very fun and relaxing visit.

I'm bad

See, there is a sock designer whose patterns I really like. They're available at The Loopy Ewe, and since you get free shipping at the Loopy Ewe when you buy enough of course I couldn't just get those patterns, I need to get some yarn too.

Then I realized that I don't have the needles I need to make the socks - I don't have any 0s or 1s, and I prefer circs since Magic Loop rocks my world. And, of course, the cords on the circs at Knit Picks are wonderful for Magic Loop, so I had to order from there (and again there's free shipping when you buy enough) and they added cool wooden circs recently so of course I had to get some of them, too.

*sigh*

Then Sheri had to add more of Wendy's patters to the Ewe. And there's one pattern that is just *perfect* for a surprise I want to make a friend. Perfect. Really. And, again, I had to get enough to make free shipping....

I'm really glad I have a job again.

Whoo-hoo!

I've been slacking about posting lately, but it's for a good reason - I have a new job! I didn't talk about it up here much, but I unexpectedly found myself in need of a new position back in July, and from that disaster I found something that is going to work out so well in many ways.

One of the really good things is that I'm working from home on a regular basis. I will be traveling to 3 different data centers occasionally, but for the most part I will be in my home office.

The other really good thing is that Dan and I can relocate to Lafayette, which will make his school commute a lot better. Right now he's driving about 2.5 hours a day back and forth. Cutting that out of the day will give him so much more time for other things, including sleep :-)

But on to the fibery goodness!

I've been working steadily on the hoodie. The back is complete, I'm working on the front now:




Switching to the Shine yarn has made a HUGE difference and it's working up very nicely.

I've also been working on the girls' armwarmers. I've switched which set is going to which girl, after getting Mom's input. I had to frog one that I'd bound off when I realized that I'd left out a HUGE section during the increases. D'oh!

I was going to post more, but apparently I have a migraine coming on, so more later.

I should have known better

I will admit I was a bit worried about using the KnitPicks Crayon yarn, given its texture. But, hey, I know how to read stuff, right?

Not knitting. I've crocheted for years, but at knitting I really am still a n00b.

After several weeks of frustration, I've frogged it. 7 inches of stockinette.

I ordered some KnitPicks Shine to replace it. Still going with red.

I'll make something for Dan from the Crayon at some point. Later. Maybe I'll even crochet it.

On the other hand, I've made real progress on both sets of armwarmers. I've cast on the second set (so I'm working on the first one of both sets) and I really like how the colors are working together.

I'll post new pictures later.

Mail yarny goodness!

I got my order from The Loopy Ewe today - 2 skeins of cashwool laceweight that's just gorgeous, and 5 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport to make a clapotis for my mom for Christmas - I had to, the colorway name is her name :-) I still need to figure out what modifications I need to make since I'm using sport weight instead of worsted. I might just start on it and see what I think of the results using the specified needle size.

And after not getting what I ordered from Knit2purl2, I have to find some special yarn for the friend elsewhere - it's really hard to find the specific colorway in stock. I bet, though, if I check the yarn store in Lafayette they might have it, since technically it's in Purdue's colors....

Progress!

Here's part of the present I'm making. It's more red than it seems to be - I'm using KnitPicks Crayon. It's coming along well, other than the mind-numbing stockinette.














I'm also working on armwarmers for my nieces for Christmas. I've had some somewhat started and had to frog it. I just cast it back on and haven't gotten very far yet. It's made with Lime & Violet Sasquatch sock yarn. The one for the older one is in hydrocodone.











The colorway for the younger one is vicodin. The names were inspired by Miss Violet's trip to the ER for migraines - there was a whole series of medication-related named yarns :-D

I blew the yarn diet

I just had to find out that Knit2Purl2 is having a going out of business sale with unbelievable prices.

So I looked at Dan with big puppy dog eyes and asked if I could buy some yarn. I showed him what I wanted to buy - 2 skeins of Lorna's Laces shepherd sock yarn for a friend, and 4 skeins of Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb for a clapotis for my mom.

The Lion and Lamb is usually about $30 a skein, and it was on sale for $15. And they had the colorway that is her name, so I couldn't resist. And the other yarn, well, it's highly appropriate for said friend and she's going to fall over laughing her ass of when she sees it.

Still chugging away at the stockinette. *yawn*

Not a lot new

I did end up frogging the armwarmers for Meredith. I've restarted them, but haven't done much with them yet. I am on the endless stockinette on the back of Gabriel's gift, but it's coming along. Just a few more inches and I start making the insets for the armholes.

I'm going to take pictures of it later. Steph, if you're reading this, you're not allowed to look ;-)

Mail call!

Got a box from KnitPicks! Got the yarn I need for Gabriel's gift, 2 sets of circulars (2 & 3 in the 32" size, want to see if I can magic loop with them) and 2 more books.

I've been buying too many books lately - when I add things to my Ravelry queue it tells me which books I need for those patterns, and most of those books are ones I wanted to have anyway. But, yeah.

And now I have 3 projects on the needles.

Been spending too much time on Ravelry

My queue at Ravelry is HUGE! I'm not going to knit anything that I don't a) already have the pattern for and b) already have the yarn for unless it's important, like an item for Steph and Pete's new arrival. I had been racking my brain to find the right thing for that miracle baby, and it came to me yesterday when I was browsing patterns.

Of course, I had to order the yarn and #3 needles. I have 2 sets of interchangeables and neither of them go down to a 3. Sheesh!

The pain meds are making concentrating on my knitting really hard right now. Good thing I'm on the 9 inches of mindless knitting on the fuzzy feet. The good thing is since I'm working from home I can knit when things are slow :-)

WANT

WANT TO GO!!!

Yarn and more yarn

I was just up in the spare room, digging though my yarn in search for some decent stuff I've had for awhile that I want to enter into Ravelry.

Wow, I have a lot more yarn than I thought I did. I have a ton of acrylic, bought over several years, most of which is going to Mom for her church group to use. I still need to get that together.

But I found some lovely yarn I had totally forgotten I had, like some Manos del Uruguay in a beautiful purple (of course). I need to get it cataloged and posted to Ravelry.

I've been having a lot of fun up there, browsing patterns and adding them to my queue. I have a lot to get done for Christmas (and, yes, I am going to start that stuff this early).

The Big Gay Blanket

Pictures of Jos and Tom's sprog's afghan, or as she put it, the Big Gay Blanket.

The colors are a little off, even in the sunlight. It's hard to differentiate the blue and purple.

Update on Projects

I've finally finished the afghan I was working on (pictures after the recipient receives it) and have moved on to making Knitty's Fuzzy Feet out of some Cascade 220 in rainier heather I bought at WEBS (yay for sales!)

This will be my first sock-like thing. It also gave me my first opportunity to use my swift and ball winder. I followed some good advice I found on the L&V message boards about not winding directly from the swift, but pulling some yarn off of it and winding it that way - reduces the tension on the yarn as it's winding. That worked really well, and my center-pull balls are working well.

I'm using my Denise interchangables for this, at least to start. I haven't decided how I'm going to handle the parts that call for DPNs - I may either see how long of a loop I can make with my Denises and try Magic Loop, or I may use the two circular method. I have a few more inches of stockinette to do before I have to decide.

This is also my first project in the round (but not in using my circular needles - I've been using them for everything because they're so compact) and I like how it's turning out.

Since I feel like death, however, I'm not sure how much I'll get done today. I'm hoping to have at least the first one completed before I leave for Portland in 2 weeks.

Maryland Sheep and Wool!!

I bought yarn at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival over the weekend. There were lots of pretty things, and I could have bought a lot more. I had been contemplating buying a drop spindle, but decided I needed to work on my knitting more before adding that to the mix.



Gorgeous 55% superwash wool, 30% silk, and 15% viscose from Brooks Farm Yarn. 3 huge hanks, 860 yards each. I'm going to make a sweater for myself from them.




60% superwash wool, 20% silk, and 20% viscose also from Brooks Farm Yarn. Will be used for Christmas presents for my brother's family.




At The Fold's booth, didn't get any Socks That Rock because there was barely any left, but I did pick up some gorgeous Gypsy Girl Creations superwash merino sock yarns in Backdraft and Cattails. Each hank is 200 yards. These will become socks.




Two hanks of superwash 80% wool 20% nylon sock yarn from Ellen's Half Pint Farm. The colorway names aren't on the bands, so I have no clue what they're called. Will also become socks.

I have to finish the baby afghan for Mothra Piggy Booger Ronan. My goal is to have it done before he's a year old!!

Actually, I have decided I'm not allowed to start anything until I get that done. I'm fairly close, at least.