Part 1: Mystery Beret

I've done the first part of the Mystery Beret KAL and can hardly wait for the next part.

I'm using Lorna's Laces Worsted in Black Purl and I'm also going to work one up in Dream in Color's Classy in Ruby River (I think-what do I do with all these tags?). I don't know how well the pattern will show up with the multi-colored yarn so I'm thinking the DIC might show more of the lacy details. I can't wait to see what happens.

I went to Knit Nite on Tuesday and it was so much fun I forgot to pull my camera out for a photo op. We took a break during the summer and I had thought we might not meet anymore, but we do have a lot of fun when we manage to get together so hopefully we'll get back into the swing of things. I love knitting in public with other people. It's fun to see other people stop and do a double take wondering what we're doing.

My youngest got her spacers put in yesterday on the top and bottom for the start of her braces and was fine all day, but this morning her back teeth were hurting pretty bad. I was wondering when it would hit! I know toothache kind of pain is no fun! Today I let her stay home so I have some company but she's back to the school grind tomorrow (after taking her Tylenol). I'm excited to finally be getting this going though, I can't wait until it's all over with. I wish it wouldn't take so long for braces to do their thing, but to finally get it going is a big relief.

I'm not really knitting very much lately. I have a sock that's been in limbo-land for awhile now, just the cuff on it is done, but I'm trying to finish up that Monica Ferris Needlepoint Mystery Series and I'm down to the second to the last book. I'm really enjoying these, I love how they're all so different but still center around the needlework arts. Two Thumbs Up!

Mystery Beret KAL

Hey Knitters!

I signed up for this awhile ago but found out today that it's off to an early start!

Here's the page on Ravelry:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mystery-beret

And here's the Group Page so you can read up on all her helpful advice and see what others are saying:
http://www.ravelry.com/groups/wormheads-hats

After making the Gretel pattern 3 times, I sort of have a fascination with Berets now!
I don't look good at ALL in a regular beanie style hat or anything tight, but Berets can make almost ANYbody look good!
*Plus, they're just fun as all heck to work up.

Anyway, it sounded like a fun, quick project! I can't wait to show my progress...

which reminds me...I better go wind my yarn!!! I'm behind!!

The BIG 1-0.

My Baby Girl is now officially out of the single digits.

I'm okay. Really, I am. I think.

Yep, we tore up that Cookies & Cream Ice Cream Cake. Yummmmmmm! (I didn't realize I hadn't gotten a close up pic of it until after we had dug into it! Oink Oink!)

I remember that beautiful Autumn day ten years ago very well. When I was finally able to have that elective c-section and let her come into this world. She was beyond beautiful, bossy, and really just as adorable as can be. She's brought so much joy to us as well as laughter and fun. I loved snuggling with her as a baby, as I still do - even though she's almost as tall as me now.

We had a great visit with our family and she made out like a bandit with the birthday CA$h. She's already bought two more video games for her Nintendo DS (the "hamster" or "ferret" thing wasn't going to happen with two cats and a dog already!). We're all pretty worn out from all the running around and eating so I'm going to go reflect and savor my memories of the previous 10 years.

Wow. My BABY is TEN. I must go lay down.

Happy 10th Birthday Miss Chelsea. We love you.

Just Socks

But I'm - Oh So Happy They're Done-!

Cat hair attached and all. (They're going to be washed this weekend).

I truly wish the colors would show better in the pictures. This colorway has a funny vibrancy about it, it reminds me of a fairy tale lagoon, with the blues, bits of purple, green, and black. I really like how comfy they feel on my feet too. These weren't an easy sell for me to work up because I've really been leaping away from varigated sock yarns a LOT lately. I'm tired of worrying and fighting with icky pooling or random striping anymore. Semi solids and solids have been beckoning me. But the pooling issues that came about with these were all My fault, not the yarn's. (Take THAT picky knitter!) Cast on amounts make all the difference with some of the varigated yarns, and also how dyers do their thing. It's all a learning process to find what you personally like and I think I finally got that.

Colinette Jitterbug

I think the "Jay" Colorway.

Size 1 Magic Loop needle

64 st cast on

Now to rack my brain on what to knit next!

I Don't Even Know....

how to title this post because I'm still puzzled on how I did this.

And I'm embarrassed to say that the big "revelation" didn't come until I was about to start the TOE shaping!!

See the big ugly "splotch" on my sock? Well, so did I. Ewwww. But I kept going. Hello? Anybody have any smart pills??

This didn't happen on the first sock I made, but I just kept knitting along and then decided to "cut" (which I HATE to do on socks!) and reattach the yarn to break up some of the pooling (ahem, 3 or 4 times -see the piles of yarn on the couch?). All in all it was still looking pretty ugly.

Then all of a sudden....it dawned on me: "COUNT THE STITCHES".

I knit my socks magic loop style now and I knit different stitch counts depending on the yarn. For this sock I used 64 sts and therefore should've had 32 on both needles to proceed down the foot. Well, I had 36 on one and 32 on the other. Yea, you see where this is going. It's amazing what havoc 4 extra stitches can cause.

Out of probably 30 or so pairs of socks I've made so far, and my experiences in the past with changing cast-on's due to ugly pooling, this was the first time I totally messed up on the gusset decreases! You'd think it would've dawned on me SOONER to consider WHY it was pooling so bad!

It's kind of funny NOW when I think about how long it took me to figure this out. But I wasn't laughing yesterday when I realized what I'd done and started tinking back 40 plus rows....

Now I'm back on track. At least I hope so.....

By George! There's some Knitting going on!

I finally dusted off my needles and got a sock going.

Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug
I think this is the "Jay" colorway. (My LYS wound it for me back when I bought it and I can't find the label.)
64 St Cast on
Just my basic recipe, a plain ol sock!

I love this yarn, it's really soft and squishy and a pleasure to knit with. I've read the negative reviews about it on Ravelry, but so far I haven't had any knots in my skein. I'm not done with the second sock so I don't know if they'll felt with use yet, or if they'll bleed really bad when washed. So, my rating on "knitting" with it is 4 out of 5 stars, but the rest is still up in the air. We shall see. These will probably go to my Mom for her birthday next month. She loves blue and greens and the colors in these are really pretty even with the striping. It's hard to capture the vibrancy with my camera but I'm pretty happy with them.

The Big Guy took the girls to the Smokey Mtns last weekend. They're on Fall Break from school this week so we're just going to lay low. The trees haven't hit their peak for color changes yet, but you can see Fall is definitely here. It got cool overnight it seems like. One day we're all sweating and the next day we're digging out sweatshirts and jeans! But boy does it feel GOOD!

It's still very pretty up in the mountains. And they brought me fresh pecan fudge on the way home again so I can't complain!
They hiked different trails this time and found some really good spots. Cooked their hot dogs and didn't get eaten by bears so I was relieved! They're going again later in the week and then we're off to the in-laws for a visit. My youngest will be hitting the "double digits" next weekend and I can't even believe it. This momentous occasion in MY life (cause where the heck did the time go??) means I deserve to stop by The Yarn Patch on the way there! You gotta work it when you can baby!!! Happy Knitting.

Knitting schmitting....

No Knitting to show on a knitting blog!? These ARE crazy days.

Well, I haven't picked up my needles in about a week I guess. I finished the baby items and ran out of steam. Not even a pair of socks in progress which is totally different for me. I've usually got something in progress in one bag or another, but I suppose everyone needs a break now and then.

I have been reading a lot lately. That's been sucking up my usual knitting time like crazy so it's been harder to miss it. I'm reading Monica Ferris's needlework mystery series.

Right now I'm on this one:

I'm enjoying this series because unlike Maggie Sefton's knitting mystery series (which I enjoy too BTW), I have a harder time figuring out who the villian is. I usually finish one book a night because I don't have the patience to wait and see if I'm right or wrong! They're like a good movie, I just HAVE to know who did the deed! I also slipped The Heretic's Daughter in as well (another good read). Thank goodness for the library because I seriously have been a reading machine lately. This series also includes a lot of needlework talk and that's something I've always been interested in learning as well some day. I never realized it's so diverse and that there are so many different techniques. It sounds like an expensive hobby as well, I better use up more yarn before I contemplate going down that path.

Reading's sort of been my escape lately. What do you do to escape?

I was feeling a little down in the dumps with everything that's going on in this crazy world. We've had our share of not so great things happening lately as well. Then there was a shooting recently at a mall here that we frequent often, so my mind was buzzing with worry about too many things. I had to just stop and chill out I guess. I did manage to get out for a walk on Saturday and that felt really good. You can't stop living, and worrying won't change anything. I guess I was just parked in a bad zone there for a bit.

My youngest has been having headaches and feeling sort of icked out off and on so now the worry transfers to her and she's way more important than anything else. I need to get her in to the doctor to see if she has a sinus thing going on, or maybe bad allergies or something. We're going to see how she's feeling in the morning and I may take her in. She's a stinker sometimes, but she's still my baby! Funny how these little people can make you focus.

I guess I better get back to my book now! I'm going to force myself to stop about half way this time so I can hopefully get some sleep for a change. Just like in knitting with my "one more row" habit, I'm always saying "one more chapter"....gets me into trouble every time.

Knitting will resume soon because I have my Knit Nite with the girls on the 28th which I'm looking forward to attending with project in tow. I have no idea what it'll be!!??

But I'll be there!

Another Quandry

With all the trouble in the world today, leave it to me to be worrying if I'm okay with how these turned out! (Is there a therapist out there?) With almost everything I knit to give away, I'm never sure it's good enough though. I worry, I worry, I worry. And then I worry. I made these Moc-A-Soc's for The Big Guy's co-worker but I'm undecided on if I'm going to send them or not...

Because the toes turned out to be sort of "square" on these and I'm not sure I like them like that. I don't know if blocking will change the shape. (I won't say how many pictures I took to get these shots! But it was A LOT!) I stuffed them to try to shape them but I couldn't get them to look how I wanted because of the toes! The reason is I made one of the "newborn" size before these, and it didn't seem square but more rounded and cute. I guess it transforms as you go bigger?

I used size 1 needles (which BTW I found -in my knitting bag- the day after I ordered another set!) and did the larger size (6-12 mos).

Yarn is Knitpicks Shine in Willow.

Mine are also technically "plain" because I didn't "attach" the sock part on top. I went ahead and bought socks (yes!! explanation forthcoming). I was going to knit (BLUE) socks but my wrist is "braced" again due to that same ol' pain that I get when I overuse it. I was scrubbing my kitchen before our company came and am now paying dearly. I told The Big Guy that I just can't clean house anymore! He thought that was pretty funny!

Anyway....I wanted socks that went all the way INTO the booties. For a baby I just prefer that they be comfortable regardless if they'll be walking in them or not. The seam is on the bottom as well so I just thought "what would I like for my baby?" So there they are...with store bought socks! Thanks Target! He may kick them off in 2 seconds flat, but they're totally Cute Overload! BTW, I wanted the Light Blue to match these:

I was outvoted by The Big Guy who really liked the beige socks better with the Moc-a-Socs! Must be a "guy" thing. Now my gift isn't as "cohesive" as a set (ooh, my ribbed blue socks would've been so cute!), but what can you do? (I'm sending a gift card in addition to/or instead of!)

These were made with two skeins of Plymouth Jeanee. Ooooh, squishy!! Wicked Squishy!!! (That's why I made two!) I have to wash these still (and the booties) and block them - then I'll decide if they go or not. If so, they'll be sealed up and sent to Denver for the little guy yet to be born. His Dad is a UCLA alumni, so that blue should be well received!

Baby things are so much fun!! I just love making them! I'm keeping my first little Moc-a-soc to just luv or hang from my rear view mirror! Yes. It's that cool!

~*~My 1st Blogoversary!!~*~

...and here it is already after 10:00 pm and I've barely gotten on my laptop today. Whew! What a day! It wasn't a very fun day, just a busy, busy day! We're having company tomorrow so of course that meant major "house cleaning" since my nephew's allergic to cats and I'm paranoid he'll get really sick. We also ran errands and went grocery shopping. Fun. Fun. Fun. Seems like it should've been a way more special day with it being my Blogoversary and all.... I think I owe myself a present or something don't cha think? At least some cake.....

Ah well. I wish I would've done a contest or something, but honestly I'm functioning on "low" with my brain cells that do work this year - it didn't even dawn on me to start something earlier. Maybe someday in the future I can make up for that. That would be fun!

I want to shout out a huge "Thank You" to any and all who regularly read my blog, friends, or anonymous, and to those who just stop by once in a blue moon to browse. I really do appreciate you taking the time to read my crazy talk, knitting talk, and all my other talk. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood to blog - then I make myself and I'm so glad I did. It's been fun.

Here's to another year!

Cheers!!