Excuses, Excuses

Today is the start of Mystery Stole 3. Argh. Have I downloaded my clue? No. Have I swatched? No. Have I decided on beads? No. Have I finished the Shetland Triangle yet? No. Do I have my socks for June done? You guessed it. No.

Here are my excuses.

The Shetland Triangle pattern called for fingering weight yarn and I am using laceweight. It calls for 8 pattern repeats, I have done 12 and it is still little. I know blocking will stretch it, but since I am not running out of yarn and it is smallish, I press on. Here is what it looks like at this minute, after 12 repeats-

I haven't finished the sock because I have been knitting endless rows of lace. See excuse #1.

I am painting Grace's room. We are going with a "Hawaiian Monkey" theme (sounds weird, but it'll be cute, I promise). This involves modifying the existing Hawaii room of 8 years ago and two children ago (it used to be Emily/Alex's room, and recently was Alex's alone).

I am modifying the Pink Hotel painting (our family favorite Hawaiian spot) and adding the monkey girl in a hula skirt to the other wall. And I also painted the walls pink/green. For the record, I have done this painting project 98% on my own (Alex gets 1 1/2%, Grace 1/2%).

That's all my excuses.

I'm knitting as fast as I can, and yesterday that caused grief when I discovered I had missed a yarnover three rows back, which meant tinking back around 750 stitches to fix it. I was overjoyed! I am now back on track and after one more repeat I am going to do the edging. I have one more day to finish the socks in June. All is not lost yet. (Yes, I know the world will not stop turning if I don't finish on time but I have self-imposed deadlines).

Happy Friday!

Knittin' along

I'm a joiner. I get caught up in the excitement and can't help myself.

First came Project Spectrum. I'm sort of having an off couple of months. I will try harder, I promise.

Then came Sock a Month. I'm doing quite well with that, thank you. This month's feature is the Jitterbug sock, not the sexiest sock ever but it'll do. One down, one to go. This will be the 6th pair of the year, plus I have one lone sock waiting for a match when I have nothing else to do.

Next up came Summer of Socks. Yes, I realize that overlaps the sock a month thing, but I like socks and I like summer, so it seemed natural. Plus, I really want to sink my teeth into the Cookie A. pattern, and summer seems like the time. I'm thinking July.

Then came the Mystery Stole3. Me and 2500 of my closest knitting buds are going to do this lace project. The trick is that I get to finish the Shetland Triangle first so I don't have too many things On The Needles. I'm doing fine with the Shetland. The pattern lines up so it is easy to see as you go that you are going correctly. I am on repeat 6 of 8. I may do more repeats, yarn permitting, as it seems to be very small. If I run out of yarn I will just have a small lace thing. Not a problem, but admittedly, a shawl-sized object would be more useful. It will stretch out in the blocking I know, but it still seems small, doesn't it?

I don't know which color beads to use for the MS3. Here are the contenders. I will swatch with each I'm thinking, and see what excites me.

Here is a photo of the Chevron Scarf. Yes, I joined the Chevron Scarf Knit a Long, in case you were wondering. The Flickr group photos are so much fun I could look at them all day. I love color, and these are great!

I'm out of Knit A Longs for the moment. I'm sure if I tried at all I could find several more, but I am trying really hard to actually do the projects for the groups I join.

This weekend we are going to SF to a Giants game, so I'm already trying to figure out what to knit in the car. Lace? Sock? Hmmm...Isn't is funny how the car ride is the part you look forward to?

Saturday Update

I finished the Noro Chervron scarf. Hooray. I need to block it now, and then I will post photos. Somehow Noro is interesting to me yet I always encounter something that irritates me along the way - this time the abrupt knot/color change I encountered, breaking the subtle long flowing color changes that were occurring. I don't know how much it will show to someone that doesn't know it is there. Last time for my entrelac scarf in Silk Garden, it was the one "block" of yellow that didn't repeat even though the other colors repeated several times. Odd.





The Jitterbug socks are going fine, I decided that I was bored with completely plain, so I made an Eye of Partridge heel, just for the heck of it. I am really liking the Magic Loop (still only 1 at a time), this time it is size 1's and KnitPicks circulars, 32" or so, and it works just fine (thanks Pat for the hint). The yarn feels like STR, although I am aware the yardage is not as ample. I always have plenty left over so I don't think there is a big issue.





Please note: There is red in this sock, so I can count it toward the Project Spectrum color scheme that I really stink at.

Next up on my long list of WIP's is the Shetland Triangle. I know, I was making Ene's scarf last time I mentioned this lace project, but let's just say I changed my mind. So far so good here, although I'm not very far. It is the "at home" project, and I have not been "at home" much this past week, so not much progress.










I am, however, feeling the lace mood strike, so much so that I signed up for Mystery Stole 3. I wasn't around for 1 or 2, but here goes nothin'. We will be given "clues" and eventually have a stole knitted. No hint as for the theme, except it would look best in black or white and has beads, and wouldn't be great for a bride. Hmmm....I wonder what that means? Halloween? Anyway, it calls for 1200 yards of laceweight, and I have three skeins of this which would be more than enough, and be a good way of using it up. So I will give it a shot. I figure since over 1800 people have signed up for this KAL I can always ask someone if I get stuck.





Now that my little Grace is 6, birthday season is done around here for a little while. Happy Birthday Grace!



















Happy Father's Day Dad! Happy Father's Day Maurice!

Mommy Time

This week I'm the driver. Each of my three kids is doing a different summer activity that of course, don't all begin and end at convenient times or aren't located at the same place. That means I have to call in the reinforcements (Nolamom/Gram) and I find myself in different parts of town with an hour and a half on my own. What to do? Yes, I have been knitting. I have three different projects in the car with me, to stave off boredom. I could stand to finish something because I get the feeling too many things are on the needles.



Today, I decided to go to the LYS Ancient Pathways, which is located in the part of town close to the high school where two of three of the kids are this week. I don't often get to this store, but they are a friendly bunch, and I wanted to look for something red or black to knit to ease my guilt over the lack of Project Spectrum knitting.



Didn't find any red/black. But I did find this--






















I'm all about the Chevron Scarf these days, and the flickr group photos just make me want to do more and more. My Noro Chevron is interesting, but not pleasing to my tactile senses. (Scratchy). Anyway, I thought that these yarns looked interesting. Knit One Crochet Two's Ty-Dy, in two different colorways, greens and periwinkle/green/purple. It is all cotton. The other is True Love Fiber's "Maggie" named after Ancient Pathways Owner, which is superwash wool/Tencel sock yarn, and French 75 Panda - a merino, bamboo sock yarn. Wouldn't they look nice together?



In other news, I finally got my invite to Ravelry, the latest thing in the knitter online world. So cool! I'm very excited by the possibilities! I am working on getting it set up with all my projects and photos and the like, but I am having a blast playing around with it.

Worldwide Knit in Public Day

Our hands were busy.

















Most of us were knitting. Can you guess who is who? Cindy knitting new Jitterbug sock, Nolamom ending first sock of Tess Designer Yarn in pretty pastels, Carey (sporting ring) starting a scarf, and of course, Emily sporting iPod.


I have startitis. The Noro scarf is getting tedious, so I started the above sock, and as you can see, a lace project. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I haven't really done a true lace project of this size before, and the first line of the directions -- "Cast on 375 stitches" --was rather intimidating. I made it through that, but the first border charts are going SO SLOW. Each row takes forever. I may be knitting this one a long time.

SF Here We Come!

I just ordered my tickets for the Stitch N Pitch Giants game on July 24 for me, Carey, and Alex. When I first tried to order them after waiting a little too long to see who was going, getting the time off for Carey, and general procrastinating, they had SOLD OUT! What? Oh NO!

I tried calling local yarn stores. No luck. I tried tonight on the web to find a contact number to try calling the organizers for suggestions. In the process I found myself back to the Giants site that I had no luck with before, and I clicked again and it went through !! Hooray!! Hooray!! I was really bummed that I may have to miss the game.

Last year, Carey, Alex, and I had a great time, and it is really that game and the coverage on the MAKE magazine blog that got me started with the knitblogging thing. I am really looking forward to another fun night.

Go Knitters! Oh, and Go Giants!

Central Coast on a Saturday

We escaped! Just for a day, and not very far. Far enough to see grapes growing in the sun (okay, you can see that at home too) but these grapes will be turned into Chardonnay.

Grace saw two lizards. Cool.

I saw some johnny-jump-ups. So pretty.

Then my camera battery died.

I went to the Cotton Ball in Morro Bay. EXCELLENT, in the quilting/fabric-a-holic realm, which I reacquainted myself with. Ahem, don't tell anyone. I sort of found a little silk wall hanging kit that invites further exploration. More on that another time. I actually exercised self-restraint, mostly because Carey was freezing her buns off with my girls at the rock/beach and I was on borrowed time.

Made the rounds in Cambria, including the Ball and Skein and More, which has lots of potential, but wastes it all by keeping the yarn in the bags it was shipped to them in. The store looks like a storeroom, not yarn-purchase-encouraging at all. Plus, hardly anything was priced. I hate having to guess at the price. You sort of had to guess at what they had too, since in the bag it is all squished. I still managed to eek out a souvenir, in the form of Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn. They had a dog behind the counter which growled at Grace. Not very customer friendly.

In the car I worked on my new project, a chevron scarf that I have been seeing on lots of blogs lately. I am using Noro Kureyon, so the colors are interesting while the yarn feels like you could scour pots with it. I'm being optimistic that it will soften with blocking. A lot. I hope. Otherwise it will be an interesting scarf that I can't even give away in good conscience. If I felted it it would make a multicolored snake. Hmmm....let's send good thoughts for the softening. I wonder if anyone could stand a sweater out of the stuff?

Makes for an interesting photo.