Felt Like Knitting

Get Your Guts in Gear

I'd like to help Debby spread the word about an upcoming bike ride to support the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation.  She and her husband are 1/4 of the way to their goal of raising $2000!  (Good work, Debby, Chris, and Charlie the Spokescat!)  Here's a link to learn more about Chron's.

If you'd like to help, you can donate via PayPal through the link to her blog.  And/Or, you can help by posting about the ride on your blog.  (Be sure to let her know you've posted.)  By the way, Debby is offering some yarn shop gift certificates as prizes.  :)

Anticipation

Hearts and Roses

As I mentioned the other day, Lynne is hosting a Special Swap with the first theme being Hearts and Roses.  My package from Lu arrived today!  Take a look:

            

What great swap gifts - look at all that yarn!  :)  There is some beautiful Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Chunky in grass.  (Green is my favorite color!)  Lu included some lovely Rio de la Plata Merino Yarn in carnation.  The color is even so much prettier than it is in the picture.  And there is a hank of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in cherry.  It's a great color and I'm wondering if it should go into socks or a shawlette.  Continuing the hearts and roses theme, Lu put in some delicious cookies, a cute photo album, some wonderful scented soap, and a sweet rose pen.  Even her card was heart-themed!  Thank you so much, Lu! I love everything and I am planning my knitting projects already.  :)  And thanks for a fun swap, Lynne!

Speaking of knitting projects, I'm debating about this baby kimono now.  Katie helped me figure out a few things.  I decided I might not have enough of the Cotton-Ease since I'm increasing the size of the kimono.  No problem, I'll just buy some of the TLC Cotton Plus that Katie used.  Plus, I'll buy an outfit and get yarn to compliment the outfit colors.  Wrong!  I found two cute outfits, but nobody around here carries the yarn.  I did find an eBay store that sells it, but then I got to thinking that two outfits is already a gift.  So now I think I'll send the outfits right away and knit something for the baby later...like for Christmas.  :)  I'll frog the kimono and reknit it in the newborn size.  That way I'll already be ready for the next baby that comes along.

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Plan for Day 1 of break:  Get up and make a list and schedule of everything that needs done.

What I actually did:  I sorted through and answered (some of) the 280+ e-mails in my in-box.  I now have zero e-mails.  My goal is to answer or act on each e-mail as it comes in.  No more "I'll answer that later."  I apologize for not answering everyone right away, but hopefully that mode of operating will change soon.  And maybe it will trickle into the rest of my life.  :)  A good result of this in-box cleaning is that I've gotten some nice replies!

I decided to start the baby knitting with the baby kimono from Mason Dixon.  Restless Knitter and I met on Saturday and she gave me a ball of Cotton-Ease to try for the kimono.  (Thanks, RK!)  I like Cotton-Ease and I hope some stores around here start selling it again soon.  Speaking of getting together to knit, we had such a fun time.  We laughed quite a bit.  I think that was partly because we were able to score a comfy couch for knitting.  I suggested that we should have our own podcast.  That won't happen, but it was fun to toss around podcast names.

Chore #2 for today is to clean the master bedroom.  It is awful.  Maybe after that, I'll clean my sewing room.  (You know, I tried to switch the name of my sewing room to studio, but that didn't take.)  Soon I won't have anything to do but knit, right?  ;)

Midterm break is finally here!

Again, I've been wanting to post, but haven't felt like there was anything "big enough" to justify it's own blog entry.  So I'll just catch up on little things...

The lovely Lynne is hosting a swap with the theme of Hearts and Roses and my partner is Lu.  Make sure you check out her blog - she dyes, she designs - she is indeed talented.  I had a lot of fun figuring out what to get that would fit the theme and be enjoyed by Lu.  Her package went out today and I'm looking forward to hearing how she likes it.

Today was our last day of class for a week.  I really need the midterm break next week.  There is housework to finish, school work to catch up on, relaxing and knitting to do.  I've decided not to return to teaching next year.  However, there are enrichment classes that meet on Fridays and I may create and offer a yarn art class (knitting, felting, crochet, embroidery).  The director told me that those classes aren't usually in demand, but I'm hoping that some "cool" projects will draw in some new knitters.  I'm working on a felted PDA case for a sample right now.

This week I knit the class sock from Sensational Knitted Socks.  I was surprised how well it went together.  I thought the whole sock thing would be more mysterious.  Yesterday I cast on with some Regia Crazy Color in orange/teal/lime green that I had in my stash.  I'm only two rounds into the ribbing and haven't yet decided what pattern to use for the leg.  My long term goal is learn how to knit toe-up short heel socks.  One problem I'm having is that I don't like knitting on metal needles.  I'm using a size 3 Addi Turbo (magic looped) and I think I may have to break down and buy some wooden DPNs.  We'll see...

My dad's stepdaughter just had a baby girl and I'm trying to decide what to knit for her.  First I thought I'd knit a hat.  Then it was a hat and booties.  Now it's the baby kimono from Mason Dixon Knitting.  I bought some Manos Cotton Stria in avocado and rose to use for the hat project, but I may buy something else (or just more of the rose) for the kimono.  What's your favorite thing to knit for baby girls? 

Lock-in, sleep not

Yesterday I met up with Restless Knitter at our local bookstore cafe for some knitting and show-and-tell.  I got to see the beautiful shawl that she just completed.  I was very impressed with it!  It's a lovely pink color and is so well done.  I always enjoy talking with RK because she makes me laugh every time.  Laughing is good for a person.  :)

E had a lock-in at church last night, so S and I planned to go out to dinner.  Then I got a phone call from the lock-in coordinator asking me to replace a sick chaperone.  We did go out for dinner then I headed to church.  Let's just say I didn't get much sleep last night and things are getting a bit fuzzy around the edges right about now.  No sock or shawl knitting tonight!

Is anyone going to watch the Grammy Awards tonight?  Third Day is up for some awards, but I don't know if their categories will be televised.  Chris Tomlin is also up for an award.  We play a lot of his music at church and I enjoy it, too.  Speaking of categories, there are 108 of them.  Can you imagine how long the show would be if they televised the winner of each category receiving their award?!  (Update:  Congratulations to Third Day!  They won a Grammy for the Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album!)

I finished another dishcloth Christmas gift.  Now I'm thinking of giving sets of two coordinating cloths, so technically each dishcloth is only half a gift.  But I think I'm still going to count it as a finished gift in my list of goals.  Is that cheating?  :)  This was my favorite dishcloth so far because the colors are so cheery.

Central Park Hoodie photos

Armed with a good hair day and a 12 year old with a camera, I endeavored to take some great CPH photos.  This is what you get.  :)  It is 36 degrees F (feels like 30).  I know that's warm in some parts of the country, but it's cold for Georgia.  So I wasn't smiling.  I was saying "Just take the picture.  It's fine, just take the picture!"  And instead of smiling, I grimaced.  Not a good look for blog photos.  :)

                   

I'm so happy to have this sweater done.  I do much better with small projects, so I'm thrilled to have completed this.  The Malabrigo is so soft and warm.

I was all set to work on the Forest Canopy Shawl for my mom, but now I'm considering starting a pair of socks.  I am so determined to figure that out this year and I'm anxious to get started.  Maybe I could start both?  :)

Guess what I'm wearing?

My hoodie is finished!  Unfortunately, I'm the only one at home right now and the "take your own picture in the bathroom mirror" trick didn't work because of the lighting.  It fits, the hood isn't as pointed as I had feared, and it's warm.

Some concerns...

The band and hood haven't been blocked, but the rest of the sweater has.  Right now the band looks great, but I'm afraid what will happen when it gets wet.  I hope it doesn't grow too much.  The hood will be fine if it expands.

The band is a slightly different color than the sweater since it hasn't had a chance to bleed in the water.

I knew I looked bad in hats.  I didn't know I'd look worse in a hood.  :)  Who cares, though?  The only time I'll have it up is when I'm cold in the house.  And you guys won't care if I look odd while I blog, right?

Hopefully I can get a picture tomorrow.  Thanks for all of the support you've given me during the knitting of this sweater!  I'm rather shocked that I've finished it.  On to a shawl, and a dishcloth, and a hat, and some socks, and .....

Picking up stitches

Lately, my blog has been sadly lacking in the WIP photo department.  I thought about taking a picture today.  Did I?  Nope!  But the good news is that the hood is off the needles and now I'm picking up stitches for the band.

Super Bowl "bads"

Wow, I'm getting to use the Sports category.  That may be a first in my blogging career.

I'm sitting here, knitting, and watching the Super Bowl ads.  Is it just me, or are they way more violent than normal?  I've seen a car wreck, a woman trip and crash into a car, a man throw a rock at another man,...  I even just watched a robot commit suicide by jumping off a bridge.  (Don't worry, the jump was only in its dream.)  I'm not a big football fan but I have to say that the game is better than the ads this year.  I'm wondering if it's safe to let E watch the halftime show with me. 

No new knitting news to report...just working on the hood...again.  Edited:  I think what I wrote was misleading.  I was able to successfully find what looked like a dropped stitch, so I didn't have to add a stitch.  And I've been knitting and knitting and knitting and I have 2.5 inches left to go before I start to decrease.  I guess it just feels like it is taking forever.  Maybe I'll be able to take and post a picture tomorrow.