WIP catch ya up

TShirt Sweater: Two sleeves done, working on this...

It's supposed to be the front, but can you see the lovely color pooling? Right where my b00bs would be? Niiiiiice, eh? The color pooled despite the fact that I alternated two balls of yarn every two rows. And one ball had already been partly used for a sleeve. I think there's some kinda of statistical anomaly involved, since I cut the yarn four times and rejoined on opposite ends twice and STILL got pooling. Finally I had to cut one ball and pull from the outside, making sure that the colors weren't going to match. Sheesh. Needless to say, this is no longer the front of my sweater- it's the back. :)


Project Spectrum Socks:

One down, one to go.

Those are the only WIPs worth mentioning right now.

But I did cast on for this:

It's a sock in Austermann Step, a yarn that I've never used before. Sis picked this yarn out when we were at a LYS. It's got a nice color repeat and is super soft...AND it has aloe and jojoba in it! See?

Drill Box Spotting!

Guess what came in the mail today?


I'm the next recipient of the drill box from Yarn Aboard! Woot! The box came all the way from Catherine in Texas and was disguised in the cute wrapping paper above. Wanna see what was in it? I know you do:


*coconut wash (mmmmm smells gooood)
*fun knitty themed note cards
*sock yarn...closeup:

Cherry Tree Hill on the left and Joselyn's Fiber Farm on the right

*two fun sock patterns that I don't have:


I LOVE the colors of the sock yarn! I think the pink-y yarn will be next up on the needles. Thanks so much for the lovely package, Catherine!

Now I'm off to repack the drill box and send it on its way....

***ETA: The Dearest came home from work and stopped in his tracks when he saw the Drill Box on the kitchen table. I was busy cooking dinner so I was a little surprised when he asked me if I'd gotten a new drill.

Me: "New what?" (while simultaneously cutting up some meat, divyying out the veggies and flipping potatoes)
The Dearest: "When did you buy a new drill?"
Me: "I didn't!" (not realizing what he's talking about)
The Dearest: "Then what's that?" (pointing at the box)
Me: (lightbulb moment) "Ohhhhhh...I didn't buy a drill..."
The Dearest: (opening the box and looking perplexed) "Why is there yarn in here?!?"

So then I had to 'splain the whole blogger penchent for swapping and yarn and...well...*you* all know what I'm talking about! He is still a little bemused by my explaination, but I think he's just glad I didn't *buy* more yarn. *grin*

Wot! More Posting?

Sewing is SO MUCH FASTER than knitting. Behold:

click images for a bigger view

Inspired by Kathleen and Hillary, I decided to make Little Man some new play pants. He recently went thru a major growth spurt and now most of his pants are too short. I tried to buy new pants, but if they're long enough to cover his ankles, they're too big in the waist. So I took some quick measurements and went to town with some clearance fabric and the sewing machine. An hour and half later: new pants! I thought they'd be too long, but they fit him perfectly. The next pair will have to be longer and wider in the leg. I'll also put pockets on both sides (per his request).

And on the knitting front, remember my cursed Jaywalkers? The ones I thought I'd never finish? Well, finish them I did (despite the fact they didn't fit). A week or so ago, I was hanging out with Michelle and she tried one on- it turns out that they fit her perfectly! So now Michelle has a new pair of socks and I'm finally DONE with them!!!

More Joining...

Dye-O-Rama, baby! Something I can do with all the dyes and yarn I've got laying around. Woot!

Wee !

I'm a big fan of Hillary's blog and her work, which always has a sense of whimsy about it. Since I've been hooked on sewing lately, I printed out the free "Wee Bunny" pattern to make a softie for Monkey Boy (who hasn't gotten one yet). I went searching thru my fabric stash, which I found exceptionally uninspiring. It's been *a long time* since I bought any fabric (I've been too busy acquiring yarn). Then I received an email from Michelle about a sale at the local quilt shop....dumped the kiddos on the Dearest and went shopping. Here are the spoils (click for bigger images):

sale fabrics, $3 and $4 a yard
Love that middle pink one, very Amy Butler-ish


some fun, retro fabrics...check out the 'spirograph' one!(2nd from the left)


some chenille for more softies

Then I came home and made this:



ETA: The web addy for the quilt shop. :) Did I mention that I signed up for a class on Log Cabin quilting? I used to quilt years ago and recently decided that I needed to make a quilt (like this) out of the boys' baby clothes. The class will be a good refersher course for me, and hopefully I don't start hoarding fabric the way I hoard yarn.

*snort*

New softies

Not knitting, but cute anyhow....
Front view:

Back view:


These were soooo easy to make! The smaller one was a prototype. I handstitched the eye and mouth on, then cut it out, sewed it together on my machine and stuffed it. The bigger one was based on a drawing by Little Man. I added the little fang, tho.

LM really likes his softies and has pretty much carried them everywhere since I made them. He even took them for a ride in his toy Jeep last night.

Easter fun

We had an Easter Egg hunt on Sunday, along with a real live Easter Bunny (see him in the pic?). All the kids on our block had fun running through the cul-de-sac and getting 'bunny faces'. I wish I could have taken more pictures, but it's hard to watch a 16mo old and actually get good photos. But in case you're intesterested, there are more here.

Little Man was really into the egg hunt this year. He got quite the haul of eggs. Monkey Boy got four once he realized that he was supposed to actually put the eggs in his basket and not throw them. After the Egg Hunt, my mom and stepdad stopped by for a quick brunch and some grandkid spoiling. Once the grandparents left, we all had a short nap and headed off to the local park to fly a kite and work off some of the sugar. All in all, it was a great day.

As for knitting, not much has been going on here at Chez Shizzknits. Monkey Boy has been really sick for the past week with some kind of viral thing. He's up pretty much every hour at night- it's almost like having a newborn again because all he wants to do is nurse! I'm exhausted! Luckily he's started feeling better over the last day or so and is on the mend. Of course, he's such a share-er that he passed his sickies onto big brother so Little Man has the same fever and mouth sores. His immune system seems to be doing much better than MB's, as he's pretty much ok during the day. As long as I give him some childrens' Motrin at night to keep the fever down, he sleeps ok.

Since I haven't been knitting much, I decided to pull out my sewing machine and play around with some felt. I saw this thread on Craftster.org about making stuffies out of felt and gave it a try. I made two really cute little "softies" as Little Man calls them. Youl'll have to wait for pics, tho, since he took them to bed with him tonight. Hopefully I can post some images in the morning.

Happy Easter!

teeeny tiny worm

There is a planter box in our backyard that, pre-kids, had lots of flowers and veggies growing it. When I had to start nurturing children instead of plants, the garden and planter box took a big hit. Nothing's grown in the box in the last few years except for some exceptionally delicious renengade tomato plants and a very hardy tree rose that refuses to die.

Every so often I stare out the back window and think "I should really fix up that planter box with some flowers or a pond or sumfin." Considering that the planter is a focal point in our backyard and is visible from every window on the back of our house, it would be wonderful to fix it up. The Dearest is pushing to install a small pond & waterfall back there to give us some soft water noise.

Unfortunately, I think Little Man would object to any project we start. Despite the fact that he has a perfectly good sandbox, he prefers playing in the dirt of the planter box. His favorite thing to do is get water out of the hose and make a huge muddy puddle to play in. He can spend an hour or more just pushing the dirt around with his child-sized gardening tools, burying and digging up whatever buried treasure a nearly-four-year-old can come up with.

Here's what he found a few days ago, after some heavy rains:

"Momma, I found a little teeeny tiny worm friend!"

classic headbanger

Little Man is currently having "quiet time" in his room. I just walked by there and heard him singing to himself. What was he singing? Not his A-B-Cs, not 'Starlight, Starbright', not some other cutesy preschooler song.

He's singing "Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap" by the original and classic headbangers, AC/DC.

That's mah boy!

inspiration!

Lookee what the mailman brought me:


Everyone in blogland is raving about Mason-Dixon Knitting, and I'm going to join them. This book is *great*. The projects really are inspirational- when was the last time you thought about knitting a little handtowel out of linen? How about plain ol' dishclothes? And I think the idea of log cabin knitting is amazingly ingenious! I was so blown over by the knitted 'quilts' in M-D Knitting that I've already started one.

Most knitting books don't live up to the hype surrounding them, but M-D is a must-have IMO. Head on over to your LYS or Amazon and pick up a copy. You won't be sorry.

Project Spectrum knitting

Last year, in a fit of dye-craziness, I handpainted some sock yarn and came up with this:

I found it again during the Flash Your Stash photoshoot and thought, "Ah ha! Yellow and orange! Perfect for April's Project Spectrum!" After winding it into a delicious little yarn cake, I decided to make some socks (cuz who doesn't need a pair of orange and yellow socks?). Last night I sat down and tried several different lace-ish patterns before realizing that the varigation was too strong for lace. So back to my tried and true cuff down socks with ribbing:



***cuteness alert***

Lil'Man came downstairs yesterday evening and brought me something he'd made:

"Momma, this will remember me to you" says Lil'Man.

overheard today

Little Man: "Dada, I had a poop!"
The Dearest: "Did you wipe your bum?"
LM: "No, I had a clean drop!"
Me: *snort*

Project Spectrum photos

two years ago today....

this is what Little Man looked like:

april 7, 2004

randomness

I finally finished my the first of my Jaywalkers. Behold:

another view:

The first two times I made the sock, I use the recommended needle size and made the size small. Unfortunately the size small couldn't be pulled on over my heel. So I tried again with the larger size. Still too tight in the cuff, and too large in the foot. For this final attempt, I made the smaller size using US2 DPNs. I was finally able to get a cuff that fits, but the instep is really loose. You can tell by looking closely at the images that the sock is really bunching up around my arch. The toe area is too large as well.
Elspeth and Mamma (among others) commiserated with me on the difficulty of getting the Jaywlker to fit correctly. I'm not complaining about the pattern at all....there are 100s of other people who have made gorgeous, well fitting Jaywalkers. I'm just not one of them! No pattern fits everyone, and unfortunately it looks like my funny feet don't get along with this one. I'm going to finish the second sock and this pair will probably go to my sis- who has slightly wider feet than myself.

My other WIP, Veste Everest, has been sailing along:

I'm just about ready to start the v-neck shaping. There was some concern that the 41.5 inch size would be too big, but I checked it against another top that fits me well and the Veste seems to be similar. I threw in an extra pattern repeat before the arm shaping- I wanted to make the vest a little longer than the pattern calls for.
Abigale mentioned that my plan to rib the back (instead of more cabling, as the pattern calls for) will probably cause the back to be wider. I'd thought of that, too, and will have to do some swatching to figure out how wide I should make the back. My big concern now is spinning enough yarn to complete the project. I'm hoping that the front will be completed with the yarn remaining in the picture!

Non-knitting randomness:
-my car has been leaking oil pretty badly for the past month. In fact the other day I had to ask the Dearest to put another quart in because I check the dipstick and it was DRY. Yikes! I had been putting off taking my car into the dealer because 1) it takes 3 days for them to look at any small problem with the car, 2) I don't have a backup vehicle so that means I'm stuck at home with the kiddos for three days, 3) I just *knew* it would cost mucho bucks to fix whatever the problem is, and my car isn't under warranty anymore.
To my surpise, they called the same day that I dropped the car off, and told me that it was leaking oil because the oil filter was loose (their fault as I have them change the oil). So not only did I get the car back within 24hrs, but *gasp* it didn't cost me anything! Yay!

-I am really itching to spend some time knitting and kvetching with other yarn freaks. Due to the Dearest's work schedule and some non-serious medical stuff, I've missed the last three "sit n knit" nights at LPK as well as two of the last spinning meets on Saturdays.
Hopefully I'll get to go to the sit n knit tonight but the Dearest has a meeting with a windbag client this afternoon, so we'll see!

I just wanted to thank you all for the lovely comments on my Tribbles/Stash Flash! I have to admit that it was The Dearest who came up with the original idea. However, the Summer Tweed in the crapper shot was my idea (and yes, I cleaned up the throne before placing the yarn).

There's a randomness post and a FO pic upcoming, but it's late and I"m off to bed. Hopefully I'll have time to post tomorrow.

Self Portrait Tuesday 04/04/06

A little late, but at least I remembered! A pic Little Man snapped of me....Pretty good for a nearly -4 year old! I figure it goes with this month's theme of "April Fool's".

the trouble with tribbles AKA Flashin' It!

The trouble with a fiber habit is that fiber, like tribbles, seems to mulitply when you're not looking.

The first time you meet that little ball of Kidsilk Haze, you're struck by its softness and the lovely color. Somehow it follows you home and the Kidsilk (Crack) Haze becomes your pet, sleeping on your pillow and snuggling up with you....

And that Malabrigo! Oy! Such gorgeous colors! Soft like buttah! It must come home to join the stash, too.
Even if you have no idea what to make with it....it makes you happy:

But things soon turn dark....
Those cute little balls of yarn nuzzle each other in your stash. More tribbles- I mean balls of yarn- arrive and join their brethren. You wonder "Where am I going to store all this?"
You buy multiple plastic containers for your yarn. You realize that your bed doesn't need a frame or box spring- you can just lay the mattress on top of the yarn containers.

And the yarn continues to multiply....





You begin to find yarn in strange places...

yah, that's Summer Tweed and *that's* what I think of it!

You wonder, "Where did the father of my children go?"


One day, you wonder, "Where did my children go?"


And you feel like Kirk:




Flash Your Stash
(click on any of the above images for a larger view with identifying notes)