My Weekend

(Damn I suck at coming up with witty title for my posts.)

Went up to my roommate's dad's house to hang with her sister & have girl-child play with her cousin. Was nice to visit with R (roommate's sister), catch up & see how she's doing as she's been a bit sick lately. The kids are a month apart in age so they had a blast playing together. We also went to an easter egg hunt at his pre-school. They got to pet a cute bunny & get prizes which was cool.

While the kids were playing girl-child had a total meltdown about not winning some game he'd made up. Need to spend a bit more time teaching about loosing; no shame in wanting to win or being bummed you didn't win, but a full out meltdown is a bit more than is called for.

Finished the hat I was working on & started a new one.

This pattern is great for using up single skeins of worsted yarn that I've no clue what to do with. Also great for mindless knitting since it's almost all stocking stitch. I keep it in my bag to work on when ever I'm waiting or sitting around chatting.

I need to find a pattern like this for fingering weight for 2 skeins of that I got at the thrift store with the purple yarn that I just finished.

I also really need to get back to the blanket if I want that done before the baby is born, grows up & goes to college. Plus I've that 8x8 square to work on, ugh last time I do an 8x8, maybe try #6 will be lucky.

8x8

Gah! I can not get an 8x8 square. Will do try #5 tomorrow.

What is this?

New house so I've no clue what's planted anywhere & these are coming up. I am curious what they might be, does anyone know?

Sweater Yarn is Here!

I got my sweater yarn is yesterday & am super excited! Just need the needles to come in & knit up my swatch.

Plus it's getting really quite nice out so I can get updating my stash pics of Rav. I really like to have natural sunlight for photos of anything, everything looks nicer in the sun.

Just a little fyi

I look at other knitting blogs & they post about sewing & cooking & home decorating & all this Martha stuff; I just gotta say right now Martha don't live here. I would probably take my own hand off trying to sew, frozen foods & I have a deep & long love affair, home decor by Salvation Army & so on. I'll never tell you about my weekend antiquing, my scrap booking parties or anything like that.

I've nothing against those who do all that (provided they don't have a stick up their ass), it's just not how I choose to spend my time. Just thought you should know before you get pissed I haven't told you about my latest culinary discovery or new technique on decoupage.

Froggy Days

Well the blanket got frogged, the square was frogged, I frogged a sock I was hating. Started the blanket again, about 3" in to it, trying to come up with a pattern for the square & swapped the sock yarn.

I started another hat, the same pattern as the ones for my neighbors, it's a simple pattern & is a great mindless knit. Trying to stockpile a few things now for the holidays next year. Just an inexpensive yarn, I found a few skeins of yarn at the thrift store a while back & didn't knit with them since they were acrylic, but this one seemed soft for acrylic so I figured why not knit it up & it feel quite nice to knit with & looks pretty good too.

Or not

My square is way too small. Pewp. Back to the knitting drawing board.

Afghan Square

My square is coming along nicely. I think I mentioned this, a friend on Rav lost her son & a bunch of us are making a blanket. I am horrible at making squares, but this one is pretty & if need be I'll make one of the women in my knitting group help me do a crochet edge to make it the 8x8 needed.

Picture is blurry & obviously not blocked since I need to do 2 more repeats. There is a lot of stretch & it should stretch out wide enough.

Another Hat Done

Woo hoo! All 3 hats for the neighbours are done! This is the final hat I needed to do.

I really want to cast on another one since it's such an easy knit & perfect for in the purse, but am resisting the urge since I need to get that baby blanket done & the burp cloth too.

Socks to Sweaters

I learned to knit because I wanted to knit a pretty pair of socks, I've now knit socks & to be honest I don't have the massive deep love for sock knitting I used to have. I started doing more worsted weight knitting with all the hats & have really been enjoying knitting again. I've just ordered my first sweater's worth of yarn & am quite excited about it. The yarn will get here in a few days, maybe a week; the needles will take 10-20 days since they are coming from overseas. I've bought the pattern & I have a back up pattern in case I hate how this one goes.

A friend mentioned having a side project or two going so I don't get bored knitting the sweater & I think I am going to keep going with the hats (faster gratification) & do some squares. I am wanting to switch over my washcloths to knit (so much nicer than terry) & I think I'm going to do some blanket squares for a throw on my chair.

Now I get it

I now understand why my mom pitched us kids outside once spring came. Child has been driving me nuts & really needs to go burn some of that energy off & it's lovely outside. She doesn't want to go, but my lord she will be going outside in about 5 minutes like it or not.

Sadly, til the yarn gets a fence I have to go outside & can not just sit inside & enjoy the sounds of silence. Fingers crossed she's quieter once she's run some of this energy off.

Knit Night, Baby Blankets & Prime Rib

Last night was knit night & I have convinced the ladies to move our knit night from Tuesday to Wednesday. There are only 2 days a week I have to get up very early & that's Tues & Thurs. I am so tired on Tues nights that I was skipping 1/2 of them. Which wouldn't be horrible, but I love my knitters & I'm the one who started the group. I'm also hoping that we can get one of my favorite knitters (M this would be you) back once or twice a month since her job keeps her there too late to come most nights, but she gets out early some Weds.

A friend of mine, whom I haven't see in quite a few years is having her first baby & I'm knitting her up a blanket, a burp cloth & some wash cloths. She's having a girl & I'm sure she'll get a batch of pink & purple stuff, plus the usual smattering of yellow & green so I wanted to make something that would go with those colors, plus I wanted it to go with tan & blue as a lot of baby things (like car seats & strollers & stuff) come in those. The color I thought of that would work for all that & not show spit-up stains to easy was red. So red it is!

My roommate & daughter went out with a batch of my roommate's co-workers for dinner & had prime rib! (Well ok, daughter didn't have that, she had burger & fries.) Good time was had by all & daughter has been invited to come next time as well.

Still Working on Giftmas & 8x8 Squares

Well the Holiday hat knitting is still chugging along. This is one of the hats for my old neighbors. It's done with a really nice thick & thin yarn, I love thick & thin yarns, they give a nice homey feel to the project.

Once that hat is done, I'll have one more super bulky ribbed hat & a scarf left to finish all my holiday knitting! The hat is about 1/4 of the way done & could be finished pretty quick. Truth be told I'll probably finish it in the summer & save it for next year. The scarf has the yarn picked out, but no pattern picked yet. Yikes!

Also ended up making a hat for my child, she loved that pink hat I made from my mom's best friend so much that she needed her own. It's got a nice amount of give & the band is stretchy so it should work fine for the few days she'll still need one & work well for next year too.

Trying to knit up an 8x8 square, but I can never seem to get them to come out right, will try again later today. Have tried 4 patterns with no luck so far.

Squeeeeeeee!

Look what came in the mail today! I got these all 1/2 price at a wonderful online store that is going out of business. Sad to see them go, but so happy to have gotten such a great deal on these needles! I hope to switch all my straights over to wood for above size 6 (smaller than that & I know they will break). I got a size 6, 8, 11 & 13 in 14" Brittany needles & size 7 & 8 in 12" Lantern Moon. I love them & am now going to hunt up something lovely to knit with them. I no longer care about the hats.

2 down 2 to go!

I had a plan back in December to make 3 hats for my neighbors & one for my mom's friend. Well I didn't get them done as fast as I had hoped to what with house hunting & moving in the beginning of February, but I have finally gotten back on track with it!

The pink is an alpaca/wool blend & so soft!

The purple/green is wool & was wonderful to work with, nice & soft.

I've gotten 2 done & have 2 more to go, sort of. The pink was meant to be for my mom's friend, but my daughter loves it so I'm not sure who will end up with it, I've started a second in the same pattern, but with a different pink yarn. So that brings the total up to 5.

The purple-green one is meant for my old next door neighbor. I have a white one that was meant to be for the neighbor across the alley, but I can't decide if I like that or want to do another. The yarn called its self worsted, but was really more of a DK so it's more of a beanie than a tam like I was going for. I'm going to wash it & see how it looks today & decide if it's ok or not, it's acrylic so I don't expect much when I wash it. Will get a pic of the 2 in progress & the white later/tomorrow.

I've a Clan

A deer clan in my backyard. There are 5 or 6 of them & my backyard seems to be the be all to end all of hang outs. Here's 4 of them

While I'm fine with them needing to eat in my yard during the winter I'd prefer them to no spend all their free time here in the summer. Any tips short of a bear trap or a deer stand in the yard are welcome.

Craft Room/Office

Trying to get the joint cleaned out & unpacked is taking longer than I'd hope it would. Still not sure how I will set the room up. I'd like to have an area for desk/office stuff, an area for sitting & visiting, plus my yarn area. The room isn't huge so I'm thinking the yarn will just be through out the room & will have to work on making a good divide between the office & the sitting/visiting area. Step one in that will be getting a smaller desk, this thing is huge! I think I want something more like this

While this is still big it's not a corner desk which is what I have now & am sick of staring at the wall all day so I took all the top stuff off it & have it facing out in to the room. It's got to be close it 5" across from tip to tip!

Part of me just wants to get a simple plain table & use that. I need an area big enough for a laptop, a pen holder, a soda & a stack of papers.

Anyone got any suggestions on how to get the most from a mid-sized room I'd love it!

Moving sucks, but unpacking sucks more

Got 3 more boxes unpacked, but still have another dozen or so left. 4 boxes left are the miscellaneous bullshit boxes so who knows when/how/if those will get unpacked. Went down to the old house to do the walkthru with the realtor & am shocked how much junk is still there. I think I am going to see if a girl from my last job wants to come help clean it for a few bucks. I think overall that I'd rather part with my yarn budget for the month than clean all of it myself.