Birthday

Yesterday was my daughter's birthday & her pre-school does a wonderful field trip at the end of each school year. She got to go to by train to a local toy shop & even got to ride a carousel. I loved that it timed up for her birthday, that was great. We both had a great time on the train, I think that was my favorite part. She was a bit worried about riding the carousel as she's never been on one, but she did say she liked it when it was over. Her favorite part was shopping I'm sure, she didn't even want to stop shopping to get an ice cream, lol.

It was really hot yesterday & that sucked. The heat really messes with me bad & by the time we got back to town & had to walk back it was more than 5 degrees hotter than they had predicted that morning. I almost didn't make it back home without blacking out. I have a very firmly set limit on how hot out it can be for me to not get sick & that 5 degrees pushed it too high for me. Amelia was a trouper about it though.

We did dine at her favorite place to get a treat MickeyD's, lol. Nothing like a crappy meal, uh I mean, happy meal to top off the day.

Finished another hat!

So my plow through the WIPs plan seems to be going well. I've just finished up my 3rd WIP & have not cast-on anything new during that time period. This is the hat I just finished up.

It's not yet blocked & I'm not sure if I want the button like that or straight, will think on it for a day or so. It's an wool & alpaca blend. Overall it's soft, but with my alpaca issues I thought it was itchy, lol. It's a single ply yarn so will be interesting to see how it blocks up, for some reason single plys sometime seem to fluff up on me when I wash them.

Squee! It's Done!

The boring hat of hate is done! :D I had no clue a hat could be that boring. It's just out of the wash & it's drying on my counter so pardon the ugly picture.

So now I need to figure out which super boring project to knit next. I think I'm going to work on the alpaca blend hat. I can't do a ton on it at a time due to it making me itch, but I'd like to get it done.

As you can clearly see I haven't done much of anything on it yet, I've not even finished the band. Now to decide if I ought to be responsible & knit this or be irresponsible & cast-on a new hat...

Bored

I am so bored & dislike this black hat. It's boooorrrrriiiinnnnggggg! It's just 2x2 rib on yarn I don't like, round after round of it. I have another 3.5", so that's 10-11 rounds. Should be done in no time at all, but it sucks me in to a parallel time vortex where time ceases to move while I knit. This hat hates me. I've promised myself I can knit another beret/tam hat if I finish this today. If I do it will mean I finished 2 out of the stack of WIPs & I'm about 90% sure I will be frogging one of the other ones & about 70% sure I'm going to frog another. I had recounted the WIPs & were are actually 12 not the 9 I thought; 1 (the red mitts) got finished & if I can manage to finish the world's most boring hat then I'll be down to 10, frog up those 2 I'm disliking more than this hat & I'll be down to 8.

First Spring in a New House

We moved here in Feb & first looked at this house in Nov (I think), therefore we never saw what plants were here, so this spring has been fun. I tried to figure out what the bulbs on the side of the house were when they started coming up, but could not. Turns out they were Irises & I didn't even see that there were smaller ones too & those were Lily of the Valley. You can't see the Lily of the Valley in this pic since it's so much shorter.

We sadly do have wasps up here & as I'm allergic I'm not fond of them & wish death to them. Look at the bottom of this trap & you can see one is just going in. :D

On the knitting front, I'm slowly, slowly working on a simple ribbed hat. The picture is totally blown out, sorry.

Lady in Red

I seem to pick red for most anything I knit for myself, not sure why since I think greens & blues look better on me. Any I did get the thumbs on my mitts & they are all washed & blocked.

Yes, they are different sizes & yes that is what I was going for. I have 2 different sized hands so I wanted to have mitts that fit each hand properly. I think next time I make something like this I will go for the same length even though they would hit different spots on my arms.

My sweater is chugging along slowly but surely.

Still a long way to go, but I've a while til I'll need it.

It's not easy being Green

My green hat is all wash, blocked & dried.

I think it came out great, it's my mom's Mother's Day gift (a bit late) & I am hoping she'll like it.

I also picked up the Gaenor I've been working on for a million years. It's not a slow knit, in fact it should be a really fast knit. I am tweaking the pattern a bit, I want more of a scarf/shawl combo than a true shawl so I am doing only about 1/2 the increases & then just knitting it with out the increases for a while.

I never did get to putting the thumbs on those mitts the other day. Shh, don't tell the knitting gods I've been a slacker.

Finishing things

I have 9 WIPs, I feel like that's kind of a lot, I had about 5 more. 1 got finished up (the green hat, it's drying now, pics another day) & I frogged 3 more. I have 1 shawl I'm deciding if I'll finish or frog.

I have a lot of yarn I want to knit or projects I want to try, but I think it's best if I try to finish some of these WIPs. I have my red sweater, the red burp cloth, the red baby blanket, a blue dalak washcloth, some fingerless gloves (which only need the thumbs put on), a pair of scrap yarn socks using the Yarn Harlot's sock recipe, a pair of No Purl Monkey socks, a Gaenor shawl, a cute hat, a pair of socks I'm writing a pattern for & I think I'm missing something else. (Please no one use your powers of counting to see that's more than 9.)

I also have some yarn I'm meh about, so I'd like to find a simple project (probably a hat or instant scarf) to use it up & get it out of the stash & in to the gift pile. Plus of course, there are the left overs from other projects that need to get used up.

I should have no trouble finishing up the fingerless gloves today, just 2 thumbs. I think the burp cloth will become a washcloth so it gets done & I will probably frog out the baby blanket since I hate the yarn with the passion of a thousand burning suns & then will maybe use it to make some of my plain hats. Should be less horrid to knit a few small projects with it rather than one giant one. The shawl I'm on the fence about I'll probably frog & do another one I was thinking about, but I won't do that til I finish the Gaenor shawl I've been working on for a while.

Crap while trying this up I've thought of 3 more WIPs. Crap.

Shepard's Harvest

This weekend is the Shepard's Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival & I'm super excited to go! I went last year, but as I had only been knitting for 4.5 months I didn't have much of a clue what to buy or how to shop. Up until that point I had been going to JoAnn's as my LYS & buying needles from KP even though I thought they were too pointy for me. This fest showed me about many, many small farms selling wool, real LYSs, hand dyers & so much more. I had a blast & as we left I was already plotting what I would buy next year. The only problem I ran in to was that my daughter got bored fairly easy there since she wasn't very interested in yarn. This year I will be going with one of the women from my knitting group & am super excited to go to a knitting thing with another knitter. My roommate just does not get enough joy in shopping for wool; or maybe I get too much joy...

Hat & Sweater Update

The hat is coming along nicely & should be done before the end of the week, got about another 2" to go before I hit the decreases.

The sweater is going well. I messed up the other night & couldn't for the life of me figured out what I did wrong & was going to save it til knit night & see if one of the women there (who is like an awesome rockstar of knit knowledge) could tell me what I did so I could fix it. After 20min or so I decided I was just going to tink back & see what I did. Turns out when I picked up the knitting I started knitting backwards & that was my trouble. Glad I was only one row up when I spotted the error.

I know it doesn't look very different than the last time I posted a picture, sorry, sweater knitting is kinda slow & boring looking in photos.

In non-knitting news it's the last month of school for my daughter & that will be sad, she loves her school & I love having a few hours a week to myself. Not sure what we are doing for next year yet.

My exercise plan is going well, I'm just doing the Wii 5-7 days a week & going to the gym 1-2x a week. It's about 3-4 weeks in now & I am plugging along.

Migraine Season

Sadly it's migraine season in my house. Spring with it's storms & changeable weather seems to bring out a lot of migraines in me. My usual remedy of Imitrex & vats Diet Coke is out this year as I gave up soda about 2 months ago. The Imitrex isn't working as well as it used to which really disappoints me since I've used it successfully since it came on the market.

In not migraine news, I made an error in my sweater last night & was able to not only figure out what I did, but fix it too! On the hat front I dug out 2 of the other hats I have on the needles & frogged up the one & have the other ready to work on. I think I've figured out a few skeins for my hat goal, now to find patterns for them. I'm sure will be the basic hat style I've been doing since I can do it without thinking at this point.