TUSAL

I'm still the knitting maniac over here.  I'm taking time out to post about this stitch-a-long I found on a new (to me) blog I'm following, Tangled Up In Stitches.  This is something even I crazy needleworker and pet caretaker can keep up with.  This will be like when I came up with the brilliant idea of my New Year's Resolution to make no more New Year's Resolutions.  It's been over a decade and I haven't broken that one yet.

What is it? Totally Useless Stitch A-Long.  You take a jar, put all your bits of threads and yarns in it. Take a picture every New Moon and post it to your blog.  This has me wishing I still had one or two of those huge pickle jars I was saving back in NY.  I have until January 4th to come up a jar and probably will have to upgrade it at some point.

What about my ORTs, you ask?  That's easy, I'll just go around and pick them off D and company. They should be quite relieved to be no longer decorated with all my spare bits that are floating around the place.

If you are interested, go to Daffy Cat's and sign up.  You have until the first New Moon in 2011 to decide. She has all the dates of the New Moon's for the year listed.

From Knitting Kitties

Did you hear that high-pitched glass shattering sound go through the atmosphere this morning? That was me, sorry about your dishes. I noticed that I had tied off only one side of the skein I dyed for hat #2.  It's a complete tangled up mess.  This is going to set me back on my pace.  I'm onto the decreases of hat #1.  It would have been finished last night, but I was distracted by all the interesting blogs I like to visit.

All totaled, I believe it will have taken me 5 days to knit this first one.  I should have those other two and an afghan, plus fudge ready to mail out in 11 days, right?  Yeah, I really need to run along.

Thank you in advance for visiting with me and leaving your comments. I really do enjoy reading them. If you have a blog, I promise I'll make a return visit.

WIP Wednesday

I had hoped to have the hat I posted on Monday finished by now.  There is still 6 pattern rows left, then I'll probably do another 6 rows of solid color before I begin the decreases. I can't show you an updated picture as the pattern is too obvious.  I dyed more blue yarn for the second hat yesterday, then I will have to dye some red for the third.

This is day 5 on this hat.  Being that the first two days I only spent a few hours knitting on it and getting used to the tension, I'm still hopeful I will have time to do the other two.  I really wish you could feel the fabric it's quite squishy. It should keep a head nice and warm during the bitter cold Western NY winter, if not, they might should consider just staying inside.

From Knitting Kitties

This is not my first time with stranded knitting, just double knitting.  My first stranded/fair isle project was in 95 when I was working nights as a nurse in a nursing home.  The hours between 2am and 5am were excruciating trying to stay awake with everyone else sound asleep.  I needed something interesting enough to hold my attention when I finished with my charting.

I found this magazine, and I still have somewhere in a box.  There was a pattern for a fair isle sweater that had  a lace stripe between the pattern stripes, made with soft, fuzzy mohair.  My 12year daughter fell in love with it.  So, I headed down to the yarn store a mile away all excited myself that I finally had the income to afford the yarn the pattern called for.  The lady talked me out of the pure mohair, they didn't carry it as she said it was too expensive and didn't sell well.  Instead she special order some Sandes Garn Kitten. I'm glad she did as my daughter later lost it. It survived our house fire but not my daughter's skatter brain.

She's been begging me to make her another one.  As much as I would really, really love to make another one, she's still not very good at holding onto things. I have made other things using a variegated with a solid, but they were all gifts and before digital or internet access.  Hope I didn't bore you with that little story.

From Knitting Kitties

From Knitting Kitties

Do you remember my granddaughter's afghan I started this past fall? It doesn't look much different.  I could really kick myself for not sewing the second set of squares before now. I want to do one more set of squares to make it longer.  With the squares I have now it would be the size of baby blanket, which would be a good size for a 6 yr old to cuddle with while watching tv. I want it to last her for awhile, so I think a bit longer would be the way to go.

From Knitting Kitties

While I was avoiding starting the double knitting Friday night, I cast on this cowl for someone who thinks I won't make him anything.  He said if I ever made him anything he would be so honored he would have it framed.  I'm really hoping he wears it and not frames it.  When I came across this pattern for The Guy Next Door Cowl, I knew it would be perfect for the guy next door. I'm using superwash BFL that I dyed and spun last year.   I can't show the other present I have going because the girl next door sometimes reads my blog on FB. She has promised not to show this post to the guy.  He doesn't go online, so I'm safe.

That's all that's going on here.   What are you working on and are you stressing the clock ticking down as well?

Monday Madly Knitting

It has gotten to be that time of year I dislike most.  When I have to add up how much to be finished against how much time is left.  On Saturday, I finally gave in and started the double knitting.  The only way to overcome the mental block that kept saying, Oh you're going to make a mess of that, was to dive right in. It took me three years of reading the directions over and over on heel turns, before I finally just did it with my brain shouting Danger, Danger, this will not work out.  (stop laughing)

From Knitting Kitties

I worked the ribbing 2 X 2 in a single thickness of 128 sts and twisted the knit stitches to tighten up the ribbing a bit.  That meant I had to knit with one strand and purl with a different strand into each stitch when I started the double knitting.  This will make the hat solid color knit on one side and the pattern on the other, so they can reverse it when the need arises. If you click on the Rav link, you'll see why this may be needed.  Hopefully, the spy doesn't create a Rav account just to peak.  *waves* Hi Avery.

From Knitting Kitties

As they say in the UK, I'm pretty well chuffed with myself on this first project.  It's quite fiddly going along.  I'm keeping the pattern side side strands on the top of my left index finger and the back side strand on the bottom. (Yes, I knit continental)  All the strands need to be flipped front and back of each stitch so the carrying yarns are hidden between the two layers. Because I'm using each strand at a different rate from the others, I have to stop every couple stitches to readjust for tensioning.

From Knitting Kitties

It's taking me about an hour for each row, though by this afternoon my speed did pick by a few minutes.  Slow while paying attention is the key, as I did have to carefully frog one row and it took longer than it did to knit it.  There are two more of these to make besides this one and my granddaughter's afghan to get finished by Dec. 20 at the latest.  Not to mention the four gifts to knit that won't be traveling, then the ornaments I want to make.

Nippit was upset with me yesterday, she really wanted to blog. The chart is on my laptop, with me giving it careful attention.  She kept asking if I was done yet, then thumping her delicate little foot when  I said no.  It was after the fifth time of her interrupting me that I noticed a mistake and I thumped my foot back at her.  She tried to get Dammit and Betty to dictate for her, but from what I hear, Dammit was too busy surfing Zeppelin. He still has hopes of a reunion tour.  You know like they will actually let a bunny into the arena.

Bunday will resume when I finish these hats, unless I go stark raving mad.  Then the bunnies will be most happy to report on that.

FO Friday and The Winner

First of all, the winner of my contest on Monday, was Cookie of Shut Up And Knit, with her guess of 1200 yards.  I got 452 wraps on my niddy noddy which measures 90 inches with a total 1130 yards.  So many lovely comments, I wish I had a skein for each of you.  Some of your guesses, I wished I had gotten that much yardage.  I will have another give away (more handspun. Yes, I have a ton of it.) after the New Year, an easier one with just a question and I'll use the random thingy to pick a number.

From Knitting Kitties

I already contacted her and will sending out this lovely in Monday's mail when I do the chore of sending out the first Christmas present.

From Knitting Kitties

I actually finished this tatted bookmark a few weeks ago.  It was for my swap partner in the UK and she received her package earlier this week.

From Knitting Kitties

I shuttle tatted this with size 30 crochet cotton, I had dyed for my Etsy store awhile back.  I have literally a ton of crochet cotton that I dyed, and I'm trying to get organized so I can list it on Artfire, as I think Etsy's fees are getting as ridiculous as ebay.  Just to get rid of it if nothing else.  Whether I will get back to dying for sale remains to be seen as I'm still toying with idea.

From Knitting Kitties

My granddaughter's hat is finally finished.  There is still a bunch of yarn leftover, so I'm considering some mittens to match.  I just hope her father's family doesn't lose it, like they did the hat I made her two years ago. Paws crossed.  The mittens never get lost as I crochet that long string to go through the coat sleeves.  When she gets 12, I'll still being making the long string so you don't lose your gloves, sweetie.


Remember back in October, I mentioned I had met a nice lady on Ravelry that just moved to Tucson.  She had picked me up and we went to a yarn store near her that I hadn't been to before.  Well, she went out of town for a bit and she called me on my cell phone when she got back.  Except, I don't really use my cell except to carry with me on my walks, in case of an emergency.  So I never noticed the call. D ran low on minutes, so I loaned him mine and he told me I had a voice message.  Which I listened to, then the battery ran out of charge before I could figure out how to get her number from it.

When he pulled my phone off the charger, he left the cord hanging down and bad Betty bunny had herself nice  little nibble.  So, I messaged her on Ravelry, apologizing for not returning her call. She offered to take me shopping, and we made arrangements for today.

We stopped by Grandma's Spinning Wheel this time.  Grandma has various times during the week when customers come in to hang out and stitch or spin together.  Friday afternoon's is anything goes day, and I took the bus there a few times over the summer.  D started having Fridays off for awhile and the ones he did work, I felt guilty about going and not having bought anything there.

From Knitting Kitties

I got a skein of black Dream In Color, it says laceweight, but it's as thick as the fingering weight superwash I'm going to use it with.  This for the guys presents that I can't show because my oldest son might be snooping.
*waves* Hi Avery.

From Knitting Kitties

I bought this for me.  The purple is some Starry they had in bits and bobs bin for 1.00.  The sky blue is Star Light that Grandpa said they got in yesterday and it's been flying out of the store.  I can certainly see why, it's so pettable soft, like a little bunny soft, with some sparkle.  I'm thinking about making Ice Queen with it.

Are you still there?  Thank you for stopping by and I do love to read your comments, so thank you for waving hi.  You can head over to Tami's Amis to see what others have finished this week.