Shh, don't tell mom

I'm not a shopping sort of girl. I don't go gaga over shoe sales, or new cloths. In fact I hate to shop for those sort of things, I have shirts from 6th grade and basically my shoes are worn until they are falling off. Though I love electronics the expensive nature of them prevents me from pulling the trigger. I looked at my awesome camera for almost a year before I dared to purchase it. But when it comes to yarn...I can't resist. The softness, the colors...the ideas and projects going through my head... I am helpless to fight it. Well today was especailly bad. A local store is closing down, and therefore selling things at 44% off. I went down there and saw that it's a really great store. Some of the yarn I could resist, but clearly there was lots that I couldn't. Most are the higher end that I normally don't buy because of the expense. But I managed to buy 35 skiens of yarn. Now some of it was bought with the intention to dye is this Easter (most of the whites) and some are for other projects and some will be decided later. My stash is getting big...really big... gotta knit faster!

What starts with the Oscars and ends with St. Patricks day?

A baby jackets! A friend of mine challenged my to knit something during the oscars. I started thinking of hats, then got reminded that yet another co-worker just had a baby. And babies are small, perfect oscar event. Although I did start during the oscars (and maybe a bit before) I didn't finish, wasn't close. Its done now though, right before St. Patty's day, which is perfect because its green. I was trying to help work down the stash, but that didn't work. I ran out of yarn on the second sleeve so I had to buy more yarn...boo. Definatly not a yarn stash reduction (doesn't help that I went to a yarn shop in Boulder and bought some amazing alpaca)

But the jacket is now finished, being blocked, and should be ready for gift giving on Monday!

Pick up and knit...yeah right

Yeah, I met the deadline but traveling did not go so well. I did the first pick up and knit (you read it right... first...) and I didn't like it, so I undid that and tried again. It turned out okay, but there was no more time before my flight so I decided to knit as long as I could on the plane. Didn't look the greatest but I had blocking hopes. Then during the first night at the hotel, disaster struck. As I was moving my yarn around, the link between my two loops came loose and in the middle of my work was now a bunch of dropped stitches. Something like 20-30 of them came off. Well the lighting, the tools, and my mood were not well suited to fixing it there are the hotel. (The messy pick up and knit didn't make me want to keep going either) So I frogged it. Then I did 2 more pick up and knits before I left for the airport, didn't like them and didn't feel well so I just slept on the plane. Today (after fighting a really bad head cold) finally felt well enough to start knitting again. I finally did a pick up and knit that I don't hate, and started doing some knitting. Only have about 5 rows done, and its time to do some cleaning, but the progress looks hopeful. We'll see where I am in a week or so.

Met the Deadline

I'm heading to the airport in a few hours... aside from not forgetting anything in my frantic packing the biggest thing on my mind was knitting. As you probably know I've been working on the sleeves of my sweater, well the next step is a bit more involved. I have to measure, mark spots, cast on and pick up and knit a bunch of stitches. Not really something I can afford to do on a plane or in an airport. So I had a personal goal: Finish the sleeves and cast on the body before leaving for the airport. Well this morning I finished the sleeves!

I am basically finished packing so I have 2 hours to cast on and get ready. Hopefully I'll make it. On the sleeves the most exciting thing is the technique I learned while reading my color book. When working with stripes especailly in the round, you get a noticable jog where the color starts and ends (see the left picture below) but if you knit one round in the new color, then slip the first stitch, this border gets blurred and much more seamless (see photo to the right).  I was a little skeptical that something so simple could really help, but there it is! There's some stuff you can do when weaving in the ends, but that's for another day. Not gonna try and get that all done before my flight. Now on to the body!

But Mommy it's cold outside!

As the snow falls softly out the window, every mother is bundling up their little ones. Trying to make sure they stay warm for whatever outting they are off too. Some are the lucky ones, who get adorable hand knit hats to wear. Not only do they stay warm but they are stylish too! Little B Pumpkin, how cute. There's also Little B trying to be a gangsta in his pimp pea hat. I'm tempted to get a cork board and put up all the baby photos I have of little ones with my knitted gifts in my cube. I'm not a mom, but it'll look like I am with that display!

Olympic Goodness

One of the many things that's great about the olympics is lots of sports to entertain me as I knit away. Sleeve 1 is complete, finished it this afternoon. Removed the crochet cast on and have started the second sleeve. What I find hard or at least time consuming about the first sleeve is the constant measuring (or in my case trying on). Every hour or so I need to get into a tank top and try on the sleeve. Today it got to a point where the length seemed questionable. Sometimes it seemed too big, others it seemed too small. So I pinned the other side and put both arms through, and determined that the length was well done. Binded off and moving on.

In other related news....I'm a yarn-a-holic. I saw a pattern today, couldn't resist. (I was doing so well too, knitting down the stash, not buying any more yarn) but this pattern caught my eye... I'm gonna make some blue bears. And there's nothing you can do to stop me!

Stripes

In between cleaning, watching the olympics (sadly I am not on a team for the Ravolympics, but I don't have enough time for it anyways), playing in the snow, and catching up on my sleep. I am almost finished with the first sleeve. The stripes are all finished and now I just have to finish knitting the red to the desired length. All in all I am pretty pleased with the stripes. The jog is showing and I found a way to stop that from happening in my color book, but alas it's too late for this sleeve. Maybe the next one or the body I will attempt the knitting "fix".

Trying it on With Lilu

Close-up of colored Stripes