And it's already Friday again

I'm not sure how that happened. It was just the 23rd, but now it is nearly February, and I'm due to finish something, as it's


But, nothing is finished yet. I have decided, however, to work on the afghan I started a long time ago. I had just learned entrelac and thought the idea of an entrelac afghan was fabulous. I still think it is fabulous. However, in execution, knitting an entrelac blanket large enough to cuddle in is just plain silly.

"I only have to count to 8" I said, "that makes it mindless knitting."
"It's good practice picking up stitches," I thought.
"It's just little blocks of stockinette, easy peasy" I quipped.

Dude. Entrelac, while lovely, is tedious once the magic of it is gone. When the "how in hell did I just manage to make yarn do that?!?" is gone, it's just plain knitting with a bunch of decreases and picked-up stitches thrown in for giggles.

Mind-numbingly tedious or not, I still like the idea of it, so it shall continue to grow. I do reserve the right to change my mind, stop knitting at some yet-to-be-determined point and call it a mere "throw" or a shawl even.



I also finished a pair of fingerless mitts this week. They are loosely based on a WWII Red Cross mitts pattern that was in Piecework Magazine last month, but there's really very little resemblance when it's all said and done. Please don't click to enlarge the picture, as then you could see both my lack of blocking the mitts and moisturizing the hands. I really ought to go get a manicure.

It's Finishing Friday.

I've actually finished something, too! I started these socks for the Ravelympics, but I got sidetracked and they got stuffed in a bag and hung on a doorknob. I got them back out in November, intent on putting them in my daughter's Christmas stocking. Umm, fail.

But thanks to the genius of Majorknitter, who dubbed 2009 the Year of Decisions: a year during which all the WIPs become finished objects, or are undone and returned to the yarn stash. I decided that it would be good to start with something easy, so I pulled out the socks and finished them up. Nora loves them and wore them to school today, in spite of the fact that I screwed up and made one about three-quarters of an inch shorter than the other.



If I can manage to finish some housework in time, I just might frog something today, too. Stay tuned!

A new FO

I have no fancy name for this, but I made a headband for my daughter. It's way too cold for it today, though. It is currently -16 degrees outside-- that's not windchill, that's the actual temp! But on the winter days when it isn't too cold, I still want her to keep her ears warm. She's getting to that age when she doesn't want to go messing up her hairdo willy nilly. (I am very not ready for this grown-up kids thing.)

So anyway, here it is. It's knit out of a pinky-purpley vintage yarn that's a little fuzzy like mohair, but otherwise a decent yarn.

From Drop Box

Yarn: Pingouin Mousse
Needles: 4.5 mm (US7)
Eventually I'll write out the pattern and name it. I think I'll make a few more of these for gifts.

Mah new two-day hat

Winter has arrived here in Illinois. I have very short hair, so my poor ears are just out there in the elements, at the mercy of the cold prairie wind. I try to walk outside some every day, regardless of weather, so this hats are a big must-have for me. Back in July I knit the star crossed slouchy beret, thinking it a nice combination of style and warmth. I still really like the look of the hat, but after its initial winter wearing, I deem it a failure in the "keeping earlobe frostbite at bay" department: just too loose a gauge for my needs.

So I set out on Sunday to find a new pattern for a hat, one that would keep my ears warm and not make me look like a chemo patient. When I did a search on Ravelry, there were 90 pages of free patterns from which to choose. And yet none looked just right.

A while back, I knit the Architect's Hat from the Knitter's Book of Yarn, as a commission. I liked the hat a lot, but it had to go live with its rightful owner after I finished it. I decided to make it again, this time for me. But my copy of the pattern (the book is owned by the hat's commissioner) has turned up missing. So I did what any moderately masochistic person would do-- attempt to knit the hat from memory and pictures.

You know what? It turned out just fine. And in a day and a half, as well. Yay for me! I kinda wish the two yarns I used were closer in tone and I still need to block it, but I wore it out this afternoon when I walked to pick my daughter up from school, and it kept my head warm. Bonus. :)


Maybe this marks the end of my knitting funk. But this could also be a fluke. one just never knows.

Hey look- a garment!

I actually finished a wearable. And miracle of miracles, it is actually wearable. I started this July 20 2007, and finally finished it. It spent several months hanging on the back of my office door, wondering if I had forgotten about it. Poor Otis. But I finally finished it, and it fits and everything. Although it isn't truly done quite yet. I need to sew a couple of snaps on it. The pattern called for a ribbon to tie it closed, but I'm jut not a ribbon-wearing sort. So utilitarian snaps it is.

I sewed it together last night without blocking first. It worked out okay, but when I tried it on, I was pretty sure it was a huge disaster. After gently blocking the hell out of it this morning, it fits much better, although the seed stitch border is still flipping like nobody's business. I don't know if that's the nature of the rayon yarn I used, or the pattern itself. I will probably need to crochet around the edges to fix that. Maybe later tonight I'll manage to finish it for reals.

SO here she is, Otis from Knitty.com, knit in Paton's Katrina, on US7 needles. Sorry for the headless shot, it was the best I could do indoors, alone, at 8am. Maybe once I fix the flip and add the snaps, I'll get Mr. Deplume to take a decent picture of me in it. (But don't hold your breath, okay?)

Sunny and cold with a side of Awesome

It was 4.8 degrees (Farenheit) out this morning. I drove the girl to school. As militant as I am about walking the three blocks to school in the morning instead of wasting gasoline and polluting the air, 5 is really really cold. I'm happy that our trusty little car started this morning and got us to school sans frostbite. We'll probably walk to story time at the Library this afternoon, though. It's only a block-and-a-half away and the temp should have risen to a balmy 15 by then. And it's sunny. A good dose of Vitamin D and fresh air is good for the soul.

You know what else is good for the soul? Laughter. And Mr. Deplume and I have had no shortage of laughter in our lives since I found this:


Yes, there is a whole line of Awesome products at Cub Foods. I snickered when I found it in the grocery aisle, and it causes a little giddy glee each time I take the box from the drawer and pull out a length of its awesome shiny film. Who thought up the brand name "Awesome"? Whoever it is, I'm like to thank him or her. Or them. Do you suppose it was a whole committee at the household products company that came up with it? Or is there a company named "Awesome Products"? However it was named, it is like, totally genius.

Now onto the non-genius stuff; the shawl that I made for my girl. It is fraught with mistakes, including a general misunderstanding of how how crochet. But I learned a lot while making it, and it is soft and purple and Miss Nora likes it.



Pattern: Half-Moon Shawl
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in "Grape"
Hook: H/5.0 mm

In which I hurt myself

YSHA* will be here this afternoon to conduct its investigation. It's all very tragic (and painful), but I'll try to recount the events of yesterday so you can all learn from my mistakes.

Yesterday at 8 AM, I saw this on Ravelry, and realized that Nora's (store bought Princess) Valentines for the big kindergarten V-day party were woefully inadequate. They simply would not do. She'd be the laughing stock of her class. So I immediately set out to make hearts for her 14 classmates.

This would not have been a problem, except that my church's knitting group meets on Wednesday mornings. So I packed up my stuff and The Nige, and we went to the coffee shop for cookies and coffee and yarn. There, I worked on Nora's purple shawl for 2 hours. Kinda. When at a coffee shop with a 3-year-old, there's as much kid wrangling as there is knitting or crocheting. Maybe more.

So when we got home, I had to sit down and make 13 hearts (the first had been made at 8am, about 5 minutes after the first pattern sighting). I picked out some boyish yarns, some girlish yarns, and got to work. This is where the pain comes in. When working with teeny projects, it turns out that I hold the work very tightly with my left thumb and middle finger. So by 4 PM, my left thumb was atrophied and generally useless. My right wrist was tender, but not all that bad, considering the excessive crochet to which it had been subjected.

And then I got up to move a plastic file box full of art supplies. My right hand, in its weakened state, slipped off the top of the box, pulling my right fingernail back ever so slightly. You know how sometimes you hurt yourself and don't really know it until later? This is one of those times. As the night wore on, My hands began to wither and throb. My index finger is bruised, my knuckles are stiff, and my left thumb is still not working.

But look how cute they are. It was worth it, right?

Pattern: Crochet Valentine from Crochet Today
Hook: G/4.0 mm
Yarn: leftovers and vintage wool from the charity shop.

Note: In a lovely instance of serendipity, I already had a stack of crochet books checked out from the library, and now I can read them without feeling the urge to break out the yarn and sticks or hooks.











*Yarnitational Safety and Health Administration

I've lost my mojo

First, I lost half a skein of yarn to tangles. And I dropped 6 stitches about 5 rows down on the sock I was working on (still sitting waiting for me to fix or give up). Then the hat I crocheted for my Girl was small enough to fit her Cabbage Patch doll. Now this:

It's a skinny scarf made of recycled sari silk held together with a navy blue acrylic. I figured the navy yarn would tone down the loudness of the silk, while stabilizing the too-thin spots in the yarn. In my head, it would be a fun accessory when I'm wearing a plain outfit. I'd look quite artsy fartsy in it.

Nope.

Instead, it weighs 4.3 metric tonnes, curls in spite of the garter stitch edge, and the worst part is where I went to the second skein:

One end looks a little like my original vision. The other end looks like a pile of neon dryer lint. It is hideous. So now I have to decide the fate of this travesty of knits. Do I attempt to fix it (but HOW?), or do I sew it up, stuff it, put googly eyes on it and call it a fuzzy snake? Le sigh.

To top all of this off, I have been driving Nora to school because the little guy's stroller lost a wheel last week. I think it's fixable, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. This morning, I got the kids strapped into their seats, insert the key into the ignition, turn, and hear a deafening silence. Not even a sad click. Battery is d-e-d dead. No choice but to try to fix the stroller in the 30-degree garage. I fiddled with it for a few minutes, then realized that my fingers would freeze and Nora would be tardy to school long before I figured out the fix. So I picked up the Nige and off we went. Thanks to the snow covering everyone's sidewalks, we had to walk in the street amidst the school buses, high schoolers speeding to school, and a garbage truck.

We made it to school in time, and when I got back home I plugged the car into the charger, wheeled the stroller into the family room, and sat down here to warm up. Now I'm warm, so I need to go work on the stroller. Or maybe just ignore it and let Mr. Deplume cuss at it when he gets home. Yeah, that sounds like a better plan (sorry, Honey).

I finished Tudora

tudora FO
Originally uploaded by NormDeplume720

It was an easy and quick knit. I shortened the height by two rows, likewise the buttonhole band. I have such a small neck, I knew it wouldn't be a problem. And I was right. No modeling photos yet, as I've been sanding plaster and cleaning the kitchen today. I'm totally not fit for photos today. :)

A rare FO sighting!

Bainbridge scarf
Originally uploaded by NormDeplume720

I finished the Bainbridge Scarf last night. Today, it is a blistering 90 degrees out. Figures, eh? I posted more details on Ravelry. I apologize to anyone not yet in Ravelry. If you want my pattern notes, just reply here and I'll let you know what I did. Of course, with that apology, I've probably just typed more than if I just typed it out here, anyway.


I was going to type more now, but the boy has had a lovely Sunday afternoon meltdown, and I probably need to go relieve the husband from kid duty. It's tough work parenting AND watching football at the same time, you know.

oops.

Remember the bag I was working on for a couple of weeks? I was so proud of having only used $2 of yarn to make it. I love thrift stores. Well, I finished it. It still was not exactly pretty, but it was destined to mainly be a project bag so I got over it. I had knit a test swatch when I began, to make sure everything would felt together, so I was confident in this, my first project including felting. I was so excited to plop it in the washer and a few hours later, have a new bag.


I threw it inside an old pillowcase and into the washing machine it went. My favorite old blue jeans and my fancy new bag. After the washer stopped, I went to retrieve it.

shit.

This is what has become of the pillowcase. I knew its contents had met a horrible fate.



And here is the bag. Poor girl. She probably never knew what hit her.



For a $2 bag, it will still be functional. She needs to have a few more wash cycles before she is fully fulled. But I don't think she gets to leave the house. She definitely is going to live out her days hung on the back of the office door. Poor thing.

An FO and a new bed

I've finished the little scarf that I started a few weeks ago. I made it long enough to tie at the back of my head instead of being just a headband. In fact, if push came to shove, I could use it as a belt. I might have gotten a little carried away. It's made from Omega Sinfonia cotton from Hobby Lobby. Since my previous cotton knitting experiences were all with dishcloth cotton, this sport weight mercerized cotton was really nice. But I do wish it were a little narrower.


In outdoor news, I created a new flower bed yesterday. This had previously been a weedy patch of weeds, with weeds growing all over it. But now, after a whole bunch of time getting my fingers dirty, it is home to a new raspberry bush, and some spinach and lettuce. I 'm thinking about extending it along the fence and putting in a bunch of asparagus and rhubarb. I still need to figure out how to edge it. I don't like those little plastic flower bed edge thingys, but I need to do something to keep the weeds (and my husband's lawnmower) out of there. My poor trillium were decapitated last weekend in a horrible lawnmower accident. I'm still not over it.

Some giant yew bushes to the left of the picture will be removed in the next few weeks, thus allowing much more sunlight to the area. That is going to be a humongous task. But the bushes are huge, and serve no purpose except to steal valuable sunny real estate in my mostly shady property.