WIPs and chains...

Crochet chains, that is. Please laugh at my attempt to be clever.

So I realize I haven't posted for a bit. We've had a very busy week with swimming pools and playdates and I just haven't gotten around to it. L said the funniest thing the other day as we were making a Target run (June has at least 4 birthdays and we are very behind in gifting). The clouds were gray and ominous and the wind was blowing something fierce and she said, "Mama (I love it that she calls me Mama!), why does the wind always come with the rain?" I said I didn't know so she replied, "Maybe they're best friends and always have to come together." :)

So I have been knitting. AND crocheting! Marly invited me to be on her podcast for the virtual SnB which was heli-fun (to borrow one of her expressions, borrowed from Cartman I believe.) I'm still working on the helmet liner (there is a story about that on the podcast) and I'm almost finished crocheting a baby blanket. (The baby was born 3 weeks early!)

Pictures on next post.

Keens!

Not one to usually wax poetic about a shoe, I find that I will talk and talk and talk about my Keens. (I had a couple of inquiries about the new purple shoes!) I have a horrible time finding comfortable shoes that don't make my toes fall asleep. When I was pregnant with J, I saw a pair of bright red Mary Janes with a sporty sole that I fell in love with. (Link is not my pair, but similar.) They were Keens. And they were the most comfortable shoe I'd ever worn. Next I bought a pair of blue Portolas which I pretty much wore when I wasn't wearing my Mary Janes. Unfortunately, both pairs wore out this year and I had to replace them. I was happy to find a brown pair of Bronxes and my new purple Venice H2's on sale in the span of a week. SO HAPPY! Ok. Wild raving about shoes is now over.

Hooray Dream Swatch Headwrap!

It is really hard to take pictures of yourself by yourself! Anyway, I'm pleased with the way it turned out. It matches my new shoes! :)

Hooray Not-Bamboo Baby Franken-sweater!

I finished it! And it actually doesn't look half bad. It looks good enough for my sister to take to a baby shower at any rate. So here's the stats:

Bamboo Baby sweater from One Skein Wonder

Needle size: 6 US

Yarn: 3 balls of Scoubi Du 50 percent cotton 50 percent acrylic

Adaptations:

1) Added 5 garter rows on either side of the back panel using Log Cabin technique

2) Increased the picked up arm stitches from 24 to 28

3) I used a crochet seam for the shoulders and a modified mattress stitch for the sides. I say modified because I continued to use the mattress stitch even when the garter stitch edge was paired up with a bound of edge, just picking through the loops on the bound off edge as if it were garter. Since the pattern gave no instructions for seaming, this seemed to make the most sense.

I found the cute little duckie/chickie buttons at Knit Knack. I'm just glad it's done. I was so afraid it would be horrible. Hooray!

Yeah. I'm Hufflepuff.

Took the Sorting Quiz from Yarn Thing's page. I'm a Hufflepuff. Though I'm pretty close to being a Ravenclaw.

The sorting hat says that I belong in Hufflepuff!

Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot, and treat them just the same."

Hufflepuff students are friendly, fair-minded, modest, and hard-working. A well-known member was Cedric Digory, who represented Hogwarts in the most recent Triwizard Tournament.

 

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

Man! I hate that when that happens.

In the midst of working on the Dream Swatch and the Not-Bamboo Baby Frankensweater, I thought I'd actually start the helmet liner for Ruth's contest. After knitting a few rows of 2 x 2 rib I realized that the gauge was not right. I took a second look at the ballband and found it was DK weight not worsted like I thought. So now I have to go back to the store and get some worsted weight yarn. The pattern calls for 100 percent washable wool. Question to ponder. Doesn't that mean that it can't be 100 percent wool?

Bamboo Baby!

Mine isn't made of bamboo so maybe I should call it Scoubi Du Baby. I like knitting with it; it makes a nice baby sweater without actually being a baby yarn. I took advantage of this project to try out my Boye Needlemaster set. I love my Knit Picks, but I picked this up for half price at Hobby Lobby and you just can't have too many needles. So far, I like it. I haven't had any unscrewing problems and I really like that now I have some shorter cables should I need them. (They have 12 in. cables where the Knit Picks only goes down to 24 I believe.) There is a slight angle on the cables that I thought would drive me crazy, but so far hasn't been a problem. I got this pattern out of One Skein Wonders (not the One Skein with the ball of yarn on the front. The OTHER one.) which I think is a really cute and handy book for those odd bits of yarn we all accumulate. My only issue so far was that the errata page was REALLY hard to find. And it's a BIG errata page. 17 pages big. The missing instructions for the Bamboo Baby sweater were enough to make me crazy until it occurred to me to look for a corrections page.

(Ok. Funny aside. J is running back and forth clapping his hands and giggling to the Disney's Hercules credits. Who knew the kid liked Michael Bolton?)