Favourite New Baaartist

Drip Dry by Conni Togel

Global Warming by Conni Togel

Have you ever seen the art of Conni Togel of the Sheep Incognito fame? Brilliant I tell you! I would have loved to have been at Rhinebeck just for a chance to meet her.

Love, love, love!

Bad Move (Or Not)

If you recall, I mentioned in the last post about my man hinting about the lack of a knitted sweater for his person. Today I decided troll the Drops site for a pattern that might be acceptable. I printed off three patterns (85-2, 85-23, 85-6). Having already more or less settled on 85-2 to be knit out of Briggs & Little Heritage Anniversary Twist, I made the mistake of showing the patterns to my husband and asking him which he liked the best. Big mistake. He picked 85-6, which requires two yarns to get gauge, something I didn't notice when I originally found the pattern.

Also, I can tell you right now that I don't want to knit this sweater flat. But looking at it, I can honestly say that it is a much nicer choice than mine. It's got good stash busting potential, it will make my husband look hunky, I can finally brand him with a large hand-knit (!), and best of all it will provide me with some knitting direction so I can stop knitting those Kitty Pi beds. The second one is felting even as I type this.

I guess I'll be stash diving again this afternoon. What are you up to?

They Grow Up So Fast

My youngest reached double digits on Tuesday. Time flies, doesn't it? Sometimes I still manage to create items that she deems worthy of her fashion sensibilities. Imagine.
Fresh from a bath and testing out the new floor-length nightgown. My creation. She toasted me with jello. Innocent and cute, yes? I finally got around to making a Kitty Pi Bed. So easy and fast. It's drying now. I wonder if it will be to the cats' liking. I want to make more. Maybe for the local animal shelter. There's an idea. To answer your question, Holly, the alpaca will be make into something for me. Even though the husband has been hinting that there was lots of talk about a sweater for him and to date none has materialized, alpaca would be wasted on him. Yes, I suppose I should get a project on the needles with his name on it before the year is over. Maybe I'll name it Madness Worthy of My Man. Heh!

Reclaimed UFO

The end of the year is not far off. I have been putting a decent amount of time and energy for the past nine and a half months into reducing my yarn stash and UFO quantities. The duffel coat took a very satisfying chunk out of the stash, as have the blankets and socks. I have another large blanket/sleeping bag on the needles for my husband that's only about a third done.

Remember this? It's now this. Reclaimed UFO. I was tired of it taunting me and decided I wanted all that scrumptious alpaca put to use, not to lounge in its plastic jail. I'm currently in search of a new suitable pattern. Suggestions welcome.

Finished Knitting

Nesting sure is a great way to knit away a weekend.

Pandora did some nesting of her own.

Knitting

Finished pictures of the cabled duffle coat are here. I hope to have better pictures tomorrow or after a much needed blocking.

Also, here's what else I'm working on:

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful that it's a beautiful sunny day, that last night's storm passed overnight (it was a doozy!), that I have more yarn and fabric than I will be able to use in this lifetime, that I have an awesome husband and kids, that we're all healthy and together, that we have a lovely and comfortable home in a nice town, that I have friends that love me just the way I am (heh!)...

I did some yard work including moving my lilac tree (the poor thing was leaning so badly it was practically laying on the ground), some laundry, some dishes, started knitting Colin's fingerless mitts,ripped back the cable on one of the sleeves of the duffle coat, taught the kids how to make hot chocolate from scratch, spied on robins in the front yard,and baked a pumpkin for pumpkin pie. After all, what would Thanksgiving be without pumpkin pie? Brianna grew the pumpkin so technically I'm just a helper in the pie preparation department. She was thrilled to finally harvest it! Since I'm being all technical, you may as well know that we celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday because that is when Hubby got the day off work due to pouring rain. It's all good. We got to spend the day together.

Checking for dirt.

Look at that concentration!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tale of Two Slippers

My love affair with the Drops slipper pattern mentioned in the previous post has fizzled and died. Dead. That would be the bottom slipper in the picture. Not nearly as cute and charming as in their photo. All this slipper resembles in real life is a glorified tube sock. Bleh! I'm trying to decide whether to knit the second one. If I were to felt them once they're a set, they might fit one of the kids or I could keep them for guests and they won't seem like such a waste of time having knit them.

The top slipper was my revenge for the crappy Drops pattern. I knit this one in Briggs & Little Atlantic on 5.5mm straight needles. I just fudged a pattern as I went along. This is size extra large. I cast on 36 sts, knit for 17 ridges, switched to 2 X 2 rib, starting with K1, P2 and ending with K1 until desired length, in this case 24 rows. Then I began the decrease rows by k2tog on every k2, and repeated it for the second row. In row three I knit together every k1p1 to the end, cut the yarn and threaded it through a darning needle, to cinch together all leftover stitches and continued to sew up the top of the slipper. Then I sewed up the back heel, flipped the edge over like a cowl and tacked it down at center back. Done. I am much more pleased with this slipper. I plan on knitting the second one tonight and felting them a bit. Stay tuned.

Pretty Thing

The Yarn Harlot finally got off her arse and listed Pretty Thing for sale. I already purchased it! I can't wait to get knitting. It is indeed very pretty. I never tried a sewn bind off so that should be interesting learning experience. Mine, all mine!

Speaking of lovely patterns, have you checked out the new stuff over at Drops? As well as the Pretty Thing, this slipper pattern is in my sights.

Cabled Duffle Coat Update

I'm making good progress. Here is the back, complete with tea stain about half way down on the left. I'm hopeful that it will wash out. That will teach me for putting a mug (mostly empty or otherwise) in my knitting bag.Here is the left front. I'm almost to the armpit decreases. Very exciting.
Finally we have the two sleeves. Notice anything? Shape is good. Length is good. The cable pattern is not so good. I am trying to decide how anal I want to be about the whole thing. Remember how I ripped out the first, almost complete sleeve? Do I really want to do that to two complete sleeves because I crossed the cables every 8th row instead of every 6th? I didn't think I would be up to ripping and re-knitting that much work while the sleeves sat hidden in the bag, but now that I've hauled them out into the light of day... There is a big difference now that I have spread the pieces side by side. My hubby already accuses me of having OCD. The only question is whether or not I will prove him correct. Eeek.

Rylie Michael David

Born 29 Sept 2009 at 5:28am, weighing 8 lbs 12 oz.