Posts from — October 2006

In between scrubbing and painting the garage floor, I finished the red Catalina sweater. This yarn is so soft I just love it. To refresh your memory, the yarn is Catalina Baby Silk, 70% Baby Alpaca and 30% silk. The sweater took three skeins. Your read that right! Only three. I couldn’t believe it either! One benefit of boring ol’ stockinette, I guess. It is VERY close fitting (um, wasn’t supposed to be quite this close fitting…I needed one ore two more short rows and for the blocking to do it’s job) but it’s not like I’m the smallest knitter in the world. I did a little experiment this time. Usually I just keep it simple, doing decreases for the waist and increases for the bust. This time I used short row shaping for the bust. I would definitely try it again in the future. It creates a very close fit without being tight. It did look pretty funny when I was knitting it though…makes a funny looking little boob pocket that looks like it may be for a small child rather than breasts. Check it out…doesn’t it look like the pocket is in the middle of the sweater? Anyway, not perfect by any means, but a good basic comfy sweater which is what I wanted (sorry about the pics…I wasn’t having a good head day). The only really disappointment was the blocking. I expected wet blocking to allow me to widen the bust area but instead all I got was a MUCH longer sweater! For a while there, it was looking like a dress. It really seemed like this yarn stretched a lot more than other fibers when wet so you may want to keep that in mind if you decide to try it!

Y’all were right. It’s the garage floor! I didn’t think it was that obvious but may you’ve seen more of them than I have. Oh, and I can’t believe I’ve had a blog for well over a year now and I STILL can’t seem to remember to take pictures before beginning a project I may want to share. For that matter, even if I didn’t want to share it’s still gratifying to have before and after pictures. Oh well.

So how did this all begin? A few years ago we visited my sister in their new house and they had done this to their garage. Ever since then, Jim has wanted to do it. Don’t ask me why we’re just now getting around to it…seems like there must have been some opportunity since then??? And boy did ours need SOMETHING. Oil stains galore. Anyway, in case you ever want to do it for yourself make sure you some time and a decent amount of energy. It’s not difficult; it just requires some elbow grease! The finished product really does look 123% better than ugly oil stains! It’ll be interesting to see how it holds up.

There was some knitting this weekend but not a lot. The sleeves to my Catalina sweater are almost finished…I won’t bore you with more plain stockinette. However, there was another MAJOR non knitting project that began this weekend and was completed today. It totally sucked up the weekend but in a good “got stuff accomplished” kind of way. Can anyone guess the mystery project from the picture? Stay tuned.

I’ve been a :badgirl:…totally neglecting my blog “duties.” I know y’all are disappionted Not even a quick meme to keep you occupied. Anyway, to get you up to speed my last two weeks have been filled with:

1) Knitting a lizard ridge square while flying to Phoenix
2) Having all kinds of fun hanging out in Carefree (yes, that is a real town) AZ
3) Knitting a lizard ridge square while flying home
4) Filling the orders at the store that accumulated while I was gone
5) Getting a pattern rejected (again) by Knitty
6) Planning Girls Gone Wild 2006–Carefree Edition (well it’s more like girls gone tame, 2 maybe 3 married ladies and 1 single sister mountain biking, eating, hiking, drinking, relaxing and knitting in the Arizona sun in December)
7) Knitting a sweater (my design) out of Catalina Baby Silk. This yarn is so soft, gooshy and lightweight that I absolutely cannot wait to wear it! This could be my new favorite yarn.
8) Wearing old knits. It’s finally cold enough here to whip out an old favorite. Just in case you love it and have to make one it’s from the Filatura Di Crosa Fall 2004 Collection.

Y’all know I detest frogging. This time though, it really can’t be helped. At first glance, you may not be able to tell this sweater is totally hugeified. Without anything for prospective it almost looks normal. However, put it on a person and you begin to get the idea. Although I am the model, this sweater was not for me. It’s for Jim (who, in case you’ve forgotten is a 6′ 4″ hunk of a man). He may be of great height but Jim is thin. He was even thin when I started this sweater (um, a year ago) and I promise he hasn’t lost weight. He even tried the body on for me after I had a few inches done (it’s was knit in the round) and everything was fine. I think there must be knitting gnomes that get really pissed when you leave perfectly good sweaters languishing for months at a time. These gnomes (KNomes???) get in your knitting bag and do whatever they can to take the piss on you (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase. They say it in London all the time and although here it may sound a little vulgar, there is is about the equivalent of “darn” here. Blood Brits! They’re just brilliant.)

I thought of everything imaginable to try to prevent the frog here. Felt it and it would probably shrink down enough to fit me??? Steeks (it really does look pretty cute on me if it was quite a bit smaller)???  I really just can’t chance it with this yarn though. Not only is is a lovely 100% variegated wool that is PERFECT for Jim, it also has sentimental value. I bought it in Italy and hauled it around for days in a separate little pack just so I could bring it home. Unfortunately for me, this poor sweater is definitely destined for the pond. I’m so sick about the whole thing I can’t possibly start ripping yet. Hopefully it won’t be another year before I can look at it again.

Even though I sell a lot of Namaste Needle Binders, I never really thought of having one myself. I aways thought they were übercool, but I couldn’t see me using one. I thought of the binder as mainly for straight needles and I’m a strictly circular girl. At some point though, creativity kicked in and I began to see the great potential for organizing my knitting supplies with this binder. First off, who says you have to use stuff for it’s exact “intended” purpose anyway? Not only can you customize the binder with extra pages (so if you don’t use straight needles…use a different type of page) but you can also find new purposes for the straight needle holders. The straight needle pages make great crochet hook holders while the large needle page works for sets of DPN’s. There is even room in there for me to put my Denise Interchangeable Needle Case and my very large needles (35’s) in the side pocket. I can’t tell you how happy this little bugger has made me (I’m not naturally organized so stuff like this is a real necessity)! I was so tired of looking in 6 different places for my knitting tools. Now I just have one place they *should* (do you think the binder can make me put the stuff back where it belongs too???) be and can easily find what I’m looking for!

So, I had this “brilliant” last minute idea for a pattern to submit to the winter Knitty…theme holiday, last minute gifts, etc. My main (”normal”) submission was already finished. Since this one was a last minute idea, I only had 3 days to design and complete it. In retrospect, NOT one of my better ideas. Clearly a case of “just because you can knit it, doesn’t mean you should.” I’m hesitant to share my embarrassment with you, but I figured, what the heck. Now that the You Knit What blog is defunct, where is one to enjoy some fug?? Besides, I know quite a few knit bloggers out there who are stressed right now and could use a good laugh. I give you, the “Yarn Tree.” If you must comment, please be kind. I am a lot more sensitive than people think I am.