Pointy Sticks podcastaversary!

Hey - Christine from the Pointy Sticks podcast is celebrating her podcastiversary (yes, I am spelling that word two different ways. Sue me.) Check out her blog to see how to enter her contest. She has great prizes including something from Brooks Farm, which I am totally all for. I love Christine’s show so I recommend you check it out. Her opening music alone makes it worth the time.

swatchy revisited

so, post wetblocking and drying flat but not pinned or anything...

6: 20.5 st/in
7: 19.5 st/in
8 16.5 st/in

!!

So, size 7s it is. Phew. Now to decide what SIZE sweater to knit... always a nailbiter.

swatchy - cascade 220, knitpicks needles

Isn’t it beautiful?



This is the actual color, although probably not the color I will actually use. Yeah, I know. That’s poor sick Oskar in the background.
Anyway, pre-blocking, I got >21 st/inch with size 6 needles, 21 w/size 7, and 19 w/size 8. The pattern calls for 19.5 st/in. So, I soaked it and put it down to dry and we’ll see what it does. I’m hoping to get gauge w/size 7s... I like that fabric the best.

quick note

Since finishing haiku, I haven’t been motivated to work on my shetland triangle. I mean, I want to, but I’m SO stressed out about Oskar and now my mom’s dog Regis is ill as well, plus the moving and everything, just, ugh. So, I am doing a gauge swatch of Cascade 220 on my knitpicks options. I’m using size 6, 7, and 8 to try to get 19.5 st/24 rows/4 inches, to make myself a Ribby Cardi (from chicknits). We’ll see how it goes. So far I know the six is too small. The 7 and 8 are, well, too close to call. I’ll have to finish up and block it and see.

weirdness

I’m having strange software issues. I need to re-upload a lot of stuff to fix it. You may see weirdness. You have been warned.

haiku take II version 1.2 b

Trying this again... I finished the seaming last night and I did the buttons and ends in the waiting room while poor Oskar was getting the once over (I think he has an erythroleukemia but I’m having him gone over by experts before I condemn him to that fate).






Armhole seam from the inside:

WIP pix

And the good news is, it is dry. So I just have to get the buttons some time today, and do the seaming, and I’m all set. Phew!

haiku

I enjoy knitting
a most relaxing hobby
except when it’s not

But, no, seriously folks, what I meant was I finished the body of Haiku from Knitty today. i realized late Monday night that one of my nieces is having a party on Saturday (that I can’t even go to, because I’ll be at work), and i have no present. She’s turning one. So, I cast on.

I finished the body today and HOPEFULLY the sleeves will be done in time to block them tomorrow night. Then I can seam it up Friday and find buttons and gift it Saturday.

Or possibly not, but, you know. I can hope. FO pix to follow I hope.

small steps

My nephew’s hat, on his head. I rubbed out his face to avoid “plastering him all over the internet.” I hope that works ☺
The clutter in the background is the stuff my SIL/BIL already packed up to move out of our new house (which btw we settle on in two days!)


I finished my garterlac washcloth, but it was quickly appropriated as a blanket for Pinky the elephant.



I cast on last night for Haiku from Knitty - can I finish it by Saturday? Doubt it, but I’m gonna try. My niece’s birthday party was somehow not on my calendar...

so tired

Well, the for sale sign is up - which means the maniacal cleaning, decluttering, and reorganizing I have been doing in between school pick-ups and drop-offs and working is DONE. Now, I just have to maintain - which is frankly almost as bad but whatever. My middle daughter is ill, too. Bleah. Because I am majorly stressed, I have started a garterlac dishcloth in a lavender-green colorway that soothes me and reminds me of my beloved rosemary and lavender in my soon-to-be-someone-else’s garden. I will bring the dishcloth to our new house, and plant new herbs there. Hopefully the deer will not destroy them.

dylan's bag pictures, shetland triangle progress

I finished Dylly’s bag yesterday:



That shows the color pretty well. The purple satiny stuff is something I was thinking of lining the bag with, but I didn’t.





The bag’s inside; the bag hanging out with my own bag ☺

This is the progress I made today on my shetland triangle:



I have done the neck chart and one 10-row body chart repeat. Now I don’t know what to do. When I continue (because you’re supposed to do the body chart 8 times), do I add in additional pattern repeats each time? I’m confused about how this thing is supposed to increase. Because, you know, the first line of the body chart has a N number of stitches and then you get to row 10 and you have N+Q stitches (I have no idea the actual numbers here, don’t have it in front of me) - you can’t then go back to row 1 because you have too many stitches, unless you do additional pattern repeats. But I don’t know for sure that’s what to do and I never did this sort of thing before so - ack! help!

dylan's bag

I’m working on a bag for my niece at my brother’s behest. “She likes purple, I guess,” he told me.

So:



Gratuitous kitten pix (btw Kaspar is a 5 mo old intact male norwegian forest cats for those veterinary lurkers. He’s allllllmost ready for neutering!)

knitting in the wild

I was knitting at Barnes and Noble today - just a few rows on a dishcloth while waiting for it to be time to leave. I had some knitting-related encounters, which never happens to me. First, a woman approached me and asked if I were knitting “American style?” I said I wasn’t sure ;) but whatever style it was it was not continental. I knit with the yarn held in my right hand, going across my index finger, and I either barely move the finger to loop the yarn over the tip of the needle, or I barely move the tip of the needle to pick up the yarn, depending on I don’t know what, really ☺. She watched, intrigued, and actually tried to break it down along the lines of “OK, so, you want the ball of yarn on the table and then the yarn should go up along your hand, in between your fourth and fifth fingers, and then over the back of the finger and then sometimes you have it wrapped around twice but sometimes not, how do you know when to unwrap it?” Um, I don’t! But, she was very appreciative of “the help” (help?) and said she hoped she hadn’t messed up my counting. She also commented that I made it look “so easy,” which was funny, because I was knitting a dishcloth after all, hardly rocket science here.

So anyway, then, another lady approached me - an older woman (in the course of our discussion she mentioned having a 35 yr old son). She gave me a business card type card with her email address on it, and the name of a knitting group, along with the times it meets! She’s from the “Knit-Knights,” which meets in a local library. The card is decorated with a picture of a medieval-style castle ☺. Of course they meet during prime family time - 6:30-8:30 pm - so I asked if she knew of any groups which meet during the day. She asked me “did you make this bag?” and pointed at my big, lined Booga bag. I said yes, and she then said “OK, I think you’re advanced enough,” and told me when the day group meets - which is 10-12 on Mondays, which I might actually be able to make! But, it’s at a library about 15 minutes further away which is a little disappointing. Oh well. Maybe I can go and see how it is!