Needles & Hooks

Yesterday and today have been devoted to a variety of chores and errands. One of the chores is to go through my pile of mail and pay bills and recycle things. In the pile is a recent Ikea flyer advertising their textiles. Even though I’m in the midst of selling a house and not a place where I can actually decorate, I still like to look at Ikea catalogs and get ideas for the future.

One of the things Ikea is pushing right now is their fabric by the yard. Get it and make stuff with it. And the caption on one of the pages… “You’re so crafty. Oh, you’re not? Well, there’s so much you can do with fabric, even if you don’t sew (but you know, maybe sewing will catch on again, like knitting!).” (italics mine)

Old post:
Okay, I’m having a senior moment. And I’m not even that old.

Anyway, in the last week or so, one of the blogs I follow pointed to another one that had a neat short-row technique. It might have been a way to do toes on a sock? All I can remember is that the punchline was “just try it”. Anyway, that pink and white thing I’m experimenting with uses short rows at the color change and I’m trying to figure out a way to make those gaps more manageable. I got it in my head that I should try that method, but now that I look for it, I can’t remember what I did with the link. And googling isn’t helping. So, if you have any clue what I’m talking about, if this rings a bell for you, please leave me a comment.

thanks!

Update:

The internet does it again. Vaguely describe something enough and someone will recognize what you are talking about. In this case, Donna pointed me to the post I was looking for. I should have been a little more clear, I do know how to do short rows with the wrap or gap techniques. What I was looking for was a non-hole, non-wrap technique I’d come across recently. And it was this post, about the Sherman toe with “encroachments”.

But thanks also to Patsy and Marianne for suggesting a few things. I’m off to go play with some scrap yarn.

Okay, I have plans to be good and do house-selling stuff all weekend, so I decided to extend the knit-fest until bed tonight.

Since my last update, I’ve sewn all the seams on the baby cardigan set from Knit It! that I finished knitting so long ago. Good thing it turns out that it’s huge, so my niece will have plenty of time to grow into it still.

Here it is all ready for a collar and buttons:

Of course, that’s only half the story…

I ran out just after dinner and bought buttons for both this cardigan and the Surplice Jacket. So tonight will be a night of finishing. If I get finished with those, maybe I’ll allow myself to start on a hat for Surplice. Or another Walker Project swatch.

Wish me luck.

It goes so fast. So much time and not nearly as much accomplished as I’d expected.

Since my last update, I’ve finished the Baby Surplice Jacket. All it needs now is a couple of buttons. And I have one ball of yarn left, so I’ll probably make a matching hat.

The finishing of this one was a blast. I decided to do a wrong-side 3-needle bind-off to do the shoulder seams, so from the right side, the garter pattern seems almost unbroken. I also decided not to do any fancy finishing like cuffs or i-cord. I think the sleeves could probably be a little longer, so on the next one I probably will not bind off the cuff stitches, but continue out the ribs there.

I also finished my next Walker Project swatch:

I really have to stop making those and move on to some projects that have been languishing much longer….

Wow, can’t believe so much time has passed! So little knitting left.

Anyway, worked on my latest Walker Project swatch before I went to my massage. Got there a little early and worked on an EZ Baby Surplice Jacket that was my last page proof project at work. Had an idea for a little girl jumper that I ruminated on while getting massaged. Had to stop and run one small errand on my way home (needed change cash for tomorrow’s garage sale), so I stopped into my LYS and looked at some yarn thinking about the jumper idea. Didn’t buy anything!

Came home, sketched out my jumper idea, and worked more on the Surplice Jacket.

It’s time for food now, so I’ll eat and do one other small garage sale task (publicity!) and then go back to the knitting.

Here’s the progress on the Walker swatch:

Here’s the Baby Surplice (needs a couple of more rows then finishing):

Okay, I got the hat finished:

And I started a new Walker swatch:

And the next few hours will be devoted to sleep. G’night.

I spent most of hour 3 knitting on a ribbing to the entrelac basket-cap I made from an issue of Wool Gathering. And most of the second hour trying to do a sewn bind-off. I was following Nancy Wiseman’s technique in her book of finishing techniques, thinking that blind following would be fine. But after getting 10 stitches in twice and having a twisted purl bind-off instead of the desired knit rib bind-off, I gave up. I realized that I know kitchener and I can read my knitting, so I’m gonna stop reading the book. When my movie (Spellbound) ended, this is where it was:

This is a view of the mess that surrounds me:

Then I decided it was time to stop soaking things and block.

Here’s the Walker swatches:

Mermaid takes a spin:

Mermaid takes a nap:

Now, it’s back to finish that hat. Tivo has ER and Earl for me.

Yesterday I had my big deadline. I submitted final proofs on 1600+ pages. Today, I went to work and hung out in case there were questions on my edits (and there were a few) and to write up the reference pages and to eat instant ice cream because it was Son’s day (yesterday was Daughter’s day and I do mean instant ice cream - heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, liquid nitrogen; stir for a minute and poof yummy ice cream).

But I digress.

Tomorrow I am not going to the office. I’m pretending it’s Sunday (when I was at the office for way more hours than I should have been). And I’m not going to do any house selling or divorce stuff. I’m just going to sit and play with yarn projects (to be fair, getting a handle on my UFOs and stash is a house-selling project).

Anyway, for the next 24 hours, I’m doing nothing but yarn, food, and sleep (okay, I have a massage scheduled tomorrow morning, but I think I count that as sleep). And blog. I’m going to cram a whole month of knitting and knit blogging into 24 hours. Just watch me.

And it all starts……now!

I’m back to knitting at work again (good = knitting yay! bad = doing lots of page proofs boo!). And yesterday, one of my Knit Picks Options cables broke. The cable pulled out of the end piece. It had been loose for a while, but there was a loud pop (literally, it was quite impressive) and suddenly the stitches fell off. Now, this isn’t the disaster it could have been. I was knitting large-gauge stockinette and had another needle around to scoop up the stitches onto. The project was getting to the point where I thought I’d need two circulars anyway to work it, so I had one to switch it out. And as long as the broken side is on the left hand needle, where I’m pushing stitches onto it, not away from it, it’s all good.

Anyway, it was a clean disconnect and I’m thinking that a dab of superglue in the hole might fix it. Anyone have any experience with this?

In other news, I went poking around Knit Picks’ site when looking up the Options URL and noticed that they’ve done a redesign. Some things are much better — it’s much easier to find yarns now (I hated that search form before when I just wanted to browse certain categories). Some things perplexed me — of course I had to place an order, but there’s a “Qty” box and a “Add to Stash” button (how cute, not a cart, but a stash). If I just want one of something, I shouldn’t have to enter a quantity. It should default to 1. And it didn’t. And the “Qty” field is sort of muted. So I had to call them to figure out why I couldn’t add coil-less safety pins to my order after trying several times. Okay, so maybe I’m lame and blind and shouldn’t be shopping at 7am. But I’m also a savvy-surfer and shouldn’t have been frustrated by that. They want to make it easy for me to buy something, not hard.

I also noticed that their funky KIPer project bags are on clearance. I guess they weren’t as successful as Options. If you’re curious about trying them, or have a couple but wanted to get the other sizes, go now!

My Breast Cancer Stash Sale is going incredibly well! So far, I’ve shipped off a bunch of packages and earned $334.00 toward my 3-Day Walk! Thank you all!

At this rate, I might have to increase my fundraising goal.

I updated the page to remove everything that has been paid for and shipped. There are still a number of good things up for grabs, including older magazines and Opal sock yarns. Take a look! If you are interested in something, but would prefer PayPal instead of donating directly to the site, let me know and we’ll work something out.