still fat

This is what happens when I "wing it" or "make it up as I go along":


You get a mitten where the gusset's too deep and the thumb's fat. I decreased 4 sts at the base of the thumb and it's still too big. The thumb also looks stupid because it's so short (and fat). I like the decrease method for the top of the mitten - round sock toe from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush. I'm frogging this one and reknitting it.

I didn't have any further problems with my Harmony dpns. I have 2 other sets that I'm going to pull out and check before I contact KP. I really liked using them for the mittens because they were sticky enough that they didn't fall out when I was down to 8 sts on the thumb. I was also surprised to find that the shorter length didn't bother me that much.

Not much else on the knitting front... Just working on my WIP list. Every once in awhile, I pick up the Juno Regina stole and knit a few rows. I'm almost at the halfway point. I turned the heel on some commission socks. I hope to finish them off this week. I cast on the second Endpaper Mitt. I am fighting the urge to cast on for Imogen. I have the yarn/needles and I've already washed/dried/measured my swatch. Must Concentrate On WIPs.

Hubby and I went to the farmers' market this morning. We bought some bread (walnut rye and garlic cheese) and I wanted to buy some purple potatoes but the vendor wasn't there today. Then we went to the big store and did a bit more grocery shopping. I'm making wontons tonite. When we got home, I sat down to hand peel a huge bag of fresh water chestnuts (for the wontons). It took me almost an hour and my hands are completely cramped but it is soooo worth it to have fresh water chestnuts.

Off to do something useful... Laundry? Supervise/annoy hubby while he assembles our new computer? Nap? That last one sounds good.

unimpressed

After knitting half a mitten, one of my Harmony dpns snags:


I wonder if they give you 6 needles because they know that there'll be one dpn that's defective. Humph! Pictures of the mitten to follow after I fix the "fat" thumb.

lin-tea

I was sewing away today - making the project bag for one of our winners and a few bags for my niece. I took a sip of my tea and it tasted a little fuzzy. I looked inside and there was a thin layer of lint floating on top. Ewww! I should use my lidded travel mug if I'm going to be sewing and drinking.

This morning, I finished off the Peadpod sweater. Sewing the sleeves in wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Picking up the sts for the neck band was a pain. It took me 3 tries before I got it right.


I'm going to wash and block it before I put the buttons on because the button band is all warped.

Can you believe it's snowing again? The old snow hasn't even melted yet. I may wimp out and skip knit nite. We'll see what hubby says when he gets home from work.

Phoebe has the right idea:

"zzzzzz gonna sleep right through it zzzzzz" - Phoebe

spoiled rotten

Okay, I've been spoiled. Two parcels arrived for me today. One was some yarn I ordered and the other was a bit of a surprise. The surprise box was from Purling Pirate. I didn't know what to expect - she just told me that she was sending me a few things.

There was some fabric:


I love the skulls with knitting needles and the skulls with scissors. It just cracks me up!

And she sent some yarn:


My very first skein of STR! I might've screamed a little when I saw it. I love you P-la! You rock! And you certainly made my day week year!

Now that I've calmed down a little, I'll show you what else I got in the mail today.


I got 20 balls from the Elann sale last week. I'd tell you to go buy some but they sold out shortly after it was listed.

Last week, I got 2 packages - both of them from Ravelry destashers. Some pretty coloured aluminum dpns that I can't buy in Canada...


And the largest cone of yarn that I've ever seen:


It's Patons SWS and weighs 2.5lbs - should be enough to make the Imogen jacket. I've already swatched and I'll start knitting after I buy a circ needle in the right size.

And after cursing the chart B errata, I finished the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat.



Pattern: Bloody Stupid Johnson by Sarah Lilly
Yarn: Green Mountain Spinnery Alpaca Elegance; 1 skein plus a few yards of a second skein (how annoying)
Needles: 3.5mm & 3.75mm Addi turbo circs
Notes: Knit for Three Bags Full. I don't like the yarn. It doesn't have a consistent thickness. It also feels more like sportweight rather than DK. If you follow the pattern, the finished size is 23" which is huge. My head is 22.75" and I have a large head (according to bicycle helmet manufacturers). So I went down a needle size for the brim, cabled section, and crown short rows. I switched to 3.75mm needles when doing the crown decreases because I didn't want the top of the hat to be too small. Because of the smaller needles, my row gauge was off in the stockinette part so I did 2 extra short rows in the crown section. After washing & blocking, the hat is pretty baggy. If I were to knit this again, I would cast on 16 fewer sts and repeat chart A 5 times (rather than 6). The end result should measure about 21". I would also add an extra stitch to the left side (aka the top) of the cable panel. There are 2 but you lose one to selvedge when you pick up sts to knit the crown. It's not a big deal - after all this hat is very asymmetrical. Bloody Stupid Johnson would be proud to wear it.

Longing for Spring Swap

In a moment of weakness, I've joined a swap - Longing for Spring. I guess all this snow is getting to me. Sign ups are open until Feb 14 or until the 40 spaces are filled whichever comes first. There's still room!


Here's my answers to the questionnaire:

1. Do you knit or crochet? How long have you been at your craft?
I knit. I crochet only when I have to. I learned to do both when I was young (less than 10) and I crocheted for many years. I never got the hang of knitting when I was young. I stopped crocheting about 20 years ago and haven't really done any since. I started knitting again about 6 years ago.

2. What are your favorite yarns/fibers? What are your least favorite yarns/fibers?
I like most yarns. I don't like anything itchy/scratchy or yarn that sheds a lot. Novelty is fine in small quantities.

3. What are your favorite colors? What are your least favorite colors?
Purple, purple, and purple are my favourite colours. I don't like orange/salmon/peach, greens, and yellows.

4. What ‘warm weather’ project are you looking forward to making this year?
We're still thawing out from under 10" of snow so the thought hasn't crossed my mind. I am reknitting the Bonita shirt so I guess that counts.

5. What are you favorite scents? Least favorite?
I love the smell of vanilla. I don't like fruity scents - lemon/lime/orange.

6. What is your favorite flower?
Oh that is a tough one - I have so many favourites. I love my Nerine Bowdenii. I also like Lithodora Diffusa for it's stunning blue colour.

7. What are your favorite spring time hobbies/activities?
Getting out into the garden and watching all the new growth. Watching the cherry/apple blossom trees blooming.

8. Do you have a garden? If you do, tell us a little about it. Do you like to plant flowers or vegetables?
Yes, I have a garden - 9 seperate flower beds; 3 of which we've added since buying the house. Our property is full sun with a very small shady corner so all my plants need to be drought tolerant. I grow mostly perennials but I do have a weakness for petunias, pansies, and impatiens (in a planter on our shaded porch). I don't grow vegetables because it's too hard to keep the pesky animals out and I don't like looking at chicken wire. The property came with 2 pear trees, some everbearing raspberry bushes, a gigantic rhubarb patch, and one lonely asparagus - all of which we enjoy (with the exception of the asparagus - what do you do with just one?). We have a 30 ft Norway Maple tree and a 20 ft Japanese Maple. We used to have a cherry blossom tree but it fell down last year during a fierce windstorm.

9. What are your favorite sweets?
Mmmmm... chocolate, of course. I prefer dark but will eat pretty much anything when I'm desperate. I also like fruit gummies.

10. Do you collect anything?
Fabric (I quilt, too), sock yarn, books, vintage quilts, vintage linen tablecloths/tea towels.

11. Do you have any allergies?
Sorta - I'm mildly allergic to many different foods and as long as I don't eat too much of them, I'm fine. I actively avoid caffeine so that I can eat as much chocolate as I want LOL!

12. Do you have any pets?
Yep - 2 kitties named Ricky and Phoebe. Does hubby count as a pet?

I can't wait to find out who my spoilee will be!

Decisions, decisions!

I can't believe how many great stole patterns we received! I've also pulled out two balls of a purple Jojoland quartette yarn for Sharon, our bonus prize winner. Thank you all for your thoughtful suggestions!

And no, I don't know which one I'll be doing yet, but I'll probably be making my decision sometime next week. I'm leaning towards the Woodland Shawl by the Thrifty Knitter because it looks like something that I can do on my daily commute, and I've got lots of that yarn, too. (Plus, at only one ball of sock yarn, I think I can finish this in just a couple of weeks, and a lot of the other patterns look like longer-term commitments.)

I have wound up my lace yarn, however, and as I put these patterns into order of yarn requirements, I'll be trying to figure out what appeals to me most.

In the meantime, there's one major project off my needles. It's a baby blanket for our friends Grace & Eric's new baby. (The one that Dotty just finished a quilt for. Yeah, that's going to be one spoilt little boy!)


And the next baby won't be coming until July, so I can take my time doing the next baby blanket, and do a wee bit of Christmas knitting (I'm going to try to start earlier this year, and do a gift a month, so that I'm not doing only Christmas knitting for the last few months of the year.)

(I have no idea why this photo won't rotate properly — I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to do it, and now I'm off to do my 20 minutes on the exercise bike!)

And I got a nice surprise in the mail last week, too! Shelly Kang, who's working on the most amazing mitered sock yarn blankie (follow the link from her name), had a giveaway on her blog last month. One of the things she gave away was a lot of allergy cookbooks, and I got them! Tony's already cooked a minestrone soup out of one of the books, and Andrew wants to do the Chocolate upside down fudge cake out of another book. (He wanted to do it this afternoon, but we took him to Science World instead.) Thank you again, Shelly! It's my hope that the good fortune of your kids outgrowing their allergies will follow these books, and help my kids to outgrow theirs.

the winner is... (and a bunch of other stuff)

The contest ended yesterday so now it's time to announce the winners. I thought about trying the cat random number generator again but they weren't in the mood.


"You can't get me off this couch" - Phoebe


Ricky didn't even crack an eyeball at me. So I used one of those online things and asked it to give me 3 numbers (Gladys added an extra prize :). After sorting through the comments, the winners are: Nicole, Sharon Rose, and Robin. Congrats to the winners (we'll be contacting each of you shortly) and many thanks to everyone for your stole suggestions.

Lookit - a FO. Sadly, not one on my WIP list but I was under immense peer pressure to knit these.


Pattern: Fiber Trends Felt Clogs; mens large
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool Merino; colour denim marl; 4 skeins
Needles: 9mm circs

Of course, they still need to be felted but I'm going to knit myself a pair and felt both of them at the same time.

At knit nite, Francesca asked if one of us wanted to knit the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat - the just-released Knitty surprise. By the end of the night, no one had volunteered so I did. I love Terry Pratchett so this was a no-brainer. This is what the hat looked like this morning:


It doesn't look like this now. I knit another 40 rows and then I ripped out about 60 rows. When you're working the cable band, it's attached to the ribbed brim at the same time. For every 4 cable rows, 3 brim sts are joined to it. The instructions say knit chart B 3 times but as I was nearing the end of the second repeat, I noticed that I didn't have many brim sts left. I did some math and I seemed to be short 11 brim sts. Wha??? I double checked everything and I was still short. So I checked Knitty for errata. Well, there have been some major changes to the pattern since Wed night. Chart B is a completely new beast. Sigh... I was hoping to finish the hat today.

And I'll leave you with a garden "first" - my snowdrops in the snow. Lemme tell you that this is as rare as a white Christmas.


Updated: I didn't use 6 skeins for hubby's clogs, only 4.