Fricken Snow...

Not much going on here the last week. When I say that, I mean knitting wise. I have a 1 year old that is getting into EVERYTHING!! So the only knitting time I've gotten is when she's napping. Even then I have to split that time with laundry. Boo.... I wish laundry would do its self! 

But it doesn't. 

So all I have to show for knitting is progress on my BFF socks. I have 1 sock done and casted on the second sock today. 

I should be able to get more done since there's no way I'm leaving the house.

It looks pretty dismal in the pictures, but there's a bit of snow falling and it's been snowing for a day. So there's more snow than that visible in the photo. It's a bit of a bummer since there was practically NO snow a couple days ago. 

I am so tired of snow. 

The only good thing about being inside because of the snow is that I'm making homemade bread. 

I'm cheating a bit by using the dough function on the bread maker but I am baking it in the oven. So the house smells heavenly!!

Happy Knitting :-)

Shift in Attitude...

I've been delaying the inevitable. I've gotten all my other pressing obligatory knitting done except for a couple sweaters I need to get going on. I've decided that the 1st sweater I've got to get done is for my Grandmother. She loved the sweaters I knit my bother and sister for Christmas but she would never ask me to knit her one. I just knew that she would love one though. So I took her measurements and asked her what kind of sweater she would like. Some of the things she requested were simple enough. 

-Cardigan

-Dark Grey

-Buttons

-Lightweight sweater

But trying to find a pattern that I liked that matched up with her minimal requirements was more difficult. I'm very particular in what kind of sweaters I knit. No one likes to be constantly complaining about how much we hate a particular project we're working on. I've been there more than once. I only like to knit sweaters that are in 'one piece' or in other words 'raglan'. Seaming down right pisses me off. I'm totally OK if other people like to seam their sweaters together but I just don't have the required patience to do it. Plus it looks like crap when I do it. Mostly because of the lack of patience I have.

So I was surprised that during my search I was able to find 1 pattern that kind of met the requirements I set. Etching by Linda Wilgus. Although it wasn't spot on, it was enough for me to order the yarn. Which in it's self was re-don-cu-lous. I went to Web's and ordered some Cascade Sport Superwash 220. I assumed that since it was 220 it would have 220 yards like the worsted 220. Well when it was delivered a couple weeks later, I read the ball band and was surprised that it said 136 yards. It prompted ALOT of curse words. ALOT!! It clearly says on the page the yardage but I assumed because it was 220 yarn it was going to have 220 yards. 

Frick.

Now I had to order more yarn. So I ordered more yarn. I waited a couple more weeks for it to come in. Then when it arrived I casted on.

I used Judy's magic cast on because I'm doing some revisions to the pattern. I'm going to be adding a shawl collar, a thicker button band and long sleeves. So I reserved the shawl collar live stitches on a spare cable from my Knit Picks Interchangeable set and started knitting on the Raglan. 

After a couple of inches I was starting to get frustrated. Mostly because it doesn't look like I'm making any progress, since it's sport weight yarn and I have to increase the raglan to 404 stitches. This is going to take a while. I put the sweater down for a couple days and thought about it. 

I did NOT want this to be a project that I was going to hate working on. It's suppose to be a loving gift to my grandmother and I didn't want any negativity I'm feeling to leech into this gift that is suppose to be made with love. So I decided that while I'm knitting this every time I'm getting irritable with the lack of progress I'm going to think of fond memories with my grandmother. So far it's working and I'm almost done the raglan increases, which in itself is the worst part. To me anyways. I find once I get done the raglan increases and separate the sleeves that the rest of the sweater seems to fly by faster. 

I'm sure that this sweater is going to take a while to finish. I've got a couple other projects on the needles as well to break up all the stockinette that's in this sweater. Plus since the yarn is so dark I've just been knitting on it during the day in the natural light. Then in the evening I'm either working on my Papaya Cancan or my BFF socks. 

Happy Knitting :-)

Papaya Heaven...

One of my favourite colors from Tanis Fiber Arts is Papaya. It was part of last years Year in Color Club in the Red Label base. I love the base but it's a 1 ply and I'm not too keen on 1 plies even though I LOVE how soft it is. So it sat in my spare room on a shelf while I waited for that project that would do the yarn justice. 

Well... A couple weeks ago I litterally fell in love with mrsmommy's French Cancan. Since the Blogger App refuses to let me link it the web address is below: 

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/mrsmommy/french-cancan 

She made it with 2 skeins of Red Label. As soon as I saw it i just knew it would be rediculously soft and I felt that 'click' in my mind. 

The perfect match 'click'. 

I was able to find another skein of Papaya in the Tanis Fiber Arts ISO thread on Ravelry. Which totally made my day!! 

I know I have an obligatory project that I need to get done but SERIOUSLY ... how could I delay any longer? Everytime I looked at those 2 skeins I had a compulsive need to cast on a Cancan for myself. It was extremely HARD to hold out for what seemed like FOREVER... But in reality was probaly more like 4-5 days. So yesterday I gave in and casted on. I am totally LOVING it so far :-)

Pattern : French Cancan by Mademoiselle C

Yarn : Tanis Fiber Arts Red Label Cash Silk Single in Papaya

It's getting hard to put it down. I'm going to have to impose some knitting time on my obliglatory knitting project first before I can reward myself with knitting in my Papaya Cancan ;-)

Happy Knitting :-)

El-fritzo...

So my computer decided to go el-fritzo. Which basically means that the computer would work if the battery would hold a charge. The battery charger won't charge the battery anymore. Soooooo.... I'm posting this via the Blogger App. Which still works but it's not my preference. 

So as promised, BEHOLD.... The complete Lucky Penny set for my friend Darleen :-)

Patterns : Clockwise from Top left - Millwater by Beth Kling, Sand Bank by Justyna Lorkowska, Cabled Canuck by Tanis Lavallee, & Eugenia's Mittens by Mollie Woodworth

Yarn: Tanis Fiber Arts Green Label Aran Weight in Lucky Penny

The only modification I did was I continued the cabling pattern on the mitten tops. Other than that I followed the pattern on everything. I enjoyed knitting everything. The only request that Darleen had was that it had cables and she wanted an infinity scarf. That's the kind of requests I like. It still gives me a bit of freedom to do what I want :-)

Now I'm off to knit my next obligatory knitting project!

Happy Knitting :-)

10 Day Catch Up :-)

I've been wanting to write up a post for the last couple days. Although now that I have a walking baby it's making it a little hard to carve out some time to do that. The down time I get I end up doing some cleaning or knitting a bit. If I didn't get to knit a bit each day I would go batty.

So saying that I have a bit of progress to share with you!

I got a wonderful photo from my cousin showing her darling daughter Madison modelling her new Crocodile Stitch Booties. She absolutely loves them. I'm sure they'll get lots of use :-)

It's been a long while since I casted on a pair of socks. Last year was the year of the sock. It seemed that everyone in my family wanted a pair of socks for their birthday or Christmas. I finally drew the line and said no more socks last year. Well after religiously reading MisoCraftyKnits Blog, I've been insanely jealous of all the socks she's pumping out. It relight a fire for sock knitting. So I decided to wind up an old ball of yarn I've had in my stash. I wasn't sure how it would look knitted up. I was not in love with this skein.

But to my surprise, when I started knitting with it I really started to love how it was turning out. It's amazing how that works :-) Secretly, I'm ecstatic that it's turning out well because if the skein looked like crap when I was knitting it I would be totally bummed. 

Pattern : BFF Socks by CookieA (please note, that I didn't buy the pattern. I looked at the photos and figured it out in my own because I'm a badass that way)

Yarn : ZenYarnGarden Bamboolicious Yarn in BB1D. It's an OOAK that I got in a bulk grab bag that they used to sell. It was a smoken deal. I wish they would bring back the grab bag :-(

A week ago, I got to get a day out of the house.... BABY FREE!!!!! As you can tell I was pretty excited about it. Just over a week ago I got to get out of the house and leave my child to spend some daddy / daughter time with my husband. I went to Starbucks for a coffee and some knitting time. I used to go to Starbucks when I was on my lunch (pre-baby) and knit away. It was good at the time to get away from any stress or drama that was happening. Anyways, it was very enjoyable and relaxing.

Then I went to my spa appointment. I had booked a steam bath and a pedicure. It was beyond awesome. I decided that while I was getting my pedicure I would continue working on my sock. I felt people watching me (which isn't unusual if your knitting in public) so I looked up and there was a man and a woman getting a couples pedicure and they were both staring at me like I was nuts. That I considered to be a little rude. I gave them the "what's your problem" look and they quickly adverted their eyes. I have no idea why this bothered me since I usually don't care if people stare at me while I'm knitting in public. I think it was the blatantly rude look they gave me. 

Although the ladies doing the pedicures were quite enthralled by my sock. 

Lastly, I finished the mittens and toques I was knitting for my friend Darleen. All was good until I decided to finally wash and block the mittens so I could line them with fleece. Then I noticed a problem.

A miss crossed cable on 1 mitten. At least it's at the top of the left mitten. So I'm a little miffed that I have to rip it out and reknit the top portion. I guess its a learning experience for next time :-(

Hopefully I'll have a combined photo of the whole lot of accessories for Darleen in the next post.

Happy Knitting :-)

Crocodile Stitch Booties...

After my epic Sunnyside knitting marathon, I was ready to pack up all the sweaters and mail them off. ASAP!! That was until my Aunt tagged me in a shared post on FB that included pictures of Crocodile Stitch Booties. My cousin immediately commented that she loved them. So knowing that, I started digging through the stash to see if I could find any yarn that would work. You would think that in my ridiculously huge stash I could find 1 skein of yarn to use.

Of course not.

 So a visit to my local yarn store was in order. Which ended in me buying 2 balls of yarn and a set of bamboo crochet hooks. I can't tell you how crocheting with the cheap Walmart crochet hooks raises my anger level from Moderate Anger to Excessive Meltdown is Imminent. Like, right NOW! Anyways, it was completely necessary to purchase the set. Which I totally don't regret because it made the whole experience a whole lot better.

I started out crocheting the sole and knew right away that the single skein of Katia Darling I bought wasn't going to work. I ripped back and tried it double stranded. Which sounds easier than it actually was bc I had to match up the color gradients. So it took a bit of time to get it to match up. Then I started crocheting again. This time I got the sole and boot portion done before I realized, that it was way too big.

Frick.

That meant I had to rip it out again. Now I was a little peeved but the anger level was manageable. So I went back to the Crafty Lady (AGAIN) and perused the yarn to see if there was anything that would work. I knew I was going to need a lace weight yarn because obviously doubling the yarn increased the size exponentially. When I saw the perfect skein. Debbie Bliss Party Angel in like a goldie cream. It was completely perfect.

As soon as I got home I casted on again and started crocheting. I loved how it was turning out and I was crusing along when I decided that I apparently knew more than the pattern did. Epic failure. It then required more ripping out. This was not the only occurrence. I misread the instructions and ripped out. This is what happens when your so stubborn that you are determined that your going to finish a bootie before you go to bed. I eventually threw in the towel around midnight-ish and decided that maybe sleep would help the situation.

It totally did. The next day I ripped out and followed the instructions to a T and (surprise, surprise) it turned out. Then I motored on the second bootie and before I knew it by the evening I had a set :-)

Yarn : Katia Darling in 201 & Debbie Bliss Party Angel in 15510
Pattern: Crocodile Stitch Booties by Bonita Patterns

Good news is I have an extra skein of Katia Darling but in a different colorway so I'm thinking that I may cast on another set of booties in the future. Maybe after all my obligatory knitting is done.

Happy Knitting / Crocheting :-)

Ravellenic's Round-Up...

Usually I don't participate in the Ravellenic's but this year I decided to select a couple smaller projects that I knew I would be able to finish. I know these projects aren't inspiring or anything but with a pile of obligatory knitting and a crazy active baby on the move it's really all I could fit in.

First up, was a toque for myself :-) I had originally cast it on before we went to Mexico. I finished the ribbing then it lay stagnant. I decided that it was a good entry for the WIP Dancing. I was surprised that it didn't take me long to knit up. The rest of the toque only took a day of on and off knitting to complete. It's currently my favourite toque to wear when I'm out and about.

Pattern: Cabled Canuck by Tanis Lavallee

Yarn: Tanis Fiber Arts Orange Label in Plum

Next up, a project that I was SUPPOSE to cast on in November. A friend asked me to knit her a infinity scarf to match her Reverb that I gifted her previously. I then asked if she wanted matching mittens and a toque. So of course she wanted them. The yarn's been in my spareroom since then. Everytime I went into the spare room I felt the yarn giving me the evil eye. So it was next to add to the Ravellenic's. 

I was again surprised that it took me a total of 4 days to knit up. I'm not going to go into the details since my drunken knitting experience is in my previous post ;-)

Pattern: Millwater by Beth Kling

Yarn: Tanis Fiber Arts Green Label in Lucky Penny

The last project came close but I didn't complete it before the closing ceremonies. Although it was a valiant effort on my part. 

Pattern: Thrummed Mittens by Tanis Lavallee

Yarn : Tanis Fiber Arts Thrummed Mitten Kit in Sand and Chestnut from her Etsy store.

Knitting Thrummed mitts was surprisingly fun. I wasn't sure it was going to be since I usually get inpatient with anything tedious. Not once was I frustrated. If anything I kept putting my hand in the mitten to feel how soft they are :-) I'm thinking that I might make some more for Christmas gifts. It will be a consideration once I finish my large obligatory knitting projects.

Happy Knitting :-)