Isn’t she beautiful? After years of k’nex, lego, and the back of the kitchen chairs, my husband and son treated me to this for my birthday. I treated myself to a ball-winder at the same time. I’ve been holding off from starting anything new until I finish something (I’d have 100 projects on the needles and nothing done, otherwise. Know thyself.) But, really, one my projects is *almost* done, so it would be irresponsible not to start a swatch, right? RIGHT? Because, you know, it’s cotton and it’ll take a while to dry for blocking…

It took me less than a minute to wind a ball of yarn. Ahhhhhhh. I’m not counting setup time because I might have been lovingly caressing the cherry wood of the swift for a while. I’m not sure; time kinda stopped.

Have a great weekend - I’ll be swatching for this.

[The swift is from Knitting Notions.]

Nothin’ says fall like a bowlful of apples. I worked up this bunch for our homeschool group’s Wizard of Oz play. My son Leafy, and his pals Branchy and Shady are magic trees, you see. Rude magic trees that get to throw apples at Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow. The trees will have a rollicking good time with these, if the giggling at rehearsal is any indication.

What has really surprised me is the number of adults who want to make off with an apple or two. When I started knitting for the play, I really didn’t know what I was going to do with all these apples afterward. Turns out, I needn’t have worried. Not counting the kids, I’ve had at least four people offer to take them off my hands. But, the kids get them - the grown-ups can get their own!

Besides the apple knitting, there has been copious sewing, painting, cutting, and hot-gluing of costumes (my other little one is Scarecrow for half of the play.) So, busy busy around here.

I joined Hat Attack again this year, not knowing that it would culminate during a costuming craze. I’m dead (yay), and sent my half-finished hat off to my lovely assassin. Turns out that I’m sensitive to the recommended yarn, Therapi, in a respiratory sort of way.

So, I’m happily back to my scarf and my sweater, and a pair of socks (but that doesn’t really count, right?) Have a lovely weekend!

Pattern Details:

Started:	5 Sep 2008
Finished:	1 Oct 2008
Pattern:	Mrs. Saucy Apple from Peachcake Knits
Yarn:	Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Ranch Red (102) and Avocado (174). It took maybe half the skein of red, and hardly any green. The black is double sport weight Louet Gems… I think. The stem on the apple with the bright green leaf is worsted weight acrylic, and the bright leaf is some hand-dyed sock yarn doubled.
Needles:	US 8 / 5.0 mm Clover bamboo. A little too grabby for this.
Notes:	I did a lot of strange experimenting with the leaves, so if you see something wonky, it wasn’t the pattern. You get bored after a few apples.

Hi all,

Just a quick note - I finally got my ducks in a row and wrote up my sized-down version of Grumperina’s Jaywalker socks. It’s posted here with Grumperina’s permission. My scaled-down version fits a kid in the US toddler 13 (Euro 31,
UK 12) range.

You can find it at the top of my free stuff page. Have fun, and let me know if you use the pattern and something doesn’t make sense.

Two steps forward and one step back… that still counts as progress, right?

So, I had the back mostly done, but I had that feeling. You know the one… you’re a bit uneasy that the size isn’t quite right, but you soldier on because your next-size-down needles are in a box at home, and frankly, you’re at least a skein in with this size. Surely 2,948 stitches can’t be wrong. I stuck the sweater in a bag to marinate for a few weeks (okay, a month), and then took it out to measure it again. This time, instead of optimistically measuring in the car over my legs whilst zooming down the highway [stitches in project may be larger than they appear], I spread her out on the kitchen table for some in-depth counting. Ah, yes. I’m getting 5.5 rows per inch instead of 6.

I sorta knew I was off before, but I figured I’d just fix the math on the front side so that the cable design would end at the shoulders correctly. But, with the perspective lent to me by time, I got a fantastic idea. Wouldn’t it be great to actually *have* row gauge instead?! I know; I’m visionary. So, out came the arm shaping, and here I go again. Wish me luck!

I’m always happy when knitting pops up in a book I’m reading with the boys; this time, it appeared via a magical grandmother-type in Kiki’s Delivery Service. Don’t look for her in the movie - she’s not there!

At any rate, this grandmother knits bellybands for everyone and everything - her lamps and teapots and other household objects have bellybands, too! She knits healing magic in with every stitch, and keeps people healthy and warm. Her son thinks she’s a bit nutty, but he and the crew on his ship wear the bands to humor her - and, when they take them off due to plot twist, they do get a little ill. It amuses me that granny was right - respect your magical knitting elders! Granny ends up knitting a bellyband for the smokestack on her son’s ship (it sounds like it’s feeling poorly to her) and it’s Kiki’s job to deliver it. In payment, Kiki gets… yup, a bellyband.

The boys giggled and wiggled, and wanted bellybands. Luckily, they asked for bands for their stuffed animals, not themselves. It started with Jane, who happens to look like Kiki’s little black cat, Jiji. Jiji complains bitterly about his bellyband, but soon refuses to take it off. Jane’s owner got to pick from the sock yarn stash, and this is what we ended up with.

Snower’s owner had very specific ideas about what color his bellyband should be. Luckily, I had the colors in stock. May all your knitting be magical and healing.

No, no, I haven’t been holding out on you. There are no more little ones in my future for at least another 17 years, if I’m lucky.

This little set will set sail shortly with the rainbow blankie to Operation Marine Corps Kids.

This cute sweater worked up rather quickly on straight needles. Then, I had to face the facts. Unlike the Baby Surprise Jacket, this sweater has REAL SEAMS, two of which are very visible. See, I’ve been knitting off and on since I was small, but I’ve never gotten the hang of seams. Every time I’d go to do one, I’d just flip it and sew it from the inside as best I could, ripping and re-doing it until it looked presentable. Y’all, why didn’t you tell me I was sewing it from the wrong side? I googled around, and discovered the mattress stitch. It was a revelation to realize that sewing from the front allows you to see what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Holy mackarel! No need to re-sew! For anyone tackling a seam like I used to do, go look at these instructions. You’re welcome.

Here’s the cap I made to go with it. Believe it or not, this is the same yarn. The close-up of the sweater is the true color. The original cap was edged in garter stitch, but I switched to seed stitch to make it match the sweater. Between that change and the guesses I made to change yarn types, I’m hoping the hat and sweater will fit the same baby simultaneously. We can hope.

My son’s pal, Wimpy Chimp, consented to model the hat for you all.

Sweater Details:

Cap Details:

Hey, y’all. What’ve you been up to? I took some time off from blogland, but I’m still crafting away in moments stolen from the rest of my day. This bright baby blanket will soon be on its way to Operation Marine Corps Kids. If you are the charity crafting sort, please go check out their blog. It’s a lesser-known charity with a worthy cause.

I had this blanket with me at our last local knit night, and was taught the ‘crab stitch’ edging for it (thanks, Barbara!) After I returned home, I realized that the way I was doing the crab stitch was the same thing as turning the work over and working a row of sc, so that’s what I did.
Sure enough, I did it wrong (sorry, Barbara!) I’m sure it was the student, and not the teacher. At any rate, the blanket still lays very nicely; the bobbling in the photo above has everything to do with the condition of my front lawn. For anyone wanting to know what crab stitch really looks like, read about it here instead of looking at my blankie!

Edited to add: I’m sorry, guys! I totally forgot to add my pattern and yarn information. Here it is.

Sometimes ripping is an easy decision. I hate a pattern, despise a yarn, or just generally feel repulsion for my knitting, and out it goes. Rippity-rip-rip; it even feels g-o-o-d.

This time, this time is different. It seems like I’ve been ripping *all* my good projects lately. I can’t count how many times Rogue has been ripped for gauge issues. Now, it’s my little snow-beauty. Here’s what it looks like right now…

The heel has been reworked several times, until I could get a feel for intarsia. Here are the last two:

Yes, the sock fits on my foot, but it doesn’t fit right. It’s the first one, which mean that if I should bull-headedly press on - you could at least pretend to be shocked at the thought - I’d have to do another one wrong, too, just so they match. And so, it will go into the frog-pond. I’m not sure how far back I’m going to rip, but the longer I dither, the more I lean toward frogging the whole thing. Right now I’m knitting the medium size but at a tighter gauge than specified. I’ll probably go up a needle size and see where I land then. Maybe I’ll rip it all out and give it a few months to marinate before I start in again; I’m feeling the urge to work on something different.

Right now, the socks are sitting on the edge of the pond, and I’m working up the gumption to take out all that work. Someday soon, but not today.

(2) Doing (1) is not such a good idea if your family still expects you to homeschool, do laundry, and cook.

(3) Thumbs don’t really live right on the sides of your hands. Moving the thumbs over a rib or so would be a good idea.

(4) EZ’s sewn bind-off is crazy stretchy. Although fabulous on the top of socks, it’s a little too stretchy for the tops of these fingerless mitts. I bound off the thumb-tops normally. See the difference? I left it anyway (see #1) and decided that it was a selling point, as you can fold your fingers down to be protected inside the mitt this way. Did I mention crazy stretchy?

(5) The backs of fingerless mitts are a fun place to play with cables.

Details:

Death arrived last Wednesday, 13 February, 2008. My cat looks really concerned.

This was a quick competition for many of the knitters, but the last time I looked there were at least 80 people still in play (that’s as of last Friday.) So, it was fun. This lovely blue hat is a smidge small for me, but the kidlets have both presented cogent arguments as to why *they* should be the one to claim the hat. What’s a mom to do? I’ll probably knit another and let them duke it out.

Here’s a close-up of the new beauty. Thanks, Tanyalezibeth!