fo: fetching

happy thanksgiving everyone! hope you had a good day, thanksgiving or not. i had an unusual thanksgiving this year...i went to my stepdad's deceased wife's family's thanksgiving dinner (got that?). at a bowling alley. it ended up being super fun though, and it turns out that bowling is the perfect way to get rid of that awful too-full feeling after eating dinner. :)

so, you might remember about a month ago when i mentioned that i had started the day flowers scarf for my mother in law. well, i never really got much further with it than the six or so inches i showed in a picture way back then. this scarf, while i'm sure it would have turned out lovely, just never grabbed my attention, and it kept getting put aside in favor of other projects. so last weekend, it finally occurred to me that i had exactly a week to make something, anything, for my mother in law, as we are flying to see her in england tomorrow morning. eek! i didn't feel up to tackling that scarf, especially since it requires following a lace chart, and i just didn't have the patience. i wanted fast, and i wanted something cute. something fetching even! so i dug out the ball of yarn i had bought to make fetching for myself after christmas, and decided to make it for her instead. and the end result is fetching indeed! or at least pretty darn cute. i'm not entirely sure that these are her style, but it's hard to tell really. i'm just happy to have a hand knit gift to give her in addition to the other store bought stuff we're bringing over. just in time!

so let's see here...this is a weird picture (you can see out my living room window!) but i was trying to get some natural light. not easy in this rainy, rainy november we're having. you'll just have to trust me that there are indeed two and not just this one!














pattern: knitty's fetching
yarn: rowan classic yarns cashsoft dk, color: 525
needles: size 6 brittany birch dpns plus brittany birch cable needle

loved the pattern, and LOVED the yarn. it's sooooooo soft and squishy, and though you can't really tell in the picture, it's a lovely peacocky blue. i really, truly adored it and will use this yarn again for sure, probably to make my own pair. however, i think next time i'll go down a needle size - these felt like they could be a littler denser than they are.

the only modifications i did were to add another cabled row plus four more rows at the top, just to give a little more coverage around the fingers. i also just did a regular bind off instead of the picot bind off.

so i'm off to england for 1o days tomorrow! wish me luck - i really don't love flying. i did, however, call the airline and confirmed that it should be no problem at all to bring my knitting aboard, even for an international flight. i just hope this is true...i'm going to be seriously annoyed if i have to take my lichen ribbed sock, which is coming along so fast and looks great in the yarntini i'm using, off the needles.

see you in 10 days!

hey chuck!

a charlie brown thanksgiving was on tv last night. have i mentioned how much i LOVE charlie brown? unfortunately i'm going to miss the christmas episode, showing on 11/27 i think, while i'm in england. why are they showing it in november?!

real knitting content!

so. i feel like i'm in a weird knitting place right now. i'm feeling a little stressed with all of the holiday knitting i've commited myself to, at least i've commited to it in my head. so i'm working on lots of projects now, and i don't feel like i'm making a lot of progress on any of them, nor do i feel really excited about any of them. it almost feels like work! that being said, i'm working on some things that i think will turn out to be lovely. hedera is coming along, slowly but surely. it's taking me FOREVER to finish decreasing from the gusset down to the instep, but i'm almost there (on the first sock anyway. i'm definitely starting to see the appeal of knitting both socks at the same time). look! here's a blurry and bland picture of it so you can be kind of meh about it too! when i sit down and actually work on these, i do enjoy it, so i'm just kind of letting these take their sweet time. they aren't a priority, but they will get done eventually.


















there's a scarf i'm nearly half done with it, and i would love to post a picture, because it's turning out to be beautiful, but alas, the recipient would see it if i did that, and that's no fun. but ooh! i can't wait til i can. i'll probably make this scarf (a very popular pattern in blogland, that's all i'll say) for myself - the yarn i'm using is too gorgeous to not use on myself. i'm just selfish that way!

and then...there's the matter of my 14 hour flight that i'm taking next week. we're flying to england the day after thanksgiving to visit friends and my husband's family. that's a whole lotta potential knitting time, but i don't want to have to follow a complicated pattern or have a big scarf to carry around, so i'm actually going to start another pair of socks, i think the lichen ribbed pair from knitting vintage socks. i've cast on using some yarntini cherry cordial i have, but i think i need to start over. here's my dilemma: i knit pretty tightly, even when i'm trying to knit loosely. this seems to be a problem when casting on for socks. the socks i've made so far (all three!) have been a little too tight in the cuff. i don't really need to move up a needle size for the whole sock, but would it help to just cast on with a bigger size? i'm thinking size 2 then moving down to 1's for the rest of the sock? or would it be better to knit the whole ribbed cuff with the 2s before moving down a size? or would that look noticeably weird? or should i use a different cast on? to be honest, i've only ever done a knitted cast on - i don't really know the merits of other methods, but i am open to suggestions. can you tell i don't know what i'm doing entirely with this whole sock thing?! anyway, advice would be appreciated. i want to get these started before i go so i can just have some blissfully simple knitting on the plane.

alright...my cat is in the living room having an absolute fit over a spider on the ceiling. i'd better go intervene before he flings himself against the wall too violently!

like, totally!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

so, i grew up in phoenix (l.a.'s little sister) and now i live in seattle...this isn't really a surprise.

picture of a nearly-done hedera tonight or tomorrow!

how i spent my thursday night

since you asked...i spent my thursday night untangling a ball of yarn! for four hours! i tell you, it doesn't get any better than that.

it's still not untangled, either. i see scissors in my near future.

the soundtrack of our lives

i found this on yaiAnn's blog...and since i have a deadline for work in half an hour, and i'm not done with the project, of course it's the perfect time for me to do my own little soundtrack!

if your life were a soundtrack, what would the music be?

here's how it works:
1. open your library (iTunes, winamp, media player, iPod)
2. put it on shuffle
3. press play
4. for every question, type the song that's playing
5. new question-- press the next button
6. don't lie and try to pretend you're cool


opening credits:
Go - Daniel Johnston

waking up:
Instrumental - Figurine

first day at school:
Don't Go Away - Margo Guryan

falling in love:
As Tears Go By - Naomi & The Boys

breaking up:
Fatty and Skinny - Vincent Gallo

prom:
Here's to Nostalgia - The Parenthetical Girls

life's okay:
Settlement Boy - Free Design

mental breakdown:
Le Temps de L'Amour - April March

driving:
Ghost Song - Love Letter Band

flashback:
EAves Dropping - Grizzy Bear

getting back together:
Fill Your Heart - David Bowie

wedding:
Pale Tracks - Movietone

birth of child:
In Our Tiime - Lee Hazlewood

final battle:
Here, There And Everywhere - The Beatles

death scene:
2 h.b. - Roxy Music

funeral song:
Love, l'amour und Liebe - France Gall

end credits:
Will You Still Love Me - The Shapiros

it was really hard to not edit this list by skipping a song! and i don't think most of these songs really fit, but oh well. it killed some time.

fo: squirrel and oak mittens

sheesh...this is five posts in as many days! i must be feeling talkative these days.

anyway...mittens! these were so fun to knit! this was my first colorwork project, and it wasn't nearly as scary as i anticipated, and i think the end result is pretty good considering it's my first try. i still need to block these, so hopefully some of the bumps will even themselves out a little. i will definitely make these, or some form of these, again. i already plan to make my sister-in-law a pair; she was over here last weekend when i was finishing up the oak mitten and she loved them. she made sure to mention that squirrels are here favorite animal. so i'm thinking of doing just two squirrels, facing each other maybe. i don't know. i'm going to stick to the basics of this pattern but i might play around with the cuff design and maybe even the palm design. we'll see what i come up with. i'm also thinking of using a blank norwegian mitten template and coming up with an owl and acorn set - how cute would that be?

i feel like the squirrel didn't turn out as well as the oak - it was the second one, and for some reason, the tension is all over the place on this one. i also struggled more with the thumb on this one, whereas it worked perfectly on the first. nothing too noticeable though...just don't look too closely at where the thumb joins the mitten!

by the way, i really liked the knit picks telemark for these. it's not very soft by any standards, but it somehow feels right for these mittens - sturdy, utilitarian, i don't know. just right. and at $1.99 a ball, a total bargain. these mittens cost $4, with yarn to spare!

pattern: hello yarn's squirrel and oak mittens
yarn: knit pick telemark in cream and black, one ball of each color
needles: clover dpns, size 3
started: i think i started these on 10.26.06
finished: 11.05.06
modifications: i omitted the 2006 across the top of these. i also haven't done the pompoms and cord for these yet...i may or may not make them.

just a rainy afternoon

it rained BUCKETS here in seattle today...sometimes this city really does live up to its reputation! despite the weather, we decided to do a little tour of some of the thrift stores along aurora, a long strip in seattle famous for its cheap motels, prostitutes, drug dealers, crime...and excellent thrift stores! i did well from the start - in the very first shop we stopped in, i found this cute little set of dishes with autumn leaves all over. i grabbed one of the bowls and a sugar and creamer set. as i worked my way to the back, i picked up a few other things: a cute blue and red polka dot silk scarf, some sewing items, and then the mother lode...a whole bunch of knitting magazines from the 1960s! there are some amazing patterns in them. little vests, skirts, cardigans...i don't know if i'll ever make any of these patterns, but they're lots of fun to look at and be inspired by. and who knows, maybe one day i'll get brave and knit myself a sweater dress or something. :)


























i got home to find a package waiting for me - some hello yarn that i ordered earlier this week! this is beautiful yarn. i've done two of adrian's patterns so far (her totoro hat and squirrel and oak mittens that i'm almost done with), and i just had to try her hand-dyed yarn as well. so now i have 'nymph,' a pretty blend of browns and blues, and 'baby soft,' in swirls of red and pink. i'm excited to see how these knit up.

i should have a finished pair of mittens to show off tomorrow!

knitting's my bag

i've been seeing a lot of people posting pictures of their knitting bags lately, so i thought it would be fun to do the same. i actually don't use just one, but this is my primary bag - it's where i keep patterns i plan on making, most of my needles, and when i go out to knit with friends, i'll carry my project in this. i found it at a thrift store in a small town just south of seattle, and when i saw it, i immediately fell in love. it's fake patchwork! and it cost $2! what could be better? plus, it has a label inside that says Specially Handmade by Marie, which i think is sweet. :)

so what does your knitting bag look like?

fair trade

i want to do a swap. i keep hearing about people signed up for all these different swaps, and of course by the time i hear about them the swap is well underway. how do y'all find out about them beforehand? are there any coming up that sound good? i want mail! i want to send mail! i make good care packages, dammit! :)

hedera

i started hedera today while at lunch at starbucks. twisted rib is a pain! at least it is when you're sitting in a straight-back chair, at a table, dropping sandwich crumbs on your knitting, with adult contemporary music blaring in the background and people staring at you, wondering what you're doing with all those scary, pointy needles. still, i'm almost done with the cuff and about to start the lace part. i can't wait! the rowan 4-ply soft i'm using, in a pretty color called bluebird, is so, so soft and lovely. i'll post a picture when there is actually something interesting to show off.

i should also have a squirrel mitten to add to the oak by this weekend! these mittens sure are quick and fun to knit.