FO's and a birthday

I've been in the midst of swap knitting on top of finishing other things I've been working on and today I finally finished my swap gift. The pattern is Ribbon Mittens (rav link). The color work technique is called Estonian Roositud. It was an incredibly interesting new thing to try and I'm really excited about the possibility of teaching a class on it. Basically you inlay the colors as you knit even though it looks like it is embroidered on afterwards.
I used Claudia's Hand Painted Felt Me in the Circus colorway and it was knit on #3 needles. Scrap yarn was used for the color work bits.

This swap is called Retro/Kitsch and is part of the Odd Ducks of Ravelry Swap group, which always has the best swap themes. This pattern popped up when searching for "Retro Mittens", I suppose I can see that.

Either way, they were fun to knit, but look at all of these ends to weave in! I'm wondering how awful it would be to say forget about doing that. Ummm, yeah probably not so much. They are drying after a much needed blocking and I'll weave the ends in tomorrow night and then into the mail by the 29th.

And then my Guernsey Wrap. What a smash! I'm sooooo pleased with how it turned out and this yarn knit up so well and then blocked out into this light, drapey and warm piece.

I'm in love with the amount of stitch definition I got out of it, and for being 40% angora it barely shed while knitting.

The pattern was very well written, and I can honestly say I wouldn't mind knitting it again.

I did have some issues with yardage and needed to omit a couple of sections and at the very end I didn't knit the last two rows so I would have enough to finish the garter stitch border and bind off. I did that math I mentioned, and math you failed me! Maybe it's because I told it to eff off in that last post, but oh well, it's finished.

Despite not knitting the entire pattern I was able to block it out to nearly the same size as the pattern said, I got 16"x73", definitely a good size. Looking back on the yarn yardage issue vs. the size I got, I wouldn't have changed my decision to add another 12 sts because the width is perfect.

Now it's time to go shawl pin shopping and I've got my eyes on this one, and this one, and how about this one too.

And a birthday...

for our girl, who turned EIGHT YEARS OLD yesterday! EIGHT YEARS OLD! Time flies. We had a little family celebration on Saturday night with lots of pie, pie for dinner, pie for dessert (and we've enjoyed pie for breakfast and lunch since then). Mom made chocolate pie and I made my Great Grandma's apple pie along with mini cherry pies that were made from the cheapest cherry pie filling, apparently the cheapest cherry pie filling is exactly what Marley wanted, full of goo. Beck and Wendy spent the night and they stayed up until nearly 1am even after we told them to GO TO SLEEP numerous times. Hell we weren't asleep either, but instead were catching up on Downton Abbey. All parties paid for the lack of sleep.

Declan took the kids to the City Museum on Sunday and Robin and I spent the afternoon knitting and eating leftover pie, actually that's what I did. The girl had a great day. I'm sure 8 will bring many new adventures and I can't wait to see them.

Hey look, it's knitting!!!

So I teach these knitting classes and during class I do a lot of knitting. Really? You knit during knitting classes? I know right? Well most of the classes I teach are beginning ones and I'm constantly talking about how good it feels to finish a project and that's why when they choose their first project for the last three weeks of class we encourage them to knit something they can finish, well and so that we can cover all aspects of knitting a garment, starting with choosing a yarn and pattern to weaving in ends and blocking if necessary. But here my beginners are every week with me knitting something different. They might "ohh and ahh" a little bit, because you know those beginners are an easily excitable bunch- rightfully so, but they do a lot of asking me if I finished the thing I was working on the week before. I hang my head and shamefully say "no". It's always the same thing out of my mouth, something about also being easily excitable, and adult ADD, and lots of UFOs (which getting those beginners started on the knitting lingo is hilarious, Frogging, get it... rip it, ribbit, or tinking, those always get a giggle).

But really I feel sometimes like a failure as a knitting teacher. Shouldn't I be bringing in finished things each week for inspiration? It feels that way sometimes. But look I did finish something, and seriously I talk a lot on here about finishing v. not finishing things, I really need to remember how great it feels. But oh doesn't it feel so good to start something new, even if that means you have 10 things going at the same time.

Back to the "look it's knitting!" part of this blog, I did start and finish something last week....
A pair of longies for a sweet little boy. The pattern is Looking Glass Longies and the yarn is Cascade Jewel and 220 for the ribbing. The pattern is written for five different sizes using three different weights of yarn. The pattern is written using a series of charts to determine what number of stitches goes where since there are so many options, this sort of thing is a little intimidating to me as I don't have the patience to look at the charts. I'm glad I stayed focused though, and I've already cast on for a second pair. The construction is pretty ingenious and keeps it interesting. The crotch is knit first while you have your butt and leg stitches cast on and on the needles. There is a bit of picking up and simple decreases for shaping. I didn't follow the short row instructions for the rump, again that patience thing, but I've done a few pairs of soakers so I felt comfortable doing my own thing here.

They fit him great! And this yarn is holding up so well, which says a lot considering the kid spends most of his days crawling around. He's worn these almost every other day since they were finished and they have done their job as a wool diaper cover should.


Now enter my next undertaking, very excited, once again. Sarah, that I work with, mentioned wanting to start one of Jared Flood's new shawl or wrap patterns and not to feel left out I decided I wanted to knit one too. We agreed to do it as a KAL and decided the Guernsey Wrap was perfect. After a little bit of stash diving I came across this...
It's called Softie from Kimmet Croft fibers and I got it super cheap from Knitty Couture during her closing sale. It's a merino angora blend and is hand dyed, yummmm. It's slightly lighter weight than the pattern calls for so I originally cast on with #6s, got halfway through the first pattern repeat and changed my mind. I frogged it (rip it, rip it), grabbed some #8s and cast on for one more pattern repeat, so 70 sts. I have 800 yards and the pattern calls for 630 yards. I'm really hoping I will have enough to do the full pattern, but I'm getting a little concerned.

The next time I'm at work I'm going to weigh the last of the first skein to see if I can figure out if I will need to stop short before doing the center part. Eff you math!!! Hopefully I'll be able to block the hell out of it to get the length. I should have no problem with the width at this point, but I would kind of like to wrap it around me as it should.

The nice thing about this KAL is that Sarah and I, and now another girl are all talking our projects up on FB, which has been motivation to keep going, while I'm sure our non knitting FB friends enjoy the countless pictures and post updates, sorry guys. Plus this pattern stays pretty interesting with the pattern changing every 11 rows or so. Let's see how far this one gets!

Valentines Schmalentines

It's that time of year again, a time for wine and roses, filet mignons and spinning beds, chocolate covered everything and pink hearts. For us it's been the flu. Marley finally made it back to school today and since Friday, Abe and Robin picked it up and I think (fingers crossed) that today puts an end to it for Robin, just like yesterday did for Abe.

The nice thing about being sick is that it seems to be an excuse to relax a bit on everything. Tv all day? Sure! You need a couple of M&Ms with breakfast? Okay! And what child would go through an illness with out Mom and Dad waiting on them hand and foot, enter the beef pho I made Saturday night for Marley...
Or even a Boppies running to the store to grab them the essentials... ginger ale, Greek yogurt, strawberries, blackberries, goldfish crackers, cinnamon bread, and sherbet. I did not know these were the essentials, but they seemed to have helped, let's just say we were all spoiled a little bit. Especially when Grandma stopped by on her lunch hour and brought us a new thermometer and coffee, which was much needed after two nights of not sleeping with a baby who also was not sleeping.

But then came today, Valentine's Day. Kids needed presents, because those past couple of days were sick days, this deserves an entire new level of spoiling, which of course I'm happy to do. Marley and Abe were made Zsa Masks (rav link), we made white chocolate covered pretzels for Declan, and Marley and Abe decorated boxes to push Robin around in. Declan and I occasionally "celebrate" but this year we're getting Mexican takeout, I stayed in my pajamas until 5pm (this post was much more cynical in my head, but I was still wearing the pjs at that point, maybe it's a good thing I took a shower and changed my clothes), and then tonight Declan and I are supposed to write poems while sitting facing each other with our knees touching. Some kind of crap like that, oh there you are cynicism.

I had some issues with the yarn on Marley's Zsa mask. Can you tell? Make this a good lesson for all of us in the importance of dye lots, and switching yarns every other row or something like that.

But I can't end a Valentine's Day post like this. What with all the gazing and shit that's going to happen tonight. So here is a new, wonderful thing in my life, a freshly spun hank of handspun. Lots of pictures of it too, because I am very proud of it.

It's not the most uniformly spun, it's all leftovers and yeah there were some issues with one bobbin being spun one way, and the other being spun the other way, but man I'm in love with it.

I Navajo plyed it to deal with the bobbins being spun in different directions and am giddy about how it turned out. All approximately 220 yards of it.

More yarn porn.

Oh yeah, and then there's this one...

Happy V-Day to all :)

Valentine's Day Picture Cards

Yesterday morning while flipping through some school papers I realized Oh shit! Marley's Valentine's Day party is tommorow!! Of course I had hoped to make homemade cards, and I pinned the heck out of stuff on Pintrest in hopes of finding the most speshul snowflake Valentine for me, err her, to make. So now time is short, why a party today? I don't get it either, but we needed something fast and my other ideas included coat hangers and beeswax and silk flowers oh and lots of time. I quickly ran through the other things I had seen online and found something that would work. She was a little miffed about making them because "they never look that great." Oh confidence, pick yourself up a little my sweet girl. I showed her this idea and decided we could make it work.

And because I can I'm going to tell you how to do it and pin this shit back on Pintrest, so there.

Supplies:
Camera
Suckers
hole puncher or something sharp to make the holes
tape (optional)
stickers (optional)

Instructions:
Take your photo with the child's arm slightly in front of them, if I had a fancy camera I would have played around a bit with the focus, but sigh, no DSLR for me. Upload your photo into a program that allows you to "write" on your photo. I used Paint, super low tech, but it works. I downloaded a couple Valentine's Day fonts for free from DaFont.com. We used "Heartland". The little hearts are all one of the fonts as well, but you could easily get the same effect wth stickers.

After I glitzed the photo up I sent it off to Walgreens. One hour and $9 later (this includes the two bags of Tootsie Pops) we had everything ready to assemble. Punch your holes on th top of the hand and directly below. Insert sucker and tape to the back if it seems loose. And there you have it!

The bum thing though, Marley woke up with a fever and is staying home to miss her party. There were some tears, let me tell you, but it's been promised that she will have a bag of Valentine's when she returns and can hand out hers.