Windows and Gimp are your Fair Isle Friend.

So, everyone was picking on me tonight at knit club, because I haven't updated in a while. Seriously, they ALL ganged up on me.

Or did they just mention it?

One or the other... Anyway, yeah. I'm plugging along. I've been working on the mittens some more. In theory, they are supposed to go in the mail in a few days, but they may be a bit late.

The fair isle was puckering a lot, so I frogged the first mitten 4 times, but I think I have it good enough now that any puckering will block out of it. We shall see.

I'm calling the pattern Norwegian Chaos, because it's, obviously, inspired by traditional Norwegian mittens, but one mitten had a butterfly and the other will have a hurricane symbol. I was having a doozy of a time graphing out the hurricane symbol, until I found a site that does actual size knitters graph paper. I printed out a page at the guage of my project. Then I found an image of a hurricane symbol and saved it to my desktop. I opened it in GIMP and resized the image to be the size of the space I had to fit it in on the graph paper and printed it out. I taped the hurricane symbol up on the window, then taped the graph paper in place above it and traced the shape on it. Voila, easy-peasey fair-isle graphing.

In the meantime, when I don't feel like doing the fair-isle, I've been working on the Backyard Leaves scarf. Oh, the cashmere is like buttah. Picking it up this time has been a lot easier than before. Goofs are rarer and easier to correct. Working from the graph has been cake this time. I'm really, really enjoying the project now that it's not such a struggle. Already I'm 5 repeats through the 22 the pattern calls for. I think that it's going to be shorter than I was hoping, though, so I'll probably aim for 26 or 28 repeats instead. Also, the project is coming out much poofier than I expected. I'm not sure how much of it is going to come out with the blocking. I may have to poke around on Ravelry for some advice regarding that.

I AM THE MASTER OF ALL I ATTEMPT! BOW BEFORE ME!

I AM THE MASTER OF ALL I ATTEMPT! BOW BEFORE ME!
Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. My 3 readers should be used to that by now. In the interim, I took the girls back to visit family, Adam has continued to heal nicely, the renovations are progressing, and the garden is ready to be rototilled this evening. It's been busy. What can I say?

Oh, I know what I can say: BEHOLD MY MIGHT AND POWER!!!

Muahahahahahaaaa!!!

Sorry.

I'm feeling a little self-inflated at the moment in all things yarnish. For you see, last night, I mastered (I use the term to mean "learned" not "able to teach a course") continental knitting, fair-isle, and knitting with one color in each hand. All at the same time.

Adam was sitting across from me and looked over ad saw me knitting fair-isle with one color in each hand and had the gaul to not leap from his seat and kneel before me in awe. In fact, I think what he did was glance over, think, "Is she still knitting?" and look back at the Yankees-Boston game. (WAY TO POP FLY THE GAME AWAY, BIG PAPI!) And so, I decided he needed to be schooled. It went something like this:

"Adam, look what I'm doing! I finally figured out continental knitting."
*blank stare*
"And now I can knit fair-isle, because I can hold a different colored yarn in either hand."
*slightly impressed "hmm" sort of look*
"Isn't it amazing?"
*uhhhhhh-how-should-I-react-so-I-can-look-back-at-the-game face*
"I AM THE MASTER OF ALL I ATTEMPT!! BEHOLD MY GREATNESS!!"
*wondering where the nearest psych ward is*

I tell you, it is a good thing I derive an income, however meagre, from doing this or Adam would have made the call last night and I'd be waking up in a pretty, pink, padded cell right now.

But seriously, I'm totally thrilled by this. The world of fair isle is finally open to me! Yay!

And what was I working on, you ask? Well, I'm part of a mitten exchange and my partner is a math geek. So, I designed a Norwegian-esque pattern that has a butterfly on one mitten and a hurricane symbol on the other. It's witty. It was the suggestion of one of the readers of my personal blog and he's a math geek, too, so I'm trusting his judgement. And where is my progress? After all, I managed to get half a mitten done last night, so where's a photo?

Well, you'll have to wait, because I frogged the whole thing. See, I was knitting it with a 100% wool dk that I'd kool-aid dyed red and a white 80/20 alpaca wool blend. And though the labels claimed the same gauge, they were not the same in practice, so it was all nubbly. Also, I discovered that either due to myself or fair-isle in general, the gauge got much tighter when I started the fair-isle section, so I'm going to start over, using a green 80/20 instead of the red wool so the yarn wpi is the same AND will be going up a needle size when I start the chart to try to combat the tightness.

I knew it was going to be a problem by half way through the first chart row, but I was so drunk on power that I couldn't stop myself.

So, that's awesomeness #1.

Awesomeness #2 is that I just scored this in a swap:



$20 worth of yarn I'm never going to use, plus a $25 gift certificate to Knitpicks is getting me that sweet knitting bag. While I love my "Will knit for tattoos" bag more than life itself, sometimes it's not big enough and sometimes I need to be more covert with my knitting, and this should do the trick quite nicely.

And finally, awesomeness #3:

Saturday, I was in, in all places, KMart and saw something that prompted the urge to design again. It will be a tote bag. And it will be the most awesome bag ever toted. I just have to finish the 97,000 other things that must be done before I can start working on it.

Ugh.

You know what is not fun? Knitting a scarf lengthwise, finding a mistake three rwos back that can't be fixed by dropping stitches and reknitting, frogging those rows, and then putting 376 stitches back on the needles.

Oh. Man.

This better be one awesome scarf when I'm done with it.

Directionless

My knitting has been kind of flaily over the last few days. We've had so many people come check in on Adam that I started picking up my Fiber Trends dishcloth and working on it while we chatted. The pattern is easily memorized, so it was fairly mindless. I wasn't really into the pattern, though, and it took me 5 or 6 days to finish the one cloth. And really, I need to invest 5 minutes in the finish work for it to be really done.

I finished a dishcloth for the Just Dishcloths list at knit club on Saturday.

I'd like to get a jump on Christmas projects. And I'd like to plow through my bulky yarns. And I need to get my head in the proper space to send in an afghan proposal, but I'm not quite there yet and my wrist is still recovering from the Month Of Constant Crochet. And I really, desperately want to make something for myself.

I have the misti alpaca chunky from Linda and I cast on about 5 times for the Ribs and Ruffles Scarf, but I wanted it wider and longer. Ok, yarn-wise as I have twice the yarn it calls for, but I wanted to modify the ruffles at the beginning so they were a bit looser and I couldn't get the math right and I want MINDLESS WORK.

So, I pulled out One Skein and I think I'm going to try the Single Cable Scarf using the chunky and size 13 needles. It's a really, REALLY narrow scarf in the yarn it calls for, and I'm hoping the chunky/13 combo will pump it up to at least 5 inches across. If so, I'm just going to knit until both hanks are used up and maybe by then I'll be ready to swing back into the land of the creative and responsible, but not yet. Mindless is the name of the game for a little while longer yet.

Crafty update

I have been knitting the last few days. (I seriously need a break from crochet!) I don't have any attention span, though. I started Wheelie from Knitty the other day, and then my husband asked me if I was an old lady. Hello, 113 means FIRE HOT steering wheels, thank you! And it's my car! I can cozy my car if I want to! But, yeah, it put me off a little. So then I started in on some dishcloths from a Fiber Trends pattern that I got in a swap, using a skein of hemp-blend that I got from my NSFY partner. It's fairly mindless, but I don't feel like picking it up again.

If I continue this way, I'm going to be back up to over 20 UFOs again, and no one wants that. So I think I'm going to devote myself to house projects and staring blankly into space instead. (It's an underrated pastime!)

Miss Pink commissioned a button for the Just Dishcloths group. Check it out! It has a knitting needle and a crochet hook incorporated in the lettering. It's pretty much the best button ever:



Please steal it, load it to your photo hosting site, and put it up on your blog. Spread the word!

The return of the absent blogger

I have been awol for the most part the last month. First, I was working myself to tendonitis trying to get the projects for the book done. Which I did, thank you!

Then, we loaded the girls in the car and took them to Disneyland for 4 days. Which was awesome. Disneyland with small children is quite an experience. And the girls are completely obsessive about Princesses now. Send help.

Then, the day after we got back, my husband was on his way to scout camp and his truck was t-boned by a girl who was apparently trying to gun it to make it into the street between my husband and the guy behind him, but she misjudged and clipped the back of his truck, which sent it not only spinning, but then flipping, pinning my husband half out his window with the roof of the truck resting on his chest. (Yes, he had his seatbelt on. They aren't so great in roll overs, though, apparently.)

Yeah. That wasn't so cool.

He was air evaced to Scottsdale, where he spent a night in the ICU and another night in the normal ward. He has 6 broken ribs, a fractured skull, and a broken scapula. But, as someone put it, he was one more quarter-turn away from being dead, so we're thankful it wasn't a whole lot worse. Since then, I've been dealing with doctors and insurance companies and visitors, and as of yesterday a lawyer, on top of helping him get better, which, thankfully, he is doing pretty well. The ribs still give him a lot of greif, but as long as he doesn't run out of his pain meds, it's not crippling pain, and he's able to shower and get dressed and putter about on his own now. Considering the alternative, we're well pleased.

So, yeah. Then I figured, well, while he was gone to camp I was going to paint Kai's room, so since he's puttering around ok, I'll go ahead and do that. And I spent the next 48 hours days painting and reorganizing her room. And it looks great, but I probably should have put it off, because it was the last straw, I think, and all the insanity of the last 3 weeks is starting to hit me in a big way. Really, I'd be happy spending the next 2 days in bed. Not really an option. Instead, today I'm going to start tackling the office/craft room because I KNOW there are things burried in here that need to go back to the library and I have to get this room sorted before we start school again for the year, and now that Adam is out of commission for another 4-6 weeks, there is no way the addition is going to be ready, so we're going to have to make due with the space we have. Which means I'll have to go to the storage unit and go through things and only bring back what we will actually use for the first few months of school. Which means sorting through boxes when it's 106 degrees out.

Can you tell I'm stressed? A little? A smidge? At least it's transformed to a sort of constant, low-grade stress instead of the total freak-out stress of last week. Babysteps.

I think I'm going to end this here and start another post that isn't so depressing...

Yet more progress.

So, long time, no post. I've been working hard on getting my projects done so I can get them in the mail. I think that 3 of the pattern sets and the FOs will be ready to ship off by Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. That will leave me to devote my full attention to the final project. I'm still ok on time. I may be mailing it from our Disneyland trip after finishing it on the drive over, but I am still ok on time.

This afternoon, I checked to make sure my assembly concept for the pillows was sound. And it was. So, thank heavens for small miracles! I didn't actually get to assemble them, I just know now that what I was planning to do is a-ok and can stop worrying about it. So, I turned my full attention to weaving in ends. *snore* 3 hours later, and I'm about 2/3rds done. There are a lot of ends to weave in. A lot. Like, over 250. Not all on one item, mind, but still. Normally, I'd just work over them, to be honest, but some of the color contrasts were too much and I wanted to make sure that the ends were well and truly on the wrong side of the work.

So, it's all moving along.

If anyone out there has been meaning to join my new and spangly chatter-free dishcloth lists, now is the time. July 8th will be the day we start our first knit cloth, and July 22nd will be the crochet cloth. Check it out:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustDishcloths/

The only posts allowed on the group will be when I send out the pattern bits. No forwarded jokes, yarn reviews, OMGWALMARTISN'TSELLINGYARN panic letters, or "I'M DONE!" emails.

Just. Dishcloths. Says it right there in the name. Join up. You know you want to.

I got my handy-dandy list of TNNA retailers in the mail the other day and found 2 shops I didn't know existed in two towns I was already planning on visiting while back to see family next month. One is in Shelburne Falls and the other in Sturbridge. I don't know if we'll make it to the one in Sturbridge, because if I remember correctly, Old Sturbridge Village is a bit removed from the town itself and I'm not sure the kids will want to go after walking around in 1780 all day, but I really hope to make it to the one in Shelburne Falls. That, plus Webs and the new shop in Greenfield that Mom is in love with, and I should have my yarn needs well and truly met on this trip. Especially since I'm no-yarn-fo-a-yearing. *ahem*

Also, there is a store in Brewster out on the Cape called "Town-Ho Needleworks." Hi-lar-i-ous.

Beware smaller sizes of Crochet Lites

So, the whole light-up crochet hook thing seems to be on the rise. I got some from friends who got them in their goodie bags at Stitch'n'Pitch and don't crochet. I thought the idea was great, because I like to crochet in the car while my husband drives and this way I don't need a light on when it gets dark. Brilliant.

Then while I was at TNNA, the company rep pointed out that they are also great when you are working with dark yarns, because it helps you see the stitches. Well THAT was an amazing discovery, as I'm in the middle of a black-yarn heavy project and am sick of sitting under a bright light all the time.

So, while I was at the LYS last week, I picked up an F hook. Last night at SnB, I had forgotten my normal F-hook in the car, but realized I had the Crochet Lite F hook in my bag, so I pulled it out to give it a try for the first time.

That lasted for about 3 seconds. The clear plastic shaft that forms the hook part gets gradually larger toward the handle, so an F-hook STARTS as an F-hook, but it only remains an F for about 1/4 of an inch. After that, it goes up in size to, I'm guessing, about an I. So, unless you form all your stitches riiiiiight up against the hook and hold your yarn extremely close to the stitch so you can YO, your stitches will end up being as large as if you were working with a much larger hook. I assume it's because the handles all have to be a certain size to accomodate the batteries, and they didn't think to resize the opening to the handle and just figured they could taper the hook part because the engineer had never crocheted before. The larger hooks don't seem to have this problem, but I have an F and a D that are basically useless as an F and a D. I might be able to get away with using them for a pattern that uses a larger hook with a thin yarn, but other than that, they are pretty much useless.

So, take caution when buying these and look at the hook shaft. If they are still tapering by the time they reach the handle, they aren't the size they claim to be. If they've evened off before then and are straight by the time they reach the handle, you should be good to go. It's a shame, because the idea of these is brilliant.

Progress

We have been rather busy around Chez Spiff this weekend. Adam traded in the Blazer for a Camry on Saturday. His brother was in town for a class reunion, and he and sister (who graduated the same year) decided to skip out and come party at our house. (Or, you know, eat pizza and chat.) And then yesterday it was Father's Day, which meant church followed by copious amounts of napping.

I managed to be productive none-the-less. I have reached the halfway point on the second project and am waiting on the last of the yarn to arrive before I can finish. So, I picked up project three and am about to finish the first of 3 patterns that that entails. Project three moves along much faster than project two, so I'm feeling less worried about the deadline now.

Today's schedule is comprised of grocery shopping, crocheting, feeding children, school, crocheting, making dinner, family home evening (we will be playing "cardboard games" tonight, per Kai's request), with a bit of crocheting to round it all off.

Oh, the gifties!

I've been having some lovely yarn days these past few days. Two days ago, I got the box of yarn from Cascade for the afghan for Lark:



Squooshy, yarny goodness delivered right to my door! The ease! The convenience! The sheer magnitude of 24 skeins of yarn in one massive box!

Abby, ok, ABBY, the 2-year old who is obsessed with my knitting and crochet, went into spasms of giggles and gleeful squeeling. She is 2, guys. I am sensing a stash addict emerging. Kai was excited, too, but more because it's fun to get stuff from the UPS man. Abby was in total bliss over the yarn. She was standing on the chair next to the table while I checked the color numbers and snagged two hanks and started waving them around over her head and squeeling, "Look, Mommy! Look at the yarn! Are you making something for meeEEEEEeee?!"

So, yeah. Abby will get the afghan when it's done and photographed and returned. Green and brown aren't exactly little girl colors, but she is always just desperate to get something I made, and it's been a while.

Then, yesterday, I got the box of yarn from Patons for the kitchen set. This one came in an itty-bitty box, but was still just as thrilling to get.



Paton's Grace in Champagne and Cardinal. Oooh-la-la. This arrived during Quite Time, so Abby doesn't know about it yet, and so there were no hysterics when it arrived.

Also, the day before yesterday, I received my box from my No Sheep for You partner.



Elsebeth Lavold's Cotton Patine in a lovely purple. I love EL's yarns, and hadn't used this one yet, so it was quite a treat. She also included some lovely cube beads and two little green kitty face beads. The latter are totally becoming stitch markers! For me! For me! The former, I'm going to incorporate into some wire jewelry, I think. I got Annie Modessit's wire jewelry book at TNNA and there are quite a few designs I've been wanting to try. I've done a bit of wire crochet, but haven't tried any wire knitting yet.

So, THANK YOU, NSFY pal! It was a lovely suprise and completely perfect! :)

Then, to top off the Week of the Yarn, we had knit club last night, and Linda totally spoiled me for my birthday. She gave me two of the light up crochet hooks from Crochet Lite that I'm totally in love with. (Not only are they great for using in the dark, but when working with dark yarns, too. I tried to find an F at the Fiber Factory for the pillow covers I'm making, because black Cotton Fleece is so difficult to see, and it was the only size they didn't have! Oh noes!) And then, to top it off, two hanks of Misti Alpaca Chunky in a sort of pea soupy/lime color.



Oh man, can I just remind you all how much I long for sheets made of alpaca and a maid to clean them for me? I believe that it is the fiber used to make the angelic robes of the saints. (Some might think cashmere or silk, but I think God is more frugal than that. Why pay the big bucks when alpaca is so fabulous and affordable?) I keep holding the hanks against my head and smooshing it. You know what it feels like? Boobs. I'm going to say it. Hanks of Misti Alpaca Chunky have the same smooshability and softness of boobs. Resting your head against one is like being 4 again and snuggling against your mom when you get a booboo.

They should use that as a marketing point somehow. I wonder if describing a yarn as boob-like would increase sales to men? They'd want it packed in brown paper bags for the trip home so no one would know they'd bought the boob yarn.

And in the interest of full disclosure, Linda told me they had other colors and she wouldn't be offended if I swapped it out. While the lime is LOVELY, I thought I'd take a look, because it was kind of pale for coloring, and I wanted to see Tempe Yarn and Fiber now that it is in its new location. So, I packed up the girls and we went over and they had some RED that was amazing! So, I ended up switching colors after all, because I figured if it was for my birthday, I was definitely going to use it on ME and the red looked better against my skin. So, THANK YOU, LINDA for thinking of me and for the smooshy goodness of alpaca!!