I know it is nearly June but...

Presenting one pair of April Challenge Socks...the others can't been shown just yet, but I am finally catching up to my two pair a month challenge!! Yay!!

These are Lighthouse Gansey Socks from Knitty. but heavily modified to fit the legs and feet of a scrawny, very soon to be 11 year old, son number 1. Son number 2 still has not finalized his "for real" sock choice and having cast on and frogged something like 4 different designs I think he also needs to pick new yarn.

Ok, for the stats"

Lighthouse Gansey modified as follows: Cast on 56 stitches, ignore several of the non-gansey diamond motif stitches from the chart, reduce heel row count, after gusset continue in pattern with 57 stitches until toe. Clear as mud?
Sensations Bamboo and Ewe yarn in Red
Size 1 US needles

My cardigan design is moving along, several frog sessions and I think that I might finally have a bodice! :)

~M

They lie, but they beat a dictatorship

There has been enough political commentary on television lately that I can say with absolute conviction that the United States Governing System (it's called a democracy folks) is filled with people who will say darn near anything to either get elected, stay in power or obtain funding.

Now that said, in my opinion, a democracy sure as dishwater beats out all the other forms of government I have seen. It's not perfect, but it is the best there is.

Swatches are like that. They lie, they lie badly some times, but they sure as dishwater beat not swatching, especially when you are trying to design your own cardigan.
Ignore the wonky cables, they were a failed attempt at coming up with a design. Looked great on paper, not so much with yarn and needles involved, however that picture is just one picture of many, many swatches I have made for this project, and swatching is the second step.

What do I mean the second step? Well the first step was to figure out something about what I wanted to knit!

In coming up with that I thought long and hard about how I wear my "everyday" cardigan, the one I throw on when I get home from work and take my suit jacket off, the one I have worn out the cuff ribbing and severely stretched button holes on. It is a very comfortable sweater, but it has stretched in some unusual ways and mostly I caused that stretching by how I was wearing it!

Rule Number 1 for my cardigan is : Do not put buttons on that you are NEVER going to do up! Only put buttons and button holes where you will use them, which for me on my old comfy sweater means just a few, right in the middle. Forget about buttons all the way down and all the way up.

Rule Number 2 : Lace is great for bodies and bodices but not so much on cuffs and sleeves. :)

Rule Number 3 : Cuffs should be firm enough and tight enough to stay where they belong.

What does your perfect cardigan look like in your head?

~M

You were expecting knitting content?

I know you keep hearing this from me, but seriously there has been a ton of knitting going on! I am counting down the days until I can post pictures of it all, but in the meantime rather than knitting content let's talk about designing.

Actually, let's back this up a little.

The ColourMart Lovers group on Ravelry is having a little bit of a contest. From May 20th to July 20th you pick your challenge. There are several categories : Super Sweaters, Lace Garden, Newbie projects, Shawls...you get the idea. The only criteria are that you have to finish in the allotted time frame and you have to use ColourMart Yarn.

disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with ColourMart, man oh man I wish I was, and seriously with the alter to Richard's yarns I have going on, I should be affiliated....but the views here are just from a satisfied, I keep going back and buying more and more, customer.

If you have not tried ColourMart yarn you should. Buying by the cone is very economical and the selection is second to none with the customer service being even better.

I have tried their cashmere, merino, silk, cotton and several blends and yet to be disappointed with my selections. Which is a long winded way of getting to my point, one of the categories in this contest is for designing your own ColourMart project and I am in desperate need of a new cardigan.

In my head I know what my perfect cardigan looks like, long enough to keep me warm, light enough to not cook me, cables here and lace bits there, buttons, but only the ones I really would do up with a V neck and tight cuffs.

Over the next few weeks, in addition to test knitting and mystery knitting I will be designing my very own cardigan and just so that I don't feel all alone in my efforts I am going to share with you every step of the way! And it will be in the yarn pictured way up there!

Now, just to make sure you are still with me, check out this post on the BadCat's website, it will be one of the things keeping me busy this summer! Won't you join us?

~M

Happy Mother's Day

May your day be filled with fibery goodness!

~M

May Mystery Socks

This month the SKA Group on Ravelry has been given a wonderful opportunity to knit a mystery sock designed by none other than Cookie A! To make it even better, you can download the clues without belong to either Ravelry or SKA!! I love twisted stitches and these socks start with a few of them. Cookie is famous, in knitting circles, for using twisted stitches in her patterns so I am sure there will be more.

In the time since my last post I have been knitting like a mad woman, replacing the furnace and preparing to put new flooring in my kitchen and the entire upstairs of my house. I also figured out how to download a reasonable looking invoice template so that I can keep track of my sample knitting. Pictures of those items will come, probably sometime around TNNA.

Until I can share more, to quote a designer friend of mine...

"Knit on!"

~M

Starting to look a little neater

There are as many ways to manage a stash as there are knitters who have them. Mine used to be in many locations through the house (ok so it still is a bit but we will get to that) and not really visible to either my guests or unfortunately myself...well it wasn't. I have taken over a room in the basement and called it my own!

The plastic drawer unit to the left of the bookcase that you can barely see is exclusively lace weight yarns. With sock weight/fingering taking up that big tall one to the right of the bookcase and an entire Rubbermaid tub devoted to ColourMart purchases! I have baby yarns in their own unit and sport weight/DK stashed in the corner and a great big bag of worsted weight ready to be donated to someone who will use it. I am keeping some, but I ran out of drawer space!

Is this all there is? Well, no. I have not even started in on the garage stash or the living room stash or even the fiber for spinning.

But I had to help the kids do this :



Did I mention the basement was unfinished when we moved in and that we did that?

~M

Be Careful What You Ask For

Once Upon a Time there was a bank teller who argued with his boss about wearing a tie. Being a bit of a smartass said bank teller bemoaned the lot of modern ties with their geometric patterns or stripes and complained that they were difficult to tie correctly and only gave irate customers something to grab when they needed someone to get face-to-face with and argue about fees.

This Bank Teller was required each month to list all the things he had done well, and the areas he needed to work on and develop a monthly action plan around those things. Several months ago his action plan was about ties.


Not content to just write that he needed to improve his choices or how he tied them, this action plan included a history of the lowly tie and how it was first worn by Croatian mercenaries and delved into it's evolution into the long strip of fabric his boss was insisting he wear today.

This is where he made his mistake.

NEVER tell a knitter that you will wear a piece of lace around your neck unless you REALLY mean it!!






He was a good sport about it, too.

I cropped out his face because I forgot to ask if it was ok for him to live in tie infamy forever!

~M