Plan ahea.......

Why is it all my weeks seem to be spent running as fast as I can without actually getting anywhere?

I suppose I might even feel a little better about it if I was even going in circles, but so far I seem to be retracing my steps over and over again.

For instance......

I went grocery shopping today, which seems a little silly as I was just at that very store on Thursday evening, but I suppose that having three teenagers in the house does make for running out of things, not to mention space in the fridge to hold it all!  I had my usual cart full of stuff, lots of fruits and veggies, milk, more milk, even more milk, the stuff I can't seem to keep in the house no matter how much I bring home.  I walked all over that store, I don't think I missed a single aisle, before I got my total, bagged my assorted foods and headed back to the car.  When I get to the car I have all kinds of keys, frequent shopper tokens for various places, but no car key.

Wondering if I was being more moronic than usual, I peeked in the windows to see if maybe the silly thing was sitting on the seat where it had fallen off the carbine hook I keep all my keys on. (Side note, I don't carry a purse that could hold keys, just a wallet that is my cell phone holder and the hook with all my keys on it that gets attached to my belt.  I have the whole Bat Girl thing going on, with everything I need attached to the belt it is really hard to leave things behind.)

A little concerned I then pushed my cart full of bagged groceries back into the grocery store to see if maybe the key was at the checkout area.

No luck.

One of the nice things about always shopping at the same store, all the cashiers and bag people know me and before long we had a whole posse of key seekers wandering every aisle of the store, looking under display shelving in case the key had dropped off and been kicked under something.  You would be amazed at some of what we saw under those shelves...I mean seriously,  single slices of bread?  How does that happen?

Just when we were about to all meet up in the middle the cashier comes up to me, slightly pink and with a very chagrined look on her face. "Is this your key?" she asked, holding up the key that all of us had been crawling around on the floors looking for..."It was in my smock pocket".

Yep, retraced all those steps for nothing! And she didn't buy my story that it meant she wanted to drive me home and put my groceries away!

My knitting might also turn into an exercise in retracing my steps!  I have been working, off and on, more off than on, on my ColourMart Spring Contest entry and the rules say that Lace Shawls have to both be lace and substantial to qualify.  The pattern I picked, Ethereal, as originally written is an okay size shawl, but not really something that I would call substantial and I am knitting with a 2/28nm lace weight yarn so I knew to get a good size on it I would need to add some repeats.  Which I did, I added a whole bunch of repeats to the body of the shawl and just recently started the final chart, which are 40 rows of fairly heavy patterning to which I have added beads.
 
Looks something like that so far.

That is 12 rows into the 40 row border chart and that little voice in the back of my head that sometimes speaks up, who in all truth has been whispering in my ears for a while now about this, started yelling pretty loudly..."Um, you might want to check how much yarn you have left." followed by a fairly insistent "Weigh the cone you ding dong, I think you are going to run out of yarn before you run out of shawl knitting here."

I finally gave in, and the little voice is right, there is no way the amount of yarn left on the cone is going to match the amount of knitting left to do in the shawl, even if the cone weighed nothing (and they don't, somewhere between 32 and 38 grams of the 72 grams I have is cone!) I will be short.

Just in case, and knowing as I do that neutral colors like cream go really fast on the ColourMart site, I checked to see if there was still any on the website to buy.  No love there, so now I have placed what happens to this knitting in the hands of the person who seems to have a magic touch when it comes to finding things and sent an email to part of the ColourMart team asking if perhaps, in some dark corner, or at the bottom of one of the multitude of rolling bins that they store cones of yarn in, there happens to be another cone.  Part of me has absolute faith that a single cone of the yarn will be found and says to keep knitting while I wait for the search to go on, part of me says to rip back to before the second chart, take out a repeat and start over from there.  I do know that if there is any there, that magical finder will find it, it is uncanny how many times I have heard stories of people in just my situation who were rescued at the last second with an "I found some" email.

In the meantime, looks like spring has finally arrived in Ohio!

Maybe instead of sitting here fretting about yarn I should go pull up some more weeds!

~M

Two A and now Two B

Yet again, I have very little to show on the knitting front.  I spent a lot of the week playing catch-up at work, Spring Break might have been nice from a not having to get up and put a suit on first thing every morning, but it also meant I had 187 emails to deal with when I got back to my office!

We had a wonderful first quarter at the branch, which also leads to lots of planning on how to top it, because as we all know, the reward for a job well done is a harder job.  Probably why I am taking my time in what is really a very easy knit for the ColourMart Spring Contest.  No fancy new stitches to learn, fairly easy to read charts, but when you add 8 repeats of the first one it does take on more of a  difficulty in scope.

Chart 1 of this pattern gives you the option to knit more or less based on your yarn and how big you want the shawl to be.  I like to be able to wrap a shawl all the way around me, so bigger was certainly in the cards, the only question is, have I gone big enough?  Because the one thing I had forgotten is how quickly I get bored with the same pattern repeat over and over again!

Chart 2 A flew by and I am now set to start Chart 2 B, where I am adding beads with gay abandon!

Maybe next week I will have some to show you, for today I am setting up where to put them.  :)

~M

Sampling, Testing and Pleasure

Another week has flown by and it was a busy one!

After our snowy start, Spring Break was filled with the usual round of "get the kids in for this or that appointment while they are not in school" and the waiting that happens when everyone else has the same idea.  A couple of things had to be postponed, mainly mine, but the week saw most of our major errands run and Spring Cleaning well under way.

What does that have to do with sampling, testing and pleasure you may ask?

Well, actually nothing! Except the reason I don't have a lot of knitting to share with you, when I am testing it is usually a secret,  but this week did bring up an interesting topic...couple of them actually, but today I am going to focus on one......what is the difference between test knitting, sample knitting and pleasure knitting the way it is done at Chez Yarn Diet?

I am very lucky, although all three use a different mind set, I can (usually) combine at least two out of the three every time, but sometimes I am doing just one

.

For instance, when I am test knitting a pattern, which in my case usually involves lace of some kind, so doubles as pleasure knitting, hopefully I am looking at each square of the chart and making sure that all of the symbols are there, that row repeats actually fit across rows and that stitch counts are accurate.  I cannot assume that any missing yarn overs are just my own lack of attention, but go back and recheck and then either fire off an email or fix what I did wrong.  :)

When I am sample knitting the idea is to get my knitting as close as is physically possible to being "perfect" so that if there are other samples being knit, by different people, and they are all lined up together (for instance showing the same pattern worked in a range of different color choices) you can't tell who knit what.  Sometimes I am lucky, if not very bored, and I am knitting all the colors of the same pattern which makes that part easier.

And finally, when I am just knitting to make my own heart sing, I change things up as I want to or need to, assume that all mistakes are my own and compensate for them, or just plain ignore the instructions and do what I think is right. (Probably explains why I got no less than three updates to the same pattern I knit at Christmas talking about mistakes that I thought were just in my knitting of it!)

This week saw a little bit of knitting I can share, WinterExtravaganza is still trucking along!  My purple version is ready to have the neck side stitches picked up and some shaping added.



 The beads on the purple one make TDQ happy!

The grey has "been there, done that"!
I also got in a few more repeats on my ColourMart Shawl.  I am still not sure how many I am going to work, but I know that there are at least several more in my future, this is so light and airy I want it to be big and snuggly too!

Finally some very plain vanilla socks to knit in the dark and while in waiting rooms.  Sometimes it is so much fun knitting in public, watching people trying to watch you knit without you noticing.  That is especially hard for strangers to do when you don't have to look at your knitting!

Til next time, Knit On!

At least I am only a day late!

Today, well Friday really for the kids, but I like to start things on a Monday so we are going with today..Today marked the first day of Spring Break at Chez Yarn Diet.

Pity no one told the weather people we were looking for Spring not Winter!  This time last year it was nearly 80 degrees, today......well not so much!  We did get above freezing temps, just barely, which turned the snow to this pretty white stuff with slushy nastiness under it.  Certainly not "Go outside and run off some energy" conditions, which is what I had been hoping for.  Certain people in this house need to run off some energy - or donate some of their excess to me.

It was another week of all run and no getting anywhere for me.  I don't even have tons of knitting to show you, but I do have a little!

In honor of the Spring that forgot to come to somewhere outside Columbus, Ohio, The ColourMart Lovers Group is holding their Spring Contest. I spotted a pattern that I liked,  Ethereal and dove through my ColourMart Stash for some merino and immediately changed the cast on of the pattern!  I am using a 2/28 in cream and will be working the first chart a few more times than the pattern suggests, mostly because as light as this will be I want lots of "snuggle up" room.

Rather than just start with two rows of garter stitch I have widened the garter border and used a variation on a Turkish Cast On that works very well with garter stitch.  I plan on adding some pearl beads to the edging, the ones I have just about match the cream tone of the yarn so they will add slight highlights (nothing drastic) and some weight to hold the bottom edge down.

I got a little further on my Winter Wrap, TDQ is still in love with the colors of this one. She didn't want beads on the back, but decided some "bling" on the front would be just her style!  I have just under one front to go and then the neck shaping, I hope I can get those done before the next installment comes out!

There have been a few other things on the needles, lots of little swatches, but we will talk about them later!

Until next time......Happy Knitting!

~M

Thick and Thin

Another week has passed, and another week has just been a blur of things that needed to be done, places I needed to go, people I needed to see, meals that needed to be cooked and a house that needed to be cleaned.  I am so ready for a vacation, know anyone who wants to fill my role for a few days?

I had these plans of getting some of my WIPs if not off the needles, at least to the next step in their development.......One got there!

The Winter Extravaganza saw it's center finished, blocked, measured and approved by TDQ and then stitches marked for sleeves and all but one edge on waste yarn ready for the next step.  Which coincidentally was published on the Yahoo Group today.

The blankets, the some kind of wrap and Tardis...well they sit patiently waiting for me to pick them back up.  All of them I need to be able to look at what I am doing, at least every now and then, so they didn't work out so well for me Monday.  Not being able to sit still for long without something to do does have one advantage....

I am starting to put things up for Christmas already.  TDQ really liked the idea of thick, squishy socks having seen the ones I made for a birthday present in Feb and thick, squishy socks knit up rather quickly.  Not to mention garter rib being something I can knit in the dark!

Pattern, you ask?  Well, there isn't one really, but if you have ever knit The Yarn Harlot's vanilla sock recipe you could figure it out, just replace the plain knit rows for the leg and foot with two by two garter rib (knit one round, knit 2 purl 2 one round) and you are set.

This was the last of the Christmas yarn I got not this last year, but the year before and I planned it just about right as there are only a couple of yards left.  I got a lot of projects out of that particular gift, two pairs of fingerless mitts, two pairs of socks and two little neck scarves.  Warm necks, hands and feet for us Yarn Diet Ladies (and I use the term very loosely!)

Hopefully next week I will have more to show you!*

Until then, keep knitting!

~M

I bet you thought March Madness was about sports

Tuesday evening, the kids here at Chez YarnDiet were all very excited.  The weather people had been tracking a storm that was due to hit us and estimates of how much snow and when we were going to get it ranged all over the show!  Certain teachers had suggested to their classes that wearing your pajama's backwards and inside out along with doing a snow dance would help the winter weather on its way........


Snow dances and inside out pajama's aside, the kids got their wish and we woke up to about 8 inches of snow on the driveway and I had a messy commute into work while they got to sit home playing computer games and drinking hot cocoa.

Snow is easier to walk and drive through than the thick coating of ice we had on everything a couple of weeks ago, so at least I didn't fall or have to hang on to anyone to get from my car to my office this time around, and without being asked two out of three children helped with clearing snow so I could get there on time!  Even though I had all that going for me,  I wished and hoped that I could get a snow day too and sit beside a cozy fire, drinking coffee and knitting.  Franklin Habit has a great post about just that on the Lion Brand Website, you should go read it!

But to the March Madness part of the post....8 inches of snow on Wednesday and what do we have today?  Nearly 70 degree temps and mud everywhere!

I have been plodding along on my long term knits, dithering from squares to big blue things to this :


I might have had to cast it on a few times to get it going, but there is Chart A of my current knit along. TDQ likes it so much that I have on the go in shades of purple for her too!


Other than that, life has me always running to try and catch up.  What ever happened to the days that I thought I had it all together and knew where I had left it?

Here's to hoping you are keeping it together in your corner of the world!

~M

Re-Runs and Spoilers

Have you ever played that game where people ask you.."If your life was a television show, what would it be called?"  This past week I am not sure what the title of my life story would be, but I can tell you we are in re-run season!

Our Monday episode, again, saw our fearless knitter trying to cram three days of errands into a single bank holiday.  Sunday's blogging even got moved to Monday, which was one of the few things she actually completed.

Tuesday was spent trying to cram Monday's chores and work schedule into a day that also had it's own chores and work schedule.

Wednesday was, almost, a re-run of Tuesday, with the addition of a couple of conference calls, and still those errands from Monday were being pushed aside.

And so it went all week.

Even my knitting was re-runs.

A couple more squares and a repeat of a pair of socks!

I so very nearly made it to the end of the second sock without having to break into the very stripey looking skein of yarn.  For the want of the last three decrease rounds I had to do it, though!

I don't think it even shows, at least while they are still wet and on the blockers, and once they are on my feet no-one will ever know!

In the Spoiler department, after a poll on the Yahoo Group, Andrea (Bad Cat Designs) is giving everyone a choice.  Knit her  Winter Extravaganza as a mystery or know what you are getting into.  Only click here if you want to know what you are getting into!

So, this week was the week of Re-runs and Spoilers, I wonder what this coming week will hold?

~M