I Made It!

I love when I can give special gifts to people who "get" that a hand knit gift is so much more than the finished object.  Those people who understand that running out to the store and simply buying a sweater, pair of socks, or a baby blanket is not a large investment of time or effort, when knitting the same thing took buying the yarn, picking the pattern, thousands upon thousands of knitted stitches.

On it's own, each individual stitch is really nothing to get excited about.  A single knit stitch can be worked in less than one second of time, using just a small movement of fingers and the tiniest scrap of yarn.  But when you add that single stitch to it's thousands of brother and sister stitches, magic happens.

At least I think so!

I hope the Mom-to-be thinks so as well, because the baby blanket was completed in time for her baby shower. 

Stats:  Pierina (The Second)
Yarns :  Bernat Baby Soft in Yellow and Bernat BabySolids in Antique White.
Needles  ChiaoGoo Interchangeables in 4's and 6's (US)
Mods: Changed the triangle shawl into a square blanket using a circular cast on, worked in the round from beginning to end, then washed in the washing machine, pinned to the blocking mats and steamed to "kill" the acrylic.  As both these yarns have nylon in I was a little worried about the steam killing holding the piece, but a second run through the washer and dryer proved that it worked!

Finishing this took precedence over all my other knitting this week, but Friday I finally picked up my Regatta Tee again and divided for the armholes and have almost completed either the back or the front. (They are exactly the same.)

Yesterday, during the massive rain storms that ran through our area, I started making red currant jelly, as all the juices had strained through the cheesecloth today I was pretty much obligated to finish them up, although heating up my house making jelly probably wasn't my wisest move as I have been running quite a bit on the hot side lately!

Ten pretty little jars are cooling on the counter now.

Next I will have to find recipes for things to do with Quince.  Any suggestions?

~M

This can only mean one thing

Well, to me it can only mean one thing...what does it mean to you?

~M

Slow Down

Wouldn't it be nice if lives came with background music?  You would always know when the not nice stuff was going to happen by the ominous tones of the orchestra, or when the good stuff was just starting up by the happy tones of a pop song.  Maybe then, we could slow down the pace of life, just by changing the music.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Speaking of music, TDQ wanted to share this with you.  She says that you will love it!

This song has been played a lot around here the past couple of weeks, starting with The Other Brother.  He had me buy it for him a few weeks ago and I promptly forgot about it and then decided to purchase another song by the same group for myself and was wandering around the house asking everyone when I bought Radioactive and why I didn't have it on my Ipod!  Finally TOB understood what I was asking and told me,  don't you hate when your memory is like Swiss Cheese and full of holes?

Oh, you wanted to know what the other song was?

After much debate we bought the entire album and we all like different songs from it.

But I am sure that really you didn't visit here to see what is on the YarnDiet playlist, you probably expected to see some knitting.

Truth be told, I expected to do a lot more than I did, but you know how the real world gets in the way sometimes?  Yeah, it happened to me again!

First there were meetings at work, then work I had to do from home, then yard work (and I haven't quite figured out how to mow lawns and weed with my knitting in my hands.)  There were financial education classes to run and a concert in the park, and to top it all off, my personal demons, right little monsters they are too, decided that some of my knitting needed their personal attention!

Notice the strands of cat hair, and knitting yarn that has been pulled.
 
And more.

And that one is actually ripped through!
 
Into the frog pond it went!  I wasn't as thrilled with the way the colors were working together as I thought I would be, so it isn't really that huge a loss, but still, I usually like to decide to frog things without any help from the cats.

The baby blanket has hit that point in the border where I am wondering what I was thinking when I cast it on!  Just a couple of weeks ago people were amazed at how much I got done while waiting my turn at the doctor's office...now I knit for an hour and can barely tell I have worked a stitch.  Wish me luck...the baby shower is on Saturday, do you think I will be ready in time?
 
If the Christmas sweater progress is anything to go by,
 
The baby blanket might be ready in time for Christmas!

~M

In the summer time, when the weather is hot...

It has been a stormy week around Chez YarnDiet!  Just in time for Independence Day Celebrations thunderstorms rolled into the area, luckily for us, not until our Block Party was wrapping up anyway!  The addition of street lighting in our neighborhood did put a bit of a damper on how our fireworks looked, it never really seemed to get dark enough, but the guys did their usual excellent job of picking out and setting off some impressive explosives.

I parked my behind on the lawn, with a beer (well technically it was two and they were Shandy's but close enough) and knit my way through the display while visiting with neighbors that I hardly get to see....in the winter because we are all holed up in our warm houses avoiding the cold and during the summer because I have so much going on it feels like I am never home!

The kids and I made our traditional doughnuts, but not until Sunday - apparently a couple of beers and too much food were too much for me and I spent my rainy day off from work trying to get caught up around the house and on a couple of work projects. (Work had been even crazier than usual, just in time for summer!)

I did get a little knitting done, a few more rows on each of the sweaters that have all hit the boring middles along with a chart for my latest baby blanket.

I need to hurry up and get that one done, the baby shower it needs to go to is in 12 days and I still have 40 rounds, washing, blocking and steam killing to go, along with 3 hours of financial education to prep for and teach, the first of the concerts that my bank sponsors and I attend, getting ready for other summer events.....but wait there is more and you might even care about it.  I heard a rumor that Andrea, of Bad Cat Designs will be starting another group project next month, filled with new lace projects and a larger piece to start in the fall in honor of her daughter going away to college!  I am sure the announcement will be on her blog in a little bit here, in the meantime I have some serious knitting to get done so I am ready!

~M

It's been awfully quiet and a Love/Hate relationship

It has been awfully quiet around Chez YarnDiet the past couple of weeks.

You an tell by the lack of blogging and knitting projects that there hasn't been a lot going on that I can blog about. 

I guess some people get worried when there is no knitting showing up either here or on Ravelry...No, I didn't give in and kill someone, there is still knitting going on, but there has been an awful lot of frogging going on too!  In fact, I am working up the nerve to frog the latest cast on now.

I have been trying to learn a new technique....it isn't particularly hard, millions of other knitters seem to be able to do it just fine, but I have been struggling with it.  I cast on, think I have everything lined up, get a few rows in and....it's wrong.  I frog what I have and start again.

I think my yarn hates me!

Once again, I cast on and double check what I have, everything looks fine right now....get a few rows in and my pattern doesn't line up.

Try again.

Honestly, this yarn does hate me, because yet again, no dice on the lining up the pattern.

As the instructions are simple and I double, even triple counted my way through the initial rows, I think that maybe that portion of the yarn doesn't want to behave so rather than frog back to the beginning I grab the largest, nastiest looking scissors I can find and cut the offending stitches away from the rest of the ball.  That will teach them to mess with me, right?  Maybe the rest of the yarn will learn from them and behave.

Back to the cast on I go.

This time I did something different, something that is so unlike me I am surprised I even agreed to it!  You see, I have this love-hate relationship with stitch markers.  I think that some of them are the most adorable little things in the world.  I just can't abide them in my knitting!  They slow me down, duck under yarn overs when working lace, if you have any possibility of them opening enough to be on a stitch rather than between them they find it and take advantage.  But....sigh.....maybe, just maybe if I add those stitch markers to my cast on row things will line up when I need them to.

In the mean time, I might have cast on another baby blanket and knit a few more rounds on the red sweater for TFB.  I really like that I don't have to keep track of how many rows are in the back of the sweater to match for the front, working in the round does have that advantage but I am ready for some patterning, plain knit around and around and around for what feels like miles and has already been 4 balls of superwash wool is getting a little boring!  Good thing I started this one six months before it needs to be complete, I might just make it there!

The baby blanket is another version of Pierina Shawl worked as a square rather than a triangle.  This time I am putting the color changes in, the mom to be has decided that she wants yellow.  Specifically she asked for Rubber Ducky Yellow, and I can tell you I looked like six kinds of fool in the yarn section of Joanne's Fabric and Crafts with a rubber ducky in my pocket comparing it to various yarns, the one that was a perfect match in color of course being completely the wrong weight and very fuzzy, so I went with "close enough is good enough".

I love how quickly you appear to be making progress in the early stages of a center start shawl.  While waiting my turn at the doctors office the receptionist was quite impressed as it seemed to double in size in the time I was there.

Oh well, I am off to frog some knitting!

Have a great week.

~M

And what do you have to show for it?

Yet again, I seem to have been hit with a mysterious case of startitis.  Pills don't seem to help it, even a (not so) quick trip into the ER (actually two)  only served to help me cast on another project for the waiting between nurses and doctors, or visiting with people I hadn't seen in years who moved onto new and better things than being a part time teller in a bank mart!

So today's range of cast on's go from Worsted Weights in purples and greys :

To Red :

To some 3/15 in Cream, that was too boring by itself so I added some...
you guessed it Red!

Looks like I might have started in on my Christmas knitting! 

~M

I said there would be pictures!

Finally some FinishItUpus has hit at Chez Yarn Diet!

We just won't mention that there was a little bit more startitis to go with them!  Because, really what is a few extra projects on the needles between friends?

First we have the Anniversary Mystery Shawl that I knit with some of Lara's Creations fabulous yarn!  If you haven't had the chance to take a look at some of her ColourWaves you really should, they are gradient yarns at their very best!
 
No clunky color changes, but they will drive you crazy if you ever decide to knit until the next color, because you will never see them coming!

Second we have an adaptation of Pierina Shawl by Anna Dalvi.
 
 I took a triangle shawl and turned it into a square baby blanket and went with a single color of yarn through out.
 
As written the pattern is a two tone shawl and I plan on making another blanket using two tones, but I wasn't sure which colors the mom to be would want for this one so went with a plain white acrylic yarn and then killed it with my steam cleaner.

I really like the edge on this one!