Where Did she go?

It is hard to believe that it has been two weeks since I posted and I have so little to show for it!

But, to take stock:

Flooring done : check! The entire upstairs of my house now has a wonderful cherry floor that is much easier to clean than old dingy gray carpet.

Front Door Installed : check! Off with the green creaky monster and on with a bright red door with windows to let some light shine in down the hallway.

Visiting Done: check! An entire week without driving to work that was filled with hiking, icecream, movies and animals. Two boys turned 11 somewhere in there so there were birthday cards and presents too.

Knitting? Well mostly not check. I started some socks, two feet, two heel (unique construction) and one seemingly endless cuff of 2 by 2 ribbing....The construction was more interesting than the socks themselves so they have been relegated to the UFO pile until I want something mindless to do.


Yarn Browsing? Stash Enhancement? Absolutely Check...while I stayed away from my LYS during our hiking expeditions I did a little online browsing and might have enhanced my sock yarn stash by a little bit.
Please excuse the picture there is one other thing that happened in the past two weeks...

Camera dying? Check, whimper, Check.

It is really hard going from a Canon 12.1 Mega Pixel Camera to a Kodak 3.1 that is 11 years old! Notice a similarity between that age and the boys? Yep, it was a birthday present the year they were born.

There is other knitting going on, I will get it blogged about another day, today wasn't one of the best I have had, between feeling like I had been hit by a truck all day to being hit by it! (Not literally.)

As one of the boys put it...So we are back to hardly having you home and not getting to do anything on the weekends? Well, that just sucks.

~M

Sock and Sock type things

Details to follow when I have more time!

~M

Just a few Knitting Pictures :)

Fairisle Socks for this months SKA Sock Challenge....



Just a few charts from the Summer Swatch Me project!

A mitt with the too terribly large beads taken off, so just a partial gilding of the Peacock. :)

What did you do today?

~M

Knitting on Tuesday

First and foremost...If you are not a member of the Summer Swatch Me! Group you had better run right over there and join up. Along with a sampler there are lots and lots of side projects, and I have by no means knit them all, so you end up with a lot of bang for your buck, not to mention a ready made stash of gifts for the holidays if you can bear to part with them once you have finished knitting!

The third side pattern is this wonderful pair of mitts. I knit mine in Adagio and had one heck of a time trying to match the repeats of color before I gave up and called them close enough!

But that isn't all that I got out of the group over the past few weeks...one of the talented knitters, Jeri is turning her sampler into a top down raglan sweater. Not being quite as talented as she is, I couldn't compete with that sampler variation, but blatantly stole the idea to make a new version of Autumn in New York.




A Stroll Down the Hudson
Top Down Raglan Shrug based on AINY by Bad Cat Designs
Jade Sapphire 2 ply Cashmere, Slate
Size 4 and 5 (US) needles.

I should have stuck with the smaller needles, this turned out just a touch large on TDK....but she loves it any way!

~M

End of Teasers

Well Amanda, it looks like you were right and there is lace next to those cables! I, obviously, recycled my Frog Clasp Cable and put it straight up the middle of a tank top. Knit in silk/cashmere lace weight on size 6 needles it drapes wonderfully!


Next up is an incomplete picture of some Vine Mitts from Summer Swatch Me! I am using Adagio from Yarn Place and had a heck of a time trying to match the mitts, which are actually finished just not photo'd. In the end after many tears The Drama Queen agreed that fraternal mitts were just as good as identical ones.

We spent the holiday weekend putting in more flooring, with the exception of two pieces of trim and the stairs we have finished our big summer house-project! My bedroom was the last to be done, and truth be told, the easiest of the lot with only two uncooperative boards to put in. My Dad came over for the more complicated cuts which left me to put down the boards and hammer them into place. I am VERY pleased with the lack of carpet in my house.

Along with knitting and flooring the kids and I made our traditional July 4th doughnuts. This year they had more fun making them than eating them, looks like we will be making doughnut-bread pudding later in the week.

Now to sand down, stain and put mats on the stairs.....not to mention reclaim the garage as a home for a car rather than a home for wood! :)

What do you have planned for the week?

~M

Teasers for Amanda

The color is all wrong in that picture, but here is another teaser for Amanda! She is off enjoying herself on Kangaroo Island, with limited internet poor thing! while I am at home trying to come up with ways of tormenting her. :) Not really, just putting together another use for the cable from my cardigan design.

But that isn't all I have been doing...but the other project deserves just a little explanation.

I have a niece and nephew, sort of, do they still count when they are your ex-husbands sister's kids? Well, anyhow, as far as I am concerned I have a niece and nephew in Washington State. I have not seen or heard from them (to speak of) in seven years, with our only contact being at Christmas and birthdays. Every year I struggle with what I can get children, one already a teenager, that I know next to nothing about. Gift cards and cash usually get exchanged on those holidays, but I made a pledge over a year ago to give handmade, and really it has bothered me for a while that I have failed in that pledge with the WA relatives.

This year that changes, this year I found a way to make it work...

Presenting the Felt Your Own Slipper Kit!




I knit some more Elf Shoes (ravelry link) that can also be found here if you are not on Ravelry. Then instead of felting them myself I packaged them up with some spare yarn (just in case over ambitious agitation leads to holes) felting (or fulling) instructions and a small felted swatch to show what the fabric should look like when done. Pop the lot into a handy, dandy, zipper bag and you have a kit that lets me knit and hopefully will fit the recipient!

So, Stats :
Elf Shoes by Flint Knits
Size 10.5 US needles
Patons Classic Wool in Wedgewood one ball
Sized for an Adult Male's size 9 -10 (US) foot, so it should be big enough!
Started June 24th and put in the bag June 25th.

~M

Swatches, or WIP Wednesday

It has been a few days of swatching, swatching, more swatching!

Summer Swatch Me! has started and the first chart is awful fun. Below you have two versions of Peacock, one on the starts of some mitts and the other in my sampler...but to see this pattern in it's true glory you have to check out what Jeri did with it!!! Scroll down past some fabulous cables and be amazed by the talent that can take a simple lace pattern, start it as one thing and without frogging or ripping turn it into something else!
Both of my versions are much more mundane and follow patterns provided by Bad Cat Designs...the sampler being knit on size 4 needles out of some Jade Sapphire Silk/Cashmere in Burnt Toast. Maybe if the toast I burned looked like that I would eat it!


More Jade Sapphire yarn and a ton of beads are being used in the mitts. Again a silk/cashmere this time Hydrangea.

Way back at the top is yet a third use of Jade Sapphire yarn, this time Winter Sky. I might have been bitten by the design bug. :)

So what is on your needles?

~M