What I can't do???

Every now and then, I will charge off to do "something"* and someone will feel the need to tell me "But, you can't do that!"  The emphasis is sometimes on You with the suggestion that for whatever reason it is something that is beyond my capabilities, or that I can't do because, well, shhhh don't tell anyone, but...I'm a girl, or because the general consensus is that whatever I have decided to go charging off and do isn't possible.

Sometimes those naysayers are right and I can't do what I set out to, or how I planned on doing it didn't work out, or I just need some help to get it done. (The real repair on the water line in the basement for one.)

Sometimes though, sometimes I amaze people when I actually do what they said couldn't be done!

Do you remember this thread in my collection of yarns I showed the other week?

It is a machine embroidery thread, nylon/acrylic mix, very shiny and VERY, VERY thin.

I might have mentioned that I liked the idea of making a teeny, tiny little doily out of something like that.

The naysayers told me it couldn't be done.  That knitting with sewing thread was an impossible task and I would go crazy.....funny I didn't know that you could go crazier than I already am!.....but I had to try.

The naysayers were almost right!  Trying to knit with that VERY, VERY thin thread on size 00000 needles was very nearly an impossible task and you can tell by the wonkiness of that doily I haven't quite mastered the technique, but I have proved it is possible.

But next time I think that sewing thread will be cotton, much more appropriate for a doily and the needles will be a touch bigger, say a 000 rather than 5 zeros. (For those of you on metric the 000 is 1.5mm and the 00000 is 1.0mm)

Hard to tell on the needles (and yes there is a reason I am using a circular needle, I kept dropping an entire needles worth of stitches using my double points for this!) but here is attempt two and knitting with sewing thread!

I may not be able to feel that thread over my fingers, but so long as I keep a close eye on what my fingers are doing.....I should finish this one tonight and maybe share with you next week!

The pattern is Harvest Doily, by one of my favorite designers, Andrea or BadCat Designs.  Part of the discussion that was held before starting this project was about things to do with doilies.  Andrea has been spending a lot of time deconstructing antique doily patterns and turning them into the basis for some of her shawl patterns, which is one use, and another friend plans on making one to sew onto the back of a jean jacket for her niece.  You can hang them on Christmas Trees and in windows as sun-catchers, put them under things like candle sticks, although I think I am aiming for something small enough to be framed and hung on the wall as art!  My blocking skills might need some improvement before doing that, but with a 30 round pattern I am sure I can give myself lots of practice!

As an added bonus, the distraction is keeping me from the boring parts of TFB's Christmas Sweater!  A little sewing and some buttons and it will be done, but there is no rush, Christmas is still months away!

~M

The Reluctant Countdown is on

July and August are always busy months for me at work, it seems no matter how smoothly things seem to be running heading into summer as soon as it hits....well there is a reason that fans run in the summer time, it is so that "stuff" can hit them!

Kids might be off school, but my workload heated up in a hurry and we haven't done much of anything on their list of "things to do over the summer".  To make matters worse (for them at least) in just nine days we start the rounds of picking up schedules, paying user fees, getting new student id cards and pictures done.  Certainly a wake up call that summer vacation is nearing it's end.

I had all these big plans for the amount of yard work and knitting I would get done sitting on the patio this summer that didn't quite make it off the drawing board. I didn't have any big inside the house projects planned, just some little ones, the big project was supposed to be the back deck and maybe a new sliding door, but then I went and used that money for something else, which means I had no excuse other than a lack of time for working on the garden and enjoying some me time on the patio! 

Not much in the way of knitting to talk about this week either.  I started the sleeve on the Red Gaston, then frogged it because the patterning at the top pulled it in too tight, so technically I have nearly knit two entire sleeves and only have less than one to show for it!  Kind of like the invisible knitting that the Yarn Harlot had on her blog not so long ago. (Scroll down to July 19th.)

But, I did get a package in the mail!  I wanted to try a new yarn from KnitPicks, just to see what it was like so I ordered a small selection of colors.

What do you think?

TDQ thought that all of those colors looked "old fashioned" and even referred to one as "muddy", so when she begged and pleaded to be taken to a craft store to get more beads as she has developed a beading habit, I picked up some "new fangled" and "bright" colors as well.

I wonder what I can do with all these?

~M

Getting Places

We have a white board that sticks to the front of our fridge, at Chez Yarn Diet.  Well, actually there are four white boards...

One lists the children's chores each day.

One is labeled "I took the last...." and when you take the last of something you are supposed to write it on the board, sometimes to be funny someone will write "of mom's patience" in the list of various things I need to pick up at the store.

One has our appointments on it... things like doctor's or  dentist's visits, school things and work meetings.

The final board is the menu for the week. It is particularly useful for making sure that kids don't snack on what is supposed to be for dinner that night, leaving mom (that would be me) to figure out something different on the fly!  People laugh when they see the menu, sometimes there will be things listed that are in code.  Fish Custard is usually not fish fingers with egg custard to dip them in, usually that turns into home made pizza, but the one that really gets people is YoYo.

No I do not make the kids, or myself, eat a yoyo, it is short hand for You're On Your Own.  When looking at the menu for last week TFB asked if I thought that soon we would have an entire menu board filled with YoYo as Monday, Tuesday and Thursday were already filled in with...you guessed it, YoYo.

We try and make it a practice to eat together every night, but YoYo means I must not be home, so I must be getting places, right?

Well, at least I seem to be getting places with my knitting anyway!


Presenting, Regatta Tee!
Yarns : ColourMart Cotton/Nylon and ColourMart Shiny Cotton
Needles : US size 5 or 3.75mm for my non US friends.
Mods: knit in the round to the armholes, then back and forth for the lace section, three needle bind off for the shoulders.
 

Notes : My swatch lied like a dog to me and the cotton/nylon blend did not shrink in width as much in the finished object as it did the swatch, but it still makes for a nice light top.  Next time I will knit on smaller needles, or for a bigger person!


I am also making some progress on the Christmas sweater for TFB, only sleeves and a collar to go, then it will be on to the next sweater!
 

Or maybe another tank top for me.

~M

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