Does Anyone Know What Day it is?

Looks like somewhere I lost a few days.....or maybe even more than a few.....could be I lost a few weeks! 

Good grief it has been nearly two months since I posted anything here!

Did you wonder if I fell off the side of the planet?

Or if I got lost on my way to some exciting destination?

Did you think that maybe a tall, handsome man in a strange blue box finally arrived and took me away from it all?*

Or maybe your thoughts turned to darker areas...like what if I broke all my fingers and couldn't type or knit.

Did I find a new drug of choice and give up yarn and needles entirely?

It was none of those things, just life got in the way of everything and just when things were supposed to slow down and get easier, instead they got busier and busier until I swore I would one day meet myself at the door as I was coming and going.

And then I looked at the calendar and realized that here it was the middle of Socktober and I haven't even knit a pair of socks in ....... well a really long time!  Maybe tonight I will, but I have had my needles busy clicking away, even if I haven't blogged about it.

But let's back track just a little bit....to September.

The kids and I went to Wool Gathering and had a really good time, so good that TDQ fell asleep in the car on the way home, totally exhausted, still holding the tail end of an ice cream cone in her hand!  Of course we watched the dog herding ducks, looked at all the yarns and spinning wheels.  Watched parts of some classes on spinning and demos on weaving.  I met up with a few people I only "virtually" knew and chatted with them in real life for once and got a bunch of compliments on the shawl I was wearing. (Sangria by BadCat Designs in a wonderful yarn from Lara's Creations.)We ate too much ice cream but missed out on buying any cheese because the minions were just too darn tired by the end of the day to do anything more than trek to the car and slump in their seats.
 
Andrea had a pattern published in a magazine that was issued just in time for us to see at Wool Gathering, so I had to buy a copy to support the company that supports the designer I love!  It is The Unofficial DownTown Abbey Knits and Andrea is responsible for  High Tea Cuffs and Jabot.
 
When I saw the pattern as a sneak peak to test knit I fell in love with the shawl pin she used and bought myself several from Sterling Simplicity that I have been using when I wear a shawl instead of a sweater for business casual days at work.


 
Then came the ColourMart Fall Contest.  I cast on for Antler in some merino/angora mix that had been marinating in my stash for quite some time.  I was a good little knitter and swatched, washed the swatch and then took into account that the swatch actually shrank nearly 20% but turned into the softest most cuddly swatch I have knit in a long time.

The boring parts of the sweater, namely the sleeves and body, felt like they took a long time to knit, but once I put those parts together and started in on the patterned yoke it just flew off my needles, although I still haven't got the snaps I want to put under buttons on it!

There was a brief interlude while I fell under the Yarn Harlot's spell and cast on, and off, several washcloths,
 
and a shawl
 
 before I headed back into Christmas Sweater Knitting.



 
And now here it is, Socktober and I still have not knit any socks!

What is any knitter to do?

Maybe something with these?

~M

When Doilies Attack

As I mentioned last week Bad Cat Designs has a mini project for our summer knitting pleasure this year, rumor has it that Andrea was getting too hot working on the "Off to College" Blanket*she was working on for her daughter (BadKitten) and distracted herself with some little bits of cotton crochet thread and small knitting needles!  Of course the over-achiever in me had to take things one step further and turn the single doily chart into multiple projects!

Presenting : Harvest Doily a Study in Sizing.

All together I have 5 doilies. Two in sewing threads, one in tatting thread, one in worsted weight cotton dish cloth yarn and one in the crochet cotton that was actually suggested in the pattern!

Let's take them one by one.

Last week I showed you the jumbled mess that was the green sewing thread. It is 2.5 inches across and was knit on size 00000 needles (which is 1mm for those of you who use metric.)  The thread is actually designed for machine embroidery and kinked like the dickens coming off the spool. I probably have about 5000 yards of it left on the spool and truth be told I suspect all 5000 yards are liable to stay there!  I nearly threw that one out the window several times while knitting, the only thing that kept me going was that someone told me they didn't think I could do it.........a long time ago I read a book that stated :
"Do you know all those old folk tales where the Count tries to get rid of his only daughter's unsuitable suitor by giving him three impossible tasks?"
 "Yes..."
 "Don't ever try to do that with Miles. Just...don't."
 Simon and Ekaterin, A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold


Sometimes I am just as pig headed as Miles and can't let go of a challenge.  Of course, in the stories his results are usually better than that first attempt, so I had to try again!

Version 2 was knit with thread that was sold in the Hand Quilting rack. This time the materials used to make the thread lent themselves a little better to becoming a doily, nothing like good old fashioned cotton!  This time I went with a slightly bigger needle and crept up to a 000 or 1.5mm for the metric speaking people in the world.  My double points still found the thread super slippery so I gave in and magic looped the entire doily, which unfortunately led to some very obvious loop points, but it is recognizable as a doily. Off the pins it shrank a bit and ended at 5 inches across.

Version 3 saw me using size 40 tatting thread.  Man oh man was this stuff nice to work with!  All shiny and purple so I know that the young lady in my life who feels that everything purple is hers and everything else can be dyed or painted, is going to sneak it off my desk if I so much as blink!  Again I went with the 000 needles.  Needle size obviously played a large part in the sizing as it is only a half inch larger than Version 2, but significantly heavier.

Version 4 was knit the way Andrea intended!  Size 1 (2.25mm) needles and some Joanne's Sensations Crochet Cotton in a fabulous blue! At 7.5 inches across you would have thought I was through with my experiments in doily making, but I had one more I wanted to try.

Version 5 is a monster of a doily.  Coming it at 16 inches across and knit on size 7 (4.5mm) needles in a heavy worsted weight cotton she is the prettiest dish rag on the block.

For those of you who read The Yarn Harlot's blog, or are familiar with her at all, you will know that every time she posts about a pattern it flies off the shelves, along with the accompanying yarn, the projects on Ravelry explode and knitters around the world follow her trend.  Having broken into the worsted weight cotton I might have fallen into the same trap and spent some idle hours knitting away to be prepared for when the Zombies Come.

But what about The First Brother's Christmas sweater, you might ask?

Done!

Uh Oh, looks like I have nothing on my needles, I had better go find some more projects!

What do you have on your needles?

~M

*Andrea was working on a comforting blanket, while I sent Bad Kitten off to college with the most horrifying thing I could imagine!  I included some mirrored sunglasses in the Sending You Off to College Package so she could Blink!

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