First Ear Warmer Finished

I've been slowly knitting my ear warmers and I've finally finished the first one. There's no way I'll get the other one done by the end of the Tour but it was nice to do some knitting.

My Isabeau Purse

Knitting
I finally finished the Isabeau purse. I like it and it was easy to knit. Or at least I remember it being easy to knit! It was so long ago when I knit the main part. I used the knitted piece as the pattern for the lining. It has one small pocket on the side of the lining. Now I just have to learn to use a purse.


Global Warning
Place: Finland Observation: Not the cold north
Date: January 17. 2008 Observation: No snow
Time: 13.00 Observation: No sun

A New Bracelet

In December I won a lovely bracelet that Shelby made. She's the daughter of Alisha from Tales from a Self Taught Knitter . It arrived the other day and I've been waiting for the sun to shine enough to take a better picture but that hasn't happened.

Knitting

I've dug out my Isabeau purse to get it finished because Ali at Skeins Her Way is having a finish a UFO contest. I hadn't realized that I hadn't worked on the purse since August 2006. Good thing that I wrote about it on my blog or I would have assumed that I had knit it last year. I have to sew it together, make and attach a lining, handle and button strap.

I'm trying to knit a pair of wristwarmers for my sister D. They were suppose to be Composed Mitts from Interweave Knits but I realized that not only am I not very fond of knitting Fair Isle but I'm not very good at it either. So I'm making it up as I go and only doing designs that are 3 stitches wide at the most so I can try to avoid having to catch floats. Here I've tried my own slipped stitch design but that didn't turn out how I thought, so it's gone too.

Food
We don't eat eggs very often and I seem to have to throw more and more away because the best before date comes and goes before I notice. So I'm going to try doing eggless baking and see how that goes. These Almond Cookies from Veganfood.net were really good. I only put almonds on a few of them so we could see how they were that way. We didn't really notice them. Next time I'll grind up more almonds for the batter and skip the ones on top.

We've Slowed Down

Not much crafting getting done around here. The tree is up but I haven't remembered to put the crocheted decorations on it. It looks like there won't be 12 of them either!

A's Knitting
This knitting has come to a halt. As soon as he admitted to the person he was knitting them for that they wouldn't be ready for Christmas, he stopped knitting them. He cast on and started the ribbing but I'm not going to ask or remind him anymore about them.

My knitting
Well as you can see the hat is back down to before the decreases. I'm a bit stuck with the twisted purl stitches because I'll have to redo the ones on this last row and I'm not sure how to do that. If I undo this last row to redo then the twisted knit stitches will be mixed up. Sigh. I won't show my fair isle attempt. I'm thinking of undoing it and trying knitting inside out to see if it will help with the tension.

Honorable Mention
See this picture? Well you can also see it over at The Panopticon. Franklin was having a look-alike contest for his cartoon (sorry Dolores) sheep and I entered this at the last minute. And it got an honorable mention.

Food
First we have Julie's Peanut Butter Brownies. They were quite good and I'll make them again. Then we have A's meal for the weekend. It's the Sweet Potato Gratin on the left side of the plate from Adventures in Vegetarian Living. Fortunately I suggested that A didn't put the amount of rosemary that was called for. He just put a sprinkle and I think if he or I make it again it should be left out. And cut way back on the amount of orange juice. It was more like a soup. But it was a nice change.

Blue Christmas Trio

Crochet
Yikes I'd better spead up. My plan of doing one decoration a month has fallen behind. I don't even have any ideas for any more.




My Knitting
This hat just has to have the yarn pulled through the last stitches but I'm leaning towards undoing the whole thing and starting over. There are an odd number of cables and so it means that two of the cables are decreased beside each other instead of alternating. Also the top is looking funny. I'd have to undo what I just did to make one set of cables shorter because the place where I've decreased them makes them look longer than the rest in the column. Confusing?

I bought some Isoveli to make Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's The Unoriginal Hat. I'll have to double the yarn up. My next step is to learn how to make a ball on a paper towel roll. I just found knit's with balls' post on how to make a center pull ball.

'A''s knitting
See previous post. He's still aiming to have them done early enough to have them sent off for Christmas!

Food
I saw a recipe for Zucchini Carpaccio but not having some of the ingredients (leeks, ricotta cheese, mint or any of the herbs except dill) I just made it with what I had and I liked it enough that I've made it several times since. I suppose it could be made with cottage cheese or feta too.

New Blog Home

I moved my blog over to a new name and then I didn't like it after all! It was much harder to come up with a name that many others didn't already have. I'm hoping that I googled this well enough that no one else has it.

Food
I've finally done it after thinking about it for awhile. I seldom work on my food blog but I would like to. Part of the problem has been that I don't make foods that I can blog about. I'm hoping that this will change. This was today's dinner mashed potatoes and spinach slop (too much liquid) and frozen cod in a homemade dill sauce.

Knitting ('A')
I'm teaching 'A' to knit. It isn't as easy as I thought it would be! I would have preferred to teach him the continental style because that is what is knit here, but when I tried to do it myself it felt like I was forcing myself to do something the wrong way. I watched several videos but they didn't help. I could understand what to do but I think I'm too right-handed. 'A' is hoping to knit a pair of mitts for a Christmas present.

Knitting (S)
I never thought I'd do it but I bought some stash. I was a yarn/material store looking for knitting needles and material and saw some interesting coloured yarn. I don't even know if Novita makes Jussi anymore. I bought these needles too. They weren't in a package but wrapped as in the picture and it wasn't until I got home that I noticed that two of the needles were pointy and three were dull. So I had to go back the next day to check the other bundle of 5 to see if it was a mixed bunch too, and it was. I wanted the pointy ones.

It was during this second visit that I noticed these. I wouldn't have thought that there would yarn other than Novita in our town. Even though it was more expensive than what I'm used to spending, I wanted to try it. Now I just have to find a pattern to use.

Lost But Found

'A' went to check out the lost and found for the bus that he had taken the day he lost his gloves and fortunately they were there. Now we have to think what to do about winter gloves. Do I make a bigger pair to fit on top of these or try knitting with two colours to make thicker ones? I don't know if I would enjoy knitting with two yarns because of the twisting.

I bought a different green for my design attempt. The other green is spoken for – a pair of socks for M's son. I haven't got very far on my hat. I was almost finished but then ripped it back to the lifeline before the decreases started so that I could add a bit more height. I think it will now be too long (but maybe it will shrink). I can't undo anymore of it.

AH! (exclamation of pain not joy)

A lost his gloves yesterday! I can't believe it. He's going to check the bus' lost and found but we have no idea where he might have left them. I'm not looking forward to knitting another pair of black (he doesn't want any other colour), though I have the pattern all written down, so it would be easier than the first pair. But still. Sigh.

I haven't been able to knit very much because my wrist, forearm and elbow have been aching. I've put my gloves aside because there won't be enough to make the left glove so I need to decide what size needles to reknit them in and I'm procrastinating. I did start this hat for myself. It called for size 6 mm circular needles which I didn't have, so I borrowed size 7 mm from someone, thinking that with my tight knitting they would be better. Now I'm down to size 4 mm because, though I have a large head, two heads could have fit into it. I'm thinking that I need to go a little bit bigger but I can't decide whether or not to buy 4.5 mm or 5.

I'm attempting to design my own pattern. I thought that this colour would fit the theme of the item well, but unfortunately the design gets lost. I'll have to buy some other colour and try again. I have no idea what to do with this though.

I'm Addicted

I signed up for Ravelry and I can't stop checking where I am in line and when there will be less than 19 000 people ahead of me (there are 19 072 at the moment). I should have signed up when I first heard of it. Live and learn.

I found this at the charity store and I'm looking forward to browsing through it. I've thought of a glove idea and I'm hoping to try it out. That is once I've finished my gloves and a hat that I borrowed the needles for.



I'm still on the first glove. I'm going to have to try to learn how to get the colour more accurate.

New Gloves

I've started a pair of gloves for myself. I'm not sure if I'll have enough yarn! It weighed more than what I used for A's gloves but though I'm using less stitches, I'm using smaller needles. I might have to rip the whole thing.

Almost Done

Well I didn't quite finish the second glove in time for the end of the Tour de France KAL but it should be ready for fall.





M said that her daughter's socks should have a wider toe so for the second sock I tried a different one and I'll undo the other one and make it the same. I did the kitchener stitch for the first time. I expected it to be difficult but it wasn't. The only problem I had was trying to get the last two stitches to look good and not a big bump.

Seond Glove Syndrome

The first glove for my Tour de France KAL is almost done, and would have been finished if we hadn't decided that we prefer rounded tips rather than pointed ones. I've had to add more yarn to the tips because of this and I hope it won't make them too bulky. I've never had second sock syndrome and so I've never understood it. But I've been hit by second glove syndrome! I'm already trying to plan what colour and pattern I want for myself. If only I didn't have this other black one to make! LOL

Tour de France, Parte 3

I had to make the thumb gusset longer and according to the pattern you should also continue the increases but once I had done a few rows on the palm we realized that the thumb hole was too big. So I undid some of the gusset and continued on without the increases before doing the palm. The pinky needed more stitches. I'm now on the ring finger and I had to pick up 5 stitches from the side of the pinky finger instead of 3 or there would have been a gapping hole. The ring finger is a bit big but I'm going to reduce two stitches after the knuckle and see if that helps.

Refashioning

I've had these two well worn 100% cotton tops in the cupboard and when I came across them a few weeks ago I wondered if I could combine them into a sleeveless dress that I could wear around the house this summer. I started by choosing the purple as the skirt part because an underarm was ripped. I just cut across below the tear and sewed it onto the bottom of the green top. Then I took the sleeves off the green and just doubled folded the edge before sewing them.

After I took the collar off I was left with a folded stripe of material sewn around the edge. I put the project away for awhile because I couldn't decide whether to leave it there and just sew the edges together because then all of the raw edges would be contained inside or take it off and double fold the edge and just sew it.

In the end I decided to leave it on and see how it feels that way. I can always take it off later. I haven't decided either about taking the button strip off or not. Of course now the weather has gotten cooler and I'm back to wearing shorts and a top but it's ready for warmer days!


My Tour de France project is coming along well. It's more of a stop, try on, knit, repeat kind of a piece but hopefully I won't have to undo it. I had my son try the glove on last night just before he went to sleep so I could knit in the morning before he woke up. Then I had to ask him to wait before leaving to his friend's so I could get to the first row after the gusset stitches were put on a piece of yarn. It seems to be long enough but I guess we won't know until the first two fingers are done and it will sit in its proper place.

Tour de France, Parte 1

I joined the Tour de France Knit a long. Partly because I thought it would be fun and partly because I thought that it would be a good reason to not put off starting my son's gloves. I know how I'll procrastinate because I can't just follow a pattern for this. I'll have to keep having him try the first one on so that it will fit properly. Once he gets home today from being away for the weekend, he can try the ribbing on and see if it is OK. It's not worth assuming that it will fit.

Resurfacing

I really have no other reason why I haven't been crafting other than I haven't felt like it / been in the mood / gotten around to it. I was brave and contacted someone whom I'd never met but I've read her blog. She lives in the same city as I do and I asked if she was going to knit in public on June 9. She was going to be doing something else at the local market but knitting outside anyway. So I joined her and stayed for a while.

I've almost finished N's first sock. Her mother thinks the toe shape won't be suitable for her daughter's foot, so I think I'm going to attempt a kitchener toe. Ha. Well, I will when the other sock needs a toe too. Then I'll put it off for awhile as I don't think it will snow yet. Then I'll have to find out how to do the toe. I think she wants to give them as a Christmas present, so they should be done by then.

My sister D sent me a pants/shorts pattern so I bought a piece of orange material from the charity store to make a pair of summer pj bottoms and try out the pattern. I think they turned out fine. OK I know that the white thread is a bit obvious, but who cares?


These are sleeves from a housedress I'm going to attempt to refashion into a summer dress. I've taken the sleeves off and sewed them together to make a knitting sock bag for the sofa. I didn't undo the underarm seam but I just swung the other sleeve around and sewed the two sleeve caps together. Then I undid one of the and sewed it closed. The shape's a bit strange but it serves its purpose.

Baby Tube Socks

Here's the next little sock I knit. I answered the woman who got my name in the The Knitterly Letter Swap and she's let me know that she received my letter. So now I can show the sock I sent her. I had Barbie model it for me, but it's a bit big on her. I wanted to try a smaller sock this time. Maybe I'll go even smaller...

I finished the baby tube socks. I decided not to make them wider. I don't even know if the baby will ever wear them, so if they fit or not doesn't matter to me at this point. They are done and ready in plenty of time for next winter.



I bought these two balls of cotton yesterday because I want to make some granny squares. I would have preferred black, pink and white but at 1 € a ball I couldn't resist. I'll have to look in other stores to see if they have other colours. I would have liked thicker cotton but I haven't found any.

Reasons To Procrastinate

I tend to procrastinate. But I also have two reasons why my crafts sometimes take a long time to finish. The first one is that if I'm making something for someone else and I have to ask that person something before I can continue, then I don't mind waiting until they get back to me (like N's socks). The other one is a bit more stressful. If I run into a problem, then I usually put it aside and wait until I get some inspiration to continue (which might take years). I had almost finished this baby tube sock even though I couldn't decide if it will be too narrow. I put it aside just because I don't want to think whether or not to make it bigger! I knew that it could sit it its bag until the baby is an adult and having children of his own so I bravely knit to the end. I haven't tied the end off in case I change it. Now I will probably have second sock syndrome only because I can't decide if I should make it wider. Stay tuned.

Recycling Yarn

I received the letter from the woman who got my name in the The Knitterly Letter Swap. She didn't mention if she has a blog so I wasn't able to look at it if she does. N's socks are on hold until her mother can try them on and see if they will fit. I had to undo the ribbing because it was a bit tight. So instead of using K4 P2, I'm doing K2 P2 K2 P1. I can get it on my foot, so I'm hoping it will be OK.

When A was small I knit these mitts for him to wear under another pair. There was a slip stitch row on the back of each so he could see for himself if he had them on the wrong hand. I'm recycling them into two projects, at least I will if there is enough yarn. It's the first time I've tried recycling yarn into something.

A Slump

My life is in a slump. Nothing I want to make. Nothing I want to read. Nothing I want to do. Sigh.

I did make this mini sock for my The Knitterly Letter Swap pal. Being internet-stupid I hope she can't find me because I looked at her site! If she can, she'll see this before she gets it so I hope she can't.

The other day when I was looking at two old sock pamphlets I have, I started to try to remember where I had got them from. I assumed from my mother but I'm not sure. So I asked her if she had ever knit socks and told her why. She asked if it had an argyle sock pattern. One of them does and she said that she knit argyle socks between the ages of 18 and 22. But because of the thinness of the wool they wore out easily. I'm so glad I thought to ask her!