Trish Knits.com

Category: blog

  • Panic Time

    Christmas is coming,
    The goose is getting fat.
    Please put a penny in the old man’s hat.
    If you haven’t got a penny then a ha’ penny will do…

    (Well, you know the rest…)

    This is the time of year when I just get crazy. So much to do! So little time! Christmas comes on the same freakin’ day every year, and yet, I can’t ever avoid the last minute hectic feeling. It’s like I’m singing in rounds all the time, except the song’s never over, and I can’t catch my breath. For instance, just this week alone:

    My little boy is sick. Not just a little bit sick. He got sent home from school on Thursday morning, and we took him to the doctor right away, and though he looked awful he didn’t even have a fever and so they just sent us home and said, oh well.. wait it out. So we’re waiting. And waiting. It’s Day 5 now and really? We’d really just like him to be well already. We’re going back to the doctor tomorrow because the fevers that were nonexistent on Thursday? They won’t go away now. Not to mention the whoopsie tummy incident on my den carpet (right behind me, at the computer) that somehow made a red Slurpee live forever in monument on the rug. Ok so the carpet doesn’t owe us a thing, but I had been hoping to replace it sometime after my elderly cats weren’t around to leave their own monuments on a new carpet. Oh well, just my luck. Anyway, I’m really hoping BoyZilla gets well soon… I truly hate seeing him so miserable.

    Second, the Christmas Cards. The cards are here, but still in boxes. The newsletter that I had been skipping the last four years suddenly got done this year (my daughter volunteered) but now it means an extra trip to Kinkos at some point for copying. Sigh. And is there anybody out there who can run to the post office for me? I need about a hundred stamps, quick. Thanks!

    Third, the office potluck, scheduled for Wednesday, at a time when I already had a meeting on the top floor (a big deal where I work). I struggled all weekend to find something I could make in the crockpot for ease of carrying. Except the group couldn’t decide whether it was going to be breakfast or lunch. If it was breakfast then there are others who are the queens of breakfast casseroles and quiche, so I needed a sort of side dish, that was festive, and good for either situation. Not as easy as you’d think.

    I settled on Potatoes Au Gratin with Asiago and Gorgonzola and cream cheese with turkey kielbasa. (Did I mention that people in my office don’t eat pork?) So I send the poor husband on a cheese hunt in the market (We’re simple cheese slice people and typically can’t even spell Gorgonzola) and after much searching he was successful. Yay! Gourmet cheesy potatoes! Except you know what? The boss tells me today that our potluck has been postponed. So has my meeting on the top floor, by the way, so I’m feeling all cheesed up and nowhere to go. Harumph.

    My wedding ring has been broken since before Thanksgiving and it has been repaired and is waiting for me at the jeweler, except I can’t seem to get there, what with the sick kid and cheese quest and all. I guess it’s ok, though because my nephew already has the book I bought him for Christmas so I have to go get something else this weekend. One last trip to the mall. I guess I’ll pick up my ring this weekend.

    So, as you can imagine, I’m a little stressed out. So much, in fact, that I got all teary-eyed at one of those Folger coffee commercials, you know, where the missing family member gets home for Christmas, and starts a pot of coffee for his sleeping mom and dad? Yeah that one. Totally bawled. I think I need a cuppa and a hug.

    But, it’s not all bad… today the mailman brought this:

    Gedifra Cashmere pink yarn
    Gedifra Cashmere pink yarn

    That’s right, Trish. Go pet the cashmere. It’ll all be over soon.

  • Christmas is Coming… It’s Time to Knit a Hat…

    What? You mean that’s not how the song goes?

    Well, I’ve been singing it to myself like crazy as I’ve been knitting away on my stripey elf hat:

    elf hat in progress
    elf hat in progress

    It now has twice as many stripes as it did last week and I am beginning to have hope that it might actually be wearable by Christmas morning. I’m liking it better than I did last week, too. It always looks nicer as the spirals become obvious. I love this pattern by Brian Kohler. I wish he would re-publish it. It’s so fun to make! The original pattern was designed for two colors, a main color and a color for the ribbing and tassel.) By adding stripes I actually made the stripes a touch wider. The reason is that each row is a combination of knit and purl stitches forming a wide rib, and I wanted to make sure that the color transitions were not made icky by showing the interlocking nature of the purl side… so I added a row of plain stockinette at the beginning and end of each stripe. So, the stripes blend perfectly! Because of the spiraling nature of the pattern the color change jog is very minimal as well, so I think overall this has worked out well.

    Christmas, here I come!

    And now, I have a confession to make. I bought… cashmere.

    Webs has some Gedifra cashmere on closeout, and for once I could find a color I can live with. So, I jumped.

    I’ve been eying the cashmere wraps at Nordstrom for weeks, and I almost bought one, except John was with me, and well, you know… my relationship with the credit card is a little strained when the husband is around, so I didn’t. But, I figure I can make my own wrap. Now, to choose a pattern… any ideas?

    I need some ideas on something else as well. Next week we’re having a holiday brunch/luncheon at work. My boss is the queen of breakfast casserole, and another coworker is famous for her quiche. So, I’d like to make some sort of breakfasty/lunchy side dish in my crockpot, so that it’s easy to do overnight and can be lugged to the office and plugged in. No pork. (Drat!) Any ideas? Please let me know…

    Anyway, I’ve got a sick kid so I’m headed to bed early so I’ll have energy for him tomorrow. That, and I’m crazy behind on some projects at work so I’ll be juggling lots of stuff over the next couple days. Wish me luck!

  • The 12 Days of Blogging

    Hi There!

    Sorry I’ve been away so long. Do I have an excuse? Not really. I’ve been knitting, as you’ll see in a moment, but for the last couple weeks I thought it was sort of boring to look at so I didn’t blog about it. Which doesn’t mean I didn’t at least think about blogging. I thought about it, a lot. The thing is, I’ve been having trouble turning the thinking into doing. I didn’t even do the knitting group meeting report from two weeks ago yet. Maybe I’ll try that tomorrow. Or sometime before the next meetup on Saturday! Wish me luck on that.

    In fact, I’m setting a goal for this month. In honor of the Holiday Season, I am going to try to blog at least 12 times this month. 12 times. It won’t be easy, given that the dark days of winter suck the motivation right out of me, but I am going to try. Hang in there with me!

    So anyway, on to the knitting:

    Long Stocking Cap in progress
    Long Stocking Cap in progress

    I’m finishing up the third stripe of my long stocking cap. I like it, I think. But, the design has a lot going on and some of it is getting lost. The original pattern was two colors (a main color and a contrast color for the ribbing and tassel). I decided to incorporate stripes. But there’s also these cables in the pattern, that creep up the hat and shift around in a spiral as you do each repeat. Well, the stripes are sort of eliminating the effect of the spiral. So I could have left the spiral out, I think, but oh well. It will be interesting to see how this hat comes out.

    I’m hoping to have it done for Christmas (it’s not a gift), but right now it’s feeling doubtful.

    Hey, guess what? My Christmas shopping is almost done! Next… the dreaded Christmas card. I ordered custom ones again this year with our photos on them. I like making the card but I hate the whole mailing part. It’ll take me from now til Christmas to get them all done.

    Finally, I’m going to leave you with a video of the cutest little kitten I have ever seen (today, anyway). If you watch the Ellen Degeneres Show, you probably saw this today, but it’s worth sharing:

    Until next time!

  • Hat Happy

    The sock is going well, thank you, but I need a change of pace for the holidays. So, I have decided that the sock is what comes with me in the car on a daily basis (I’m not the driver, don’t worry!) and that I need a different project to work on at home. So I decided to cast on for an old favorite hat:

    Hat Ribbing with other colors in the background
    Hat Ribbing with other colors in the background

    This is the “Long Winter’s Nap” hat by Brian Kohler, which was done for Knit Picks in 2005. Sadly the pattern is no longer available. Please don’t ask me for it either, as the copyright is now solely in the hands of the designer. I don’t know if he plans to re-release it or not.

    I loved knitting this hat, but even though I worked it at a fairly tight gauge, the original hat I made still came out too loose for my head. So this one I began the ribbing with fewer stitches at a tighter gauge. I’ll increase to the number of stitches needed for the pattern after I’m done with the hat band.

    The other thing I am going to try with this version? Stripes. It means doing rounds of plain stockinette between the pattern repeats to hide the color transitions better, but we’ll see how it goes. I think it’s going to be an adventure. I hope I get it done in time to be able to wear it for Christmas.

    For the yarn I’m using Cascade 220 in a natural color for the ribbing band and pom pom, and then alternating colors 2425 (rust) and 9338 (olive heather) for sort of an antique faded-looking red and green. At least that’s what I’m seeing in my head! Time will tell whether I have have a workable idea. Wish me luck…

    I’ve been having the urge to write again. Not just about knitting, but lots of things. When I was younger I wrote short stories and essays and poetry, a lot. I filled notebooks with my writing. I’d like to try my hand at writing again. Sometimes I wonder whether age and a half lifetime of technical and marketing writing has sapped the creativity right out of me. But I guess I don’t know what will happen unless I try, right? So, occasionally this blog might contain other types of entries, just for fun, and I hope you’ll bear with me if I do veer away from knitting every once in a blue moon. I can’t even say it’s going to happen soon, because writing well takes a while, but if it does, I hope you won’t mind.

    In the meantime I’ve got lots of knitting to do. It feels good to be making progress again.

  • Back from the Frog Pond

    sock toe redo
    sock toe redo

    Looks better, doesn’t it?

    Last night when I posted about my unhappiness with my sock toe, it generated more comments and feedback than I have ever received in the blog comments. Thank you all for your advice and support!

    Most of you suggested that I should frog the sock and start over. I hate frogging. With a passion. But I’m glad I did it.

    At the suggestion of several commenters I started by casting on more stitches to begin with to get a more square, neater toe. I also took care to pull my stitches very tight as I was knitting into the cast on row. This helped a lot!

    Then a couple of other people actually suggested that when I was pulling my edge stitches to make them tight, that I was actually pulling them too tight. Who knew? I relaxed on the edges and pulled tighter on the second and third stitches from each edge, and that helped a lot!

    I’m not quite to where I was before the frogging began, but I think it won’t be long. I’m feeling better after restarting the sock, and I think it’s actually causing me to knit faster.

    Thanks to everyone for your help!

  • Dipping My Toes Back In…

    I guess it’s not a secret that I’ve been in a slump. It would be easy to say that I’ve been extra busy at work, not sleeping well so exhausted, and extra busy with the kids. All of these things are very true. But, when I look at the sum total of my knitting that has taken place over the last month (or rather, what hasn’t taken place), it’s probably more safe to say that I have slumped below slump. I’ve knit maybe half a dozen rows on the body of a small toy, and crept along on a simple hat until I dropped some stitches three weeks ago and haven’t touched it since.

    Is it enough to say that I’m bored? Nah. But that would be true, too. Nevermind that I’ve got at least half a dozen active UFOs, and a practically uncountable pile of stagnant ones. How can I possibly be bored? Sigh… I don’t know… but, I am.

    So, to do something completely different, I am going to make socks. Yes, that’s right, I said socks. I’ve never done more than a pair of baggy worsted weight socks for practice, just so I could see how they’re made. But I have a bin full of sock yarn crying out to have something done with it. My excuse was that I don’t wear socks. I wear a brace on my legs that is very form fitting and I had always assumed that I could not wear socks with them. So, I’ve worn nothing but hose for the last 13 years. But a few weeks ago I got some new braces, and guess what? They’re actually more comfortable with socks. Who knew? Now I get to share the joy of sock knitting, if I ever get to truly experience it, AND wear the fruits of my labor.

    purple and pink yarn being balled up
    purple and pink yarn being balled up
    So I found a hank of Lisa Souza Sock! Merino in the Berry Poppins colorway. It’s a yummy, pinky-purple that I think if I had to choose, is the best choice for my first pair of actual socks.

    Now, of course, comes the hard part: choosing a pattern. I want to do toe-up, and it needs to be something with a relatively short stitch repeat so I can adjust to my odd foot size easily enough. (I love the Monkey Socks pattern, for example, but with a 16-stitch repeat it’s either too large or too small for me.) The pattern has to be easy enough for a novice like me, but not too boring, because we all know what happens when I get bored. Someone has suggested Leyburn Socks (link to free pattern pdf file) and others have endorsed anything by WendyKnits (Yes, I agree that her patterns are totally awesome.). With so many patterns to choose from, I’m going to take a couple days to decide. It’s going to take me that long to ball up Lisa Souza’s yarn anyway; as pretty as her hanks are, and oh, I love them so much that I have a lot of them), I have not mastered a method of placing her hanks on my swift in such a way that at some point they don’t just end up a knotted mess as the strands get pulled off. It’s yarn barf, every time, but worth it in the end.

    The other thing I’m doing to help myself get over the blues? Some long overdue knitting time with my knit buddy Rhoda. She’s coming on Saturday, and I’m already mulling over some possible movie choices for us. I’m looking so forward to it! Hopefully all this will give me some renewed energy for knitting. Goodness knows that I’m generally happier when I knit regularly, so I just need to keep reminding myself of that. Knitting=happiness. It should be as simple as that.

    Knitting slump? Over. Starting now.