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  • I’m Just Too Damned TIRED to Knit!

    I’ve been chugging away on my baby sweater this week. Once, on Monday night at the swimming pool, I managed to drop a cable again, though not as bad as the first time and only had to knit back one row. But then, this afternoon, I was knitting in the car (as usual) and I managed to doze off (as usual), and I let my needles slip out of the cable section in mid-snore. ARGH. I haven’t fixed it yet. I haven’t got the strength.

    The thing is, I think I’m just too tired. I’ve had lots of stress at home AND at work this week, and I’ve been averaging only about 2 to 3 hours of sleep each night. It sucks! But rather than bore you with the hot, salty tears that are my knitting existence this week, I thought I’d share with you that which lifted my spirits as I came home from work this evening:

    six different colors of Noro Kureyon yarn
    six different colors of Noro Kureyon yarn

    It was my birthday present from my friend Carrie! Carrie had sent me a gift certificate to the Yarn Market and for the longest time I couldn’t decide what to do with it. I decided to get a bunch of different colors of Noro Kureyon. I plan to make a bunch of wild tams using Charisa Martin’s Lifestyle Top Down Hats formula and some wild color patterns. Should be fun! I haven’t knit a hat in such a long time, and perhaps this is what the doctor ordered to set my mood right again.

    Also in the box was this wondrous little doohickey:

    Wonder Knitter by Clover
    Wonder Knitter by Clover

    It’s the Wonder Knitter by Clover (OMG! Have you ever SEEN their website? So many fibery gadgets to behold!) I have another cord maker by Bond, but I’ve never even taken it out of the package because it is limited to using thin yarns, and for playing with something like this I probably will prefer doing so with bulky yarns. In fact, I’m starting to feel the urge to collect cord makers (or spool knitters, or knitty noddies, or knitting nancys, or whatever you want to call them). Having a few antique ones would be fun. Guess I’ll keep my eyes open…

    Finally, my daughter wanted to share what Tegan was doing today:

    Tegan the cat sits on my photo drape and poses
    Tegan the cat sits on my photo drape and poses

    Tegan is the one who always has to be in the middle of everything. I usually photograph my blog stuff in my kitchen, where the light is good, by throwing a tablecloth over a chair. Lately, Tegan has been beating me to the punch and jumping on the chair before I can ever get my knitting ready to shoot. I get the hint. Tegan wants attention. Happy now, cat?

    I’ll see you when I’m more awake and my knitting is set right again. Ciao for now…

  • Knitting Day in Bowie

    baby sweater with sleeve stitches on holders
    baby sweater with sleeve stitches on holders

    Well, I was successful in getting the sleeve stitches onto holders today before knitting group, so here is the latest photo of the baby sweater in progress. It finally looks like a sweater, no? I’m finally seeing a light at the end of this tunnel.

    Now some scenes from today’s knitting group:

    rhoda knitting on the BYOB bag from Knitty.com
    rhoda knitting on the BYOB bag from Knitty.com

    Rhoda knitting on the BYOB bag from Knitty.com

    Jo knits a shawl from handspun yarn
    Jo knits a shawl from handspun yarn

    Dina is camera shy
    Dina is camera shy

    (Dina is our new group member. She didn’t want her picture taken, but here she is!)

    Lola knits a sweater
    Lola knits a sweater
    Marie was knitting and sharing her book stash--thanks!
    Marie was knitting and sharing her book stash–thanks!
    Me knitting on my baby sweater
    Me knitting on my baby sweater

    Lola saw that I posted on Ravelry to Jo the other day, asking if she had a drop spindle that I could play with at group today. Jo said no, she didn’t, but then Lola surprised me with this:

    drop spindle with fleece and first attempt at spinning yarn
    drop spindle with fleece and first attempt at spinning yarn

    A drop spindle to play with and a bit of roving! I tried for quite a while to make yarn tonight and it was interesting to say the least. It looks so easy when I see others doing it! Maybe I’ll have to ask Lola to give me a lesson or two. I’m thrilled that she’s letting me borrow this spindle before I buy my own, though… it’s good to figure out whether I can even do it first. So far I’ve had yarn falling apart and lots of spindle crashing to the floor stuff, and very little yarn stuff, but I think I’ll get there. Wish me luck, and what a great afternoon it was. Thanks again, ladies! I had a great time.

  • Fixing a cable

    cable stitches transferred to cable needle
    cable stitches transferred to cable needle

    The cable needles I was waiting for arrived yesterday so this morning before work I set out to try to fix the dropped stitches in my baby sweater. I tried to video the process but wouldn’t you know, the batteries died in the camera before I could get it all down. So, I got a few photos, but not too many. Sorry! I’ll try to do better at documenting my next major knitting F-up. K? So in this first shot here is the cable needle, holding the stitches of the dropped cable.

    Next, I’m showing you the ladders created when I unraveled the cable stitches. I’m going to pretend that each strand is like a little ball of yarn and knit from it. I will use the strands from bottom to top. Picking up the bottom strand, knitting the cable stitches onto a second cable needle, then sliding the second needle so that the stitches are ready to be knit again on the next strand, etc. until all of the stitches are knit back up. I did have to do a cable cross on the third strand up from the bottom, but it was pretty ok.

    here are the strands I\'m going to knit from
    here are the strands I’m going to knit from

    In the photo below, the cable is all re-knit and looking almost good as new. My eyelets on either side of the cable look a little wonky but I am going to try to not worry about it so much because I can’t quite figure out how to smooth it all over. Sigh. It’s not perfect but better than it was, for sure.

    cable after being reknit
    cable after being reknit

    And here I am, happily knitting after having fixed the cable. Soon, I really will be able to put the sleeve stitches on holders and knit the rest of the body. I’m looking forward to being done with this sweater so I can move on to the matching hat and socks.

    me, happily knitting on baby sweater after cable stitches are fixed
    me, happily knitting on baby sweater after cable stitches are fixed

    Until next time…

  • The Return of the Sock Toe

    sock toe in progress
    sock toe in progress

    After last week’s fiasco with my cabled baby sweater, I decided to put it down for a few days. So I re-cast on my toe up sock on Sunday, and look how far I’ve gotten already! I’ve decided that I don’t like knitting on size zero needles. I’m going to have to try my next pair on something slightly larger. But for this pair, I think I do need the 0’s, so the yarn overs won’t be any bigger than they already are.

    Hopefully I can make some good progress on this sock this week. It would be nice to say that I made something for myself that I can wear. Here it is, almost August, and I’m still working on the toe of my first sock for Summer of Socks 08. Told you… I’m the slowest knitter in the world.

  • Bowie Borders Knitting Meetup

    4420 Mitchellville Road
    Bowie, MD 20716

    Phone: 301.352.5560
    Fax: 301.352.5571

    Time: 2 pm

    We always meet on the first Saturday of the month in the Borders Cafe. Hope to see you there!

  • …And Then the Tears Came

    I was having a great day today. I went shopping with my mom, who bought me some really gorgeous amethyst earrings for my new earholes. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to go shopping together but I think she finally feels well enough and that feels really great to me.

    Then I took Diana to the pool where she met up with a friend and I settled in for an evening of knitting.

    That’s when I saw it. a dropped stitch, right at the cable cross of my baby sweater. I managed to rip back to the row with the dropped stitch:

    closeup of cable after ripping out
    closeup of cable after ripping out

    But am doubting my fortitude for picking up ladder by ladder and re-knitting. This yarn is so splitty and hard to do cables with. But tonight, I got some encouragement, of a very high order.

    I did a search on Ravelry for fixing cables and up popped a message by Janet Szabo, the Queen of Cables, in my book, where she stated that she’s about to have a DVD come out on cables. In the DVD are techniques for fixing them She invited folks to drop her a line and say if they wanted to be informed when the DVD is released, which of course I did. I mentioned that I am in the middle of trying to fix my first cable. She must have been online because she replied within minutes and offered to look at a photo of my poor cable if I had one. (I had taken the photo for this blog post not 10 minutes before… LOVE my macro photography settings on my camera!)

    So I sent her the photo, and basically she suggested that I do what I had been planning to do, that is, re-knit, ladder by ladder, but she also suggested that I use some straight cable needles, like the Brittany cable needles, so I ordered some. Hopefully they should be here soon. In the meantime, I’m stepping back from the sweater.

    Thanks, Janet!

    Just When I Thought my Birthday Was Over…

    My DH told me before that something he got for my birthday didn’t come in time. Well that was two weeks ago, so I was starting to think it was becoming a non-issue. But then, today, this came:

    Namaste Newport bag in the peacock colorway
    Namaste Newport bag in the peacock colorway

    It’s the Namaste Newport bag in the Peacock colorway. I know folks are simply rabid for this bag in this color so it must have been backordered. I’m going to love it… it’s smaller than my others but it does have a firm bottom. Great for knitting in the car, which is where most of mine gets done.

    It does, however, have an imperfection:

    closeup of bag handles showing excess threads
    closeup of bag handles showing excess threads

    It looks like it got caught in the sewing machine! It has several places where it is stitched with several layers of thread and there are extra strings. I’m going to try snipping them and see if it holds up. If it doesn’t, I’ll send it back… but I think this bag and I are going to be fast friends. Thanks, hubby!