Trish Knits.com

So I’m sick again today, and I’m sitting here, watching Oprah. I get to the end of a stripe in my brown ripple afghan. Yay! I put the blanket down to take a break, on the couch next to me, and then I cross the room to check my e-mail.

I then hear this ungodly rrrrrrr-r-r-r-i-i-pppp! My blankie, my beautiful (albeit brown) blankie, is hooked on the footrest mount of my chair. And I’m dragging it with me. When I manage to extricate it from myself, I saw this:

If there were some word I could type that would mimic the sound of my wails, I would. But I think the sound defies written expression. I’ve been working on this blanket for almost 6 months. I was getting near a point where I was going to call it done, and now this.

The thing is, I don’t know how to repair it. It is ripped in the middle of the second stripe. I don’t know if there even is a way to fix it. It’s a little beyond me. I could stick a lifeline in the third stripe, then go back and add yarn and do a bind off row there. But that would disturb the color pattern. The second stripe is not just pulled out, it is actually ripped. And I can’t just pick up and knit in the opposite direction, because it’s a ripple pattern and the ripples all already go the other way.

I know there must be an expert knitter out there who would have some ideas. If so, I’d love to hear them!

Thanks! Back to sobbing now.

You know life is rough when you wish for a sick day. Yep, wish for one. I’ve caught myself hoping for a little cold, just so I could sit home and knit for a day without guilt.

I guess I should be careful what I wish for. I started feeling crappy on Thursday afternoon late, not coincidentally, I’m sure, at the same time that my mom was being re-checked into the hospital. (She’s home now, thank goodness.) Last night I found myself not breathing well at all when laying down, so sleep was hard to come by. I had no choice by this morning but to stay home.

First, I literally fell dead asleep this morning, bolt upright in my chair. Then I woke up at noon and basically sat like a blob til I got up the energy to go to the bathroom, where I promptly fell asleep again. So, by this evening, when I finally had a bit of energy for knitting, I could only get out about a row (ok, a wee bit more than a row) before my needles suddenly felt too heavy once again. So today, I cranked out one lousy row of knitting. So much for my blissful sick day.

I LOL’d the Cat Today!

This is Tegan, on her favorite perch. She is annoyed that I woke her up for this. Visit my page at icanhascheezburger.com to vote for this picture. (I have no idea how they go about choosing the daily LOL’s, but maybe if Tegan is lucky she’ll get her 15 minutes of fame.)

Believe it or not, today was the first day of the swim club being open. It was too cold to swim unless you were a totally insane person (like my daughter), but we enjoy going there and hanging out, so we went for lunch. Didn’t stay long because my little guy wanted to get in, too, only he’s too young to get in the pool by himself and there was no way my DH was going. But it was great chatting with friends who we only seem to be able to get together with in the summer months. Every summer it’s always amazing to see how much each other’s kids have grown, and it’s fun to catch up on a winter’s full of activities that we always somehow miss hearing about until now.

I’ve actually had a rotten cold that started up on Thursday afternoon. I called in sick Friday and went to the doctor. It’s just a rotten cold, but I mean, ROTTEN. I don’t even have much energy for knitting. But at long last, I have been working on the brown ripple afghan again. I actually switched colors today for the first time in a while, and will probably be able to do that again tomorrow already. I haven’t been knitting at that pace, on ANYTHING, in quite a while. But… there’s been lots of napping in between, too. I guess I’ve needed it.

Since joining the Summer of Socks 2008, I have since learned that our pool manager is expecting her first. This is happy news! She and her sister used to babysit for me when my daughter was a baby. So, it looks like baby socks and hats will be in order! I’ve been looking around the interwebs, and I’ve found quite a few patterns and resources to check out:

Baby Keep Your Socks On — by Amy King

Just Your Basic Baby Sock (PDF) — by P2 designs

Tiny Toe-ups — by Patti Pierce Stone

Chart of Baby Foot Sizes (PDF) — from WendyKnits.net

Tie One On Baby Socks — The Keyboard Biologist

Baby Jays — by April K

Ribbed Lace Toe-up Baby Sock — by P2 Designs

Baby Life Ring Socks — by Cat Bordhi — by P2 Designs

If I knit a bunch of these then I’ll have the whole sock thing down before I know it. Now, I’m on a quest for ultra soft and washable sock yarns. I know, I know… Socks That Rock comes to mind immediately, but would also love other ideas. Hopefully things that aren’t too expensive, but also high yardage AND washable. Oh, and soft. Very soft. Soft enough for a baby’s, well, you know…

I’m thinking that if I can find balls of yarn with high yardage then there would be enough to make socks for my size 6 feet and have enough left over to do baby socks. Do-able? I’d love some feedback…

Ciao for now, gotta go blow my nose. Yuck.

It’s just another Saturday night at the homestead! I decided it’s been a while since I photographed the Brown Ripple Afghan, so I thought I’d do an update. Sir Goofnut, aka my 6-year-old son, decided that he needed to get in on the action. I laid the blanket out on the floor last weekend, and the consensus was that it was about half done. Sigh. I might make it a wee bit smaller, because I am anxious for Miss Z. to receive it. So I’ve been knitting a lot this weekend, trying to catch up. Unfortunately I am on the stripe that is from one of my lesser favorite yarns in the blanket, in that it is so much slipperier than the others. Thankfully that stripe is almost done.

So I’ve been knitting and listening to podcasts this weekend. The weather is good for it; it’s the end of March but temps were still below freezing this morning. Last night I listened to Kelley Petkun interview Janet Szabo on the Knit Picks Podcast. Then tonight, I was thrilled to learn that there is a new episode of Cast On available, and guess what??!!?? It’s all about HATS! Hats are my most favorite thing in the world to knit. In fact, I can’t wait to get done with this blanket so I can knit one! It’s been too long.

Anyway, back to the pointy sticks! It’s a great night, indeed.

…for a shawl, if it were one. But since it’s not, as you can see, I’ve still got a long way to go. I’m not getting tired of knitting it, exactly, but I am getting a wee bit bored of not being able to knit anything else. However, my sense of purpose keeps me going, and I am at least fairly certain that I will not be working on this blanket for eight months like I did on the last one. I’ve found several things on the internet that I’d like to try:

• The Lizard Ridge Hat
• The Bulky Beret
• An Elizabeth Zimmermann Mystery Blanket from Knitter’s Almanac

For the last one I am hoping to find a yarn with long color changes like Noro Kureyon, but that isn’t Kureyon, because I hate the way it feels. I’m thinking maybe a Trendsetter yarn. I’ll have to see.

Here’s a closeup of the blanket today… couldn’t resist. More soon, I hope!

(Obligatory Blanket Update)

Well, here it is, the latest photo of my ripple afghan in progress, for Miss Z. One or two more people added their work to the blanket this week, and I feel like I’ve knitted a LOT, but visually, from the picture, it doesn’t really look very different. I guess I’m entering that disappointing stage where hours and hours of knitting yield very minimal results. All knitters hit that wall with long-term projects. At some point. Right? Please tell me I’m not alone.

So this week my kid decided that she needs to do five rows a day on the baby blanket she’s working on for her teacher. So far, she has stuck to it, except that tonight she is feeling a little punky so I doubt she’ll knit today. I hope this isn’t the beginning of a winter virus making its way through our house.

I caved and bought yarn this week. Lots of yarn. 25 balls of Wool of the Andes in Amethyst Heather, and 20 balls in Onyx Heather. Not sure yet what I am going to do with it, but I was originally thinking maybe a blanket of some sort, or at least a couple of hats and mittens and scarves etc. We’ll see. Obviously I won’t be taking on any new projects for a while yet.

Also in the box is a set of needles in size 7 for IJ at work. She wants to learn to knit! I can’t wait to teach her. I’m hoping she will love knitting as much as I do.

Not much else going on around here. Brenda has a new episode of Cast On up today so I’m gonna go listen and knit. Ahhhh. Knitting and Cast On. Two things that make winter more bearable. Thanks, Brenda.

I decided to shoot a quick photo of the blankie this morning… it is coming along nicely, eh? I really love how it looks, and especially how it feels. It is SO soft! I hope Miss Z. will like it.

Speaking of Miss Z, yesterday we had our annual holiday breakfast at work. We always do ours after the holidays since folks usually have leave and there are lots of other parties before the holidays to go to. Anyway, Miss Z. came to our party and brought her little baby and her young daughter along. The baby is just precious, as I knew she would be. But I have to say, for all she’s been through, Z. looks great! I took lots of pictures, but I don’t want to post one here because that would require getting permission from Miss Z., and I don’t want to tip her off about the blankie.

Except that she is a teeny bit tipped off. As I was leaving yesterday I popped in to see the boss and Miss Z. was still in there, chatting away. I had my coat on and my bag with me, and the blankie was peeking out of the top of the bag. Miss Z. peeked and said, “What is THIS? A scarf or a shawl? It’s so pretty!” She didn’t take it out of the bag so couldn’t really see what it was, but the color and various textures were visible. I said “Oh, it’s a blanke….” and left it at that. She said nothing else but I don’t think she caught on. At least I hope not… I guess we’ll see!

A Circle of Mittens…

So for some reason, my mom thinks I was ragging on the mittens she’s been knitting for everyone. Not so! Here’s a pic of some of them… Guess whose mittens are the purple ones??? On Sunday mom came over and we casted on for her felt hat. I hope she does ok with it… she didn’t quite get the concept of Magic Loop, but I think she will be ok eventually. She had a couple of rounds done before leaving on Sunday. Sigh… I sometimes wish I had a hat on the needles….

Pretty…

It’s stopped already, but this is what was happening outside of my door a little while earlier today. Yes, winter is finally here.

Well, here it is, the latest “baby pic” of Miss Z.’s Blankie. I am enjoying making it but I wish it could go faster. Miss Z. starts her chemo very soon and I want it to be done. Now that the holidays have wound down and most folks are back at work, I am getting even more takers on the “many hands” aspect of the project.

I have now used all of the yarn colors that I have for the project, so am starting over, in a slightly different color order. I hope I can keep the variations going. In a recent stripe I added Knit Picks Shine Sport in the colorway, Willow, but I’m not sure I love it being there yet, since it is so much lighter than the other shades. But I was having an interesting dilemma of not having enough yarns for the parts in between the primary shades. I had some Shine on hand, so decided to try it. So, I guess we’ll see how it works out.

Trish’s Got a Brand New Bag

Ok, as much as I absolutely LOVE my Jordana Paige Knitter’s Satchel, I have finally had to admit, it’s really not the most practical solution for me. I’ve managed to bend the metal bar that holds the clicky clasp on both of my bags, and so neither one closes well. Which is causing me problems, because except for the little stuff in the zipper pouch, most of the stuff is rolling around in there and all jumbled up with everything else.

So I bit the bullet and bought a Namaste Executive Bag. I’ve been hearing about these as they seem to be the buzz of all the knitters in the know. But, it’s hard to get. I hear it’s been discontinued, and that a newer, better bag may be coming out soon. But, I gotta admit, this one’s pretty cool! I like that it has separate compartments fort the “purse stuff” and the knitting gear. I also like that it seems to have stronger closures, so I shouldn’t have to worry about the bag tipping over and all of my purse stuff falling out.

It does seem that the material it’s made of is kinda thin. That’s one complaint I’ve been hearing is that the bag isn’t as durable as some folks would like. So I guess we’ll see how I make out with it, given that I do seem to be pretty hard on stuff. Wish me luck…

On a Roll

And now for something completely different…

I heard Kelley Petkun talk about this on her podcast a few weeks ago, and I thought, “Who in their right mind would buy a book about THAT??” But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Then, this week, my copy of Toilet Roll Covers finally found it’s way to my door. I cannot believe I started feeling all nostalgic, as my mom and grandmother used to make cozies for just about everything. But my mom has never seen toilet paper cozies like this! They are fun, funky and adorable. Of course I will have to make a hat for my toilet paper, and maybe even an Aran sweater. The piano keys are also very cute, and someday, I’ll have to make the “Drum Roll” for my brother the drummer.

Sigh. Looks like my Redskins are losing to the Seahawks. It’s been a tough year for them. I was really hoping…

Ciao for now!

Hi, all! I hope everyone had a great holiday. I know we did. Our kids got a much-wished-for Wii for Christmas, and much to our delight (and dismay), even our 5-year-old took to it pretty quickly. (He’s the current bowling champ in the household.) Thankfully, he still says his Thomas the Tank Engine Carnival Play Set is his favorite gift (from Grandma, of course…) though the older one LOVES the Wii. Hey, at least we’ll know where to find her.

Me? In between the Christmas card writing and the cooking and the eating and all of that other stuff, I’ve been trying to steal as many moments as I can to work on Miss Z.’s Blanket. It’s coming along, but with me being the admitted slowest knitter in the world, of course it will take longer than I ever would want it to. I decided during my last week at work during the holidays that I was going to call the project the “Many Hands, Big Heart” afghan. My logic is that since Miss Z. is a co-worker, that I would let any other co-worker who wants to, to knit on it for a stitch, or a row, or whatever suits them. Even if I only teach a person to make one stitch, their contribution still counts. I only actually work on-site two days a week these days, so coordinating the project will be interesting, but I am hoping to get lots of hands to chip in. So far, MANY people have expressed interest, and the Office Director for our department has said I can send an email to everyone in our wider group. That’s cool.

A little bird mentioned to me recently that I wrap my stitches “backwards” when I knit. I didn’t realize this as my stitches aren’t at all twisted (at least I’m consistent!) but now seeing so many other knitters work on my blanket too I can definitely see that my way of doing things is not what the majority does. In this case though I have many colors and textures going, and with the whole concept of Many Hands, I think it will be a design feature, if you will, if some of the stitches might be a bit twisted. I don’t think the recipient will notice, and if there does end up being a twisted stitch here and there, then so be it. Each one will be twisted with love.

Knitterly Gifties

Santa was very good to me! DH presented me with the long-awaited Options Harmony interchangeable needles. Now I have the whole set, except for the largest sizes of tips, which aren’t included. I’ll probably get them separately just because I am a completist, even though it is rare when I knit with anything higher than an 11. I did cheat and get myself a couple pairs of tips before Christmas, but I did wait for the whole set to come. Yay! I’m even thinking of switching out my metal Options on my current WIP to the wood ones. Haven’t decided yet on that.

My inlaws gave me the Quantaray Portable Photo Studio, which I am also considering to be a knitting related item. I love to shoot photos of my yarn related things for this blog, and frankly, I’m getting tired of shooting from the same old red kitchen chair every time. The kitchen chair has been optimal to now because I have overhead pot lights in the kitchen which are pretty good for color accuracy. So now I get to play with mini photography lights and see how I do. That is, when I get them working. Unfortunately one of the lights in my kit is loose and we could not tighten it and get it to work. I’m going to have to exchange my kit for another, which hopefully won’t be too hard to do. I can’t wait to play with it! Yay!!

Well, it’s getting late here so I better sign off for now and get ready for bed. Hope everyone is recovering well from much celebrating (or if not from celebrating, from doing something else fun on your day off!) Me? I gotta go back to work tomorrow. Drat.

Ok, I’ve said to more than one person recently that I would probably never knit another afghan. Now, watch how fast I am going to eat my words! I’ve mentioned in a recent post that I am knitting with a heavy heart lately. Now I can say why, at least some, and then the afghan will make some sense.

I have this friend. A co-worker, actually, and I don’t think she knows that I adore her as much as I do. This fall she surprised us with the happy news that she was expecting her third child. Soon after though she began complaining of a pain in her side that would not stop. (She was due at Christmas, so by telling us in the early fall she was already quite far along.) It was difficult to do too many tests, because of course, she was very pregnant and they didn’t want to hurt the baby. However, soon the doctors began to suspect the possibility of colon cancer. They wouldn’t know, of course, until after the baby’s birth, but the situation began to take on some urgency.

The baby was born after Thanksgiving, about 5 weeks early, and had to spend some time in the NICU at the hospital, but is fine now and at home. About two weeks later mom had surgery and the diagnosis was unfortunately confirmed. She will recuperate for about 8 weeks or so and then begin treatment for cancer.

I did have all sorts of plans to make tons of things for her new baby, and had even bought mountains of yarn and had started knitting on a baby hat for the baby. As it turns out I made a yucky mistake with the hat and need to start over anyway (my color changes look awful, and I forgot to do the jogless jog, AND I made a mistake on the decreases at the top so have to rip those out anyway). So I need to rip that hat back to before the first color change and start over. While I’m at it, I might as well make the next biggest size, too… so baby won’t outgrow it too soon.

But anyway, the problem with knitting for Baby, (though I can’t wait to do it someday soon) is that every time I did knit for the baby I would think of mom and start crying. So instead I decided to pour my efforts into knitting for mom. And what did I decide on? A snuggly throw, knit on very LARGE needles so hopefully it will go lots faster this time. I am already having some doubts, but I’m determined to do this for my Miss Z.

I don’t do browns, and of course, browns are what makes Miss Z feel happy. So I went online to Knit Picks, and buy boatloads of brown yarn in different colors and textures. Clockwise from the top, in the 12:00 position:
Wool of the Andes Bulky Hand Dyed, colorway, Redwood Forest; Suri Dream Hand Dyed, colorway, Falling Leaves; Suri Dream, colorway, Sandstone; Wool of the Andes Bulky, colorway, Taupe; Andean Silk, colorway, Cinnamon; Quarry, colorway, Dakota Mahogany; (center) Andean Silk, colorway, Chocolate.

I bought two balls of each color, except for the Andean Silk, for which I bought 6 balls of each color, as it will be my dominant two colors with the others in between. I’ve doubled the Andean Silk for a really soft, bulky feel and am doing a simple ripple pattern from Jan Eaton’s book, 200 Ripple Stitches. I’m liking it so far but am finding the Suri Dream to be a bit fussy to work with. Hopefully I’ll survive. It’s for a good cause. And it’s on size 11 needles, too… so hopefully won’t take me a year like the last blanket did.

With holidays fast approaching, I’m not sure I’ll be able to post much again before the new year. Thanks for reading, and if I don’t get to it before, I’d like to wish everyone now a joyous holiday time and Peace for 2008. Also, if you’re a praying person, please flip a few skyward for my Miss Z. She’s got three kids who need her very, very much. Thanks for reading.