Cattywampus

Knitting!

The fugly sweater is coming along nicely.

I am REALLY not fond of the way the colors are patterning out.  Right now my plan is to finish it as planned and then overdye it with a chocolate/chestnut color to make it a sort of textured dark brown.  I think that should work.

These are my new bus socks.  The pattern is Catherine, sort of.  I'm doing them bottom up and I'm alternating the seed stitch diamonds and the outlined diamonds so it looks more like argyle.

Where are the old bus socks, you ask?

The pattern is Aquaphobia, they are seriously dense b/c of the slipstitch pattern, they will be very warm but I'm concerned about getting them in my shoes.  They may end up being house socks.  As you can see I gave up the pattern mid-cuff and just started ribbing.  They felt like they were taking a very, very long time b/c of the pattern & something had to give.

I think I've decided that STR lightweight is heavier than I like in my socks for the most part.  I have a few skeins that I adore that I will make into plain jane socks, but other than that I'm considering selling them off.  I can make them as gifts, I suppose - it is lovely yarn to work with, but somehow having 10 or so skeins of sock yarn that I know won't work for me doesn't seem like so much fun.  Live & learn, eh? 

How traffic affects the space/time continuum

Someone is putting up interesting graffiti in my neighborhood.  It's the first time I've seen positive affirmation graffiti, pretty fun, I think.

This one below is by far my favorite though.  It's a little hard to read, it says "Make today a striped sweater day!"

Duke is finally his old self again.  He says "There is no such thing as too many pillows."

My Ravelympics poll disappeared from my blog.  I'm not sure how or why, it didn't max out or anything, but the Henley Perfected and the Layered Skater's Top were neck & neck, so I will have to choose between the two of them.

I am fairly fried right now.  We were going up to my home town in upstate NY yesterday to visit my grandmother in her new digs, see my mother and stepfather briefly, then drive down to my BFF's house to visit her, another college friend I haven't seen since our wedding.

It's a 3 and a half hour drive to where my grandmother is, then an hour to the next stop, then about 3 hours home the next day, it's a lot, but it seems reasonable, doesn't it?  It took us 6 hours to get to the first stop.  6 hours.  Because of this.  We didn't know why at the time, just that it really sucked.  A lot.  And the people we were visiting had to rearrange their plans numerous times through the day as we called with updates.

However, we did make it and the visits were all good.  Check that off as mission accomplished!  It  was great to see my grandmother's new place & hang with her and the rest of the fam for a while.  It was wonderful to see my two best friends from college and catch up.  The children are adorable (too hectic a visit for me to even remember to take any pictures!) and the dogs were good, if harried.  By this morning Pixie was even going up to the kids for some attention - of course running away when they tried to touch her - baby steps. 

The dogs are both crashed now, finally sleeping off the car rides, the chaos and the attention.  We are both exhausted.  We spent 11 hours in the car (because the 3 hour drive home took 4 hours today b/c of construction traffic) in 2 days. 

When one expects to spend 11 hours in a car in two days, it sucks.  When one expects to spend 7.5 hours in the car and instead spends 11 hours in the car - it sucks hard.  And harder.  And it makes one seriously consider getting one of those GPS dohickies with real time traffic.  Seriously.

The good thing about being in the car for 11 hours is that there is knitting to show for it.  Not as much as there should be - me being too annoyed and frustrated that our visiting time was being eaten up minute by minute to concentrate enough to knit for bits and pieces of the trip - but definitely some things to show.  Tomorrow.

Ravelympics

I decided it would be fun to join the Ravelympics just to see if I can do it.  I do have a question of my ability to maintain project monogamy from beginning to end, so we'll see.

I am wavering between the following things.

(Ravelry links)
Henley Perfected in Brooks Farm Acero

Bianca's Jacket in Brooks Farm Mas Acero

Tempest in Fearless Fibers Merino/Tencel

Coraline in Delly's (?) Delights Alpaca

Layered Skater's Top in Briar Rose Glory Days OR Rowan Calmer

Now then, because all of these are sweaters I'm planning on knitting this fall and I don't feel like making any decisions right now, I'm going to ask you to help me decide!

New on the needles

I am planning on doing one more summer top before I move onto fall & winter knitting.  The Lotus Blossom top, in Knitpicks Shine Sport - Cherry.

I was worried I would have trouble with the lace, but it isn't giving me any trouble so far, so it's all good.

Is it just me or do those little lace insets look like alien heads?

I also started an EZ percentage sweater using this.

I got the yarn at SAFF last year, it is from a small farm in NC, one of the women dyes it herself in their oven.  For that reason dye lots don't really exist so I'm going to have to alternate skeins every other row.  It is a single ply yarn, so I know it won't hold up all that well once it's knit up, but I like the color so much I'm not going to worry about that.  It has all these great neutrals with some yellow and blue bits mixed in, I think it's going to look very autumn-y, which is perfect.

There is the vague chance that it's going to look like mud, but I can't do anything about that one way or the other so I'll just have to wait and see how it turns out. 

I'm not sure what kind of sweater I'm going to make, I might even make it a cardigan...but luckily I don' t need to decide what the top will be until I get to the underarms, so I have miles of stockinette to go before I have to make that decision.

Unintentionally stripey

I love this top.  Even if it is slightly striped.  In person, it's really not that noticeable.  It kind of looks like the shadow of the top of my pants underneath the top. 

This is definitely one of the more wearable tops I've made and I am absolutely going to use this yarn again - even given the weirdness of the dye lot issue.  It is SO soft and drapes SO nicely.  I adore it.

It's Sirdar baby bamboo, btw.

One of these things is not like the other

For real?  I mean really.

This is my Aleita Shell, which is almost done.  I stopped just short of done b/c I am worried that the armhole length is too long, so I left the top unfinished to make it easier to rip out & take a few rows off if need be.  It's also inside out, which is really neither here nor there, I just didn't think to turn it right side out before I dunked it in the water. 

In general, I'm really happy with it at this point.  The yarn is lovely to work with, soft & shiny - it's Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo.

I KNOW these are all the same dye lot.  There is no question about it at all.  I can only hope that they will dry to be the same color once again.  If not, I can only be glad that the spot in question is at the bottom and while I will not relish the idea of cutting the bottom off, ripping out the stitches, and knitting down in a matchier skein, I prefer that than it being one of the skeins in the middle. 

Fingers crossed, maybe it will dry normal.  If I don't have to redo the shoulders OR the bottom, I should have an FO pic for you soon. 

It is blocking on my new blocking board - I picked these up at target, I think it came in a pack that will make a 4'x6' grid, so hopefully it will even be large enough to block a circular shawl.  And they break up and slide right under a chair - an easy hiding solution - a must for city living!

The dogs and I just got caught in one of those sideways torrential downpours on the way back from the vet.  They were dripping.  I was dripping.  My shoes are squishing.  I had an umbrella, how is my hair soaking wet?  And do people NOT realize they are drenching you when they drive through large puddles on city streets?  These are the kind of questions I may never get answered.

Duke had to get IV fluids put in under his skin b/c he was dehydrated (he had lost two lbs since last friday - that's 10% of his body weight).  He is off food & water overnight and I have doggie drugs to give him instead of the kaopectate.  The vet thinks that should do it.  I certainly hope it does.

Yesterday I started test knitting a little nothing for Anne in Sundara Fingering in Burnt Cranberry - from the last seasons club.  It doesn't look like much yet, but I have high hopes for it!

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July everybody - if you're in the US, I hope you are having a grand day off with grilling and swimming and fireworks and all the other things that seem necessary on the 4th. 

Today things are distinctly un4thish here in Philly.  The fireworks will go on in that 'the show must go on' kind of way, but it's cool and rainy and that certainly doesn't bring out the crowds.  On the other hand, it makes for less crowds at the fireworks if we decide to go.

Our day started at 5 a.m. this morning with a dog having severe digestive track issues.  Poor little Duke - he just can't help being high maintenance.  The vet is closed today, of course, so we force fed him some pepto - I should have taken a picture of THAT - it was really funny, and we are sort of trapped in the house now b/c he needs to go out WAY too often for us to go anywhere for more than an hour or two. 

On the other hand, at least I don't have to take a day off from work to stay home with him...

I have some recent acquisitions to share with you.

I had been looking for just the right yarn to make Tempest and after much debating and flipflopping - thank you oodles to Heather who never fails to give me excellent advice no matter HOW MANY TIMES I ask about the same exact project - I landed on the Fearless Fiber's etsy site and Deb (kind and helpful as can be, as always) talked me through the real life color of a few choices I was debating between and I landed on these.

And if I'm brave enough I'm going to use all those little red buttons for this cardigan, red on grey & grey.  Maybe that makes me a tad boring, but I think it will be lovely.  OH - this is the merino/tencel blend (it's SO SHINY in person) and the colors are thundercloud and gunmetal (top).

I also picked up this while I was there - couldn't resist - her regular superwash sock in abstinence.

And after getting those socks from Jenny in Fleece Artist sock, I decided I needed to have some of my own, so I traded for this

YAY for yarn.  :-D

Doggie Update and ANOTHER fo

Duke is fine, really...he has arthritis in his front leg and his hips, not bad yet, but enough that it's time to start him on gluclosamine for pups and to have a pain killer on hand for those days when he is limping after a long walk.

It's sad to know he's middle aged at the ripe age of 8, but he really is, and of all the thing that we could have found out from the xrays mild arthritis is definitely one of the better options.

He was quite worn out after his ordeal yesterday.

I finished Alhambra - finally.  I did it as a test knit for Anne and then stopped to work on something else with only 2 repeats to go.  Pathetic.  But it's done now!

I love the colors in this.  The yarn is Yarnchef Creme Brulee in Cherry Tree.  LOVE IT.

Now I just have to wait 3 months for it to be cool enough to need a neck scarf.  Sigh.

Good Deeds Done Dirt Cheap?

When we finally moved my mother-in-law's belongings to our house in NC last year we ended up with two random things.  The mover called us about them, we found them and were supposed to fed ex them to the proper owner. 

Life happened, we lost the mover's number and the address to send them to and the next thing we know we're moving said things to philadephia.  I am happy to tell you that FINALLY last weekend I used the info on the outside of one of the packages to track down the proper owner of these things and they are on their way back to her.  She is thrilled to find out that these things haven't disappeared completely and didn't even question why it took us 9 months to contact her.  Realistically it's b/c they were in the storage unit with everything else until we moved and we forgot about them.  I feel bad that it took us so long to do the right thing, but good that we finally did the right thing and were actually able to find the owner.

Duke is at the vet for his xray today and Pixie is a little clingy, but other than that she's up to her normal doggy behaviors.

I finished my Goddaughter's sweater, and just in the nick of time b/c they will be visiting tomorrow - so as long as it fits we will get some FO pics on her then!

I love the buttons.

I detest the seaming.  I really don't see any reason to seam a sweater when it is SO much easier to do it seamless.  I would much rather do the calculations and convert the pattern.  I did, however, improve at the seaming as I went along.  Here's my first seam.

Not so hot.  Here's the next to the last one, it's a little blurry, but I think you can tell it's MUCH better.

My current bus socks are coming along.  I started these over Christmas & they got shoved to the bottom of a box during the move, I unearthed them recently & put them back in the line up.  It's interesting b/c this pattern (Aquaphobia) is supposed to prevent flashing & pooling - at the toe they are going along fine but then when I started increasing for the gusset they got all wonky.  It's all good, I like them, but I hope they go back to the other coloring after I turn the heel.

Sometimes the mail rocks

Sometimes something comes in the mail that's EVEN BETTER than pretty yarn. 

I know it's hard to believe, but it's true.

Yesterday I got these Random Acts of Kindness socks from Jenny. 

They are Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 (SO SOFT!) and the pattern is Froot Loop.

They are gorgeous variegated shades of red and the socks fit perfectly!  Thank you so much Jenny!