WIP Wednesday

These I am calling Pour Mama chausettes. For some reason, I am naming my socks in French. The goal is to finish these by Mother's Day. I am using Kroy FX Socks yarn. I really like the colorway, but the yarn feels a bit scratchy as it knits through my fingers. It is machine washable, so keeping my fingers crossed that it softens up for my mom's feet. My double pointed needles are 16" so the needles are shorter. I am going to order longer ones, as the little ones are difficult for my fingers to manage. I am using a beaded rib pattern, after 2 inches of 2x2 ribbing for the cuff.

I am off on a field trip tomorrow with the kids. Three hour bus ride there, three hours back. Lots of knitting time. My class is a lovely group, they require no behavior management. They like to sit low in their seats and chat with one another. Couldn't ask for a better group of kids! Though it will be a LONG day, I'm sure we will have fun and I'm actually looking forward to some knitting time. Here's to hoping that the weather holds for us; we sure have had a rainy spring season here.

Figured I'd better post to WIP Wednesday, as FO Friday would be less often. I don't seem to knock a project off the needles that quickly!

For more lovely WIPs, check these out at Tami's blog

Security Blanket

While driving to work today, I realized that my coffee table, not my tote bag, contained my current knitting project. Panic set in. I made it through the day, but interestingly enough, I thought about knitting more today than I do any other day. Add to the interest factor: I knit the same amount at work today that I do every day. Which is none.

If you are a knitter, do you carry your knitting when you know you will not have knitting time? Or is it just me?

Easter Weekend (including a FO)

A happy rider!

Easter Weekend 2011, we delivered the Xmas gifted riding lawnmower to its proud owner. We stored it for dad over the winter, as his shed is "down the hill" that is their back yard. As you can tell, he was pleased. I suspect that the minute we left Sunday afternoon, he skipped down the hill and was on it! While in the Quad Cities, we made a trip to Davenport, IA to see the level of flooding. We crossed over the flood on the skywalk to nowhere (it was initially built to provide entrance to a riverboat casino, but by the time it was completed, the riverboat had moved downriver). Oops. Still it has nice views, provides interior viewing and an exterior viewing deck, as well as stairs leading down on the other side. There was a patch of dry grass on the other side, where four of us posed (dad, me, mom, sister-in-law). While walking through the skywalk, we discovered that lovely sister-in-law has a fear of heights. She was a good sport and walked through with us (though she kept in the dead center and eyes straight ahead at all times!) Skywalk is visible in picture above.

We didn't see anyone crossing at that intersection! Black Widow Cowl (Spider and Web Lace Cowl) is off the needles, needing a good blocking and wardrobe being evaluated for proper wearing attire to accentuate this as an accessory. Only modification I made to the pattern was to omit the additional repeat of rows 1-5 on the web lace pattern. After blocking I will submit pictures for your approval. Happy belated Easter everyone! Hope yours was as Hoppy as ours!

(if you were curious, there is some stealth knitting going on, yes)

Happy Birthday Kelly!

Love you, my friend!

Clapotis Lamentis

Clapotis was rockin' on the needles. I am not a scarf knitter (I know, I used to not be a sock knitter), but this scarf I wanted. I scoured the projects of ravelry and decided upon sock yarn. I was knitting increases. It was a busy time and it didn't seem like loads of progress was being made, but progress was being made. Soon I started the straight rows. I got to the first drop stitch row. I dropped the stitch. It ran down. I helped it along. Lovely, lovely! Fun! Fun! Then I got to the next dropped stitch. I dropped the stitch. It ran down. I helped it along. It kept right on going! Yikes! The stabilizing stitch was one stitch away.

Hmmm. Two weeks was I into this scarf. This scarf I love, but am not a scarf knitter for. To frog or not to frog. That's a lot of fingering weight frogging. If I knotted the dropped stitch in this section, I could continue on my merry way and have one little tiny section (who would notice, really?) with a knotted spot. That's a lot of frogging. I continued on my merry way. Then it hit me. These stabilizing stitches are spaced. If one is off..... So I stopped and checked and yessir, indeedy, I believe they are off. Way early on, I goofed.

With tears in my eyes, I frogged Clapotis. 14 lovely inches of Clapotis. I cast back on but now only have one inch. So I did what any self-respecting frogger would do. I cast on a new project. A quickie that would boost my self-confidence, so that I could say "see, I'm a good knitter". That new project is called Spider and Web Lace Cowl. I'm using Knit Picks Felici in Chimney. Since it has dark gray, lighter grays (webby colors), black and a splash of red, my cowl will be named "Black Widow Cowl". I'm making good progress. No mistakes. Instant fix of knitter confidence.

Another good fix: the wearing of Shalom. The receiving of many compliments. You know you're a knitter when a cold front enters during the warmer days of spring and you think "Yes! I can wear that new knit today; it won't have to actually wait until next fall!"

A Fetching Good Knit! 2 FOs (2!)

Fetching, aren't they?

I started these Friday on the bus to wile away the transportation time of the field trip with my 5th graders. Knit the second of the pair on Sunday.

I love them!

Now I know what the fuss was about on Ravelry.

My modifications: I added 4 additional rows before the thumb, and added another cable repeat on the fingers. I based this on measurement, so my row gauge may have been off, as the pictures from the pattern and other projecters seem to hit at about the same spot on the fingers. I did not add a thumb gusset, but wishing I had. The thumb opening is not constricting or inhibiting, nor does it limit your range of motion, but you can certainly feel that there is no gusset. I might make my mom a pair of these for Easter. She has terrible arthritis in her fingers, which these won't keep warm, but at least her hands would be warm...?

Ok, that was just a weird sort of rationale to knit mom a girly pair of fetching, wasn't it?

The recently discovered macro setting on my camera shows a bit too much detail (the pasty, hairy arms!) Really, my arms do not resemble a gorilla's. Shalom is finished and ready to be blocked. It has met Boots' approval: Once blocked and buttoned, I will update pictures. As to the 2nd Annual Knitting Crochet Blog Week: I had a blast with that! Was great fun to wait for the inspiration on assignments and read everyone else's posts. "Met" many new blogs and their owners through the week. Received comments (which I look forward to, as do all bloggers, but rarely get). I am definitely in for next year! In fact, hoping another blog assignment pops up before then, as it was a fabulous way to connect with other knitter bloggers. I did not do my post assignments this weekend, but it was a busy busy weekend. We had a birthday party for grandbaby (his First!!) to attend. Temperatures soared yesterday, and we spent the day with many out-of-doors projects, including getting the golf cart out and about. And today, the weather has turned to crap again. No worries: we are on the downslide of winter and upslide of spring now, for which fetching, new, fingerless mitts are perfect. And now, Clapotis will hop onto my needles. Stay tuned.

And Now for Something Completely Different: 2AKCBWDay5

And now for something completely different. This is an experimental blogging day to try and push your creativity in blogging to the same level that you perhaps push your creativity in the items you create. There are no rules of a topic to blog about (though some suggestions are given below) but this post should look at a different way to present content on your blog. This can take one of many forms, but here a few suggestions:

• Wordless, photographic post
• Video blog post
• Podcast
• Cartoon/sketch of an idea
• Write about a subject from a different perspective (for example, you could write about a day in the life of a knitted sock from the point of view of the sock).
• Interpretive modern dance (why does someone always suggest this?
• A poem or piece of rhyming verse
• Stop motion animation

I think that I shall never see

A yarn as lovely as on my nee(dles)

.

Oh Yarn! My Yarn! Our fearful sweater is done;

Our needles have weather'd the project; the prize we sought is won;

The blocking is near, the bells I hear, the knitters all exulting;

While follow eyes the steady hand, the cabling grim and daring;

But oh heart! heart! heart!

Oh the bloody dropped stitches in red,

Where on the blocking board my Sweater lies,

Frogged cold and dead.