Last Year’s Projects

I’m going to tackle these unblogged finished projects in the order in which they were completed. I figure I may as well pick an order that makes sense!

The oldest finished project on my list (nine projects. This is going to take a little while!) is a Christmas gift that just went out to its new home a little over a week ago.


I’ve been working with Jeff, my personal trainer, at my gym for several years now. Not only does he help me keep this aging body in one piece and in good working order, he’s become a damn good friend.


Jeff is a Penn State grad, and was on the Pirates bandwagon earlier than anyone else I know (we’re talking 4-5 years ago. When that was just nuts.). When he and Kate got married a few years ago, I wove a blanket for them, and of course I ordered extra yarn to make sure I wouldn’t run out.

The navy in the blanket bled like it had never been set. So my good friend Stephanie offered to set the color on two of the leftover skeins of Cascade 220 so I could knit a scarf for Jeff. She couldn’t believe how much they bled either!


From there, it was off to the races. My usual 70 stitches in the round, 20-row stripes, cut the fringe before I start, and knit until I run out of the end-color. Zoom. Jeff and Kate both liked the gift. Probably because it means they can dress like the Nittany Lion for football games now.

Nittany Scarf 

Pattern: House Scarves, Year 1-2, from Charmed Knits 

Size: Scarf-sized 

Yarn: Cascade 220 

Colors: Navy, White 

Amount: 2 skeins of each color 

Needles: US 8, 16” from my KA Switch set 

Started: 16 January 2013 

Finished: 24 March 2013 

Mods: I don’t count stripes, just knit until I’m out of yarn. Is that a mod? Probably not.

WiP Wednesday

Ahh, another super-busy stretch with the part-time job. My regular job has re-started too, so there has been very little free time. Zoom!

But, between all of the crazy, there has been a little crafting here and there. I’ve gotten a little bit done on my Love Actually cowl. It’s a little hard to tell, but I’m into the third row of hearts!


The Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival was last weekend, and my cowl got to hang out at the SpaceCadet Creations booth while I was hanging out with the Hubster for his birthday on Saturday. So I busted out my Nittany Lions scarf and did some work on it. I’d say I’m awfully close to halfway through the second skein of each color.


In other news, I’ve been preparing a warp for the loom. I’m lucky to have lots of great extended family, but my Aunt and Uncle in Pasadena, Calif., have been fantastic about letting me crash at their house whenever I visit the left coast. So I’m making them a doubleweave blanket!


A little over a week ago, I caught a destash of a warping mill at a really great price, and I’ve used this project to make friends with it.


The warp is wound, and when I have a little time I can get it on the loom and start weaving. There are two chains, here’s the blue/green chain…


And all four colors together…


If you remember my blog post from my Doubleweave Blanket Class two years ago, this blanket is going to be very similar to the tweedy-looking blanket that Hedy made in class. The cobalt (royal blue) color is going to be the weft. I hope I can get it done quickly and it’s a big hit!

WiP Wednesday

OK! It’s been lots of simple knitting around here. When I’ve been watching the Pens or reading, it’s been my Harry Potter scarf. I’m into the second skein of each color and it’s moving right along.


But, because the scarf now requires a larger project bag, I needed a smaller project for last week’s trips to the theater. Last week started with a field trip with my former co-workers at Bloomin Yarns. When we visited Wexford Dry Goods, there was a really cool dishcloth they had in many colors. So I decided to give it a try!


It’s great for short stretches of knitting, and I’m happy with how it looks. There won’t be a ton of knitting time over the next two weeks, but we’ll see what happens!

WiP Wednesday: Re-entry

Back from Florida and trying to catch up. I managed to take a picture of my scarf last Wednesday, on the pool deck at my Dad’s house. Woo 4.5 stripes!


And here it is this morning. Yay 10+ stripes!

I
n other news, I got a big hunk of slipper knitting done before I left on my trip. It wasn’t trip-appropriate knitting, so it stayed home. Hopefully I can finish my pair this weekend. The first slipper is waiting for its exterior second sole, the second slipper is ready for decreases. Zoom!


Of course, the scarf is too big for travel, the slippers are too complicated, so I’ll have a new tiny project to entertain me during intermission at the theater tonight. Lots of littles happening around here, plus planning for sewing stuff. Oh, and two finished project posts coming right up!

WiP Thursday: Sunshine

I’ve been in Florida since Sunday. First it was three-plus days in Bradenton with the Hubster, now I’m finishing my first full day in Vero Beach with my Dad and Aunt Suzie.

I didn’t want to bring any of my other in-progress projects on this trip. I wanted simple. Period. Of course, I also needed something simple for the theater last Wednesday when the Hubster and I went to see Les Mis (stage show, NOT the movie!), so I cast on a Harry Potter scarf.


This is leftovers from my Nittany Lions doubleweave blanket from two summers ago, and the scarf will have the same recipient. Now you will excuse me while I go back to my book. There is sunshine to chase tomorrow, pictures to take, and Roaming Tigger escapades to document. I’ll be back!

Brrrrrrrr!

It’s freakin’ cold outside. At 2 pm, it’s 20 degrees with very few clouds, fresh snow and it’s just … COLD. The year I lived in Minnesota, we had a week where the high temperature for the week was -10 before windchill. It’s not that cold, but after eight years in SoCal? BRRR!!!

So I sent Joe outside in his jacket to model a finished object!

It started out as this


That’s the yarn with the parka I’m hoping will wear it with. Pretty damn close match, huh?

I started it on Christmas and finished knitting and blocking it on New Years Day.


I fringed it last night at Hurricane Knitters. Since I didn’t have anything on the needles. At all. Really. (that is no longer true, btw)


Pattern: Year 1-2 House Scarf from Charmed Knits
Yarn: Cascade 220. Two skeins each in 9487 (Puget Sound/blue/from Natural Stitches) and 8412 (Pear/gold/from Bloomin Yarns)
Needles: US 8 16” KA circs. Still lovin’ these needles, even though they got put away weird at some point and the cable needs to be steamed back into shape
Started: 25 Dec 2007
Finished: 1 Jan 2008
Mods: I finally got smart and did two things with this scarf (my third of this ilk): 1. I wove in all of the ends as I knitted. 2. The stockingette edge was curling on itself as I started and I decided to encourage this behavior, as seen in last week’s WiP Wednesday post. Made it much easier to wrangle, although once I got to the halfway point, I could roll it no farther. It still was easier to twist/untwist the thing this way.
Destination: It's a birthday gift (Jan 2 b-day) for the head coach I worked with last year at UCLA. My goal in life is to make it to the post office tomorrow to get it on its way to LA.

I have two more FOs ready to post. One has had its photo shoot, the other has not. I'll be back!

WiP Wednesday: Boring Edition

So I really only have one thing on the needles, and it’s the same Monkey sock as on Monday. It just has a heel now. Not particularly interesting.

I did do some blocking earlier this week, which brings my official Christmas knitting to a close. Here’s the second Jaywalker scarf, ready to wing it to Mississippi and become a Christmas gift for my best friend’s mother or sister.

And here’s Joe, modeling the as yet un-fringed Steelers Scarf 2.

Once that gets fringed, it is all ready to be given to my dad in 13 days or so.

I was over at my parents place a little bit earlier today, and my mom found a great scarf from my kid-hood. I totally remember this scarf, modeled by Bax.

It’s a kids-length scarf for sure. It’s actually just 40” long, excluding the scraggly-looking fringe. Oh, and how did my mom know that it was my scarf and not my brothers?

Yep. Somewhere in all of my quilting stuff, I have a whole zippy bag of those labels. How fun is that?

WWE Are The Champions

I’m being forced to watch the 15th Anniversary of Monday Night RAW, so please bear with me. And welcome to my 200th post!

Today was full of little to-dos. Took the first steps towards getting blinds on the upstairs windows. Did some minor cleaning up.

Got Steelers Scarf II and Jaywalker Scarf II blocking

Got bothered by door-do-door religion saleswomen (THEM: we’d like to share something positive from the Bible. ME: No thanks)

Put out a holiday decoration or two


Yep. Just 15 days until Christmas. Hard to believe!

Went out with my mom and acquired a Christmas tree … our first one! It’s the first time we’ll spend the holiday in the city where we live, so there really wasn’t a reason to get one before now

It’s still naked. It’s busy slurping up water, “relaxing” and drying (it’s been raining here for about 36 hours). I’ll start putting lights on it tomorrow and Scrooge and I (uh, I mean the Hubster and I) plan to decorate tomorrow night.

But the outdoor decorations are up and running


My grandfather made that Santa. My sister-in-law got it “restored” about two years ago and after a year’s hiatus, he’s back on the front porch roof here.

Oh, and I’m through the leg on my first no-purl Monkey sock in Yarn Love. I need to tink a round and a half because I thought I was through five repeats, not six. Oh well.


In other news, I burned the crap out of my tongue on dinner … not the tip like you’d do on hot chocolate, but the middle. It was lasagna. Good (frozen) lasagna but, obviously, too hot. What to do to make it feel better?

Eat ice cream, of course! So I went downstairs (it lives in the downstairs freezer so it’s not so convenient. Helps with the self restraint). It’s not as good as the similar composition Panda Paws I can get at the Lake (what would you expect from something partnered with the Pirates? Excellence?), but it’s made by Hagan and that family is OK with me b/c they had excellent taste in homes/architects. Anyhoo, my bowl of ice cream came back upstairs with me, and now I’m mildly ill because I’ve eaten too much.

But my tongue feels better!

Two Scarfs Are Better Than One

With apologies to The Boss, who I will be seeing up-close and in-person on Nov. 14 …

I went out walking the other day
Seen a little girl crying along the way
(Someone must have stolen her scarf!)
She’d been hurt so bad said she’d never love again
And you’ll find once again
(It’s warmer when you remember your winter accessories!)
Two scarfs are better than one
Two scarfs girl get the job done
Two scarfs are better than one!

Steelers scarf
Pattern: Year 1-2 House Scarf from Charmed Knits by Alison Hansel
Yarn: Cascade 220, 2 skeins each of black and gold
Needles: US8 (5.0mm) 16” bamboo circs from KA. These were GREAT needles and I would certainly recommend/buy again. Finish and joins were great.
Started/Completed: 6 Aug/25 Oct 2007

This was a great project that I could easily be convinced to do again. It’s longer than the pattern (90” including fringe) because I just knit until I ran out of one of the two colors (unsurprisingly, that turned out to be the black). I wet-blocked the scarf sans fringe and put the fringe on last Friday. The fringe is what really makes this scarf. I’m probably going to wear it to work tonight where I can show it off :) Hubster took a pic of me modeling the scarf, but Derf is a much better model.


Jaywalker Scarf
Pattern: A hybrid of Jaywalker Scarf patterns from Javajem and Turtlegirl

CO 44
RS: K4 (garter border), *K4, KFB, KFB, K4, DD* twice, K4, KFB, KFB, K4, K4 (garter border)
WS: K4, Slip 2 knitwise, put back on left needle, P2tog, Purl to last 2 before border, P2tog, K4

Yarn: One orphan skein of ShiBui in Marine, one skein of Claudia Handpainted in Limeade
Needles: US6 (4.0mm) Lantern Moon ebony circs 36” (I love the ebony so much, I didn’t care that they were 36” circs
Started/Completed: 14 October/1 November 2007

A great traveling project, but I don’t love the colorways, so it’s headed to Mississippi so my best friend can gift it to either his sister or mom (his choice). Project started with a lone skein of ShiBui that was discounted because it had no mate that would allow it to be a pair of socks.

As I have previously mentioned, I can’t abide yarn overs in most patterns, so I used the “true” Jaywalker increases of KFB rather than the YO used by Javajem and Turtlegirl. It blocked to 60" and I'm extremely happy with the fabric of the scarf.

I’m swatching for a new scarf, have started another Jaywalker scarf (border-free) in the Yummy yarn. But really? I need to start attacking the 11 (!!!!!!) sweaters in this house that need only finishing or a little knitting-plus-finishing to be wearable. Yikes.

Parallel Universes?

This is a long and rambling post. You have been warned.

Today has primarily been spent doing laundry. Yeah, I’ve done a lot of other little things, but mostly? Laundry.

Now don’t get me wrong. Laundry is actually a task that I enjoy. You start with dirty smelly wrinkled stuff and wind up with clean neatly folded nice-smelling clothes.

But riddle me this, Batman: At one point tonight, I started a load in my washing machine, on a setting that displayed at 1 hour, 25 minutes. So I set the dryer on a manual setting for 1 hour and 25 minutes. A while later, I headed back downstairs only to discover that the dryer had 5 minutes remaining and the washing machine had 18 to go. How is that possible? Parallel universes separated only by a slop sink? Seriously!

Between trips to the basement for Laundry purposes today, I did actually get a few other things done. One of which was blocking my Steelers Scarf!

It is currently happily drying in the 42 degree, 56% humidity on our enclosed, carpeted back porch. With the windows open so it can catch a breeze or two.

Both of the LYS’s that I considered to be “home” during the resurgence of my knitting career, first Jennifer Knits and then Beach Knitting, were not dyed-in-the-wool blocking fans. Yeah, you could steam something if it was giving you issues, but blocking was optional, not critical. You blogging folks (and apparently, all of my new-found knitting friends here in Pittsburgh) block WAY more than I ever have.

BTW, do any of you use a blocking board? Or do you just pin to carpet or a mattress or something? Lemme know. I'm Gadget Girl, but those suckers are expensive!

So when I was at Yarns Unlimited in Sewickley on Saturday (field trip with my mom. We also went to The Quilt Company. I’ll get to that eventually), I bought a blocking kit, complete with a whack of wires, more T-pins and a yardstick. After dunking the scarf in a sink with some Soak, squeezing out most of the water with some towels and transporting to the back porch, I used the T-pins to encourage the ends to not curl quite so much and I used the yardstick to make sure I was blocking the thing relatively straight. If it’s dry in the morning, I’ll take it with me and add the fringe so it will be ready for a real FO photoshoot.

I turned the heel on my first Jeweled Steps sock in the Steelers yarn last night and am now working on the leg. I’m hoping to get it essentially done on the drive up to the Lake tomorrow with my mom. We’re doing a 24-hour trip to close the cottage for the winter. Weather looks promising for sunset shots, so wish me luck.

Remember when we got grown-up furniture about six weeks ago? Well, we have finally finished transitioning the dressers. My stuff into the new one, Hubsters’s stuff into my old one and his old one into the dining room to hold tablecloths and the like. Progress!

OK, so now back to yesterday’s field trips.

Mom needed to to pick up a needlepoint pillow at the Porcupine in Sewickley, so we also checked out the stock at Yarns Unlimited. I got the blocking kit, a pattern and six skeins of yarn and yes, I’m too lazy to bust it out now for pictures.

The big issue is this: [YES, this is most certainly a PLEA FOR HELP/ADVICE!] Remember the Twizzle I got in August? Well, I got two coordinating skeins of Twizzle in a different colorway on Saturday. But now I’m thinking that I should use some Google-fu and find me two more skeins in the same colorway to make the Mountain Colors pattern that I picked up. What do YOU think?

We also went to The Quilt Company, but I’ll leave that for another day. Hope you had an enjoyable weekend, whatever you did!

TGIF/YPF: Frustrated Hausfrau Edition

It’s Friday, so I’ll lead with the Yarn Pr0n.


When I said I’d gotten some yummy yarn for the next Jaywalker Scarf, I wasn’t kidding.


It’s 80% bamboo, 20% merino, 100% soft and pet-able.


Who knew the lighting in my basement would make such good pictures. And that my Macro function would be happier here than anywhere else I’ve tried it. How ‘bout that?

Dove met its fate this morning

The Steelers yarn is ready to tackle its next task. Most likely Jeweled Steps from New Pathways. It was the runner-up pattern when I decided to go with Dove for this yarn. The gauge I was getting on Dove actually matches the gauge for this pattern, so let’s all hope for a happier ending, m’kay?

I have also been cranking on my Steelers Scarf.

I’m basically at 62”. I’m past where the “pattern” says I should bind off, but I like longer scarfs and I’ve already cut the tassels for it, so I’m going to go until I run out of yarn and will re-evaluate at that point.

The Jaywalker scarf is also getting a chunk of attention.

It’s perfect portable knitting and fits wonderfully in a sock knitting pouch or the like.


After the first few rows, it’s very easy to read the pattern so you don’t have to refer to anything, you can just look at it and know if you’re still doing the right pattern or if you have screwed it up.

In other news, I finally accomplished one of my long-standing house goals. Making the guest bed.

But first …


If you leave a bottle of Windex lying down on an absorbent surface, it will make a puddle. I used the hair dryer to dry it out a little bit, then went ahead with the bed-making


There is still some not-quite-organized junk in this room, but if you want to come visit, we now have a place for you to sleep!

But seriously. How pathetic that my big accomplishments for the day are laundry and making the guest bed. *sigh* Maybe next week I'll be able to get more stuff DONE, since the only thing on my calendar is to meet up with Sandy and Deb somewhere in W.Va.

I have a post prepared for over the weekend, so hopefully I’ll get something up over the next two days. Tomorrow I’ll be at the Big Ketchup Bottle all day for a Pitt game. Hubster and I are both working for The Worldwide Leader In Sports (espn). I’ll be in an open-air booth, so please send warm thoughts to me. If this cold front finishes coming through, I’m afraid I’ll be part popsicle by the final gun. Brrr!

WiP it Wednesday: WTF Edition!

You see this?


It’s the “Shop ‘till you Drop” bag in the new and improved 150-stitches cast on version.

There’s one problem with that.

Remember the pattern I was emailed on Sunday when I couldn’t find my pattern? It said that the larger bag in the 150-stitch size would require a third skein of yarn. I went to Bloomin’ Yarns today to pick up said skein. Unfortunately, they don’t carry the color of yarn I’m working with in allhemp6.

She did have another kit of the same bag. I got curious. I pulled the pattern out of the kit.

Larger size, cast on 125 stitches. Only needs two skeins of the yarn.

WTF!!!?!?!?!!!

This thing is going to spend some time at the bottom of my knitting bag. I can’t even look at it right now. Oh, and I have no idea how I’m going to proceed. Frog again and cast on the original 125 stitches? Somehow acquire another skein and proceed with the 150 I’m currently working with? Give the whole damn thing to the first person who asks for it? I don’t know.

Onward!


My Fleece Artist sock is almost ready for me to stockingette along to the toe. A few more decreases and I’m through the heel gusset. Whee!


The Steelers/Harry Potter scarf is cruising right along. It’s very fun and perfect on the mindless schedule. I’m a fan, and could probably be convinced to make another one without much effort.

So that’s about it from here. Today was errand-heavy. Maybe tomorrow I can start knocking stuff off of my “home” list and get some quilting or knitting done.