FO Report: Fetching

Pattern: Fetching

Yarn: KnitPicks Swish Superwash in Fired Brick
Needles: KnitPicks Options, U.S. size 6
Started: December 13, 2007
Finished: December 14, 2007

Modifications: Just minor, really. I added a few rounds between the cuff cables and the thumb to allow for more coverage of my wrists. I knit enough extra to do an extra cable twist before casting off, to cover my fingers a little more. (Apparently, I have long hands.) I also didn't care for the curling of the edge after casting off, so I ripped back a few rounds, and reknit the last 3 rounds in garter stitch before casting off.

These were meant to be a gift for Monkeyboy's speech teacher, but I didn't know if she would appreciate a handknit gift, or if she were the type to wear fingerless gloves. Sometimes it's hard to tell that sort of thing about some people, you know? So she got a tin of cookies instead (because, really, who doesn't love cookies?), and I got a pair of Fetching!

Almost

The Apple socks (aka TechGuy) are almost finished. Sweetpea and Monkeyboy have both decided Mommy MUST MAKE SOCKS for them!!!! Also.... they both want them at least knee high. How many days 'til Christmas?

FO Report: Debbie Bliss Sailor Collar Cardigan

Pattern: Sailor Collar Cardigan by Debbie Bliss from Sirdar Baby Knits #275

Yarn: Phildar Phil Luxe

Needles: Knitpicks Options, size 3 and 1

Started: May 27, 2007

Completed: November 27, 2007

Modifications: None.

The pattern called for Sirdar Snuggly 4-Ply, but I substituted the Phildar yarn because it was what I could find locally that would work. I don't remember why I chose not to order the Sirdar yarn online - I think I wanted to swatch first before I decided? Anyway, I wanted a washable yarn since I made this for Sweetpea, and I do expect her to wear it, which means it will get quite messy occasionally. I found it cheap in a LYS, and I think it was on clearance. The label is yellowed which gives some indication of the age. I used 5 skeins, and almost had to rip out my swatch to have enough yarn to seam it together. I had mere inches left when I was finished!

This took me FOREVER to finish, but it was too cute to abandon completely! Although, I don't think I ever want to knit another bobble in my life. As I posted a couple of weeks ago, there are 262 bobbles on this cardi. I don't know whether it was the way I knit them, or if it was the nature of the acrylic, but they all wanted to sink through to the wrong side. To correct this (because trust me, I couldn't leave them looking like that), I took some white sewing thread and made a "X" stitch, or an asterisk looking stitch, on the backside of each one, then pulled the thread tight. I then secured the thread, cut it and moved on to the next bobble. This forced the bobbles to the right side. If you need more detail or technicalities of how I did this, feel free to ask. Sweetpea loves her "pwutty sweatah" and has wore it every day since it finished blocking. In fact, it was a struggle to keep her from wearing it to bed. I told her the sweater needed some "rest" too ;)

FYI - The book is discontinued, but I have seen it on ebay before.

Ice Storm

We have survived yet another Oklahoma ice storm, although this one is supposed to be the worst in the state's history. For those not in the area, it started out with freezing rain this past Sunday morning. By the middle of the night Sunday night, Monday morning, you could hear cracking noises outside. Around 3 or 4 in the morning, branches started falling out of the trees, and continued through the day Monday. These photos are of one of the trees in our front yard and of our back yard. The last photo is of one of our neighbor's house. By Tuesday the ice was starting to melt off of the trees, so they didn't have so much weight to bear. Unfortunately, so much damage has been done we are afraid we may lose at least one of our trees completely. We have five big trees on our lot, all of them about 50 years old. We love these trees, and they were a big factor in why we fell in love with our house.

Fortunately we never lost power, other than a flicker here and there. The power company came through last spring and buried all of the lines in our neighborhood, and from what we hear, we were one of the few neighborhoods in the area not to lose power. Some neighborhoods have been fighting the power company, including lawsuits, to prevent the power lines being buried because they don't want the green boxes in their front yards. Personally, we would much rather live with a green box than be without heat and lights, especially with having two young children.

My office, in fact the entire building my company is in, is shut down, probably until the middle of next week. They were able to get in and move our servers off site to someplace with power so I can log in to the network and get critical work done. However, we don't have Internet access (or cable TV) at home yet. My husband's company re-opened yesterday, and day care opened today. I am hanging out at my my husband's office today getting caught up on work and life in general.

All in all, we are very thankful we sustained no damage to our house or cars and have had power and heat. Hopefully they can restore power to as many as possible today and tomorrow; they are predicting another storm coming in tomorrow night through Saturday. It is to be more freezing rain and/or 1-6 inches of snow.

FO Report: Dancing Widdershins

Pattern: Widdershins

Yarn: KnitPicks Dancing, color Tap(discontinued)

Needles: KnitPicks US size 1

Started: August, 2007

Finished: December 4, 2007

Modifications: As with my first pair of Widdershins, I knit these with a different gauge yarn than called for in the pattern. I used Wendy's short row toe (my current favorite), and adjusted the number of stitches throughout the pattern. I knit the top of the foot and the leg in a 3 x 1 rib. You can't tell in the picture, but they are fairly short - only about a 4 inch cuff. I really don't care for this yarn, so I didn't want to knit with it any longer than necessary.

In new sock news, last night I cast on for Tech Guy Socks for BHE for Christmas. I'm doing the apple logo, since he is a Mac-ophile. Actually, I'm winging the pattern to match my gauge and to knit them toe up, and I think I will have to resize the apple to be in the right proportion. I'm using KnitPicks Risata in Black and the apple will be in Buttermilk. I'm about 5" up the foot. The sock seems huge so far, but I'm used to knitting socks for my size 9 foot, not for a men's size 11! I'll get pictures this weekend.

Also, Sweetpea, in all of her 2 yo sweetness, wants me to make her some "stocks." She's always trying to pull her socks as high up as possible, so I think I'll knit her some knee highs! How cute will that be!

Secret Pal

I know I told you all about my upstream Secret Pal, but I think at the time, my downstream Pal hadn't received her final package, and I didn't want to spoil the reveal. Of course, time went by, and it slipped my mind, yada, yada, yada



Anyway, my downstream pal was Monika, who lives outside of Austin. She has a really cool job working behind the scenes for a lot of the music festivals! I had a great time spoiling her, and I hope she had fun too :)

Advent Calendar

I've seen this on a couple of blogs so far, and I'm sure some of you have too. I still wanted to share in case there's someone out there who has missed it.

Christmas Advent Calendar

FO Report: Alligator Scarf

Pattern: Alligator Scarf by Morehouse Farm

Yarn: Morehouse Merino, Everglades

Needles: Size 5 KnitPicks Options

Started: October 24, 2007

Completed: November 14, 2007

Modifications: I added two extra repeats to the Main Body section of the pattern to make it a bit longer, and worked the tail decreases one stitch in from the edge, rather than right on the edge.

I ordered this kit from Morehouse Farms because BHE saw it in an ad in one of my knitting magazines and commented on it. He never comments on anything, so I thought it would make a pretty good Christmas gift for him. This was really pretty fast, I just couldn't knit on it anytime there was a chance he could walk in the room. In fact, one night he thought I was sick because I heard him coming and stuffed it under the quilt that was on my legs. When he walked in the room, I was just sitting there, watching TV, and NOT KNITTING!!! Close call!

My only complaint was the yarn seemed to have a lot of VM in it, and even though I was getting gauge (stitch gauge only, the pattern didn't give row gauge), it was looking like it was going to end up a good 10-12 inches shorter than the pattern said. After a good soak and blocking, I got the correct length, and the yarn is considerably softer. I've ordered KnitPicks Swish DK (washable!) to make another for Monkeyboy.