12
Mar
Posted by Melissa in knit, knitting, socks, yarn. 2 Comments
I am loving knitting socks now. I sorta understood the love when I was knitting them before one at a time, but now that I actually have my first finished pair boy am I loving them. They are so comfortable that I had to rinse them out this morning so that they would be ready for me to wear tonight once I got home from work. I am not brave enough to wear them with my tennis shoes at work, but I am planning on trying them out with my Birkenstocks on Sunday when I run my couple of errands .
I have managed to get through the first repeat of the Diagonal Lace Socks (scroll down) from my previous post and am loving the pattern – it is so easy to memorize, but yet complicated enough to be entertaining. Everyone at work who saw me knitting on them during my lunch loved the yarn and the pattern. I was slightly worried that the variegation of the STR would cause the pattern to be lost, but between the simple lines of the pattern and the pooling of the STR the pattern is actually showing up very well.
I am almost to the last buttonhole on the February Lady Sweater that I am knitting with the I Love this Wool in Deep Teal (actually deeper in color than the photo in the link) from Hobby Lobby. I am loving the style of the sweater and how well written the pattern is. Plus I am in love with the color and yarn. I am very excited to actually finish this sweater so I may have to start working on it more frequently. Right now I add a couple of rows every couple of days, but my dad brought me home 2 gorgeous necklaces from Hawaii (photos tomorrow hopefully) that I think will go very well with the sweater. I plan on looking through my closet, but right now I think I will have to take the sweater and at least one of the necklaces with me to purchase shirts to go under it. I am thinking both a white and a black short sleeved shirt. Since I wear either a sweater or a sweatshirt year round (yes, even in Alabama) I think that the short sleeved shirts would be perfect. I may have to get some long sleeved shirts come next winter or I may just start wearing my winter jacket. Imagine that – actually wearing a jacket. If I did that more frequently I might not freeze so much during the winter (I tend to just wear a hooded grey sweatshirt instead). I am also still working on my Purple Bountiful Bohus which will also work very well with the black shirt and maybe the white – not sure since I am using more of an off white yarn in that, but once it is done I will see – if not I will just get an off white shirt too.
I am also still working on all of my Christmas 2008 knits – since only my mom knew about them I am going to just try to finish them for this Christmas. Because of our planned trip to Disney at the end of January of 2010 we are not planning on doing a big Christmas and even though knitted items cost a fair bit both in time and money I am going to use them. Now if I can just finish them. To recap them for ya’ll (and also so I don’t forget about them) they are a scarf in Michigan State colors for my brother-in-law, a Serephim Shawl in KnitPicks Shadow in the Sunset Heather color for my sister, a pair of my own design slippers (yes there will be a pattern, but I have to finish them first) for my dad in University of Michigan colors (can you tell that the Michigan State vs University of Michigan game is fun for my family), a Unity sweater for my mom in Omega Sinfonia in the Ladrillo color (the link is to Crafts, Etc! since I could not figure out the Omega website) (she is allergic to wool), and a poncho for my niece out of the Cotton Fleece I bought to make her a color work sweater (definitely the wrong yarn for my first color work attempt).
Well it is late (12:30 am my time) and I really need to go to bed if I am going to make it to work at 9 am in the morning – especially since we went from the mid to upper 70s to the upper 30s to low 40s overnight. I almost cannot force myself to get up – the cold weather makes me just want to burrow into the covers and read and nap.
11
Mar
Posted by Melissa in FOs, family, knit, knitting, socks. Leave a Comment
Wow, a finished object. I love knitting 2 socks at once – no more SSS. Now if I can just get the single socks paired up I will be getting somewhere.
Project Details:
Pattern: Leyburn Socks
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM P324
Needles: US 2 bamboo circulars
Mods: Knit both socks at one time – love this new technique. I also changed the toe to use Judy’s Magic Cast On instead of the pattern toe just because I find it to be easier than the one called for. I also knit a very short cuff since I always wear ankle socks and knew that anything to high would drive me crazy. I also learned a new bind off technique, the Knit-One Purl-One Bind-Off (scroll down) and love how stretchy it is.
Verdict: Love, love, love. Put them on when I finished binding-off at 1:20am this morning and have only taken them off long enough to get dressed.
I love knitting 2 socks at a time so much that I have already cast on a new pair of socks. Using the same needles (have only the one size in circulars for socks, at least until my order from Knit Picks gets here. I ordered the US 1’s Harmony’s since most of my sock yarn needs either US 1 or 2 for my gauge.) I am using Socks that Rock in Pink Granite in Lightweight and am starting toe-up again (love the magic cast on). I was struggling to find a pattern that I wanted to do though since I wanted something simple, but not too simple. Then Wendy updated her blog with a preview of her upcoming book Socks From the Toe Up and included a free pdf of one of the easier patterns – Diagonal Lace Socks (scroll down) and I knew that it was meant to be. I am almost done with the toe and cannot wait to start working the pattern. I already know that this is a book I will have to purchase since I prefer to work socks toe up and since I love Wendy’s patterns so much.
On to a small life update. My mother is healing really well. They believe that she will be healed enough to start the rehab once she hits the 6 week mark, but returning to work will be dependent on how well and fast she gains back strength in the arm and shoulder. My sister is doing well – she had a long discussion with her OBs nurse practicioner and it was discovered that her high blood pressure readings were most likely due to a new nurse not using the correct size cuff (she needs the large cuff and the new nurse was using the smallest available). They will still be keeping an eye on it, but she doesn’t have to take the medicine after all. I cannot believe that she is already 14 weeks along. It seems like she told us just days ago. I cannot wait for her to find out what she is having so that I can start buying things for the baby. Even though my sister saved all of Natalie’s stuff we will have to buy quite a bit for the new baby, even if it is a girl, since Natalie was born in April and it looks like they will do the C-section around August 31st (even though she is not due until September 8th). Well this is getting to be a fairly long post and I really want to go so I can listen to Lime & Violet (trying to get caught up again), so I will catch ya’ll later.
edited to change the photo to a flickr based one
20
Feb
Posted by Melissa in family. Leave a Comment
I try to not ask for to much from my readers, but right now I could really use some prayers. Wednesday night my sister called to let us know that at her monthly visit to her OB that her blood pressure is too high and that if it doesn’t come down in 2 weeks she will have to go on blood pressure medication. This is on top of the horrible morning sickness she is dealing with. We are hoping that it comes down so that doesn’t happen. Then yesterday at work my mother slipped and fell in the stockroom (we both work at the same place) and was taken to the emergency room with severe pain in her right shoulder. We were all thinking maybe a dislocated shoulder, but once I made it to the hospital I found out that she actually broke the shoulder. They are saying that it could take 6-12 weeks to heal and then she may have to continue physical therapy beyond that. This means that she will not be working for the foreseeable future since there is really nothing in retail that you can do with a broken shoulder. The worst part of this is that my dad is in Hawaii for business until Wednesday of next week, so I will be alone in taking care of her until then. Since it is her right shoulder she cannot do hardly anything for herself (she’s right-handed) so this is going to be interesting. Try to catch ya’ll later.
12
Feb
Posted by Melissa in knitting, socks. Leave a Comment
Hey ya’ll, I have managed to get to within 1 or 2 repeats of doing the heels for my Leyburn Socks and am fairly excited since I have only been adding on average about 2 rounds a day since they have become my purse project. Having a purse project is great, except since I work in retail I only normally have my break and/or lunch to work on them and most of the time I can only use about 5 minutes of either to work on them. I am going to pull them out tomorrow night though and see if I can at least get both heels done since I really don’t want to attempt working the heel (short-row, never attempted before) on 2 circulars while at work or in the car. Hopefully I can get them done and post another progress photo tomorrow or Saturday.
In other news, I have managed to start yet another project. I recently purchased the yarn for the February Lady Sweater (ravelry link) and just could not stand to wait. So even though I already have 4 sweaters on the needles (2 for me, 1 for mom, and 1 for Natalie), plus countless socks, scarves, shawls, etc. I started another one. I am still about 20 rows from the eyelet increase row and am already loving it – I have the perfect buttons in my button bin and even without having them in front of me managed to work the perfect size buttonhole. I was impressed with myself, especially since I managed to make the first one on the first try – using the method provided in the pattern.
Well, gotta work early tomorrow, so had better get around and go to bed. Catch ya’ll later.
1
Feb
Posted by Melissa in knitting, socks. Leave a Comment
Wow having the card reader makes taking photos and uploading them so much easier that I will hopefully be posting more photos. Here is the progress photo of my Leyburn Socks (link in previous post) that I promised ya’ll.
Now it is time to go to bed so catch ya’ll later.
