Trouble in paradise?

I felt that the collar of my sweater was going smoothly even with my frustrated shunning of the provisional cast-on. (Maybe I shouldn’t try to learn new things while maintaining conversations & watching “Glee”….)

Then last night I got to the part where you join the hem to your current round of knitting. Not a big deal w/o the provisional c/o in my opinion, it just took freaking forever. And by forever I mean I spent from 10:30-12:15 working on it. It looks really cool but wow is it time consuming!

This morning I did the decrease sleeve cables and I counted everything out correctly (so I thought; it all came out with the right stitches…) but according to the numbers on the pattern I am 1 stitch short somewhere. So either the pattern is lying (which I think it is) or I did drop a stitch somewhere.

From what I’ve read the rest of the sweater is pretty easy and fast going so maybe I’ll be done by next week! Crossing my fingers because I’d love to wear this for Christmas AND have a knitted outfit for Kara!

Photos!

Picture day! It’s amazing how my intentions to photograph my new yarn can be blind sided by serious cuteness and hat finishing!

Today I wrapped up my work on my second qiviut hat. I cast on 150 sts in 3×2 ribbing and used US size 3 needles. It fits nicely over Andy’s ridiculously thick hair. I told him that from now on he has to wear it every where he goes!

YARN!!!

This is what I picked up from Linden Hills Yarn over the weekend.

I want to make a hat for myself with this!!! Or maybe mittens….but probably a hat.

I’ve seen a few people work Autumn Leaves in the round as a dress and want to test it out. Otherwise I have a few other ideas for these colors as a Christmas outfit for Kara!

Had to go with the Smooshy sock yarn. After all I did make
out of the Spring Tickle color and another pair in Flamingo!

But before I do any of that I am going to knit myself a sweater! Just in time too. It began snowing today and I think it’s the kind that will stick around!

I win!

I just finished up my writing for NaNoWriMo!!! Officially I have 50,172 but I know that my novella could definitely be longer. Especially once I get it cleaned up and organized and linear. But I did it! 50,000 in one month! Suuuuuper excited!

P.S. I will have to post tomorrow about the goodies I picked up in Mpls!

D.C Me and Jax Thing

I finally had a semi-quiet few minutes to photograph, upload and blog about these two things! The first is the hat I knit for my uncle. It’s aptly called D.C Me because, you guessed it, he’s from D.C! I’m so clever!

Here’s Andy modeling it for me; what a good sport. I also (not so secretly) think he looks like Goofy with saggy ears.

And real quick here is the almost finished Jax Thing. I tried and tried and tried to crochet it but it was kicking my butt. So here’s my improv knitted version! Sans eyes and nose though…

Jax Thing

I finally quit procrastinating and knit the arms for Jax’s monster yesterday! So now the only thing he needs are eyes, nose and claws for his hands. Oh, and maybe some hair on the back of his head Right now he’s rockin’ an awesome goatee and pom pom fluffs on his head. As soon as we get a face constructed I will post pics!

Yesterday morning I wound up the rest of my Cascade yarn and I’m super excited to get started on my sweater! Not only that but Friday night I ordered fabric from Etsy to make skirts for Kara and my aunt’s baby in utero!

The Cat Returns

Andy and I love Miyazaki films. We own “Spirited Away”, “Nausicaa”, and “Howl’s Moving Castle”. They’re just so cute and funny. This week at the library I saw that they had “The Cat Returns” and had to pick it up.

So far my favorite thing about this is that Cary Elwes is The Baron. His entire demeanor reminds me of his character from “The Princess Bride” which just makes me love it more!

All because a knitter said ka-choo

Tonight instead of knitting at my knit date I wound up my angora sock yarn. I really do need a yarn swifter. I have angora fuzz in my nose, my eyes, my throat…essentially everywhere and it’s driving me nuts. I’ve been itching my nose constantly even after scrubbing my face with soap. I secretly wonder if my cat is going to attack me in the middle of the night because of it. *sigh*

Anyhow. My uncle’s hat is currently pinned to block the earflaps. Since the Qiviut is thin even if I were to hold 4 strands together, I am going to use leftover cream colored Alpaca to make an I-cord to attach to the earflaps.

I visited the yarn store in town today. They are currently carrying Cascade 220 in Bulky Alpaca, sock yarn and wool. Since I was going on a whim I didn’t know how much of anything I would need. I fell in love with the Alpaca especially this green (558 I believe). But I couldn’t find a pattern I liked enough that had straight up instructions to use the alpaca so I had to forgo those plans. Instead I came across a pattern I bought last year from Stitch Diva Studio. Scabbard is gorgeous and I was so excited to knit it last year before I learned I was pregnant. So right at the end of the work day I sent Andy to the yarn store to pick me up yarn, although sadly not the alpaca. (When I work the numbers out I really want to use that green for the Evergreen Sweater Tunic from Sensual Knits.) They were out of the heathered red so he picked up a med baby blue color. Now I have 5 more hanks of yarn to wind up. Wooo….

Speaking of which. I was looking up yarn winders/swifters on Etsy and there are these little handheld things…

Nostepinne
It looks really cool but I have never ever seen one before or heard of anyone who has used it. But I’m interested in how exactly it works.

If anything I’m sure it beats doing it with the yarn wrapped around your legs and your pinchy fingers accidentally flicking your ball onto the ground where your cat will pounce it!

Flap me

After binding off, ripping out, binding off again and ripping out AGAIN I was ready to set fire to the precious Qiviut hat last night. It felt that no matter what I did, the b/o edge was to tight to properly stretch to get over anybody’s head who wasn’t a 3 year old. Luckily Kara had a munchie attack so I was able to sit and stew and think while she was eating and 20 minutes later I was able to look up a better way to b/o.

I ended up doing the sew bind off which I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I’ve done it before and remember how luxuriously stretchy it came out. So last night I painstakingly ripped out the b/o edge for the last time and carefully did one side in the sewn bind off and it turned out fabulous. Phew! Now that the front/back are bound off I can start work on the earflaps tonight! It shouldn’t take me long. I figure that one more repeat of the cable pattern and then decreasing to make the bottom of the flap like a rounded V.

Now that my hat is in the final stages of being done, I have reserved my afternoons for speedily working on my NaNoWriMo project. Yesterday I managed almost 2000 words and I’m hoping to keep up that pace! Or slack off another day this week and make up for it on the weekend

Once the insanity of November is over I am hoping to knit kids’ Christmas gifts. What exactly I’m not sure, I want to finally knit a sweater for Jax, but it all depends on how thin I want to spread myself

Argh!!!

Last night I was happy to b/o on the front and back of my hat and prep the earflaps to be knitting today. Then as I was having Andy try on the hat, I discovered that because I didn’t break the yarn in between b/o and continuing to knit the earflaps, it created a tight and not expandable band. Which means that I have to rip out my bound off row which will be a huge pain in my butt. And not only that but I will have to bind off the front and break the yarn, knit the earflaps, break yarn, knit the back, break yarn, and then knit the second earflap.

Hat Update

I’m not sure why I thought it would take me forever to knit this hat, but it’s going along pretty smoothly. As of last night I have about 5 inches knit (measuring flat from top to bottom) and two full repeats of the Dew Drop Cable done. I’m using the numbers my uncle gave me along with Andy’s head to calculate my progress Doubling the yarn has made a nice thickness to the hat (although Andy doesn’t feel that it’s super thick, which it shouldn’t be…) and the cable is turning out nicely on the sides. I always forget to take pictures of my WIP’s so that’s why this post is pictureless This afternoon I am hoping to get another inch done and then I will see if I need to knit more before I b/o the edges and begin the earflaps. I am beginning to think that if I have enough yarn to 4 strand the earflaps then I will so that they are extra thick and warm!

As far as NaNoWriMo goes this is my progress:
View my progress report

I am hoping to get a lot of catch up done this morning!!! What is constantly throwing me off is the 300 word discrepancy between what my word count is and what the word count is on their site.