Oh Sunday...

That is all I could think of tonight as I curled up on the couch with a glass of Merlot, my knitting and the TV remote to watch TrueBlood; I was very excited when season one came out as I had read the first book, but as time passes I find the show is starting to get stupid. But I digress.

Remember how I said "What else can possibly go wrong?" in yesterday's entry? Yeah, I ended up sewing on one of the sleeves inside out. So that bring my grand total of screw ups on the single baby cardie to like 15 I think. But it's finally done and I've moved on to the second one. I'm hoping this one will go with less issues. I'll be modifying the pattern just a tiny bit too because frankly I hate the way the shoulder seems looks on the first one. So I'll be keeping the stitches on scrap yarn so I can kitchener them together later. And this time I'll be sewing the left and right borders to left/right pieces a few rows in. None of this fiddle with it and try to make it work stuff. On the bright side Suzie loved the cardie and even the ladies at the yarn shop liked it. So that's always a plus. Oh! and as luck would have it, the shop only has one skein of the yarn I'm using left. So yay! for having all the yarn I need and then some. Suzie wants me to make hats if there is enough yarn left...I think I can manage that somehow. Or more socks...whichever.

Aside from going to the yarn shop we stopped by Shipwreck beads, mostly so my Mom and Suzie could get beads for shawls and scarfs and whatever else they use them in. As I was looking around, getting steadily bored and overwhelmed by the sheer size of the place, I decided that maybe I should get myself some new beads for the sock design I made. You know, the one I have to re-design 'cause the stitches aren't doing what I want them to? Yeah, that one. The beads I'm using now are clear so they would show up in the knitting, the new ones are milky and feel like they have a matte finish on them. These ones will certainly show up in the knitting.

And we ended the day with a little road trip through the middle of no where (well, it felt like that to me because it was a back road going through farms and forested areas) to avoid the huge back up on I-5. It might have taken us longer to get back home but the scenery was pretty. We spotted a large sign that said "Cherries, $1.00 a bucket" and chirped that we wanted some cherries, please. We passed three more signs and still saw no stall on the side of the street. At this point my sister demanded to know where the hell the cherries were and I chimed in with "You know what, they can keep their bucket of lies!" It all went down hill from there. We blame it on the lack of food in our systems....delusional with hunger we were. But we finally found the blasted cherries and purchased at least $10 all together; and they were delicious! totally worth the wait.

The family is leaving for Texas on Thursday...in just 2 days! *blissful sigh* That means 4 days of it just being me in the house, by myself, with the cat....although one of those days I'm going to Sock Summit (insert excited internal squeal here) so the cat will have the house to herself for a whole day. I might lock her up in her room though so she doesn't get into a ton of trouble and make a huge mess; that is something I certainly wouldn't want to come home to. And then it's off to Texas myself to meet up with the chaoticness that is my family. I wonder if I could convince the pilots to just drop me of in like Arizona....hmm....

Halfway to the finishline!

(For some reason this entry was marked as draft, so it was never posted for you guys. It's about the horribleness that was those two baby cardigans I knitted last August.)

Yeah, I'm halfway to the finish line, meaning I have almost one cardigan finished all the way. That is if the damned thing start behaving itself. Oh yeah, when I said "baby cardigan, that will be easy!" I was definitely speaking too soon. This thing has had more mistakes in it then a first graders math paper. Here is what I all messed up on!

• Cast on the wrong amount of stitches for the back 3 times,
• mess up shoulder & neck shaping on back,
• add neck shaping onto arm hole shaping on left front, undo it,
• cast on right front with wrong needle size,
• knit one more row with smaller size then I am supposed to,
• cast on wrong amount of stitches for sleeve 1,
• knit one sleeve more often then the other,
• don't pay attention to what decreases I'm doing,
• tink back both sleeves because of messed up shoulder shaping,
• undo sleeve 1 all together,
• mess up on final shaping again anyways,
• knit too many rows for left border,
• forget to put in button holes for right border,
• knit not enough rows for right border,
• pick up and knit too many stitches for neck band
• pick up and knit 22 of those neckband stitches with a randomly long end thread,
• then knit 2 rows with said random long end.

Oh yeah, this cardigan had just been a walk in the friggen park! And to think I have a whole another cardigan to go.
Oh, did I mention that I also miscalculated the amount of yarn I need for both, so now I'm having to go back to the yarn shop with the lady that commissioned them (alright, so that's not so bad, after all it is a yarn shop) so we can buy another skein.

Honestly it can't get worst from here.

Spoke to soon

I was asked by a family friend to knit two baby cardigans for a friend of hers. No problem! I thought. They're for babies, hence they are small and easy to make. WRONG!

I have come to the sleeve part of the first cardigan and figured to save myself time I would knit them at the same time. In hindsight that was a bad idea. Instructions say to "Work 41 rows, inc 1 sts at each end of 5th and every following 18th row." I should have 50sts in the end. So I started knitting, then realized that I might want to start marking off my rows so I know when I need to increase. After a bit I counted my rows in my knitting only to realize that without paying attention I had knitted on sleeve 1 more then sleeve 2. Easy enough fix; I just had to knit the same rows on sleeve 2 and I'd be okay. Mind you, this happened like 3 times. I finally had all my increases done, and was told to "work without further increases until pieces measures 6inch" Done! At this point I was feeling confident and proud. I could totally get everything knitted tonight. Totally.

Then I was supposed to decreases one stitch on each end of the next 8 rows for the shoulder shaping. I should have 34 stitches on the needles afterwards. I lost track of my decreases and figured that as long as I was doing one decrease at each end I could just count stitches and figure out where I was. Yeah....sleeve 1 contained 31 stitches and sleeve 2 contained 36 stitches. Now I'm feeling a bit frustrated, and decided to just tink back each sleeve until I get back to 50 sts, and I'll do the decreases again. Which brings us to now....sleeve 1 (which is the one that has been tinked back already) now has 43 stitches...and I have tinked back all the decrease rounds. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY OTHER 7 STITCHES?! I can only assume that aliens took them away. The same aliens that keep drinking my beer, 'cause I had a full bottle when I last blinked.

Going to Texas!

The family is going to Texas at the end of the month for Grandpa Cardwell's 80th birthday. Because I have other, pressing, engagements up here, I will be joining the family on the 1st of August (well didn't that sound posh?). Mind you, this other pressing engagement is Sock Summit '11 down in Oregon. Hey, I will not miss out on my first ever knitting convention just because the man is turning 80, with one foot halfway in the grave. At least I'm going...that is the important part, right?

Now with a 3.5 hour flight looming in my near future the first thing I looked up was whether I was allowed to have knitting on the plane with me. And I'm happy to say that yes I am. =D I'm thinking I'll take a sock with me on my double point bamboo needles. They are 5" long, rounded on the end, and since they are a size 2 they are so flimsy that the wrong grip could snap them. If anyone feels threatened by that I'll be happy to point out the nearest pen/pencil...that will probably do more damage then my tiny needles. Then again realizing that would require someone to apply logic, and how often do people do that, hmm?

I'm rather excited to be going actually. I've never been to Texas before (I've never actually left Washington to be honest) and from what I've been told our tentative schedule is pretty friggen full for when we are there. Between visiting family (yaaay =.= ) and going to random attractions, I'm not sure if I'll get a moment to breath' let lone a moment to knit. On the bright side I'll come back with a serious tan hopefully...that is the plan at least.

As of right now I'm also spending my time knitting a lot of baby things. Not for myself mind you, but for all the people that are breeding like rabbits. I swear everyone I know is either pregnant right now or having babies. It's crazy! But so far I'm only knitting for one of my friends (the other baby stuff is commission work). I'm rather glad most of my other friends don't know about my knitting; otherwise I might be up to my eyeballs in request for baby stuff. And then I'd have to sound like a bitch when I tell people "NO! No more babies!"

*Zombie noises*

That would be me coming back from the dead, so to speak. It's been forever since I last posted and my Mom pointed it out so I figured I would post something.

Something.

My work here is done.

But in all semi-seriousness (this is the internet after all) nothing much has been going on around here. Aside from work, and husband getting discharged from the National Guard (it's a long story) and then getting a regular job, and the lack of sheep in our back yard, and the best friend getting pregnant, and nearly the entire family turning another year older (we have 6 birthdays from March - June), and me being 23yrs old now, and the family leaving me alone for 2 weeks at the end of July so they can visit the family in Texas. See, nothing much going on at all.

I've been slowly getting my WIP basket emptied. I finished the Candle Flame scarf that has been sitting at the bottom of my basket since last April. And here it is. I was going to knit on it when I'm at home, since it' s lace and the thought of working on a lace scarf around a 2yr old terrified me, but it was surprisingly easy to transport and work on; especially when that 2yr old was napping.
The yarn is from dyeforsock1965.




I also spun my way through 3 different rovings. One is the "Aqua" from Knit Picks. The yarn is a bit scratchy so I think I'll make a pretty hat with it; since there is only about 300 yrds of it anyways. I also spun up lovely roving called Parakeet and Hearthfire that were purchased from toplyfiberarts on etsy. I'd share pictures but my stupid T-mobile account won't let me access my photo album for some reason. On my new spindle (a Turkish spindle that my Mom got me for my birthday) is a pretty purple merino/bamboo blend from KnitPicks. It's interesting to work with because sometimes it drafts out faster then I expect so the plied yarn is super thin and I have to undo it to add more roving. But I'm liking it so far. The spindle is interesting to use as well.

On a completely random note: I was flipping through an old Woman's Health magazine the other day and they had a little section called '8 fat fighting secrets' or something like that. Basically it was situations that make you eat more and how you can get around them. Like apparently when we buy in bulk, we also tend to eat more within the first 8 days because there is so much food available (that would explain my in laws =) ). So the magazines tip is to divide your bulk purchases up and stash the extra away; one of those 'out of sight out of mind' kind of things.
And the situation/solution that really caught my attention was one about an office candy dish. They said to put it out of reach if it's on your desk, or put it on a shelve, or better yet get rid of it.
Basically the logic behind their solution was that if it the candy is out of reach, you'll be too lazy to get up and get it; unlike if it was right by your fingers.
........Have these people met me? Do they know how determined I am when there is candy that I like in a room? Having to get up and work for the candy would be my justification for eating it in the first place! After all I have to get up, walk over, reach all the way up there, and then walk all the way back over to my desk. I'm burning those calories man!

Her name shall be PETUNIA!

In case I haven't mentioned this before, or if I have and you just don't want to backtrack my blog (gods knows I don't), let me fill you in:

I started spinning last year and now that I've gotten decent enough on a drop spindle to produce mostly even single, I want a spinning wheel so I can spin up more then maybe half an ounce at a time (did I mentioned that I always manage to make lace weight singles so a wheel would be awesome?). And then I decided that the next most logical step after a spinning wheel is a Sheep. One of those miniature ones. Like a patio cow. Small enough to be kept in the back yard 'cause it's the size of a dog, yet large enough that it gives me a decent amount of fiber. I.Want.A.Sheep.

I yet again told the husband today that I want a sheep. And that one or way another I will get one. He's part of the national guard and I said: "Watch, you'll be send over-seas for one of those little 6 month tours like your Dad did and when you come back there will be a tiny sheep in the backyard. And her name shall be Petunia!"

So there you have it. I shall buy a miniature sheep and her name shall be Petunia and she shall live in my backyard and I will be a happy spinner. =D

Got a KnittyNoddy from my Mom not too long ago. I hadn't used it yet because I didn't have anything to ply laying around, but then I remembered my wonderful Silk and went ahead got to it. And boy, how did I ever live without one of those? The happy Silk now has it's twist set and is laying with it's brother and sister in my stash. Never to be used for anything. Cause I can't remember where I got the roving, how much I got, what exactly the blend is, or even when I got it. So I don't think I'll be able to get more of it. Plus it's Silk! it deserves to be put into a shadow box with a large label reading "I did that!" I'm still amazed that I managed to produce nice, even yarn without destroying the roving completely.

On the top whirl right now is a lovely "aqua" colored Corriedale from KnitPicks. I say "aqua" because to me it looks more like dark teal. And on the bottom whirl is the roving my Mom bought from an etsy shop. I can't remember what it's called or even what fiber content it is. But it's wonderful. Hopefully I'll have enough spun up by this weekend to show off to you guys.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to read up on potential Petunia candidates.

It's around here somewhere....

Scissors, Missing.
Knitting pattern, Missing.
Food for Frog, Missing.
Cat, Missing.

That should probably be my hint that I need to clean my room up. Even if the tripping and hopping about that my family does when they enter is highly amusing to watch. I s'pose I shouldn't make too much fun of their efforts to not step on my things, but it's hard not to.

I seem to have out knitted myself a little too. Not in the "whoa that is so cool!" sense but the "meh, I can't be bothered" sense. I'm tired of the projects I have laying around, but I don't feel like starting something new. Although I've signed myself up for another Swap, so I'll be starting something new soon because of it. This time it's a Sock Survival Kit Swap. Basically we'll be sending our partner little things that would help them survive knitting a difficult sock pattern. Like chocolate, or tea to calm the nerves, maybe even something that would compliment the pattern or finished sock, etc. It should be fun.

Katie's baby boys isn't born yet, which is a good thing 'cause his blanket isn't finished yet. xD I'm horrible about knitting for babies I've realized. One would think that a measly blanket could be accomplished in 9 months. Yeah, not when I'm the one knitting it. Ben's blanket was given to him nearly a month after his was born, and unless I get some serious progress on it this week (I'm off work until Wednesday), then his little brothers blanket will probably share the same fate. I told Katie that Jack can't be born yet 'cause his blanket isn't done. "Oh yeah," she said. "I'll be sure to let him know he can't come out yet..." Something tells me she was being sarcastic.