Or, how I spent my afternoon.

Today was a busy day. I knew from the moment I woke up it would be busy. We had lots of plans. We went to my parents’ house to help them build a deck. The kids had a blast. They spent the day outside, playing in the hose and in the creek. It was great fun. Until one of them–Aaron–came inside and walked into the kitchen where the floor was wet. His feet flew out from under him, and he bashed his head against the corner of the cabinet, which resulted in a sizeable gash in his forehead. A trip to the urgent care center led to 6 stitches:

He was such a brave boy. The screaming and the blood when he first fell was unbelieveable. But, we went right away to urgent care and they got us right in. He waited patiently to see the doctor and he didn’t even flinch when they were working on him….of course, the numbing cream and local anesthetic probably helped, but he was great. An hour later, you would never have guessed anything happened to him. He was right back to playing and running around and acting crazy.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall at preschool tomorrow….

The “What Have You Done” Knitting Meme
I first saw this on Jamisyn’s blog, then on Amanda’s blog, where I followed the link to Katydid Knits. And, you know me. So, I’ll do it too.

Bold for stuff you’ve done, italics for stuff you plan to do one day, and normal for stuff you’re not planning on doing.

Afghan/Blanket
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Domino knitting (modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book (there are so many on the market now…anything I’d write has probably already been written)
Scarf
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dyeing with plant colors
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with DPNs
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living (Why? I love knitting…I would hate for it to become work.)
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking (I’ve toyed with this and it just looks too fiddley for me.)
Dyeing yarn
Steeks
Knitting art (some of my items were included in a fiberarts display at the local art museum. Does that count?)
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting (Why? I love handknitting.)
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair 
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

I’ve been tagged by Jamisyn.

Every person who gets tagged is to list seven things about themselves. They are to write on their own blog those seven things and then list the rules. You also need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog as well as leave a comment on their blog to let them know they’ve been tagged. 

Okay, I don’t know seven bloggers to tag, so I’ll just list seven things about myself.

1. I’ve been knitting for 8 years. I am self-taught. I didn’t know anyone who knit when I first started, so I didn’t understand why some projects were considered difficult and others were considered easy. I think this is a blessing. It made me a fearless knitter.

2. I have three younger sisters. And we actually like each other!

3. When I was in junior high school, I collected unicorns. As a college student, I collected cows. Now I collect yarn. It’s much more practical.

4. I work from home for an educational web service, and I love my job. Not just because I get to work from home, but because I feel like I’m making a difference in the lives of teachers and students at our subscriber schools.

5. I’ve been married for 11 years. Tim and I met in college while I was dating his best friend from high school. A month or so after John broke up with me, Tim asked me out. 13 years later, here we are with 2 kids and 3 cats, and I wouldn’t change a thing!

6. I totally sucked at Chemistry in high school. I still don’t get it. Physics, calculus, trig…all fine. But Chemistry kicked my ass. It was the only subject I ever got a C in.  

7.  I used to hate knitting socks. I know…it’s shocking.

Note: I wrote this post on 5/16/07, but my blogging software or server or something is giving me fits. Let’s see if I can get it posted today.

So, this morning I woke up at 5:55, thinking about the socks I started yesterday. This in spite of the fact that I was up until after midnight last night. Sigh.  Anyway, I woke up thinking about the socks. And the fact that I continued to knit on them in aparent denial after trying them on twice and finding them too big both times. You see, even knitting love is blind. I am enjoying the yarn so much, and I love the stitch pattern. The problem is that the stitch pattern is an 11-stitch repeat. When I make myself socks using fingering weight yarn, I typically cast on 72 sts. 11 doesn’t fit into 72 evenly. 66 would be way too few, so I went with 77. The stitch pattern looks great in the yarn. See?

I love the way the stripes interact with the cables and lace. But, look at this:

See? Obviously I’m pulling on it a bit, but you can still see that it’s just too big. But, I continued. I convinced myself that they would shrink a bit in the wash and will fit perfectly. 

A few hours of sleep can do wonders for common sense. When I woke up this morning, I was thinking more clearly. There was no way 77 sts in a cotton blend yarn and lacy pattern would shrink enough to actually fit the way I like socks to fit. So, laying in bed at 5:55 am, I started doing some mental math. 
11 stitch repeat
7 repeats per round

Each repeat contains a 4-stitch cable.

What if we changed that cable to a 2-stitch twist?
Aha! Suddenly, we have a 9-stitch repeat.
9 x 8 = 72!
Now, let’s try it out…..but I’ll wait until after I get Victoria off to school. The alarm won’t go off until 7:00. After all the math and brain work, I still had a good 30 minutes of sleep I could catch.  But, no. My brain was awake already and my fingers were itching to get to the yarn and needles.

At 6:35 I gave in, hauled my butt out of bed and went downstairs to start another sock. I finished half of the toe before I had to awaken Victoria. Finished the other half later in the morning when I should have been working. Then, I worked on the lace pattern off and on throughout the day and here we go:
 

Much better, no? I still prefer the look of the 4-stitch cable, but the right twist is a tolerable solution. And they fit sooo much better.

PS: The yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit Cotton Stretch.  

I had a wonderful weekend. I didn’t take any pictures. I just relaxed and enjoyed the activities. What was I doing? I attended the River Knits Retreat, of course! There was food, knitting, classes, games, door prizes and great conversation. The classes were great. From Sheryl Krohne, we learned about stretching and other exercises to prevent repetitive stress injuries. Then I taught a class on how to make beaded stitch markers. JoLene Treace joined us Saturday afternoon to share her experience with knitting counterpanes. On Sunday, Brian Doggett expanded our fiber horizons with Kumihimo Braiding. I wish we’d had more time to spend on his class. I feel like we barely scratched the surface with that.

Elizabeth also set up a mini River Knits yarn shop on site, with tons of great deals! I picked up 10 balls of this:

Laines Du Nord Papiro 100% cotton yarn. It’s so soft and wonderful. I couldn’t resist the colors and texture.

And this:

Meilenweit Cotton Stretch. I don’t own any handknit cotton socks, and I think it’s about time I fixed that!

And this:

A great little bag that will be perfect for keeping a small project in the car. The side pockets can hold miscellaneous tools. That way, even if I run out the door without my purse, I’ll still have a knitting project in the car waiting for me.

I also finished this while at the retreat:

It’s a top-down summer sweater I designed myself. The yarn is Butterfly Super-10 Cotton. I love it. I love how it fits. I love THAT it fits!  Please note: In this photo, the garment is fresh off the needles and hasn’t been blocked or anything. It will look much better once it’s been washed and blocked. (And, for that matter, paired with the right pants…)

I was so inspired by this success that I was moved to cast on this two days ago, using the above-mentioned Papiro:

Again, it’s my own design. Obviously, knit from the top down, raglan style with a wide neck. So far, it fits great. The key to good fit is constantly slipping all the stitches to waste yarn and trying the thing on. Frequently. Very frequently. It’s almost irritating how frequently it must be done. But it’s totally worth it when you end up with a sweater that fits. 

Seriously. Someone stop me. I want to start so many new projects that I hardly know what to do with myself. I spent the weekend organizing and inventorying my stash (for more on this, including pics, visit the other blog to which I contribute, Tales from the River, the River Knits blog). Anyway, after all of this organizing and after handling every bit of yarn I own this weekend, I REALLY want to start something new.

But first, let’s talk about some things I’ve finished recently.

This is Lilly. Victoria made her for me at Build-a-Bear Workshop. When she came home, she didn’t have any clothes. Victoria said this was planned because I needed to knit her a sweater. I whipped it up in 2 days. The yarn is Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport and the pattern is a basic EPS seamless yoke sweater with a lace pattern in the body and sleeves. I love Lilly.

These are the Granddaughter’s Socks (free pattern from Interweave Crochet’s website). I’m teaching a class on them in May at River Knits, and what fun! The cuff is crocheted, then the foot of the sock is picked up and knit down. Quite fun and very cute. These are for Victoria.

This is a shrug of my own design knit with Trekking Pro Natura. I bought a ball of this yarn and fell so in love with it that I decided it was too nice for socks. Enter two more balls, size 4 needles and a little math. Voila! A shrug. I wore it to The Fiber Event and received quite a few compliments. I promise to post a pic of me actually wearing the thing soon.

Lest Aaron feel left out, these are for him. The pic doesn’t really show, but the yarn is sparkly. It’s called Disco. He picked it out himself. He actually put them on this morning as soon as I finished them, but he took them off just a quickly because it’s rather warm here today.

So, as you can see, I’ve been such a good girl. I’ve finished 4 projects in the last couple of weeks! Don’t I deserve to start something new? Don’t I deserve to buy some more yarn? Yes, I believe I do! Now….what should I make?

The next time you are standing in your kitchen fixing supper, and you hear an explosion from your freezer, think back….did you put a can of Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper in the ice tray to get cold so you could drink it for lunch?  I did.

I realize we’re already well into 2007, but I’m officially proclaiming it The Year of Lace. I mentioned this as an idea in my last post, and I’ve held to it since then, but now I’m making it official. Every new project I’ve started this year has been some form of lace, and I’d like to continue that through the end of the year. So, with all of you as my witnesses, I commit that all of my new projects in 2007 will be lace projects. This means that they will all contain some element of lace. And, no, yarn-over button holes don’t count. Some may consider this a bit of a cop out because it leaves open the option of knitting on old projects that aren’t lace….but for those who know my track record of working on old projects, you know this isn’t a cop out at all.

I will grant myself two “get out of lace free” cards. The first is for socks for my son. He doesn’t need them right now because it’s getting warmer here in Indiana (near 80 yesterday, which is just crazy!). However, once fall comes, he will need a pair or two because his others are just too darn small. These will offer mindless knitting when I can’t wrap my brain around lace or when I need travel/waiting knitting. The second is for an afghan I’m going to start designing soon. There will be lace elements, so I suppose it sort of counts as lace. However, there will be plenty that isn’t lace in it.

All other new projects will have some element of lace. Here’s what I have on the needles now, along with a few finished items:

The Faux Russian Stole that I started on January 1. I love knitting this shawl! The combination of cashmere yarn and rosewood needles is the ultimate luxury. The lace pattern is just complicated enough to be interesting without driving me crazy. I love, love, love this shawl.

I also have a pair of secret lace socks on the needles. Sorry, no pics. They are a Sockday Club gift and must be kept a surprise until May. 

These are the socks I finished a few weeks ago. They were a Sockday Club gift for Sam. (Sockday Club: there are 8 of us who decided to knit each other socks. We assigned each person a “sockday,” starting with the oldest and working down to me, the youngest. Every three months, one person gets a pair of handknit socks from everyone else in the group. It’s a blast!) The pattern on the leg is Open Twisted Rib, a very subtle lace pattern. Each “cable” has an eyelet in the center.
There are also a number of lace projects on my growing to do list this year. I have some wonderful yarn in my stash that wants to become The Forest Path Stole from the Summer 2003 issue of Interweave Knits.  I knit the bottom border about 2 weeks ago, but have been distracted by other projects since. Anyway, I’m using Jaggerspun Heather in Sherwood Green on size 3 needles. Here’s the swatch: 

I also have two skeins of purple Jade Sapphire Cashmere that really wants to be a Celtic Knot Shawl. I’m not usually fond of knitting the same project twice, but this was a joy to knit, and I did it long enough ago that I think I can make an exception. Then there’s the Half Hexagon shawl from Victorian Lace Today. I don’t have the perfect yarn for it yet, but it will be mine.

I’m also eyeing some non-shawl lace projects. From the Spring issue of Interweave Knits, the Ribs and Lace Tank and Bonsai Tunic are calling my name. The adorable Sapphire Wrap Sweater from One Planet Yarn and Fiber is lovely. I know the pattern calls for cashmere, but I’m thinking it would be great in cotton (maybe Butterfly Super 10) for summer.  And have you seen the preview for the Spring/Summer issue of Vogue Knitting? How much do I love the Grace of Lace garments?! Maybe it will be in at River Knits today…..

Okay, so here’s to 2007, The Year of Lace!  Anyone care to join me?

I’ve been a busy busy girl the past few weeks, and I’ve managed to finish a couple sizable projects. First, the triangle afghan. I know a couple of months ago, I called it a shawl. Well, it’s way too big to use as a shawl, but it’s a perfect afghan.  I’m not sure how I managed to keep the cat away long enough to finish it, but I did. And it keeps me warm almost every day while I work or while I snuggle on the couch and knit.

This afghan was really fun to knit. I looooved working with the Lorna’s Laces yarns. I’m definitely going to get another one of these samplers in the future. Maybe this time I’ll make a poncho. Or something else I can wear. As much as I love my afghan, I hate that I can’t exactly wear it out in public.

But, I can wear this:

That’s a Pi Are Square from Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmermann. I finished it last night at an hour past my bedtime. I put it on this morning when I woke up and Aaron said, “Mommy! You look like a spotted butterfly!”  It was so cute. And that was before blocking. I can’t wait to see how it looks tomorrow morning when I take out the pins. The yarn is Rowan Yorkshire Tween 4-ply. I will definitely work with this yarn again. It’s wonderful stuff. And I think I’ll wear this shawl every day for the rest of my life. I want to knit another as a more utilitarian shawl. Maybe entirely in garter stitch.

GASP!

What if I knit one using a Lorna’s Laces Sampler Bouquet?!  Ooooohhhh….. That could be really fun……And good grief there would probably be enough yarn left over to knit a scarf or something. That will definitely be something to think about.