WIP Wednesday - airy

I have been airing out the WIPs by knitting them in the outdoors. All of them have progressed.

I fell in love with this pattern, the Bubble Pullover from Knitting Nature, before I ever bought the book. I was just looking for the right yarn and the right occassion. Now I understand the middle of summer is not the most ideal time to be knitting a 100% wool sweater but considering I still wear sweaters for most of the summer it is not too much of a hardship.

First came copious swatching. I really wanted to have a more fitted sweater than the original. The smallest size gave you a 46" bust. I wanted something a little big but not that big. So the first swatch (red) was knit with the original stitch count on smaller needles. It was still too big. It would have given me a 43" bust. I wanted smaller so I crunched some math and cast on with the needles to get gauge and less stitches.

It worked and the sweater will be a 40" bust. Now I am sure you are sick of the bubbles so let me distract you with socks.

My swap socks are past the heel and I no longer am worrying if they will fit. They are a bit snug on my feet so they should fit just right on hers. I love the way this pattern turned out.

BILs socks are coming along nicely. I got to the last toe increase on Friday and got to where you see now while watching Get Smart. I loved the movie. It gave me answers to my fav show as a kid. Now I am not that old but I used to stay up late when visiting the grandparents and watch Nick at Nite.

Lastly the Firebrick Mittens are on to there second mitt. I am so excited. Now if I can keep the momentum up, ya'll will see the pattern soon.

WIP Wednesday

I was good this week. I paid attention to all my WIPs but of course got more done on the largest and newest one.

The Firebrick mitten in its smallest size is doing well but I cam getting distracted by shiny knits. I need to get the thumb on by this weekend. My goal was today but Churchable got sick with food poisoning last night and he did not get to sleep till 4AM and since I was the nurse maid to my hubby I stayed up and helped him when needed and started the Buffy series over on Hulu.com.

I have decided to take my time with this WIP since it is a swap that does not end till the end of August and I want to keep my partner in my thoughts and prayers till then. If I finish too early, I fear I will not be so mindful of the purpose of the swap.

The BIL Christmas sock has gotten a wee bit of attention since I was standing around talking with Churchable's co-workers & knitting after their meeting to find out the fate of their jobs. He was kept! Yeah!

Lastly this is my current obsession. I cast on at the neck on Saturday after cleaning my studio and swatching. After I woke up today, I cast off the hem. The hem is not supposed to be a shirt tail hem but I just loved the one in Sahara (which has moved to a new house to live) and really wanted to incorporate it into this pattern.

Now which pattern have I start, why the Labyrinth pattern by Wendy. I am doing this one along with the Sexy Knitters Club also. I guess I could say this is also part of the Knit anything by Wendy until the book arrives KAL. I am really looking forward to her new book. I don't normally pre-order books but I had to with hers.

WIP Wednesday - a bit late

Man o Man has time marched on. I promised you my mojo eater ideas. So here they are:

1. All my projects are boring to me. Too much stockinette stitch and ribbing.

2. The crud came knocking this weekend. The unknown beginnings were messing with me.

3. There is a new knitter in the house. My boy is knitting me a love scarf, since we all know I don't do scarves.

Which one do you think it is? I will let you know what I think later in the week.

Now on to the WIPs. They have not gotten much play this week. I did knit on all of them a bit each. I even forgot when gathering them up today what was on the needles.

BILs sock is coming along nicely. I forced myself on Thursday to finish the cuff and BO and CO for the second sock so that I felt like I had made some progress.

The pink sock and I are spending a bit of time together but not too much or else the pink might rub off on me. I am enjoying the process of praying for my swap partner while I knit. I just hope this one does not have as much angst as the last prayer sock.

I pulled out the Firebrick mitten last night since my test knitters are done with their first mittens and I am still trying to get past the thumb divide. It should be a bit easier now. This mitten hung out and watched "So you think you can dance?" last night. They really grooved with Twitchington.

RIP Wednesday

Do you ever have those weeks were nothing gets done? Well it seems like that was last week. I have either had no time for knitting or no desire to knit. The mojo is gone. Here is how last week went:

Thursday - 12 hours of errands in Portland so maybe a row or two waiting in line

Friday - Helped churchable get ready for his weekend away and um.... went to bed early

Saturday - straightened up the patio after churchable had power washed it the day before and sat and enjoyed the backyard

Sunday - church (I started a sock) and churchable came home early so we trimmed the giant tree in the yard

Monday - um .... have no clue other than maybe lots of ripping of barely started projects out on the patio till it started to rain.
Tuesday - well I emailed with test knitters and my tech editor and finally got to sit and knit at night.

Projects started and RIPped:

Pair of shorts to sleep in out of Berroco Comfort - too small and I did not feel like adjusting the pattern. (maybe I will write my own pattern)

Mitten thumb tips for the firebricks - I was not there yet on my second pair so I just did a faux thumb to figure it out.

Several swatches that did not work out just right for my desire and so they have been frogged.

Basically I have zip to show you. I will show you that sock that I started on sunday. It is turning out nicely. It is for the second version of the sock swap that I participated in this fall.

Also along with this no knitting, I have had little desire to do much. I don't want to eat, I don't want to knit, I don't want to clean, I don't want to leave the house, I don't want to check ravelry, I just want to get outside and exercise. I have not been hyper obsessed with working out since 1997-1999. So I guess it is about time that I get my butt in gear. Maybe I can fit into those shorts that I frogged (haha I think those legs were twigs and I have never even in my days of anorexia been twig like in the legs). I have been walking about 10-12 miles a week and this week I started the couch to 5k program. I was amazed at what I did yesterday, which was my first day of the program but I think I will stick with it. Churchable, the runner in the family, is cheering me on to do good. He was impressed with my form and pace and is encouraging me not to push myself too hard but not to give up too early.

Don't worries there are designs running around in my brain. I just need to have the time to figure out yarns and exact patterning. I might not want to knit but designs are always pouring out my my brain. There are a few that won't leave me alone.

close ups of the loot in my flickr account so click and view

I also need to thank my Monkey sock swap pal for my package. I wore my monkey socks on my run last night and I have been using the bag that came with it since this weekend. I was so spoiled by this package. It made me feel special. It is why I love swaps. Thanks Rebecca for organizing this swap and to Kary for sending such a lovely package and pair of socks.

If my mojo has not returned by next week I will finger the culprit. I think someone has been stealing it for their own uses but it is too early to tell.

WIP Wednesday

I only have one active thing on the needles. They are BILs socks for Christmas. I am almost done with one sock and then will get onto the second one. I hope to cast on for Labyrinth later this weekend. Churchable is gone all weekend so I should have lots of time to knit while he is gone.

I am also working on a really cool pattern idea. I woke up at 4:30 AM and could not get any sleep. I had finalized the stitch pattern by the time Churchable left for work.

Churchable has currently been working on another project. The final untouched portion of the house has been ripped out.

WIP Wednesday - a big day

Today is churchable & I's 3rd Anniversary today.
This is a WIP that I hope to have for my whole life.
I love you sweetheart and here is to many more years!

I have been busy making upgrades to the blog and making things work again. We found the archives so those should work again and a google search box will soon be living on the blog sidebar so that you can find useful stuff within the blog.

I also have been getting submissions ready for Interweave. See they are all done and packed up to go early.

Now to my actually knitting WIPs, I don't have many far along because I have really been into popcorn knits. I am getting really high off all the FOs that are flying off the needles. You will see them soon.

First up the Beet that made turtlegirl be interested.

I am pretty sure I am in love with this pattern, I just can't seem to take it every where since there are several balls of yarn to use.

Next up:

This is the second sock for my BIL. He asked for Camo socks last year and loved them so I decided I would make them again. Well basically I will keep making them till he is sick and tired of camo socks.

Lastly

I have been working on a Firebrick Mitten.

I am doing this so that I can answer questions for my test knitters if they ask one where I can't remember what I did and I don't say in the pattern.

WIP Wednesday - UFOs

Well I have not had too much time to knit away but I have been plugging along on my endpaper mitts. I really want to finish these since I want to wear them. The pattern is so easy to follow and understand.

I hope to be finished with these by next week. Then I can cast on for some new projects. Hopefully my skirt and a giant Beet.

I hope your week is going well, I am plugging along on some swatches. I think it is interesting that I don't mind knitting a project with tiny stitches if I am making progress but a large square swatch makes me want to hurt myself. The pains of designing.

WIP Wednesday - the 2nd part

Last week you saw the start of this little monkey sock. Well it flew off the needles just as fast as everyone says they should. Yes I cast-on Tuesday last week but had to rip what I had done twice. I seem to have forgotten the pattern in the 6 1/2 months since I finished the last pair of monkeys. Well all is well now and the first sock was done on DPNs since my 2.75mm circulars were back in Washington. Now that I am home, I switched the second sock onto my 2.75mm circular. I guess this is the test of a gauge change from one knitting method to another.

As you probably notice, the last few WIP posts have been taken outside. It is all in compliance with PS3: Earth. Greens, Browns & Metallics rule the day. Don't you love the green flowers on my tree. They are so funky. I have no clue what they are. If anyone knows I would love an answer.

The Endpaper Mitts have been pulled out again. I told myself I had to finish a UFO before I could start my skirt. I really want to cast-on for it. I have 3 balls of yarn wound and my friend is planning on knitting it with me. This weekend may show a new pair of mitts to wear at the coast.

Don't forget to check back on Saturday for my contest. I have decided that there are many levels to enter yourself and each level gets you another chance at winning. There will be 3 prizes. Something for every kind of knitter.

WIP Wednesday - brought to you by the word : Earth

Alisa is chugging along. Not too fast but at least I am making progress and I still have a week and a half before my must be done or panic date. There will be preview pictures of Alisa posted on my birthday April 26th. I am sure I will be done before next week starts since I will be at a retreat all weekend and what do you do at a retreat but listen to people talk and knit while listening. It is such a nice relaxing activity. Can you get a sense of the beauty that Alisa will be? Knittymuggins who just finished testing it, fell in love with it when she tried it on. I can't wait to show ya'll the perfect spring top. Ok well maybe not perfect but comfy and cool top.

I seem to have a new sock sitting here in the dirt. Might it mean that I am done with a certain troublesome sock?!?! Well you will have to wait till Friday to check out the FOs that have climbed off my needles. The new sock is being a bit shy. First it made me think that it would knit up nicely on 2.5mm sock needles. Well maybe a st st sock, but not a fancy monkey in need of flexibility to do its monkey antics. So I switched it up to a 2.75mm DPN set. Hopefully this size works out better. Right now the lovely wool of Butternut woolens is not so nice here in the heat of Houston. I kind of need the cool Washington weather to knit on these. For a moment I thought I had grabbed some strange acrylic sock yarn to knit with, which I knew was false but man does the humidity get me here. I feel sorry for Texas knitters.

WIP Wednesday

I have now cast-on for Alisa. I need one that matches the pattern now that it has become a fully polished pattern. My prototype sadly is not exactly like the Alisa. I am loving the knitting. It is going so smoothly and I can't wait to wear it. I am pushing for a finish while I am in Texas. Maybe I can get some shots on the beach to add to the pattern pages. The colors kind of go with this segment of PS3: Earth. The linen color is a browny white so Brown it is.

The second sock is chugging along. The goal is to be done on Friday or before so I guess my needles need to click along for the next two days.

Well I am in the midst of packing, I already packed for my retreat weekend. I drop that off last night at my meeting. Once I leave for Texas, I don't come back home till after David even though I leave Texas a good 12 hours earlier. I am headed to a retreat with a group of women that I lead. I am not the only knitter but I am a bit of an oddity because I don't care if people see me knitting. I have had so many women ask if they can sit with me and knit because they don't feel weird since someone else is doing it.

I have several bloggers that I will get to meet up with while I am in Texas. Plans are finalizing because I don't want to fill my time with knitter meet-ups all the time, but I would love to. Now what knitting to pack to impress the other knitter's. What kind of knitting impresses another knitter? What kind of knitting impresses you? Do you even care?

Look for a new weekly post tomorrow.

WIP Wednesday

Please excuse the dust here on the blog. My husband launched my website early. It reroutes you back to the blog from the blog button, but I want it to live over on the website. Those of you on RSS will not have to worry, feedburner will get you to the right place. I did find out that I need to get rid of my widgets or create my own versions of the widgets for my sidebar. So there will be a bit of changes going on here in the web world.

PS. If you live in Houston, TX and want to meet up this month, let me know.

Would ya look at that!! I have a sock done. Does anyone know which sock this is and why I am so happy to be 1 sock down and one to go? If you can't say off the top of your head check back a few weeks or even into February.

Since Spring is here and PS3 has switched elements to Earth, I cast on a nice Spring Green Baby Sundress for my pastor's wife who has been afraid to use my other present because it was wool. This one is Cotton-Ease from my stash. Ugh. Oh well I have heard good things about the new Knitpick's Comfy. I need to try it out and it might become my baby present yarn choice.

WIP Wednesday

Since I finished wicked on Saturday, I needed something to work on Easter while visiting friends. I finished up the first endpaper mitts pretty quickly. I thought I had a lot further to go on this one. I was amazed to work on it so little and finish up one mitt. I might have gotten further that day, but I forgot that Ham gives me severe migraines and had some for Easter dinner.

Since I still had a little over 1 skein of malabrigo left from knitting my wicked sweater, I decided to make something else for Malabrigo March. I finally decided on A Better Bucket since I really like to wear them all year round. This should be a yummy snuggly hat that keeps the rain out of my face.

The other little start there is my swap sock. I had to rip it out at the beginning of March for the second time. I really did not want to think about it for a while so I placed it in time out. Today I decided that I needed to get it done since the swap ends at the end of the month. My pal gave me a bit more time since this thing was frustrating me too much after knitting it twice.

I have been working on getting my next pattern out to my test knitters so these pitiful attempts are all I have to show you. Once next month starts I will be knitting my final sample of Alisa (rav link), the pattern I will be releasing at the end of the month. You will get to see the pattern as it develops. I will be donating the first couple of months of proceeds to ravelry and then later a portion of the proceeds will go to ravelry.

WIP Wednesday - finally something new

FYI: I will be traveling to Houston, TX place of my birth for a visit in April. Leave a comment if you want to meet up while I am there.

Monday I found myself in an unusual situation. Nothing on the needles. Ok I know a few of you can go peek at my project list on ravelry and say that I do have stuff on the needles but I beg to differ. The socks that I have been knitting are just yarn with sticks sitting in a bag, since I am waiting on a better moment to contemplate the third take. The Endpaper mitts (not an immediate need) and churchable's socks (too many stitches per inch) are on a break.

Well with all these facts facing me I decided to finally join my own KAL. Yes I cast on for my second wicked sweater. This time I am taking all the tid bits of information that I have learned over the past year. 1) Knit for my upper bust measurement instead of my full bust since I am over a B cup. 2) Work short rows so that there is room for the girls and the front of my sweater is the same length all the way around when worn. 3) Incorporate waist shaping to emphasis my hourglass shape. 4) Having enough confidence to use a non-solid colored yarn.

A close up of the lovely shade of Malabrigo in Burgundy that I am using. I love the subtle shading and the lovely hand that this produces. I have 4 skeins to incorporate into a lovely comfy sweater with a pocket. I hope to be finished by Saturday. Fly fingers fly.

WIP Wednesday - Served up on a plate

RSS Readers: Let me know if the RSS flickr pics are bugging you. I edited my RSS and can't decide.

I have been craving glazed carrots recently. I am not really a fan of cooked carrots but it is project spectrum right now and thought I would try to appease the masses. So, I gathered the supplies - honey and carrots. I started to mix up a batch of yarny goodness, ..............

a nice mix of Malabrigo and the Koolhaas hat.

I have not started but I really wanted a new hat and have really fallen for all the hats made from Malabrigo that I have seen.

Next up on the block of food is the lovely but fishy pomatomus, it really needed a nice classy wine to be a stand up entry.

This week things worked out a bit better for me. I whipped through the leg and am one repeat from the start of the toe. I really love this yarn. It is a really nice and I want to make myself a pair of socks from it.

Lastly I have been laboring away at this exquisite Christmas present.

I just wish it would go a bit faster. I am definitely making progress. I think if I keep knitting it while I watch TV, I will be finished sooner than later.

That's all the knits for now. I have been creating designs this week. Lots of creating more details and swatching. I am really falling in love with some of these designs.

WIP Wednesday - PS3 Style

This sock has been chugging along. Although, what you saw last week is not what is now in the picture. I was knitting it on US 0 so as to shrink the pattern to my pals foot size, but I shrunk it a bit too much. Yes in deed I made her have midget feet. She does have small feet but this was insane. I frogged once after one full repeat, then knit half the lace repeat and measured the lace part to check that going up to a US 1 (2.25) was making it just big enough. To my shock, the sock had not gotten any bigger with the needle change. So I stuck the needles through a needle gauge and well I seem to have picked up the US 0s again. Rip went the sock and I started over with the right needles. Making sure to put those too small needles into their case before picking up the stitches and double checking the needle size of the needle that I was picking up the stitches with. Yes I was a bit paranoid but you would be too if you had made my mistake. So now I am half a repeat beyond where I was before ripping the first time. It is definitely going to fit this time and I think the colors will cause her to love them. Just so you know 2 of the PS3 colors are in the sock.

I started gathering supplies for my PS3 ATC Swap. I have been missing my inks since I finished art school. I pulled them out laid them out on my bed to sit and contemplate what to do about them all. I love small work in pen & ink. It holds a preciousness that can't really be expressed. Now all I have to do before I can start is to cut the paper to size. I can't wait.

Several people on ravelry started talking about a PS3 diet (ravelry link). Trying to incorporate foods that reflect each element. This element is, of course, fire and the suggestion was to make baked goods from scratch. Since I make bread every week, I knew this would not be too hard. I love fresh bread. In November, I decided that I needed to start making sourdough. The starter has stayed alive since then even with our crazy schedule. I think I only had to actually feed it once. All the rest of the times, it has been fed because we had used it.

I passed this gourd as I was cleaning up a bit of the house so that I could set up my loom and realized this gourd would be a great PS3 pic. Don't you love how it looks like it just got pulled off the vine with all the dirt clinging to it still?

This last one might not fit with the PS3 fire theme, but I am excited that I have noticeable progress. I think it was barely 3 inches last time. This time I am sure it is at least twice that. I am so happy that it is growing. I don't know if I don't like the reversible cables or if it is the yarn. Only another project will allow me to decide.

I shall leave you with Mr. Bun. He has been hanging out around the desktop computer. I think he is contemplating hijacking my blog and writing about his experience in this house.