Felted Vase

Three cousin weddings in eight weeks. Did I mention? Anyway, bridal shower today. Didn't even think about getting a present until yesterday, when I discovered that I either hated or couldn't afford everything on her registry.

So I made this:



It was a skein of Patons Classic Wool and... Twister? I think. Anyway. I think it came out fairly cute. Her wedding colors are pink and white. And it holds a glass vase - or not, my original idea was to put potpourri in it, but I couldn't find any that didn't smell ick, so flower vase it was.

Now, back to the mitten that I STILL haven't finished. Well... it goes, anyway.

Progress!

So this is what I've been doing for the last two weeks:



One hat, that still needs to be sewn up, and one mitten. I'm actually pretty happy with my rate of progress, since I planned on two weeks for each project and this counts as two. I'd just better find the time to finish up this weekend, that's all.

For such simple patterns, I've been having a lot of problems. Partly because these need to be above the standard galloping horse level of well done, partly because... well, I don't know. I made a change to the mitten pattern because I didn't like the way she closed up the cuff, and it took about twelve tries to get it right. Well, maybe five. Still, a lot.

(What I ended up doing was putting a ribbing panel between the cast on and off, attaching it like a knitted on border, except on both sides. (So it was (1) P1, K1, P1, K1, P2tog; (2) K1, P1, K1, P1, K2tog. Mostly. Except that sometimes it was K(or P)3tog. And when it got to the cable, it was always three instead of two. Which took some experimenting to discover. Anyway, I like the final result, and it's nice and stretchy and all, so there you go.)

They look kinda weird all floppy like that. First off, I made them a weensy bit larger, since they're for a man, and second off, the cuffs come halfway up to the elbow. I mean, they're supposed to be like that. They really do fit, they just look weird without an arm in them.

Then tonight I watched what is possibly the worst movie ever made. (And this comes from someone who happily watched Rock and Rule last night, so you know it has to be bad.) I think it melted my brain a little bit. Actually, I switched over to the Office after about 45 minutes of this travesty, but since it was my least favorite episode and everything else on was a complete-lack-of-talent show, I went back to the terrible, terrible movie. At least some of it had passed while I was flipping channels. So bad! So very, very bad! My head asplode. No words remain to describe how awfully bad this movie was. I passed Gigli at Blockbuster this afternoon, and now I regret not getting it. That's how bad it was.

Anyway, it means I got halfway through the cuff of the second mitten, which is a good thing. The mittens are fast, really.



By the way, here's the link to the Pinwheel Hat. It rawks. Aaron likes it so much that he asked me to make him one, but I dunno if someone who LOST his Baby Ull on size 0 needles watchcap gets another hat. Ok, I lie. I'll make him one. But he has to buy the yarn!

The Master Knitter swatches? What swatches? Oh yeah, those swatches. They've been done for awhile, I just haven't had a chance to block them. And tonight I did. So they're drying now. I won't get to mail them this weekend, though, but definitely sometime next week. Yay!

That'll teach me?

Well, probably not. I seem to be stubbornly resistant to this whole "learning" thing.

I'm halfway done the pinwheel hat, and I'm going to have to rip the whole thing out. Why? Because I didn't swatch. I know better than that. I don't know what I was thinking. Crazy lady. Anyway, it's a quick knit - I should be able to get back to where I am now by the end of this evening, I think. I found mittens to match, too, although I'm not sure if they're too girly. Links to both, later.

Disorganized

First, I had patterns and yarn, but no needles, or needles and patterns, but no yarn, or patterns but no needles or yarn. So I placed a couple of orders, and of course, to save on shipping, you get everything at once, right? Now I'm drowning in projects, help, help!

I'm having a race between the two sweaters - the baby sweater that I only work on at home, and Kira's sweater that I only work on outside the home. They're about tied, I think.

I'm not much of a listmaker - or rather, I am, I just never look at them again - but I think it'll help organize things a bit if I look at what I need to get done. And while I'm at it, I'll make a list of CDs I want to pick up, because why not? Stupid Denver, making me spend all my money on music when there's still all this yarn to buy.

Project	When	CD	When
Pinwheel hat	before 9/1/06	Munly – Jimmy Carter Syndrome	October (? - Whenever remaster released)
Mittens to match hat (need to make pattern)	before 9/1/06	Munly – Galvanized Yankee	October (?Remaster release)
baby 1 - sweater? (need pattern, yarn)	by 9/1/06	DeVotchKa - Curse Your Little Heart	whenever
baby 2 - hat + bootees	by 11/1/06	DeVotchKa - How it Ends	whenever
sock1 – AP	by 12/16/06	DeVotchKa - Super Melodrama	whenever
sock2 – MP (need yarn)	by 12/25/06	DeVotchKa - Una Volta	whenever
sock3 – Me	whenever	Denver Broncos - TBD	when released
sock4 – KH – BC (need yarn)	by 12/25/06	Tarantella	ASAP!
cscarf – RM	fall	16HP – TBD	whenever

Old?

I just got today's mail. Two mailings from my retirement fund, a package of knitting needles, an ad to subscribe to Knit Simple, and a free sample of really smelly dental floss. (Seriously. It's on the couch, and the fan is blowing the smell away from me, and it's still overwhelming my sinuses.)

Yup. It's official, I'm an old lady.

Anyway, I'm really psyched about the needles. One set of 00's and one set of 0000's. Woohoo! I'm thinking I really shouldn't have gotten the 8" ones, but it seemed to make sense at the time. What do I know? (It's scary how much I'm charmed by the 0000's. I neeeeeeed to knit something on them! They're so tiny and... just... lurve!)

And after opening the needles, I had to laugh at the Knit Simple ad. 'Scuse me, do you offer subscriptions to Knit Complicated? Thanks.

(It's not that I'm a particularly advanced knitter - see "can't even weave in ends," below. It's just that it takes things well above my skill level to really interest me. What can I say?)

Stupid ends.

There. I finished weaving in all the ends on my swatches. Yes, it did take me longer (in days) than the actual knitting of said swatches. Pitiful, I agree.

On the plus side, I did finally figure out how this end-weaving-in works. About time, I know. On the minus side, I didn't figure it out until I'd done about 10 of the 16 swatches. And I am an idiot, so I snipped the ends off. Should have waited until after I blocked, at least. Well. Things always go faster the second time, right? And I'll only have to reknit, say, 14 instead of all 16 swatches... bah.

So maybe I'm going to try to block tonight. We'll see. I don't know how I'm going to keep the swatches straight - do them one at a time? I don't know, that seems awfully inefficient.

In other news, I LOST the pattern to the ballet cardigan. Don't know what I'm going to do about that - I really don't feel like paying for a back issue of a magazine I already own, for a sweater that wasn't really that great to begin with. But I've done the whole back already...

Yes, I did learn my lesson about always working from a copy of the pattern.

I just don't understand how this could have gotten lost - it's very perplexing. It's not like I take patterns that many places... well, without the project, anyway, and I can find that just fine. It's sitting right there, mocking me with its done-enough-to-not-ignoreness.

Anyway, going to keep working on the pullover until the pattern turns up. I'm thinking about buying Square Dance by Doris Moore and making that for the actual baby gift. (The pattern only goes down to size 2, but I'm sure it can't be too difficult to resize. I mean, it comes with a spreadsheet!)

I'm also thinking about booties. Hmmm...

Baby Sweater Proceeds Apace...

Yet another "learning experience." I didn't have the right size needle, but since it's a "fun" project that I didn't want to fuss too much over, I used a smaller one. Like, a lot smaller. (It called for a 4, which for me means, "use a 2." I had a 0, so I used that.) I really liked the fabric I was getting, so I went with it. I swatched and calculated, and joy of joys! The next size up (using my gauge instead of the suggested gauge) worked out to the same measurements as the size I wanted.

I didn't think about the fact that the lengths are listed in inches, so I should still use the smaller measurements for those. But hurrah! I did think of it when I'd only knitted one extra row. Purled another one after that so I could end on the correct side, because I didn't feel like tinking and at 14 rows to the inch, what's 2 rows in length?

And of course, it was only as I was binding off the last stitches for the button thingy that I realized - hey, this fabric's really firm, and while it's exactly what I want in a sock - for a sweater that's supposed to go around a squishy baby? Not really so appropriate.

So it may just wind up as a dolly sweater. Like I said, I'm not crazy about the colors anyway, although I do like them more now than I did when it was just ribbing. And, again, Learning Experience. Now I can make a real baby sweater with many fewer mistakes.

Of course, I want to find one that involves steeking... can you steek superwash wools? We shall find out...

Having come to my senses...

...I've scrapped the baby blanket. It was somewhere after casting on 165 stitches and knitting for an hour to have a 1/2" project, then realizing that the number of stitches was going to go up to 270. And become ribbing. And slightly before I ran screaming into the night.

So I decided to do a sweater instead. I'm using the Knitpicks Last-Minute Stripes Pullover and Lion "Magic Stripes" in Jellybean. I'm really not in love with the color, and I know that the mother-to-be will hate it.



On the other hand, I'm enjoying knitting it and it is going quickly, and I'm sure someone I know who will like the color will have a baby at some point, so I'm not trashing it.

Unfortunately, I only have colors *I* like in my sockyarn stash. Well, and this Jellybean, don't ask how it got there. (I think it was on double-discount sale, or something). Anyway, none of it is appropriate for a baby sweater. I don't like Knitpicks striped yarn, either. Couldn't find anything at Elann or Webs, so I'll probably just get some Dale wossis... er, Ull, and make something not stripy. But still a sweater. I may also wait until the end of this month, when she finds out the gender. I'm glad I didn't find out before Kira was born, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to take advantage of the situation if someone else DOES find out about their baby. Especially if they're of the traditional, pink-and-blue, I'm-not-buying-any-clothes-until-I-know-what-it-is mindset.