A sweater is started, officially

I finally started on the sweater I promised poor Kristina I would start January 1st. This is for the second time. This time instead of starting with a sleeve I am starting with the bottom, like the instructions say. If you would like to see completed versions of this sweater, here is an old "hour glass knitalong"


Anyway, mine is in a very pretty red, not bright cherry red, a little deeper, but not a maroon either. Somewhere perfectly in between. I'm using Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Cranberry.

And so, as I alluded to yesterday, the knitting is going slower because of the regular worsted weight yarn. But I have made some progress.

First I turned over the hem, and knitted it in, so I do not have to go back and knit it later when I am done. Yay! I really hate sewing as I am too impatient to be good at it. In fact I would love to take some sewing classes but the are around $100 bucks around here - even the ones offered at stores! But I digress... Here is the hem before it is turned.


Here it is half way done (the left half is finished, the right half still needs to be done).


And here is where I am right this very minute. It's wider that our remote control! (not that I planned to have the remote in the picture it just sort of happened that way)


I have heard that knitted hems flip more than sewn in ones, but as I am not confidant of my sewing skills and I don't like to do it, I am going to rock this sweater regardless if the hem flips.
I'll love it unconditionally! If it flips, I'll consider it charm.

Sweater is finished

My Dearest Susan has been visiting all week - hence the lack of posts. Yesterday we had the whole day to spend together. We ended up hanging around in the afternoon and watching some of the office from Season 2. And - I finished my sweater!!!

Although not really - I want to add to the bottom a little bit more as when I sit down it leaves a gap in the back between my pants and my sweater. In the winter I prefer to be covered all the way So some day I'll have to unbind the bottom and add a little more.

Please ignore how bad my hair looks in this picture.

Half a sleeve, No cards!

I actually (for once) had a lot on my plate this weekend. I had to go to the dentist, mail out Holiday Packages, work on my sweater, and clean (for my coming-soon house guest). I also should have finished writing and mailing my Christmas cards, but I did not. Just one too many things on the to do list. Thank goodness shoveling or scraping my car is not on the list - we only got rain this weekend. One thing that does have me worried it the wind. The planes flying overhead sound really funny like the are struggling against the wind. Not a particularly pleasant sound.

I don't have any other pictures to add right now, but about 5 minutes ago I finished my 1st sleeve of the sweater. So here it is. I like this sweater, but the roll edge bottom is a little too rolly - it can roll up to about 4 inches. I must look into how to stop this and/or unbind it and add some inches because it is really rolling up too much. For some reason the sleeve isn't doing it that badly.

Anyway - I digress. Check out this progress!

My 1st Cable

It is very exciting here today - My first cable EVER was taken off the needles today! yay!
I know that no one will be as enthused as I. I don't know why I never tried cables, I guess I thought they would be a pain. But they are not, they are quite fun to do!!

My first cable project was out of Barbara Walker's Learn-to-knit Afghan Book. It is a good book that walks you through various types of knitting and eventually (after 63 squares) you sew them all up and Viola! A new Afghan.

63 squares though. That is a lot of squares. So I decided when I bought the book I'd do a square here and there and then I'd have something cool. I have not been doing enough squares though - three a year... well in 21 years I'll have a blanket. Hmmm. I really need to step up production.

I've decided that I'm just not going to get everyone a knitted present this year. I think maybe I'll just start knitting for next year and give up on this year's projects. I'm overwhelmed. Hopefully I'll at least finish a pair of socks for mom.

But what is all this depressing talk? On to the cable pictures!!
Since I didn't block these (i'm waiting to get all the squares done so I block them all to the same size) I needed a little help from my two favorite vases to hold the square. One of these vases has been shunned by its creator, so I can't tell you who made it. They told me I'd better never admit who created it. I think they are both great though. The other vase was made by Susan.



Oh and here, I took a close up without flash to show the depth of the cables. but it turned out yellow as my pictures do with this camera with low light. So I turned it Black and White. the thing about cables is they look so much cooler in person. Maybe that is why I was never motivated to make cables... it just didn't look so fantastic. But in person - whew. They look awesome.

Knitting...

Okay so for a while I haven't posted any knitting on here... because when I got back from the Netherlands I've been feeling under the weather. I am really tired these days.

Anyway - Here is what I have been knitting lately - all of it is for the afghans for Afghans charity. First I made the blue mittens. Then the green mittens.


What is super cool about the green pair is that I taught myself how to fair isle knit. Well taught myself from my newest favorite handy-dandy book The knitting Answer Book.

I was trying use up all the yarns that were 100% wool that were 3/4 of a skein or half of a skein that I had leftover from other projects. I have done a pretty good job, there isn't much left at all.

Once I did the striped hat I decided to try my hand at designing some fair isle and I think it came out pretty good.

Fair Isle was really intimidating visually to me, but it turns out it is easier than lace!! Whee! I'd like to Fair Isle everything!! I think I may try to fair isle some wristwarmers with the few scraps I had left. Although I'll have to get some kind of main color yarn I think.

The only problem I have is I kinda stink at weaving in ends. Does anyone have a better trick for this to make it look prettier?

afghans for Afghans

Hey everyone!
Are you looking for a small project to knit?
Or do you have some leftover 100% wool yarn you don't know what to do with?
Do you want to feel good after knitting?

Consider knitting for the organization afghans for Afghans. They need children's items by October 12th. (They must have moved back the date, because last week I wrote down September 21st ont he top of my pattern). They need blankets, hats, mittens, socks, sweaters, and vests for youth ages 7-14.

Check out what they need over Here at the Current Campaign Site



Think you don't have enough time? I started this last night and I already have one mitten done and am working on a second mitten. That is one night in front of the TV and two bus trips later... And I am a fairly slow knitter, y'all.

Just think of the difference you could make with a night or two of knitting! I put the sock I was working on away and have decided to dedicate until September 30th all my knitting time to knitting for this group.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to volunteer more an donate what I could, and this is really a win-win-win... get rid of some yarn that is taking up room, get rid of my stress by knitting (from moving and all), all the while of getting rid of some bad karma while helping others! What could be better?? Why, you joining me of course!

A Beach Sock Sob Story

This weekend I went to visit my most of family who were staying in Ocean City, MD. My family goes every year. This year it was 2/3 of my Uncle Johns (all my uncles are named John it is very handy to my husband who doesn't have to keep track of their names. Like-wise I'm lucky on my in-law side I get to call all his uncles Su-su which means 'uncle' in Chinese), my aunt Joanne, my parents and my Grandpa. I'd show you a picture but somehow I forgot to take a group shot (maybe because everyone else was doing so!!).

But I did take some pictures of some sock drama (which, it is really hard to get sock drama in less than 3 days - but I managed somehow).

At first the sock was doing well. Enjoying vacation. Enjoying the view of the beach (even the cold temperatures didn't bother the sock, as it is made of a wool-cotton blend).



But then chaos happened as it started to rain on the vacationers, so too a gloom descended on the sock. (but how much gloom can you have, even when raining on vacation if there are cool kites that look like flamingos?)



The yarn, not carefully wound into a ball - but merely used straight from the skein - TANGLED! Into a horrible mess! And the more it was tried to untangle the sock yarn, the worse it became.



The tangled web that was wove continued into the night...


And even came home from vacation that way (even with my little homemade bobbin out of paper towel there was no hope!). But Luckily today it was finally untangled - after a few days of craziness - it was a very happy ending. I even got to knit on it a little bit tonight.


P.S. If you ever find yourself on a Metro Bus or a Metro Subway car and you want a seat to yourself, take out a ball of tangled yarn with some half done knitting attached on one end. For some reason no one wanted to sit next to me today. Maybe they were concerned they would become entangled in this mess and not be able to get off at their stop?

Tuesday the 13th

I went on a business trip - here is a picture out my hotel window and the second picture is out the window of the office building in Philly.



And here is a picture of the room. We were wined and dined because it was the new orientation.



Well if you are anywhere near me - you know it is not pleasant outside. Yuck. It took me two hours to get home today and I left work early. Bleck.

Anyway, on a plus note they delivered these to my work a day early. I brought them home to enjoy them. It was not fun taking them on the subway. But since I thought maybe the weather would be bad and I might leave early - I drove to the subway stop today instead of taking the bus (my bus is a commuter bus and doesn't operate until 4).



I finished these for my co-worker. They are from "Last-minute knitted gifts" as well.



They are pretty fun - I made them from the Noro Cash Iroha yarn I had gotten the other week.

Knit, Knit, Knit

So Brigitta is now tenured! Hip Hip Hooray for her. And, believe it or not, I mailed her her Christmas present and it got there on the day she received her letter! Yay Dr. Brig!

Here was her present:

In other knitting news...
Here is what is on the needles right now:


That is my first square from the "Learn to knit Afghan book" by Barbara Walker. It is called the Rose Fabric. I think it is a tremendous book for beginners or intermediate people - or people like me that are in between!! (also apologies to colorblind people, those colors will probably be hard to distinguish. I should have used more contrasting yarn shades)

Also - great to use up some of your leftover yarns laying around! Harland's sister kindly bought it for me for Christmas. I'd been eye-ing it for several months before Christmas. It's my new thing to do in between projects. Right now I am trying to learn how to do stripy things better before I start my cousin's scarf.

Once the scarf is done - I am seriously considering joining the Salina-along if I can get my hands on the book in time. It'd be my very first sweater! Check it out!! Salina-along

until the last flick of the hockey stick....

Well I just got back from my Christmas present - which was tickets to a Washington Capital's game!!
WHOOOT!!
Lucky for me they won 7-3. Oh, I love hockey games!! This time I didn't even have my favorite combo - beer and cotton candy. In fact I totally went crazy and had soda and soft pretzel instead.

Anyway it was really fun and taking the metro worked out really well. It was a really good day - the loud crazy neighbor upstairs was gone so it was sooo quiet and we got to sleep in until 8:30!!! And then we had a really yummy breakfast and then we walked to the library and then we watched some taped episodes of "The Office" that Dad sent to me (thanks Dad we got them today!). And I had the chance to mail out the hat I finished and I started my second to last Christmas present I have yet to make.

So all is well!! I am excited because after I finish my Christmas presents I think I will try to make a sweater.

Cheers!
And Go CAPS!