I wonder if they have a treatment center

I heard on the news the other day that they now have a treatment center for people addicted to gaming and the internet. While I wonder if that is a “addiction” like and alcohol, I also wonder about myself.

I may be addicted to any one or more of the following: knitting, crocheting, Ravelry, starting new projects,researching new projects, researching new yarns, using Ravelry to attempt a matching between yarns and projects prior to starting, and yarn in general.

Case in point: I’m in the process of adding some new pictures to my projects page when I happen across some of my older projects. That reminds me that I still have that Patons SWS stripey stuff in 2 coordinating colors, 3 balls each that I’m saving for a entrelac pillow. My plan is to do one side in one color and the other side in the other color. Then perhaps get a foam cushion or a pillow form and attempt a zipper closure. That’s parts still open for discussion. Any way, I remember that I had already looked at several of the Danica FO’s trying to count the # of squares and triangles (since I didn’t on the one I did) to see just how I need to make the square. I found out on one of my notes that indeed I did. So, I’m tempted to get started on that. But I don’t remember what size needle I used. I decide to go deep into my projects and look up the needle size I used for my Danica.

Then I look over in the bin where the yarn is; I don’t even open the bin, and staring at me from there is this lovely mossy green alpaca that a friend gave me. I had previously used it for a fantastic pair of fingerless mitts that I gave to the lady who cuts all our hair. I still have enough left to probably make me a pair of socks or fingerless mitts. Then I remember the pattern that same friend gave me for these neat socks. So, I think that would be cool; to use the yarn she gave me and the pattern she gave me to make a cool pair of socks. Then I think, wait, I probably need my size 1’s or 1 1/2’s to make the socks, and I think that all of those are currently being used in some other projects.

So, I either gently remove the needles from whatever they’re being used for to cast on yet another new thing, or I just scold myself and convince myself to finish one of the things I already have going.

Nevermind. I just checked my notes on the fingerless mitts, and I used a size 2. Thanks to finishing up those socks for Maureen, I have those available. Whew!

See why I need a treatment center?  By the way, the new fingerless mitts are coming along rather nice.

Update on some FO’s

Ooooh, look…pictures!

Here’s that Fake Isle hat, all finished up. The colors on this picture are way more accurate than the first one I took. Imagine a very fallish colorway, maroons and leafy greens and oranges.

I forgot about this one – it’s a bookmark my sister crocheted for me.  And it came in a book.  Cool, huh?

Lastly, are you ready for this one?  Take a deep breath and you may even want to sit down:

They’re done, they’re done, they’re finally done.  Oh my gosh, I still almost can’t believe it, but they’re actually already in the mail, along with the slippers that I finished months ago.  Black yarn is so boring, even in what would otherwise be an interesting eyelet rib.

Yay for FO’s!  More later!

Happy Fall!

I know, I’m a couple days late. And I don’t even have pictures loaded up to share either.

My dad is visiting, and we’re having more fun that I thought possible. He caught son #2’s cold and cough, and now my dad’s pretty miserable.

I finished up that fake isle hat, and even took a picture, but Dad’s staying in the spare bedroom where the other computer lives, and that’s the one I’d need to hook up the camera too. I don’t think about it during the day, only at night after he’s gone to bed.

I even finished up the black socks for Maureen, AND mailed them off! The picture’s on the camera too, so when I remember to, I’ll get that loaded on here as well.

I’ve been spending lots of time on David’s sweater, and I’m happy to report that after only 1 re-knit, the first sleeve is done! I’m about 3 or 4 inches in on sleeve #2. Then I’ll go back to the black hole of ribbing for the body. I don’t even remember if I took a picture of the sleeve.

I think that may sum it up for right now. I may have some exciting news to report, but it’ll have to wait a few weeks. Reminds me of an old joke my mom used to tell: Know how to keep an idiot in suspense? I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Guess who found the camera cord?

No, it actually wasn’t me.  Believe it or not.

Here’s some of the FO’s I’ve been waiting forever to showcase.  First off, the amazing bag my sister crocheted me for my birthday.  I picked out the greens, and she picked out the pattern.  Know what the cool thing is?  According to the pattern, the end round was a plain one, and she thought that looked awful, so she finagled a new end round that went more with the pattern.  Lovely no?

Here’s a close up of the square:

I love it.  It’s way bigger than my little project that I squeeze into my purse for waiting in lines, but smaller than my big Disney yarn bag, so it’s perfect for those times I want to have a project with me but it won’t fit in my purse.

What’s next?  I’ll go in order of the pictures I have loaded.  First up is the final finished product!  I present the Baby Surprise Jacket with matching heart hat for a college friend:

Believe it or not, this was actually knitted all up several months ago and it took me forever to seam it up and even longer than that to sew on the dang buttons.  Here’s a close up of the adorable little things that I still can’t believe I found at Wal-mart!

Are those not the most cutest ever?  And they match the yarn!

Next up some hats that I started on vacation in Canada:

This is the Gingerbread Hat that Patrick picked out, in orange of course.  It did turn out rather cute, but I probably should have made it a little longer.  It barely covers his ears.

That one doesn’t show up real well, but it’s the Trilobite hat from Knitty.  Very cool pattern and a quite easy knit.

Here’s another one from the side:

Well, that one doesn’t show up real well either, but trust me, it’s an adorable hat, as far as trilobites can be adorable.

An update on David’s sweater as well:

I’m still on the never-ending black hole of ribbing that’s the body of this thing.  I decided that I was not motivated enough to keep going with that, so I went ahead and did the collar.  It turned out too loose the first time, so I actually re-did it on size 4’s and it looks much nicer.  Now to make sure I remember that for the sleeves…

Now for a couple more things that don’t even have project pages yet, but hopefully I’ll get to them tonight.

First off, the Circle socks:

Remember that forked heel?  I did it!

Here’s a diagonal scarf that turned out cute:

Here’s the fair sock from hell:

I’ll perhaps go in for a close up when the sock comes out of time out.  There’s a miscrossed cable up there near the top that is really irritating.

This hat’s done already but this is the in progress shot.  I’ll have to go in later on and update the link when I the project pages up.

Whew, I’m exhausted now.  Think perhaps I’ll go knit…

Details of the Forked Heel

Alrighty then, here’s pretty much exactly what I did; from toe onwards:

I’m using size 2 needles, with Knitpicks Felici in Schooner.   It’s a little loose; I think I prefer 1’s with this yarn, but they’re all being used on other wips right now that I either don’t want to finish or don’t want to rip out the needles from.  So, 2’s it is.

I started with a crochet provisional cast on of 30.  I short-rowed down to 12, and back up to 30 again and joined up with the front and proceeded to knit 51 rows.  The pattern calls for a multiple of 8 st, so I knew I’d need 64 after the heel, so I thought I’d increase beforehand.

On R.52, I did an increase of 2 on each needle for the back side, making a total of 32 st on the heel portion.  I increased by lifting up the bar between the st and knitting into the back of it.  The front stitches remained at 30.

R. 53, I knit plain.

R. 54, I increased again, this time on the front needles, leaving me with 15 st on every needle.

R. 55, I knit plain.

R. 56, I began the heel.  I short rowed on the back 32 st only, short rowing down to where I had 8 pairs of st on either side of the plain knitted part.  I short-rowed (long-rowed?) back up to where I had 4 pairs total, including one extra YO in there, and then short-rowed back down to 8 pairs again.  On the way back up, I picked up that extra YO and treated it as the others, making my K3tog into a K4og, and the same on the purl row.

After finishing the short rowing, I did a few more rows of plain stockinette, at the same time, I picked up a st at the joining of the front and back sides, twisted it, and did a K2tog on a couple of different rows to help reduce what was becoming a horrible ladder due to the long duration of short rowing.

R. 61 I started the pattern st, so that 61 was my first purl row.  So far it’s looking really cool, but I can’t post pictures yet as we still haven’t managed to locate the camera cord thing.

Cool, huh?

Ode to the forked heel

I know I saw it.  I even think I know about when I saw it.  But I can’t find it, and apparently neither can anyone else on Ravelry.

I’m pretty sure it was when I was having the issues with the sock I was making for the fair, and noticed that miscrossed cable way up there, which I have a picture of but can’t load it on the computer because my wonderful hubby who’s in FL right now visiting his even more wonderful mom has somehow put the camera cord thing that connects it to the computer in a place where neither he nor I can locate it.  And believe me, that’s saying something.

(Side note – anyone want to diagram that first sentence in that last paragraph?  No, just little grammer nerd me then, huh?)

I am the finder of lost things.  Seriously, I need a tiara.  At times, hubby will even call me from work to ask if I know where the … and he doesn’t even finish saying what he’s looking for and I’ll tell him I saw him put it in his green bag.  Or more often that he left it at home and it’s sitting on his nightstand and does he need me to bring it to him over lunch.  I get quite a few nice lunches out of it.  Of course, he may be faking it, just so he can take me out to lunch.  Yeah, I’ll go with that.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I started looking on Ravelry for a nice cabled sock pattern that looked cool without looking too difficult.  I have no idea at this point what my search criteria were, or I’d sure do that again.  The other idea is that I was stalking group activity or friend activity and someone favorited it or started it.  Either way, I can’t find it.

What is it you say?  It was a sock pattern.  A free one with a quite unusual heel.  I really prefer the short row heel, mainly cause I feel really smart when I do one, unless I mess up, which I try not to do that often, and partly because I think it uses up way less yarn than the heel flap method.  Normally with a standard short row heel, you get a nice diagonal line going from the heel towards the ankle.  In this pattern, the line from the ankle splits off into 2 forks as it travels toward the heel.

As I looked at it, I thought, hey, that’s pretty cool.  And I thought it might help a problem I have with my short row heels: they stop too low on the back side of my foot.  When I’m done with the short rowing, I really feel like I want to start in with whatever pattern I’m doing all around the leg part, but I’ve found that if I start it right then, then the back of my shoe rubs against it in a most uncomfortable way.  So, I’ve resolved this in the past by going up around 10 rows or so and then doing the pattern.  It works, but it sure looks a little wonky.

This forked heel thing looks like it might do the trick.  I sat down this morning and tried it with some scrap yarn, and the details of what I did are here on this Ravelry thread.  At some point this weekend, hopefully tonight, I’ll reach the heel part on the sock I’m working on and hammer it out for real.  Stay tuned for updates.

Speaking of…I’m down to about a box a day.

Tissues that is.  Is this ragweed ever going to just die?

The startitis, and the ragweed, hits hard

I fought it off as long as I could.  Really.  Both of them.

In retaliation, I have started 2 new things in the past 2 days, which historically, isn’t that bad.  I’ve done worse.

I began a pair of mitered mittens, as written in the Knitter’s Almanac, except that I read somewhere on one of the project pages about someone doing a thumb that stuck out from the side instead of the palm, and I think that looks way better.  Sorry, EZ.

Then today, when I reached the point where I could put the thumb on waste yarn and just go up like an inch or so and then start decreasing for the top of the hand, I just couldn’t do it anymore.

So, I took out a pattern that a friend from my weekly Panera Bread sessions was working on, called the Circle socks.  It was really cool.  I started those tonight.  But, I’m going toe up, so at least I have to force myself to get through the boring foot part to get to the pattern part on the leg.  I thought about figuring out how to do the pattern part on the foot, but then I thought, naaah, I want this part to be easy.

Plus, then, I can watch my episodes of CSI that I recorded today.  I love me some Nick Stokes.  And Steve’s in FL, so I can drool without embarassment.    Sorry hon, if you read this.  I’m really watching it because I love the forensics.

I’m getting spoiled

This Kansas weather has been so very nice!  We’ve kept the windows open, and even some nights I wake up shivering and have to close them; it’s like September here and I’m loving it.

What I’m not loving, however, is 2 things.

1.  The ragweed and mold count according to Fox news are high.  Very high.  So high, in fact, that I’ve given up and taken 3 benadryl already.  One yesterday, one last night when I couldn’t sleep because of the congestion/sneezing/itchy throat, and one this morning before going out to cut the grass.  The yard finally dried out enough from the almost daily deluges we’ve been getting since getting back from vacation for me to cut the grass.  I’m not thrilled about that, let me tell you.  Even if my allergies aren’t bothering me, cutting them grass really activates them.

Before you go all ” you should see a Dr and get a Rx ” on me; know this.  I normally have to take some sort  of allergy medication 2 or 3 times a year.  When I cut the grass, I usually don’t, because it’s only for one day, and I can handle blowing my nose and wanting to rub my toothbrush on the inside of my eyelids for 24 hours.  Normally by the next day or 2, I’m back to normal again.  But, when I’m already miserable, and then I have to cut the grass, well, dang.  I think someone better get me a cherry limeade.

Back to the countdown and #2.  Those Rattlesnake Creek socks that I was working on for the fair are not to be.  I love the pattern, the yarn is so cool how it changes color and all that, but first off, this is the second time I’ve started the dang sock.  I don’t even remember why I had to start it over, honestly.  I’d have to go back and research that.  But, the other night, I realized that I was only about an inch or so away from the toe and I stopped knitting to admire my work, the way the cables all swirled around and it looked pretty.  Until I saw it.  There, about an inch or so from the cuff, was a mis-crossed cable.  It wouldn’t have been so bad, but the way the pattern goes, there’s 3 cables in a set, so it goes: loop, loop, loop, then those 2 areas split up and one joins with the area next to it, and those 2 loop, loop, loop, and then back again.  So, one of my sets goes loop, loop, OOPS!!!  I was so frustrated.

The socks are in time out, and luckily on the state fair app, I only put down “cabled socks”, so I remembered that I had those Slippery’s still unfinished.  Since they’re cabled too, they’re being subbed.   Both socks  are done up to and including the heel, so I only have to do both legs.  Using 2 different cabling charts, with 2 different repeat numbers; one’s a 24 row repeat and the other’s a 20 row repeat.  We’ll see how that works out.

More later…the yard is calling.  Well, the yarn too, but I’m trying not to listen to that one.

How do you know it’s time?

Know how I know it’s time to update my blog? Cause I can’t remember when the last time I wrote was. Sad, I know.

I’ve had a severe case of blogstipation, to quote someone else I read recently. I hear it’s been going around though, so I’m not real worried.

Here in a nutshell is what’s been happening:

Took the boys to IL for a week to visit my sister and Dad, and brother showed up a bit too. I may have already written about this, since it was for my dad’s birthday, and I’m fairly certain that I posted a pic of his beer sweater.

Got back from that, unpacked, did laundry, and began preparing for the family vacation and the first day of school, which was going to occur the day after our return from said family vacation. What fun!

I had the boys all pick out what clothes they wanted to wear for their first day, and we laid them out on the fireplace stoop thing. I’m a big believer in not making my kids dress up for pictures or first day or little things like that. I let them pick out what is their favorite thing. I figure it’ll have way more meaning for them looking at their school pictures years from now and remembering that that was their favorite shirt that year, like I still do with that brown dress I wore for my 3rd grade picture.

We also bought almost all of their school supplies ( I didn’t buy 36 spiral notebooks, they only need one or two on the first day anyway. I’ll get them more as they need it, good grief!) , and we loaded up their backpacks, and put them on the fireplace as well.

Once that was done, I could begin the real packing. I didn’t want to be getting home at 7 or 8 at night, and then be asking them what they wanted to wear for their first day and be digging through several suitcases of dirty clothes to find those black shorts with the skinny stripe. Plus, since we were going to Yellowstone and then on to British Columbia, Canada, I thought to check the weater up there, and turns out it was supposed to be slightly chilly. So, we brought some pants and a couple long sleeves as well, and jackets.

I don’t know why I even brought so much yarny stuff, as I really didn’t get hardly anything done the entire time! I was having some motion sickness in the car, which I get from time to time, and that prevented me from really doing anything at all during the massive drive times we had. No worries though, it wasn’t the throwing up kind, just the headache and feeling a little icky stuff. Nothing that a few Tums and a couple naps a day didn’t take care of.

Yellowstone was very nice, but so dang expensive. We went to this one walk up burger place that had a long line in front of it every night we were there, and ended up spending about $45 on 5 meals. The problem was that the hotel we wanted to get, the one with a kitchen in it so that we could have brought a stock of food to fix, was completely booked, so we ended up staying in a place that barely had a working fridge in the room. All 3 of the boys worked hard those couple of days, and they earned their junior ranger patch, all of which are still in my purse waiting to see what they want done with them. The kids had the most fun, I think, with the free checklist thing that the Ranger at the gate had given them. It had pictures of all the animals and birds that could be spotted in the park, and then when the boys saw them, they checked them off. The bison jam’s always a big hit as well. I have pictures, but hubby downloaded them onto his computer, so I’ll have to transfer them over or something, or else borrow his computer to load them onto here. Either way, a bit of a pain, but I’ll try to figure out something in the next week or so.

In BC, we stayed at a beautiful resort, with a full kitchen, and saw deer pretty much every morning and/or evening. It’s really a ski resort, but in the summer they let mountain bikes up there on the ski lifts. Turns out that on our last day there, it was the start of the major Canadian mountain bike race, and they started it at the resort. I guess it lasts several days, and they started at the resort, and rode off, and then they just have to make it to the next stop that day, where there’s other hotels or whatever, and then they start off from there to the next one and it goes on and on.

We also hiked up (up and up and up, it felt like straight up) to a waterfall that the boys took great fun in drinking from. We also managed to find those hot springs we swam in last time, and the boys had even more fun this time than before. We went out and picked wild raspberries and then mixed them with a little sugar and made sauce for our ice cream while Daddy was out golfing. We stopped at this one place in Banff National Forest/Park (Numa Falls) to skip rocks, and Russ finally got the hang of it.

The best part of all though, was during one of the drives, when Russ wanted to play with something of Patrick’s. Patrick was trying to explain to Russ that it was almost falling apart, and that he’d let him play with it, but he really didn’t want it destroyed.

Patrick: “I’ll let you play with it, but do you promise not to destroy it?”

Russell: “I don’t know if I can do that.”

Finally, he’s beginning to understand his own power.

Some long overdue pictures

This was some political thing we went to on a day when it was right around 187 degrees outside. We went through 2 water bottles a piece, plus a gatorade each, plus I don’t know how many little bottles of Dr Pepper and Diet Dr Pepper and root beer. Luckily, it was at a cool farm thing, and they had this trough there. The boys asked first, and I thought why not? I’d sure dunk my head if I thought I could get away with it. Patrick opted out, as you see.

This is apres dunk, and as you can see, they switched places to further confuse their mother.

This is my sister and her hubby setting up some tent toy thing she got for the boys. It’s over at my dad’s house, or rather, in his yard.

This is after the tent thing is a little more set up. Also in the foreground, please take note of Russell’s apparent Superman impression. Or something.

Here’s the birthday boy, a few days after the birthday. We went to the museum that day, and Dad talked the train guy into giving us the tour of the #9900 Zephyr even though the tour times had been over for 2 hours. The tour guy was very nice, and even asked Dad several times if what he was saying was correct, or if Dad had anything to add. Don’t know if I ever mentioned it before, but my Dad’s a train man. He worked for the Burlington Route, then it became Burlington Northern, and when they merged with Santa Fe, the year after my mom died, all of the non-union people were, let’s say, encouraged to take early retirement. So, Dad looses his wife, and the next year his lively-hood along with over 60% of his pension and retirement. But, he still loves trains. There’s quite a history with this #9900 one, if you’re interested in googling it. It was the first one of it’s kind. The museum had it set up on some hydraulic things, and it rocked back and forth as though it was moving. My sister and I almost fell asleep.

Here’s Dad and the boys right in front. I waited until my sister took her picture, and managed to get no one looking at me when I finally took the picture. Great.

And now, some knitting! Well, actually crocheting. This is the front of the diagonal potholder I did with the Jojoland Melody. Pretty, no?

And here’s the back. I love love this yarn.

What else? Oh yes, the black sock of doom…

Proof that the first one is done. If you look closely, you can even see that the first safety pin is missing from the foot part. That’s because the second sock had progressed to past the 10 row point. That’s 10 rows after the short row toe, my friends. I swear, it’ll get done this year.

Here’s the last pair of socks for Steve’s mom. They’re in the Frog Prince colorway of Knitpicks Imagination yarn. The pattern is called Zephyr. It’s fantastic.

Here’s the close up with Patrick’s hand inside to show how the pattern will look on the foot.

Phew, now I’m exhausted.