Is that a word? Does it matter? I simultaneously rand out of yarn & fixed my own yarn shortage today. Thankfully Lois had one spare skein in the colorway & dyelot I needed. So I made this sweater a cardi, but now I need to know how to close it. Any ideas?
I’ve thought about a hidden button band, I’ve thought about a regular button band, I’ve thought about clasps & hooks & pins. I’ve also thought about just leaving it. What are your thoughts? Yeah, that’s Bob trying to figure out why I’m in the bathroom again.
Cardigan Help?
Not A Whole Lot
Amazingly, that’s what I have to say. Not a whole lot. Silence is not a virtue of mine. I could power entire nations if they could just figure out a way to harness the energy I use to talk. The Mr thinks this is why I need my full 8 hours of sleep a night, he thinks I need that time to recharge my batteries for a whole new day of talking. Lately though, I haven’t had a whole lot to say. This month has left me a little vunerable, and I have decided to dissect my own emotions, feelings, actions, and words. I am determined to live with my true purpose, pursue my true dreams, and live a life of worth and dignity.
Needless to say I have a lot of thinking on my plate right now. Thankfully I have a lot of knitting too. I’m past the body on my Rachel sweater & have started my sleeves. I know I will have this done by the end of the impending 3 day weekend. So expect pictures.
I have also started the 365 project. Looking back through my life in the last year through pictures is a little painful, but barely so now. Pictures of the Mr carving his pumpkin for the Halloween contest last year seems like ages upon ages ago. So much has changed since then, so much has come and so very much has gone. I took pictures almost daily anyways, but now I am putting an effort into it. A daily effort to record each day through one picture only. Day by day will be captured, documented, and remembered.
I don’t know how creative I will ultimately become with this, I’m not going to try to be provocative or innovative, but rather just try to capture who I am, day by day. Things that I think about, do, overcome, or experience.
1:365 (The baskets are actually taller than I am FYI) Yes, I do randomly stare at my stash.
Abducted by a UFO
This weekend was quite busy. The Mr & I spent most of it cleaning & getting the house ready for Sunday on which we had a bunch of his co-workers over to bid farewell to his manager. She’s leaving to live full time with her long time boyfriend in Hawaii so you can’t really feel bad for the woman ;D Though I do have to say, I’ve never seen 3 of my pies eaten so quickly. Seriously, all 3 were gone in 5 minutes. Even the one my Mr tried to hide from them. What does this tell us? Californian’s really LOVE strawberry rhubarb pie. (none of them even knew what it was before I made this pie). I will tell you though, this is the best strawberry rhubarb pies I’ve ever tasted. I think it has something to do with the fresh strawberries. Now I just need someone to ship me really fresh rhubarb!
Amazingly I finished this before anyone came for the party. I’m quite thrilled with this. Every time I really look at my stitches I’m just so pleased (please don’t point out where I had problems in the beginning, I see them too). The color of this sweater will make it my go-to sweater I’m sure. Grey goes with everything! The grey is a little warmer but the whole feel is very Ralph Lauren to me 
The shoulder shaping is amazingly easy. Usually, and I’ll be honest here. I never count my bind off stitches right. I don’t know why, I just can’t. Add that with regular shoulder, every 4 rows decreasing & honestly, I fudge a lot. So imagine my pure joy when I realized I had reached the under arm & needed to switch gears when it read:
“Bind off 19st next two rows, knit in pattern for 10 more inches”
OMFG I love you. Then after those 10 inches?
“Bind off 19 st next two rows then bind off remaining 43st”
F-ing awesome. I love that though this is a little bit busy on the stitch pattern they kept the silhouette of the sweater pretty laid back. The collar is what really sold me on this piece. I left the collar stitches live so that I could easily line up the twisted rib stitches.
Look at that lovely lovely collar! You can see in the mirror behind her that it’s long & really folds over. I’m a sucker for this for sure!
Mods I have already made:
My gage is off because this sweater stops at 48″ bust sizing. The way I did this is just by using the same weight yarn & suggested needles. I’ve done this before to up my sweaters and have hit my target number right on.
Second mod I’ve made so far is making this a cardigan. I live in SoCal and unfortunately pull overs just don’t suite me here unless they are whisper fine gage. I just split the stitches in 1/2 added another purl stitch to each side so that I’m keeping in pattern & off I go.
Also, crazy I know, but I shortened the length of the overall sweater. This piece wanted me to knit 20 inches before the underarm. Well, that’s coming dangerously close to putting knit fabric over my hind end & that just won’t do. I chopped off 3 inches so this will hit just at the top of my pockets.
FO pictures of my red snail camp coat are coming this week. I have been ridiculously lazy in sewing in the zipper but now have a free week to get it done in. (am I alone that I really hate to see all the WIP’s on my ravelry project page? I always feel behind! LOL)
The Generosity Of the Human Spirit
The generosity of the human spirit can sometimes be utterly astounding. The last two weeks have been quite tough emotionally. The universe seems to be out of wack and everything points to “waking up & doing something”. What yet I’m not completely sure.
I don’t usually write about my life concerning things that I don’t directly experience. It’s hard for me to quanify what I don’t live out first hand. This is a rare exception then I guess. The depths of compassion that our souls can feel for our fellow man should not be surprising, but acting on that compassion, especially in this age is.
A little back story;
A woman my husband works with found out that at 40 (and the doctors telling her she could never have more children) that she was pregnant. She was confirmed as very high risk very shortly after and found out that the aurora in the baby’s heart was smaller than usual and partially blocked. A plan was made by her doctors to deliver by C-section early, fly the baby to a better hospital where she would receive open heart surgery to try and fix this defect.
Being ever the optimist, when my husband told me, I believe I can be quoted as “That’s horrible! But you know, S’s little sister had holes in her heart when she was born & after two open heart surgeries she was fixed & that kid has never been sick. So I’m sure it will be fine”.
Well, after three open heart surgeries her little girl passed, and the world was definitely a sadder place for it. When the Mr called me at work on his break he was crying pretty good. (The Mr has an incredible place in his heart for all children).
This lady had never had to plan a funeral and didn’t know where to start (god who does?). So the ladies in the department where the Mr works went to work. They found the funeral home & costs. The cost of putting her little girl to rest is quite extraordinary. This lady is dead broke, not even a working car broke, so the ladies & the Mr started talking. In one day they decided that they would split the costs between the 5 of them and tell no one. They got a little worried about offending or embarrassing this lady so they told the funeral home director not to say anything.
The lady met with the funeral home director, found out the costs and to break a heart more, asked if it could be made in payments. People, no one should have to make payments to bury their child. No one. The funeral home director told her that payments were not necessary and that the angles had it covered. She still has no idea who her angles were, and right now, she doesn’t need to. If she wants to know in the future people can tell her, but not now.
Gifts for the baby shower the ladies she works with had planned were returned and with it was bought food and flowers for the wake.
The most astonishing part of this is that none of these ladies are friends outside of work. None of them go to dinner together or coffee or anything. This was the ripple effect of one heart breaking and other hearts answering the call. This is many souls saving one for no other reason than “It’s just the right thing”.
The love that we can show the people we care about is mind blowing, but the love we can show acquaintances and strangers is truly divine. If you have made it this far, I hope you will then go out of your way, even in the smallest of circumstances, to make someones day better. We are all on this highway of life together, every now and then we all break down on the shoulder, hopefully from now on we will all stop and ask that person “Are you OK?” because it’s the least we can do.
Holding the door for a mother with a stroller, letting someone with fewer groceries go in front of you in the grocery line, letting someone merge easily in to traffic, or even a random friendly smile goes so far in making a persons day better.
Lady Eleanor
Pattern: Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden color 252
Needles: Us 8 Circs to accomidate the size
Verdit: Absolutely LOVE.
This was such a fun knit. The construction was so intresting and the yarn was more spectacular than I ever remember it being. This was a stritcly home project which is why it took a little longer but I couldn’t be happier. I was a little worried about the colors, that there was too much black and grey in each skien but seeing the finished product I’m really glad everything turned out the way it is. It made hitting those bright greens and blues pure joy. It was a little hard to split up the skiens in the right color order. I didnt’ want to start a skien on a color I had just finished but a little re-winding helped a lot at times.
Amazingly (truely amazingly!) I only had ONE knot in all of the 10 skiens of noro I used. ONE! Seriously, I’m not lieing to you! I couldn’t believe it, but only the first skien had a serious color change issue. Everything else was really really smooth. This is going to get some serious use. It’s huge, but I will deffinately wear it in the fall to the office & can’t wait to wear it in september to the vineyards. It’s going to be perfect.
Probably my best experience with noro EVER!
Focus
“Who knows whats ahead
I think I’d rather not know instead
So now I’m slowing it down and I’m looking around
And I’m lovin’ this town and I’m doing alright
Aint’ worried ’bout nothing except the man I wanna be
I’m thinking it’s time to be livin’ the rhyme
When I’m singing a song about nothing but right
And it’d sure be nice if you would roll with me “
These past two weeks have left me feeling quite introverted, seeking truth and meaning with in myself, my own mind, and my own thoughts. More and more life seems to be reminding us that it’s awful short, quite like a nuclear blast, though no matter how short each life leaves a deep impact on those who were blessed enough to be close by.
Focus on what you will do, what you can do, not what you could have done. Focus on love, on happiness, on family and friends. Focus on making dreams into reality. Focus on the beauty and on life.
A Few Things From The Weekend
Thank you all for your wonderful comments on my Green Sea Cowl. It was a lot of fun to make & I know I will be getting a lot of use out of it. If anyone has any troubles with the pattern let me know so I can fix it asap!
This weekend the MR cleaned out the back yard. We rented a dumpster & he made 11 billion trips with a tarp getting out the boginvia & morning glories out. Many battle wounds were procured in the process. The Boginvia alone has almost 1 inch thorns!
The inlaws came back from Alaska last night too. This is a trip that the Mr and I plan on making next year. They did the whole Alaska cruise thing & had an amazing time! I can’t wait to see ALL of their pictures! They, being amazing parents, brought back souvenirs. I had asked the MIL to be on the look out for muskox yarn. I told her “It’s probably horribly expensive, but if they have just a little baby skein, something not to expensive I would love it.” Instead this is what she brought me.
That there people, is 200+ yards of lace weight Qiviuk. I told her I wanted a natural non-processed color & she came back with this lovely almost purply brown. I guess their tour bus driver dyed & spun her own yarn & was telling them the properties of Qiviuk. I guess stitch pattern is waisted because when you knit with it the yarn just blooms. I’m really excited to knit this into a wonderful lace scarf. She mistakenly left the price tag on it & people, um I have knit an entire sweater for less than this. & remember, I’m no skinny chic that can knit an entire sweater out of 3 skeins of anything (well maybe eco wool). So as you can guess I feel ridiculously spoiled right now. Must size up & knit the teva duram sweater she was drooling over for her!
I also started this. Lots of linen stitch. It’s kind of a secret project for now because this isn’t going to be for me in the end. This is Panda Silk DK. My LYS got it in last week & I snatched 4 balls out of the bag before Lois could even price them. It’s quite lovely, but awfully splitty! The colors pool really bad, so I started using the linen stitches & I like the effect so far. It’s a very smooth fabric.
And because I have to continually prove my dorkness. I received my much obsessed over copy of Wild Knitting. People, don’t google it, you will be horrified that I actually looked for & purchased this. You want to know why I bought it? I bought it for the sole purpose of making this.
Yes, you now are all laughing hysterically or throwing up. It’s ok, take a moment to get it back together.
Honestly, I am going to knit this. Why? Because it’s so fantastically stupid & wonderfully ugly & totally floats my boat. See, my dad & I use to have this repeating dialogue when I was growing up.
Preita: I’m Hungy
Dad: “Hi Hungry, I’m Tony. What would you like for dinner?
Preita: “I don’t know”
Dad: “Armadillo it is!”
Sometimes armadillo was replaced with Aardvark or Anteater but since I don’t have patterns for thos (OMG I could totally do one though!) I am going to knit myself a flattened armadillo.
And you thought the armadillo was as bad as it got?
You could totally knit yourself a faux brick patio complete with knitted plants! Talk about totally classy!
And on a completely unrelated note, check out this awesome coffee cup I got at the fair last weekend!
I dig the 70′s owls & it’s huge. I like my coffee cups to hold at least 3 normal cups of coffee. The true sign of an addict!
Also. I’m knitting up a second version of my Hawk hat and will be offering the pattern free by the weekend. Just have to cement how I’m going to do the decreases & we will be ready to go.
Green Sea Cowl
Pattern: Green Sea Cowl Yarn: Classic Elite Alpaca (109 Yards) 2 Skiens Needles: Size US 8 16″Circulars
Notions: 5 stitch markers (one distinctive to mark beginning & end of round) Tapestry needle for weaving in ends. Gage: Doesn’t really matter if you are using a worsted or above weight. If using a lighter weight yarn the stitch pattern is in multiples of 21 so just add another one.
Abbreviations:
SKP: Slip, K1, pass slipped stitch over just worked stitch
5 Stitch Wrap: Place 5 stitches on cable needle, wrap working yarn around these 5 stitches 4 times, slip on to right hand needle & continue to work round.
Cast on 105 stitches, place marker & join round as such (Placing a stitch marker every 21 stitches is helpful but not necessary);
Round 1-3: Purl
Round 4: *YO K21; repeat from * to end of round
Round 5: *K1, [K1, P3] 5 times, K1; repeat from * to end of round
Round 6: K1, YO, [K1, P3] 5 times, K1 YO; repeat from * to end of round
Round 7: *K2, [K1, P3] 5 times K2; repeat from * to end of round
Round 8: * [K1, YO] twice, [SKP, P2] 5 times [K1, YO] twice; repeat from * to end of round
Round 9: * K4, [K1, P2] 5 times, K4; repeat from * to end of round
Round 10: *[K1, YO] 4 times, [SKP, P1] 5 times, [K1, YO] 4 times; repeat from * to end of round
Round 11: *K8, [K1, P1] 5 times, K8; repeat from * to end of round
Round 12: *K8, [SKP] 5 times, K8; repeat from * to end of round
Round 13: K8, 5 stitch wrap, K8; repeat from * to end of round
Repeat rounds 1-13 6 times, bind off loosely, weave in ends, block if desired.
So there you have it. Pretty strait forward. If you make this please let me know I would LOVE to see it.
Lets push those posts down the page. Thank you all for your kind comments.
This weekend we went to the fair.
The baba had her first ice cream cone which was well received
Farm animals were seen (and smelled).
I also saw on of my knitting sisters first place winning socks. Though there was never a doubt! Aren’t they perfect?!
Then Sunday we all went to the Tall Ships Festival.
The baba was most excellent going from ship to ship. Better than most of the older kids.
We said it was because she is the most excellent baby girl in the world, (which is true) but her mom thinks it has a little to do with the Mr being one heck of a baby wrangler (Which is also true).
Me playing with reflections. Funny how I took this with no vi sable camera isn’t it?!
This one I managed to get the whole family in it.
And since I haven’t posted any knitting content for what? 4 whole days! Here ya go.
Getting ready to steek it & possibly throw up too.
Well, um it wasn’t that hard I guess! It now has all the ends woven in & has the “button bands” but no buttons because I’m actually using a zipper (which I ordered yesterday). So yeah. Finished shots coming soon.
Something else I knit. I plan on posting a free pattern for this by the end of the week. I love how the stitch pattern looks like waves on a lazy day. This is Classic Elite alpaca & it’s DELISH!
So there you all have it! The Mr & I are renting a dumpster this weekend to finish cleaning out the back yard and probably bringing the baba & the SIL to the beach
Thank you for all your kind comments & emails. I really appreciate them. Life is as full of unexpected sarrow as it is full of unexpected joy. We all must remember from time to time that we have to experience both for if we never feel that intense pain it means that we never really loved enough to be hurt. We never know when our time on this earth is up, and being a Unitarian I’m not afforded the absolute belief of something after. So I live for today and try to remember to never put things off till tomorrow. When I do start thinking “oh tomorrow” life always reminds me not to procrastinate.
Two people who heal my heart more than I could have ever imagined. I am so thankful to be blessed with the family I have. This little girl brings such joy to my life. I couldn’t be anymore obsessed. I have to say my SIL makes one heck of a fabulous baby.
