We've got a pulse

If anyone is still out there, I'm not dead yet! It's been a crazy summer, especially when you consider that I'm a teacher and have summer's off! As soon as the school year ended, I found a house to buy, headed on the road with my drum corps for a few weeks, came back and began planning the rest of the wedding, getting ready to move to my new house and trying to line things up for my new job! Oh yeah, and reading all of the new Harry Potter!! (So excited about that one!!) Whew!

The wedding socks are going great, I have two pairs completed, and one sock left on each of the other two. I'll have pictures sometime in the next two weeks, at least after the move this weekend! Think good thoughts for me!

Long Time, No See

First, if there is anyone out there, sorry about the obnoxiously long break. Life got a little crazy. OK, a lot crazy. Between getting a new teaching job, leaving the old one, having a bridal shower and trying to buy a house, the blog went by the wayside. But, summer vacation is here as of tomorrow, and so is more regular blogging. (I say as I cross my fingers, knowing that in preparation for the move, I'm shutting off my Internet is about a week...) On to the important stuff, socks!! Above is my second bff sock. I'm loving the way that this is turning out! And I think I may have bought a second skein of jitterbug for nothing, but better prepared than not!! (After all today I was honored by an Eagle Scout as being an Eagle Scout mentor, so I guess the Always Be Prepared thing now applies!)

I've jumped on the monkey bandwagon. I'm liking the way this is turning out. It's Regia Cotton for a friend in a very warm state where wool just will not do. I'm going to need to block this some how before I gift it, but without a sock blocker I'm not sure about the best method. Any advice out there?

This is the Uptown Boot Sock from Interweave's Favorite Socks. I tried my hand at dying with Kool-Aid, and I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Luckily the person I'm knitting this for has extremely skinny legs and feet, cause I know this sock will not get on my foot. Note to self: when you knit your own Uptown Boot Sock, use a much larger size. (I should have known better, all those cables, of course there's not going to be too much give...)

And I'm not sure what these are yet. I think I'm going to rip this back and make it a Cable Rib Sock. Just once, I'd really like it if I could make up my mind about what I was going to knit before I started. That really would save so much time.

So why all of the socks? Well they are presents that are all going to be delivered on one day in August. That means I have roughly 2.5 months to finish 5 pairs of socks. Totally a reasonable goal, except the whole moving into a new house and starting a new job thing. Oh, and I'll be on the road with my drum corps for a month, and two of the people that will be receiving the socks will be with me. Here's what I have accomplished so far...

BFF Socks - 80% finished
Monkey Socks - 25% finished
Uptown Boot Socks - 30% finished
Cable Rib Socks - negative 5% finished
Still undetermined socks - not even conceived yet...

Wish me luck, and speedy knitting!!

Here it is!

Well, here it is, one BFF sock. Thanks for the comments about the toe, I decided to knit the last four rows with out the knit all rows, and it seems to have helped considerably - so thank you! I think I learned a blogging lesson on these ones though... never say that something is going well. The moment you do you'll realize that you weren't paying nearly enough attention to the heel of the sock and have to rip out an inch or so of the sock that was going so well. Grrrr....


















And here were my little knitting purchases from the last few weeks. First a lantern moon bag to keep my socks in so that I don't end up with yarn tangled in my keys and anything else in my purse. The striped bag is my new notions kit! I knit at my fiance's all the time and end up without darning needles, stitch markers and a myriad of other necessary objects. I love them both!!

Socks Galore!

Well, here's the new socks I've started on. It's the bff pattern from Knitters Anonymous. which can be found here. I decided that instead of continuing the cable pattern onto the instep, that I would just make the foot plain old stockinette. This was mostly for time since I plan on making pairs for 4 people by August. This is just the first pair. I'm pretty happy with them, since they're technically the second pair of socks I've ever made! (Now, lets see if I still say that after I knit the toe...) The picture didn't quite show the color the way I hoped it would, it's a little less purple in real life.




And here's my yarn purchases from spring break. I love
all of it! It's all to make gifts, so I feel no guilt about it!! (As you can see, all but one of those will be becoming the four pairs of socks that I will knit by August.)











Here they are - my first socks!! I'm pretty happy with how they came out. The toes came out waaaayyyy too pointy (notice they are missing from the picture...), but I think I know how to fix it. If you have any advice on how to control the elfishness of the toes, please share!!!














And last, my cute pup checking out the most recent additions to my stash. She was most interested in the cherry tree hill yarn - wonder what made it so interesting?

Spring Break Part II

 
Well, here's a picture of what Traverse City looked like on Friday afternoon.
 
And, then friday evening (notice there's less green/brown patches and much more white)
 
And then Friday night - it looked more like the opening scene from a sci-fi movie than a nice April evening.

As you can guess from the picutres, the kayaking plans that I had made could not be carried out.

Spring Break Part I

So, here's the update that I promised.

Got home to Detroit, and some how convinced my mom to come and see the Yarn Harlot with me. (While my mother admires knitting, she is not a knitter, and wasn't terribly excited to go hear someone speak about it.)

 

I'll let you read the detailed post on her site, but here's what was going on while we waited for the delayed knitter.

 
Then, like a rock star, she ran in and began to speak. Even mom thought she was funny. She didn't get all of it, but did think it was funny.

 
Just a picutre of all of the hats that were collected. I feel like a bad knitter for not having one. I planning on sending one in to the hat collector, but I just didn't bring one with it.

 

And last, me with the traveling sock!And even better - Stephanie holding my sock! And I'm happy to report it's finally finished. It's been a year, but they're done, and have been worn. I'm on to the next pair, and will have to post picures at a later date, but I must say, I really doubt this pair ws going to take a year...

Consider this a temporary post

This one's going to be short, and there will be more later. I'm on spring break, and though it would seem like I have lots of time, there is lots I've put off and have to get done now.

Anyway,
The Harlot
was well worth the time. It was great! Meeting all of the other knitters, just wonderful!
OCD Knitting
was there and passing out name tags to all of the bloggers, and mine is up on her site! (By the way, the red sweater that's a few posts down is beautiful in person!) Even standing in line to get books signed was fun - there were between 4 and 6 of us in our little section of line talking, all about the same age, all knitting socks, and all knitting them differently, so it was neat to see how everyone else did it!

Like I said, there will be more with pictures later!

The reason for the name change

Here is the blanket that I showed everyone last week. The day after this post I decided that the blanket wasn't really going the way that I wanted it to. The ivory colored parts were raised, a little like a bubble. Besides that, the back was an absolute mess. So I ripped it out, as I have a tendency to do (several times) before I actually settle on a project. So, back to the drawing board on this one.

Then, I saw a mitered square blanket over at januaryone and I decided that maybe this would be a good idea. So, I made the squares a little smaller, and started with the Peaches and Cream Yarn that I had bought for the first blanket. Soon, I figured out that a blanket that was all ivory and white squares would not be nearly as exciting as it could be if I added pink to it. So, off to the local store to pick up some more cotton yarn in various shades of pink. The squares above are the product of this idea. There are seven of them, and while I love them, I was struck by an idea. This is my mom's, bosses daughter. She might think it's a little strange to get a hand knit baby blanket from someone she hardly knows. Nice but a little weird. So, while I love these, I think I'm going to save them.

Thus, this little, pink, ribbed circle and the new name for the blog. I realized this morning that I do this with just about every project that I knit. I begin either that project, or something similar and then rip it out several times before I finally decide that I've got it right, or am knitting just the right thing. So, the more appropriate title for the blog. Hope you find my adventures in frogging back projects can amuse everyone as much as they do my fiance!

Just wondering, does anyone else do this?

Also, the middle school knitting club got a wonderful, amazing donation of yarn and needles from eleven stitches. It was so great - she even sent along 2 balls of bamboo yarn which the 7th and 8th graders were endlessly fascinated with. Thank you so very much!!!

Spring has finally hit Michigan and has brought not only higher temps but also the loudest crickets I've ever heard. It's such a great sound! Becky (my dog) just stands on my back porch (if you can call the 5 x 5 cement slab a porch) staring out into the darkness trying to figure out what is making the racket!

She's Coming to Michigan!

The she would be the fabulous Stephanie Pearl-McPhee a.k.a The Yarn Harlot! She's going to be in Ann Arbor, and I'm going to be close enough to Ann Arbor to make it over there. And even better, Adam's flight doesn't land until later that evening, so I can make it with out leaving him with my parents for an extended amount of time!

I'm developing a plan even as I type - Ikea in the morning, Yarn Harlot in the afternoon, pick up the fiance in the evening! I'll be great!

Hopefully there will be another post tonight, but we'll have to see. If I do, you'll understand the new title. I think it's much more fitting.

It's been beyond nuts for the past two weeks - band festival, solo and ensemble festival, getting the worst cold I've ever had and playing at church. Just have to make it through 2 days of parent teacher conferences plus one day of school and then it's time for Spring Break!!!

Long time, no see!

Wow, it's been busy this week! My band went to our state competition this weekend, and received top honors! They were really amazing, I was so very proud. And what made me even happier was to have my mentor come up, give me a hug, and tell me that couldn't be prouder of me. The school I teach in can be a tough place, and to show the students that they can be some of the top musicians in the state is just great! I'm so happy!




In knitting news, I've reached the arm hole shaping in the deep v sweater - not that you can really tell in the picture. I've made a few little mistakes, but nothing that I couldn't solve easily. Overall, I'm happy so far, but I think next time, I will convert the pattern so that I can knit it on circulars. I just can't wait to get it done so I can wear it!


















Also, I've lifted my self imposed ban on starting new projects to begin this lovely basket-weave baby blanket. It's just in simple Peaches and Cream cotton, but for Michigan summers it will work nicely. My mom's boss's daughter just had a baby, so my mom asked me to make something. I'm going to see if I can actually finish a baby blanket that I start. (I have this bad habit of starting projects and never finishing them).

Speaking of never finishing things, I found the socks that I started last year. I'm realizing that I'm a much better knitter this year than last, and found a major mistake in the heel of the first sock. Well, I've fixed it in the second, but now the socks won't match. Oh well...

One last note on my middle school knitting club - it's going so well! I've got 10 students knitting so far (5 of them are boys!) and somewhere between 7 and 10 more waiting to join. We try to add one more each day so that each kid can get a really good start. The kids are even starting to help each other at it. One took her project home this weekend to see how much more she could get done. It's so great! It's only about 15 minutes every day at lunch, but they are so pumped to come down to my room and learn to knit! For me, it's such a great pick me up in the middle of the day. And a huge thank you to eleven stitched for offering to donate to the knitting group - it will come in so hand!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

P.S. I get married 5 months from yesterday!!!

Yahoo!!

This may not look like much, however it is the beginning of my middle school lunch time knitting club! Today I went to the Ben Franklin near the school and just asked the owner if they would be willing to donate anything and she gave me 3 balls of cotton yarn. Then the lady standing at the counter said that she had all sorts of needles that she didn't use any more and that she'd be willing to give some of them to me!!!

So I went to this great lady's house (where I saw two of the most amazing quilts - one with 48 pieces in each square and another that was made out of neck ties) and she dug out 8 needles to donate to us! Only 5 more pairs to go!!

The kids are all asking when we start, they seem pretty jazzed about the idea. I hope at least half stick with it. I can't wait!!

They're finished!

Here they are! I finished them Sunday afternoon and they fit perfectly! I was so excited! And I have to say that I think he liked them too - he was wearing them inside while he worked on crossword puzzles, and it was not cold inside that house. Outside is another story...

It's freezing! The current wind chill is 0. Without the wind chill it's something like 22. It's so cold outside! Last week snow was melting, and this week it's piling up again! We're supposed to get another 6-8 inches tomorrow night!! I'm kind of excited about it though, it just means that I have more potential snowshoeing ahead of me!

Oh, and one other note, my middle school lunch time knitting club might just be getting off the ground! I just have to figure out how to get 12 pairs of needles that are between US7-9 so that they will work for lots of projects - like the first one I've got planned, a dish cloth in fun colors! The secretary in the front office had the great idea of making them and selling them to raise more money for the club. But first, I have to get the needles to actually start the group! Any ideas?

Almost Done!

Almost done! Fingers are there, thumb has been made (with all sorts of mistakes...) and now I'm on to the mitten part - the ribbing is finished and I'm almost done!!!! I can't wait until I can give them to Adam and prove that yes, I can finish something I start in a reasonable amount of time. I'm just not looking forward to taking care of all of the loose ends... at least I'll be able to cover up a few of my mistakes then!

Next time I pick a pattern for gloves I have to remember to check that both the right and left hands are explained. I got through making the right one, but with a bit of guessing and they're not quite the same. When i told Adam they had a few mistakes his response was "that's ok, it'll remind me that they were made for me and not just bought at a store." Could a knitter ask for a better guy?!?

This is out my door wall on Thursday. You can't really tell, but in the center of the greenish blob (which is actually a bunch of trees) there's a kind of red blob. The red blob is the most beautiful cardinal. It flew in as I was on the phone with Adam, and as I was whispering to him about it he commented that I sounded like "girl versus backyard" since we've recently become a little obsessed with the Discovery channel show Man Vs. Wild.

Anyway, have a great weekend!

Snowshoeing Pics

I love snowshoeing. In honor of the snowstorm headed my way, I thought I'd post a few of the pics I took last time I went out to the state park!

The mittens

Got a bit more done on Adam's mittens. Actually a bit too much done - I have to frog back a row or two on the hand portion. I guess that's what happens when you're watching TV and not really paying attention to how much you're knitting...

And there may be a chance for lots of knitting yet this week - there's a big winter storm headed my way and that's leading to lots of talk of schools cancelling. Good and bad - good, who doesn't like an unplanned day off, bad since my band has a performance on March 16.



Oh and on a separate note, if you were watching CSI New York this evening, magicians creep me out. Not the card trick kind of magicians, but the cut people in half, light themselves on fire type of magicians. Just weird.

My Sweater!

Here's my first sweater! (Well, second attempt at knitting my first sweater - I didn't like the way the first attempt looked, so I gave up.)

It's from the new book, Classic Knits, by Erika Knight. It's a really great book filled with, well, classic type patterns. This happens to be the deep v sweater. It's being knitted from alpaca with a twist's baby twist. The yarn is so soft, but the color didn't really come out the picture. It's close, but it's not as blue in person as it looks it. Oh well..

Adam's Flip Flop Mittens

Here's the mittens I'm making for my fiance, Adam. He bugged me forever to knit him something. So, here's his something. The pattern is from magknits.com with a few of my own (sometimes accidental) modifications. Nothing spectacular, but a functional mitten.

Now, just to knit the other one, which I'm having trouble wrapping my head around. The pattern only has left hand directions. Should be simple to get to knitting the other one, but for some reason, I've gone stupid on this one...

My First Knitting Post

Here's my calamari knitting rug from The Mason-Dixon Knitting book. It's a bunch of cotton loops interlocked into yarn. It's on size 35 needles and huge right now! I can't decide how much bigger to make it. I think 4 more bags of the cotton loops and it should be all right.


In a side note, I'm watching the Grey's Anatomy episode where Meredith knits. Kind of appropriate while I start my knitting blog! (Though, I seriously doubt that Izzie knits a whole sweater in one day.)

All right, so here it goes!

So I'm going to try and start my own knitting blog, since I have a day off of school (yay for snow days!).