Whew, two posts in two days...lookit me go!

Yesterday I decided to boycott work stuff and knit Henry's sweater. Here goes it:


I knit from the bottom up until I was supposed to stop to attach the sleeves. Then I started a sleeve. I didn't like the idea of the cuff rolling, I don't know why, I just didn't like it. SO I did a 2k2p rib for the cuff instead. I think it kind of looks like a little knit penis right now. And it still looks way too small. I am kind of hating this pattern. First of all, I read ahead to where I am supposed to join the sleeve to the body and it makes absolutely no sense. At all. Secondly, if I finish it and decide that the sleeves are indeed too small, I am shit out of luck because I'd have to frog all the way down to where they join, then frog the whole sleeve. Why would you make a pattern that knits the sleeves from the cuffs up? It is stupid. I think I might just scrap it and use some of the pretty pretty Malabrigo and make a top down one needle sweater for him. It will be worsted instead of chunky, but I won't have to use my secret decoder ring to figure out what the hell the pattern is talking about, so it will probably take about the same amount of time.

Okay. Back to the evil index from Hell.

Two pairs down...



And about 5 more pairs to go. Pth.

I actually started Henry's winter sweater last night, albeit ever so briefly. I returned the fancy pants green wool that I had set aside for the project in favor of some machine washable Lion's Brand. I saw the basket of hand wash only wool stuff that has been sitting on my bedroom floor since the Spring and decided that Henry isn't as big of a wool snob as I am and won't mind. Unfortunately, I discovered that the pattern calls for size 10.5 dpns and circs, which I don't have. I cast on and knit the end of the sleeves but they seemed too small, so I ripped them out. I casted on again with a couple more stitches, but they still seemed too small. I am going to bump up to 9s and see if that helps. So I casted on the body and knit the 4 rows before I needed to switch over to the 10.5s and then had to stop. Not much progress there. But my friend Bonnie was kind enough to leave me her 10.5 dpns and 24" circs out on her front stoop, so I am going to run over there and get them on the way to pick up the boys this afternoon. Ah, knitting friends. Gotta love them.

For now I have to resume work on my boring pants. Pants, pants, pants. All I want to do is break into my beautiful Malabrigo stash. It is calling my name "Aaaaaamy", it says, "I would make phenomenal armwarmers. Kniiiiiit meeeeeee". Kind of like The Telltale Heart. Kind of.

adella's new sweater, revisited.

okay, so it's not done.
here is how it looked last night:

and stig is there for moral support (he looks darn supportive, doesn't he?)

and that's pretty much how it still looks now.
i decided to frog it, as i knew i would have to. i re-knit the neckline on a bigger needle, and i frogged the arms and am re-knitting those as well, using fewer decreases and adding an inch or two to the length.

and that's where we stand, the sweater and i. we are not exactly on speaking terms right now - we both know that this will be for the best, but we resent each other all the same.
plus, i think sweater heard me say i might hate it.


so, anyway, i did make something I LIKE (that's right sweater, you heard me):

look! a cable!

adella's new sweater. it's done, BUT, i think i hate it now.

the pattern is super-cute, and the yarn is perfect. but even after blocking, it doesn't fit right. i've re-done the neckline twice now (the second time on bigger sized needles) and it is still too small. it appears to be strangling her when she wears it, and getting it on over her head is a bit traumatic for both of us. and the sleeves - they just seem too tight. i wanted it to be a nice big comfy sweater for her.

(amy, have you noticed by now that this is the same post as on my other blog? i know, i'm a cheater.)

i will have to give myself some time to cool off and think about what to do next. i hate to rip it and start the neck and the sleeves over, but it seems like my best bet. i'm not ready for that yet. i'm very tempted right now to felt it in the washer and cut it up for a sewing project.

so, now do i start another project or finish this one first? i hate to leave this one lying around, but i think i might start some legwarmers for adella (and some for me too!) or maybe a nice easy gratifying hat. there's a felted hat pattern i've been wanting to try.
it's too much to think about right now.

anyone have some nice successful projects to show?
kirstin, i love that little hat and bootie set you made - so cute! i was also an unemployed pregnant knitter at one time - after nursing school and before adella was born, i spent many nice long days knitting and listening to books on tape. i'm pretty sure i conditioned adella to the sound of clinking needles in utero.
amy, where's the bubbly curtain you started? i'm thinking of making that with a ribbon yarn for the purple room window.

i hear heavy things hitting the floor upstairs - better go check it out.

I'm here!

Hi Liz! Hi Amy!

Sorry, I've been...well, lazy.

But look! I made something that is timely...



Taken to exemplify our title...but here's the real deal.


Little blue socks. I should have put something in the pic as a reference so you could get an idea of how wee-little they are. Don't be too impressed, they are 2-needle socks with a seam up the sole of the foot. Only comfortable for those who do not actually walk.

OK, my intro...

My name is Kirstin. I am married to Amy's brother, though I think of her as an independent and fabulous entity (which I hope is mutual). I recently moved to Vermont and am coming to the end of a mourning period for my old yarn store, Webs. There are women here who actually make the 3 hour drive to go there, and it was 3 blocks from my old house! It's true, you don't know what you got until it's gone. But at least my yarn expeditures have come under control. I have a dog, Tubbs, who is nine. He is my only baby until the new one arrives in November!

I am a novice knitter, taking baby steps and little journeys into the intermmediate realm. Since I am 6 months pregnant, I am without steady work (they won't hire me without answering a lot of complicated questions I am not prepared to answer with any certainty) which has allowed me lots of spare time to knit! The increased frequency of my knitting coupled with sobriety while knitting has helped me advance my skills. I used to be a wine and yarn girl, which kept my projects in the hat and scarf motif, less they turn out all funky and useless. But now I am more focused and confident and am able to see and repair my mistakes before I am halfway done.

Though, even if you follow the pattern, sometimes things don't quite work out...

It's a hat. I used a bunch of leftover cotton yarn I had and I am not thrilled with the way the colors turned out. Perhaps if it was more vibrant the playfulness of it would win out over the derranged court jester-ness of it.


Oh, and it's a kids hat...not an adult. Again, I should have put something in the picture to show scale. But I'm sure you realize it's nothing an adult would wear...unless they're off to the Renaissance Fair. This hat is an example of "Waiting Room Knitting" which has yet to yeild any impressive results. This is what happens when your hopped up on Sucrose and a phlebotomist named Susie drains you of blood for 3 hours straight.

So, to end on a good note...I finished this a couple weeks ago for a friend who is having a girl in September. I've had this super-soft purple Marino, but since I'm having a boy, the lavender didn't quite work with any of my planned projects. I was so excited when I got the invite to the shower.

I got a little girly with the pom-poms, but I've been knitting in gender neutral territory for so long, I think I had a build up of little princess hormones in me. These are my first mittens! Though, since they are baby mittens, there are no thumbs, so really, they're just pouches, or little golf club covers.

Whew, sorry to be so long winded! I am currently working on a green cardigan for the baby, but forgot to take pictures. I'll be sure to include in my next post. So happy to be here with you ladies!

Are you ready for the most boring picture of all time?



Yup. It's a pair of plain natural colored pants. Blah. Usually I finish the whole pair of pants and then do the duplicate stitching of whatever design is going to go on the bum, but I got so bored with these late last night that I stopped knitting and started doing the design after I split off for the legs. It is going to be a Swedish flag, which is bright blue and yellow-hence the bland background color. I had to hand dye the blue and yellow to get them the right "Swedish Flag" color. A Swdish Flag looks like this:



I dyed the blue a while ago because I needed to run the color by the customer but I just did the yellow last night. I hung it in the bathroom to dry and woke up this morning to a watery, pale yellow. Oops. I just stuck it back in the nuker with 3 more packets of Kool Aid to see if I can brighten it up a little bit. We shall see. I really want these to go into the mail in the morning, so hopefully I'll be able to post a picture of the completed pair soon.

Oh, and where's KiKi????

***hey! this blog won't let me make a title!***


now to follow up amy's super long, informative post...
a brief intro:

hello kirstin and amy and any other readers out there in the blogosphere!
and congrats to you kirstin, on the little bun. how exciting!
it's me, liz.

yarn lover, mama of adella, and at the present moment, bee-sting victim.

will i still be knitting with my baseball-glove/hand? well of course i will.
and here are the current projects:


knitting pure and simple's children's neck-down pullover (for adella, of course).
super soft, super nice malabrigo yarn, which feels just wonderful to knit with after recently completing this:


log cabin kitchen rug from Mason-Dixon.
you gotta love the $1.49 cotton yarn that i used, but triple-stranded? ouch.

and also on the needles:

yep - another log cabin - and another knit for adella. eventually it will grow into a big cuddly blanket. for now it is a small cuddly blanket.
i know it may seem like it is a bit crooked, but i have it from a very reliable source that it is merely an optical illusion (though it could stand a nice blocking for sure).

okay - enough for now. the man-hand is aching and itching and is starting to look splotchy now, and i need to go search for benadryl.

oh, and amy - men who knit? irresistable!
sadly, stig will never agree to let me teach him, so i may have to borrow henry to fill my knitting-with-a-guy void.

I hate to start off this brand spankin' new knitting blog with something for work, but I can only post pictures of what I'm doing right?

Oh wait, I should probably introduce myself on the off chance that someone stumbles upong this blog who isn't directly related to one of us contributers (we contributers? Come on English Major, kick in any time now...). I should probably come up with some super cool username like "KnitBitch McGee" or "Ms. Speedyfingers", but I think I'll just stick with amy. I am a mama who opened a internet based business knitting baby things in a desperate attempt to offset the cost of being a stay at home mom. It started with a post on a mothering board with a picture of my first longies with a skull and bones on then and it took off from there. That was over a year ago and I have knit more longies than I can count. My tiny man is getting ready to go to school now, so I am trying to figure out how to balance my time with him in the afternoons, working out of the home and running my little knitbiz. It should be interesting. I am the one who's posts will be formatted strangely because I am a little technologically challenged and who will likely bore you to tears with picture after picture of baby pants. Oh, here's me and the tiny man.


He has been known to play with his Hotwheels and declare "We're driving to the YARN STORE!". I have trained him well. I plan to get him his first set of needles for his 4th birthday next year. He'll thank me for it later-is there anything more attractive than a guy who knits? Yeah. He'll thank me later.




I just finished a pair of what I call "Daddy Longies" for a customer who is trying to convince her husband that cloth diapering can be manly. Block letters seem really easy, but since I only had about 75 rows of outseam to work with and 7 letters in each word, I had to make each letter 8 rows high in order to leave a little space at the top and bottom of the lettering. I only had room to leave 1 row between letters. Doing block letters with 8 rows to work with proved more difficult than I originally thought, especially with the "N" and "K", but I think they turned out okay. There maaaaay be one minor flaw. I was knitting at the pub the other night while playing pub trivia (which prompted a well dressed man on the team at the next table to call me a "crazy person" -pshaw. He was just mad because I can knit and kick his sorry ass in trivia all at the same time.) and in the darkness of the room I managed to yarn over and knit it for the next 3 rows. I debated just sewing up the tiny hole that resulted, but couldn't leave it be. Frogging at the pub-hey, there's another good knitblog name. Anyway, this was on the second leg, so I had to keep track of the rows I ripped out to make sure I kept a count of the exact number of rows I knit to make the legs the same length. There is a small possibility that one leg has one more row than the other. Shhhhh! I sent pictures off to the customer last night and haven't heard back yet, which is always nerve racking. I hope no one tells her husband that I am currently working on finding "Green Bay Packer green" wool for another customer. How did I become the go to girl for sports themed longies? No idea.

In exciting news, I have free knitting time while I wait for measurements from the one remaining customer on my wait list. That means I get to sit and work on my super secret project today. I measured super secret earlier and have a depressingly long way to go. My super secret plan is to let Henry go to school next week and have a lot of trouble finding a job. What's left to do but knit? Mwahahahaha!

Okay, I'm going to hit "Publish Post" and see how much I've mangled this entry. Wish me luck!