'Nudder Widdle Sockie Done

And now I have a pair of widdle sockies.  They're fast to knit and so darned cute.  I'll be making more.








And I might have done a little needle shopping, um, ordering the other day.  See, I was putting together yarn and needles and pattern for a few of the baby things I'd like to knit in the next 3 months and I don't, well, didn't have the size needles that I needed and when I was ready to order I had about $48 worth in my shopping cart and if you order $50 you get free shipping so I threw in a single circular needle since I've wanted to try Harmony circs.  (All aboard the justification train.)
 

When I was downstairs working on a sewing project and doing the laundry this afternoon I was thinking about what knitting I wanted to take along on our trip.  I've been itching to cast on an asymmetrical cardi but then I caught sight of the TWO sweaters I have OTN and decided that I should probably finish those before I start another one.  (What a mature and grownup thought!)  So I hauled out the Red Marl Sweater and the Khaki Cardi to see what needs to be done.  The Khaki Cardi needs a sleeve and a half and the Red Marl needs the front finished and both sleeves knitted so of course I took the Red Marl to Friday Night Knitting to figure out where I left off.  (I'm not that mature and grownup.)   Both of them will be riding along and I hope I'll be making a lot of progress on them.  We shall see.  Naturally there'll be other things that need knitting along too.  And I realized tonight that I need to research yarn shops and fabric stores along the way.  Why else am I saving money?

One Widdle Sockie Done...

And another one OTN.  Oh my god, I keep having to take the widdle sockie out of my bag to croon over it.  I can't wait to kiss little toes while trying to cram a squirmy foot into one of these tiny socks.





You want to see how tiny?  Here it is lying on top of the last ankle sock I made for myself.  Now, granted I wear a ladies' size 10 but wook how widdle.

Oh, I'm dying from the cute.

Sock Days

I finished last summer's Pporange (pink, purple, orange) ankle sock on Saturday.  I like it.  I wish that I'd managed to make 2 ankle socks this summer so that I could have worn it today.


And I cast on a baby sock in Cascade Fixation which is cotton yarn with elastic in it.  I love the self-striping and the colors make me smile.  I suspect I'll be casting on another ankle sock when the baby socks are done.  I'm sure there'll be enough yarn.

Baby Steps

The other night after supper I took the Cables & Arans Harmony Guide book and a pad of narrow Post-its into the kitchen and flipped through looking for likely cables for my BLKG design contest entry.  D'you think I might have found a few?  I printed off one pattern of a cabled fingerless mitt from Ravelry and charts from a sock pattern on Knitty to see how it's done.  I'm not copying ideas but I am using them as research as to how many stitches to cast on, etc.  I want to winnow down my cable choices and then I'll start knitting some swatches to see how the cables I choose look in the wild.  This has to be all done and knitted by the April 2014 meeting, I need to get cracking.

I picked up the Flakey Baby Sock last night to knit the foot part after putting in waste yarn for an "afterthought" heel.  I've never done one of those.  Can you see the row of beige stitches near the needles?  That yarn gets taken out, the stitches picked up, and the heel knit.  That's the theory anyway, we'll see how reality matches up.  Oh, and when I got to the end of row 1 of the chart for the second snowflake I was a stitch short.  I don't know where it went.  I looked all over for a dropped one, even turned the tube inside out to see if one was running down toward the cuff, and I didn't find it so I just made one.  It's times like that when I'm glad I'm not that much of a perfectionist as to rip it back and start again.

Not wanting to bollocks up the baby sock (anymore than I evidently have already) I carried the Pporange (Pink purple orange) Ankle sock back and forth to work this week.  I didn't have the opportunity to knit on it at work but I did slap on a few rounds after supper on Monday (Monday night wasn't a good one for thinking about charts) and while waiting for the cardiologist to come see Durwood yesterday and tell him/us to go away until we have some interesting symptoms to share.  Maybe I'll get this sock done before it snows.

A Nudder Sleeb!

Thursday and Friday were not knitting days at work last week so I hadn't gotten much further on Sleeve-the-Second by the time I got to Friday Night Knitting so that's what I worked on for the measly hour I had there.  I didn't keep track of the rounds of Sleeve-the-First so I had to guesstimate on the Second and called it wrong, about 4 rows too soon.  That meant that I picked out the last stitch, frogged the last 4 rows, picked up the stitches and knitted more stockinette rows, then the garter cuff.  Next I need to block it, then find some buttons to sew on, and it'll be done.  I like it although it's bigger than it was meant to be but that only means that it'll fit the baby for a longer time.

At the Bay Lakes Knitting Guild meeting on Thursday evening a design contest was launched.  Happily there will be a category for those who design and sell patterns and sell their knitting, and then another for the rest of us beginners.  I've never considered designing a pattern but I did buy those Harmony Guides this summer and practicing cables is on my "to do" list for 2013, so I'm thinking I'll be picking out a cable or two and making up a pattern for fingerless mitts.  I love fingerless mitts.  Once I got to work on Friday I did a little Ravelry pattern searching for a cabled one that I can use to figure out how many stitches to cast on since cables suck in stitches.  This might be fun.  Did you ever design anything?

A Sleeb!

I am learning the lure of knitting baby things.  Sleeves are fast.  I picked up the held stitches and a few in the underarm of the right sleeve of the Rocco Zander Cardi, knit a few rounds at work, and zoom! a sleeve appeared.  And that's with fingering yarn on US6 needles.  (we all know that I'm not much of a fan of yarn skinnier than worsted and my fingers don't work well with small needles, right?)  It isn't that blue, it's more navy with burgundy and pale gold, rich looking.  Now I need to think about buttons...


Searching on Ravelry makes all permutations possible.  I can narrow my search so that it shows me only projects that use the ingredients I like and have on hand.  That Ravelry, it's an enabler and a time suck.  I can surf patterns and time just passes...  it's lovely.  Someone should make a site like it for fabric crafts too.  Not me, of course, because I know less than nothing about programing but someone should look into it.  (Get on that, will ya?)

Three More Preemie Hats

I swung by the hospital this morning on my way to yoga to drop off the bag of 10 Too Early Birthday Preemie Hats I've made over the last couple weeks.  TEN!  And I have 5 more skeins in the bag to be knitted up, well, not Up up but one from each color... and I know there's one color of that yarn that's not in my bag that I have to hunt up before the jag, while waning, ends for good.  For a while anyway.  Here are the last 3:

cotton candy,






mint chocolate chip,









pond.


I love these colorways.  Love 'em.

Small = Fast

This knitting baby stuff is a kick.  Even using DK weight yarn I've got the body of the Little Zander Cardi done in just a week and after I snapped this photo I got to chugging down one arm.  Hey, when sleeves are only 4" long (10cm-ish) and 39 stitches around it takes no time at all.  I need to start thinking of buttons.




Then there's the Flakey Baby Socks.  Sock #1 is begun... maybe that's what I'll work on today.  I want to see the whole flake emerge.  And I am knitting it inside out which seems to be working quite well.  What isn't working as well is holding yarn in each hand to speed things up.  I can only do this if I drop one and pick up the other.  *sigh*  Someday I'll be a grownup knitter, all cool and two-handed like the big kids.

Project Monogamy Pays

Once I had that last baby hat finished I focused on knitting the Little Zander Cardi for W&AZ's impending baby.  I knit on it all day at work on Wednesday and Thursday, well, in between customers anyway, and by quitting time last night I was at the "put sleeve stitches on waste yarn" point to get on with knitting the body.  I'm liking this so much I may have to troll the stash to see what other superwash or acrylic DK yarns I have.  Babies are imminent but not too imminent that I can't crank out a sweater or two.  Although I do want to beg a Fair Isle lesson from KW at Friday Night Knitting tonight.  I'd better call her to make sure she'll be there and warn her that I'll be picking her brain.  But here's a picture of the Little Zander Cardi.  It's the Puerperium Cardigan.  I'm smitten.

Sorry, I've Been Crazy

I was going to write "crazy busy" up there but realized that in reality I've been just plain crazy, partly because of the tenant switcheroo, partly because of worrying about Durwood's continued iffy health, and partly because I'm 62 years old and not coping with things as well as I did before I reached Social Security age.  (Social Security, baby.  I got my ticket on the gravy train, the checks start next month.  I didn't think there'd be any left when I got this old so I'm taking what I can get when I can get it.)  But I made the decision to go to the free community yoga on Wednesdays this month and on Saturdays too so I should soon be in good shape to slough off the crazies.  *fingers crossed*

In knitting news I cast on a Small & Clever baby hat in some of the Cloud 9 yarn left over from the blankie and finished it last night.  I'll be casting on booties later today and there are some darling thumb-less mittens (they kinda look like little Wii Mii hands) coming up too.  (I love that yarn.  Why'd they discontinue it?  Did the bunnies go on strike?)


I also fell under the spell of the Puerperium Cardigan and pulled out needles and some acrylic DK weight sock yarn in navy and burgundy to see about making one of those for any random baby that might happen by.


I should crank out a hat and booties for W&AZ's impending bambino too.  Three of the four adult cousins in that family are expecting.  Did they plan it this way?  I can't imagine that they did but there are lots of blossoming mamas and supportive daddys around these days.  Any projects OTN with my name on them have fallen way down the queue, burrowing deep into the bottom of project bags and sulking.  I'll eventually get back to them since I volunteered to babysit a couple days a week.  When babies are new they sleep a lot, I hear, which will mean plenty of knitting time.  (hahahahahahaha, yeah, like that really happens.  I've had babies, I know the truth.)  I'll get to them, never fear.