1. The yarn for LaLa's sweater (thanks Lori for asking. :^) ) is Arucania Nature Wool, color 120 - click the middle shade card option on the link. The photo is surprisingly true to the actual color. I would have to say that it doesn't seem to be colorfast. My needles are turning blue. I like the beachyness that the uneven color gives the sweater. It reminds me of pigment dyed t-shirts.
2. I think I'm going to use (but I keep going back and forth on this) a Knitting Pure and Simple roll-top baby sweater (#214) for the Philly baby. But I kind of feel like I could figure that out myself and all I need are approximate directions and a finished size. But I've seen a bunch of people around in blogland knitting some of their patterns (for kids and grownups), and they're just clean, simple designs.....There's also an Ann Norling pattern that's tempting.
3. Friday is my anniversary. 5 years. We got married in criminal court.
4. Friday is also "meet the teacher" only they don't call it that in middle school. It's "schedule pick-up". The monkey goes back to school on Monday. It's not even freakin' August yet. Looks like next year that won't be a problem.
5. I started on the first sleeve for La's sweater and started turning the heel on BIL's sock.
6. I found a pattern that looks like more fun for my mom's scarf (Knitty's Wavy has like a 45 row repeat, which, while it looks nice, is too involved for me right now.) It's the "Not Quite Straight Scarf"
7. I'm going to go to Kmart this weekend or the thrift store next to my Publix to see if I can find something interesting to make a tote-purse. I saw the idea at Zhinka Dinka Doo.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Well, more knitting and sewing of course.
I've been doing some knitting. This is the sweater I started for LaLa. I found EZ's Knitting Workshop at the library and am using that for a guideline of percentages. Yoke or raglan, I haven't decided yet, but figure it doesn't much matter.The second sock for my BIL is about 2/3 of the way to the heel, but it's being knit toe-up. It's my current desk knitting. So two stockinette in the round projects. Exciting.
I got yarn in the mail yesterday too! I'm making myself finish any one of three projects that I have going right now before I start the baby sweater: the zig-zag tote bag, the socks for BIL or the sweater for Lala, preferably the sweater for LaLa since (a)I'm still not sure on the proportions for little babies and (b)The whole point of making the sweater for Lala was as a rapid prototyping effort.
I've also been sewing. I pieced together the four main pieces for the niece/nephew quilt (they find out the gender (baby-willing) in about 3 weeks) I'm thinking the border will either be a nice bright blue (like robin's egg or a October sky blue) for a boy, and for a girl, I don't know. I don't think Pink will work unless it's really bright and purple might be too heavy. Hmm.
So, I pieced together the four blocks all the same, now I'm not sure how to assemble them. I would love to get some opinions:
1. This one was my original plan. Looking at it in the photo, I still really like it.
2. Variation one - inside and outside checkerboards.
3. Variation two - centered square.
4. The Mason-Dixon variation. Off kilter centered square (this one really bothered DH and so is sure to bother his sister, who is even more OCD than he is.)
Friday, July 21, 2006
A post for the pictures
Mostly, I just wanted to show pictures today.
Well. OK. I started another project. I also started the second sock for my BIL, but I started a sweater for LaLa. It's in Arucania Nature Wool Chunky and I'm winging it. It's a bottom-up pullover. probably with raglan sleeves. I figure that between Ann Budd and E.Z. I have the guidelines to figure it out and with LaLa here, I have an idea of when the "next phase" should start. In between now and then I have about 8" of stockinette in the round to knit. Turns out to be a good knit for reading.
For our Philly friend's baby, I'm thinking about the orange Cascade 220 Superwash and a similar pullover but with seed stitch instead of rib edges.
And now for the pictures...
Both socks have since been completed. The left sock is the sock for my BIL. The right one is for DH. I'm feeling not so sure about the socks for DH, but he says he likes it, so I didn't want to argue about it. :^) For the moment the second sock is on hold until I work out my issues. The sock for BIL was finished inside of a week. I think that's a new record. of course it's only 44 stitches around and it's using DK weight yarn. I got through the toe of the second sock yesterday.
This is one of the quilt top schemes I was considering for my new niece or nephew. It's based on this "planned patchwork". In the end, though, I liked this one better.
Here it is all together.
I'll put a border around it too. Not sure what color. Pink or blue? Red is darn tempting. Or green and/or yellow (the original requested colors). I also might make it so that the top/bottom border is thick and the left/right border is thin to give it a rectangular shape. I like to think that it "goes with anything" because it has so many colors in it. That might just be my own personal philosophy though. I tend to think that anything goes with anything.
Well. OK. I started another project. I also started the second sock for my BIL, but I started a sweater for LaLa. It's in Arucania Nature Wool Chunky and I'm winging it. It's a bottom-up pullover. probably with raglan sleeves. I figure that between Ann Budd and E.Z. I have the guidelines to figure it out and with LaLa here, I have an idea of when the "next phase" should start. In between now and then I have about 8" of stockinette in the round to knit. Turns out to be a good knit for reading.
For our Philly friend's baby, I'm thinking about the orange Cascade 220 Superwash and a similar pullover but with seed stitch instead of rib edges.
And now for the pictures...
Both socks have since been completed. The left sock is the sock for my BIL. The right one is for DH. I'm feeling not so sure about the socks for DH, but he says he likes it, so I didn't want to argue about it. :^) For the moment the second sock is on hold until I work out my issues. The sock for BIL was finished inside of a week. I think that's a new record. of course it's only 44 stitches around and it's using DK weight yarn. I got through the toe of the second sock yesterday. This is one of the quilt top schemes I was considering for my new niece or nephew. It's based on this "planned patchwork". In the end, though, I liked this one better. Here it is all together.I'll put a border around it too. Not sure what color. Pink or blue? Red is darn tempting. Or green and/or yellow (the original requested colors). I also might make it so that the top/bottom border is thick and the left/right border is thin to give it a rectangular shape. I like to think that it "goes with anything" because it has so many colors in it. That might just be my own personal philosophy though. I tend to think that anything goes with anything.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Lots of Good Stuff and it's only Tuesday!
I had a 'sock moment' at work last week. I have a sock in progress (or a washcloth or something else small and easy, but right now it's my DH's sock) at my desk at work for those frustrating idle moments - waiting for my code to build, getting things to the point where I can step into it with the debugger, etc. I brought one of my newer coworkers to my desk to show her something before we were committed to it, and she saw the sock.
"Oh! You know how to make socks!" she exclaimed. It turns out that her grandmother and her husband's grandmother both made socks - one knit and one crochet. And that her grandmother would make some kind of footies for people at Christmas, but no one ever learned how to make them and she's not around anymore. So at Christmas she gets out the footies that she still has and I think they make her wistful. I just offered to see if I can "reverse engineer" them. I have a bunch of my grandma's patterns and maybe it's like one of those, too. We'll see what comes of it.
I'm now happy with the squares and colors for the baby quilt. I added some red and orange to the yellow and green, and cut down on the number of fabrics used to one for each color. The palette reminds me of the interior of Crispers restaurants. It's bright and cheerful and DH thought it was good. I have a picture on his camera. Ironically, it's basically the same pattern that I was going to do with the purple, lavender, and white quilt, but it's much different with four colors instead of three. I think there'll be sashing around the whole thing, but haven't committed to a color or print or anything. Probably a solid color, maybe pink or blue, or green or yellow.
I brought home the DH sock for a fitting yesterday, and it's almost up to his sock-tan line. I started a 2x2 rib cuff. The sock for my BIL is at about the same length, but I think I'm going to knit his until the yarn runs out.
"Oh! You know how to make socks!" she exclaimed. It turns out that her grandmother and her husband's grandmother both made socks - one knit and one crochet. And that her grandmother would make some kind of footies for people at Christmas, but no one ever learned how to make them and she's not around anymore. So at Christmas she gets out the footies that she still has and I think they make her wistful. I just offered to see if I can "reverse engineer" them. I have a bunch of my grandma's patterns and maybe it's like one of those, too. We'll see what comes of it.
I'm now happy with the squares and colors for the baby quilt. I added some red and orange to the yellow and green, and cut down on the number of fabrics used to one for each color. The palette reminds me of the interior of Crispers restaurants. It's bright and cheerful and DH thought it was good. I have a picture on his camera. Ironically, it's basically the same pattern that I was going to do with the purple, lavender, and white quilt, but it's much different with four colors instead of three. I think there'll be sashing around the whole thing, but haven't committed to a color or print or anything. Probably a solid color, maybe pink or blue, or green or yellow.
I brought home the DH sock for a fitting yesterday, and it's almost up to his sock-tan line. I started a 2x2 rib cuff. The sock for my BIL is at about the same length, but I think I'm going to knit his until the yarn runs out.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Sock Monkey
I've got a FO to report and a new project too (with significant progress!)
Well, it's an unseamed FO. I finished the knitting portion of the baby sweater for a friend's new baby (due in January). I picked up some white buttons for it, deciding to go pretty gender-ambiguous (or Classic) so that they could use it for any subsequent kids and I could finish it whether or not they found out the gender. The catch is, that I forgot how little confidence I have in my seaming. And this darn pale yellow is really hard to see where the edges of the stitches are. It's garter stitch and the ridges are poorly defined. I'm thinking about seaming it in a contrast color (orange?). I guess I could always "trace" the orange seam with yarn from the project. It was a neat pattern, though, in that it was all knit in one piece, in the flat. So the seams are going to run from the wrist to the end of the side seam at the waist.
The second project to report is a Christmas present! It's a sock for my BIL. It's the green merino Creme Brulee from Melissa. It's super-soft and on size 4 needles one of those theraputic stockinette in the round quick knits. I cast on yesterday, went for a goodly car ride to go pick up the monkey from camp (well from the bus drop point in Ocoee - camp was in Georgia). I turned the heel this morning and now I'm contemplating how much longer to make the 3x1 rib before changing to 1x1 rib for the cuff. I used one of the toe's from Wendy's Knitty article (Have used it quite a bit lately, it's my favorite so far) and the Judy's heel (I love this one too - I love the fill-in-the-blanks from a table format, I love the charts, I love that the pattern works)
The sock for DH is at work. The heel is turned and the ankle is 3x1 rib. I'm at the point on that one where I'm starting to wonder how long to make it. I think I'l have to bring it home this week for a fitting. DH seemed a little something that I was working on a sock for someone else, as though I had cast aside his.
Friday I hit Little Knits for yarn for another baby sweater (I know 3 January babies! 1 quilt, 2 sweaters, 9 receiving blankets, 3 hats). I got some Cascade 220 Superwash in cream and orange (I really like the orange, but the cream in case I chicken out) (and also some sock yarn, another set of sock needles, and some Cascade Pastaza) What I would like to find is a pattern (or measurements and a game plan) for a seamless (or nearly seamless) top down or bottom up little baby sized sweater. It seems like all of the patterns I'm seeing in the baby patterns I have are seamed, and none of the "formula" books (Ann Budd, Joy of Knitting Companion) have formulas/dimensions for very small people's sweaters. I saw this very pretty one at Grumperina's (she does make it look easy, and described the basic algorithm in a subsequent blog entry) and may just wing it, using some long-sleeve onesies that I picked up for freezer-papering as a size guide.
Well, it's an unseamed FO. I finished the knitting portion of the baby sweater for a friend's new baby (due in January). I picked up some white buttons for it, deciding to go pretty gender-ambiguous (or Classic) so that they could use it for any subsequent kids and I could finish it whether or not they found out the gender. The catch is, that I forgot how little confidence I have in my seaming. And this darn pale yellow is really hard to see where the edges of the stitches are. It's garter stitch and the ridges are poorly defined. I'm thinking about seaming it in a contrast color (orange?). I guess I could always "trace" the orange seam with yarn from the project. It was a neat pattern, though, in that it was all knit in one piece, in the flat. So the seams are going to run from the wrist to the end of the side seam at the waist.
The second project to report is a Christmas present! It's a sock for my BIL. It's the green merino Creme Brulee from Melissa. It's super-soft and on size 4 needles one of those theraputic stockinette in the round quick knits. I cast on yesterday, went for a goodly car ride to go pick up the monkey from camp (well from the bus drop point in Ocoee - camp was in Georgia). I turned the heel this morning and now I'm contemplating how much longer to make the 3x1 rib before changing to 1x1 rib for the cuff. I used one of the toe's from Wendy's Knitty article (Have used it quite a bit lately, it's my favorite so far) and the Judy's heel (I love this one too - I love the fill-in-the-blanks from a table format, I love the charts, I love that the pattern works)
The sock for DH is at work. The heel is turned and the ankle is 3x1 rib. I'm at the point on that one where I'm starting to wonder how long to make it. I think I'l have to bring it home this week for a fitting. DH seemed a little something that I was working on a sock for someone else, as though I had cast aside his.
Friday I hit Little Knits for yarn for another baby sweater (I know 3 January babies! 1 quilt, 2 sweaters, 9 receiving blankets, 3 hats). I got some Cascade 220 Superwash in cream and orange (I really like the orange, but the cream in case I chicken out) (and also some sock yarn, another set of sock needles, and some Cascade Pastaza) What I would like to find is a pattern (or measurements and a game plan) for a seamless (or nearly seamless) top down or bottom up little baby sized sweater. It seems like all of the patterns I'm seeing in the baby patterns I have are seamed, and none of the "formula" books (Ann Budd, Joy of Knitting Companion) have formulas/dimensions for very small people's sweaters. I saw this very pretty one at Grumperina's (she does make it look easy, and described the basic algorithm in a subsequent blog entry) and may just wing it, using some long-sleeve onesies that I picked up for freezer-papering as a size guide.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Soylent Green or no Soylent Green
We went and saw my sister, her husband and my nephews this weekend. One of the stories they told was how Robby, the 2 year old, was playing, then suddenly quiet. They found him watching the TV in the nursery. Deal or No Deal. Being 2, and a big fan of "no", he was cheering the contestant on for "No Deal!" So I tried Deal or No Deal with some other words - monkey or no monkey - "No Monkey!" Boat or no boat - "No Boat!" Soylent Green or No Soylent Green. That one stumped him, but LaLa happily volunteered "No Soylent Green. What's Soylent Green?" That'll teach me.
Tonight on the way home from dinner we played the game some more. Soylent Green or no Soylent Green? "No Soylent Green. What's Soylent Green?" she asked. "I don't know." "Soylent Green is people!" she said happily in her cute three year old voice.
I think my CD drive is dying a slow and painful death. The good news is Bob the Builder is out, the bad news is that it wouldn't read the photo CD. I ended up putting it in DH's computer and reading it across the network.
I've turned the heel on DH's first sock. I used the "You're Putting Me On" heel. It's a heel flap for toe-up socks. It doesn't have slip-stitch ribbing, but I think it'll be fine. The leg of the sock is in 3x1 ribbing.
The baby sweater is coming along too. I'm on the last leg - the right front, including the sleeve. It looks like it'll take some concentration in order to get the button holes in the right place and remember to cast off for the sleeve too.
I cut out some fabric for the quilt for the new niece or nephew. I'm still not too keen on the colors. I think it needs something, but am not sure what. This yellow and green is just not very vibrant. This is the pattern that I'm envisioning now, and I think I'm going to add some orange to the yellow and green.
DH traced my sister, my BIL and my nephew's feet for future socks when we were there. LL for my sister and a K1C2 DK weight Merino for my BIL. I think my nephew just wanted to have his feet traced. My sister yelped excitedly when she figured out it was for socks.
Tonight on the way home from dinner we played the game some more. Soylent Green or no Soylent Green? "No Soylent Green. What's Soylent Green?" she asked. "I don't know." "Soylent Green is people!" she said happily in her cute three year old voice.
I think my CD drive is dying a slow and painful death. The good news is Bob the Builder is out, the bad news is that it wouldn't read the photo CD. I ended up putting it in DH's computer and reading it across the network.
I've turned the heel on DH's first sock. I used the "You're Putting Me On" heel. It's a heel flap for toe-up socks. It doesn't have slip-stitch ribbing, but I think it'll be fine. The leg of the sock is in 3x1 ribbing.
The baby sweater is coming along too. I'm on the last leg - the right front, including the sleeve. It looks like it'll take some concentration in order to get the button holes in the right place and remember to cast off for the sleeve too.
I cut out some fabric for the quilt for the new niece or nephew. I'm still not too keen on the colors. I think it needs something, but am not sure what. This yellow and green is just not very vibrant. This is the pattern that I'm envisioning now, and I think I'm going to add some orange to the yellow and green.
DH traced my sister, my BIL and my nephew's feet for future socks when we were there. LL for my sister and a K1C2 DK weight Merino for my BIL. I think my nephew just wanted to have his feet traced. My sister yelped excitedly when she figured out it was for socks.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Happy Fourth and Many Moreth
There's a Gees Bend quilt exhibit coming to the Orlando Museum of Art! We went today to see the Art of the Motorcycle exhibit and the Eric Carle exhibit. Turns out three is still a little too young for the art museum, even when the artwork is colorful picture book illustrations.
I did quite a bit of sewing and organizing the fabric this weekend.
I finished up the pink and purple quilt - and washed it with our regular wash. It turned out to be soft and cozy and nice. I bound it with regular old silky blanket edging (again, the texture thing) and it was much more wrinkly than I wanted it. I let it set for a while and decided that it was OK, and washed it with our regular old laundry and it didn't fall apart. We dropped it off at the Sewing Studio for the Project Linus people to pick up. They were having a crazy 40% off the store sale and it was jam-packed. They had a bunch of gourmet fabric (like Kaffee F., etc.) that I had never seen IRL before. There were lines out the wazoo for cutting tables and to check out. If I hadn't had the whole family in tow, mabye I would have picked up something but (a)I really don't like those kinds of crowds and (b)I had just done a bunch of stash and WIP organising and I think it would have made me nasesous to buy fabric I didn't need. I have a picture of the quilt.
I discovered that I have 5 quilts queued up. That seems excessive, even to me. Here they are:
I did quite a bit of sewing and organizing the fabric this weekend.
I finished up the pink and purple quilt - and washed it with our regular wash. It turned out to be soft and cozy and nice. I bound it with regular old silky blanket edging (again, the texture thing) and it was much more wrinkly than I wanted it. I let it set for a while and decided that it was OK, and washed it with our regular old laundry and it didn't fall apart. We dropped it off at the Sewing Studio for the Project Linus people to pick up. They were having a crazy 40% off the store sale and it was jam-packed. They had a bunch of gourmet fabric (like Kaffee F., etc.) that I had never seen IRL before. There were lines out the wazoo for cutting tables and to check out. If I hadn't had the whole family in tow, mabye I would have picked up something but (a)I really don't like those kinds of crowds and (b)I had just done a bunch of stash and WIP organising and I think it would have made me nasesous to buy fabric I didn't need. I have a picture of the quilt.
I discovered that I have 5 quilts queued up. That seems excessive, even to me. Here they are:
- crib sized quilt for my new niece or nephew. I think I'm going to go with a checkerboard pattern of baby-duck-yellow and sagey-green, but with "brick" shaped squares.
- quilt for Lala. Have a bunch of blues for it, and will probably cut out uniform sized squares and just put it all together.
- quilt for the monkey. Black, yellow, cream. Not sure on a design, leaning toward "rail fence".
- Chinese coin quilt. I started this about 5 years ago. I have all of the coins cut out.
I sewed together one of the streams of coins this weekend. I don't think it turned out as long as it was supposed to, but maybe some ironing will help me figure it out. - New stash quilt thing. OK. When I was expecting LaLa, someone sent me a box jam packed with fat quarters. I cut out squares to make 4 hotpads, but never assembled them. Now, they weren't "squares" - one side should end up a half inch bigger than the other. The front was to be a four square checkerboard. So the difference there was like 1/4 inch. I'm not sure they're assembled correctly. I'm thinking about making a quilt from some of that fabric, but I guess I can let that idea marinate for a while.
In knitting news, I've been making progress on the garter stitch baby sweater. I've finished the back, separated the L and R sides and now and have finished one of the sleeves. 
Oh, and other sewing progress, I finished a tote bag, sewed a whole nother (lesson: 36" probably isn't a long enough strap, either to cut in half for handles or to leave whole for a shoulder strap) 
I also finished sewing on the patches for the Monkey's Cub Scout brag vest. He's just finished his first year in Boy Scouts. I think the project predates my daughter.
I also finished off these pajama pants for the monkey. The last in the series of 4 (one for DH, me and LaLa already.)
All of the fabric is out of the closet and off of the floor on my side of the room. And in some super great plastic bins - bin one is stash fabric (leftovers and whatnot) bin two is dedicated to specific projects. Sadly, though, the bins are stacked on top of eachother in my living room. So close, and yet so far.
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