swatches

Once upon a time, I promised pictures of my yarn swatches for the mystery sweater project. Finally, here they are.




After blocking, they've a gauge of 3 stitches per inch. Not bad, but, not what I thought I was getting. (Or hoped I was getting...) I ripped out what I had done with the sweater, and I'll start knitting on it again soon.

Also, I'm starting on a pair of basic socks. y'know, the knit anywhere plain socks. I'm using the basic plan out of Ann Budd's Book of Patterns, and Alpaca Sox yarn from Classic Elite Yarns. Pretty yarn, yes? it's a neutral varigated color.

promised pictures

www.flickr.com

Yarn splurge

Remember I was talking about the yarn that was sorta a present, that I wanted to keep? The Alpaca sox? well, the recipient, my Aunt R, was quite happy with the socks, and so I kept the yarn for myself. i think it's addicting, I had to go back to Mass Ave Knit Shop on Friday and get more of it. (it was all on sale!) So, here's the list of what I brought home with me.

• 1 skein Alpaca Sox, in dark greys
• 1 skein Alpaca Sox, in grey, blue, pink
• 2 skeins Noro Daria
• 2 skeins of Berrocco Ultra Alpaca, 1 dark and 1 light purple
• 2 balls of Crystal Palace Yarns Merino Stripes in dark grey
• 4 balls of Crystal Palace Yarns Merino Stripes in a green/purple

The sock yarn, will eventually be socks, of course. The Ultra Alpaca is for a baby sweater( or two. we'll see) from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac. And the Merino Stripes is for two shawls. yep. One for Easter (Heh. Let's see if I actually get that done by Easter...) and one just because.

When I write it down, it seems like a lot of yarn, but, I resisted temptation. I did NOT buy the $50 skein of hand-dyed lace weight, or the $30 silk yarn, no matter how much I was tempted.

And then, I still have projects in the works...The bulky weight sweater I hope I can get mostly done next week. Clessidra is going to be in the works for a while. and, I'm almost done with the baby hat kit!

"There's no place like home..."

It was a very nice holiday, but it's so good to be back home. Home with the husband, children, and pets. Hmm...now that I think about it, we've a pretty full house.

Before we left, on Sunday morning, we opened up our Christmas presents here. I had all my Christmas presents early (1,2), but everybody else had stuff. The two kidlets had their stockings full, then Little Sister had a toy that she's wanted for a while, and Little J had some new toys too. Big J's presents were the Halo Orange Box computer game, and a car adapter for his mp3 player. .hehee...he was absolutely tortured that he didn't have time to install and play the game before we left for Kansas.

Kansas was good. It had snowed on Saturday, but we missed the worst of it by flying in to Kansas City on Sunday. (the plane was late, and i got us lost driving to Wichita, but, we got to our hotel safely, so it's all good, right?) Kansas road crews (and most businesses, not including the hotel we stayed at...) know how to scrape the snow and liberally salt the roads.

Let's see...Monday, we sorta hung out, picked up some last minute presents, relaxed. Tuesday was Christmas at my Uncle's and his wife's. Everybody was there: My aunt R and her husband, my uncle T, my dad, Other Sister, and Other Sister's friend. Trust me, when you add in me, Big J, Little J, Little Sister, and two toy poodle dogs, it was busy, busy, busy. Aunt D cooked all of dinner, and it was wonderful! my fav is the German sausages, and the mashed potatoes, and the chicken...

Have I mentioned that the adults had picked names for presents? (darn it, we forgot to do that for next year.) well, that didn't count for the kids (which was only Little J and Little Sister) so they got beacoup presents. Little Sister got a lot of gift cards, but Little J has toys that beep, make farm animal sounds, and, a horse big enough for him to ride on. Really! He wasn't too interested in it at the time, but he was suffering from toy overload at the time. That furry horsy is getting mailed to Indiana. It would have been difficult to take it home on the airplane with us...use your imagination ;)

I'll add pictures tomorrow. Cheerio!

Breast-feeding mom wins appeals court victory.

This isn't new news, but I just ran across it tonight. Having read about the background to her case, I would probably have been just as annoyed as the National Board of Examiners with the demands of this woman, but her case does provide an important standard for conditions for breastfeeding moms.

Holiday plans

Once again this year, we traveling for the holidays. This time, we're flying back to Kansas for Christmas. The little boy is interested in being on an airplane again (I think. It's a little understated) but I am just glad that this time we only have one 1-hr flight. We'll be flying out of Indianapolis and going to the Kansas City International airport. Oh, and did I mention that we're leaving tomorrow? I'm not packed yet! Normally, i'm all packed by the day before, with a detailed list of everything that is left to do. Today...well, i'm tired out. Part of it was I did shopping with Little J in tow on Thursday and Friday, and probably part is being seven months pregnant. It's not such a crisis that i'm freaking out, not really, because we're not leaving until the afternoon. And we went to Mass this evening, so I'll have all morning to pack.

Ah, but what do I pack? I have decided that I don't need nearly as much stuff to take along on the plane. I am taking my loverly little 'puter (I'm typing on it now, by the way) and I'm putting essential baby supplies in my carry on, but looking back at the last flight, where we had the baby bag, the laptop bag, the stroller, and a carseat, well, I'm trying to have the least amount of stuff that I'm personally carrying as possible. With that in mind, my knitting, and most of our snack foods, will be going into a checked bag. I never have time for knitting on the plane, when I'm busy entertaining Little J (and sometimes Big J, too.). I'll get it out for our 3 hr drive from K.C. to Wichita, though. Definitely!

I'm taking Clessidra along. :) If you read on Ravelry, i was thinking about frogging my stocking and starting over at a different gauge. However, after doing a swatch on #3 needles, and straining my brain over a pattern at that gauge, I decided that i really liked the Clessidra pattern the way it was working out. The pic (I have to figure out how to edit pics on this computer.maybe just load them to Flickr?) is how far I've gotten. I've did 5 sets of decreases, and am about to start the rapid decreases for the ankle shaping. (Is that what it's called?)

I'm also taking along my baby hat kit. That's a simple project, even with the colorwork. err...I'm also taking along a skein of Alpaca Sox yarn, and a pattern...it's a possible Christmas present. But, if the recipient is happy with the other present then I'll be able to keep the yarn all for myself! MuHuHahahaha! ::cough, cough:: sorry, mad scieentist got stuck in my throat.

Speaking of yarn (to imitate someone else's segues), Mass Ave Knit Shop is going to have an after Christmas yarn sale. All yarn at least 30% off, and some upto 50% off. Niiice. So, if you're in the area right after Christmas, it might behoove us, as knitters with stash habits to support, to drop in and, well, at least LOOK at the yarn languishing on the shelves. I'm going to :)

contest, go look!

Raven, on Trampled by Geese blog, is having a contest for her 100 post. She wants to know why people read (and re-read) a blog. Go over there, let her know, and tell her I sent you :)

A Knitter's Holiday Wish:

"Happy holidays, everyone! May your knitting never unravel, may the
Great Frog leave you alone and may your stash increase in the new
year. :-)"

----Kathleen from Southside Indy Knitters

new toy

I mentioned awhile back that Big J ordered a new computer for himself. Well, we had also decided that I needed a new computer too. But where he wanted one able to play all the new games, I just wanted one to surf the internet, read my ebooks, and type a little bit. And, it had to be as small as possible. Big J found one, and it's here! my lovely little toy for Christmas.

It's an Asus Eee PC, in black. It's a little tiny thing, smaller than some hardback books, and it only weighs about 2 lbs. wonderful! I love it very very much. It's small enough to stick in my bag (or diaperbag), it has a very readable screen. The only thing odd is that it runs a version of Linux, instead of Windows. I know almost nothing about Linux, so this may be a learning experience. ;) heehee, now I'll be able to be on Ravelry all the time! oh, and Little J thinks it's a new toy just for him, too.

Signups Open for HotCocoa Swap!

Signups for the Hot Cocoa Swap are open. Go -->here<-- for details. Without going into details, it sounds absolutely yummy! It's going to involve hot cocoa, yarn, stitch markers, and a cute stuffed little critter. hehee... do i have patterns for cute stuffed critters? somewhere...

Switching projects

I've picked up Clessidra again. I have really really wanted to work on them some more lately, and I've convinced myself that I should. Part of it is that the bulky gauge sweater is really boring. So far, it's been endless (okay, so it only seems endless) stockinette, round and around. And, i haven't been particularly happy with Little Sister lately. The other part, is that I'm tired of Christmas, and I want to work on something not designated for Christmas. Yesterday, it was time to start the sleeves on the sweater, and I just couldn't get the number of stitches needed to fit on the circular needle. They wouldn't fit, no matter what. I had a brief moment of total despair, sitting motionless, but it's okay, I snapped out of it. Unfortunately, I won't be able to do those sleeves until I get dpns. Anybody have size 10 dpns? But, today, when I wanted to knit, I dug into my knitting bag to find my Clessidra stocking. Yay! I've did a little more than two repeats of the main cable pattern today, which really feels like I've accomplished something.

For all the other pregnant (or previously pregnant) ladies out there...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/12/12/pregnancy.balance.ap/index.html

It's good to know that evolution keeps me from falling on my face. yep. (except for that time when I tripped over the crack in the sidewalk...but we won't mention that)

new yarn

Today, i took the first step toward my last Christmas Project. I want to make the "Hurry-Up sweater" from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Almanac. And today, I swatched for that sweater. The main color is going to be a grey, with hand-dyed blue-green-purple accents. I found the yarn for it on ebay, want to see?





The grey is a recycled wool from spinners11702. 1 strand, no ply, bulky weight, almost two pounds. The hand-dyed yarn is 4ply bulky weight, 1 pound of yarn, from dannettetaylor. Aren't the colors gorgeous? But I thnk I may have paid too much for the yarn. Yes, it's pretty, but the colors aren't consistent (light spots where the dye didn't take) and the yarn in the skein before I wound it into a ball had spots where it had lightly felted together (Started to felt? Can you be a little bit felted? Is that like a little bit pregnant?). I didn't notice this before now, because it has been living in the bag it came in. I didn't want to get distracted by the pretty yarn ;)

Finished pic of Christmas in Tallinn stocking! Yay! NO MORE STOCKINGS! at least for this year. On this stocking, my gauge was a little loose on the foot, and I made the foot longer before I did the decreases.

When I held them both up before Little Sis, she said that she likes this one better (hmm...is it that she thinks it's bigger? Number of presents is not determined by foot size...) so this will be hers. I have vague ideas of duplicate stitching initials onto each child stocking, but that may wait until next year.

I finished the 2nd!

Quick post: I finished the second Christmas stocking tonight! Pictures tomorrow...

I love my husband!

Big J is spoiling me terribly. Here's pics:



The first picture, with Little J "helping", is the flowers that Big J had delivered yesterday, for our anniversary. Very pretty yellow daisies and yellow/reddish roses, with a charm that says "Live, Love, Laugh". And if you were here I'd let you smell them, they smell so nice!

The second photo, with the teddy bear, is the flowers that came to the door today! My goodness! They're little blue snapdragon-ish flowers, absolutely darling. These are for my birthday :)

Isn't Big J nice?

And did I tell you, I already have my Christmas present? We picked up what I wanted early, so that I could use it. It's a set of Calphalon (spelling?) cookware. Is soo nice! Practical, and it makes me very happy.

The best laid plans...

I've thought of another knitting project that I MUST do soon. Mittens! For Little J. The ones he had last winter have mysteriously lost one of their pair. He and I went outdoors this afternoon because he wanted to play in the snow. He was fine for five minutes of so, but then he fell down, had snow all over his hands, and came crying to his mommy b'cause his hands were cold and wet. We immediately went inside so I could get him dry and warm, and guess what? He wanted to go back outside again!

I was looking at the pair of socks that I made for him, and I think that yarn (Opal sock yarn) will work up for mittens too. They won't be too think...but they will be warm.

and to finish the quote:

...of mice and men, often g'ang astray.

pregnancy progress

I don't have gestational diabetes! yay! well, at least not yet.

The obstetrician's office gave me a call last week, to tell me the good news. I, unfortunately, was sleeping at the time(hey, naps are important), so they left a message on the voice mail. This was sorta a shock, as I had been expecting the glucose tolerance test to be positive. It had been when I was pregnant with Little J, and being diagnosed with it previously increases (waaay increases) the likelihood of having diabetes with the next pregnancy. (My blood sugar was a bit worrisome through out that pregnancy. I survived by eating a lot of meat and veggies, and very little carbs.)

But I don't! Yay!

Progress Report

Here's a new picture for y'all. It's my second "Christmas in Tallinn" Christmas Stocking this year.

Main color is white, and the pattern is in red. I can see the pattern much better on this one than on the first one. Wierd. I think it's just because of the color, my brain sees white as a background color. Although, the tension is finally getting to a point where I'm happy with it.

I've got two repeats of the pattern finished, and I need to do one more repeat before turning the heel. On a good day, I can get one repeat finished in a day, so I'll be able to start on that heel on Tuesday, or maybe on Wednesday.

N.B. If you like Neopets, remember that the Advent Calender has started. Free presents everyday this month!

Not a good day

And I know, it's all in my head. I had a plan of things that I wanted to do:

• Drop off items at Goodwill
• Library
• Put up Christmas Lights
• naptime
• grocery shopping

It wasn't a very long list, but, I thought it would be nice to get some of it done. I knew hubby was planning on staying at home and waiting for his new computer, (Alienware. Nice 'puters, lousy customer service these days.) and I was okay with going out and about with just myself and the kiddos.

I should have mentioned all this to Big J ahead of time.

Big J and I woke up early, and spent some time snuggling while the Little J watched cartoons in the living room. Somehow, by the time I had a shower and was dressed, it was almost noon, and I thought, "Okay, there will be plenty of time after lunch to do my errands." Suuure. Big J wanted to use his grill one more time before winter, but...the charcoal wouldn't light. Maybe it was the 40 degree temperature, who knows. So, hubby dearest cooked the dead cow indoors. (Big J always forgets that when I met him, I was semi-vegetarian. Only chicken or fish, not cow or pork. Okay, so I like red meat when I'm getting sick, but normally, it's not particularly appealing. But Big J thinks I should like it! ewww...) By the time it was cooked and eaten, it was almost 2:00.

I was cleaning up after lunch, and I was thinking if I could get anything done, or if I could leave the kiddos with Big J while I went to run errands, when I suddenly see him ransacking boxes. (Yes, we still have unpacked boxes from when we moved. Yes, we have too much junk. However, I did empty out three boxes today by repacking the ones Big J emptyed out) Big J decided to reformat his laptop, and half-way thru, realized that he didn't have the product key for his Windows installation disk. Ooops. I don't think we ever had the product key for that sucker, but he is sure that it's somewhere...anyway, at that point, i didn't think it would be a good thing to stress him with the little one at the same time. Then, Big J tried to put in the Windows installation discs that we DO have product codes for - I think he fatally confused the computer.

Then it was 5, and time to start supper, and now...I think I'll go to bed.

We'll take the laptop to BestBuy. Hopefully they can straighten it out.