I'm Baaa-aaack!

Okay, there's been lots of knitting going on, but first, I have to tell you what happened last weekend.

The Small Ones and I were at our dad's house, and we went to this art fair on Saturday, where I met some interesting people. The first was a lady with a booth where she was selling jewelry she had made. I complimented her work, and mentioned how all the little cards the earrings were stuck through had pictures of sheep printed on them. She said that was because she collected sheep. In fact, her daughter owned a yarn shop, but she had collected sheep long before that(I wish I could have seen my face when she said "owns a yarn shop") I said that was really cool, I'm a knitter and I love sheep. She said that her daughter had some patterns published on the internet and I should check them out. She wrote the name of the shop on a card, though she wasn't quite sure how to spell it. It's "Knit Nueveau(noo-vo)" or however you spell the French word for "new"

Second interesting encounter happened shortly afterward, when we found this booth and some ladies who were medieval re-enactors. One of them was spinning on a drop spindle. I already knew sort of how to do it(from reading blogs) and I watched her and she showed me and after a while she let me try it! It was great. I only spun about a yard, but it was really even and she said I did really good for never having spun before in my life. I was riding that high all weekend. I'm going to have to get me a drop spindle real soon.

I realised a while ago that I never showed you guys the yarn I won in Annie's drawing, so here it is:
Ain't it purty? Smells good too. It's Brooks Farm variegated primero, 500 yards, 100% mohair. I adore it, but I can't for the life of me think of what to make with it. But for now I'm content with leaving it on my worktable as a pet skein.
(color sooo not accurate) These are Tita's Christmas socks, in all their glory(well, most of it. I spent five minutes taking this picure again and again, in various lights, and I couldn't get the color anywhere near right) I just might have to steal these. Maybe I could hypnotize her into thinking that she bought this yarn for me out of the goodness of her heart, not because she wanted socks.
This is a dainty little tote I whipped up from one ball of ribbon yarn from the dollar store. That brings be so much joy. My mom even bought the yarn for me, and even if I bought more it would only be a buck-a-ball. I'll probably sell this for $10-$15!
This is a Christmas gift, a clutch purse for my cousin. This is it before felting,
and after. I love felting. I also love how it freaks my mom out.

Tita and I are taking a crochet class at out LYS, and this is the square I made at our first session. It's from the book "200 Crochet Blocks" by Jan Eaton. The whole class, in fact, is on squares from the book. There are 30 block classes offered, one a week. Tita and I are going to 10 of them, on various weeks, in various months(it'll take a while to get through them all) By the way, this is the block called "Lemon Peel"
This is another Christmas gift, a slipper for our nanny. (yes, I know it's gynormous. It's going to be felted)
I FINALLY finished Thing 2's blanket! Yay me! I put so much work into this, I've decided I'm just going to put it away and give it to him at Christmas. He'll forget about it soon enough. Small boys are like that.
This is a Dobby Hat for my friend Wayne, who is the boyfriend of my friend Anna, whom I have also made a Dobby Hat for. He saw hers, and loved it, so I was planning to make him one for Christmas, but then his birthday snuck up on me, so here it is. I can't wait to see his face when I give it to him tomorrow.

So now you've all been suitably caught up, and I'm off to read blogs. Ciao!

Consummatum Est

If Stephanie's http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/ Latin is to be trusted, that means, "It is finished."
I love this blanket, but towards the end there it was starting to wear on me. It was overall fun to knit, but I feel no qualms about wrapping it up in pretty paper and hiding it in my closet to wait for the wedding of its recipients.

The Mitter Blankie is trucking along, I now have 7 completed squares and another one on the needles. Still lots of winding, but I'm not complaining. I got a new friend out of it.

Meet BallZilla.

As expected, I used 2 full skeins and a tiny bit of a third for the Wedding Afghan. That would normally annoy the snot out of me, but since I realised that so far in advance, I was able to make plans for that leftover 93% of a skein.
Behold the glory that is My First Cables socks. With US 8 dpns, this project is flying by(I only started this sock yesterday evening). Since I won't be able to use up the whole skein with one pair of socks, I have two more pairs of fair isle socks planned that will use this yarn and some of the leftovers from Cowl(not Howl).

I am so excited! We only have 2 more weeks of actual classes at school, then 2 partial weeks, and then sweet freedom! Gotta jet, must shower and sleep to be fresh for tomorrow(that just happend to be less than a month from the last day of school.)

Buzzzzz...

I've been just busy as a bee lately, and I have a lot to show for it.
Last weekend, the Small Ones and I went to our dad's house, were I commenced to whipping up his birthday present. This is as far as I got, and I don't want to work on it when he's not around(for accurate size-ing purposes) so it'll be a while before I finish it.
I think I'll just do a few more rows of the zigzag, then start the decreases. There isn't room for the speckle I did on the test drive, but that's okay. I wasn't too keen on that anyway.
I'm pleased to say that the stranding is not warping the hat(tugging a tiny bit, but not warping it) because I'm knitting really loosely.

This is a circular needle holder I whipped up in about 20 minutes(size 10 1/2 needles, baby). I'll be able to appreciate it even more when I get more circular needles. I only have 5: those pictured and the one in the Wedding Afghan. Speaking of which...
It grew! I didn't measure it, but I'm about 5'4", I'm holding it with my arms slightly extended, the bottom is brushing the bottoms of my knees, so take your best guess.
Incidentally, the inside of this skein looks nothing like the outside. Is this true of most skeined yarn? I wouldn't know, as this is the most I've ever used of one skein while knitting from the outside end instead of the pull-from-center end.
Remember that blobby red thing I said was a tote bag? I wasn't lying. It grew too. I came home this afternoon and saw it and thought, 'I want this thing finished.' Notice how I didn't say 'I want to finish this.' The whole thing up to that point had been single crochet, and the monotony was wearing on my nerves. I didn't want this bag to enter the Realm of the Forgotten, so I mixed things up a bit.
I'm now doing a pattern where I do one round of double crochet, then 2 rounds of single. I love the change, and I'm psyched that the double crochet goes farther than single. I am so easily amused it's not funny.

I started a new project. This one is a blanket for my nanny's 2-year-old son. The yarn is recycled from my very first project , which didn't work out. I 'm gonna knit a bunch of these squares and sew them together. I love the fact that I can just carry around one square-in-progress at a time.

One problem is that there's lots of winding. And since I have neither a swift or a ball winder, I have to make do with my hands and the arms of my desk chair. Anybody got a spare ball winder?

Rock Party

Today was mostly uneventful. The most interesting moment in school was when in Spanish, one of the boys, for no apparent reason, suddenly made a very strange and loud yelping noise, "Just to do it." We laughed, and he got lunch detention. (the noise had a particularly strong effect because we were all doing a page in our workbooks and the room was mostly quiet.

After school, we threw a Rock Party. In other words, Mom dragged me and The Small Ones outside to pick up rocks out of the spot by the windows where we're gonna put a flower bed. It was aweful. I hate working in the yard. The only redeeming quality of the "party" was the fact that we had Shania Twain blasting from the stereo in Mom's workshop.
If you live in South Carolina like me and want to feel like I did yesterday, go outside at around 4:oo pm and dig around in the dirt in the shade for about 20 minutes in a squatting position. Fill up a bucket of rocks and then stand up. The first things you'll notice are the heavy bucket you have to hold and the pain in your knees. Then step out into the sun. Unless there's a breeze, the temperature difference will be astounding. Walk across the yard and dump the rocks over the fence. Repeat this process about 6 times, then go inside, wash your hands, and knit until supper.

That's what I did, and the Wedding Afghan shows it.
It's now a healthy 16 inches long, almost double what it was yesterday.

I have a bit of a dilema. It has the potential to be a very big dilema in the next several years: whenever I knit for long(and even not-so-long) periods of time, my elbows and wrists pop and crack when I make certain motion. I can't stop doing these motions, as they are essential to the knitting process. Any advice on how to stop this? Maybe a stretch or a system of breaks? Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Pix!

I am relatively knew to this knitting gig. I learned the knit stitch when I was around 8, but never made anything or learned anything else until October of last year. I've only bought yarn without a definite purpose a couple of times, which is why--those with weak stomachs may wish to look away--my entire stash(excluding the stuff on the table above this) is visible in the above picture(that big red thing with hearts is a hat I got at a theme park). Shocking, I know.
I don't mind the fact that storage isn't a problem yet, but there is the side effect that I usually can't just start something on a whim without going to buy yarn for it. I also don't have a good selection of needles. The only sizes I have are US 5, 7, 8, 10 1/2, 11, 15, and something without a lable that's just a teensy bit bigger than my 15s. (Yes, I tried a needle sizer. It only goes up to 15)

This was the scene on my worktable yesterday. That big mass of black in the middle was this--

--the pieces for "Cowl and Howl"(minus the howl, which is a dog sweater) from Stitch 'n' Bitch: a Knitter's Handbook. Today, that mass of black is this--

--my first sweater ever!!!! I used size 11 needles and I Love This Yarn #30 black, 2 skeins. There's a slim chance that if you knit the smallest size and took some length off the sleeves, that you could manage it with just one skein. I finished the front, back, and sleeves with the first skein and about 8" left over. I only needed the second skein for the seams and cowl neck.

Just in case there's any confusion at all, yes: that's me modeling it. Quit staring at my butt.

This a lap afghan I'm knitting as a wedding present for my nanny and her fiance. It's a very simple knit & purl stripe pattern with a seed stitch border.

Blurry closeup.

This misshapen blob is tote bag for my knitting and crochet projects. Oh yeah, I crochet on the side. That's why there's no needles in this picture: I'm crocheting it.

These are my old(old, old) trusties. Yes, that's duck tape around the toes. At some point during the week before last, the sides split open. My mom and I went shopping on Tuesday and we got some new sneakers, but I couldn't wear them the next day because I was going on a field trip and would be out in the woods getting dirty(with mud, you perverts). I wore them on Wednesday, and I think that because of the duck tape, my feet stayed drier than they would have in new sneakers. I haven't worn them since, but I can't bring myself to throw them out. Not quite yet.

This is Ruddy. He just wants to say Hi.

This is the knitting that I was going to show you on Monday, before I knew how to post pictures here. It's a fairly recent FO, bound off on March 19. It's about 43 inches/109 cm square, and took about 4 balls' worth of Red Heart Super Saver and TLC Essentials. Knit on a 36", size 8 circular needle, it took 3 weeks exactly.

I am now gonna go spread the word of my (fairly) new blog and beg for comments. PLEASE COMMENT!!