Happiness is...

Watching the Montreal Canadiens play hockey on a French-Canadian sports channel :)

Wahoo for "Center Ice"!

Nearly an instant finished object!

So the Drops Design Jacket that I started last winter finally got revisited and finished.

It's a seed stitch, buttonless jacket. I did it in Cascade 220 Heathered Turquoise, with these awesome pink tones (two of my favs in one yarn!!). I had the fronts, back, and one sleeve completely done, with only a couple of inches left on the other sleeve, seaming, and the 2 cm of collar left to do.

WHY DIDN'T I FINISH IT SOONER?!

I had to finish it up because I needed the Boye Needleset cable from the back on the sweater so I could start hubby's next sweater. I really think finishing the sleeve, seaming it and the collar only took me 8 hrs. What a goofball I am! But, it was perfect timing as we got a cold snap and it came in handy!

I'll take photos this week, as we have another cold front moving in and update this post!

Of course more socks...

I haven't strayed away from always working on a pair of socks...they just too easy to have tucked with me on the way to work!

I've been keeping up with the Rockin' Sock Club shipments and stitched up the Goody Goody Gumdrop socks from July:

I'm just now noticing that I dont have a completed photo of this pair of socks, but trust me, very cute!

That same month, they gave us a bonus pattern that I'm currently (slowly) working on for young girl for Christmas. The SweetTart Anklets in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Stripe should be the perfect weight for Orlando. I've only the foot to finish on the second sock and I'll be done with this pair!

After trying a picot edge on these socks, I like the idea of the process, but not sure I'd seek out a sock with this same edging. Just too fussy.

My Summer Sleeveless Tuxedo Shirt

Right as the summer was winding down, I finished up my Sleeveless Tuxedo Shirt from Interweave Knits, Summer 2007 issue.

Super quick knit, and I definitely turned to Ravelry for advice several times. First, I decided to use a yarn I had in my stash that I had originally bought for a different shell. I didn't have the attention span necessary for the original shell (too much lace work), so I frogged and went out in search of a shell using this yarn: Hempathy.

I was really unsure about this yarn to begin with. Seem sort of scratchy, and I really didn't want something summery that wouldn't get warn because it's too uncomfortable. I really noticed within the first several inches that it starts to "butter up" and there's no drying of skin or scratchiness that I tend to have when working with fibers such as wool.

I love the finished product, and it definitely was worn several times under a denim jacket before it got too cool, and now I have a cute summer shell that will take me through next summer!

Please ignore my suuuuuper goofy facial expression in the next photo and my extra awkward pose. I wasn't being very photogenic that day! :)

Punky Mittens

At the request of a certain young man, who thinks 72 degrees is freezing, I whipped out a pair of the BRIGHTEST mittens I've ever seen.

First pair of knitted mittens I've done. Pattern is Easy Striped Mittens from Knit Simple magazine--was actually a free insert in the mag a while back. I omitted the stripes because he requested a solid color.

I used the only yarn I could quickly find in eye-blinding-orange. It's I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby. I wouldn't say I "love" it, but it is really soft :)

P.S. Can you tell the boys are starting to enjoy being models??

I really have been accomplishing stuff! I promise!

...And I even took photos (all still on my camera, of course)

I've finished a couple pairs of socks, a tank top (finished when it was still summer), and a sweater!

I swear on the Internets I'll post them all this weekend...between Wichita Thunder hockey, and watching hockey on TV, and putting my house back in order! HA!

...I should never promise :)

My adventures in lace...

So, I had some fingering weight Takhi Dream sitting around that I had no idea what to do with. Luckily, Ravelry had some ideas!

I ended up deciding to knit the Knit Picks Candle Flame Lace Shawl. An easy enough pattern (a long as I remembered to do my yarn overs and not to fold my printed pattern in half and missing 8 or so rows!

As soon as I started I thought "Self, you probably don't have enough for the shawl.. You should probably frog and do the scarf instead..." to which I thought "HA!! It's lace!! It'll be blocked and you'll be shocked how far these 2 balls will go!"

While, yes you can block the heck out of lace, blocking is only so magical. It will NOT turn 2 balls of yarn into... ohhh.....probably the 5 or so I would really like to have this be something that I could snuggle up with.

Instead I have what appears to be a very rockin', very hot pink scarf. While I admit it's very cute, especially with a long sleeve black shirt and tie just so around my neck, I really did have my heart set on a shawl. Oh, but that just gives me reason to start another lace project, and hopefully the sooner the better!

Before I do start one, I hope that the knitting fairy brings me a some blocking tools, like a Space Board and Lace Blocking Wires. Because it's just not any fun to put this many pins into a towel on the carpet!

Here's the finished product after all of the blocking...

Waiting for the next shipment is always so hard!

So, as I've mentioned, I'm a member of the Rockin' Sock Club this year. It's my first time in and I'm absolutely loving it!



But, with it, I have to be patient because a shipment of a surprise yarn and pattern only come every other month.



Towards the end of May, I was getting so antsy to get my next package, I mustered up the courage to finally use the last of (and ugliest portion) of my sock yarn stash. I worked up the Monkey pattern from Knitty, which I had initially started in March.



In my previous go at it, I found that the number of repeats of the lace pattern were not enough to give the socks a comfortable fit, or even to make it over my heel! I ended up putting in an extra 16 stitch lace repeat and then sort of followed the pattern down the toe and sort of winged it at the same time to ensure that I had a good fit.



I can't say that the colors of the yarn have grown on me at all. The color is "Salsa" in the KnitPicks Dancing sock yarn, which I believe has now been discontinued (Ha! See?! No one else like it either!!)



I do REALLY appreciate the lace pattern and the small holes created by the YOs...sort of like an air condition for your feet! And I must say that I had zero problems with the heels--YES!!

And, the next shipment came just a day before I finished these :) Perfect timing!

Heels are the bane of my existance

Okay, maybe it's not *that* bad, but once again, I was happily knitting along on a pair of socks... and sort of forgot to do the heel! Sounds odd, I know, but here, look at this...

So here...this is the Leafling sock from BMFA's Rockin' Sock Club. There should be ribbing on both the back of the heal as well as on the bottom! Ooops. This was the first sock of the pair, and honestly I didn't notice it was wrong until I did the second sock--and did it CORRECTLY!! Ugh. So, I went back to the leg of the sock and reknit. Sigh it's done, and of course, I do love them now that they're done, but MERCY!

So here's what's keeping me busy...

I frogged my Entrelac Sock after it was nearly finished....I *HATED* how poorly I had done the heel, and continued to knit up the leg hoping that somehow it would just magically look "normal." Well, the magic never kicked in, so I ended up just frogging the sock that was soooooo close to being done.


An upside of the whole ordeal is that, when I knit up the first sock the second time (first to the second power) it went much faster. That either speaks to me becoming a better sock knitter or I'm actually able to learn from my mistakes! :) hehe


Here's what first to the second power looks like now:








It's definitely lit a fire under me...that and the hope that my first ever Rockin' Sock Club will arrive soon. I've grown to love the entrelac pattern of these socks even more than when I first saw it now that I know how easy the concept is, and how gratifying the output is---it definitely gets a WOW-reaction when I show it off.





Second sock will be my major focus, and I hope to have it done by the Super Bowl. After that I'll return to work on my Drops Design jacket:

Which is actually much further than this, as I've finished the back and I'm now working on the left and right fronts at the same time. I'm starting to worry that I won't have enough yarn in what I bought to finish the sweater *keeping fingers crossed*

I am a knitting copycat...

So here's how it goes:

I see a project either on Ravelry.com or on a blog, and I decide "I need/want to make that too!"

I don't say, "Boy, I sure could use a sweater/pair of mittens/hat/etc" and then go look for a pattern. Oh, no! I'm instead inspired by the beautiful output of my web-based friends...oh yeah, that's it! Not a "copycat!" "Easily inspired by others!"
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I'm *such* a delinquent blogger. I realllly have done something since I finished those mits for hubby such a long time ago.

So, the mits, while very masculine, and perfect for daily winter, they didn't help much during our KC Chiefs vs Chargers game in KC when it was 16 degrees F + 30 mph winds. I don't think anything would of helped that day. Is it wrong when a player is on the field, gets hurts, and you want to scream "get up!! you're delaying me getting back into the car!!! moooooooove it!!" ...eh, we'll go again in a couple of years, this time I'm thinking August/September :)

Hubby enjoyed the mits well enough that he's becoming a knitted-item requestor!! Very shyly, he asked, "do you think you'd make me a sweater?" I almost ran around the room I was sooo excited.

I prompty picked out 3 patterns for him to pick from, and I knew exactly what color he would be going for (his whole closet is blue, so that was a no-brainer!). He picked a Drops Design sweater (*squeel* i heart Drops) that has 4x4 ribbing from chest up, and a nice textured stitch below.

You can tell from his cheeky photos that he loves it. And since I finished it up the week before Christmas, has nearly worn it once a week:

"He's a model, you know what I mean and he shakes his little tush on the catwalk!"

He also then requested a hat (did I mention it's FREEEEZING here?) So luckily I had just picked up the "Son of Stitch 'n Bitch: 45 Projects to Knit and Crochet for Men" from Borders the previous weekend. This time I let him flip through and find a pattern that he liked. He chose the Ski Beanie pattern and I started straight-away with the left over Cascade 220 from his sweater. I found in my task some Patons that I used for contrasting color,and got this:

I really liked that it was knit flat and then seamed up the back. The garter-rib stitch adds just enough to the hat to make it interesting. It's now his favorite thing to wear to our local hockey club's games.

Well, that's that's what I have been doing since you last heard from me. I'll post again this weekend with my in progress items--trust me, they're just as exciting! :)