It's been a while!

It seems like i haven't posted anything in forever.... and that's because my knitting came close to a halt. We have been in the process of buying a house and i can't believe how time consuming that can be! We are finally moved in as of June 13th and now the house is organized and put together, I think i can safely start knitting again. I wasn't completely idle while i was quiet...i have almost completely finished my first baby sweater! However, it didn't come out quite as expected and now i'm struggling with deciding whether to finish it or just move on to the next project and take it apart and use the yarn for something else. I followed the directions for 12-24 months and the sweater came out maybe big enough for a 6 month old...or younger. Did i check the guage? No. That would be the smart thing to do. And i am lazy. So now i have a teensy tiny sweater made out of sunny happy yarn...i will take a picture of it tonight and try to upload it for all to see. My older sister thought the yarn reminded her of my son, so it was meant for him....now, if i decide to finish it, it might be meant for one of his stuffed animals.

Emmet

my super cutie

My latest finished object

It's for Liana. When she saw the pair i made she wanted a pair so bad that i took her to the yarn store and told her to pick out whatever sock yarn she wanted and i'd make her a pair....it only took me a week to do this one!! The last pair took me about 2 months to finish because they had such a complicated pattern and i had no idea what i was doing. But with an easy ribbing pattern, i can crank out one sock per week! Now y'all know what you're getting for Christmas this year....and i don't care if you live in Florida!!! 

The socks are FINISHED!!

Here they are:

I am so darn proud of them! I messed up the second one a bit because i got cocky at the end and stopped paying close attention to the directions and decreased EVERY row of the toe instead of every other row and now the sock on the left has half the amount of toe space as the sock on the right. But i don't care too much...i still wore them to work the next day and ran around the office without shoes on. Thanks Shelly,  for the sock pattern from hell and the awesome sock yarn!!! I love my socks!! 

What to make next......maybe it's time to start a baby sweater?? Mike wanted an Ipod cozy....that should be fast....and i still have the unfinished scarf for my boss which i'm starting to think i might not finish and then there's always the blanket for my mother-in-law...that blanket that seems to be cursed at row 45!!! I KNOW there has GOT to be something wrong with that pattern...it can't be me!! (it's probably me.)

I'm not that fast

When i asked my mom if she'd looked at my blog recently she said "No! Sometimes you don't add anything for weeks!" I had to explain to her that i really do knit everyday....but i don't PRODUCE a new object everyday!! I've been working on the second sock for weeks now! But i will do my best to go faster and post as much as possible so my mom can stop being annoyed with me for taking too long. 

So, dear sweet mother....this is for you:

Oscar night

This is what we were doing while watching the Oscars. I am already more than halfway done with the other sock now and so excited to have a pair soon! It will be the first thing i've knitted and kept for myself! (Of course, i don't think they would FIT anyone else. They're a bit tight on me.) And Maiya is knitting a SWEATER!! She went straight from hats to a sweater and she's almost done. This was the sweater she started before learning hats...the sweater that's taken about a year to get this far....but that's ok! That's a bigger attempt than i dare to make yet....although i'm getting really close to being that confident.

Headband

Pay no mind to the adorable children in this photo. Please ignore the happy faces, the good book reading and the cute pajamas.

Please redirect your focus to THAT GORGEOUS HEADBAND!!!
I totally made that!! I got the pattern from  http://www.cyn.ca/knit/patterns/bamboozled/ .

It was the first thing i tried with cables. I was quite in love with it...i made it for Maiya a few months ago and forgot to take a picture of it to post. 

The Fascine Braid sock...one down!

This is what my sock looked like before lunch today. And before watching a video online about how to do the Kitchener stitch. And yes, i did wear it around the office like this, with the needles still attached. I'm quite proud, you see.

And the bottom 2 pictures are the whole sock finished tonight, after weaving in ends and wearing it around the house, showing it off to Mike and Emmet. 

So now i have to start ANOTHER! Sigh.....i wish the human race was only made with one foot. But on the up-side, it should go MUCH quicker than the first, now that i know what i'm doing!

a sock too beautiful for mortal man...

Is this the most gorgeous unfinished sock you've ever seen?? I think i'm getting the hang of this! I finally figured out the gusset. Then the rest is easy but slow-going in my case. But we're almost there! Almost to the part where it tells me to start the toe..i think i have another inch to go before that happens. I am getting quite excited but i have a nervous little voice inside telling me it doesn't fit. This voice would never have spoken up if i hadn't actually stuck my foot in the sock and seen for myself that it didn't seem to fit. But i will keep telling myself it's because i tried it on with the needles in it. Yeah, that must be it. I'm sure it will fit when the needles come out....right?

My son the entertainer.

A Knitting Standstill

Sigh...there's something wrong with the blanket. I was having so much fun with it, whipping through and loving the way it grows...but then i'd be off by one stitch...and one stitch off would mess up the pattern. So i took out a bunch of rows trying to figure out where the mistake was. I thought i found it, knit up a few rows again but it still was off. So i took out MORE rows, started again, and it was slightly off! Took out more rows again and was very careful to make sure everything was right on the row i ripped down to....counted, double counted, checked everything twice......everything seemed perfect so with a gusto i started up again and BAM! ONE STITCH OFF!!! On row 47! Could it be a mistake in the pattern? I want to work on it so badly, but i'm getting more and more frustrated. 

The sock has been on hold while i worked on the blanket and waited for my sock book to come. Well, the book came and i think i might have figured out what i'm supposed to do. I'm not sure if i'll try it on the sock i've started or if i'll start a new one, a "practice" sock with thicker yarn so that it will finish quickly. 

I've been in a reading mood lately too and it's hard dividing up what little extra time i have between my 2 favorite pastimes. But tonight, i think i'll relax and read...save my knitting frustrations for the weekend. 

Emmet / January 18th

The sock is on hold....

The sock book i ordered online STILL is not here and i haven't really had the time to go on youtube and watch the video Amy recommended so in the meantime i've started THIS! it's a Radiating Star blanket. It's my mother-in-law's Christmas present...a little late but she's ok with that. Can you believe i started this thing on 4 double pointed needles??? You start in the center and work your way out, eventually switching to circular needles. It took me a couple of DAYS just to figure out how to get the first row done....even the lady at the yarn store couldn't do it! But i am nothing if not persistant...and eventually i figured it out! Pretty neat huh? 

A heel flap, a heel turn and gusset..OH MY!

Ok, i know that hundreds of you,...nay, thousands, perhaps.....have been waiting with breaths held to see the heel flap i have worked so hard on. And i dare not disappoint:

TADAHHHH!!!!    The heel flap was easy. But turning the heel was a bit more

 complicated....

This, my friends, is a heel turn and it would not have been hard...SHOULD NOT have been hard....but the woman who wrote the sock directions had it in for me. It took me 3 tries on practice yarn before i gave up and decided i needed help. So i went to Lucy, knitter savant, and she tried to figure it out...she even made her own sam

ple at home and she said it took her 3 tries but she eventually got it right. She brought it in to work to show me and i went home and tried 2 more times and FINALLY figured it out. It was not me being thick....it was that sneak of a sock pattern writer. Well i showed her!

But now, alas, i am stuck again. I'm supposed to do "the gusset" next. Now, i had no idea what a "gusset" was and the pattern writer did not feel the need to embellish, so finally i looked it up online and found a picture

So now i see what the gusset is but i can't figure out how to make it happen!! I think the pattern lady is trying to sound smart. Even Lucy could not figure out how to start the gusset after reading the directions with me over and over. Maybe i should have started my first sock with an intermediate pattern....this could be my fault. But seriously, the woman didn't even feel the need to explain what a gusset was, much less make any sense in her directions on how to make it! So once again i am at a standstill. I did order a Knitting Socks book off Barnes and Noble.com but it hasn't arrived yet. I'm hoping that will clear things up. I could just quit this sock and start another, easier sock.....but now i am angry. I WILL make this sock. Now it's personal. 

I have a feeling the lady at the little local yarn shop will be getting another "help" visit from me this weekend....this time i may have to buy something so she doesn't think i'm just using her. 

Oh yeah, and have i mentioned that this sock is looking a little tight? Lucy's not so sure it will fit a human foot. This sock is going to kill me.

hiding.

MORE sock

Look at this! It keeps getting better and better! A couple more inches down, 2 more to go and then the hard part starts. Down below you can see a a more detailed picture of the pattern...i'm loving it even though i'm still not sure if i'm doing it the way the pattern wanted me too. 

I have officially given up knitting all other projects until i have finished this sock. I haven't even been reading my book club book....which is really bad since i'm the one who got the book club started at work!

Check it out!

Oooooooooh......look how the colors are appearing, it's beautiful!!! And i love the way the pattern looks although it's very hard to see here...and it's going to take forever to finish. I did make more progress last night though...the top blue stripe is much wider now...more pictures to come soon!

And away we go!!!!

i have started a SOCK!! I have never knitted a sock before and i simply could not wait any longer, it had to be done. That sock yarn has been calling out to me in my dreams and i could no longer ignore it...other projects be damned! So far so good...but this is the easy part.

These needles are so TINY! They're a size 2 and i feel like i'm knitting with toothpicks! Shelly said i could get 2 socks out of this skein but this yarn is so thin i think i could get 8 socks from it! I can hardly wait for it to start striping....so far it's only one color but that should change soon....

Spoiled.

Oh yes i am! Look at this amazing amount of gorgeous knitting stuff! This is what my sister Shelly just gave me for Christmas! Look at all that yarn...and it's the good stuff...not the 3$ A.C.Moore stuff i usually buy! And bamboo needles and 4 books and 3 sock knitting patterns and 2 magazines and a partridge in a pear tree! I'm overwhelmed....i'm so excited i don't even know what to start next! I just keep looking at it all....but my hands don't know what to knit first! And then there's the obligatory knitting i have to finish first ... the scarf for my boss and 2 more for my friends, a hat for Mike....i have to be good and finish those things too. I tend to start things and not finish them. And now this....this is way too tempting. This could be the best Christmas gift ever....other than the huge Barbie head i got when i was around 7 years old....that one's hard to beat.