Work In Progress Wednesday v.134

Hey guys!  I made it back from my California vacation/Stitches West trip just fine last week.  I had an amazing time as usual, and have been busy, busy, busy since I got home.  I didn't forget about you though, you'll have to come back on Friday for a trip recap and so you can enter to win the pretty, pretty yarn I bought for you.  It'll be worth the click, I promise.

For now, you'll have to settle for getting up to speed on the projects I've been working on lately.  I think I mentioned it, but a few weeks ago I brought my Peerie Flooers Mittens out of deep hibernation and started working on them again.  I love, love, love these, but I've learned something about myself:  I hate doing 2-handed colorwork on dpns.  It's ridiculously slow going for me, and also awkward and fiddly.  If I'm ever going to make all the fabulous colorwork mittens in my queue, I'm going to have to brush up on my magic looping.  Maybe that will be easier?

Anyway, mitten #1 is chugging along (No, really.  It is.) rather nicely...

I have high hopes to finish it this week, but we'll see if they materialize.

In other news, I started a Hermione's Everyday Sock to knit up on the plane and during down time on vacation.  I absolutely love the yarn, but it's a little bit fuzzy so the stitch definition isn't great.  I think I'm okay with it though.  It's such a pretty color, and sooo soft.

And yep.  This is me practicing my magic looping.  So far so good, but I'd be farther along on the sock if I had any clue how to work a heel on two needles.  I think I've got some youtube time in my near future.  It can't be that hard, right?

That's what's going on around these parts this Wednesday.  I'm still working on the Austin Hoodie, but haven't made any progress to speak of lately so you'll see it again when it's bigger.  Until then, go check out all the lovely projects on the needles and hooks over at WIPW.  See you Friday!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.78

Have you ever noticed that when you *finally* wrap up a big project, your WIP pile looks a little paltry the next week?  Maybe that's just me...

Regardless, with Lorna Suzanne off the needles (and pins!) and in the closet, I don't have a whole lot to show off this week.  There really hasn't been much time to knit of late, with work being crazy busy and shiny new backpacks calling our names last weekend. 

I have another new, non-knitting (oh, the horror!) obsession:  Fitocracy.  Do you guys know about this web site?  I gotta admit, I'm just a tiny bit super-obsessively competitive, and Fitocracy feeds that in the craziest way.  You sign up.  You exercise.  You log your activity.  You get points.  And you get to compete against everyone else and their points.  They have badges you can earn for doing crazy work outs, and quests you can complete.  It's all very geeky, and it's had me working out hard for the last two weeks.  What's not to love?  Except that it bites into my knitting time.  Otherwise, it's pretty awesome.  Let me know if you want to check it out and I'll send you an invite (they're still in Beta).

Despite all my extra-curricular activities, there's been a tiny bit of movement on the knitting front, so you'll have to squint at the pictures and pretend that they look different than last week...  Peerie mitts continue to grow roughly as fast as real flowers in actual dirt.  In February:

I'm commited to finishing them, though.  They're going to be both beautiful and warm, so it's worth it to wrestle with the disappointing yarn and fair isle on dpns.  It'll get bigger soon, promise!

Sock is motoring on, as well.  I'm past the gussett decreases now, and sailing toward the toe.

I still love these a ton, and will focus better on #2 so I can get them on my icy little feets sooner rather than later.

Finally, I've got a new little secret something started for my swap partner.  It doesn't look like much yet, so I think it's safe to show it:

Impressive, no?  I'll tell you all about it once it's been gifted, but for now, you'll have to be content to squint and wonder and enjoy the pretty color of the yarn.

That's it from me this week.  A decidedly dull update, if I do say so myself.  For loads of more exciting progress, head over to Tami's to check out everyone else's WIPW projects. I'll work on being more exciting next week!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.77

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  I'm ecstatic to report that there's not much on the needles around here this week, since Lorna Suzanne is done (!) and swimming around in a sink full of Soak as we speak.  If I can find some buttons, I'll be all ready to share on Friday.  Eep!  I'm so excited.  This one will definitely be a great candidate for one of those Blocking:  Before and After photos (I hope), because it was looking seriously rough when it went into the bath.  The collar was curled, the hem was flipped, the lace was scrunched.  It was not pretty.  Keep your fingers crossed!

In other news, the Duckie sock has been feeling some love this week when I wasn't working like mad to finish up the sweater.  We have heel turn, folks:

I'm still madly in love with this yarn, and convinced that I need to try the fingering weight version.  It's a dream to knit with, the colors are gorgeous (and much more muted than in this stinky pic) and it feels amazing in my hands.  Love.

The mitten has been utterly neglected this week in my push to finish the sweater.  Since it was not the sweater, and not a portable project, it got back-burnered in a big way.  I've pulled it out again today though and here's how it looks now, just having started the thumb gusset. 

More love for the mitten this week, I promise!

That's it for stuff on the needles, but happily I now have some more stuff next to the needles.  Do y'all know about The Loopy Ewe?  They're an online seller of loads of incredible yarns, and (I think, but don't quote me on this) one of the only places in the US where you can buy the yarn snob's holy grail:   Woolmeise.  Until very recently, they were based in St. Louis, with a small store front where local folks could come in and shop.

As luck would have it, they just packed it all up and moved to Colorado!  What're the odds?  Anyway, they opened on Thursday and I had to wait all the way until Saturday to make the 80 mile drive north to go visit.  And it was awesome!  So much gorgeous yarn, and so beautifully organized, and such friendly people that I lost my mind just a tiny bit.

Say hello to my new friend Madelinetosh (Tosh Sock) in Calligraphy.

It doesn't photograph so well in crappy light, but it is beyond beautiful.  Sigh.

I also made friends with Stonehedge Fiber Mill Shepherd's Wool in Sage.  Four times.

I can't begin to describe how soft this yarn is, and I love, love, love this color.  A quick peek at the Ravelry comments tells me that some folks have had trouble with it pilling, but I have high hopes regardless.  It's set aside for Narragansett.

If I weren't getting ready to go to Stitches West, I'd have lost my head some more, but I'm practicing restraint.  In case you're not in the mood to practice restraint, I've installed a little Loopy Ewe button over there on the right and you can click over and see what all the fuss is about.  I gotta say, I'm pretty smitten.  I even joined up and became a Loopy Groupie! 

That's all for this week, I'm getting ready to dive into a few little projects for my swap partner in the next couple of days so we'll all have something shiny and new to look forward to next time.  Whee!  Until then, you can content yourself with checking out the amazing projects that are happening on the rest of the WIPW pages.

Work in Progress Wednesday v.76

Hey, y'all!  Welcome to Not-So-Much-Progress Wednesday!  Mr. Right has been so kind as to pass along his creeping crud to me over the last week, so there's not been a whole lotta knitting going on around here lately.  Just lots of sniffling, grumbling and the tiniest bit of whining.  And I haven't been much of a prize to be around either. (Kidding!  No, really...)

Anyway, Lorna Suzanne has a collar now, and I'm getting ready to pick up the button band tonight. 

I best get with it and find some buttons so I know what size to make the button holes.  Suggestions, anyone?  I'm thinking something simple and pewter-ish or dark shell, but am open to ideas (or links!) if you'd care to toss any out there.

The sock is marginally bigger...

though it only got worked on while the Broncos were being decimated in New England on Saturday night.  Yikes, that was an unpleasant game for us Colorado folks.  Good season, though!  Thankfully, I'm still loving both the pattern and the yarn. 

Finally.  Finally, there is some mitten attached to my epic cuff.  It's not much mitten, but it's there, and it's growing. Slowly.  At this point, though, I'll take whatever forward motion I can get on these.

Mr. Right was very proud of his artsy fartsy mitten photo, and was very sure you would all appreciate it.  So here it is, in all its glory.

Personally, I like the "Look!  A flower!" pic myself, but I might be biased.

At this point, I'm kind of dying to finish something, so I'm focusing on the last bits of sweater now.  Once I get there, I hope I'll relax a little, but I'm already itching to get that Idlewood going.  And the mitten finished.  And the sock...

For now, I think I'll just go bask in the warm glow of too much cough medicine and other people's successes at WIPW.

Work in Progress Wednesday v.75

After last Friday's adventure in an abandoned mine, we now return to our regularly scheduled WIPW programming.

I gotta say, I had so much fun knitting that Peerie Flooers hat, and I was soooo excited to start the mittens.  And folks, it just isn't going well.  Case in point:



Remember this picture from last week?  I snapped it and proudly proclaimed the cuff to finally be finished.  Yeah, not so much.  I started reading the next section of the pattern which said something like, "Now join the oatmeal colored yarn."  And I said out loud, "Oatmeal colored yarn?  I'm already knitting with the ...   ...   Oh.  Crap."  That's right.  Half of that ribbing was supposed to be done with light blue, and I totally just didn't make that switch.  Off to the frog pond, again.

(Many) Hours later, it looks like this:



Not much different, but I assure you there was LOTS of work involved in getting there.  This time, the cuff really is done, the ends are woven, and I've attached the cuff lining to the mitten, joined the freaking oatmeal colored yarn, and started working up from there, with lots of help from my knit night buddies.

Attaching the cuff was a fiddly process, for sure.  But I'm over the hump now, and promising to keep the chart close by as I dive into the body of the mitten.  Say a little prayer for me.


Lorna Suzanne, on the other hand is a much better behaved project.



I had some math trouble with the neckline cast off, but I fudged it just a bit and it turned out great.  Next up is picking up stitches for the collar.  Yay!  I also tried it on a couple of days ago, and while the sleeves are a bit tight, it's nothing a good blocking won't fix, and the rest of it fits pretty darn well.  Phew!

In other news, we went 4-wheeling with a bunch of folks in the snow on Sunday, which was a lot of fun.  Also, pretty:







And, since I am a smart girl, I always take a knitting project with me for those times when we drive half a mile and then 3 trucks get stuck so we sit for an hour.  Unfortunately, the sweater was too big to bring, and the mitten was too fiddly (fair isle in the cab of a truck?  no thanks), so I had no choice but to cast on a new sock that would be just right. You can call me Goldilocks.

I had some Socks That Rock in Motley Hue that's been languishing in the old sock stash for ages.



I was so smitten with the colorway when I bought it that I didn't realize it was sport weight yarn and not fingering.  Oops.  Last week, I finally found a (free!) sock pattern that calls for sport weight sock yarn, and now my Duckies are on the way.



This is a fun little pattern, and I gotta say, I'm wowed at how fast this thicker yarn works up.  It's amazing!

Finally, in case you're part of the Blog Hub Group on Ravelry and haven't already seen it -- There's a swap looming!  I totally signed up, and you should too.  It's going to be a blast, and I'd especially love to send fun little packages to one of you.  So go sign up.  I'll wait.

Okay, good job.  Normally, I'd tell you to go check out everyone else's WIPW entries, but I figure I've been bossy enough already today.

Work in Progress Wednesday v.74

Happy 2012, y'all!

You'd think that being on vacation I'd have found lots of time to knit over the last week, but umm... not so much.  I did manage a bit of it, though:

Lorna Suzanne is up to the start of the collar now, and I'm a little bit stuck.  I want to make sure that I understand the next step of the pattern before I go any farther, so I'm taking a pause to message the designer (who's a total rock star, by the way), to double check before I muck something up.  Good idea, no?  Anyway, here's how it looks now, a bit bigger than last week, but not too different:



I'm just a couple of hours of knitting away from collar and button bands, so hoping to get back to it soon.  Still loving the pattern and the yarn, and now convinced that I'll have enough of the latter so I'll actually be able to complete the former.  Bonus!

While I've been pondering sweater yokes from afar, I've been making a mitten cuff:



And it's done!  I'm a bit wary of doing a knitted hem on the turned up cuff lining, since it's in the round and there are dpns involved.  I've written a tutorial on doing them flat, but this seems more fiddly.  I'll let you know how it goes.  Hopefully there will be some actual mitten attached to this by next week.

And now for the really exciting news:  I'm going to Stitches West!!!  I know.  I can't believe it either.  I've actually been once before when I lived right around the corner and had knitted a scarf or two.  We went and checked it out on a Saturday, and it was huge and overwhelming, but I didn't have any idea that it was any kind of big deal.  What a waste!

Anyway, it happens to fall on my birthday this year, and so my former co-worker, who's since moved to New Hampshire (Hi, BB!) is flying out and meeting me, and we're going to do it up right this time.  We're taking a class with Cookie A (sock mistress extraordinaire, as seen here and also there), and going to the market preview, and just generally planning to soak it all up.  I'm also giving myself carte blanche on yarn purchases while I'm there-- don't get too worried, it's nearly impossible for me to spend money so I don't expect to go too crazy.  But I can if I want!  Eep!  I'm SO excited!  Is anyone else planning on attending?  Let me know, it would be super fun to meet up. 

For more yarn-related joyful excitement, go check out all the rest of the WIPW entries.  I'll see you there!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.73

Ah, the post-Christmas collapse!  I kind of love it.  I have a whole week of vacation to do not very much at all, and that's a pretty rare thing around here.  So, (surprise, surprise) I've been knitting my face off!  Awesome.

Remember that sleeve I was whining about last week?  Done!  I'm so glad to be on the other side of the whole sleeve business that I'm actually weirdly happy about knitting rows that have 200+ stitches.  Yep, the raglan decreases are in full swing around here...

I'm hoping that I might actually be done with the body of the sweater and on to the button bands and collar before the end of the week, but we'll see.  So far, I'm pretty happy with the way Lorna Suzanne is coming together, even if it does look like it would fit a 6-year-old at the moment. 

I also dug out the formerly mucked-up-and-then-frogged mitten cuff this week and got the ribbing going again.  So far, so good this time.  Fingers crossed.

Look what I found in my Christmas stocking! 

I'm very proud of Mr. Right for venturing into Barnes and Noble and purchasing a knitting magazine.  A move like that is pretty far outside his usual comfort zone.

And then under the tree... this:

I know, right?  It's kind of like me giving him an issue of, well... Vogue Knitting.  I tried to interestedly  flip through my new jeep magazine in an effort to be a good significant other, and guess what fell out!?!  A receipt for a set of Darn Pretty interchangeables from Dyakcraft!  <<insert joyful jumping up and down here>>  He's pretty good at being sneaky some times. These needles are beyond lovely and handmade in the US, which is a rare find these days. They were at the tippity top of my Christmas wish list, and I'm so so excited to have them -- in 12-14 weeks. Ah well, I know they'll be worth the wait.

Anyone else have a knitterly Christmas?  I'd love to hear.  Meanwhile, I'll be spending the rest of this week getting Mr. Right ready to travel.  We found out today that he'll be leaving in the next week or so for a 6 month (!) assignment, part in California and part in Alaska.  More details to come as we figure stuff out, and I'll pop in to visit the rest of the WIPW posts when I can.

In the mean time, Happy New Year, guys!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.71

Happy Wednesday, folks!  It's official, even I'm starting to feel a tiny bit panicky about Christmas.  I'm usually way ahead of the game with this type of thing, but all that craziness last summer threw me off my game a little bit.  (Quick update:  Mr. Right and I are doing well now, still working on things but definitely heading in the right direction.  Yay!)  Anyway, I still have some Christmas prep to do, and I'm betting I'm not alone.  Anyone else?

In other, less urgent news...  Lorna Suzanne is still sailing along at a pretty good clip.  The body doesn't look much different than last week, but it's a couple of inches taller and officially on hold at the armpits, patiently waiting for its sleeves.

I had a bit of a scare on sleeve one, wherein I looked at the cuff I'd just finished and declared it to be ginormous.  Seriously, this thing looked huge.

I contemplated frogging, but instead put it aside and frogged the Peerie mitten ribbing to get rid of the stupid mistake I made right at the beginning.  Why are the really dumb mistakes always right at the beginning?  Anyway.  Ta da!  It's a mitten lining once more.

I'll put some elbow grease into it this weekend and see if I can get it back on track.

Once I took a few deep breaths and picked up the Massive Sleeve Cuff again, I realized that this pattern calls for 3/4 length sleeves, and as it happens... my forearms are somewhat larger than my wrists, and the Massive Sleeve Cuff is really just kinda normal-sized.  Awesome.  I love it when that happens.  Now I'm back to soldiering away on sleeve #1, and longing for 2 finished sleeves so I can join everything onto my circ and get back to some nice long rows. 


Oh!  And the Idlewood yarn arrived this week, much faster than expected.

So you see, I really need to get this sweater done so I can start on that one.  Isn't it pretty?  I kind of love it (It's Cascade 220 in the Cordovan colorway).

Finally, I've been rather hopelessly obsessed with the Pinterest world the last few days.  It's such a time suck, and there's so much cool stuff.  Anyone use this site?  Thoughts?  Got a spare invite?  Because at the moment, I'm on the waiting list.  And I'm not the most patient person ever.  I'm super curious to know what your experience has been if you'd care to share.

ETA:  Thanks, Nikki for the Pinterest invite!  I'm all set now, but if anyone else would like one, let me know.  I'm suddenly in a position to send them.  Yay!

If I can tear myself away from that, I'll be making the rounds, checking out everyone else's WIPW entries.  Join me?

Work in Progress Wednesday v.69

Happy Wednesday, guys!  It's an epic day, 'round these parts.  I finished the socks!  Both of them, even!  Aaaaaand... I got to start on a new project.  Very exciting, indeed.

No more about the socks until Friday, as I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I love them a bunch, and they turned out super comfy as a bonus.  Yay!

To celebrate, I knitted up a swatch for Lorna Suzanne fully expecting that I would need to go down a needle size.  Not so much, actually.  I was almost spot on, running a fraction of a stitch bigger than the gauge that was called for.  This is perfect, since I'm knitting a size that's just a tiny bit optimistic at this point.  I'm still losing weight, but not at last summer's heartbreak rate, so I'm hoping it should all work out perfectly.

With the gauge swatch getting the nod of approval from my Monday Night Knitting pals,  I dove in and cast on for the actual sweater last night.  181 stitches.  And then I knitted 3 rows of the garter stitch border.  All on the wrong size needles.  Sigh.  Really, I'm just here to boost your knitterly self-esteem.  See how much lamer I am than everyone else?  You're welcome.  Anywho, once I got that bit sorted out, it looks like this...

And here's a close up that's more accurate for color.  Sorry!

Breathtakingly beautiful, no?  I'm just now finishing the first repeat of lace and am a nervous wreck since I can never tell how lace is supposed to look until it's too late.  It looks so easy and yet I always manage to muck it up.  Not my strong suit for sure, but really I should be able to do this.  Right? 

The Peerie mitts are still hanging around, about to be frogged back to the cuff lining since Mr. Right's mom, bless her heart, took one look and pointed out a mistake in the first round of ribbing.  More sigh.  See?

I really want them to look as great as the hat, so back we go.  But with the socks having graduated to FO status, they're the dpn project on the front burner and progress should be faster over the next couple of weeks.  Here's hoping.

And now, if you'd be so kind as to leave any examples of dumb things you've done in the comments, I'd be very appreciative of the company.  Then, once you're done making me feel better, you should go check out all the other WIPs out there this week.  I'm sure they're knitted on the right size needles.  Mostly.