Gifted

The sweater was gifted yesterday. It fits ok. Of all things, it was a tad short. I'm not sure if it was because she had on a longer shirt underneath, making it seem shorter or what.

She loved it. That's all that matters, right?

I got a photo of her and I together and her eyes are closed. So, I'll have to get another one.

The party went well. Except for when Hubs took the Boy out to play. They came back in a short while later and Hubs said that the Boy sat in dog poop. Only my kid, friends....only my kid. They left. I brought everything- toys, books, diapers, wipes, food, spoon, juice, the cake, a knife...no change of clothes. Live and learn.

I started a new project for Schaefer Yarn. I'm going to be a model knitter for them. I'll snap photos of the vest I'm making using their Miss Priss merino once it gets rolling. So far I'm impressed with the yarn. It's dyed in dark browns and reds. Perfect fall colors. Now to get moving on it!

Mistakes, Repairs and Nightmares.

As most of my friends and regular readers know, I intentionally make one noticeable mistake in every piece I create. This sweater is no exception. The mistake was made early on and although it was very noticeable to me, I left it figuring I wouldn't make any others.


Boy, was I wrong.

This a cable in the back of the sweater. As you can see, I twisted it wrong. It looked awful.


I read January One's way of fixed incorrectly crossed cables. Genius.


I sat down yesterday and fixed it. (Gulp)
The end result looks good or atleast good enough for me! PS- I recommend her idea of swatching first and practicing on that. It would have been better, but I'm just so sick of doing cables right now. :)

I had 3- yes, THREE, nightmares that I was going to wake up this morning and find the sweater:

1. Felted by Hubs in the wash.

2. During the blocking process it shrank to barbie size and I gave it to her anyways.

3. It unravelled in the box and when she opened the gift, it was a mass of blue yarn.

No wonder I'm cranky!

So, what's next? Log Cabin Baby Blanket, from Mason Dixon Knitting.

Blue Cabled Surprise Sweater-DONE!

Presenting:

Buttons upclose:

And button band:

Tomorrow I'll walk us through fixing a HUGE mistake. It's going to take patience and guts, with a little help from January One, but I'm ready.

Finished!!

Both the blue cabled surprise sweater AND my computer are finished!

The sweater is awesome. Photos whenever my computer stops being a brick. Never did getg that fan issue dealt with.

It's practically smoking it's so done.

Yeah, it's fried worse than the artichokes.

*SIGH*

Back From Rhinebeck!!

Bullets:

• This weekend was the worst weekend for me, directionally. I got lost repeatedly. We spent hours in the car longer than we should have.


• The meetup was amazing. I met so many new faces. I can't wait to start reading the blogs! I'm sad that I missed out on meeting a few bloggers- Faith!, Maryse, Susan, etc. And not to mention most of my bingo card.


• The Yarn Harlot looks adorable, even with a head cold.


• I didn't spend nearly as much money as I brought, which is a good thing.


• I owe Nerdie and her sweet man an apology. We lost touch after I ran out to the car. I tried and tried to get back in touch with her, but couldn't. I owed her lunch. I'm not really sure how I'm going to make it up to her, but I will.


• Today is Hubs' birthday. I will be eating apple pie.


• Which reminds me, since Rebecca has already outed herself, I will admit to eating apple crisp with ice cream for breakfast on Sunday. We're not the only ones, trust me. It was good.

Here's my purchases:

• A sheep christmas ornament. (I love ornaments. I buy one at every event I go to.) Plus, one little sheep statue. Both are hanging out in my kitchen windowsill.
• 2 24" size 1 needles. I'm going to give socks another attempt. We'll see how it goes.


• 2 Knitspot Patterns. I've been waiting a long time to get my hands on these babies. I should have bought the whole line. I love her designs.


• Cormo laceweight yarn. *Sigh* I've been in love with this stuff since Mass Wool and Sheep. I'm so happy to have it!

And then there's this bag:

It doesn't look like much from the outside. But inside is a different story! I shoved 14 skeins of sirdar Donegal, 5 Svale in red, 4 Svale in white, and 7 indigo jeansgarn cotton (not found on Yarndex).

Total cost? 10 bucks!!

• And I bought Mason- Dixon knitting. Hmmm. I had the ladies sign it too. I've never been a big fan of their blog, so buying the book seemed silly, until I borrowed it from another SnBer. I'm happy to have it in my bookshelf. The patterns are colorful and fun.

I went through the entire book last night, dreaming of how many blankets I'm going to do, the colors I'm going to combine, the sizes I'm going to make...and then I feel asleep. It wasn't even 10 pm.

I woke up this morning feeling ok, if not a bit sore and I skipped working out- again.

Tomorrow, tomorrow.

So, what did you do this weekend?

Meltdown.

My computer is on the fritz.

2 weeks ago the fan started to run. Loudly. It would stop and start all while we had the computer on. It started to run contantly a couple days later.

We began to put the computer on standby when we left the room and the fan would shut off.

Now the fan isn't running at all. I'm not 100% convinced that it stopped running because it fixed itself. If anything, the damn thing probably broke itself. So today will be a day of trying to back up as much stuff as I can. Just in case. The computer will be resting when not in use.

I'm also packing for Rhinebeck. I have my directions, list(s), blogger bingo card, important phone numbers (totally gonna stalk you for real now, Nerdie!) and all the other things I need.

Yippee!

I'll try to post photos of the halloween costume and the blue cable surprise sweater progress. Looking like I'm going to hit the deadline on both! Yeah, baby.

Llama or Alpaca?

Thanks for the comments on the accident. It was nerve wracking. I felt sore the next day, although I don't know if it was because of my period, working out or the accident. Anyways, I feel fine now. No harm, no foul.

Rebecca was nice enough to give me a gift yesterday. We aren't sure if it's a llama or an alpaca. Either way, it's damn cute- isn't it??

It's handmade, from Peru. Go look at her photos. People, she RAN up that mountain. On purpose. She wasn't on fire, it wasn't a life or death thing, she just wanted to do it. Sheesh. I'm not complaining about the treadmill today. Thanks, Rebecca for the new friend. I love him.

And an update on the blue cabled surprise sweater:

The fronts are moving. I have about another 3 inches to do, then decrease and bind off. I've decided to make a panel for the sleeves and see how that looks once it's sewn in.

I also started a halloween costume for a friend's niece. It's an easy pattern. Sewing is something that I love to do, yet never do unless I really, really feel like it. I should make The Boy a winter hat or two while I have the machine out.

There's time for everything, right??

Only 5 sleeps til Rhinebeck.

I got my blogger bingo card and yeah, Nerdie's on mine. I'm telling ya, she's stalking me.

Because Nerdie and I Live The Same Lives.

Oh Nerdie...when I read about your accident the other day on your blog, I knew I had it coming to me too.


There are times when I read your tales and laugh, either because I recently went through similar experiences or I'm about to.


Well, the accident I could have lived without.


I'm a nervous driver to begin with. I'll admit that. Connecticut drivers are very fast and not too courteous. They have no problem tailgating, swerving, and then cutting you off as they give you the finger, as if it's your fault that you aren't doing 80 mph in a 25 zone like they wanted to. I'm aware of this, and I tend to be very, very pissy whenever I'm tailgated for any reason. I fear getting hit from behind.


So this rainy afternoon, I'm heading home from dropping off The Boy at half way meeting point between nana's and our house. I hit traffic the whole way home. I'm about 3 miles from my exit on the highway, excited that I get to unwind and have a glass of wine before my exam tonight.

Up ahead, I see breaklights. Behind me I see a huge red SUV swerving and tailgating others. He passes me on the right, but traffic up ahead is slowing in his lane so he slows with it, but then cuts quick behind me. I slow to a stop, he comes up close. I get back up to around 20 mph, he tailgates me the whole time, backs off, then speeds up, backs off, then we start to slow and all the sudden- whap! He hits me.


I have NEVER seen such red anger in all my life. I pulled over, got out of my car screaming and flailing my arms like an idiot. I'm sure it was funny to watch. But I was PISSED!


I knew he was going to hit me. I knew it.

He opened his door and got out, asked if I was ok. I said yes and screamed, "What the fuck?? You hit me."


He looked me straight in the face and said, "Someone hit me first."


Trust me when I say that no one was going faster than he was on that highway. No one else stopped, no one else was involved. He bold faced lied to me.


I looked right back at him and said, "Yeah, well where is he?? Way to take responsiblity for yourself, asshole. I'm calling the cops." I might have even called him a dick or fuckface, although I can't confirm it.

I called the cops, who showed very quickly. The sargent who responded was very sweet and after running all the info, said that since no one was hurt and there was no damage to either car, then it's not considered an accident, but he'd put all the information into his computer and if I felt ANYTHING tomorrow or even 6 weeks from now, then to immediately go to my doctor and call him and let him know that I'm hurting. He provided me with his name, phone number and badge number, plus the case ID. He made me laugh and take a deep breath. He made me get out of the rain, even though I insisted that I was ok getting wet. After quite a few minutes of waiting- like 20, I was told that I could leave. I looked at him and said, "Ok, what about that guy?"

He said that he had some paperwork issues, but besides that, he couldn't do anything else, but he would definately give him a few words. I told the sargent that I normally would have had my son in the car. Please remind him of that. The officer glanced at the back of my car- no car seat because I gave it to my mother in law- but he saw the toys, looked at me and said, "I'll make sure he's aware of that and more for you. Be safe."

He moved his cruiser into the road, blocking traffic so that I could safely get out. I'm sure there were many, many people just trying to get home on a chilly, rainy day and that accident delayed them.

My car is fine. Like I said, it's raining so maybe there's scratches that I can't see. Hubs knows there was an accident, but he has to work late tonight and there's a hockey game, so tomorrow morning I'm sure I'll have to go through his overly thorough investigation of his beloved car.

I got lucky today. I know this.

Nerdie, can you hurry up and win the lottery already??

Dear Thigh Muscle,

It's nice to see you again.


I know that I've been talking quite alot about this whole gym, diet, workout thing lately.


Well, the small changes are starting to happen. If I wasn't really looking for them, I'd miss them.


Yesterday, while watching the most deplorable excuse for a Yankees game, I looked down at my thigh and realized that my muscle is now noticeable. It wasn't even the way that I was sitting either. I can tense up the muscle and it's obviously there!! I got very giddy. (Then the other team scored again. And all my playoff hopes were dashed once again.)


Anyways, I've been knitting the fronts to the cabled sweater, you know, the blue one I've been working on forever.




And I think it's going to be too small for the intended party.


Hmm.


I'm not so sure how I feel about that.


ETA: The arms of the sweater will most definately be too small. Not as in "block it, and then see" but in a "Oh Christ, how am I going to fudge this because I don't have time to reknit an entire sweater in 2 weeks" kind of way. Craptastic.

UPS?? Is That You?

Is it bad that I'm watching the clock and the window, waiting for the guy in the brown van with the brown shorts to pull up?
It should be delivered any second. But I need to keep the delivery a secret.

Yeah, Hubs doesn't know.

You see, I have this burning need to buy knitting books. I can't get enough of them. But I've convinced myself that I don't need them, unless....

I've said repeatedly that anytime his best friend- who I can't stand and who hates me right back- affects my life, then I'm buying a new knitting book instead of getting angry and bitchy with Hubs.

Sunday was football. Hubs went to his friend's house. Came home 2 hours later than he said.

Guess what I bought.

I ordered Vogue's cable knitting stitchionary back when it was 60% off.

I know, I know...I shouldn't hide things from my husband. So sue me, I get a book, Hubs gets his date with the idiot and we're happy.

Now, where's the delivery??

Baby Sweater- DONE!

And looking damn cute, if I do say so myself. It's unblocked, so bear with the bumps and lumps of the photo.

I think I have the sizing a bit off, it may be too small for next winter. Oh well...the thought that counts and all that, right?

Here's a close up of the buttons.

Tonight I'll block it, tomorrow it will be wrapped and ready. Yahoo!

The pattern is from Erika Knight's Knitting For Two. (The chunky sweater on page 20.) And the yarn is Bernat Softee Chunky which I got in a swap a few months ago.

Very, very fast knit. If I really went at it like gang busters I could have popped this baby out in a day, easily. I'll definately make it again.

I wish I had a 12" circular needle to make a matching hat.

Update, With Photos

So, the babies that I bragged about a couple of months ago...yeah, they're starting to make their appearances. Last week, my cousin Sarah had baby Isaac. Did I make something for her? No. Oh, the strangling guilt.

Next, my friend Jodi's shower came too quick. I made a sweater for the baby. It looked small, but it works. Fine, no guilty feelings there.


This weekend I have a birthday party for a 1 year old. He's getting a cabled sweater, loosely based on Trellis from Knitty.
I checked my calendar and wholly crap, I have another baby shower on the same day. Do I have anything knit for them? No. So I whipped out my handy size 11's and off I knit. I finished the back and 2 sleeves last night, front should be finished tonight, (Thursday I'm cramming for a midterm)and I'll put it all together Friday...tada! Baby shower gift.

What is it with me and green baby sweaters???? This is the 4th green baby sweater I've knit in the last year. Why do I have so much green acryllic?



So why am I rushing around knitting with chunky yarn and size 11's? What have I been spending all of my knitting time with? The sweater for Hubs:

The body is done, the sleeves need to be redone. Ahhh, so close.

It's not going to be done for Rhinebeck, but he'll just have to suck it up. There's too many babies coming.

I also need to do the 2 front's for the blue cable surprise sweater. That's due at the end of this month.

In some serious bad news, we found out in June that my brother and his girlfriend are expecting again. It's a boy, but they were told that there are complications. He was diagnosed with Hydrocephalus. The specialists have little in the way of answers or hope for the baby. My brother and the rest of the family is heartbroken. I know I should make them something, but it will take a miracle for the baby to survive long after birth.