Not feeling too bloggy lately...

Since it is a Friday I thought I'd post some pictures of what I've been up to lately. And then it's straight back to my shawl... I'm trying to have it washed, blocked and ready to wear for my two year anniversary date on April 7th! It still just looks like a bunch of lace... but it has certainly grown. And now, the pictures.

Eye Candy Friday

I was having a hard time trying to come up with some eye candy for today. I usually like to go outside and look for something exciting or pretty or whatnot. But I was really having a hard time thinking because it was all cloudy and things were really noisy! I thought that there were tons of planes flying around today. Then it hit me.... RAIN AND THUNDER!! I really like the afternoon rains that we get through out spring and really enjoy the smell and the dewy look everything gets afterward. So today I give you the best picture of the rain clouds that I could get without exposing my camera to possible water damage! Also, it's REALLY hard to get a picture of rain!

Apologies!!

I just want to apologize to anybody who may have stopped by here recently and noticed that I haven't updated since Friday. I had a very LARGE lull in my knitting over the weekend. In fact, you might say that I didn't even TOUCH my needles! And then, I spent the last three days helping my mom paint her living room and bathroom, so there was no knitting there. In fact, after Monday I questioned whether I'd ever be able to knit again, my hands were so sore and cramped from rolling the very thick primer on the walls. My hands have recovered (mostly) and today was just light brush work over the first coat of paint for a little texture. Since there has been no knitting progress, there won't be any pictures. SORRY! I also thought that I could post pictures of the before and after of the living room and bathroom but my mom had gotten started before I arrived Monday morning. Boo :( Anyway, back to the point, I have a renewed taste for any and all knitting and spinning. I hope to spend ALL my time over the next few days participating in fiber-related activities and I will try to make some interesting progress so I'll be able to post some interesting pictures!

Added later: I ordered and received the matching skein of yarn from Knitpicks for my Alexander sweater... I geuss that means I should get to finishing it sometime soon. I'm not really feeling like working on it right now. I'm going to need to find a way to motivate myself to finish it!

Eye Candy Friday

Not much to blog about since the post last night. I knit another inch of the cardigan and a couple more rows of the shawl. I realized that if I didn't get going on the next chart of the shawl I would get something similar to second sock fever. Speaking of socks, tonight I plan to work on my Jaywalkers while Michael and I drive a friend to the airport and then while we are out hanging with some friends.

So, for Eye Candy all I have to offer you is some pictures of Fez being Fez.

Progress!!

I just finished chart A of the shawl and so I don't post yet another entry of no pictures, here is a picture of unblocked lace. As you can see, it is a slightly larger blob than the previous progress picture. Also, I wasn't too concerned about the quality of this picture because you really can't see much of the pattern anyway.
Yesterday Maria and Val and I got together to knit on our spring cardigans and I progressed about another 4 inches in the stockinette pattern of the back, almost to the arm decreases. Again, here is another boring picture of stockinette.
In slightly more interesting news, Michael and I took a walk yesterday when he got home from work and the whole experience was very surreal. We were walking down a neighborhood street near our apartment complex and saw this very small girl wandering down the middle of the street! She couldn't have been more than 5 years old! I started freaking out. Honestly, why is this tiny girl wandering around alone?! So we approached her as friendly as possible and asked her if she knew where her house was; she said 'Yes,' so we asked her if she could show us her house. She continued walking in the direction she was going, which was actually toward a very busy, non-neighborhood street. When we got to the corner we stopped the little girl and asked her if she was sure that her house was down here. She said 'No' and that her house was on the circle... or something to that nature.

The street that we were walking on was very circular so we turned around and went back the way we came. We ran into several people and asked them if they had seen her before and knew where her house might be; everyone said that she didn't look familiar. We had to walk very slowly because the poor thing wasn't wearing any shoes and had tiny legs and was walking as quickly as she could. Finally, a man asked us if she was lost and we said yes. He told us that she was his neighbor and that her father was looking for her. Turns out the father was driving this huge, bright red pick-up truck down the middle of the road. The neighbor flagged the father down and he BACKED down a good two blocks of the street going MUCH faster than he should have been on a neighborhood street. The father paused his truck just long enough for us to point down the street a little ways to the neighbor with the little girl who had wandered into a cul-de-sac. He barely acknowledged our presence.

Now I understand a terrified father isn't going to be thinking about much else when he thinks that his less-than-5 year old daughter is lost, but I would have liked some recognition. The neighbor that had talked to us just kinda laughed it off, too. The whole occurance seemed very odd. We didn't see the father driving back down the road toward his home as we continued our walk. The neighbor seemed to think that this was a normal occurance.

The whole thing just left me with a very sick feeling. Or maybe it was the migraine that was starting to come on.

I was supposed to go to Boulder yesterday to play poker with Michael but I had a raging migraine and had to stay home. I thought that it might be a good time to get some work on my shawl done, but I had such little control over the finer techniques needed to make the needles form the stitches. Eventually I happened on the theory that spinning might help my migraine. Spinning distracted me in a calm way from the migraine experiences but it did not make it go away. The action of drafting the fiber and forming yarn was something that I could manage with my very shaky hands and the continued motion of my feet and legs masked the general shakiness of my mind and body. I'll have to try spinning through a migraine again in the future!

And now I plan to work more on the cardigan while reading random blogs (this seems to be my new late night past-time).

Bummer..

I didn't get anywhere near meeting my goal on the shawl yesterday. I blame it on the mess of trouble that I ran into around row 61. I have absolutely no clue what went wrong, but there were only a few spots of horrible hell that took me THREE HOURS to fix. I didn't want to rip back because it was like 4 rows of over 250 stitches in lace yarn and I thought that I would just make more problems than I would solve. Anyway, it's not perfect but I decided that I can live with it and have moved on. I'm really just trying to get as much done as possible during this 'just began a project' phase where I'm really excited and want to see how it turns out. Sorry, no pictures today. I'm updating this as I'm on my way out the door. And, really, who wants to see some more sorry pictures of a lump of lace-weight yarn when you can't really decipher the shape or pattern?

Just a little progress

I've really been working hard on my shawl and cardigan. Not a whole lot to show in the way of pictures, but both are coming along beautifully!

Once I got the shawl going (I cheated with the cast on!) it just kept going and going. Now, when I say I cheated I mean that instead of knitting in the round with 4 dpns, I only used three. I split the stitches in half on two needles and knit off of them for a few rounds before adding the fourth needle. WOW did that make it easier!
I have completed the first 51 rows of the pattern and am setting my goal for the day at completing chart A which is through row 84. I'm a little concerned that I might not make it, seeing as how every 2 rows the round increases by 9 stitches. I know that doesn't seem like much but I'm supposed to end with 387 stitches on the 84th row. I've got about 234 stitches now... that's a lot of increases!

Now, as far as the cardigan goes I've knit about 5 inches on the back piece and am now ready for the increases.
And I am fairly pleased with the even-ness of my stitches. This is a much closer picture than people would have an interest in looking at a knit garment. Sorry for the boring pictures, but the I've really got to get back to the shawl if I have any hopes of meeting my goal!

...Nothing

The title of this post tells you how much progress I've had on my shawl. That gorgeous thing that I can't wait to finish is proving VERY difficult to start. You have to do a circle cast on and then knit around 9 stitches with dpns. The pattern uses size 7 needles but I prefer the look of this yarn on 5's. I've decided it's not the size of the needles that is the problem, it's the size of the yarn! The yarn is so tiny and... well... lacey that it can't support the weight of the size 5 needles or even grip the needles enough for me to knit with! I'm certain that once I get past the join and the first two rows of the pattern I'll be able to make significant progress. But I spent 2 hours on it last night and this is what I have to show for it:
In lighter news, the blog got 10 views on Friday!! And none were from me! I realize that it might have had something to do with the two updates so I am going to try to update a little more regularly in attempt to 'get my blog out there'.

Also, thank you so much for all the positive reviews on my yarn!! It is the first batch that I am truly proud of. I realize that I never showed a picture of the blue triple ply skein, so here it is.
And... that's all I've got for you today.

Eye Candy Friday

Another delivery came today!
It's the yarn that Maria, Val and I bought for our spring cardigans. Maria's will be in green, Val's in white, and mine in pink. I've already knit up a swatch for gauge and let me tell you, this stuff is awesome! It's 100% cotton from Webs and the swatch came out perfect and has such wonderful drape and minimal curling even in stockinette. I can't wait to cast on for this project! Maria is tweaking the pattern tons to make it fit just the way she wants it to and I was going to as well. But then I did a lot more measuring and got all ready to make some calculations but found that the pattern was perfect as is!

Here, is a picture of 250 yards of that orangey-red merino top I spun up. I think it turned out beautifully! Each strand has some red and some gold in it and overall the skein is pretty even! I took some pictures of the yarn in the daylight but they weren't true to the color, so I snapped this picture as a last resort and it came out perfect!
Happy Friday!

Rant #1

I guess there comes a time in every blog's life when a rant pops up so, here it is:

Wednesday night Michael and I went to a bar to play poker. Now, this isn't the normal bar that comes to mind when you hear something about a bar in a rant. This is a classy cigar bar in Boulder, CO. The place has class and I'm actually very comfortable there by myself (I won't set foot in another bar without Michael and it takes a LOT of prodding to get me in one with him).

Anyway, I got knocked out of the game towards the end of the tournament and sat at the bar with a beer and a book. I was CLEARLY enjoying myself, completely absorbed in my murder mystery (because the murder had finally taken place). Then, a man who could have EASILY passed for my father started chatting me up. He wanted me to do a scratch ticket (like the lotto) for him. He seemed a little off.... he didn't smell like he'd had a lot to drink but he sure was acting like it. So I went ahead and did the ticket, and then another.... I had to keep telling him that it was ok if I didn't do another. Then I really tried to look involved in my book again, but that is really hard when you're trying to keep an eye out for an more offensive advances.

During the conversation he had asked me if I was Matt's girlfriend (the bartender) and I said no but my boyfriend was in the cigar room (because he was!). Then he said it didn't matter because I had to be somebody's girlfriend. I was thinking to myself, "Thank god, now he'll leave me alone." He pulled out another scratch ticket! UGH!

I was very uncomfortable and could see the bartender watching us, which made me think that he'd had trouble with this creep in the past. That certainly didn't make me feel any better, even if Matt was quite strong and capable of handling this guy. Also, I distinctly remember seeing this guy somewhere before. I also remember taking a path on a wide circle that wouldn't cross his path in any way possible. At this time, I was trying to send telepathic messages to Michael willing him to come out, but it never happened.

I was trying hard to politely get the man to leave and he was just NOT paying attention. I don't like to make a big scene and so I felt like I really didn't have a way out of this situation. I could feel this creep checking me out whenever I wasn't looking and didn't want to excuse myself to the bathroom as a means of leaving. I WAS TRAPPED!

I don't want this to sound like every other guy-bashing rant in the blogosphere, but I don't really know what to say. I don't think it's fair that women should have to feel like they need escort in order to be safe. I don't think it's fair that in order to prevent any untoward advances, women have to be accompanied by a man.

I was wearing jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt, don't tell me that I was attempting to draw attention. If anything, I had thought that there might be more men there than I was used to and that I should dress appropriately.

My mom said that if I had said that I was with somebody he would have left me alone, so clearly things have changed since she was having this problem. I'm extremely frustrated with this! Does anybody else have this problem? What do you do?

OO!

Geuss what came today?!

And I had just got confirmation that it was being shipped on Monday!

Also, earlier today I was contemplating frogging the shawl that I was working on and attempting something from Victorian Lace Today. I've really been eyeing the large and gorgeous Cap Shawl on page 25. I have 4 skeins of yarn with 440 yds each that I was going to make the Diamond Shawl with. That's around 1700 yds, perfect for this new project!! I told myself that I would need to find the right needles to knit this up on because I had to downsize a few sizes with the first shawl. This would best be done on the new set of Boye needles that would be coming in the mail and that I would definatly have to finish the sweater before I could start anything new... That is a lot harder to stick to now that the needles have arrived!

I came to the realization that I should start a different shawl last night when I was knitting up a little bit on the current shawl. The diamond pattern just really wasn't interesting me and I was yearning for something with more natural lines; lines like you can see in the central motif of this shawl.
I've been plugging away on the sweater and am almost half way done with this last piece.

And now I will leave you with a picture of Fez, since we haven't seen him on the blog for a little while.
I should also mention that I've spun up most of that orangey red merino top that I bought quite some time ago. I plan to finish it up tomorrow and then ply it with itself. I know there's probably not enough of it to knit something from it by itself. However, I could probably use it to make the heels and toes on a pair of socks with yarn dyed to match this stuff I've been spinning.

Late Eye Candy

Wow, I didn't know that the problem I was having with the Jaywalkers was a normal occurance! Perhaps my problems with the first pair of socks that I knit for my grandma were a lot more normal than I thought... I geuss I'll just have to start thinking a bit more about my knits. And here I thought that socks were going to be a break from that whole step of thinking and just be a quick FO!

When I restarted my pair of Jaywalkers, I decided that I wanted a little less of a pooling effect and have been alternating balls on each row. I like this look much more.
I've really been enjoying knitting these up. Then I was talking to Val and Maria (my two knitting friends) and we ordered our yarn for the spring cardigans that we want to knit together. We are following the pattern from Glamour Knits and I have chosen a pale pink yarn. I will only be knitting a three-quarter sleeve in an attempt to make a more 'springy' cardigan than most. Now, this pattern is knit up on 2s or 3s, I can't remember which exactly. I don't have both of these needles, but the Boye needle set does. I own a Denise needle set that I have been less than happy with. I wanted to trade my set for a Boye, but that seems harder than I thought. I just bought a Boye set online but really need to unload my Denise set so that I can break even on the needles. Before I can sell my set I realized that I need to finish my McQueen Knockoff Sweater because of the slight differences in needles across manufacturers.

SO..... even though I really enjoy knitting up my Jaywalkers, I have got to finish my sweater so that I can get goin on a sweater that I'll be able to wear MUCH sooner. This whole thing makes me sad. I cast-on for the last piece of the four piece sweater on Friday and I finished the ribbing as well as most of the first diamond repeat. Now there are about 120 rows left. If I knit 12 rows a day I'll be done in 10 days.... The only problem with that is I tend to knit REALLY tight on this sweater and the pinky on my left hand tends to lose some sensitivity and it feels really wierd if I knit for too long. I'll try to knit 6 rows in the morning and 6 rows at night then. Hopefully I can finish the sweater without amputating my pinky!

I also want to start on an afghan that will displace the HUGE red fleece blanket that takes up too much space to keep out on the couch every day. I bought a book of afghans quite a while ago, before I really got into knitting so I figure I'll go ahead and knit another project from it. This is the one I had in mind:
I want to knit this in a rusty-reddish color so that I can add some, well, color to my living room. Right now I have a beige-y couch and have ordered a beige-y chair from Target (that will hopefully be coming today!!). When I ordered the chair I knew that it would match much better than the hideous green Popesan chair we have now, but I didn't realize that I would be losing a lot of color in the room and I need to make up for it.

And in leau of having missed Eye Candy Friday, here is a picture of my newly washed car, enjoying the long overdue sunshine! If you have been living in Colorado, you know that this is a rare sight lately.

AGH!

Two nights ago I spent 7 HOURS trying to wind a skein into a center-pull ball to start on the Jaywalkers. It was a huge tangled mess; when I finally got to the end there was a really small tangle that I ended up just cutting and making two balls of. Finally, I could start my socks. I've really been needing to do some nice, painfree socks lately. So I've been knitting along happily for the last 2 days. This picture shows my progress:

Well. On a whim I tried it on last night. I couldn't get the damn thing over my heel! I even made the larger of the two sizes and my gauge is only a half stitch off. It's really hard to get the gauge with the zigzag pattern, but it really can't be that far off. I did some calculations and if I were to add another repeat (21 sts) that would give me about an extra inch of circumference. But I'm sitting here wondering if that's what I want. Shouldn't I be able to stretch the yarn over my heel!? Is it that the yarn doesn't stretch enough or perhaps that the pattern doesn't allow for as much stretch? Any help anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated!