Love the mailman
The mailman came to my door today with a box with a smile on it. You know what that means.....
I ordered the "Knitted Lace of Estonia" by Nancy Bush and "Hats On" by Chgarlene Schurch. I'm not person to jump onto any new book, I check out the patterns, I find the best prices and see who offers free checking and who offers all I want, so I only have to order once. Well, Amazon had all of the above, so I expanded my small library and I have to say I love them both. I've been eyeing the "Hats On" for a while and
Pat was very "helpful" in providing one great project after another. I think this is called enabling? Well, she is very good at it. Thanks a lot.
The lace book is just as great. I think there is only one pattern in there I'm not drooling about and that is it. You'd think the choice, which one to start with, would be hard? Not at all. I just pull out my lace yarn, see how many skeins and yards I have and go from there. Sounds easy, right?
Now let me get back to drooling. I'll talk to you soon.
Labels: books
Batteries are charged now
Batteries are charged and here we go with all the pictures you missed in the last post.
First of all here is an update on my contribution to the
Fingerless Mitts KAL. Here is the first of the two Endpaper Mitts. I'm working on the second one now, uninterrupted for a couple of days, maybe. See what happens when I can concentrate on one project? It will get done. Imagine that.
Here are some nice pics of some of my favorite projects in my new book. Enjoy.
Also the second clue for the Secret of Chrysopolis came out and I haven't even started on the first one. I guess after the last mystery experience I want to sit back and wait for a while and see what turn out, but so far it's going to be nice.
Labels: books, Fingerless Mitts
Hug the mailman
I got my Knit Picks order (yes, I order for myself too) in the mail today and I have to say it didn't take that long this time. Or maybe I was just so busy, that I didn't notice. Anyway, here is what I got.
Two skeins of Knit Picks
Lace weight 100 % Merino in bare. I got that in order to work on the Secret of Chrysopolis, but haven't decided yet, whether to use that one and dye it to which ever color I like after I'm done or use a gold colored mystery cone yarn from my stash, since
Chrysopolis was also known as the "City of Gold".
Moving right along to the new
Harmony needle tips. I had to do an inventory of my needles first to figure out which size and needles I actually needed. I do have 3 mm and 3.75 mm and 4 mm circs, but I was missing the 3.5 mm. What a great chance to fill that gap, right? I also found that I didn't have a set of
3 mm DPNs, which is the reason why my Endpaper Mitts are knitted on circulars. I seem to enjoy the DPN better for projects like socks and mittens. So there goes the next order. Unfortunately they weren't available until today, but I'm sure I'll find another reason to send out the next order soon.
Here is why. I also got the book "
Knitting Classic Style" by Veronik Avery. I only saw the 8 projects that were featured on the website and already loved it. Now that I got the book in hand and got to look at all the 35 projects, I so have to narrow down my list, because the stuff in there is so great. The best thing is, that it's totally wearable. Not funky knits, no crazy colors, not techniques from hell that break your fingers or needles, whichever comes first, just plain, good, nice, did I mention wearable? projects. From hats, to mittens, from sweaters to cardigans, tops, socks, there is a little bit of everything in there. Got check it out and tell me you don't love it.
Now we go back to the regularly scheduled knitting, after cooling off the keys and wiping off the drool. Unfortunately my batteries for the camera were all dead, so I supplied you with hopefully enough links to get my point across. I really need to get out some more. Knit on.
Labels: books, KP, Secret of Chrysopolis
Breath.......
I swear, if anything else would have gone wrong yesterday, I would have screamed. How would you feel if you just dropped of one of your kids to a birthday party and two hours later you want to jump into your trusty Jeep to go pick him up again and the darn thing won't start? Yeah, exactly. I put in the keys, the gauges went crazy and that was the end of it. No more sign of life. Now what am I supposed to think now. And to top it all off, it was parked in front of the garage, where my other car is parked. Lucky for me I have a couple of friends that lent me their car without even hesitating and I was able to pick up my kid. Then, after I had figured out that it's probably a bad soldering connection to the battery, came the other drama. No juice, no locks! How the heck to you lock a car that has only one key hole and the electronic is shot? To make it short, I did get a sign of life out of the car, after I put on a new connector I bought, long enough to lock my car for the night. It's still not running, but I got access to my husbands car now. Hmm, I guess I'm forced to drive around with the cool Mustang now for a couple of days until my Jeep aka. the grocery getter, is fixed. I'll suffer so baldly ;oD
Now to better news. I did happen to finish the first Harry Potter book and moved on to the second one. Woohoo.
Oh, you wanted knitting news? Sorry. I've been a bit torn between projects right now. I started the
Endpaper Mitts beginning of the week for
Keri's
Fingerless Mitts for Fall KAL, but haven't even finished the first one. But, for my defense, I'm at the thumb increase, so I'm making progress, just slowly.
What I was most occupied with, besides my nasty neighbors (doesn't everybody have them?), was the latest Knit Picks project. Remember the green one? Yeah, that one. For some reason that one has been dragging too. Must be me, because the pattern is not hard to remember and I enjoy knitting with the
Swish.
(I know it's not the best picture, but that's how it's supposed to be)
To add to it, the new Lace KAL "
Secret of Chrysopolis" has started on Friday and the only thing I got to do on that one so far is read all the comments and posts on the yahoo group and print out the pattern. It looks nice so far, has a great border and is really promising. You can see first pictures of it
here and there is still a chance to join in. The pattern is written out as a chart and is easy to follow as long as you know what ssk, YO, k2tog and a sl 1 k2tog psso is and it's pretty much bilingual in German and English. So there is no excuse not to check it out and I've even found a couple of people from the Mystery Stole KAL again. Imagine that.
I've also ordered a new book, some yarn and the new
Harmony Options needle tips from
Knitpicks and can't wait to get all my stuff. But we all know how it works, when you are really, really waiting for something. Seems to take double as long, but I think I have enough to keep my mind and hands occupied until the mailman shows up for me.
Until then, don't let those needles cool too much. It's getting colder outside.
Labels: books, Fingerless Mitts, General, KP, Lace, Secret of Chrysopolis
My new friends
To make up for the mutilated picture of the headless Piglet in my last post I'm trying to sooth those little hearts that felt so badly about this image with a finished, smiling Piglet. There he is, all happy to be stitched up and finished.
Then I wanted to show you his new friend, or what is going to be his new friend. Shield those eyes again, if you are the faint type, because my new buddy Sheldon is still missing some of his pieces.
He's trying his best to cover up, but his shell is just not big enough yet, but I'm doing my best to change that.
Sheldon's family can be found on the
Knitty website, where I ran across his instructions. He is a fairly fast and easy knit, only the stuffing part might be a little tricky, if you don't keep up with it and wait until you only have 20 stitches left on the needles.
Here is also what I started reading, finally.
I know this is a couple years old and I've seen the movie plenty of times, but most the time the book is so much better and more detailed. Now I just need to find the time to sit and read instead of knit. That's going to be the challenge.
And on another note I want to thank an eabler for the box of notelty yarn I received yesterday. It was quite a surprise. I expected a couple of skeins, but not a whole box full. I guess that means a whole bunch more scarves in my future? Did I forget to mention that there is another layer under all of this?
Labels: books, Crochet, FO, Knitty
Lace Style
Guess what I got in the mail the other day? Well, the title gave it away, I guess. Sorry.
Anyway, I'm excited to tell you about this book I ordered from the destash blog. The couple of pages I saw on knitpicks and then in the last catalog ensured me, that I made a good choice buying this book. I couldn't wait to dig through it and I found lots of nice things I'd like to knit. I might not necessarily wear them all, but I'm sure I'd find some takers/victims for my desire to knit. The jacket on the front cover as well as the lace-edged corset on the back are already on my to do list. Unfortunately my camera didn't have enough "juice" to take more pictures of the different projects, but I'm sure you have seen some of them.
Don't worry, I'm not going to throw the woolly rainbow sweater into the corner and pull out the lace needles. I'm still knitting along on it and only one more pattern repeat, which means half a "rainbow" and it's decision time again. I'm going to get to the neckline and I have to figure out how to knit that. I'll try the steek, like Laurie did, but if that doesn't work, I guess a couple of rows back and forth don't hurt? Or do they? I never did fair isle in rows, but then I never did fair isle like this before anyway, what am I saying. :) I'm just proud I made it that far.
Also, if you need some help with spinning, like my friend Keri did, check out Erica's blog. She put together a tutorial on predrafting 101 for brand new spinners and now I know why my drop spindle hasn't seen the light of day in a while and I still have a piece of a sheep somewhere in my closet. I might just pull it out and finish it off soon (that didn't sound right, did it?) Labels: books
