Knitting Goodness

Just a warning…this is going to be long.

First off, I finished the Blueberry Mittens. I ended up making three. After doing the second one, I figured out that I had misread the pattern on the first one. It wasn’t a big deal, but I wanted matching mittens. LouLa has three Blueberry Mittens and I can’t figure out which was the first. Go figure.

My new socks are in stockinette again. I find that the less thinking that is required, the better off I am. These are done in Fly Super Sport, which I picked up in a yarn store in Seattle. It’s a nice, soft yarn. I would get it again, definitely.

I spent the gift certificate from my MIL yesterday.

I bought this (Mission Falls 1824 Wool) and the pattern for the Pure and Simple Neckdown Wrap Cardigan. I’ve wanted to try this yarn out and I’m very happy with it so far. The pattern looks like it should be pretty easy and I think I’ll be happy with the end result.

I also got this:

It’s Dream in Color Smooshy Sock Yarn in Good Luck Jade.  I really love this yarn and I love the color.  I almost bought some more STR, but since I hadn’t used the skein I bought last time, I didn’t chance it.  What if I don’t like it?  I don’t want to end up with yarn I don’t like, though it would be pretty easy to swap STR.  Still…

Josh got me a gift certificate for The Loopy Ewe for my birthday.  He was quite generous with the amount and I’m so happy.  I put an order in for sock yarn from Apple Laine, The Knittery, and Misty Mountain Farms.  I still have a big chunk of the gift certificate left and I’m hoping that I can get some Yarn Nerd, Wollmeise, Yarn Pirate, Spritely Goods and some of the others that I haven’t used before.  It’s hard to get the more popular yarns from them because they sell out so quickly.  I’ll keep checking back and maybe I’ll get lucky in a few months.  It’s not like I don’t have any sock yarn, or anything, so I can afford to wait.

Baby Stuff and Mittens

The Cream Baby Cardi is done!

I’m happy with the way it turned out. The hood is a tad short (about an inch) because I ran out of yarn. But, I don’t know that the hood will actually be used; I think it’s more of a style thing. Here’s the deets:

Pattern: Daisy Sweater from Knitty.com

Yarn: KP Shine Worsted in Cream-6 skeins

Needles: KP Options size 7

I’ve also started another small project. As I said yesterday, I love this time of year. While we may not get snow for another month, or two, or three, we may need mittens soon.

That is the start of a child’s mitten. In the Fall 2007 issue of Knit Simple, there is a chart of a basic mitten pattern, but with all the numbers worked out for dk, worsted, and bulky yarn, as well as in child’s, women’s, and men’s sizes. I normally don’t buy that magazine, since there usually isn’t anything that grabs my attention, but I thought this pattern would come in handy (absolutely no pun intended). I’m using KP Wool of the Andes in Blueberry. The picture is bad, but it was the closest to the actual color that I could get. I bought 2 skeins of various colors a year ago because they were on sale. This was back when I didn’t need to have a reason to buy yarn, but would buy random skeins. Mittens are a good way to use the yarn up, I suppose. The colors I bought aren’t the greatest, and I wonder what I was thinking.

I’m really leaning towards doing this sweater next. I love that it’s so simple, but has a little shaping. I have a sweater’s worth of Cascade 220 that I was going to use for something else, but I’ll need to check my exact yardage and see if there’s enough for this sweater.

Good things

I love this time of year. I love the temperature. I love the way the trees look. I love that I can start my hibernation.

I’ll finish up the Cream Baby Cardi this weekend. The seaming and sewing on buttons is all that needs to be done. I should have a picture tomorrow.

The Blue Plate Special socks are coming along. I’m working on the heel flap on the second sock. I bought some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock today. I had to get some buttons and sewing needles, and it seemed silly to use my debit card for just a few dollars. I bought the purple color. The local knitting/fabric store leaves much to be desired as far as sock yarn, but they have had about 5-6 skeins of CTH in stock lately. Oddly enough, they don’t have them with the other sock yarn.

In addition to it being my favorite time of year, my birthday is on Monday. As I get older, I forget my age. Is that weird? I have to ask Josh how old I am. In my mind, I’m 30, maybe 31. However, on Monday I will be 34 (I think?…Maybe 35). I guess it’s good that I feel young. I’m not afraid of getting old, but maybe the fact that I don’t think I am getting old might be the reason for that.

The cool thing is that my MIL gave me a $70 gift certificate for the not-so-local yarn store. I’m so excited! It was such a thoughtful gift. I knew she was going to get it for me, since she asked where the store was, but I didn’t expect that much. The real question is, what will I use it on? I kind of want to buy enough yarn for a sweater or something. I already have a sweater’s worth of yarn that I’m planning on using next, and I don’t like buying that much yarn if I don’t have something particular in mind. It seems a little silly to use it to get a bunch of sock yarn. The store does carry Socks that Rock Mediumweight, so that could be a temptation. I haven’t used the one skein I have, so I’m hesitant to buy more until I know I’ll like it. They do have other sock yarns that I know I love (Dream in Color). No use thinking about it, I suppose. I know I’ll find something I like.

The other really cool thing is that I got my Ravelry invite! My username is knittingreading, so please feel free to add me.  I haven’t yet looked at it much, but I think it’ll be a great resource. I probably won’t do much with the forums and such, but I can really see myself using it to look up projects and yarn. I’m not confident about subbing yarn, so that will be a big help for me.

Sorry this is long and I don’t have pictures. Tomorrow, I promise!

ETA:  If you belong to Ravelry, *please* leave your username as a comment here.  I haven’t been paying attention to who has joined because I figured it would be a long time before I got my invite.

Merino-Ahhh!!

I got the yarn on Monday and I think I started the socks on Wednesday.

I love, love, love this yarn, and I love the colorway just as much.

When I first looked at it, I thought it was pretty, but wasn’t sure how it would knit up.  I have to say, it’s amazing.  I would never have put those colors together, but there’s a reason that I’m not a dyer.  I love the way it stripes with the blue, then the shades of pinks.

I’ve pooh-pooh varigated colorways for quite some time.  Since I was doing lace and other patterns, anything other than a solid took away from the pattern.  My experience with anything that wasn’t a solid wasn’t good, either.  I had mostly used Knit Picks old self-striping, which wasn’t really pretty and wasn’t a nice base yarn.

I just didn’t know what a beautiful colorway could look like when it was knit up.  My mind can only handle stockinette these days and I’m so happy with this yarn.

Can I also gush about the great base yarn?  It’s sooo soft!  It’s nothing compared to Vesper, thank goodness.  I don’t know that I’ll buy a lot of sport weight in the future, but it is nice to have such a quick knit.  I’m still drawn to fingering weight.  Khris has said that she may do something similar to the Blue Plate Special with fingering weight in the future.  I will definitely sign up for that.

The Cream Baby Cardi is coming along.  I’m almost done with the second sleeve and I hope to start the collar and hood today.  That is, if the socks don’t distract me.

By the way, given my busy work schedule, I probably won’t be posting much more than once a week.  My knitting has slowed down, and I don’t have the time or energy to post in the evenings.

Vesper Love?

Not so much.

I have two main issues with it, none of which may be the problem of Vesper, per se, but more of a personal preference of mine.

1.  The base yarn.  Maybe I’ve been spoiled with merino, but this yarn isn’t all that soft.  It’s a wool/nylon blend, so I suppose that it’s to be expected.  To me, it’s slightly softer than the old KP Essential and not nearly as soft as the new Essential.  It’s very thin, and doesn’t have much loft at all.

2. The colors.  Or, rather, the lack of color in places.  There are lots and lots of white spots throughout.  I could understand if there were white spots where a new color started, but there are lots of white spots randomly in the middle of a color.  Last night there was a section of white yarn that was over an inch long.  Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, or maybe I got a bad batch.  In any case, I’m annoyed with it.

For the price of the yarn, there are lots of others out there that I would much rather have and or try.  I won’t spend my money on Vesper again.

I *made* myself work on the Cream Baby Cardi last night.  What I really wanted to do was work on Vesper Sock #2.  I’m expecting another Blue Plate Special shipment this week and I know I’ll want to get started on the yarn right away.

But, I have finished the body of the sweater.  All I have to do are the sleeves, the hood, and seaming.  Since it’s a baby cardi, it should go fast.

Working Mother’s Guilt

I haven’t disappeared.  I’ve just gone back to work.  I started back on Tuesday, though I had been working last week, too.  The kids started on Wednesday.  I have ten (yep, that’s 10) students this year.  They are a good group, though there are some challenges that I know will come up.  However, I’ve been super busy.  I was all prepared for the first day, but I’ve been running around since then.  The problem is that we don’t have a set schedule yet.  That will happen on Tuesday.  I’m going to be gone on Monday to get my wisdom tooth pulled out, so Tuesday is the magic day.  I seriously can’t wait!  I’m such a control freak and not having a set schedule isn’t good for me.  I’ll spend a chunk of time tomorrow planning, which I kind of love to do.

I am suffering from Working Mother’s Guilt, a small branch of the much larger, Mother’s Guilt.  I love working, and I know LouLa is in a good daycare that she loves.  But, the change has taken its toll on her this week.  She’ll be fine in another week or so, I know.  She’s older now, so changes affect her much more than they did when she was smaller.  She has to get up an hour earlier than she had been, which means that she should be going to bed an hour earlier, right?  Except for the fact that she was going to bed at 7:00 and there is no way that I could put her in bed at 6:00.  She would probably sleep, but that would mean a lot less time with her by the time I got home from work, which I couldn’t handle.  When I think about how little time we have together each day during the week, I could cry.

I’m really not depressed, don’t worry!  I just tend to over analyze things.  This is the way things have to be, so we’ll all just deal and do the best that we can.  She’s not going to be horrible adjusted or hate me just because I worked.  I’m sure there’ll be some other reason.

I have been knitting, though not as much as I was.  I’m dedicating this weekend to working on the Cream Baby Cardi.  The weather had been really warm, but it’s gotten cooler.  I’d better get it done so the baby can wear it with the cool weather.

I’m done with Sock #1 using the Vesper yarn and I’m about halfway done with Sock #2.  I’ll post pictures and my thoughts about Vesper tomorrow.