Home on the Range...

Another project done. These were actually finished last month. It was a button thing keeping them from total completion. Why is it always so difficult to find the right darned button for a project? The pattern is the Prairie Boots from the fabulous cocoknits. I called mine the Home on the Range Boots, they were made for a friend. The yarn in Lamb's Pride Bulky in chocolate souffle for the soles, autumn harvest, and sunburst gold for the uppers. When I started out on this project I had no intention of gifting them to anyone... I wasn't even intending to make them for myself... for some odd reason I just wanted to make them. Julie's patterns are always so damn enticing. I am looking at these going, "I would never wear those, not even in my house. Those are silly, they look too much like UGG boots," a fashion statement which I do not have an appreciation for. The days roll by and I come across the pattern again, and I think, "they look fun to knit. I kind of want to make some...they look like they might be comfy." So I say to myself, "what the hell, I'll make a pair!" I decide to just use leftover yarn and piece it together, I'll surely have enough. So I cast on and knit. As I am knitting along It begins to wash over me... "Wait... I kinda like these." Great, Now I am invested in the damn project! So I knit on... and as I am going I realize that I will NOT have enough yarn. Turd! I have to hunt for more yarn. Project on hold....
A couple of weeks go by as I locate more Sunburst Gold Lamb's Pride Bulky. I get the yarn... I continue to knit... and "Wait! These are awesome, super cute... I cannot believe that I didn't love these from the beginning. I'll wear them all the time!"
I finish the boots. There was something a little wonky with the soles... not sure if it was because of my not paying attention or if it was the pattern. I met a gal who had the same experience as me... but it still could be a user error. Basically the number of stitches I ended up with was between the small and medium, so when i went to pick up stitches to start the upper part of the boot there weren't enough. I tried them on and they didn't fit my foot or my calves. I don't have particularly big calves, I don't have a hard time shopping for tall boots. Just a heads up... measure your calf and count your gauge. I should have increased more to fit my calf. I have a friend who loves orange... done deal. She LOVED them and they fit her.

I am making a second pair for myself. I am using Lamb's Pride Bulky Again, in deep charcoal for the soles, lime green for the uppers, with just a touch of lemon drop somewhere in there. I will pay better attention and see what happens with sole. Also... sewing buttons on back to back, especially when one is a four eye and the other a two eye... was a challenge for me.

February/March Sweater

I DID start the February sweater in February! But being me, i had to rip out 2 1/2 inches of the yoke 3 different times. The first time I just didn't like the cast on edge (that was only about an inch of yoke before ripping). The second time i forgot the buttonholes... even though I read through the entire pattern AND read, on ravelry, everyone else bitch about forgetting the buttonholes. The third time I didn't like the way buttonholes looked, they were too close to the edge and too loose and floppy. So I got through all of that... which actually only took me a day and a half to reknit it three times...
The next saga was me swatching for the lace pattern. Also a me trait is to want to alter the hell out of anything that i do. I wanted to use a different lace pattern. So I hauled out all of my Barbara walker treasuries and my Vogue Stitchionary and found a couple of lace patterns. I found one that i loved. Did I swatch for it? nope! I just picked up my yoke that had been reknit 3 times and went for it.
I knit a couple of repeats of the lace pattern (a 6 row repeat) and it just didn't look right. So I ripped it out and did it again.... It just looked HORRID in that yarn.

So on to look for a different lace pattern. This time I would be "smart" and swatch first. I found one and I thought would be perfect, swatching I a went. I knit a few inches of the swatch before it donned on me that the sweater is knit from the top down.. and the sweet little heart lace that I chose would be upside down hearts and in actuality would look like butts. So I gave in and knit the gull stitch pattern that EZ used. Aside from the the one row where i screwed up the lace, it's offset a little, it is looking great and I love it. I have another inch to go before I start the sleeves.
I have already purchased the yarn to make a punkrawkpurl sized February Sweater. It is Rowan Cocoon, which is only the dreamiest yarn ever. OK not EVER... it's just the dreamiest yarn ever... for this post. The color I had envisioned using for this project, Crag, was not available at AP. I thought about the color Polar... which may be pretty on me... but i can just see me knitting a white sweater for months to spill grape juice on it. I don't actually drink a lot of grape juice, it just provided the most dramatic scenario. So I looked at a couple of the tan/beigey colors, everyone agreed that they were too similar to my skin tone and looked gross on me. So I went for Mountain... it's darker than i wanted, but it is gorgeous. A friend said that it was too close to my hair color, another friend said that she was concerned the lace pattern would get lost in yarn that dark. So I added the color scree to the mix for the yoke to break up the separation of my hair and the Mountain color. Besides I will just plan to always wear my hair up with a white shirt underneath... problems solved. I am going to squish the numbers, swatch, cast on and just go! Itching to start before I finish the mini version.
Saturday night speedyneedlefreeman, wondermike, Kim-Chi Crafts, Knit Ya Ya!, and special guests KNITSONYA came over. It was a knitting food fest. We had red velvet cake, an awesome bean salad, roasted potatoes, fancy cheeses and breads, homemade pizzas, thin mint girl scout cookies... yummmmm! hizKNITS was sadly missed.

Rock Me Ladybug!

I want this!! How flippin cute is it?! I have been toying with getting a new set of ipod speakers for awhile. i am not an audiophile... i do not need anything fancy. No mega woofers or tweeters necessary here. I just need to be able to hear the music at high volume. Sure I can hear the subtle differences between good and awesome speakers... it's just not that important to me. Am I going to get it? I don't know. I have to grapple with the decision of which color... ladybug red
or sexy silver.

Toe To Toe

It's been a month. I swear that I want to be a good blogger. I swear that I love to blog, and to read other people's blogs... knitting blogs of course. Once again I am going to try really really really hard to be better about blogging!!!

So in the last month what has happened....
There have been some ups and downs for me. The downs have been dealt with so there is no need to go there. Lets talk about the ups...

I taught another fabulous class for the fabulous Sile at knit one one. This time around I was so lucky to co-teach with the super adorable Knit Ya Ya. We taught Beverly Galaskes' Felted Clog pattern. It was a full house. And as usual we had amazing students. Just look at those color combos!

Other exciting news... knit one one has a sexy new location. We can now have multiple classes at the same time. It is warm and spacious, and exciting. These photos are form the grand opening weekend.

This weekend I will be teaching the mega awesome Kent's Moss Stitch Beret at knit one one. There are still some spaces left. You can see photos of this wonderful beret in my previous post.

Other news... hizKNITS and I had Pedis today! It was FABU! Look at our pretty pretty toes.

I Got Class...

Yesterday I taught the "Leafy Lace Scarf" class at knit one one. It was a full house, and super fun. As usual it was a great mix of people; school teachers, tax specialists, swim coaches, structural engineers for the Bay Bridge, new moms, retired moms... And as you can tell from the photo above, we had some gorgeous Leafy Lace Scarves... Joan used an amazing variegated green bamboo that is going to make a breath taking light weight spring time scarf. And Kimberly used my all time fave fiber... yup, she used a sport weight alpaca in a lovely mauve-y color. They were all gorgeous, and I was very proud of every one's progress. Learning how to do yo's, psso's, k3togs, SK2P's and all that good stuff amongst a large group of chatty people... not the easiest task.

Next Class... Felted Slippers!! Let me correct that... The BEST Felted Slippers ever! Knit extra giant and then felted down to fit, these slippers are heaven for your hoofs! They are knit with two separate soles for double the cushiony goodness. I have worn the same pair every single day for two years!! When they start getting a little ratty or stretched out... just pop them back into the washer, and they are good as new!
The beauty of this class is that you will get two fabulous instructors for the price of one. The lovely and super talented Carrie will be by my side to demystify the mysteries of short row shaping, three needle binding off... and quite certainly more.


And then the next class after that is Ooooh La La... Berets. Just look at that bevy of beautiful berets! Keep an eye out on the knit one one class schedule for the beret class. The dates are February 16th and 23rd, two Saturdays, at 1 P.M. Save the dates!


And now I will present one finished Purple Tweed Tudora! The pattern was super easy, and super quick. Cabling without a cable needle was fun. But I must say that I was not pleased with the fit. I don't think that I have a short stubby neck, but it is just too tall and curls inward at the back of my neck. Also, the bind off edge is a little too tight. It was fun to make... I will make another and experiment with the sizing and bind off looser.

Cable Me

Out of pure necessity... okay! okay! It was out of pure laziness combined with impatience I finally performed the ridiculously easy task of cabling without a cable needle. I had always "known" or understood the concept of the deed, but for some reason I had just never tried it out. I am a tschotze gal, I live for my accoutrements, my tools, my thingy-ma-bobbers, and so on. So why on earth would i not want to lug that big bulky cable needle around with me while I am working on a project with cables?!
Last night at work I started working on Tudora and after casting on 112 stitches I realized that I did not have a cable needle with me. So rather than just working on one of the other three projects I had with me & waiting 45 minutes until I was home to begin cabling... I said "Flip it all anyway! I am going to just cable sans cable needle". And I did. And it was super easy. Many people say that it is much faster to cable without using a cable needle.... I don't know if that is the case for me. Sure, it is nano seconds faster than shuffling that cable needle around from between my pinky and ring finger, but I never really felt that a cable needle was slowing me down.

But anyway.... what about Tudora? I am excited about this simple little project. I love having a cozy scarf wrapped around my neck! I have had some serious problems with my neck in the past and find that keeping it warm makes a huge difference in my general comfort. So even when it's not terribly cold outside... I tend to have at least a little something wrapped around my neck. (same as my wrists... and my super cute cuffs).



The pattern says that it will be approx 17 inches long... mine is 19 inches. And there is still a button band to be added. I am using the yarn which she recommends as the substitute yarn; Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed. I just happened to have a ton of it laying around that I have had no plans for. I made a beret out of this same yarn. I must say.... I am not a fan of this yarn after working with it twice now. It is a little scratchy, which for the beret was not a big issue, I lined the brim with squishy soft malabrigo. But for this neck warmer, don't know what was thinking. The other issue with this yarn is that it is somewhat brittle. It is super thin in some areas and when cabling.... comes dangerously close to breaking.

Speaking of berets... it's my new pastime.

Last month I made three of Kents Moss Stitch Beret. This hat is soooo popular! I had never made a beret before, I really wanted one to wear, I really wanted to make one, and I DO love me some moss stitch. So I made one for myself, figured that if I liked it, it would make great gifts for a few special folks in my life. I had so much fun knitting it. There where a couple of wonky instructions in the pattern. I emailed Kent to verify that what I had thought he meant was actually what he did mean... he was so sweet and replied to me toot suite!

The decrease section is where it is a bit wonky. my interpretation of it (confirmed by Kent) is as follows:
divide into 8 sections (17 stitches in each section) & place markers the beginning of each section. Every other round you will decrease the first four stitches after each marker as follows; {slpw, K1, psso} then {K1, slkw, psso}. Ok... so that second decrease is the wacky one. you will need to {K1, slip one knitwise, then slip BOTH stitches back onto the left needle, now you can pass the second stitch over the first, and then pass the knitted stitch back onto the right needle}.

I made two more, a red tweed one for Sile, and an olive green malabrigo one for Kate. They are such a hit! And you are in luck because I will be teaching it (with Kent's blessing) for knit one one in February.

Where has all the Knitting gone...

Yes I still knit. I know it is few and far between my posts about knitting. My apologies. Some of you are saying that it is few and far between ANY of my posts... fair enough.

A small amount of my yarn that we used in class

In the Knitting News....

Way back in October I taught a Color Class. No, not colorwork like fair isle or intarsia. Color work, like the color wheel. Only not anything like the color wheel. We asked everyone to bring a few different balls of yarn, in addition I hauled a ton of my stash to the class. I organized it in big buckets, and on pretty trays. I talked a little about shades, hues, tones, blah blah. I talked about color proportion, and the texture of color. We discussed distribution and placement. Then I asked folks to step outside of their comfort zone with color, and try combinations that they would never dare to try on their own. I asked each student to pick a color that they hate. Then I asked them to choose at least two additional colors and try to make the hated color work for themselves. Every single person was able to do it. It was fabulous to watch people get turned onto a new way of seeing color. We worked in pairs so that everyone could bounce their ideas off of someone else. Then we discussed as a group what worked and didn't work about each combo. At the end everyone had to talk about an upcoming project, and the colors they may have envisioned using before the class, and then how they changed their mind about using color for that specific project. It was an awesome time for all.

What am I knitting? Excellent question! I am working, or not working on the following;

1. The moss stitch beret from Kent's Crafts. I am making it in Harris/Rowan Scottish Tweed, an amazing bright apple green!
2. A baby alpaca scarf in trade for massage sessions.
3. TWO elmer Fudd hats (I am in process of teaching the class)
4. Half a dozen or so unfinished/abandoned projects (log cabin blanket, a couple pairs of socks, a super basic hat for myself that I started over a year ago....)
5. Swatched for a sweater a month ago... haven't touched it since.
6. Swatched for a lace scarf a few weeks ago... what's going on there?!
   
7. Just finished a pair of birthday fingerless gloves... finally!
8. Just finished a felted hat in Cascade Pastaza... which felts like a brick... in a good way

But maybe the biggest thing that i have been working on for the last month, the thing that has really sucked up a great deal of time... and yes it is a knitting project.... I think it might be a secret... I am not sure of the extent to which I am allowed to talk about it. But trust me... it's WAYYYY cool!

Can you SEE how flippin thick that felt is?!

Other news...
You should really check out my cabled cuff class coming up in December. You can learn the magic loop technique AND make something that totally rocks, AND get some hand-made holiday gifts out of the way in very little time.
Also check Kate's Hella Cable scarf class. You will be sorry if you miss it.

Red is Dead...

just some of my awesome new office supplies.  

Crisp Little Apple Clips!  Even though they are red...

I am finally working on my bedroom suite. I call it a suite because I have the entire upper floor of the house... my own bathroom, bedroom, office, and walk in closet. It's not HUGE, but it is a healthy sized space. When the ex still lived here the suite was done up in red, black, brown, and cream/white. It was good. I liked it. It suited us as a couple. Not too girly, not too masculine, and playful, fun. When the space became my own, I left it pretty much as is. Sure there were changes, I got new bedroom furniture. But overall I kept the same color palette.
I DO like red... and I like black. I also like brown. And cream & white are ok as an accent. My original plan a year ago was to keep the red and black (the strongest presence with artwork, and accessories already in the room) and to add a mossy lime green. I slowly added some green here and there... but with all that red, it just wasn't floating my boat... and slowly started feeling a little like Xmas. Last month I went to IKEA and bought a gorgeous leafy printed green duvet cover. I brought it home but left it in the package for over a week... I wasn't sure if I was going to go for it. But every time i looked at that cover I got so happy. THOSE were my colors. that was my sanctuary. So I decided to ditch the red, pitch the black, and go green!

Last year i bought some raw wood shelves to use as... well shelves. I also got a couple of 5ft long ones to use on top of two filing cabinets as a desk. My intention was to stain them, make them look nice, etc. Over the past month, and a year after their original purchase, my awesome roommate stained all of the shelves and the desktop a gorgeous espresso. He also spray painted my filing cabinet. They were the UGLIEST fleshy tan color. And now the are gorgeous mossy green. And i have been shopping at work for super awesome green desk accessories. Like a little green magnetic hedgehog that holds my paperclips for me, his name is Dozi.  And then there is Winni, the green dinosaur guy that has a mohawk and mane of bristles for cleaning my computer keyboard. Archibald is the green turtle that floats upon my desk with a pad of post-it-notes atop his tummy.  Or what about Johnny, the little green guy with open arms just waiting to hold my cell phone. Though I am pondering introducing some orange. Dozi might get swapped out for a little orange ghost type guy.  I will also be adding Sebastiano in green.  What do you guys think?  Dozi or Curly?  Curly was named curly before he had spiral paperclips.  Dozi looks good in the spiral clips as well.  btw...  all of the above mentioned names did not come from my creative mind.  they were given those names by their creators, and all can be found at the fabulous shop where i work in downtown Oakland.  

Reunited... and uh, it feels mostly good

Yes, it is true, Mac is Back...
I got the call yesterday afternoon... my heart raced, my head was dizzy with excitement... Mac was coming home today. But my hair was a mess, and my eyebrows are long overdue for a wax... and OH MY, my desk is so cluttered! I so wanted everything to be perfect when he finally came home... when we would once again be together. Together listening to music, together watching a movie, together sending emails to our dear friends together. Yes it all sounds so idyllic.
But...
I knew that there would be issues. I knew that we would have our problems. All relationships have their problems.
So the lowdown is that all 3,000 and something of my photos were backed up. They are visible and i can open them up one by one as jpegs... but when I attempt to import them into iphoto it kicks em back and says they are unreadable files. I installed ilife 08, new iphoto.... it imports them... spends 10 minutes importing... then it shows me a bunch of empty boxes which are supposed to be my photos. Did I back something up incorrectly? Am I stuck having to view 3,000 and something photos one by one? EEEK!!!

And then there is the issue of ical. I synced all of that stuff to .mac before I turned mac over to the genius. My address book, bookmarks, mail accounts, keychain thingy, AND my ical. Mac came home and i synced again... everything showed that it had last been synced on the day i handed over mac... and when i synced... it was all there, all correct... except my calendar was of a very old version from like two years ago!!! All of my birthdays, my meeting notes, everything is gone. AHA! It's NOT gone. It's all on my ipod. But here's the rub... I cannot sync from my ipod to the computer. I have an app that allows me to transfer my music from ipod to itunes. (that is another issue for another time). But I could not find an app that does same for photos or calendars.
UGH!
I really thought that I backed everything up properly. But it turns out that I did not. There is some stuff missing here and there, I didn't back up or save Office, so now I have no way to view or use all of my Word files. I should have had my genius back it all up with me. Live and learn baby. Live AND learn!

Broken Mac = Lame Photo Post

My Hard-drive took the big dirt nap folks. The nice "genius" at the apple store said that other than a dead hard-drive, my laptop has lots o' life left in it. In fact he was SHOCKED that it was able to reboot at all considering the state of the hard-drive. He actually gasped, and put one hand to his mouth when he read the "failing" status after running some test program thingy. It's a MacBook Pro- G4... in case that means something to any of you. It's a little over three years old. And with a new hard drive in him... he will be good to go. PLUS.... any day now... well between the first and the thirty first of October I will have Leopard for my newly repaired G4 friend. btw... this is the extent of my ability to geek talk. I really don't know much about this stuff... just the basics to get me by. Really... be nice to your local "genius" at the apple store, they rawk! Mine is named Daryn, and he is truly my hero. Maybe I should knit him a "genius" beanie or something. hmmmm... thinking.

New Vans

Since I don't have my computer... I cannot download photos... So I took some photos with my crappy cell phone cause I just had to share my new Vans with y'all! Aren't they swell? Old Skool OTW (Off The Wall) logo. HAWT I know!!!

And just to throw some knitting related stuff into this post... just one of the MANY things I am knitting... a pair of mismatched, yet matching, fingerless mitts, two-at-once, ala magic loop. The yarn is Lamb's Pride Worsetd, Rosado Rose & Seafoam. The pattern is PuNk rAwK pUrL's & will be available soon. Also.... I was deathly ill over the weekend and knit a to-be-felted hat in one day. It's mustard yellow and plum. The yarn is CascadePastaza, I will get back to you with the actual color #'s. It is gorgeous. I will also get back to you with a better photo of it when my baby is back home.

Just look at those knuckles! Way Cool! haha

P.S. I also do not have my calendar... yep, it's on the mac... so if i have forgotten a birthday, anniversary, or anything important... I apologize in advance!