I'm making progress!

See how far I've gotten.

Ok, it's not blocked so it's not nearly as impressive as it could be, but it's still progress.

This is how the pattern works. You cast on 339 stitches and knit your way up and in, then you come back and pick up sticthes to knit the border. So basically you start in the middle. The shawl itself has 4 kinds of lace pannels interspersed with reverse stockinette stitch.

I've done two of the different kinds of lace. Here's a close up. If you go by the charts I have done A, B and C, and just finished row 57. On the big picture you can see where I've put red dots on the rows I've finished. I mark up most of my patterns eventually which is why I work from photocopies alot.

In the original pattern the rows of eyelet lace at the bottom and the rows of eyelet lace at the top would be in a grey-beige color. The feather and fan lace block in the middle would be in dark grey at the bottom shading to light grey at the top. So if you think about it I've done a fair swack of knitting.

I like to think about it that way. I can't wait to see how much it's going to stretch out once it's blocked. The lace is working up so fine I wonder if it'll fit through a wedding ring?

10 Rules For Knitting While Watching TV

I like to knit in the evening while I'm watching TV. I'm really bad at just sitting still so this is about the only way I can sit through a whole TV show. So here are my rules. Your mileage may vary.

1. Knit during the commercials. This is the best time to get some serious knitting done without missing the good parts of the show.
2. Stop knitting if the suspense gets to much for you. I don't generally watch scary shows but I do like mystery shows and if the actions get to suspenseful you could tense up. You could end up with an hourglass shape in the middle of your knitting because the tension went from nice and easy to oh my gods tight.
3. Don't knit from charts. The constant looking back and forth will make you either screw up your knitting or miss your show. This is not the time to do complicated intarsia.
4. Do knit patterns with lots of repeats. Simple lace, simple cables, plain textured knitting are all good choices for TV watching.
5. Wait to count rows or stitches until the commercials. You'll be less distracted.
6. Don't watch really funny comedies. One rerun of Coupling was enough to make me laugh so hard 3 stitches had fallen off the end of the needles before I even noticed.
7. TV time is great for boring knitting. TV is what gets me through 96 rounds of stockinette on that really big felted bag.
8. You can't eat and knit and watch TV. Generally you can't eat and knit any way but this is especially true while trying to watch TV. But then this is not a disadvantage if you're dieting.
9. Don't let your knitting take up the entire couch. If you live alone you can pretty much ignore this rule but I have to share my couch with 4 cats a husband and 3 kids. Husband gets grouchy when there is no where for him to sit because of all the yarn, patterns, notions, needles, et all. He also gets upset when he sits on double points, go figure. The cats just walk all over everything and lay on my knitting any way.
10. Be prepared. Have your knitting, patterns, notions, a drink and everything handy. So you don't have to get up. You can also ignore this rule if you have children you can send to fetch you the things you need. First you have to teach them what a cable needle is though, and you run the risk of them playing with your measuring tape.

All rules can be ignored if you're in the same room as the TV but aren't actually watching it. Husband likes to have me in the same room when he's watching movies. He calls this spending time together. He is mistaken. He is watching TV. I am ignoring the TV and doing something constructive. We are merely in the same room. Oh well, it makes him feel better.

Slogalong with Mason Dixon

Some days are Chuck Berry kind of days, and some days are My Life With Thrill Kill Kult.

I listen to a lot of music. A whole lot. All the time. If I'm on the computer then the computer is playing launchcast or the CD of the day. If I'm doing house work, the radio or the stereo is on. Husband has the TV as his favorite form of background noise, I like my noise to have a tempo and actual musical notes. I will listen to opera but I will not listen to rap. Ok, I'm not overly fond of country and western either, but I love music. Love it, love it, love it.

Given my love of music I tend to associate events, objects, people, days, with songs. I'm having a Genesis, just after loosing Peter Gabriel, kind of day. Phil Collins was all that and a bag of chips but still finding his feet. So thats me today, musically inspired but still wanting to be behind a set of drums where I can hit things.

The point of this post was actually to talk about something I just read on Mason Dixon Knitting today. It was Ann's post from yesterday, she was talking about her vacation and the silk shrug she was working on and something called a slogalong. So being the cat curious person I am I followed the links and found out that they, the fabulous ladies at Mason Dixon, had started up a group for people who were stuck battling those fun knitting projects the seem to take forever. And I thought, well hey, I'm knitting this shawl that should be done about in time for the next ice age. It definitely qualifies. So I signed up.

I like talking to other knitters. Mostly I do this in person, but I've come to learn that their are an awful lot of knitters online. This should be a fun opportunity to see what other knitters are blogging about.

Here's progress on the shawl. It's still in the ramen noodle stage. It is my first big lace project and I can't even begin to count the number of little mistakes are in it. I understand that blocking will make it look prettier but it still looks like ramen. On the positive side, the yarn is a dream of softness. I've seen scratchier butter than this yarn. Which makes knitting it on Addi Turbo's ever so slightly stupid...

Maybe I should go by some wood circs. Hey, any excuse to go to my fave yarn shop.

Birthdays

The 4th was my birthday. Go me.

My Mom and my baby sister Quinn visited.

I turned 35. 35 is a hard age for women in my family. It's not quite middle age so you're not allowed to have your mid-life crisis yet but it's old enough that you feel you should have done more with your life and haven't. I am not having the best 35.

Today is my son James 15th birthday. I had 15 children running through my very small apartment. The cake and watermelon didn't last long. I've also desided that teenagers are loud and obnoxious, especially in large quantities.

I'm going to go mope and work on my lace shawl. It's the Icelandic Lace Shawl from Piecework that Knitting Daily has had up. I actually had the original from the July 1996 Piecework, but didn't start it until last week or so. Hey, I bought the yarn and needles for it 2 years ago. I'm knitting it in lace weight, oh so soft, Misti Alpaca, all in cream. The pattern calls for alot of color changes but I figured I would knit the whole thing in cream and after it was made up I would ombre dye it to give it a more subtle shading.

OK, I obviously care more about my shawl than my stupid birthday....

Teddy Bear Party

We made bears!

We made 117 bears for the kids at the Hospice and Camp Erin, a bereavement camp. Camp Erin is partly sponsered by the Moyer Foundation and alot of folks in the community all come together to make Camp happen. Frontier Bank and Banner Bank both help out by providing funds for campers. Everett Clinic helps pay for food and renting the camp site. Project Linus makes quilts so when each child arrives at camp the are greated by a hand made bear and quilt on their bed.

It was just amazing to see all the bears people made and all the love and care that went into them. It made me go all teary eyed to see so many people in the community come together. Knitters are the best. We had people from 90 years old to 5 1/2 years old making bears. OK, clothes for bears. The bears themselves are donated by Warm 106.9, and other local radio stations. It was such fun.

These are to two I made.

Some of the bears, not in the 117 total, will go for auction in Oct. There was an Arabain Nights bear and a bear with a sheep stuffy and even a biker Nun. The creativity of my fellow knitters is awe inspiring. Just, wow.

I'll have more pictures as I get them. and I'll come up with more brilliant commentary as I have time. This is just a quick post. More to come....

A New Computer, A Finished Sock, and Lizards Online

It's a good thing blogs are more for journaling and less of an actual news article or an actual web site for a business or some such, because at nearly 1am I'm not very coherent.

So why blog at 1 am you ask? Insomnia, I reply. Some nights I can't even get to sleep until 3 or 4. Which is a right pain in the arse when you have to be up by 8 to go to work. At least tomorrow I have the day off.

Other than the time it's a fabulous day. My new computer just came in. It has a nice big flat screen monitor and is somewhat faster than the hand-me-down computer I was using. Which I imediately handed down to my son James. I put together this one. He had to haul the old one into his room and set it up his own self.

I started a new sock in Tofutsies. Now that I look at it it doesn't actually say the name of the color on the ball, but it's 'Three Feet Short'. I'm doing this one for Great Yarns too.

The coolest thing about Great Yarns..... My Lizard pattern is up on the website! Isn't he darling.

Charity Knitting Postponed To Make Sock

My son James is thoughtfully holding up some Charity Bears, while thinking his Mom is a total goober for taking his picture.

Great Yarns, my LYS, does up a whole bunch of bears every year for children in hospice care and they also sponser a bereivement camp for children who've lost there parents or siblings. When I went in the other week they had the bears put up all over the place. These bears were dressed to the nines. There were bears in sweaters, shawls, hats, cardigans, made with every knitting technique known to man, entrelac, lace, intarsia, fairisle, even beaded. The talent pool of knitters at Great Yarns is just amazing. I was blown away.

And being a giving kind of person, I snatched up two bears to make clothes for then and there. Then I got to talking to Fontelle and she said they were getting in some fabulous new sock yarn. I am a sock yarn addict. We will never tell my husband how much sock yarn I truly have, so we will never have to hear him say something really foolish like 'don't you have enough sock yarn already'. He will never know.

Any way, Fontelle says they're getting in this new yarn and could I knit up a sock for the store's display. I said, 'Oh, yes, please!', just as soon as you get it in. I'm no dummy, I get to knit socks and not have to pay for the yarn first, and everybody gets to admire them and say what fabulous socks they are and how fine a job I did on them. Oh, yeah.

So I went in yesterday and the new sock yarn was in! It was wonderful. She had got in Tofutsie and Shi Bui. Two of my all time favorites. And then Fontelle tells me that she needs the first sock in Shi Bui by next Wednesday so she can take it to the Seattle Mariners Stitch and Pitch on Thursday. So I'm knitting socks and not bear clothes because all the bears have to be in by August 1st and the sock has to be done in 5 days. Eek. Good thing I knit fast.

The pattern I'm using is fun one, Fiber Trends Lupine Lace Socks, and the color we picked is called Anime. I knit some on it last night and this afternoon and it's coming along pretty fast. The pattern calls for Lornas' Lace sock yarn and size 1 needles. I'm using size 2 needles, because Shi Bui is just a tiny bit thicker, to knit the small size sock and I'm getting the medium size measurements out of it. One of the nice things about the pattern is that you get a great leaf pattern and after you've done one pattern repeat you never have to look at the chart again. I love easy to memorize patterns. And have I mentioned the yarn. It's so soft and you can wash it in the wash machine too.