The sweater is on hold

I got sidetracked from my sweater. It was probably something to do with not being able to find all of my needles combined with the hours of swatching I was looking at. So, a sock was born.



This is Araucania Ranco Multy yarn in color 309. Here is a better pic of the color:


The pattern, First time tube socks, is from the winter 07/spring 08 issue of Knitscene. It calls for worsted weight cotton and I'm using fingering weight 75% wool, 25% polyamide. Of course I didn't swatch like I should have, why would you think I would be so smart? I dove in head first making adjustments on the fly. I'm using 2.75mm needles and cast on as the instructions called for a large size. I'm just hoping that they actually fit me. If not...I'm way WAY ahead of schedule for my Christmas knitting!

Either way, I'm safe.


As a side note, I just saw this link on not a yarn snob's blog and felt I had to share it. She isn't kidding, it'll completely blow your mind.

What to do

I went an entire evening without something to knit last night. I'm not kidding, I have NOTHING on my needles at the moment and it's really a problem for me. I had an adorable top picked out from the recent Knitscene and had chosen the perfect yarn from stash. My problem is, the pattern calls for a DK weight yarn and my stash yarn is fingering weight. Can this be done? How? I'm not that advanced of a knitter to just know which yarns can be substituted. So it seems that today I'll be doing a bit of swatching and a bit of researching for other patterns as well. My heart is set on using the stash yarn (Adrienne Vittadini Celia), the chosen pattern can wait for a different yarn if needed.

Overdue Christmas picture post

I think I'm the last one in blogland to post pictures of my fiber related Christmas presents. We got home from my parent's house Christmas night and immediately packed away all of our presents for the moving truck the next morning. I've finally got all the new yarn unpacked and photographed.

The following 3 pictures are of yarn from my mom. I taught my sister to crochet several years ago so mom bought a bunch of yarn that we had to share, so this is my half. :





This pic doesn't show the colors right but the flash and I weren't getting along. The red is really much deeper.

And of course, Ellie got me some fibery goodness because she loves me so. She (I) caught the sale at The Loopy Ewe for Cherry Tree Hill and got 1 skein of each colorway.



Outside of taking pictures of my Christmas yarn haul, there has been a lot going on around here keeping me from posting. And none of it has been knitting! I've barely got the cuff and heel done on Jason's (henceforth known as OffLogic) second sock. Here's a peek at what we've been up to:
(before)
(after)
(after discovering the other color was too light and looked like a little girl's bedroom)
And we are finally done, just waiting delivery of the entertainment center now.

Another FO

But not pics of it.

My MIL visited us in Texas last summer and asked that I make her a scarf, she even found some yarn in my stash that she loved. Naturally I told her I'd be happy to do it and it wouldn't take long. Well around comes October and we visit her here in Arizona (we were here to house hunt) and I didn't have her scarf. I thought about making it but Jason said it would be ok to wait and make it a Christmas gift. Let's make a long story short.....I started the scarf on Friday night, and finished weaving in the ends in the car on the way to her house Saturday night. She loves it!

Now all I have to do is see if she'll model it for me so I can get a picture.


In other news, I finally got started on the 2nd sock for Jason. Since the first got packed away (on the blocker) I had to send him out to the garage to find it so I could measure the cuff. I'm not far off from starting the heel, hopefully tomorrow.

A New Hobby

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

just pics

Today's post is just a couple of pics of some great finds we made last night at Hobby Lobby. Knitting has been very hard to do while watching tv lately due to the lack of lamps so we went in search last night. We were about to go home when I insisted on stopping at Hobby Lobby, and I'm glad we did.
The shades have GOT to be changed but that's easier to do than finding lamps we like. Thankfully, I can knit at night again.

After finding the lamps we stumbled into the 66% off isle and found this little gem to hang by the garage door.

A little behind schedule

Ok so it's the new year and I am (as usual) a little late in getting my New Year's resolutions written down. I don't know why but I never even start thinking about them until New Year's day and then I spend a lot of time thinking about them and trying to make sure that I am not going to be over-doing it by making these impossible goals for myself.

I think I've finally gotten it down to something that is doable (at least for a while):

1. Make at least 2 posts a week to my blog
2. Continue to eat smaller meals more often during the day. (this makes the doc happy)
3. Walk for at least 15 minutes a day (also makes doc happy)
4. Complete 1 FO per month
5. Make at least 1 sweater or t-shirt this year

Naturally those aren't all of the goals that I have but they are the only ones that I'm willing to write down and try to stick with. The rest of them are sort of brownie point type goals that I can be pleasantly surprised with if I reach them this year.

On the home front:

We finally uncovered the island in the kitchen long enough for me to take this photo of the pot rack that my dad hung while they were still here. Pay no attention to the random vases and candlesticks on top of the cabinets, they are just there until something better comes along.



A dear friend (and fellow blogger) is a scrapper and loves flowers. I've been telling her about these fans in the guest bedrooms of our new home. This picture is for her...
The previous owners had 2 adorable little girls and these fans went perfectly with the decor of their rooms. I, however, will be taking these fans down and replacing them. Hopefully these will sell on Craigslist.

On the knitting front:

I have officially (and finally) completed the first FO of 2008. No need to post a pic, they are another pair of Fetching mitts, this time in a lovely pale pink. I've now made 3 pair of these, one right after another. This last pair seemed to take forever but there hasn't been much time to work on them with the move and ensuing unpacking fun that we've been having over here.

We made it to Arizona!

We arrived around 4:30pm on the 28th and actually got the truck completely unloaded. (which meant we were still unloading after dark but that's nothing new, we loaded in the dark too) Mom and Dad stayed with us over the weekend and helped move a few boxes and a bit of furniture around. Dad hurt his back pretty badly the weekend before so he was in pretty bad shape all weekend.

But just look at what Mom and I got finished! I've been looking forward to painting my laundry room teal ever since we were out here in October and I saw it in a model home that we walked through.
So far that is the only room that I've gotten painted, but I have the paint for the guest bedroom ready to go. We haven't decided on a color scheme for our living room or master bedroom yet so we aren't doing anything in those rooms right now. I think next up is going to be painting an accent wall in the kitchen.

Jason's Mom got us patio furniture as a house-warming present and we are starting to get that put together as well. Right now the patio is covered in empty boxes and the chairs that we've already got together. Every morning I sit and enjoy the silence of the neighborhood while I look at this.....