Knittinggarden

Those who know me accept the fact that I am an English major at heart, if not in real life.  I can spot a typo at 50 paces and a misplaced apostrophe at 100.  I have much more respect for writers (even bloggers and people who post in forums on the net) if they use apostrophes correctly and spell accurately.  In reading one of my favorite knitting blogs just now, I was disappointed in the author (who I enjoy and generally think does a great job of keeping her grammar and spelling top notch) when she made the mistake that I seem to notice constantly lately.  (No, family, it's not putting "at" at the end of a sentence, but that annoys me, too.) Lose vs. loose.  What is so hard about this?  Loose is when your pants are too big and fall down.  Lose is what you've done when you can't find your car keys.  You don't loose weight, you lose it (if you're lucky.) The sweater you knit is not too lose, it's too loose (assuming it's size is too large for you....

I love it when the lilacs bloom!

Happy Spring a few days late.  We're having typical Seattle spring weather; a beautiful sunny day followed by cold and rainy.  Makes it difficult to plan - have to live in the moment.  Hmmm, where have I heard that before? Anyway, I finished two pairs of socks this week.  One is a pair that had been on the needles so long, I don't even know when I started it.  It was my travelling sock; plain stockinette and brought along to doctor's appointments, concerts, graduations, etc.  Since I can't knit without looking, it didn't grow as fast as it could have.  But the second sock is finally finished and I know I started them a long time ago, since I now make my cuffs longer.  I'm thinking this might be another afghans for Afghans donation.  I like the colors a lot, but they're a little snug and short and might be great for a teenager. The second pair I finished is my "brainless" socks.  This Yarnissima pattern looked great to me and afte...

My little socks and hat have been done for some time, and mailed off to their little recipient.  He and his mom, however, are out of town so they won't actually be tried on by the baby yet.  I think they came out pretty well and Blueberry liked them, too. In other knitting news, I made two pairs of mittens for the current campaign for afghans for Afghans and have them packaged up with two pairs of wool socks for mailing today. I sent pairs of socks that I don't wear for various reasons and they should fit a young teenager just fine. For Ravelympics this year, after agonizing (it's so important, you know!) I decided to work on my sock yarn blankie and see how many new squares I could finish during the two weeks.  I started out strong, but only knit on it at night during the horrible prime time NBC coverage, so haven't completed as many as I hoped, but will continue.  I do love seeing all the colors come together.  Here's a sample of some of them. ...

Yesterday I had tea with a friend who dabbled with knitting a couple of years ago but hasn't succumbed to the obsession (yet!) When I asked about the scarf that she had started lo those many months ago, she confessed that she had messed it up somehow, didn't know how to fix it, and just put it away.  We agreed that perhaps the next time we get together she could bring it and I could help get her back on track.  I also told her my standard line of "it takes me so long to make anything because I have to start over so much/fix so many mistakes/rip out, etc." I firmly believe the philosophy that I've read and heard so many times in knitting that being a good knitter isn't always doing everything right, it's knowing how to fix the things that go wrong.  I remember the first time I took a project knitting class and how amazed I was when the teacher could see right away why I had the wrong number of stitches on the needles and could quickly "unknit" t...

Well, as usual, my plan to update more regularly didn't work out, but I do have pictures! so here's a little more catching up. DH and I took a quick trip to Palm Desert for a little sun.  That worked for the first few days, until he left.  Then I stayed on in that January storm that flooded most of the southwest.  Oh well, I had movies and I had knitting.  What else do you need except maybe a little chocolate? The roadrunner came to visit. We picked lots of ripe grapefruit and lemons.  The lemonade was great, and I may have made myself a lemon meringue pie (okay, it was half a pie and I did eat it all myself.) The first knitted objects of 2010 were completed and loved posing with the lemons. These are Maine Morning Mitts made out of the first wheel-spun yarn that I made.  I love them.  They're a little longer than the pattern calls for and that makes for warm wrists. Collegeboy called and asked for a scarf (!) so Mom sprang into act...

I'd like to keep a record of how my spinning progresses, so I'm going to put in a little more info about the knitting I've done with my handspun.  I documented the first project, the One Row Handspun Scarf , and now I'll show photos of fiber to finished product for the other two items I've made. The second finished object I accomplished was the socks.  These were made from the Interlacements wool roving I got in the gift box of practice fiber from Goatlady.  I spun half of it into thick/thin yarn (that's so soft!) but haven't used it for anything but a swatch yet.  I think it might turn into some fingerless mitts. Anyway, I spun the balance of it to continue practicing, and managed to achieve a sportweight two-ply yarn.  As I mentioned yesterday, the colors were not maintained in any kind of order; I just grabbed handfuls of fiber and thinned them down so I could spin easier.  The resulting yarn was quite mixed up, but very colorful! I knit a bas...

I can't believe that the last time this blog had any significant knitting content, the calendar read August!  Let's see, the reason I started a blog in the first place was to document my knitting.  We seem to have strayed pretty far from documenting anything, let alone knitting, in the last year.  I guess we'll just have to remedy that, starting right now.  I will blame Ravelry for my lack of blogging, since I do spend a bit of time there each day, and my projects are quite a bit more up to date there than they are here.  I'm just going to list the items briefly here; you can check out the information on my Ravelry projects page (if you're on Ravelry) if you want to know more. Sweaters first:  I made DH a vest per his request and had yarn left, so I decided that a matching sweater for Buddy was in order.  Aren't they cute?   The next sweater I made was for niece Chelsye's expected baby girl.  We won't know how well it fits a real bab...

Knitting and gardening have temporarily been interrupted to bring you this holiday adventure tale, courtesy of DH and the intrepid Buddy.  Hope you enjoy it! ICE GATOR! Ice Gator relaxing on the bench Ice Gator hears some noise and heads to the frozen pool to hide Ice Gator does his Apollo Ohno interpretation - Go for the Gold, Ice Gator! While relaxing after skating, he hears the approach of an Alaskan beauty...hmmm She doesn't notice Ice Gator Careful now, just a little closer.... Ice Gator goes Ninja.  Careful, Alaskan beauty!  Look out! Ice Gator makes his move!  Gotcha! I'll stash her for lunch later. Back to my hideout across the frozen pool. Slow going, but I'll make it.  Wait!  Is that Buddy the Wonder Dog? It IS Buddy the Wonder Dog.  Can I keep the frozen girl away from him? Oh, no!  Buddy sees the Alaskan beauty's predicament and readies himself for battle. The Alaska...