Thursday, February 28, 2008

Soooo.....

The fabulous thing about knitting entirely from my stash is that I feel absolutely no guilt when buying knitting accessories. For example - the spring 2008 IK? Yup. Bought that with no problem. Need size 7 dpns? No sweat. Buttons? Hey - splurge a little and buy the glass ones.

I am DEFINITELY a fan of this. I wonder if I can find yarn gnomes to keep me all stashed up?

Bah.

The cropped cardigan needs sleeves, but the main body is done. How freaking fast did this go! It's knitting up as fast or faster than my sad little minimalist cardigan - who at this moment is peeking out of my knitting bag sighing *sleeve me! sleeeeeeeeeve me!*

I shall be knitting nothing but sleeves for a week. THEN I will wear cardigans galore.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Aren't there drugs for that?

I appear to have the common but painful disease startitis. My Moss Stitch Cardigan sits sadly on the back of my chair, Glee stares mournfully out of my knitting bag as I cast on for yet another project.

Last summer I realized that I had not a single "daily-wear" dress in my wardrobe. No - they are all formal occasion/wear to wedding type dresses. Say what!? How could this be?! I don't know how it happened, but it did. And since this discovery, I have been determined to rectify the situation. So!

During the recent family visit, I was fortunate enough to purchase an Anthropologie dress on mad sale. I got a thumbs up from my husband (who's picky as hell), a thumbs up from the brother-in-law (also picky as hell) and the ever-important thumbs up from the sister-in-law (who has fabulous taste). So out came the checkbook, and out I walked with this little number. As I admired the lace sticking out of the bag, I realized that an adorable little dress needs an adorable little cropped cardigan for those potentially chilly spring/summer nights. Who could argue?

Ergo, I have cast on 100-32 Short Cardigan with the 3/4 sleeves.

Despite my poor, sad little already-started projects, this is somewhat of an occasion for me. The sweater is cropped (which I typically hate) and 3/4 sleeves (which I typically hate even more) but it's perfect for this dress.

And so I embark on a new clothing experience.

Although I did finish knitting SOMETHING.
Booties for baby B. Knit whilst watching Blades of Glory and trying not to laugh beer out my nose (this is a very painful experience. avoid it if you can).

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Where's Waldo?

Bwa ha HA. Do you see me? Lookit lookit... there I am!


Dave's brother and his wife are in town and so we took a holiday to go ski. We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was gorgeous... sunny, warm but not too warm, and we had nice fluffy snow to ski on. Plus - no lift lines, the chutes were open (as you can see from the photo above) and my darling husband finally caved as I egged him on to do crazy and ridiculous things. On this particular jump he was a little wobbly mid-air, but he stuck the landing beautifully! On another jump he got about four or five feet up, totally biffed the landing, and some teenage snowboarder came up behind us saying "Dude - are you alright? That was GNARLY!"

I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time.

One more gratifying picture (the camera was somewhere down by his knees to get this shot... nice and steep. MMMMM)

And now on to knitting!

My friend Gena is having a baby soon. For her baby shower I figured I'd try my hand at baby knits. The result? They ROCK. So quick! So freakin CUTE! I will knit many more baby things in the near future. I love them. Love love love love love. Next I think I will try booties. Maybe a cap. Maybe other yummy patterns I happen to find. Even better... they don't take up super lots of yarn... so all those orphan skeins I have in my stash? Yeah. Baby items. Fortunately, I know plenty of people who are having babies soon (my sister being on of them) so I have much fodder for cute baby knitting. YAY!

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Finally!

A nice sunny day with husband home and no pressing business. May I present:
Pattern: Perfect Turtleneck by Paton's
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky in a cream color
Needles: US 10
Mods: Obviously there are no sleeves and the turtleneck is not so turtle-y. I knit the main body mostly to pattern. For the arm area I picked up about 80 some odd stitches and did a k2p2 for edging. The turtleneck is also to pattern, just made shorter.

I *LOVE* this yarn. It is soft and squishy and super warm. Once spring hits this is going to be a big time addition to my wardrobe.


The minimalist cardigan is coming along. The body is done... I'm just trying to sort through how I want to do the sleeves. I've got super long monkey arms and I've spent most of my life with sleeves too short. So I prefer full length sleeves, if I can get them.

Once I sort through the sleeve pattern, the minimalist cardi will probably be done in short order. I can 't believe how fast of a knit this is - particularly since this moss stitch seems to go SO SLOW. But whiz-bang, you've suddenly got the front panel, and whiz-bang, there's the back. So far I've spent maybe four evenings of knitting! A sweater in a week? Not bad. Not bad at all.

:D