Yarn Along 9

I am not sure if it's just the second trimester energy bump or simple mania, but I have been a knitting/reading fool this week.

I just saw "The Hunger Games" at the theater (a trip to the movies without my toddler which was so, very, thrilling) and now that I have I feel comfortable reading on to the next books in the series.

I also have started one of those girly-feel-good-books.  I tried one a few month ago trying to make a story of strange women becoming fast friends all by being into yoga.  It kinda sucked.  This time I'm reading one about strangers becoming fast friends all by being into walking.  "The Wildwater Walking Club" is not that bad.  It's sorta cute and sorta annoying all at the same time.  My mother keeps getting me these books, so I'll keep reading them.  Even if they aren't the best.

In other news, after weeks of fighting with Interweave to send me something to me actual address instead of some random address they decided I must live at I finally got a copy of their Jane Austen 2011 special issue.  A lot of it is obviously warm weather stuff and I don't care.  I'm making every single thing in that magazine.  All 36 patterns.  (P.S. The articles are also really good if you're into the history of fashion and knitting.)

On the needles...what's not on the needles?  I still have the baby dress going.  Only 20 more rounds till it's finished.  I expect to bind off sometime tomorrow.  On Saturday my husband and I are hoping to go to a party themed around "white" so I made him a white superhero mask (just finished blocking it) and I'm making me a fascinator hat.

It's from an issue of "Knitting Today!"  I saw on ravelry that lots of people tried this pattern but got annoyed at the amount of i-chord it required.  I thought they were crazy.  Then I re-read the pattern:  4 yards of i-chord.  144 inches.  Ugh.  I'm 2.5 yards in and I am quite frankly sick of making i-chord.  And I used to think it was so much fun.  In other news...my toddler just LOVES playing with the yard stick.  So much so that when I use it to find out how far I've gotten she throws a huge fit.  Even if she wasn't playing with it at the time.  Mommy is not allowed to have the yard stick.

Other projects:  Practicing my crocodile stitch in crochet and attempting to put it over a paddle.  Working on two shawls, one in thread and one with said crocodile stitch.  And I decided to re-start the Jan Sweater in earnest...which I didn't do at all because I was making i-chord.  But I decided to be earnest about it.

I also discovered the "que" portion of ravelry, which means I have set up a bunch of new projects and designated my stash yarn to them.  Which is probably better than me just casting on another project...I'm planning to cast on another project.  However, it's not as satisfying.

So that's my crazy knitting mania week.

Yarn Along 8

More Yarn Along!

I'm psyched!  The Bliss Dress I've been meaning to make for Emily is flying along.  I have about 30 more rounds before it's time to put on the straps and  convince her to model it.  After all those cables, just knitting and increasing is a breeze.  I'm liking how it's coming so far.

However, my ulterior motive for this dress has not panned out.  I bought this yarn originally for a blanket for my sister-in-law when she said she wanted yellow for her first child.  Then when it turned out to be a girl the colors changed to pink and brown and I was stuck with a whole lot of yellow, fingering weight, baby yarn.  I thought if I made a dress that should be made out of something thicker it'd use it up.  As you can see...it didn't even make a dent in one skein, much less the other four.

I need a new project.

I think I'll survive.

For reading it's pretty simple: I haven't.  I've cleaned.  I've knitted.  I have not read.  My book club is coming up and we are reading "Attachments" by Rainbow Rowell.  I was super excited by this because it's finally a book that isn't depressing or about a post-apocalyptic world which has been our theme for the past few meetings.  But I've just learned I have a military meeting I have to go to on book club night. It has taken the wind out of my reading sails.  Sigh.

At least I have extra baby yarn.

Yarn Along 7

 I looked at my Ravelry page yesterday and noticed that I have four WIP's.  That I've documented.  I just like variety.

This is a project I casted on a few months ago, before Emily and I got sick, then sick again, then sick some more.  I actually think it's worse than that, I started this before I got pregnant.  It's a dress for Emily and it's very cute, but I'm using fingering-weight yarn for it and the cables and such are a pain to do.  Very slippery.  I am at the point where I only have three more rounds to do of the bodice and then I start on the skirt which is just increases and knits.  Over and over.

Yes, the bodice is short.  My kid is a toddler.  My Mother is appalled!

The book is "The Knitter's Life List"  I just got through the yarn section and now do indeed have a life list of fibers I want to play with.  Pineapple anyone?  Musk ox?  Yes please.  I've always wanted to cuddle with a musk ox.  

Actually, I've never been a fiber person before.  I tried to be practical.  I like to make clothes and I don't like to hand-wash them so I stuck to acrylics and cottons.  An occasional wool here and there.  Honestly, I mostly liked baby yarn - it's always care friendly and soft.  But now I am really into other types of fibers and yarns and getting into designer things like that.  Which is terrible.  You don't find that kind of stuff at Wal-mart.  The other day my husband asked if he could spend $160 on a hobby of his.  I shrugged and told him that I had spent $20 on yarn that week so he should be able to buy what he wanted.  If I get into fancy yarn my splurges probably won't be $20 anymore.  (Though I did find a skein of mohair for $0.99 at Goodwill this week.)

Yarn Along 6

~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? Take a photo and share it either on your blog or on Flickr. Leave a link below to share your photo with the rest of us! ~


I've been busy fighting off the depression monster.  My main weapon of choice has been crafting.  I've been bouncing between tons of projects:

I told myself I would never knit another blanket.  I prefer to crochet them.  But I couldn't pass up this little number and when I found the Cheerful Blue Giggle Yarn on clearance it just seemed right.  I mean, it's made of Cheerful Blue Giggle yarn!  This is a spiral pattern baby blanket, super easy.  I started it last Thursday and am already quite far with it.  So far that I am considering doing fancy things to it like line it with cheerful fabric in the back and add rainbow colored fun yarn all around the edges.  New baby should be quite pleased.  


"Dragonwyck"  is the novel I'm knitting along too.  It's been raining like crazy here in Hawaii so a dark, gothic novel full of silly young women and brooding men seemed the ticket.  But so far it is far less depressing than "Wuthering Heights" and that's helpful.  


That's all.  Brooding novels and blue giggle yarn.  Take that depression!

Yarn Along 5

This week I actually started two projects - from total non-knittyness to two seems like a gigantic step for me, but that's probably just my head talking.  

The first is a second one of these.  No not the baby.  Well okay, yes the baby.  I am in the process of making a second one of those - hopefully just as cute and giggly as the first.  But what I meant was this week I started making a second bunny.  For the second baby.  I might make some hats for them too...or bows...just so each kid has their own special rabbit.  What super adorable about this is Emily hasn't really played with the rabbit I made her in awhile, but when I pulled out the big skein of boucle yarn at knit night this week she insisted on cuddling with it.  I think that's the sign of some good baby yarn - it's cuddly even before it is anything.

My second project is this.  It's a crocheted evening shawl.  Looks like it doesn't it?  Actually this yarn used to be a different crocheted evening shawl, but when I went back to work on it I had forgotten the pattern and hadn't written it down anywhere.  So I frogged the whole thing and started anew with a new pattern.  I bought a TON of magazines when Borders closed.  Anything that looks remotely pretty I bought.  They were 90% off - you would splurge too.  So I went through my stash of patterns and picked the River Walk from Interweave Crochet.  It's pretty enough.  I think it will do nicely for a vanity project.  

Also at the close of Borders I bought books I always sorta wanted to read, but not enough to actually actively go out and get it at the store or library.  Sarah Vowell had those books.  "Assassination Vacation" was the only one they had at the sale so it's the one I got.  Honestly, it's not that great.  It's quirky and witty and there are some interesting tidbits of information I pick up on, but it feels a little like being forced to see photos of someone else's vacation.  It's a travel log.  But it's not about the place, it's about the opinion of the author of something that happened at that place.  I'm less than hooked 88 pages in.  

However, it's my bath book.  Does anyone else do this?  When Emily takes a bath we splash and play for a little while.  I somehow convince her to wash her hair and get clean, then she is no longer interested in playing with me and just wants to swim around on her own.  So I sit back against the wall next to the tub and read a book.  Usually not anything enthralling, I have one eye on the swimming toddler, but I read.  It's about the only time I do.  Does this make me a bad mother - oh probably.  Whatever.  At least I made her a bunny from scratch.

Yarn Along 4

~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading...

Linking up with Ginny at small things again

Same project, new book.  I gave up on the Shakespeare book for awhile because Emily is in a particularly whinny/clingy phase that does not allow me to pay attention to books easily.  Unless they are children's books.  In fact I have book group tomorrow and haven't even acquired the book yet.  I started reading "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" though and last night Emily ran around me over and over while I read chapter two out loud.  It seemed to work well.  So we'll read that book for awhile.

Project wise I'm humming along nicely.  The back bodice piece is now showing the pattern (sets of yarn-over holes in a V pattern).  I'm loving the dark blue color.  The black looks dull compared to it, but I hope once all the banding is on it'll tie the piece together.  I also love the puckering the pattern is creating.  In the pattern photo it didn't look puckered.  So maybe I'm doing it wrong but it is awfully pretty. I also started the ribbing for the front bodice piece.  Mostly because once I finish the back I'll want to continue working in pattern for the front rather than doing more ribbing. This sweater is tight around the waist, which is why the bottom ribbing is so long, and it's a bit annoying doing so much of it in teeny-tiny stitches.  

I also finished the red sweater.  I gave it a bath before installing the zipper and it's still drying so I can't put it on or lay it out for pictures.  But it is finished!  

Yarn Along 3

~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading... 

Yarn Along with Ginny again

My Goal

 Once again this week I'm working on the new 1930's sweater.  I got the pattern from a knitting magazine I bought when Borders was going out of business.  I like the pattern as a whole, but it's been a whole week of knitting (including a Monday night with the Aloha Knitters) and I'm still not past the bottom of the ribbing on the back yet.  I have 1.5 centimeters to go.  (Oh yeah, it's a british pattern too so there might be extra math for me later on.)

My Distraction

Still reading "Contested Will" this week.  Haven't got far.  I like James Shapiro, but he is super academic.  I have a pretty big vocabulary and I'm running across new words in this book.  Also, it's the kind of book where you need to follow the little details to get the full gist of the hoaxes and conspiracies - in other words you need to pay attention.  I can't even get through one row of ribbing without getting distracted (see the cute kid running away with the wool and a knitting needle) so getting through this book is going to take some doing.  Or some serious nap time.

I am also this close to finishing the red sweater.  I did a lot of construction stitching this past week which 1) kept me from ribbing and 2) did not get me to finished.  I have about 4 more inches of the last zipper flap to sew up.  The flap isn't long enough though, so I really have 4 more inches of ribbing to do on that first.  Then sew.  Then weave more ends (there are a lot of ends).  Then sew the zipper in.

Didn't I say I was almost finished?

Yarn Along 2

~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading...

I haven't finished my red sweater from the last yarn along yet.  I still have some construction sewing to do on it.  However, since my Mother was here last week I got excited to start a new project before the other was done.  (I spent about an hour showing her my stash and patterns.)

So this new project will someday be a sweater from a vintage (1930's) pattern.  I found the yarn at Savers for cheap and am rather excited about the project.  The yarn is wool and a darn bit scratchier than I originally thought.  So much so that by the time I finished casting on I was ready to stop because I disliked it so much.  Now after two rows I am falling slightly more in love with it again.  I intend for the ribbing to be black (the color in the picture) and blue for the body.  I like the blue better than the black - it's far more vibrant - but am unsure I have enough blue to finish it all. 

For my book I'm reading Contested Will by James Shapiro.  It does say "Who Wrote Shakespeare?" on the cover but the book is more about why people want to believe someone else wrote Shakespeare and when they started.  That is a question I often ask myself too.  I believe that William Shakespeare wrote the Shakespeare plays.  I believe it not just because I have only see credible evidence of this but because believing that a man from a small town who had no formal training, travel, or access to the uppercrust of society can still write something amazing is believing that anyone can do anything.  It's a belief in the human spirit.  The spirit and amazement of genius.  It also speaks to my inherent Americanness - it doesn't matter who your father was or what circumstances you were born only what you do with it.  That's a simplified view of it I know.  Even in the most democratic of places it still matters how you grew up, but I still believe in the ideal that people can rise above and that upstart crows can be read for millennia.

I only just started this book and I like it.  My Dad read it cover to cover when he came to visit  and he enjoyed it too.  I usually take his advice on books because he is a writer as well.  Here is his book review on his blog he writes for The Maui News.  

Yarn Along

I decided to join the Yarn Along over at small things.  Reading and knitting together!  Awesome idea!

Do you think it's a sign of the times that I actually don't have a "book" to take a picture of?  That is my Kindle.  I'm currently reading ""The Piano Teacher" by Janice Y.K. Lee.  It's a book club book for the Oahu Women's Literary Society and I'm enjoying it.  Or I was.  It starts off like an interesting romance, then gets terribly bleak and depressing following the trials of WWII in Hong Kong.  

On the bright side my Little Red Riding Hood Sweater is almost finished.  I started this sweater two years ago when I lived in Korea.  There I could have worn a hooded sweater and it would make sense.  Hawaii doesn't give me much occasion to wear this, but I want to finish it either way.  I've finished all but half of one zipper band and the two pockets.  I missed knitting Monday this week so I haven't gone far this week, but I hope to have it all done within the next two weeks.