First ever projects

This Mickey Mouse sweater was my first ever knitting project, about 18 years ago. My friend Penny Silvers showed me how to Knit and purl one day while our kids were at



preschool together. Then I went to the LYS, picked up a Disney book, and bought Red Heart and got on my way. The lady at the shop did try to persuade me to try something small to begin, but I never do that. The seams are done by sewing machine (!) but apparently the sleeves are sewn in by hand, using the blue yarn! It totally shows, and they don't lay anywhere near flat. The Huey Dewey and Luis sweater is my second project, and it has sat unfinished all the years. Just a few stitched on the collar and it's done.

FO Jollyfish!

Here it is! Finally. He likes it a lot. The duplicate stitch was fun to do. Took it to the knit-in and some of the ladies thought it was neat. Love the chart, thanks again to knittingjuju!

Again with the Jollyfish...

I finished the knitting part of my hat. I started the duplicate stitch and I think I'm happy about the decision to do the duplicate stitch instead of fair isle or intarsia in the round. It looks neat this way. I hope it isn't too small, I hope I didn't start the decrease too early just because I was impatient. The boy will be home soon, I do know that it was comfortable around. And I have a lot of colors of this yarn, it's a Plymouth yarn. Sport weight. Now I know my gauge in the round on it, and I like the way it looks on the 1's. There are probably a lot of fair isle gloves in my future using this yarn. Only down side is the dark color was hard to see any mistakes, and any gloves I make will probably be in darker colors for the guys. Even the duplicate stitch is a bit difficult unless the light is shining right on it.

Ribbit!

Note my progress on the Jollyfish Hat has gone back to 0%. I frogged the whole thing because I really need to add another 20 or so stitches around. It just fits my youngest and next year won't fit anyone. He was trying it on for me and he says "just add some more over here". Yeah. So out it comes. I love the feel of the sport wight I'm using for it, and I'm on 1's. All my guys like the small gauge stuff, of course. I do too though really. I took a poll at the shop of who would think it was cheating to do the Jollyfish chart on the hat in duplicate stitch. I think so, but everyone else was being nice. It's just that the fish only goes half way around and I don't want to carry the white the rest of the way around. I tried the intarsia in the round last night and I ended up having so many really long floats to deal with as I worked it that it was a lot to fool with. Plus try trying to keep my mind around which row I was on... So duplicate stitch is another option. I should ask Juli Ridl what she thinks since it's her pattern. For now I'm back to the start. Oh well, I can listen to Prairie Home Companion tonight, and my britcoms are on.

Intarsia in the round

I ran across a wonderful tutorial at Moth Heaven for doing intarsia in the round. Please check it out, I am using it on my Jollyfish Hat. I am having to go back and re-read the steps, it's not all that intuitive to me, but how wonderful to not have to carry and twist 2 threads behind the entire hat. She does explain that it is a bit "fiddly", but sometimes keeping track of the tension of floats doesn't work well either. And duplicate stitch is ok, but not really a challenge for me.

Jollyfish hat

I found a hat on ravelry using this chart, and can't wait to get it done up into a basic cap for the boys. It's from Juli Ridl, you can find her and her chart and pics at http://knittingjuju.wordpress.com/
Now why can't I come up with something original and cool like this?

Fair Isle dominant color explaination

I just found the webpage that I discovered that led me to my tip of the week last week. It is a wonderful example of why you need to keep your colors held in a certain way. Please check Pine Cone Lodge.
It is also a nice site to poke around if you like fair isle. Well done Hege.
And by the way I am also the proud owner of a very old greyhound from the Phoenix AZ Greyhound Park, Prince Caspian. Cass is very old, sleeps a lot and is hanging precariously to life. We almost lost him last year.

Endpaper mitt

First Endpaper Mitt done!

Endpaper progress

This is my first Endpaper Mitt so far. I read what some people had been saying on Ravelry about this pattern and I disagree about it being boring to do. I like it very much. It's a small enough repeat so you're not having to keep track of 18 rows, but enough interest because it is 10. I also like the colors, Eunny picked right, it's not what I would have put together. I think I'll use the chart for mittens or gloves again.

Elizabeth Zimmerman

Forgot to show a lovely book I scored at 20% off- thank you Kim!

And next in line: something from Eunny! I couldn't decide, and couldn't decide... In a stoke of complete non-originality I bought the exact colors Eunny showed them in. I've had it for many months. So it's time has come. A little bummed because I would have liked to do them magic loop, but don't want to deal with 4 balls of yarn going at once.

Fingerless gloves finished

Finally finished the fair isle fingerless gloves for one of the boys. Now I can figure out what to do next.

Paisley obsession

I have a thing for paisley. Paisley and colorwork are not compatible. I have reached that conclusion based on a search for any paisley looking chart, or even any FO that would inspire me. Why is there nothing out there that resembles this pillow? Is it because it would take some fine-gauge colorwork to get this kind of curvature? Then I think about Eunny's Anemoi mittens
and it can't be why. Does this mean I have found a hole in our knitting pattern universe? What I am envisioning is a hat or mittens done with a paisley design. I could actually chart my own. That's a new idea, something has always stopped me. But I guess if this is what I'm looking for I may need to take this on. Please someone, save me, find me a link where someone has done this before me!

Thanks to the Podcast Junkies group in Ravelry I have found Stash and Burn, a
great podcast I had never heard of. Now that Lime and Violet is infrequent, I haven't been listening to many podcasts. I was driving a distance today, and burned the Stash and Burn, and the new Knitpicks podcasts. I find the Knitpicks one kind of dull personally, but it usually has something in it that makes me want to check out an area of knitting I never really thought about. Today I thought about shawls. I'm not a lace knitter, that may be why I don't consider doing them. But it is possible I could do one in maybe a sport weight or DK, in a simple lace pattern. I don't know, probably I won't get to it.

Do you have many WIP's?

It seems that what I hear is that everyone has a lot of things on the needles at any time. I must be strange, but I honestly almost never have more than one project going. When I do I feel guilty, like I'm letting myself down because might end up never going back and finishing something. I have always been a quitter when things get tough or dull, but you know what? I was thinking about my first ever project. It was a Micky Mouse colorwork sweater for my first son. The lady at the yarn shop couldn't believe I would ever really do it, but I did. I always jump in feet first. I sat with a friend for about a 1/2 an hour and she taught me the knit stitch, the rest I figured from the pattern. The point is it is a finished object! So that blows my theory about myself quitting everything. Even still I can't bring myself to put a project down and start something new. I haven't met anyone else like me, but I'd like to know one. Someone out there must have knitting monogamy!

Why I Love Magic Loop

I knew I loved magic loop for the purpose of never getting second sock syndrome, but I have considered more reasons while listening today. I can't remember who was talking but they were saying they were going to magic loop the sleeves to a sweater next time, because they kept counting wrong on the second one and frogging it. So, another way to use it. Sleeves. I do use it on mittens, but found I can't really do my color work mittens on it because I'd have to have 2 colors going on 2 mitten pieces. That just seems like too much confusion for me, and I like a challenge! Mostly I like magic loop because if I need to change anything on the pattern, or if I do something wrong and have to compensate by changing any forthcoming rows, I can do both right then. I am really bad at keeping notes to get the second one to match the first one. I always think I'll remember what I did, but never do. Magic loop- problem solved.

Stash Negotiation

I have to share my new deal I've made with myself. If I use stash to make 5 projects I can buy new yarn for a new projects. This week I've done ok with that. I didn't buy new yarn, but the fair isle book for mittens and gloves. The total $ was as if I had bought some yarn. We'll see how I can keep to it.