It ain’t pretty being purple

I looked at my leg today and hmmmmm purple is not a great color on a leg.  Keep in mind, I don’t have any idea how the side of my leg turned such a lovely color since if you ask me I really landed on my knee, which also has lovely shades of purple.  But it’s feeling a little better every day.

 

So from purple to

tangerine……

 I’ve made good progresss on the Greta that I started on Friday but I’m thinking I may rip it back and start again.  While I think it would fit okay the way it is, I think I’d actually like it a bit large across the back/upper shoulder area.  It sort of hangs from there.  Now the problem is — and I think it’s a problem anyway – the yardage of the yarn just doesn’t seem right.  I need to go back and check again but I thought I got gauge.  But I’m just starting my third hank of yarn, have two more which should be plenty.  I know it will block a bit larger but  I like it because it’s a long vest but I just don’t see this ending up the length I’d like.  I bought all of this color the shop I bought it at had and it was being discontinued at that shop so I’m trying to decide if I take the chance of getting more from a different shop and hope the colors look close,  add a different color in but not sure I want to do that since I really like the simplicity of the pattern.  Dilemmas dilemmas.  I may just start over with the next size up and knit until I run out of yarn and see where I’m at.  This yarn is so perfect for this vest tho – just the right drape for the pattern that if I ever get one done, I may need to make another.  I will warn you if you think about making this vest  — is it boring. Meaning it has very simple instructions, once the yoke is done you just do the same thing over and over — but that makes it a great project to pick up when you don’t want to think about anything (or when you do have something else you’re thinking about and don’t want to concentrate on pattern instructions).     Well I’m off to start ripping mine apart so I can start over — four days of knitting down the drain but I’ll be much happier if I change it.

 

Camp Loopy 3 and Stashbusting report

First – let’s just get it over with — no fabric purchased, no fabric used that I can count in yet, so the stashbusting report is as stagnant as ever.

 

But let’s move on to other things where progress has been made.

Scalene, my Camp Loopy project is finished – or as finished as it will be for a while.  I buried threads this morning and snapped the photo to load to The Loopy Ewe since the deadline is in just a couple of days.  Heck, there’s free yarn involved and loopy dollars for finishing – can’t pass that up.

It still needs to be blocked but my knee is not going to let me crawl around on the floor pinning it out so that will have to wait.  I love the colors together and the yarn, Three Irish Girls, feels fantastic.

I’ve made good progres on Greta that I started on Friday – it’s really no mind knitting since the top part is all garter stitch with just the ragland increases.  I’ve got about 15 more rows of the yoke to do before it switches to no mind stockinette — but an easy project to pick up and put down since it’s easy to tell where I left off.

But think I’ll plug in a movie and work on a sock for a while.

Bumps and Bruises and a block swap update

Thanks for all the well wishes after my taking a dive on the pavement.  While lovely bruises are starting to appear this morning, my knee is more bendy today and feels much better.  I have a finger that’s sore and one arm feels a bit stiff but heck I’m better off this morning than I thought I’d be after taking that fall so I’m not complaining — except for I’m a bit bored from sitting and knitting and not doing much else.  Okay – there were a couple naps and the time it took me to get up, toss one ice pack in the freezer, pull the other one out, hobble back and get resituated — that took a while. 🙂  But walked out to the mailboxes at the other end of the complex this morning and other than having to go down the steps one at a time, it felt pretty good.  But I’ll be taking it easy the rest of the weekend.

An update on the Bloomin’ Basket swap — packages are starting to arrive.  I’ve been piling them all in a box – waiting to open them later so I can ooh and aah over them all at once — but if you are waiting to see if your package has arrived,  click on the button in the left sidebar for the swap.  I just updated the page today with the packages I have received as of this morning.  I’ll update it every other day or so, so check back there if you are waiting to hear that your package has arrived.

Hopefully my knee will cooperate and  I can get back in the sewing room and get a few more of my own blocks done next week.

On the Needles Friday 8/24/12

On my needles – newly started earlier today is Greta.  It was going to be one of my Camp Loopy projects but I didn’t get drapey enough yarn so put the pattern aside until I got different yarn.

It will be very orange – but I like orange — well acutally the color is Tangerine.  The yarn is Asland Trends Royal Alpaca and is so incredibly soft and will give the drape the pattern needs.

Now why did I start this earlier today – Friday – when I should have been at work. No I’m not playing hookey – I  am playing wounded!  I was nearly safe inside the office when I tripped on a square stone tile out front.  The annoying thing is I’ve tripped on it before – but have managed not to fall.  It’s not like it’s heaved a lot higher than the others but cleary enough that I’ve caught my shoe on it more than once — I’m going to have to change the pattern of where I walk in the front door.

Sooo….. in a feat worth of America’s Funniest Home Videos — I tripped, took three giant steps foward as I tried to catch my balance, thought YIKES I’m going to hit head first on that glass door, managed to sort of get my head turned so my shoulder nudged the door but got my hands down to stop most of my forward momentum by then.  Course my knee took a major beating as it hit the pavement and then just to add insult to injury, I had — the key word being HAD — a full tall latte in my hand which as it hit the ground, the lid popped up, the latte soaked the whole left side of me from my glasses down and yes, since I haven’t taken a shower yet – I have some stiff sticky hair on that side of my head!   So, when I picked myself up, I hobbled into the office, past the HR office telling her I’m here, I’m going home, sat down at my desk to send an email to the bosses of what happened and I was going home to put my leg up and ice my knee – one boss went and retrieved an ice pack from the first aide cabinet so I had that for the ride home.  And what a perfectly good waste of a latte! LOL

So I needed something to keep me busy as I sit, putting the ice bag on my knee, putting it back in the freezer — repeat, repeat, repeat.  It’s swollen, it’s going to have one horrendous bruise, but I think it’s sore from the impact and being swollen and not from other major damage — time will tell.

But so much for my sitting and sewing this weekend –I’ll be sitting and knitting with my leg up and a cold pack on it.  But it could have been worse!

 

CTS All caught up

  After cleaning up my paper piecing mess (at least for the time being since I may make a couple more blocks yet), I pulled the fabrics for Judy’s August block for CTS.  So now that it’s done, I’m all caught up on the August blocks.

My spare design wall – the second one I put up to hold the CTS blocks – is about overflowing.

Stashbusting Report 8/19/12

Woo hooo  – a whole yard and a half can be added on to the stashbusting report this week. LOL  A bunch of Bloomin’ Basket Swap blocks were made so that’s where that yardage was used.  There was more sewing, but as usual nothing finished for me to count it yet.  One of these days I hope I’ll actually get some of the projects finished so there’s a increase in the stashbusting report.  A girl can dream!

Here’s the Bloomin’ Baskets so far.  The four on the left I made this morning.

 

And here’s the residual effect on my floor.

  I am definitely NOT a tidy paper piecer so just decided to let all the paper trimmings, fabric trimmings and threads pile up on the floor until I was done.  Next task – to go get rid of that pile.

 

I also finished off my first toe up sock last night.  And as you can see, made good progress starting on the second one which has a couple inches of the toe done.

I do like the toe up but need to look at some other patterns to see how they are done.  I like the provisional crochet cast on but would prefer stockinette stitch toe rather than garter but not sure that will work with the wrap and turn toe shaping.    This pair has no difference in number of stitches between the main part of the foot and the ankle/cuff area.  The foot is fine since the bottom is stockinette stitch which lets the sock stretch but after the heel is done, it’s all the pattern stitch which has virtually no stretch to it.  Therefore – it’s a bit trickey to slide the cuff area over the heel but I can.   I need a sock that increases in stitches over the ankle/cuff or is more stretchy.  I actually made these a tad bit longer than I needed and the cuff shorter since I knew it wouldn’t be stretchy so easier to get on if it’s shorter.  But they’ll be great for padding around the house in and I’ll be looking at some other toe up socks to get some other ideas on adjustments that can be made.

Know of a good simple toe up sock pattern you care to share — NOT made on circulars?

 

Business Districts and Bloomin’ Baskets

  My last four Business District blocks for CTS are now done.  I haven’t sewn the two buildings to each other yet because I may switch some of the buildings with some of the other ones I previously made to get some differnt fabric combinations between the two buildings.  So I’ll just leave some of them separate until time to start layout out the whole quilt and I can see how fabric colors are being dispersed across the quilt.  Remember, if you are making this quilt I posted a correction — you need 12 Business District blocks not just 8 as the instructions stated.  I’ve just got Judy’s August block that I need to make so have to go try to decide which fabrics I want to use for that.

I also go busy on some Bloomin’ Basket Swap blocks since there was on the original measly two tester blocks I made up on the design wall.

  There are now four more blocks joining my original two blocks.  I just think they are so cute with those flowered fabrics in the middle of the basket.

Took a break and caught the bus to the grocery store and picked up a few things so now to decide what I want to work on this evening — and figure out what’s for dinner.

A gorgeous day … finally

The heat wave here has hopefully finally ended.  It’s in the 70’s, sunny with a little breeze — I turned off the air and threw open the windows and door.  Yes — this is the weather that I love.

I’ll be headed into the sewing room shortly to get to work.  Several projects waiting — more CTS blocks to make and Bloomin Basket Blocks to make for the swap.  Do you have your swap blocks started?  done? somewhere in the middle?

I got a couple inches on the Om Shanti (Socktopus book) sock done.  I did try it on before working on the cuff and I was amazed that it fit – it had just looked to skinny around the  circumference of the foot.  I need to try it on again tho now that I have some of the cuff done since I hate socks that are tight around my fat ankles.

More coffee, maybe some breakfast, and then off to the sewing room…….

On the Needles Friday, August 17

What’s on the needles? Glad you asked — lots of stuff.  Now if I could just get some of them OFF the needles.

  This is my Stephen West Rockefeller KAL.  I’ve fallen way behind since I was working on Camp Loopy stuff but I hadn’t really planned to get it done by the deadline – there’s prizes being drawn from among those that finish by a date later this month but I’m not really going to worry about that.  I’m sure I’ll run out of the Zauberball Crazy Socks yarn (the bright crazy one of course) so just ordered another ball of that which should arrive Monday.  I’m working on the I-cord bind off along the lower edge — which takes FOREVER! but I’m getting there.  Then it’s on to the last clue.  I’ve, of course, peaked ahead at all the lovely finished projects on Ravelry from this pattern so it’s no longer a mystery to me how it ends up.  I think it’s going to look great with my bright red wool coat.

My last Camp Loopy project is done, Scalene, and still needs to be blocked — this weekend — so I can get the final photo loaded before the deadline the end of this month, too.

Then I pulled out an old pair of socks I had started a while ago and knit a bit on them.  This was after I discovered that my Honey Dew socks had a major mishap.  I had dopped stitches off the needle while toting it around and with all the slipped loops in that one and the fact that the stitches had ripped back several rows, I had to totally rip it all out.  There was no way I could figure out how to carry those stitches back up the rows in that pattern.  DRAT!!  The yarn I was using was going to be a bit tight on yardage so I think I’ll try them with some different yarn at a later date that has more yardage to it.  So the plain jane’s got a bit of stitching while I stewed about messing up the Honey Dew socks. 🙂

But then I started flipping through my Socktopus sock book (yes, I’ve told you before I love this book) and came across a pattern I wanted to try.  In keeping with my idea for the 12 in 2012 socks, one of the things I wanted to do was try some different techniques/patterns.   This one was toe up.  I’ve never done a toe up pattern.

It’s the Om Shanti pattern – which said it was designed as a bed sock so the pattern has a shorter cuff on it.  Well I don’t wear bed socks – ick – I absolutely cannot sleep with socks on – but I can always adjust the cuff.  So I decided to give them a shot and as you can see, I’m doing well.  There was a provisional cast on to do the toe and shape it with wrapped stitches and once that was knit, you’re ready to fly along the foot.

I’ve just turned the heel here and am starting up the cuff.  I was more interested in seeing “if” I could do them than paying attention to the number of stitches used.  The needle size is a bit larger than I normally use but the number of stitches  are a good number less.  And it’s not real stretchy due to the stitch pattern (which I really like – a simple to memorize stitch that gives a bit of texture and helps stop any pooling) so I need to see if I can try these on.  I think I’ll be ripping them out tho and starting over since I think these will be too tight around but even so, not a big deal.  I now understand how the toe up on this pattern works so I can adjust to more stitches go get the fit I want.  I’m not sure I like the garter stitch toe but will think on that a bit.

So hop on over to http://www.patchworktimes.com/ to see what others have on their needles today.

Sunday Doings

Let’s just get it over with — the stashbusting report — heck it has been the same I swear for months.  Too many projects in progress and none of them to the finished top stage where I add in the yardage.  I so need to get a couple quilted but haven’t gotten around to that yet either.  Camp Loopy and the KAL I did cut even more into my sewing time the past couple months so hopefully how that I’m nearly finished I’ll get more time in the sewing room.

A little of this and a little of that so far today but nothing much to show for my accomplishments except I did get my newest pattern for Hoffman Fabrics written up and sent on it’s way.

Now to see what else needs to be done around here – like  laundry and lunch and balancing the checkbook.  Yes – excitement abounds here.

 Here’s my CTS poinsettia block designed by Sheryl.  Finished that off yesterday.  So now I have Judy’s block for August to make and those additional four Business District blocks due to my miscount (see CTS page or errata page for correction – you need 12 rather than 8 of that block).  So far so good keeping caught up as we go along.

But I’m way behind in getting my Bloomin Basket swap blocks done so I will be working on those this week.

Here’s sort of how my CTS quilt is looking so far – I pluged the photo images of my blocks into the layout.