Catching up Randomly
It's been a busy couple of days, and I have all kinds of things swimming around in my head to blog, so here we go...
I mailed off a pile of packages this morning. It felt good to get them on their way to their new homes. One pile of yarn is still sitting in my office looking for a good home. It really wants someone to love it, knit it up into a baby sweater or a scarf or some other fun little project. If you participated in the recent contests and/or are someone who I either know in person or who has commented in the past and you want this yarn, send me an e-mail at shellyk at shellykang dot com with your address and first come first serve it's yours.
Speaking of mail, this came in the mail a couple of days ago. It's the Vesper sock yarn I ordered from Knitterly Things last week. Yum-yum-yum-yum-YUM! It's going to be good knitting. I want to wind it and start right now so badly, I had to force myself to stick it up on the top shelf of the cabinet where I keep my sock yarn stash. Lookie, no touchie for now. I accidentally ordered two skeins of the Love Stinks colorway. Maybe some lucky friend will get a special prezzie in the eventual future, or maybe I will knit something a little bigger than socks with it. Perhaps a sweater or pants for Sophie for the fall?
Speaking of Sophie, let's look at some cute kid pics. We've really been enjoying the basement play room. I'm only kicking myself for not having gotten it cleared out last winter, because it totally rocks to be able to say "Let's finish doing X and we can go down and play in the basement." We can easily kill a couple of hours down there, and the girls wear themselves out running (and crawling) around.
Sophie is getting closer and closer to walking, and she figured out how to push the tractor toy around. That's a happy face for a kid who's stopped up!
Julie was busy building a wall. We recently bought the book "The monster at the end of this Book" with Grover from Sesame street, and she was basically acting it out with herself as the "kid at the end of this book." God, I love this kid.
Part of the reason why I didn't post yesterday was because I wanted to write a huge rant at how poorly behaved the parents at the Eden Prairie Center play area are. Every single time we go there, I am surprised by what I see. It would be such a fun place for the kids to play if only the parents would obey the posted rules. I was so upset by what I saw there yesterday that we had to leave abruptly, and I wanted to do so without upsetting Julie. There is a kids' salon across the hall from the play area, so I decided it was a good time to go ahead and get Sophie her first haircut. I was going to wait till she turned one, but as that's only a week away, it was a good opportunity. Plus, it was a great diversionary tactic for Julie, who also got a haircut.
Sophie was pretty tired, which in this instance worked to our advantage as she sat there in a daze just taking everything in.
We didn't cut much off - just a teensy trim to even the ends up a bit. Her hair has been thinning out lately, but it's still more hair than any other one-year-old I've known. See that sweater? Yep. and Yep.
And Julie was a bit more animated. She loves getting her hair cut, and I was proud of her for letting the lady dry her hair with the blow dryer, which she is leery of. Her sweater is not hand knit - Target clearance special.
We got home today after pre-school and I started putting together lunch while the girls played. Then I heard a few suspect noises and discovered this scene.
Reminds me of this one from a couple years ago. At least Sophie didn't eat it.
Back to knitting for a moment. Remember that scarf I started? The lace one with the awesome alpaca/silk from my secret pal? Well, I had a few minutes to work on it this morning while Julie was in pre-school and Sophie was asleep in her car seat between errands. For once, I was looking at it in clear daylight and with a clear head. I knit a few rows and ran into an inconsistency I had noticed a couple of times before. I took a closer look at the charts and realized I had made a major mistake.
This pattern is one from an old issue of Piecework magazine, and the charts in the magazine were handwritten ones with weird symbols that I didn't care all that much for - see?
So I transcribed the charts to more standard symbols and a cleaner layout using Stitch Painter. Only, I guess I didn't notice the little bracket over on the right that shows you're only supposed to repeat rows 3- 13, so when I copied the repeats up the sides, I copied all the rows. I had creatively fudged the extra stitch when I came to it the first few times, so I don't think it's noticeable in the work I've done so far. Here's what I've got.
And a closeup of the edging - the problem is on both sides of the edging, but at least it's consistent and not immediately noticeable.
I suppose I could rip back. Rip back the results of maybe a month's worth of naptime knitting. But that's not really the point - if you're going to do it, you may as well do it right, and this is just the beginning of the project. If it's wrong, it would bother me for the rest of the hours I invest in it plus all the times I show it off to my knitting friends. Plus, really, the product of knitting is not just the finished item but also the enjoyment of the time spent doing it. Hm.
On the other hand, I think it looks pretty good so far. The only real problem is that the repeats won't work out to match exactly, but I'm not too worried about that. I think it could be fudged a bit at the other end - especially with the join into the trim at the end - one row plus or minus probably will not be noticeable. I don't really think this project is going to be State Fair material anyway because that category is highly competitive....but it might be....must think this through a bit.
In the mean time, it's been very cold here this week. Sitting in front of my living room window, my poor hands have been quite chilly. Suddenly, a pair of those fingerless gloves that I was poo-pooing last month sounds very attractive. And I have this yarn in my stash that's just burning to be knit.
It's handspun from Aisha Celia designs that I bought at the Craft-O-Rama in December. The pictures don't do it justice. It's luscious. It's just one skein of something like DK weight, perfect for these little mitts. I went ahead and wound it up. I'm SO tempted to cast on. Because you know I have so much extra free knitting time on my hands.
Oh, and I got a couple of pictures of my knitting group's Christmas gift exchange from a friend who was there. Lisa knit that little panda Sophie is holding!
In this picture, Sophie is wearing some reindeer antlers that I got in my prize package.
Thanks for all your concern about Sophie. For what it's worth, I took her in to the ped. today - she's going to be fine, and we got some good advice about what to do next and a prescription for something that should help.
Now I must go get some sleep!
I mailed off a pile of packages this morning. It felt good to get them on their way to their new homes. One pile of yarn is still sitting in my office looking for a good home. It really wants someone to love it, knit it up into a baby sweater or a scarf or some other fun little project. If you participated in the recent contests and/or are someone who I either know in person or who has commented in the past and you want this yarn, send me an e-mail at shellyk at shellykang dot com with your address and first come first serve it's yours.
Speaking of mail, this came in the mail a couple of days ago. It's the Vesper sock yarn I ordered from Knitterly Things last week. Yum-yum-yum-yum-YUM! It's going to be good knitting. I want to wind it and start right now so badly, I had to force myself to stick it up on the top shelf of the cabinet where I keep my sock yarn stash. Lookie, no touchie for now. I accidentally ordered two skeins of the Love Stinks colorway. Maybe some lucky friend will get a special prezzie in the eventual future, or maybe I will knit something a little bigger than socks with it. Perhaps a sweater or pants for Sophie for the fall?
Speaking of Sophie, let's look at some cute kid pics. We've really been enjoying the basement play room. I'm only kicking myself for not having gotten it cleared out last winter, because it totally rocks to be able to say "Let's finish doing X and we can go down and play in the basement." We can easily kill a couple of hours down there, and the girls wear themselves out running (and crawling) around.
Sophie is getting closer and closer to walking, and she figured out how to push the tractor toy around. That's a happy face for a kid who's stopped up!
Julie was busy building a wall. We recently bought the book "The monster at the end of this Book" with Grover from Sesame street, and she was basically acting it out with herself as the "kid at the end of this book." God, I love this kid.
Part of the reason why I didn't post yesterday was because I wanted to write a huge rant at how poorly behaved the parents at the Eden Prairie Center play area are. Every single time we go there, I am surprised by what I see. It would be such a fun place for the kids to play if only the parents would obey the posted rules. I was so upset by what I saw there yesterday that we had to leave abruptly, and I wanted to do so without upsetting Julie. There is a kids' salon across the hall from the play area, so I decided it was a good time to go ahead and get Sophie her first haircut. I was going to wait till she turned one, but as that's only a week away, it was a good opportunity. Plus, it was a great diversionary tactic for Julie, who also got a haircut.
Sophie was pretty tired, which in this instance worked to our advantage as she sat there in a daze just taking everything in.
We didn't cut much off - just a teensy trim to even the ends up a bit. Her hair has been thinning out lately, but it's still more hair than any other one-year-old I've known. See that sweater? Yep. and Yep.
And Julie was a bit more animated. She loves getting her hair cut, and I was proud of her for letting the lady dry her hair with the blow dryer, which she is leery of. Her sweater is not hand knit - Target clearance special.
We got home today after pre-school and I started putting together lunch while the girls played. Then I heard a few suspect noises and discovered this scene.
Reminds me of this one from a couple years ago. At least Sophie didn't eat it.
Back to knitting for a moment. Remember that scarf I started? The lace one with the awesome alpaca/silk from my secret pal? Well, I had a few minutes to work on it this morning while Julie was in pre-school and Sophie was asleep in her car seat between errands. For once, I was looking at it in clear daylight and with a clear head. I knit a few rows and ran into an inconsistency I had noticed a couple of times before. I took a closer look at the charts and realized I had made a major mistake.
This pattern is one from an old issue of Piecework magazine, and the charts in the magazine were handwritten ones with weird symbols that I didn't care all that much for - see?
So I transcribed the charts to more standard symbols and a cleaner layout using Stitch Painter. Only, I guess I didn't notice the little bracket over on the right that shows you're only supposed to repeat rows 3- 13, so when I copied the repeats up the sides, I copied all the rows. I had creatively fudged the extra stitch when I came to it the first few times, so I don't think it's noticeable in the work I've done so far. Here's what I've got.
And a closeup of the edging - the problem is on both sides of the edging, but at least it's consistent and not immediately noticeable.
I suppose I could rip back. Rip back the results of maybe a month's worth of naptime knitting. But that's not really the point - if you're going to do it, you may as well do it right, and this is just the beginning of the project. If it's wrong, it would bother me for the rest of the hours I invest in it plus all the times I show it off to my knitting friends. Plus, really, the product of knitting is not just the finished item but also the enjoyment of the time spent doing it. Hm.
On the other hand, I think it looks pretty good so far. The only real problem is that the repeats won't work out to match exactly, but I'm not too worried about that. I think it could be fudged a bit at the other end - especially with the join into the trim at the end - one row plus or minus probably will not be noticeable. I don't really think this project is going to be State Fair material anyway because that category is highly competitive....but it might be....must think this through a bit.
In the mean time, it's been very cold here this week. Sitting in front of my living room window, my poor hands have been quite chilly. Suddenly, a pair of those fingerless gloves that I was poo-pooing last month sounds very attractive. And I have this yarn in my stash that's just burning to be knit.
It's handspun from Aisha Celia designs that I bought at the Craft-O-Rama in December. The pictures don't do it justice. It's luscious. It's just one skein of something like DK weight, perfect for these little mitts. I went ahead and wound it up. I'm SO tempted to cast on. Because you know I have so much extra free knitting time on my hands.
Oh, and I got a couple of pictures of my knitting group's Christmas gift exchange from a friend who was there. Lisa knit that little panda Sophie is holding!
In this picture, Sophie is wearing some reindeer antlers that I got in my prize package.
Thanks for all your concern about Sophie. For what it's worth, I took her in to the ped. today - she's going to be fine, and we got some good advice about what to do next and a prescription for something that should help.
Now I must go get some sleep!
posted by Shelly Kang at 10:15 PM
2 Comments:
Gee, "love stinks" is a miserable name, but a pretty colour.
If no one else asks for the nubbly yarn, I'll make something for a friend who's expecting, but I've got enough projects on the go that I'll let others have an opportunity to ask first. ;)
Lot's of cute photos. My mom has one of me pulling the toilet paper off the roll. "Caught you!" is the caption. From 1967 to 2007. Things don't change too much! I'm with you with the fact that it's often parents that need the manner lessons.
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