What's What on Wednesday

Lots of knitting stuff, plus a little bit of crochet.  Sewing?  I'm so busy knitting that I haven't had the urge to sew.  But it will come back, especially if it ever gets to spring.

Knitting

A somewhat fake gansey for elder DD.  This is undyed DK yarn, although in my head it knits up to a worsted weight.  About 3.5 " done.  Size 5 needles, gauge is 4.75 sts/inch.  The patterns are authentic Scottish fisherman patterns, but the yarn is not gansey yarn.  I'll work along with this until about an inch or so below the armhole, then do a cross pattern, and then work entirely different patterns on the bodice.  Those may or not be authentic, just whatever I like to do.  Sleeves?  Whatever strikes my fancy.  No underarm gusset nor shoulder strap.  This is not the real thing, but I did underarm gussets and shoulder straps about 20 years ago and got them out of my system.

Also in process, a pair of socks for me.  This is in a high twist singles yarn, so that's why you'll see the details of the stitches so well.  No nylon in this yarn, but I've already made 2 pairs of socks in it, and it seems to wear well.  And yes, it will stretch beautifully to fit my leg and foot.

An actual finished lace scarf!  Lili Lace yarn, which you can find in my Etsy shop.  The color reminds me of chicken tikka masala, a lovely paprika with a dose of cream in it.  The truest color is the top picture, just imagine it a bit darker.  It is delicious!  I have no idea what I'm wearing it with.  I'll have to do a sweater that lives with this.

Crochet

A cute little watercolor scarf in progress.  Pattern?  Something I found in one of my Japanese pattern books.  Mindlessly easy and pretty.  Rachel sock yarn.

I call these things "watercolor" since they are of variegated colorways, and the colors appear as little splotches here and there. 

And that's enough of that.

Book on nightstand is Red seas under red skies.  This is the second book in the Locke Lamorra series, and it's as delightful as the first.  Alternate world with a couple of charming thieves.  Good fun.

And that's it for today.  Oh, I forgot to add the obligatory weather picture.  Yep, it's snowing again.  Sigh.

Shameless Hussy

I'm a Shameless Hussy!  It's such fun.  Years ago, I went to the opera with a dear friend.  His wife didn't want to go because we'd get home so late, so my friend asked me to be his opera date.  On the way into the city (NYC) we were laughing about the term, shameless hussy.  So off we went to the Metropolitan Opera (don't remember which opera it was), and during an intermission, we wandered off into the book store.  The shop was crowded with very well-dressed people, including some in evening wear.  My friend and I got separated and he wanted my attention.  So, in a nice loud tone he yelled out:  "Hey, Shameless, where are you?"  Every head in that store came up.  We had the entire place's attention.  So I answered back (but not too loudly,  There are limits.):  "Here I am."   The two of us were so cool about it.  Bad people, but fun, fun, fun.  And that's one reason why I'm an SH!  

Most of the time, I'm shy, quiet and demure, but every now and then, the SH comes out.  Yes!

We were chatting about shameless hussies on the PennyRoses forum on Ravelry the other day, and I thought it would be such fun to dye up a bunch of shameless yarn in shameless colorways.  So I did.  And here's the result:

Gina Yarn!  50/50 superwash merino/silk yarn with 430+ yards of soft, shamelessly wonderful yarn!  You can't see that silk sheen in the picture, but it's there in real life.  It is truly beautiful!

Where?  In my Etsy shop, of course. 

I'm adding them gradually.  

Allegro Wrap Mystery Crochet-a-long

Do you like to crochet?  Want to do something different with my hand-dyed yarns?  You've come to the right place!

Melinda Miller, an amazing crochet designer and I are teaming up to bring you a Crochet-a-long.  We thought it would be fun to do a mystery CAL. We can tell you that it's a wrap, and you can get a sneaky peak by looking at the picture above, but the rest is a mystery.  Everybody loves a mystery, especially a pretty one!

Here are the colorways.

 

In order:  Chili, Magenta, Sandy, and Emerald

This is Symphony Yarn, 750 yards of fingering weight merino wool.  It's beautiful to work on, has a lovely sheen, is so soft, and as you can see, takes dye really well.  

Where can you sign up?

Etsy, of course!

http://fritzl.etsy.com

We're hoping to mail out around June 15.  I know it's early days, but I need an idea of how much yarn to order, and then I need time to dye it up.  The pattern will be emailed in one clue to you.

We're pretty excited about this.  We think you're going to really enjoy working this lovely pattern.

Done!

Done!

Miss P's crochet afghan.  This started out as a blankie for Mister, but then Pen told me that her room was going to be in green, red, purple, and white.  So, naturally she's getting this.  The thing weighs a ton!  Gotta mail it out to her.

In progress:  One baby quilt.  I started hand quilting it yesterday.  I'm going through flannel as the backing, and it's hard on my hands!!!!  So, big stitches, but I like the way those stitches play off the quilt design.  Kind of wonky and  free.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.  It's awfully hard to get the needle to catch that heavy flannel.  I'm doing this freehand, not marking the quilt at all.  It adds to the general goofiness.

And one baby sweater.  As you can see, I've started a sleeve.  I do these things on 2 circs; it's so much easier than trying to manage with dpns.  This is how I make sleeves:  pick up and knit stitches, top down, no seams.

As you can also see, the sweater needs finishing, but it will be cute.  I need to find 3 buttons.  Size?  I have no idea; at some point it will fit the baby.

In progress Friday

Here's what I've accomplished this week.

Knitting

Gansey sock

Crochet

Afghan for Penny.  

I'm almost finished with the length, and then I'll add to the width.

A new scarf for me, crocheted in Gina, and using the same pattern as the afghan above.

Quilting

The rose block continues.  I need a name for this.

And that's the story, Morning Glory.

New projects

While I'm dyeing up for the Light and Dark Lace Club, I'm also working on some projects for fun.  By the way, there are lots of opening left.  I have tons of yarn, so go and join.  We'll have fun.  Easy pattern for summer knitting, pretty colors, good price.  You can purchase in my Etsy shop.

Here's a neat, optical illusion blankie in progress.  This one is based on Lily Chin's Mosaic Afghans, and is such fun to do.  And thick!  I'm working on Encore DK, and let me tell you, this blankie is going to be toasty warm.  I'm thinking it would be nice in worsted wt, even though I much prefer the look of DK.  Well, when I finish it, and am still in the mood to make another one, maybe I'll do one in Encore.  Yep, I know.  Acrylic, but these acrylics are lovely, and I want a blankie to just toss into the washer and dryer.  Easy care.

Looks like it's out of focus, but that's the pattern.  The red portion has a different pattern.  I'm aiming for 3 strips, with the middle one starting with white as opposed to this strip where the charcoal started.  It's not narrower on the top; my camera decided to foreshorten it.  Bet you didn't know that I had an artistic camera, did you?

Here's the wrong side of it, also very interesting.

And this one shows the wrong side with the right side folded on top of it.  Talk about making you dizzy!  This will do it.  Funnily enough, it doesn't look weird while you are working on it.

And here's a lace scarf that I'm working on.  The body of the scarf is being done in this basic ground pattern. Almost mindless.  I'll add on a nice long border to each end when done.  I can't stretch it out to show you how much it opens up, but it really really opens.

There.  You get sort of the idea. 

Tomorrow we're off to possibly buy the little Janome sewing machine.  It gets great reviews, weighs only 12 lbs, so I can take it to a class.  I'm hoping to take a beginner piecing class.  And now I'm looking at American Girl Doll patterns.  Exactly when all this sewing is to take place is beyond me, but hey, it should be fun, and what do I have to lose anyway?  We could use a sewing machine.  The Hubs wants to learn.  Such fun.  Isn't it amazing what new things there are to learn?  I love to learn new crafts.

Books and Hooks

 Books

 The Hubbo and I have to clean up this house before the super-neat kids arrive.  Not that our form of cleaning will impress them, but hey, at least I can say that we did OK for the two of us.  Besides, they know how messy we are.  But this is our chance to toss and straighten, and we have to do it.  And then we'll feel so virtuous that we'll keep it neat forever.  If you believe that, I know a bridge I can sell you.

So one of my problems is that I cannot stop buying crafty books.  I am pretty picky these days, but if it looks interesting, I buy it.  The result is a huge pile of books next to the coffee table, and on the coffee table, and on the couch and in the TV room.  Books everywhere, and all precious.  Well, I'm not going to toss the existing books in their book cases.  So, what's a girl to do?  Tubs!  Life's answer to everything.  When in doubt,  tubify it.  So, down into the basement I went, 2 tubs in tow, and schlepped 2 shelves of very heavy books downstairs and tubified them.  Away, gorgeous embroidery books.  Knitting and Crochet rule at the moment.  And the end result is no more piles of books everywhere.  Here are some very blurry pics.  The tripod refused to leave the living room.

And that, boys and girls, is just the tip of the iceberg.  What you can't see is that in the last 2 pics, there are shelves below with doors on them.  We are not going to talk about the books and magazines in them, either.  In my dream house, I would have a beautiful, sun-lit library with couches, tables and chairs, and all my books and projects.

Hooks

I had a lovely hooky day on Saturday.  We did our usual field trip, this time to Wycoff, had a lovely lunch, wandered about for a bit and I happily crocheted along the way.  And came home, and hooked some more.

I'm really loving this.  I keep finding long lost skeins of acrylic DK, and adding them to the mixture.  At the moment, the plan is to make a blankie, lap cover, whatever, 5 squares by 8.  I have to pick out a color to edge them and then put on a border, but I'm a long way from that.  Maybe white?  Who knows, but I have lots of time to decide.

Did a bunch of knitting, too.  I'm working on a mystery project, and I'm at the point of 382 sts.  I worked about an inch of the border, and don't like it, so frog I go.  Lately I design right on the needles, and I'm quite used to tinking and frogging.  It's just part of the design process for me.

And now here's my problem yarn.  I dyed this maybe last summer, and totally fell in love with the colorway and decided to keep it.  But here's the thing:  I don't like it worked up in anything other than socks.  And I don't feel like knitting socks at all or wristers or mitts.  Growl.   Any ideas?

And on that note I'm off to continue the never-ending process of putting my house in order.  Gah!

Kitten With a Whiplash - What a great idea.  Imagine the size of the thing, and how many project bags I'd have to use and how much yarn and all those orts.  Boggles the mind.  My giggle for the day!

PandaBearofDoom - DD and SIL are super neat.  Miss P understands our general slovenliness.  It's pretty funny. 

Henya - Pain in the neck, isn't it?  I have 5 more tubs to fill, too.  All those project bags will be tubified! 

Scrabblequeen - The answer is to use clear plastic tubs. You are totally doooooomed if you use boxes or solid color tubs.  Totally.  I'm still not happy about that yarn and motif. 

The Yarnarian Crochets.

Oh, boy!  Am I ever sucked into my annual crochet binge.  In addition to the 3 blankies in progress, I decided to start another one.

This was a trial run in a variegated yarn.  I like it, but an entire blankie out of it would be way, way too busy.  I think that knitting handles variegated yarns better than crochet most of the time.  Here's another motif that is also too busy.

Pretty, maybe as a scarf, but not as a blanket.  Actually, now that I'm looking at it here, I think I'll make more of these and really do a scarf.  But maybe not in this yarn.  Who knows?  Whatever.

So then I went off to the Stitching Bee, and bought a bunch of DK yarns, all machine washable and mostly acrylic, 'cause you know that is what I like to do blankies in.  Decided to use the pattern for the first pic, More V's, please.  I found it on Ravelry, it's free (always delightful), and beyond fun to hook.

I changed the pattern only in that I did 2 rows instead of 3 on the v-stitch area. 

I also did a bunch of dyeing yesterday, but I'll post that later, just so you can enjoy all this hooky goodness.

Susie - The squares are actually about 7", so they are not teensy, and they will get another row or two with my outline color, maybe off-white.  I'm not sure yet of what I want to use, so I'll do some more and then decide.  Once I pick the border color, then I'll start joining them as I go along.  Otherwise I'll yell and scream if I have to do these all at the same time.

PandaBearofDoom - I like the first one as a stand-alone piece.  Maybe If I did a few row border in a solid, I'd like it more for a blankie, but I only have one skein of the yarn, dyed it a long time ago, and have no idea what I did, so I can't duplicate it.

katiemckinna - Thanks.

myhookandyarnadventure - It is very tricky using variegateds on crochet, especially on these granny squares.  I have had great luck using them in scarves, particularly in a ziazag pattern.  Those yarns work if you are looking for a sort of Monet look to your scarf.

When the weather gets warmer, I start to work on crochet blankies!

 Back asswards, that's for sure, but there is something about those longer days with clear bright sunlight that makes me want to crochet.  I have a bunch of unfinished crochet blankies and one knit blankie that I started last summer and put away in Oct., and I dug them out the other day.  They are all going to be blankies just because the thought of making a full cover for a queen size bed or a big afghan is more than I can handle.  I get bored very very easily, and besides I love startitis, so small lap covers these are all going to be.

So, here's the first one:  this is done with Encore DK weight which is my favorite blankie weight.  Easy on my wrists, and yet it doesn't take forever.  OK, it takes forever, but not as in fingering weight forever.  This one is just chugging along.  It's a perfect size for a lap cover, and it'll get finished when I'm totally bored with it.

Then there's the Linus blankie that I started for the Linus project.  It's a good thing that those babies have lots of other blankies available to them because at the rate I'm going, they'll be parents of their own babies by the time I'm finished.  I've decided to do a row/day in the hopes of finishing it before my grands have their own grands.

Here's the African flower one that I started at the end of July last summer.  This one is a keeper.  I love the colors.  Not practical, but then it is totally machine washable, and if it gets dirty, then it gets dirty.  I did those 6 hexies while I was visiting the MN relatives, and then put it away.  When I dug it out, I thought:  hey, this is pretty.  Might be nice if I finished it some century or other.

Here's the Ten Stitch Blankie that I'm doing in Silk Garden.  This one is knit and is a pure pleasure and great mindless TV knitting project.  You just motor along on it.  I might finish it one of these days.

It seriously needs a good wash and blocking but you get the idea.

Every year around this time, I wander into Michaels looking for the ultimate cheapy yarn, and get sucked in by some, come home, start a grannie, and then dislike it.

This is so not calling me.  In the skein, the colors just sang together, but here they look blah.   Ah well, it cost me very little since 2 of the skeins were on sale.  And anyhow, this is worsted weight, which I don't like to work on, so why I bought it in the first place is anybody's guess.  Give me good old DK weight, not worsted.
I don't think I'll do any more on this.

I have 2 lovely shawls that I can't show you plus one in process, and I can't show you that either.  They are all for the Light & Dark Lace Club and are mystery shawls.  You'll see them one of these months.

The skinny yarn sweater is proceeding very slowly.  I'm sooooo sick of it.  I've done the whole thing in lace, including the sleeves, and I'm tired of the pattern big time.  I'm going to do 3/4 sleeves with a bit of a ruffle on the bottom of the sleeves just to finish it before the end of time.  One sleeve is almost there, and then I'll do the second one, put a finishing touch on the neckline, wash and block it, and then that's that!

On the Mommie front, she seems to be aging very quickly now.  I swear that there is a change in her from one week to the next.  I've hired her morning companion to help her out before, during and after dinner, getting her ready for bed, and that's a very good idea.  I do wish Medicare covered some of this.  It's so much cheaper hiring an aide than paying for a nursing home.  And she's at home here with her own furniture and apartment.  The staff is the greatest staff in the world!  and I mean that with all my heart.  They want to keep her here until she passes away, so that's our goal.  But she is so fragile and old.  She's so much older than she was on her birthday on Nov. 4.  Clearly she's winding down, but I still bet that she'll make it to her 97th birthday.  For all her fragility and fuzziness, she's still one tough old lady.  The physical therapist came yesterday morning to see her, and she refused to get out of bed.  Christina and Evelyn are the only people who can get her up; she fights with everyone else.  It's pretty funny and shows that the core Mommie is still in there.

Thanks to all of you for your lovely encouraging words about elder care.  It's really, really hard, and she doesn't even live with me.  I still think I'm blessed to do it, though.  I love her to pieces.

Have a good weekend, everybody.  Maybe our snow will melt?  Of not.

There are just not enough hours in the day.

I need more time!

Do you ever want to try so many new ideas and not have the time to do it? That's where I am these days.

I'm working happily away on my cowl project, and am almost done. OK, one idea down. The socks are just basic socks and I just motor along on them. The zillions of blankies are always in process.

But here's the thing: I want to play. Just play, and what with designing and dyeing and the normal chores, I can't seem to find the time. Of course, if I ever got off the computer, I'd have tons of time. But do I do that? nooooo. So mostly it's my fault. sigh.

BUT, nonetheless, here's some of what I want to play with:



I really want to play with these post stitches. I learned how to do them on this scarf, and liked them. Maybe another scarf or ten?



How about lots of flowers from this book? Aren't they cute?



I now own the Japanese language edition of this as well as the English one. They are not the same at all. There are lots of projects here that are calling me.



I want to do this:




And I haven't begun to think of what I want to do from the new entrelac book that I just received.

See what I mean? In my lifetime, I will never be able to do all those projects that I'm interested in. Still, I could get a good case of startitis and try some of them. Now if I would just get off Facebook.......