Knitamazoo(tm)

I am falling asleep at my desk. Friday’s are notoriously slow at work and today is no exception. Add to that the fact that I changed my shift and came in at 7:00 this morning and you can understand why I can’t keep my eyes open. Now I am not a morning person (just ask my mom, go on, she’ll tell you all about it and then some). My body throws a tantrum when I ask it to get out of bed before the sun is even up. Darkness=sleep. And winter is even worse. Winter=hibernation. Especially since it’s cold. Nothing worse than having to crawl out of a toasty warm bed into a cool house before the sun is even up and that’s assuming that the sun is even going to make an appearance in the first place. This is Michigan so you never know. But I digress, now where was I? Oh yeah, so this morning the alarm goes off at 5 am. I mutter something about how I just got in bed and there is no way that it could be 5 am already, hit the snooze, roll over and go back to sleep. Nine minutes later that stupid thing has the audacity to go off again. I mutter a few more incomprehensible things and get up. Stumble down the stairs and start the water so I can shave my legs. Now I’m either brave or am incapable of clear, rational thought that early in the morning. I am leaning towards the latter. What was I thinking trying to shave my legs before I can even open one eye? Glad to say my legs survived with nary a scratch and I managed to shower and make it into work by 7. So now I’m just trying to pass the time til 3:30 when I can bust out of here and get to the business of having a fun weekend.

Midst all the packing, list making, tent collapsing, laundry, and what not last night I did find some time to work a little on my latest sock. I give you the first ever picture of the Liberty Sock! Just 2 more rows of this infuriating . . . erm . . . I mean lovely 1×1 ribbing. Then I can get down to the business of actually making a sock. The colors have sorta striped so far but I am wondering if they will begin to pool later on. Guess I’ll see as the sock progresses. This one and the other sock that I’ve started will be going on our little trip to Indiana this weekend. I hope they like corn.

Hopefully when we get back I’ll have some pictures to post. Especially one of the Big Yellow Rocking Chair. When we see that we turn left to get to the lake. And believe me it’s big and yellow. My mother-in-law tells us that it was just repainted recently so it should be nice and bright.

I need more than 24 hours in a day. Either that or I need to quit working so I have more time to get other things done. And as much as I like that idea, I have to keep working to support this yarn habit I have. So if any of you know how to get more hours out of the day please let me know.

Yesterday afternoon while in knitty chat, Helen (aka poetangel) received the latest copy of Vogue Knitting in the mail. I didn’t realize that a new issue was out so I went out to their website to see a preview. I fell in love with this! I have the perfect yarn at home (KnitPicks alpaca cloud) and just need the pattern so I can knit it up. As soon as work was over I rushed to the closest LYS eager to pick up the magazine and purchase my first pair of Addi’s. (I’m going to need really nice needles for this, right?) The evil LYS gnomes tried to distract me from my purpose by having gobs of clearance stuff right as you come in the door. It slowed me down but I was not to be driven from my ultimate quest. I pushed by the sale yarn with little more than a passing glance (ok, ok, maybe it was a little more than a passing glance but I swear I didn’t spend more than 5 minutes looking at it, really). I went straight to the magazines and . . . no Fall 2005 VK. This can’t be! I ask one of the gnomes and she said they don’t have it yet. Not to be thwarted, I remember that Barnes & Noble is just across the street (sort of) and I zoom over there. I battle for a parking space, finally find one and run like a mad woman into the store. Nope, they don’t have it either. Now I’m starting to get irritated. I must have this magazine. I must knit this lace shawl. I must stop using so many italics. Aha, Harding’s (a local supermarket) carries VK and they are in the next shopping center. Back in the car I get and drive like {insert name of your favorite nascar driver here} over to Harding’s. Pedestrians beware! Insane knitting woman on a mission! It was much easier to find a parking space here (why didn’t I come here first?). I again fly into the store with just enough caution as to not knock over any innocent elderly folks just looking for groceries. And again . . . nothing. I start to pout. I reason that the knitting gods must be against me. I finally give up and go home utterly defeated. Come to find out when I check their website this morning, that this issue won’t hit newsstands until August 9!! Ack! Can I wait that long?

I got two emails yesterday from the library telling me two of the books I placed holds on were in. So I went downtown to pick those up last night. I got the Ashford Book of Spinning and Knit Socks. I wasn’t able to go through these last night as we needed to get the tent back up so we can seal all the seams before we take it out this weekend. So finally around 8:30 last night I sat down to knit. I picked up my doily and happily went on my way, adding markers to signify the beginning of a new pattern repeat. What a disaster! I didn’t have any problems until after I added the markers but now I’m short stitches in some of the repeats. Now I’m not blaming the poor markers but it is quite suspicious that there wasn’t any problems before the markers came into play. So that has been put aside until I have more time to figure out exactly what happened and fix it. Next project up was the ribbed sock. I knit a round on this and put it down. No reason really, just didn’t feel like working on it. I really wanted to knit so I picked up Clappy and did a few rows before falling into bed.

And as if I don’t have enough projects going on I cast on this morning for some socks using my red, white and blue Lorna’s Laces sock yarn. I’ve dubbed them my liberty socks and I will be using a pattern out of the Knit Socks book. It’s going to be hard to squeeze some knitting time in today though. I have to get some laundry done as well as pick up some food for the weekend and pack. I’ll also be going to bed earlier than usual as I will be coming into work at 7 am tomorrow so I can leave early for our trip. I’m going to be so tired!

And just because I think this post needs a picture, here’s Cosmo looking quite regal.

OK, so after working with both Monkee and Shetha in knitty chat yesterday I was bound and determined that a stupid lace doily was not going to get the better of me. I came home from work all fired up to tackle the lace problem, picked up the doily and . . . promptly frogged it. Yes, I frogged it. The lace doily is no more. And lest you think that a lace doily has gotten the better of me, after I frogged it I picked up the needles once more and started a different doily. (So maybe the first doily got the better of me but this one will not defeat the super knitter known as Dawn! Well maybe not super, but you know what I mean.) You can see a picture of what it should look like here - it’s the first doily on the page. The pattern is a little less challenging than the other one I tried and so far I have been able to complete 20 rounds without strangling myself or setting the stupid thing on fire. That’s 5 rounds more than the last one so I’m happy. It looks a little wonky in this picture, but you can’t exactly divide 7 pattern repeats evenly across 4 needles. I need to get some stitch markers in there to mark where the pattern repeats start. I didn’t want to have stitch markers in my way when it was smaller, but I think I can put them in now and they won’t be more of a hindrance than a help.

Yesterday I promised you all a picture of the new sock in progress so . . . (drum roll please) . . . here it is! I’m using Kroy sock yarn in a denim looking color. It’s just a boring 2×2 rib but it makes for great mindless knitting. It will be going with me this weekend when we go visit my mother-in-law at the lake in Indiana. This is going to be a dry run for our new tent, cots, and other camping equipment. We’ve set up the cots, gotten self-inflating camping pads and opened up the new sleeping bags. The cats weren’t sure what to make of all that but we’re excited. Now if the camp stove we ordered would just arrive. Hubby wants to take it with us this weekend to try it out. We checked out the tracking on it last night and it should be delivered either today or tomorrow depending on when it gets to our local UPS center. But my Elizabeth Zimmerman book, Knitting Without Tears arrived yesterday. It was ordered from Amazon at the same time the camp stove was and was sent via USPS. Oh well, I’m happy at least!

Well I knew it was going to happen . . . the lace doily has made me angry. It was only a matter of time really. Everything seemed to be going so well . . . why did it have to get all wonky and make me angry? Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s my nearly virgin lace knitting skills. Whatever it is I have a screwed up beginning of a doily that I don’t know what to do with. I was knitting around just fine, following the pattern (which is not charted out by the way . . . grrrrrrr!) and I just assumed that each pattern repeat would work out evenly on each round. Is this a misconception on my part or is this how it should be? If I am right and it should work out evenly on each round then either the pattern is whack or I’ve missed some yo’s. You can see a picture of what it should look like here (it’s the second doily). I’m going to try charting out the pattern but the only charts I’ve ever used are for lace knitted straight. How do you chart something in the round? Ack! I like a good challenge so (oh who am I kidding?). And that my friends was the start of my weekend. As I was going to a pool party on Saturday afternoon and I wanted a small project to work on while I was sitting around gabbing. So I grabbed some Kroy’s sock yarn and started another pair. I wanted to do some toe-up socks but I was getting frustrated with getting it started. Maybe I should try thicker yarn til I get the hang of it. I went back to top-down so that I would have a project to work on and I was happy again.

The pool party was fun and I did get some work done on my sock, but alas I haven’t taken any pictures of the sock and I forgot to take the camera to the party. What can I say . . . I’m getting old and forgetful. Sunday was spent getting more camping supplies (we are going to camp at my mother in-law’s place at a lake this weekend) and messing around on my computer. No knitting!

Monday morning I had a doctor appointment for my annual so I decided to take the entire day off. What better reason is there? After that was done I picked up a friend and her 1 year-old son to go down to Schoolcraft to check out the antique stores. Out of 5 antique stores only 1 was open! We couldn’t believe it! But I did find some old knitting needles which I bought. Though some genius thought it would be a good idea to keep each pair of needles together by using scotch tape! Moron! Now I have to figure out how to get the sticky residue off the needles. Sigh.

I also went to Goodwill and found some sweaters to frog and reknit. Three of them are a cotton or cotton blend and I’m not sure if the yarn will be usable after frogging. I’m afraid it’s going to be a bunch of singles. However the purple sweater is 100% wool and is frogging nicely. I spent yesterday afternoon and evening frogging it while I watched tv. I only have the back of the sweater to frog now. I can’t wait to wash it up and get all the little kinks out of the yarn.

I also found a cashmere sweater that is frogable. I’m not sure if I’m going to try frogging it or not. It is a very fine gauge and may not be worth my time. I was thinking that if I did frog it I could hold the yarn double and knit up a tank or shell to wear under a jacket. Decisions, decisions. It is so soft and yummy though! Such a quandary I’m in. Any thoughts? Click on the picture for a closer look.

I promise to post a picture of my new sock in progress soon. And Monkee if you’re reading this, how about some help with the lace? Please?

I. Am. Angry. There . . . I’ve said it. My hubby was just informed yesterday that he will be losing his job sometime between now and the end of 2006. OK, so we’ve kind of been expecting it but things had been looking really good lately so it is a bit of a blow. But they can’t even give him an approximate time of when his job will be done. So he has become very proactive and isn’t waiting around to get laid off. He already has several job leads so I am happy about that.

So what do I decide to do with this anger? Knit! And just not any plain old knitting . . . oh no . . . I have to take on something that has the potential to make me even angrier. (Not sure if that is possible or not but I’m about to find out.) So what am I knitting you ask . . . LACE! That’s right . . . I’m knitting lace. A very pretty doily to be exact. Here are a couple pictures of the beginnings.

It’s kind of funny to have a round doily that looks like a square. Guess I’ll either have to get some more dpns or maybe this is a good excuse to try Addi’s! Yeah, that’s the ticket! I do have a full punchcard for my LYS. Hmmmm, the wheels are a turning. It only took me 7 tries and 45 minutes to get past the first round. Maybe I should have started with only 3 dpns instead of 4 but 8 stitches divides so much nicer by 4 than 3. At least I’m past that now and it’s much easier to hold and knit.

Well that’s it my knitty friends. I have a pool party this weekend so hopefully that will cheer me up. Have a fantabulous weekend!

Last night after dinner we decided to set up the new tent and check it out. It was so easy to put up . . . put the blue poles in the blue holders and the beige poles in the beige holders and presto . . . you have a tent! Well in all honesty there’s a little more to it than that but it is really easy to set up and take down. There are several pictures so I am loading small ones. Just click on them for a larger view.
Just look at how huge it
is! It will be a very nice size for us as we have a queen size air mattress and we’ll be able to stow our gear in it. Those things sticking out of the sides are closets. They have 2 shelves that you can hang in them for light items and you can zip them closed.

Here is a closeup of one of the closets. I love the fact that you can stow stuff away and not have to look at it. And the other picture is me standing in the middle of the tent. It’s 7 feet high so I can stand in it no problem. I think that’s my husband’s favorite feature. No getting dressed hunched over. There seems to be lots of air flow through the tent so it shouldn’t get stiffling hot like other tents I’ve camped in. The top is mostly just screens so you can look up at the stars at night. Even when you put the rain fly on there is some clear plastic so you can still see the stars. They thought of everything!

We are hoping to try it out next month by visiting my mother-in-law. Her and her husband have a trailer on a lake and we can set up the tent right next to the trailer. It will be a nice dry run before we go on our first real camping trip. My hubby just made reservations at Muskallonge Lake State Park which is in the Upper Pennisula of Michigan. We’re going Labor Day weekend. I can’t wait! I’ve already started a list of stuff we need.

Not much knitting news, I finished up a dishcloth I had been working on and that’s it. We’re going shopping tonight (for what else, camping gear!) and I hope to have some time tonight to work on Clappy. I think it’s feeling neglected. Poor thing! I guess I should give it some love.

It’s only been three days since I last posted but it feels like forever. We didn’t make the boat trip on Saturday as my hubby came down with a stomach virus which he in turn shared with me. I just love him so much! So Sunday was not a good day for me and on top of all the stomach problems I got one of the worst migraines I’ve ever had. At least I had gotten my house cleaned and bought the groceries before all this hit. The migraine hit around 2 pm and lasted until around 1:30 am. I was so nauseated that I couldn’t eat. I got up yesterday and came into work but I was so weak from not eating for a day that I had to go home at noon. But there is a bright side to all of this . . . even though I couldn’t knit Sunday I did get to knit all afternoon yesterday! And good things come from knitting all afternoon . . . I finished my Misty Garden scarf! A lovely feather and fan pattern knit in Manos del Uruguay colorway #107. I really enjoyed this scarf as it is simple enough to do in front of the tv but is not too boring. I couldn’t get either of my cats to sit still long enough to model the scarf and I didn’t have anyone to take my picture, so Booboo Bear will have to do. He is a good model and will pose anyway you ask him to. He kind of gets lost in the scarf but he’s still cute.

Here is a closeup so you can see the pattern and hopefully the colors better. Now that the scarf is finished I’ll cast on for the hat that will match. It won’t be out of Manos, but Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in a matching color. It will just be a basic hat, nothing too fancy. When I get it done I’ll model the hat and scarf together. Of course it will probably be 95 degrees F and really humid. Hopefully I won’t sweat too much and felt them!

We were out doing a little shopping last week and we came across one of those inflatable beds. We’ve been talking about getting one for awhile now as we are planning on having my family spend Christmas with us. We have a guest room with a double bed for my parents but no place for my brother or his fiance. We also thought it would be nice to have when we visit other family who don’t have guest beds. So into the cart it went. We blew it up this weekend and it’s pretty nice. It’s a queen size double high so it’s almost as high as a regular bed. Then when I wasn’t looking this weekend my hubby went out and bought a tent. Now we had looked at some tents and talked about getting into camping but I didn’t think we were too serious about the whole thing. How wrong I was! Not only does he buy a tent but he buys the Hilton of tents! This thing is huge (17′ x 11′) and stands 7′ tall! My 6′5″ brother could stand upright in it. It has a screened area separate from the sleeping area. There are two closets in the sleeping area and you can put up a divider in the sleeping area to make 2 private spaces out of it. We were going to try putting it up on Sunday but then I got sick. The plan is to put it up tonight and if we do I’ll take pictures. So now I guess we’ll have to get the rest of the camping paraphernalia as we’re planning on going camping Labor Day weekend. And I can’t fault him for buying it either. He got an awesome deal. Everywhere he’s seen it on the net it runs right around $300 but he got it at Sam’s Club for $137!! He’s so good at finding bargains.

NEKKID! That’s right, there’s a nude ape running around climbing buildings! The Kong Thong is no more and poor Kong . . . well we won’t talk about that. My Clapotis (a.k.a. Kong Thong) is over half way done and no longer resembles ape underwear in any way. I am now proudly calling it Clappy and hoping that it will be able to live down the stigma of the Kong Thong. (I, on the other hand, may be in therapy for a long time because of that.) I have 3 1/4 pattern repeats left in section three then it’s on to section four and the start of the decreasing. I am starting to see a little glimmer of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

And just to prove to you that the Kong Thong has disappeared. I give you Clappy in all it’s unfinished glory. I pinned it up to the back of the chair so that you could get an idea of what it will be after I finish it and block it. It’s going to need some serious blocking as it just wants to scrunch up into a tight little wad all the time. It better behave after all the time I’ve spent on it . . . or I’ll . . . um . . . I’ll . . . er . . . I’ll think of something.

I had to take a closeup of the dropped stitches. It was so cool to drop a stitch on purpose and it really isn’t getting old. I’m too easily amused I guess.

Well that’s all I have to say. Things have been pretty mundane around here. We’re supposed to go to the Venetian Festival tomorrow with some friends. They have a boat and we will be watching the fireworks from the boat on Lake Michigan, so maybe there will be some fun pictures from that. Have a great weekend and happy knitting!

(This post topic brought to you at the request of Monkee, by the number 4 and the letters T and Z.)

I rushed home from work last night in the hopes that my yarn from KnitPicks had arrived and I was not disappointed. OK, here it is. What you all have been waiting for . . . YARN PRON!! Here is the entire pile of yarn. Isn’t it yummy?

This is 10 skeins of Knit Picks 100% Merino Style in moss. The color in this picture is off . . . too dark. It will become this from the fall Family Circle Easy Knitting magazine. I did a guage swatch last night and I was spot on. I’ll be casting on in the very near future. And this yarn is so very, very soft!!

This scrumptous skein of Wool of the Andes is destined to become a hat to match the Misty Garden scarf I am working on. The color is called mulled wine. It’s hard to tell in the pictures but it comes very close to matching the dark pink in the Manos del Uruguay. So my head and neck will both be warm this winter. (:

And this gorgeous Alpacca Cloud lace weight in sand will become a lace shawl someday. Yes, I’ve been bitten by the lace bug (evil, evil Monkee!) and will soon succumb to it’s siren song. Resistance is futile! And yes Monkee, I do blame you. Your evil influence has made me want to knit a lace shawl. Devilish Texans!

NO. I am not pregnant! My “little” (and I use the term very loosely since he’s almost a foot taller than I am) brother got engaged Friday night! I am so very excited! His finace seems very sweet though I haven’t met her yet. Practically everyone else in the family has met her except me but I plan to remedy that this Christmas. I have talked to her on the phone and I think we’ll get along very well. They are planning to get married next summer in North Carolina (can you say “HOT”?). Yikes! Note to self: pack lots of antiperspirant.

In knitting news, I added several more inches to my Misty Garden scarf. It’s such an easy knit. I had to give up working on it yesterday as it was leaving little dark fuzzies all over my white shorts. Hmmm . . . guess I’ll have to wear dark colors when I want to wear this scarf. It is so soft and warm! I can’t wait to wear it. (Am I really asking for colder weather? Hold on while I go have my head examined.) I ordered some KnitPicks yarn for a hat in a color that will hopefully match. My first hat . . . no, I haven’t done a hat yet. Several socks but no hat.

I also did some work on my Clapotis yesterday. I dropped two more stitches. It’s getting so big that I’m glad it’s on circs. I couldn’t imagine supporting all that weight on straights. Especially since my forearms and hands are hurting to begin with. No it’s not a knitting injury. Yesterday I spent the morning trimming the bushes in our yard. I didn’t get to them last fall so they were pretty wild and I had to wait for them to stop flowering before I could whack them back. Now they all look nice and neat and you don’t get attacked when using the kitchen door.

Before I go I just have to share a picture of the cutest cat in the world. (OK, I’m biased but you’ll agree when you see this picture.)

See! I told you. I was playing the piano when I looked down and there he was just like that. I tiptoed into the other room and grabbed the camera. I can’t believe I didn’t disturb him in any way. He stayed like that long after I took the picture. Just too cute!