Armed with Pointy Sticks

Recovering and Flourishing

Good Sunday to everyone!  Did all of the yanks in the house enjoy their turkey and 4 day weekend?  Yes?  Wonderful :) We did as well.  Nobody enjoys a holiday around eating like I do.  Yeah, budding dietitian here.

Chris's 25th birthday was yesterday.  And until Saturday I'm still 26.  Yeah.  For one week I'm only a year older than him.  And we like to celebrate both of our birthdays this entire week :)

Christmas knitting?  Well, I don't really have much to talk about.  See, most of the year I can be found knitting on idiot projects that aren't really for anyone.  I put them in a drawer and at the end of the year I have Christmas presents.  With a few exceptions, none of these scarves, hats, or socks are earmarked.  I have one pair of mittens and a bit of a scarf, and then I feel Christmas is truly in the bag.  Maybe I should cast on a lace shawl so I can share the spirit of mad, last-minute knitting with the rest of you?

Well, just finished a bit of Christmas knitting, and I'm rather proud of it.  It's the Harlot's Unoriginal Hat, and I can't tell you how much I loved knitting it.  Yes I can!  I knit two!  I knew when I saw it that I was going to make it, and I was going to use up the skein and a half of Rowan Polar that I had lurking in my bedroom.  Any pattern that you see and immediately know what you're going to knit it in, and that you have said yarn in your very own stash, well, that's a grand pattern indeed.

As always, click for teh bigness.  I know, not quite a boys hat.  But he insisted on being my model.  I think he just wants to make sure that all male knitters see a hot guy on my Ravelry account and know to stay away.  Funny, I considered doing the same thing to his Ravelry account.  Although my reasons are much more sound.  Strange women are friending my husband on Ravelry.  Who are you, strange women?  Do you know that his profile pic was taken on our honeymoon?  Is this some odd, knitter manifestation of guppy syndrome?  Anyway, really, I digress, but seriously, step off.

... grr, hiss!

I've been knitting more than that (those hats are 6 hour projects, max.  I used 9mm instead of 7mm.  Actually, come to think of it, I made 3 of those hats.  1 in 7mm.  Yeah.  That was a scream).  Rogue has risen from the ashes and is almost ready for armhole shaping once more.  Lookee.

So, there.  Resurrected.  I won't lie, I'm quite in love with the idea that I'm finally knitting a sweater for myself.  Of course, the last skein that would be needed to make the largest size was found last night.  If it doesn't fit my bust I'm getting a reduction.

So that's life in our household for the now.  I have an amazing follow up interview that I am very excited about tomorrow.  If I get this job it will be just another bit of proof that things happen for a reason, or this whole world is merely Tetris for the gods.  Either everything stacks up and happens perfect, or you end up covering that long channel that you were saving for a long block.  So wish me luck on that.

And this year we will have our first Christmas tree together.  We've just had other things come up, and trees haven't been that important.  But this year we will set up a tree.  A real tree.  A Scotch Pine, just like we used to have when I was a kid.  They're gorgeous, and they're cat proof.  You need to wear gloves to set them up, so I'm not worried about tree climbers this year.  I should let it be known that my first good look at Jazz's eyes were from an eye-level branch on my Christmas tree the year that I got her.  Yeah, I don't feel like picking up ornaments every morning.

Well, it's late, and I have that interview tomorrow morning.  Cross your fingers for me (yes, Maureen, I know you've got them all crossed :D)  Good night, good night!

Scarfs will just have to do it for you

So, I filled in some blank square on my Ravelry account.  Care to see?

First, here is the Thinking of You scarf, knit from Zephyr 4/8 silk/wool.  I got the kit at Heritage Yarns.  I cannot say enough nice things about this store.  I ordered it on impulse, and the lovely lady there had it in the mail in a matter of hours. 

The pattern was a fantastic knit, the yarn was a treat.  Blocking is magic.

Especially when you get kitty blessing.  Yes, he's hunkered down on blocking pins.  I don't know what the hell is wrong with that cat.

No harm no foul though.  His blessing made it what it is, 4/8/1 wool/silk/cathair

And then I finally took pictures of the multi diagonal scarf.  I'll write here what I wrote on Ravelry.  This pattern was a lot like a slinky.  Not challenging, but endlessly entertaining.  Back and forth, and back and forth, the decreases and such make up for the fact that it's all garter stitch.

And Rogue.  No pictures of Rogue, I'm afraid.  I have to start again.  After casting on a million stitches, I handed the needles to Chris so he could count and save me from any grievous errors.  I do this a lot when I have a high number of stitches.  He's my failsafe. 

I guess he had other things on his mind.

I was shaping the shoulders (!!! after the body knit in the round and the completed kangaroo pocket) when I realized that I didn't have the number of stitches on the back that I should have had.  The front and side panels were all right.  When I started  I did the first side panel, counted the knit stitches to the next side panel, and then knit back to the first side panel.  I didn't count to make sure I had 83 stitches on the back, because I supposedly had the right number of stitches overall, and  I should reasonably have the 83 on the back.

No.

Closer to 63.

So I'm casting on again.  I'm using stitch markers and counting my own damned stitches, and I'm not putting out tonight.

Nyah.

Hope everyone liked the scarves.

No, the honeymoon is not over, but he certainly paused it.

The Cold Weather

Cold weather releases my knitting hormones.  I bet both you and Ravelry would like to see some pictures, huh?

Yeah, pictures are coming.  I was planning on taking pictures outside today, but it rained.  No problems here, I love the rain, but I can't see lying half of a body of Rouge in the mud. 

So yes, Rogue.  I'm finally knitting it.  For me.  I've never knit a sweater for myself before.  I'm a few inches past joining the pocket, and I'm really just enjoying it.

And I've knit two scarves, with a third coming.  I've got plans for at least two hats... Gina's Amanda hat (an experiment to see if we can get two hats out of one skein of Malabrigo.  The weight of the hat and the weight of the leftover ball are the same) and Steph's Unorigianal Hat, which is going to give a few skeins of Polar that I've had for a very long time some purpose.

Socks?  No, not so much.  When I'm stuck in a place with just the sock in my purse, but they are no longer priorities.  So goes the shift in seasons.

So yeah, I've got a raging case of startitis.  It itches.  I can't find a cream for it, so I guess I'll start with finding a size 9 needle long enough to loop with.  That should alleviate some of the redness at least.

Grand View?  If you blog hop around other ManchVegas Knitters you can read about it on other blogs, but the highlight of my weekend was meeting Sonya in person :)  Of course, Lora made her miss her flight home, but that still didn't get the poor girl out to do some karaoke.

Ok, next time with the pictures (I don't like those white squares on my Ravelry project page anymore than you do.)