Lazy Sunday Afternoons...

It's been a peaceful Sunday. I had my coffee out on the balcony with my boyfriend, did some groceries, then I finished reading The Friday Night Knitting Club. The book is great, really well written and interesting, but I'm not too sure about the ending. Anyone who has read this book should know what I mean when I say I was hoping for a different ending. However, it's still a good book and I would recommend it to anyone, and I can't wait to see the movie with Julia Roberts.

Okay back to knitting.

I finished the back of my boyfriend's sweater:

Not bad for my first attempt at my own design, not to mention my measurements are dead on (pat myself on back).

I've also worked a bit on the shawl:

I just finished my first 8 rows and this time there are no typos or other errors to slow me down.

Full steam ahead!

TTFN and KEEP KNITTING!

Stupid Typos...

So...I was knitting along on the lace, and decided to stretch it out and see how it looked. There it was! Gasp! The bottom row didn't match up. I looked at the pattern. Hmmm... I did everything right. Since I want to do one half going one way, and the other half going the other way, I began with row 7 of the pattern so along the middle of the shawl the petals would meet.

Here are some pics to try and help you to see my vision:

This is the Snowdrop style and it will be the top half of the shawl:

This is the Tulip style and it will be the bottom half :

I want the two to meet in the middle so the Snowdrop and the Tulip become a mirror image of each other along the middle row. I am going to sew the beads onto the little dots to the side of the flowers. Are you with me so far?

Okay, so this is what the pattern says for row 7 : (make flower stem and start new petals) *Sl 1, K2tog, psso, YO, K1, YO* rpt bet *'s (there are 2 of these "rpt bet *'s" between the ring markers), end Sl 1, K2tog, psso, YO.

So. That is what I did, and it didn't match. So I looked at the chart (I'm more of a knitter who prefers words to charts, although now I realise that charts have their merits) and LO!:

Now as unfamiliar as I am with charts, I recognized this as a YO symbol. Hmm... curious...The pattern:

No YO. Okay, I'm not going crazy right? So, I started over, this time using the YO, and YEA! It worked!

So, I learned two valuable lessons:

1) Always compare the chart to the pattern (if there is a chart) to make sure they match up.

and

2) If you are doing a pattern that requires you to cast on more than 300 sts., check the pattern before you get to row 14 and discover your error. According to my calculations I had completed over 4000 sts before I realised the error of my ways. Sigh. Valuable lessons, hard taught.

Anyhoo,

TTFN and KEEP KNITTING!

Chalk it up to the winter blahs...

Okay, so it has been awhile since my last blog entry. I've kept busy, as you will see, I just haven't been in a blogging mood. Maybe it was the incessant white winter. I felt like hibernating with my wool and having little contact with the outside world. Now I'm back and eager to let the world see my progress.

First off: My finished scarf. I actually did wear it this winter. It's nice and long so I can wrap it around my neck a couple of times and it still hangs to my knees!

Sorry about my pics. I have trouble getting my web cam to focus properly.

Next I made a cabled hoodie. I'm immensely proud of this one...and I think I will get a lot of wear out of it.

It's hard to see in the pic, but it's a nice dark green colour. I actually made it with Phentex Merit 100% Acrylic yarn. It's the first sweater I've ever made for under $20! It only took about 15 balls and each ball cost about $1.15 (Canadian)! Not a bad texture either...it's actually quite soft.

Then I'm designing an Aran-style sweater for my boyfriend using Patons Shetland Chunky Tweed in the Earthy Brown colour. It's the first sweater I'm trying to design by myself and it's not turning out too bad. This is a pic of the back:

I'm also working on a pair of socks:

They are being made using Online, a superwash sock yarn made in Italy. I'm not quite sure what the colourway is. I can't read the label. But I can tell you it has shades of orange, lilac, teal, soft yellow and light blue. I think they'll look nice when they are done.

For my boyfriend's birthday in September, I just got tickets to The Phantom of the Opera at the NAC. I had some balls of nice black angora/lambswool blend, so I thought I'd make a shawl to wear to the show. I'm knitting it horizontally, so I initially had to cast on 327 sts using a 4mm circular needle. Yikes! Here's a pic so far:

I used a provisional cast on because I'm going to knit half the shawl going one way and then pick up the sts and knit the other half going the other way. In order to keep track of my sts (it's a relatively simple tulip/snowdrop lace pattern I got out of Knitting in Plain English by Maggie Righetti), I'm using 20 stitch markers. Which leads me to my other hobby that is taking up some of my time: making stitch markers:

Sigh...stupid focus. Oh well...you get the idea.

And finally, we have our first piece of balcony furniture:

We sit out there every morning and drink our coffee, listening to the birds. It's also a nice spot to sit and knit (as long as it's not too windy-I learned that the hard way).

So now I believe you are caught up on my life...Ohh wait, you have to see the earrings I got from graphicdesignchick's etsy shop:

Okay, so they are out of focus (quelle surprise) but they are little sweaters on knitting needles. Aren't they awesome?! Oh.. don't try and buy any, this was the last pair for a while, but she has some cool stitch markers and other stuff at graphicdesignchick.etsy.com.

TTFN and KEEP KNITTING!