starting the stash ...

Every time a read about another knitter's out-of-control stash (Yarn Harlot has a whole chapter about how to hide your stash from your family), I am a little smug. Proud of myself for (most of the time) controlling my urges to buy yarn until I have a firm project in mind, and the time to devote to the project. I do have one plastic bin of knitting stuff, but aside from housing my extra needles, pattern books and other tools, mostly it is extra yarn left over from finished projects and one or two rejected WIPs that I got bored of (2x2 rib scarf? come on!) or I tried on before the final finishes and realized it didn't fit, but couldn't bring myself to start over. All that smugness when straight out the window on Saturday when I drove up to Santa Barbara to visit BB's Knits retirement sale. Everything in the store was 50% off and my stash is well on it's way to getting out of control unless I take a few months off work to knit my butt off. Unfortunately, "stash reducing" is not a viable reason to call in sick.
I initially went to BB's because the store was listed on Jordana Paige's website for places to buy her knitters satchel. I am drooling over the ocean blue version, but it is a little pricey and I wanted to see the bag in person before purchasing. When I looked at BB's website for directions to the store, lo and behold! 50% off sale! I thought I could get my satchel at a well-reduced price ... of course by the time I got up there, the bags were sold out (some at 50% she said! bummer!), but there were plenty of other goodies left, and I certainly didn't leave empty handed. BB herself even took a peek in my bag as I was winding down and said I did a good job!!
Here's what I left with:
Patterns - Two (2) Fiber Trends sock patterns, Winter issue of Knit.1 magazine with some way cute patterns I had been drooling over since January, Miss Bea's Rainy Day patterns for Rowan yarns by Louisa Harding, Cabin Fever #153 (baby socks!)
Yarn - Eight (8) balls of Classic Elite Bamboo in China blue (hoping to use it for Sizzle, but I didn't have the pattern with me and guessed too low on yardage so will save the bamboo for something else glorious), Four (4) balls of Regia Silk sock yarn (two balls each yellow and pink), Six (6) balls of Rowan All-Seasons Cotton in Dusk (actual yarn is more purple than on website) to make a coat from Miss Bea's pattern book for my someday daughter, Four (4) balls of Whispers sock yarn in colors 04 and 08, One (1) ball of Artful Yarns - Olympic in color Atlanta, which I am going to try and make the baby socks out of for cousin Sheila's baby girl on the way. I am not really sure if that is supposed to be sock yarn though ...
Also - six abalone star shaped buttons for the little girl's coat and six sparkly pink buttons to adorn these socks, once I make them ...
wow! that's a lot of yarn to stash away while I finish up Sahara and mom's shawl ... but it was fun to visit a new store, even if I probably won't ever go back, and especially nice to have lunch with my handsome husband at work :) maybe I'll have to make another trip to BB's before the end of the month (to get more Bamboo, perhaps?) ... I do love to see Wes in uniform! yowza!

Grandma's socks

a few weeks ago Wes and I spent the weekend in Orange County for golfing, Ducks games and general family and friend togetherness and I was able to get Grandma to sit still for a minute so I could capture the bittersweet socks on her feet and on camera! I am so pleased that they fit her and that she seems to love them, since each time I showed up at her house over the long weekend, she had the socks on!
to recap: the yarn is Lorna's Laces worsted weight yarn in bittersweet and the pattern is also from Lorna's Laces, the Liberty Sock pattern that Lois used in sock class and the only sock pattern I've ever used ... but that is soon to change!!!

Ducks! Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!

just in case you didn't notice, the Ducks dominated the Senators last night 6-2 to be the FIRST CALIFORNIA TEAM TO WIN THE STANLEY CUP! (suck on that Kings and Sharks!) I almost cried at the first goal because I wanted to be AT the game sooooooo bad, but we couldn't afford the crazy ticket prices, so Wes and I settled down in the bar of J.J. Brewski's and had a grand old time in Camarillo.

who says the Neidermayers are the first siblings to win the cup since 1982? Check out me and Luke!

but at least Wes and Dad and I made it to one awesome game, the Western Conference clincher against the Red Wings. Best game ever, except for last night's of course, but I wasn't there so I can't claim it.

ducks

lazy = more knitting

had a mostly sit around the house and be lazy weekend (with some hockey! go Ducks!) so I got lots of knitting done on Sahara. the two sides of the front were knit with two different balls of yarn, so progress was often impeded by untangling of the yarn, but it is turning out really nice (looooooooove the smoothness of the yarn) and so far the gauge/fit seems to be right too ... I knit down the front to the arm shaping and attached the back to the front, but only on the sides under the armholes, and am now knitting flat (with only one ball of yarn!) for a few inches before waist decreases. after a few inches of decreases, I'll have to cast-on 20 stitches in the middle of the front and then attach to knit the rest of the top in the round.
on the picture to the right, I blacked out the stuff I haven't done yet. doesn't look like I've gotten very far, but the back is being completed at the same time, so it is really twice as much as is showing. the trim on the sleeves and neckline will be added after the rest of top is knit. the amount of cleavage showing is customizable too, just sew the center seam higher up or lower, I guess! ha.

inviting Murphy and his laws

after dinner last night Wes settled down in front of the NBA Eastern Conference finals and so I took the opportunity to get back to work on Sahara! picking up stitches from the preliminary crochet cast on was pleasantly easy and I was able to make good progress on the two halves of the front. the game went into double OT so I had even more knitting time ... I was hoping to get far enough along to attach the back to the fronts and start knitting in the round (only one ball of yarn attached instead of the current two for two sides of the front), but that would have taken a marathon knitting night, and I only do that when Wes is on night shift. he switches again July 2, so give it a few more weeks and I'll be back to my old habits :)
this pattern offers measurements in inches as well as row counts, so since I didn't do a gauge swatch (what! did I learn nothing in all of the AFY classes!), I have been measuring and counting very carefully as I go along. The gauge was the same as Mom's pink shell ... although it is different yarn, the yarn thickness is the same for both. The pattern for the pink shell suggested size 6 needles, but when I did my gauge swatches for that project I ended up using size 8 to get gauge, so I just picked up my size 8s for Sahara too and so far all my measurements have been exact to the pattern and gauge is right too. Now that I have gotten all cocky and braggy about perfection without a swatch, something is sure to go wrong ...

m1 on the back

Sahara back done! Well, top of the back done. Hopefully will have time to get the front started tonite! I'm anxious to get at those preliminary cast on stitches and see if it will be as easy as Lois made it look ...

knitting with Keith

while sitting upstairs on the lunchroom porch knitting on Sahara (finally started it last weekend! more on that in a minute ...) and listening to a mix of Keith Urban tunes in preparation for the concert in a few weeks, I discovered it takes all of "God's Been Good To Me" to knit one row, but I can get a whole lap done (knit one row, purl the next) before "Somebody Like You" finishes up. That's even with the inevitable daydreaming that comes with "Somebody Like You" ... since I walked down the isle to marry my sweet Wesley to that song.
so, back to the knitting: Sahara had a tricky start that caused me to put it off for a while (I bought the pattern and yarn back in February!). finally I went to see Lois at AFY last week to learn how to crochet cast-on. The instructions that came with the pattern said to incorporate the knitting needle into the single-crochet row so the stitches end up on the knitting needle, but that confused me! Lois then showed how she would do it: just knit a chain of however many stitches it says to cast on, then thread the knitting needle through the back loops. This sounded hard to me too (my ventures into crochet have been less than successful), but a trip to visit Grandma crocheter extrordinaire was already on the schedule for the following weekend, so I asked her to make the chain for me. It took a couple tries to get the tension right (loose enough so I could pick up the stitches), but we got it in the end. This week has been busy at work and at home (got the new Giada De Laurentiis and have been cooking up a storm! also, discovered the best cookie recipe ever ...) but after my lunchtime date with Keith, I am down to the arm shaping on the back. yes, I said "down" and not "up" to the arm shaping ... this sweater is knit from the top down, so I have the back of the shoulders finished now. After the arm shaping is finished on the back, I'll put these live stitches on a holder, pull out the crochet chain and pick up the stitches on the top and knit down the front. I was overwhelmed when I first bought the pattern, but looking at it one step at a time, it seems a lot easier. So for now, I am just thinking about m1 stitches that I'll do tonight if I can resist picking up my other new book (the only thing that got me to put it down yesterday was an afternoon of Pirates and Hockey.)

Vacation in my own backyard

nothing new to report on the knitting front today ... although I did have a fabulous, busy weekend ... Friday was pretty quiet; Wes and I went to a new place for dinner and had great Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches and watched ESPN. Saturday with Wes at work, Tia and I ran an easy six (okay, a hard six ... Thursday's workout was INTENSE and I was sick after it, so didn't refuel as well as I should have. my legs were hating me for it on Saturday, good thing we didn't have to run 12 miles!), then after quick showers we headed up to State Street in Santa Barbara with Amanda to shop shop shop!! We'd been planning this trip for a while and after my lenten shopping fast we were all ready for some new springtime fashion! We hit all my favorite places: A Tropical Affair and Anthropologie (got a versatile jersey dress that will look awesome with flipflops or my cowgirl boots and the skirt to the left ... don't know what to wear with it, but I love it!), some way-expensive boutiques (no purchases there!) and of course Gap, Express, Macy*s and some shoe shops. We had great lunch at Ruby's too (not the '50s diner, a local deli with the best sourdough patty melt I've had in a long time). After a long afternoon (and aching legs!), we headed back to Ventura to take in the DeLaHoya-Mayweather fight at a friend of Tia and Omar's. Wes met us there and we enjoyed meeting lots of people who we'll get to party with at the wedding! It wasn't a late night for us though, Wes had been up since 4am and my credit card wasn't the only thing that was worn out, so we didn't stick around too late after the fight.
Sunday was HOT and wonderful. I met up with my friend Charlene and we drove out to Malibu for lunch at Paradise Cove. Apparently half of LA had the same idea and we had to wait over an hour for a table, but enjoyed the outdoor bar and feet in the sand while we enjoyed a Corona and nachos. By the time we were seated we were sweaty and exhausted, so luckily our table had a little bit of shade! But it was great to be outside enjoying the weather ... we even had a star sighting - Jon Lovitz! It would have been fun to see someone younger and hotter (doesn't Matthew M do his yoga on the Malibu beaches?), but I liked Jon in The Wedding Singer and A League of Their Own, so it was still interesting to see a "star" ... I guess that's what people go to Malibu for!
Overall it was a spectacular weekend. It almost felt like I was on vacation, except I got to sleep in my own bed!!

babies

Tia teases me on our runs because I can never decide if I am going to resign myself to my husband's desire to be a father, or maintain my no-baby position I've held since I was 11 and realized that being pregnant makes you throw up and giving birth could be the most pain I will ever be in (more than the eighth and fastest 800 repeat or running a full marathon after no training), or if I will fully embrace motherhood in all its glowy, baby-powder-smelling, liquid-poopy diapered glory.

Since she is anxious to start a family soon after her September wedding, babies are often something we talk about on our runs and every day I have a new reaction to proposals that Wes and I might have kids. Some days I say "if Wes and I have babies ..." other days its "when" ... I have introduced her to Mom's special phrase for me - "new day, new deal" - and she says it to me now whenever I change my mind.

Wes and I have names for two girl babies that I love, however he says we'll never need them because we are only having boys. We have nothing special picked out that we would like to name a son.

Sometimes I think I want a baby. But usually is more for company when Wes is working night shift and I'm lonely, than because I want to be a mother. That to me is no better than women who decide to have babies without husbands because they think it will fill some hole in their lives that a man has never fulfilled (did you see Grey's Anatomy last night?). When I think of the responsibility that will come with a baby, I change my mind and decide that I will definitely want Wes around as much as possible, even more than I already do!

The bottom line is that someday I will be ready for kids. Someday I will have a Chloe middle-name-to-be-determined and a Layla Beth (and maybe even a little Sean Wesley). It won't happen anytime soon, but when we're all ready (me and Wes and God, who teaches me lessons every day that will someday help me to be a good mom), I will knit this for my little girl to wear.

what to do with a little leftover yarn?

I presented Grandma's bittersweet socks to her on Saturday at brunch. They turned out really cute and I think I need to get more of that color to make myself a pair too ... but it's getting warm again and knitting socks isn't really a priority. HOWEVER, my attention span for knitting has been short lately as there are still boxes all over my new apartment and work has been slightly hellacious too. I was trying to decide what to do with this little bit of yarn that was left over from Grandma's socks and while reading the latest posts on pieknits, got some inspiration! it's always nice to find a pattern that I don't have to buy any supplies for, even if I don't have a reason to make it ... don't worry, this isn't my way of breaking any big news :)

changing the subject quickly! I was in town to have brunch with Grandma on Saturday because Tia and I ran in the Great American Adventure Race on Saturday a.m. It was on the westside of Central Park (with Edwards Hill!) and was sooo fun to run there again! my last race on that course was Cross-Country League Finals senior year of high school, almost 10 years ago! (omg, 10 years?!?!?!) anyway, I think being back on that course brought back some competitive juices and we ran pretty hard, but it yielded in second and third place finishes for our age group. We were in the top 25% overall ... my time for the 4.8 mile course was 39:06 ... pretty good for all the hills too! Next race is the half-marathon in Santa Ynez! Hope we're ready for it ... training for this one hasn't been as deliberate as the Rock 'N Roll in January. I would love to PR again, but with the hilly course and less miles under my belt this time, I am not too optimistic.

first finished socks!

today at lunch I officially finished my first PAIR of socks!! sooo exciting :) I think I did the toes wrong ... I'll have to ask Grandma how they feel, but hopefully, since these weren't made to go inside of shoes, the fit will be okay. I wanted to hurry up and finish these since I'll be having lunch with Grandma tomorrow and have been working on these socks for her for months! I am behind on all my knitting due to the move and lots of running to get ready for the Wine Country Half-Marathon in May. Plus, with Wes on day shift I am not as bored at night!

April Showers

a rainy day today - the hardest rain all year, I think. All week I have been wishing spring on with cute springy outfits and today I am back to jeans and socks and a coat. sooo, to make myself feel better :) I'm going to review the things I am most excited about in the warmer weather months:

Wedge sandals are work and weekend appropriate so I really get my money's worth out of them. also, it is so much more comfortable to wear wedge heels over pumps, especially at the height of race training ...	... speaking of race training, Tia and I are gearing up for another half-marathon next month. This one we'll actually get to run together! After this race, we'll need to find another event to keep us motivated to keep running! Tia's getting married in September and I have a couple of vacations coming up ...
... to Las Vegas in June (temps in the 100s?) and Colorado in September (to celebrate our two-year anniversary!). both trips will be close to week and I can't wait! other than a couple long weekends here and there, Wes and I haven't been on a real vacation since the honeymoon!	I already have a new dress picked out that I'd like to wear in Vegas, but I'm hoping it will go on sale before then!

more stuff I like about this time of year: wearing shorts to work (when it's not raining, of course), baseball season!, NHL PLAYOFFS (gooooooo Ducks), swimming - so good for back and shoulders and a nice way to balance out my runners legs, knitting fun things like Sahara and mom's shawl (if I can ever find the time), currently Wes is on day shift and I like seeing him every night - even if that isn't a usual "spring thing"

almost back to normal again

it has been a crazy couple of weeks with the move and everything, but I think life is getting back to normal. there is still too much to do at the new apartment (or too much sleep to be had) for me to be knitting in the evenings still, but I have gotten to enjoy some lunch-hour knitting. today I worked on Mom's shawl and got a few more inches done on that ... the picture is a little funky! cell phone cameras have come a long way, but still aren't that great, I guess! I'll try and take a real picture with my camera (once I can find it in a box somewhere ...) so you can see the colors ... I think it is turning out really well and I love the moss stitch for a little bit of texture. other than a little bit of lunchtime knitting on this shawl, I haven't worked on anything else since we got back from Arizona three weeks ago. I am to the toe decreases on Grandma's second sock, which means from here on out I just need to have an hour or two of uninterruptedness so I can keep track of where I am at! I haven't had that luxury for a while, so they are still on hold :)

good enough to eat

another slow day at work today, so since I can't knit at my desk, I had some fun at becomeanmm.com. Click there and you can make your own personal M&M, choose from a plain, peanut or almond body in whatever color you want, then add expressive eyes and mouths, accessories and shoes, then place your M&M in the background of your choosing! Soooo ridiculous and fun. Here are the M&M people I made for Wes and I ... can you tell I am anxious for our vacation to come?? can't wait to get by the pool with a tiki drink in my hand! for now I'll have to live vicariously through my M&M creation!


UPDATED THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2007 at 4:45PM TO ADD:
finished my work early today so had some fun with more M&M friends ... can you identify these four of my nearest and dearest? there seems to be a trend in footwear as well ...

reprieve

took a little break from knitting the last couple weeks because Wes switched to day shift and he's been home every night. yay! also, Tia and I have ramped up our running program in preparation for the Santa Ynez Wine Country half-marathon on May 12 and by the time I get home from running most nights I just want to eat and then pass out. Blogging has also been on hold because work has been totally insane ... However, I have a couple of projects still going and this weekend when Wes and I flew to Arizona for Taylor's adoption party I got back on track and work today is slow, so I'm playing catch-up on lots of things!
Mom came up to visit a couple weeks ago after we went to see Wicked at the Pantages Theatre in LA. She'd been talking about wanting a shawl for a while, so I took her with me to AFY to pick out the yarn herself. I am glad I did because I never would have picked out what she picked (Louisa Harding: Impressions. click here to see Mom's color choice - it's #1), but it has been really fun to work with and I think it will be gorgeous and go with lots of items she already has in her closet. No real pattern for a shawl (sort of patterned after this one but with different yarn, larger needles and no buttons); I did a swatch to figure out how many stitches I would get per inch and figured out the cast-on from there. Now I just have to knit (in moss stitch on 10.5 needles) until it is long enough. Hopefully we have enough yarn already - it was kind of pricey!
I am also working on finishing up my first two pairs of socks. I got some more navy yarn to finish up Wes' socks when Mom and I made our AFY trek and in the interim I have been working on the great bittersweet socks for Grandma, although I've only been getting in a few rows at a time on lunch breaks lately. Hope to finish them soon because it's starting to warm up around here and the need for socks to wear to bed won't be as urgent.
On Friday I joined a KAL (knit-a-long) with the Sexy Knitters Club to motivate me to cast on for Sahara. I've had the yarn for this since the Super Bowl Sunday sale at AFY, but I am a little intimidated by the crochet cast-on and mostly haven't had the time. the KAL officially starts April 1, so I'm going to try and finish up the socks before then, but no promises since we're packing packing packing to move to a more affordable apartment next week (yay for saving money for a real house!). Knitting has always been more of a leisurely, relaxing project for me, so I am not going to kill myself trying to get projects finished instead of packing, but I do need a break from boxes and sorting every once in a while.
p.s. after the party on Saturday I had my first attempt at teaching when Renee asked me to help her get started on a scarf. Her girls came to her asking if they could all knit together, which is awesome, except first Renee has to learn how! She was a fast learner, I just had to help with the cast-on mostly! I love new knitters :)

married to bigfoot

i sat down to do some knitting last night in between baking and cleaning and getting ready to move, but I didn't get too far on Wes' blue socks because I ran out of yarn! I guess for Wes and his big feet I need to buy more yarn or not make them so high at the top because with his giant instep, I can't get both socks out of one ball of yarn ... this was a big 100g/200yd ball too, but maybe next time I will try larger needles. The recommended needle size for this is 8, but I was using 4 as the pattern recommended (though the pattern also recommended worsted weight). Maybe a compromise of size 6 needles will stretch the yarn farther.

a hat for me!

stayed up way too late last night finishing up this hat ... the pattern is the Adults-Only Kittyville hat from the first Stitch-N-Bitch, but I left off the ears and braided the cords instead of making an i-cord. I know how to make i-cords (did it on Mom's neckwarmer), but at 11:30 last night, I didn't really have the energy ... zzzzzzzz ...
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is of the impression that a hat is a better first project than a scarf because scarfs are just long and boring while hats are over quicker, plus allow you to learn new skills. Although I learned on scarves and completed three before I couldn't take it any more, I am way more enjoying my new foray into hats, socks and half-gloves for smallish quick projects. So far in my knitting life, I have not started a project just to put it away when I get distracted by something else for a long period of time (yes, my brown sweater is taking forever, but so far, I do keep going back to it!) but I must confess that there are two half-finished scarves sitting in my yarn bin that I can't bring myself to complete.
p.s. as I mentioned yesterday, the hat yarn is Lorna's Laces bittersweet worsted weight and I am making socks out of it too!!

my own personal "one with the jam"

Saturday Wes and I drove down to the Staples Center with a buy-one-get-one-free coupon in hand for the Kings game vs. the Nashville Predators. The coupon (and a low-attendance due to an afternoon game the same weekend as the LA Marathon and the Kings general suckyness) enabled us to get ice-level tickets behind the Kings home goal. From this vantage point we had a great view of seven of the nine goals scored in the game (6 from Nashville, yeah!) including two awesome goals from Paul Kariya to make my stalker trip complete and happy. I also realized that Peter Forsberg is one scary Swede when he's skating full speed towards his opponents goal. He already scared me, but seeing him from that angle brought new levels of terror.
I brought along Wes' second navy sock to work on during the 65 mile trip and made significant progress, I also knit on the way home and my 130 miles of knitting produced a too-tall top of sock. oops. When I sat down yesterday to do the heel and gusset, I realized I had knit an extra half-inch on the top of the sock. I have some more heel decreases left to do before I knit a jillion rounds for his huge foot, but I was anxious to move on to another project last night. I couldn't take any more of the plain blue on tiny (size 4) needles so I cast on Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted weight (color bittersweet) on two size 8 circulars to knit myself a hat with seed stitch edging and ear flaps ... soo cute. the color is the same I am making my second pair of socks out of too. I am almost to the decreases on the hat, so hopefully with a couple good nights of knitting tonight and tomorrow while Wes is at work (only FOUR more night shifts left!) I can get his socks and my hat done this week and get on to finish that second pair of socks too. I have half decided to shelve my brown sweater until after summer as it is getting warmer here and I have two other spring/summer sweaters I want to make. I checked out Wendy Bernard's blog this morning and I swear she lives here in town. I already thought she lived somewhere in the county due to comments about local places (Ronald Regan Library in Simi, Santa Barbara Zoo, pictures of the Ventura pier, etc) but in yesterday's post there was a picture of an AFY shopping bag full of yarn! I feel like a bit of a stalker realizing this (too much stalking for one weekend!), but mostly I am soo anxious to knit up my Sahara now. She had pictures of more finished Saharas from other knitters and I want mine! I already decided I am going to do the sleeveless style and have bought (more than) enough yarn to complete it. Now I just need to cast on and get started once I finish the socks and hats and more socks I have planned ... better do it soon or I will be shelving Sahara to go back to the brown hoodie in September!

it's true, I hate being bored!

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

You appear to be a Knitting Adventurer. You are through those knitting growing pains and feeling more adventurous. You can follow a standard pattern if it's not too complicated and know where to go to get help. Maybe you've started to experiment with different fibers and you might be eyeing a book with a cool technique you've never tried. Perhaps you prefer to stick to other people's patterns but you are trying to challenge yourself more. Regardless of your preference, you are continually trying to grow as a knitter, and as well you should since your non-knitting friends are probably dropping some serious hints, these days.http://marniemaclean.com Take this quiz! Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

no TV for kitchener stitch

last night I finished up the first one of my second pair of socks (pink and orange!), I can do toe decreases with the TV on, but had to pause it (yay TiVo!) do do the kitchener stitch to close the toe. but it looked great - the first kitchener stitch I did that turned out right (the navy blue on Wes' sock makes it very hard to see the stitches so I messed up a little bit on that one). I absolutely love this yarn I am using (I keep forgetting to take a picture!) but I think I might go get another skein today at lunch and make a hat out of it. I still want to make myself a hat like the pink one I made for Marge before it gets hot again. anyway, since I keep forgetting to take pictures of my new socks, here is a picture of Reese Witherspoon at the Oscars on Sunday (I watched the Oscars with Stine while knitting the pink and orange sock, does that count?) and I totally want her hair cut ... what do you think?? my side-swept bangs aren't really working for me anymore so I am ready for something different! but if it doesn't look cute, then I will definitely need that new hat!