Hats and Skullies and Beads, Oh My!

The Beaded Cable Hat is done. Pix on Ravelry and Flickr, but those are duplicates of here and previous entry.


The next project is another pirate hat for a niece who hopefully doesn't know about this blog. This is my second Pirate Hat. A teen niece who loves lime green AND pirates. How could I not do this, and how could it not be perfect for her?
I think I will only do two repeats of the skulls, due to all the stuff at the brim. I used the last of the beads from the pink hat to make the eyes (or, I guess it would be eye sockets) for the first set of skulls. I have some metallic gold seed beads that might look good for the next repeat. I think RED ones would be awesome, but I'm trying to use up what I have.

Finally, a bit of STUNNING news -
My daughter found my wedding ring, which I thought was lost forever about 3 months ago. It is a little snug right now for my ring finger, so I'd been wearing on my pinky finger. Obviously, it's a little big for that. I noticed it gone right after returning from grocery shopping. I called the store but of course they hadn't seen it. It is not a large stone, but it's conceivable that someone still might have seen it on the floor and helped themselves. Or, it could have been swept up in the trash. I also called the restaurant - we had treated ourselves to brunch that Sunday morning. In fact it might have been Father's Day and that was why we went out, as DH usually cooks a big breakfast on Sunday morning and he "got the day off." I also did a cursory check around the car, with no luck. Once we started tearing up the yard end of June - details on the remodel blog - I knew that if it HAD fallen off then, it was hopelessly gone - it was needle in a haystack time, and soil removed from one place was being replaced somewhere else. Turns out it never left the house. She was looking for her ipod headset and went rummaging under my computer desk and there it was. Whatever frustrations there may be with a no-longer-teen-but-still-adolescent daughter, they were all forgotten for a while when she called me so excited I couldn't make out what she was saying at first. Life is good.

Butterflies, Bug, Buttons, Booties

Wow, this is cool - I post stuff and people look at it. Cool!

I'm leaning toward the ladybugs because they are, ironically, gender neutral. I completely spaced the other meaning of frogs - how weird is that? I found some adorable little hippo buttons, perfect match for the pale green, but there's only two of them - found in a sidewalk sale at fabric store. Drat!

Next issue, booties. I am so annoyed with the bootie pattern (ironically called, "------------'s Perfect Booties") because they so are not. The cast on number is wrong, the directions are wrong. If you do 3 M1's between markers, you are NOT going to have the same number between the markers on next row. If anyone had beta tested this pattern, this would not have slipped through.

I found a fairly basic pattern, knit flat. I improvised by changing the body of bootie to seed stitch instead of what was called for - Quaker stitch? - K 3 rows, P3 rows to match the cuffs, bands and collar on the sweater. There is a little 4-stitch cable on top of bootie - I'm changing that to the 4-stitch cable on the sweater.

The short rows are not looking right, and when I took a closer look, I wasn't even using a #4 but the same #7 used on sweater. So, speaking of frogs, there I go. I will cast on again when I get done here.

95% FO

The yellow baby sweater is done, except for the buttons. Not sure which ones to pick. There are buttonholes on both bands. I will stitch a set of buttons to some grosgrain or cloth tape and push the buttons through on one side. I fear that both these sets of buttons look kind of girly. I realize that a 6-month old boy won't care, but someone at work suggested FROG buttons, so I'm going to look for those.

I have a pattern for worsted weight booties. I will probably start those tomorrow.

A weak attempt to play catchup..

So, it's been 3 months since I last posted. Why does it sound like there should be a priest behind a screen as I say that? I think I will try for a very brief recap.

Only made a few gifts for Christmas, one for a sister, who has to walk long distances to work.



I made several items for the raffle at work, and started many more.

Since the first of the year, I've done a lovely scarf out of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (yummy), not sure who that will be for.
Mom finished L's socks, that I started MONTHS ago, got 1.5 socks done and couldn't stand them anymore. She did the 2nd foot and toe in, like, 20 minutes. OK, 1.5 days, but still. They were in my Guilt Corner for months, and now they're done and he even wears them! What a concept!



and E is now lobbying for HERS, which I really should do - they are sportweight so won't take long at all. Except that she is no longer the LimeGreenGirl. Oh well. After that, I think I'm giving up on socks.

Work has been crazy, but I've finally offloaded most of the travel arrangements to someone else. She is very sharp and she is catching on great. I did it for 6 years, but I'm a glutton for punishment.

In non-knitting news, the big news is a new member added to the family about 6 weeks ago.
Her previous mommy simply could not manage her allergy symptoms any more. It's going better than anyone had hoped, especially with our original cat, Joey, thinking he was king of the hill and weighing roughly triple what she does. They have their moments but generally, there is a peaceful coexistence:

In her honor and to thank the friend who selflessly gave her up, I did this, which still needs felting. Her BD is next week, so it will be a nice little present from New Mommy to Old Mommy.

Mom's house, sold to a contractor in May, went back on the market in December, for $449K
We got to take the full tour and it was AMAZING, the changes. You can see the full show here:

We are now planning a huge remodel / addition to OUR house, which will effectively double the space. We own this house, a fixer-upper, free and clear so financing should not be a problem. We are getting contractor's and sub's bids for the work, and drawings are at 95%. By Christmas this year, we will either be closer than ever, or as my boss says, "one of you will be at the bottom of the lake and the other in handcuffs. I just don't know which will be which."

Ravelry is where most of my online time has gone to, and of course, if you have Ravelry, you pretty much need Flickr. I will put links to the side, hopefully, when I finish here.

And that is why we knit for other people...

I gave B the scarf for J's birthday. She was in tears reading the note, and again when she opened it up. Well, I had hoped it would touch her, but I didn't mean to upset her! There were hugs all around and later she sent me a Hallmark e-card in appreciation. Later, there was some glitch and Hallmark sent the message 7 times. She was apologizing and I told her I would save them for the gift recipients who don't appreciate the effort. Interesting coincidence, her nail polish color that day was a PERFECT match for the scarf...

I've been alternating between two projects since then.

<= I finished the gusset for the Brea bag, decreased from 16 to 12 stitches, folded the edges around, and started the i-cord for strap. The cord is 120 rows, boring, but it goes fast, good for commute knitting. Once the three cords are done, I will loosely braid them together and then kitchener to opposite side of gusset. I'm quite proud of myself for not starting something new. It's a little disingenuous since I *have* started maybe 10 new things since the first of the year, but every little bit helps. I have a button, clasp, pendant thing that will go with this PERFECTLY. I found it by accident and it has the same shape as the lotus petal, is primarily pearlescent white with a little bit of black and orange in it!!

Morning Glory => I am about 25 rows into the 58 rows total. I did an Excel spreadsheet (I love numbers) and figured out that I have about 20% of the knitting done. There will be over 600 stitches by the time it's done. I love the way this is working out. After all the struggling with learning the chart on Dogs Paw, I'm delighted to see this is making sense sooner. I added two repeats to chart to account for general boobage, but I think it will be a "one size fits most" if I decide to not keep it. DD saw the pix and pronounced it worthy of the old "You Knit What" webpage, so clearly it is not for her.

Yesterday, we took another look, with the realtor, of what might be our new home. The house has been on the market for several months, price has been reduced 10%. House is being sold as-is, but the few items needing attention are not massive. We may make an offer contingent on the house inspection. But how can you not love a house with 3 separate walls of stuff like this:

There are DOZENS of shallow drawers for placemats, etc. It almost looks like they were set up for architectural drawings. God bless my DH - he brought a skein of yarn to check it in the shallow drawers (they are about 4 inches high, lots of nooks and crannies to store stuff).



A couple of non-negotiables that are probably keeping this house on the market are: NO back yard (not a problem for me - lawn mowing is SO over) and it's located on a busy street with the city bus stopping 30 yards west of the front door. The street noise is pretty well muted by the windows and would be even more so if we replaced them with double panes. The kitchen is small, but soon it will be just the two of us, and cooking is not a pastime or hobby with me; it's a necessary evil. My current kitchen is HUGE but poorly designed so having everything closer works for me. There's even a built-in spice rack behind those cupboard doors at the far end, and they are probably 4 inches deep.

So, we're thinking about it and thinking about getting prequalified. There are not loads of buyers lining up for this house, so we've had some time, but I think we need to get moving on it Monday.

Finally, an old friend, my former BFF where we lived before, was in town and we got together and we had a grand old time. Things had sort of cooled off between us over the last couple of years. We just had the BEST time today! She comes from a small town that is not LYS-enabled (watch out for "enable" - it comes into play later) and so we hit three of my favorite LYSs - Naked Sheep (having their 2nd anniversary sale this weekend!), Mabel's (where Mom met us for yarn and a sip and a nosh =>) and Yarn Garden. I told her this was so much more shopping than I was used to, I'd have to have a cigarette afterwards.

In typical fashion, J netted out with only *2* skeins of yarn, but enabled me to do much worse, or is it better? Pix tomorrow when I've recovered.

So now, if I'm a good girl, I'll keep working on those two existing "current" projects and not start something with the new goodies, eh? Film at 11.