Progress on Adamas

I've been working on my Adamas shawl! We finally decided to start our knit-along. ☺ Here it is, after I had just finished the fifth repeat of the second chart.
Today, I finished the eighth. I didn't take any pictures today, though, because I'm busy preparing for a trip. I'm driving up to Kansas tomorrow to visit my family. I haven't time to post more right now; still more work to do. I'll try to post something next week, while I'm there.

In memory of Lyla.

That "new pattern in the works" that I mentioned last week...well, it's going to be in-the-works indefinitely. Baby Lyla, for whom I was making those legwarmers, didn't make it. She passed away when she was just three days old. Please keep her parents in your prayers.

♥

Here's a picture of the tiny legwarmers, but I won't be publishing the pattern yet. I like to make sure that what I make fits the person for whom it was made, before publishing a pattern.

I had planned to send these to my friend, and have her find out whether they fit well; whether they needed to be looser or snugger, or longer or shorter... And then I was going to tweak the pattern as needed and make more, a bunch more. I won't be doing that now. But I will keep Lyla's legwarmers, as a reminder to pray for her family. And maybe someday, there'll be someone else who can make use of them. If/when that happens, I'll update the pattern and publish it.

Another new pattern in the works...

After I posted yesterday about the tiny socks I designed, a friend of mine asked me to make some, but without feet, for a friend of hers who had just had a baby last week. The baby was very early, and weighed less than 2 pounds. I agreed, of course, then realized it was an opportunity to come up with a totally new pattern. So I'm working on teeny tiny ruffled legwarmers for a micro-preemie named Lyla. Stay tuned, I hope to have the pattern up within a couple weeks.

A new pattern!

I've just uploaded the pattern for the tiny socks I made last weekend! "Josie" is available on my pattern blog, at http://christineolsonoriginals.blogspot.com for free!

Organizing...

I'm not knitting much today. I'm trying to get a little Spring Cleaning done. This lovely Spring weather is inspiring me to organize, declutter and clean. I've done a little destashing of yarn recently, and now I'm reorganizing what's left. My acrylics fit in one bin now, instead of three. (I was uneducated on the wonders of natural fibers when I started knitting) I have a lot more cotton than anything else, so I'm going to have to find a way to get that all organized....maybe by color...

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I printed off a bunch of pretty sock patterns this morning. My friend Mara was destashing, too, but she had the good stuff. Thanks to my recent destashing, I had the funds to snatch three skeins of her gorgeous hand-dyed merino sock yarn, and it should arrive in the mail later this week or next. So I wanted to have patterns picked and ready by the time the yarns get here.

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And since I hate to blog without at least one picture....here's what I knitted this past weekend. I used a tiny bit of Malabrigo sock yarn, which I had leftover from Cathie's scarf.

And now Princess's porcelain doll has nice warm feet...and I have a new pattern to write up. One of my friends pointed out that these might fit a micro-preemie, an idea that hadn't occurred to me, but that I like.

Happy Bunker Liberation Day!

First of all, if you have no idea what Bunker Liberation Day is, that's okay. Just bear with me. It's a new holiday for a certain group of my friends, who are all members of a private website. A year ago, most of us were banned from a knitting website. The banning was undeserved, and was very hurtful at the time to all of us. I'll spare you the whole sad story, since I prefer to focus on the positive, but the main issue was politics.

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The reason I'm wishing Happy Bunker Liberation Day to my readers is that the majority of them are BunkerBabes. ☺ I participated in a really fun swap, to celebrate BLD. It was a UFO Swap, and I've mentioned it here before. I sent my Un-Finished Object and yarn to Angela, and Cathie sent her yarn to me. I can finally post pictures! Here is what I made with Cathie's yarn:

It's a scarf. The first picture is a closeup of the cables and lace.

And here's what Angela did with my yarn! It's Tunisian Crochet Entrelac! This makes me want to try both Entrelac, and Tunisian Crochet.

Angela also made some fingerless mitts to match!

And here are pictures of me, modeling Angela's masterpieces!

I know, being banned doesn't seem like something to celebrate. But that's only if you don't know how close-knit(pun intended) our group has become as a result. When we were banned, we were hurt, saddened, angry and depressed. With time, we began to realize that we were knitting and crocheting more now that we weren't distracted by that other site. And we even became more creative than we had been; several of us decided to take the first steps into designing our own projects. We've done multiple swaps, as I've mentioned before here on my blog, and with each one we get to know lots of little things about the person we're spoiling. We've made use of the chatroom on our site, even having online parties! Our New Year's Eve party was wild!

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All that to say, I love the BunkerBabes (and the one BunkerDude) like family. I'm glad we have each other. So Happy Bunker Liberation Day, Babes! I'm looking forward to many more years with y'all!

A whole lotta knittin' goin' on.

I finished this yesterday morning, with grafting the strap stitches, and Princess wore it all day. Turned out yesterday was a good day for it; warm, humid...we actually had to make use of the air conditioner in the van. Anyway, here are pictures of Princess, in her new tank top.

Here's a closeup of the front. The cables continue up the straps, and connect to the cables on the back.

Here's the back. Can you see where the stitches were grafted? The only problem I see is that the last cable, where the straps meet the top of the back, is a little longer than the rest. I should have done one less row on the straps before grafting. Oh, well, you knit, you learn. Two more girls want tank tops....and my sister wants me to design a "romper" with the same cables, and make them for her girls.

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I'm also working on an extremely boring pair of socks. I'm using a variegated yarn, so I decided that I wanted it to be a pair of plain socks. To keep me from sticking my US2s in my eyes, I take a break every few minutes, and look at sock patterns that are not plain and boring. I've fallen in love with a bunch of cabled sock patterns. And I'm planning on sticking with solid or semi-solid sock yarn after this, so that I can do the more fancy designs, without worrying about the cables fighting with the color changes in the yarn.

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I haven't done much work on Surf. The long long long rows were wearing me out, and I wanted to do some projects with shorter rows, or rounds. I need to get back to it, so that I can send it to the friend I'm making it for.

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Adamas is still languishing in my other knitting bag, next to my chair. I really want to work on it, but I agreed to wait. I'm doing a lot of waiting these days.

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I got my box yesterday, from my friend Angela. If you remember I posted about our UFO swap in January. I sent her a bunch of fingering-weight cotton/bamboo/silk, and she stitched it up for me. I have to wait until Sunday to open it. The suspense is killing me. ☺ Okay, not really. I love surprises. And I even enjoy waiting for surprises. The anticipation is half of the gift, for me. I will post on Sunday afternoon, and let y'all know what she made for me....and what I made for Cathie. I'm not sure that Cathie reads my blog, but I know that she could find it pretty quickly if she wanted to. So that's why I haven't yet posted pictures of what I made for her.

Knitting like crazy

I'm finally feeling better. I had a rough few days; I was so sick I didn't feel like knitting! Now that I'm better, I'm making up for those days. I started, frogged, started, frogged, and restarted a pair of socks. Plain, boring socks, for knitting while I watch tv. But I was so bored with them I had to put them down and work on something else. I made two 6-inch squares for a baby blanket project, and was struck with the inspiration to make a whole blanket with squares like them, but all in one piece. I don't have the yarn yet that I want to use for that, so I decided to start something else. I've had this idea in my sketchbook since last fall, and now that the weather's warming up, I decided it's time to do it.

It's the beginning of a tank top for Princess, and this is after about four hours of working on it. It's pretty simple, much more interesting the ribbing on a sock, and it's going quickly. I was planning on having it 8 inches long below the underarms, but now I'm thinking I'll make it 9, just so she'll be able to wear it longer. In this picture, it's about 4 1/2 inches long, so just about halfway, not including the straps. ☺

I iz sick.

Ugh. Hubby gave me his cold. I need to run out and get some Zicam, because he took the Zicam I had to work. Anyway, prayers would be much-appreciated. I am so congested, and my head feels heavy. I don't even feel much like knitting this morning. That, right there, tells you how bad I feel. Anyway, I'm gonna get some Zicam and some Vitamin C and hope for the best.

I decided to set aside the Adamas Shawl I was working on yesterday. I had forgotten that some of my friends also wanted to do that pattern, and we had talked about doing a knit-along. Oops. My friend Christine reminded me, but not before I had already done four repeats of the second chart. So it's back to "Surf" for me...once I feel more like knitting. Maybe this afternoon.

In the meantime, I have to get up off my behind and mail a couple of packages... ☺

New project on the needles!

I did a few rows on my "Surf" shawl yesterday, but I also decided to cast on a new project. My friend Ally sent me two hanks of Knit Picks Gloss Lace last fall, and I finally picked out a pattern to go with it. I decided to use a pattern written by someone else this time. ☺ It's the "Adamas Shawl" by Miriam Felton. It's a free pattern, and can be found here: http://mimknits.com/shop/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=65&products_id=199
I really like this pattern so far. It's well-written, and easy to memorize. I started last night, and here's a picture. I just completed the first repeat of the second chart. Thirteen repeats to go.

This is my first project with laceweight yarn. I've done several lace shawls, but all with fingering-weight or thicker yarn. I've been a little afraid to try the thinner yarn, but now I see that my fear was unfounded. It's knitting up beautifully, and isn't any more difficult than sockweight.

Olympics are over...what to do? what to do?

I haven't knit a stitch since Saturday, when I finished my Olympic project. I spent Sunday afternoon moving furniture. Hubby had helped a friend move on Saturday, and in exchange for his help he was given a large TV, a small TV with VCR, and a HUGE entertainment center to hold the big TV. Some of our neighbors(big, burly men) helped Hubby put the new-to-us entertainment center in place in our family room. Then Hubby and I put the entertainment center that had been in the family room...in the bedroom, to hold the TV that we had in there. Then Hubby took a nap. He wasn't feeling well; I think he picked up a cold somewhere. While he took a nap, I moved the old entertainment center that had been in the bedroom....out of the bedroom, through the family room, down the hall, UP THE STAIRS, down another hall...to the playroom, to hold the small TV that Hubby's friend had given us. And when I say that I did it, that's exactly what I mean. I did it, by myself! I am woman, hear me roar! That thing was heavy, for this little, out-of-shape woman. But I did it. I was surprised that my bumping up the stairs didn't wake Hubby...I guess Dayquil isn't as "non-drowsy" as the commercials would have you believe. My muscles were incredibly sore yesterday as a result of my efforts. But I got that darned thing up the stairs! (I'm still pretty proud of myself)

On Monday, I was chatting online with my friends, who are also conservative knitters. We like to bounce ideas off of each other and encourage each other. After some discussion, I was encouraged to frog a project that had been hibernating for a year. It was a top-down raglan v-neck cardigan, with columns of cables all around the waist. I still love the design, and intend to remake it sometime, but with better yarn. You see, I had bought this yarn before I really knew the difference between inexpensive(cheap) acrylic, and good wool. I hate working with acrylic now, which is why this has been languishing in my hibernating-projects bin for over a year. Also, it wouldn't quite fit me now anyway. After some debating with myself and my friends, I decided I wasn't going to finish it in this yarn. So I took a picture, so I'd remember how it looked, then I took out the needles and began frogging. (For any non-knitters who may be reading, "frogging" refers to the ripping-out mantra: "rip-it, rip-it") Here's the "before" picture...

Sorry, I didn't take an after picture, but when I was done, I ended up with three liberated needles, and two balls of red acrylic yarn. It would have been three balls, but the third one got all tangled up when I was taking it off the winder, and after wrestling with it for a little while, I gave up and chucked it. I didn't need that third ball anyway. I gave the yarn to Angel, who promptly asked me to cast on 18 stitches for her. Then she knit one row and got bored and ran off to do something else. Go figure.

Anyway, I decided that the other five skeins of this yarn, which were unused, would go on Ebay. Then, having made that decision, I went and dug through my stash for more yarn I could sell, giving my friends fits of giggles in the process. You see, I found a huge bag of yarn I'd picked up at a thrift shop, when I was a brand-new knitter. It was also acrylic, and not very soft. There were 32 skeins of this yarn, all one color, all the same dyelot. I don't know what I was thinking, buying that yarn. So it went into the put-on-ebay bin, separated into two smaller bags of 16 skeins each. Then I asked my friends if they wanted to hear the really funny part. Between LOLs and hahahas, they said yes, so I told them: I have 16 skeins of this yarn in another color! What was I thinking?!? Anyway, all of that icky acrylic went into the bin, and I found a few other yarns that I was tired of, so they went into the bin as well. I got pictures taken, and the listings written up, but didn't put them on ebay last night. This morning, I got an email saying that listing fees were 50% off just today! Woohoo! So I'm off to put all that yarn on ebay now.

Maybe I'll get some knitting time today...