Vroom vroom!

There was indeed good car knitting time!  

I completed the socks for Middle, I did do some work on the green shawl, but it is definitely languishing.  You and I had a great time measuring and talking about yarn, so by the time we got home I was about 2/3 of the way done with the back.  I guess officially I started while we were camping, so not totally car time.  Surprisingly, Jeff let me drive more than usual on the way back, so that was a 4+ hour block of no knitting.  Alas!

I have completed the back panel and am making progress on the front.  It is definitely going quickly, because (as I have said before) it's fatter yarn and bigger needles.  I like the way this sweater is constructed as well.  I think it will go well.  My plan is to finish the body panels and then sew the body together and send it to you to test for fit before I do the sleeves and neck.  I am wondering if I can get that done before I leave on Aug 1.  We shall see! (José goes to Japan 8/22-30, so there might be a leeetle opportunity to knit at work)

(An aside - I am writing this at work, there is a lab meeting happening next door, and the PI (José) just said, "First of all, people are stupid".  He cracks me up.)

What else is happening in craft-land...
I am preparing to knit a vest from a kit while at the meeting in Munich.  It's pretty straightforward, and I think I can get it done quickly (lots of downtime), so then I can wear it in Scotland, where it is not as warm as Munich.  That's my plan.  I'll also be taking some socks to knit, as socks are small and easy to schlep around.  I really want to take more knitting with me, but I'm not sure it's a wise decision.  I'll be gone almost three weeks and I'm worried about the clothes situation.  Scotland could be cold.  We'll see how I can pack it all.  It would be great to bring the lonely shawl along and make progress on that as well.  I'm too worried about losing pieces to bring your sweater along.

Not much else.  Smallest had a great time at their audition, but did not get an offer.  However, it did prompt her to consider what she wants to do differently going forward and I think she has a great plan for the coming season.  The best part is that she's planning to not return to her current company for the 2027-2028 season, which gives her a lot of fuck you energy for the awful director.

Hope your travels are smooth!

Margie

Also - a silly, Yay Spain, and boo broken collarbones for Jonas.  

Here Comes Car Time!

I like the bald lion.  He looks very medieval.  I like the dinosaurs too!  You've done that so quickly!

I will see you in... approximately 60 hours!  I am excited about our trip.  The schedule has been a bit hijacked because Jeff's younger daughter has moved to Denver so there is some visiting to be done.  I also understand that there are some wildfires in Utah that may end up affecting our camping trip, so we'll figure that out when we get there.

I am super excited about hours of knitting/project time in the car.  I even now have some lights that g around my neck so I can work in the dark!  I would start on your sweater, but I need to check measurements first.  I need to track down our emails/texts about it or just wait and look at it together.  I might send you the spec sheet.
I will definitely bring along all the yarn so you can squish it!  It is SOOO soft!  I think you will like it.

I'm working on the second sock from the March (third?) self imposed sock club month.  We will ignore the fact that it is June (almost July!).  This one was super fussy and I do not like it.  I made it smaller than intended, in part because Middle likes shorter socks, but also because I couldn't stand to knit more.  I will finish the second one and never knit this pattern again.  There are parts I do like, but overall it was just too much.  I should finish this on the way to CO.  Then I'll work on the shawl thing the rest of the way.

I did sew the buttons on the baby sweater, but haven't gifted it.  I hear the recipient has grown quickly and is wearing larger clothes now, so it might be time for another baby sweater!  Oh no, not that!

I have had a long stretch of doing nothing.  Perhaps it was work sucking my will to craft, or the post-daylight savings messing with my sleep and so I haven't been getting up early enough to take the bus, or having The Boy home?  Who knows.  However, I have been doing more recently and that's a good thing.  I did send you an email with some other sweater ideas for what to do with the yarn you got in Boulder.  A less stressful sweater!

Oh!  I did finish the dress, and wore it at the Rehearsal Dinner boat ride.  I don't know if I have a picture of me in it there, but I like it, and will wear it again.  It has pockets!  The photo shows only one sleeve on - I had pinned it to decide if I wanted them or not.  They were tooooo poofy, so I went sleeveless.  Here we are at the wedding also.  Smallest couldn't be there because she had to work at the recital for one of the dance studios she works for.

I believe you had dinner with Smallest on Tuesday, two days ago!  I have heard no report from either of you.  Smallest and Middle will see each other twice this weekend, as Middle and Beau will be in Smallest's part of the world for a wedding.

I don't know a whole lot more.  I'm guessing we'll leave around 6:30 am Houston time on Saturday.  Jeff likes to stop more than I do, so we'll see how fast we get there!  Usually he likes an early stop for a fountain drink, so I'm thinking I might get a cup and a bottled drink for him on Friday, and then we can prep the drink at home before we leave.  Less stopping!

Dino detour

It's been so long since I blogged! Sorry about that. I love the baby sweater!! Nice work repairing that hole - you are truly a knitter extraordinaire. 

Lion is coming along. I am still undecided on whether to give him some mane on the top of his head. The baldness is so sad to me, but I also don't love the idea of altering the pattern. Anyway, green background can be done regardless, so that's where I've been focusing. See?

I also started a new project - when I sent off the 12 flower blocks to the recipient, they called to thank me and one of the things they said was that no one had ever made a thing like that just for them. It made me realize that their mom (my dear friend) is not a crafty type, and so maybe one of her other children would also like a hand-made present. I happened to have this cute cute dino pattern, and now I'm nearly done! I hope child #3 will like it. :)

I need to come back to the quilts and other ongoing projects. Sooooon...

- Catherine

Finito!

I finished Tiny Sweater on the 18th, according to my phone pictures.  I sewed in the ends and blocked it later, and do still need to sew on the buttons, but I've picked them out and they're ready to go.

The buttons are the ones right of center.

                                                    

I am again waffling about your sweater, Catherine.  We should call to talk about it.

I get to go see Smallest this weekend!  Jeff is coming this time, and we're going to see the final performance of their season.  I'm hoping it will be her last performance with the company, but we'll see how her audition goes!  I'm very excited for her.

I don't think I've mentioned it already, but one of my goals for the year is to knit a pair of socks every month.  I'm not doing so well with it.  If I count the socks for Smallest as January, then I'm only three months behind!  Ha ha!
I prepared for this by filling 12 paper lunch bags with a ball of sock yarn and a pattern, so I could just grab one when I needed it and go.  I did start on some socks last month, but it turned out that the leg was going to be long, and my sock recipients don't like long socks.  I unraveled it when I blocked the baby sweater and I've started again on a different pre-selected pattern and man, oh man, is it fussy!  I will persevere and get it done, but I think I might not make the foot as fancy as the leg.  We shall see.

I also started on a dress for my nephew's wedding weekend.  I made a mock-up with some old fabric and have consulted with Smallest on the sleeve choices as she is more stylish than I am.  I think I can get it done in a weekend if I try, and I have a month to make it.  Better get started next week!

How is the Lion?  How was your trip?

I don't think I know anything else crafty and exciting?  I've made some progress on the green lacy shawl from TV watching, but we're watching less TV.  

I think we'll be meeting with the Retirement Guy soon, who will tell us when Jeff can retire.  However, I don't think I'll be ready to retire when Jeff retires, so this will be tricky!

Finally - here is a fragment of Christmas Cactus that I rescued from the floor of a plant place, and a sculpture that I pass every morning on my way to work.  I love it so much!

Happy Tuesday!
Margie

So Small, Such Trouble!

I have been having a lot of trouble with this little sweater for something so tiny!

First, I've been having needle issues.  TL/DR - it was a pain, but is now resolved.
The long version - I started on size 4 straight needles for the ribbing at the collar, and then switched to size 6 straights for the body.  One of the needles is missing the knob at the end of the needle, so stitches can fall off the end.  Not a big problem, except that the sweater kept getting bigger and closer to the end.  So I switched to circular needles, but the tube between the needles was hard to slide the stitches over and made it all SO SLOW!  I got another set of needles out, and all was well.  When it was time to switch back to the size 4 for the final rows, I took the needles out of the 4 pocket, but after a row realized that they were actually size 5!  What? So I found some actual size 4s last night and did all the bottom ribbing.  I just need to bind off that edge and then it's off to Sleeveland!

Here's the new problem.  This occurred yesterday as I was bus knitting.  I was sitting there, happily working away when I noticed a hole waaaay up towards the top.  The options - 1) leave it there, 2) undo the whole sweater back to the hole, or 3) undo the involved rows and just rework those two.  
I didn't want to leave it, and I sure didn't want to undo the whole thing.  I had to undo several rows over the weekend because I used the smaller needles instead of the bigger ones and doing the sleeve separation for a third time didn't appeal to me.  So, undo the two rows and repair the hole!

Simple enough, right?  Except that the hole was in part created by me accidentally adding a stitch.  Oops.  If I eliminate that second stitch, there will be a bunch of extra yarn to manage and work into the rest of the sweater and that would be almost as much of a pain as re-knitting the whole thing.  So I kept the extra stitch.  I worked them back up, and thought it looked okay, but not great.  Then I looked at the back.  Yeah, this was not the best operation to perform on the bus.  I undid them again, but this time only one stitch at a time, and now it's pretty again.  

               

 

                            

I'm hoping to find 15 minutes to bind off during work today (maybe I'll eat lunch downstairs and take it with me) so that I can start the sleeves tonight.  I think they're just 30 rows or so?  That won't be so bad.

Anyhow, I hope you've enjoyed my tale of woe, and accompanying photo essay (I don't know why the photos are wonky!).  This also makes me appreciate knitting as a medium as opposed to things like woodworking.  It's generally pretty easy to fix mistakes.

I think Smallest might be in touch soon about the audition?  We talked about it yesterday and I mentioned that you were hoping to hear how things went.

Side Quest

The Basketweave stitch is super easy and very satisfying.  The slant will not block out.  Ask me how I know :P

I am stalling on the socks because I feel like they're going to be too big, and also they're going to be very long, and I think the intended recipient doesn't like long socks?  So maybe I need to choose a new pattern for the yarn.  That might be the appropriate solution.  These are my February socks, so you get an idea of how well I'm doing with my plan.  Alas.

Last week I told Jeff about a new yarn shop near us and he was insistent that we go check it out.  He is The Best.  While there, clearly I had to buy some yarn!  In looking at the yarn, it occurred to me that I could make a super cute, tiny baby sweater instead of trying to make a second annoying quilt, so I picked up this yarn to make this sweater.

I've had a couple of issues due to not paying attention, or just mechanical problems (sticky needle cable problems) so I'm in the body now, past dividing for the sleeves.  I had dreams of getting it finished this weekend, but we were just super busy.  I have 26 rows left in the body (I've done 42), and then the sleeves and it will be done!  I bet I can finish it this week, because there will be bus time!

Picture 1 is from Saturday, I started on Friday night.  Picture 2 is this morning.  I need to find some cute buttons!

                

After I finish this, I'm going to start on your sweater and work it into rotation with the blanket/shawl thing and whatever the future holds for the sock.  

We're going to DC to see Smallest dance again - Jeff is coming with me this time! - so that will be some good plane knitting time.  Jeff hasn't been to DC with me yet, so this will be fun.

Dance Gossip - you know how there were some dancers who were all put in that specific group in Swan Lake?  For the Four Seasons piece they're doing in May, all of those dancers have been put only in Fall.  One of the dancers (a roommate of Smallest) has figured this out, and is _not_ happy that she's in Fall.
Also, I think Smallest was going to go to more auditions in NY this weekend, but I didn't hear about it.  I'm wondering if that happened?

Here is a silly picture for you.  Did you see the Paris-Roubaix results?  

Lion in wait

I am slowly slowly making progress on the lion! I have discovered that it is a handy thing to do during meetings where I just have to listen, and also keeps me from speaking up when it would be better to stay quiet. I took it to a choir meeting last weekend that went on for THREE HOURS and I was very well behaved having my stitches to work on.

Sounds like I better learn the basket weave, because my canvas is starting to get a bit lopsided. I was hoping it's like knitting where you just block it at the end, but maybe not? Humph. 

Aside from the green forest, I still have to finish face, mane, a bit of the butterfly, two buds, and I think I will give the bird a different color eye (it's currently light green, totally invisible). I'm also still considering whether I should give him a row or two of mane around the top of his very bald head. It's so weird!!

Thanks for being willing to absorb my yarn! I will do an assessment with Evil Twin and see what should be sent off to the land of knitting. :)

I love the yellow socks. I'm sure if you want to knit 12 pairs this year, you can do it. :D

Renovations are also done, hooray! So I have regained access to my room and sewing machine. Good timing, too - the two pencil cases I didn't finish in time for Christmas presents for my team need to be made before I go see one of them in person in ~a week. 

- Catherine