End of an Era

Anyone that knows my son knows he has a tail that he's been growing since he was 5. So over 6 years in the making. Well, today he asked me if I could help him cut it off. It's been trimmed a couple times over the year but this was the first time for cutting it off completely.

So I was going to post about yarn and knitting but we'll keep this one in memory of the tail....

Lessons Learned

First Lesson: Always check labels
The charcoal grey mentioned in the last post is going back to the store. Most of you know I have a wool allergy. While I can deal with superwash as it's been stripped of all lanolin, regular low-processed wool sets me off into hives, stuffed nose and asthma. Well that Plymouth Yarn is 25% wool and I can't be near it for long. Why did I buy it? I don't know, in my enthusiasm of yarn shopping with a friend and to actually have sweater yarn that was pretty and soft, I never looked at the fiber content! Ugh! (I have ordered some Swish Worsted (superwash merino) from Knit Picks that I have used before, no problem, in Merlot Heather)

Second Lesson: Always wrap the yarn for short-rows
The socks below are finished, very quickly, about a week because they are just stockinette and DK weight so not as many stitches. Now, at one point I thought that I didn't need to wrap the stitches on the heel because "hey this yarn is thicker". Wrong! See the holes? That's what happens.

Here's the second sock heel, I did the wraps and no holes. I'm only planning to wear these around the house, so no big deal but glad I learned on this pair and not one I was working hard on!


Finished pair on the sock blockers. (Kitten loves the smell of cedar and likes to nuzzle those!)

Off to work! -DFly

Happy Yarn Day!!

Today was a very good day! I took half the day off from work and got to spend the afternoon with Cami doing a mini-yarn crawl here in Milwaukee area. We went to Ruhama's, the Loop, and my favorite, Just 4 Ewe. It was great fun to just see Cami and then spend a day mostly without kids. (had my son at the last stop because I had to pick him up before daycare sold him as cheap labor)

I picked up some yarn for Mojave Sis, mostly baby yarn that she requested and then a surprise yarn. She can post those when she gets them.

For me, I got enough charcoal grey Plymouth Yarn to knit a cardigan I've been eyeing up. Now I don't have an excuse not to start! It's not super exciting yarn but I want a cardigan that I can keep at work because it's cold there and I wanted something that's fairly durable because I'm not one to baby my stuff too much. I actually picked up 8 skeins but didn't feel like photographing a big pile of grey matter.

Then for the exciting yarns! Two colors of JL Yarns Vinca. This was new at the Ewe and Jan (owner) had a sock knit up and it was a really pretty gradual color shift. Not standard striping so I'm really looking forward to seeing how they come out!

At Ruhamas I picked up a skein of Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn, beautiful bright peacock blue color! It's one of Sis' favorite colors but she can't have this one


Oh, exclusively at Just 4 Ewe (at least I'm pretty sure she's exclusive) I also picked up these two shawl pins today because they'll work for the cardigan (it doesn't have buttons). And now I've actually met Kim the designer so that's more fun. The cat and sheep pins were bought on a previous trip but I never blogged about them. I had sent a cat to Sis and didn't want her to have a clue and then forgot!

And I realized I totally missed posting about my my Fearless Fiber sock yarn and sock blockers. I went to her shop for the sock blockers but fell in love with this Earthenware color.

So now we can all guess that DFly needs more knitting time! I have been working on a pair of "quickie" socks, they are a thicker weight so I started them over the weekend and they should be done tomorrow. Needed some instant gratification. I'll post pictures of those shortly after I get them done and then tell you the lesson I learned....

Last but not least, cards. First a card sent by my hospital knitter friend, just to say hi. I though it was very sweet.

Next is a card created by Sis, inside, matching the card are little sock sized stitch markers. If you click on the picture to make it bigger you can see better and they are worth the look.

Til next time! - DFly

I blame the Jays!

Somehow for whatever reason I got it in my head that I wasn't posting again until the Jaywalkers were complete. Considering the last time was over two weeks ago, I guess that was not a great choice but you know, I'm stubborn! So here they are, complete!

They aren't quite right, I never did figure out how to get the gusset heel in the right spot. all of the directions I read didn't seem to account for the same kind of row count I was getting. Ah well, they are done and I'm not about to frog them!! And the parts that are questionable don't show when wearing shoes!

And onto the next sock. Seeing as my birthday is July Fourth, I'm calling these "birthday socks" even though my birthday is months away. Maybe I'll actually have them done in time. It actually uses two kinds of yarn and a slip stitch pattern. they are the densest fabric I've made. I may not want to wear them on my birthday since I suspect they will be very warm, but isn't it pretty??

Having a lot of knitter visiting lately! Last Sunday (the 2nd), son and I met with my friend the hospital knitter that I met when I had that abdominal pain. We ended up talking at Starbucks for over three hours, a very fast three hours. We traded stories and shared projects and looked at the Knit Picks catalog together. We even did a little origami. She and son traded bad card tricks. (bad as in neither one got theirs right *tease* Now son has practiced for next time) It was great fun!

Then this past Sunday (the 9th) I met several people at a LYS (Just 4 Ewe in Oak Creek). Got to meet a ton of people in "real life" that I've met on Ravelry. Jan, the owner, had a project bag scavenger hunt. you got points for having things like stitch markers, post it notepads, yarn from her shop, pens... anyway, I got 4th place. Having a crapload of safety pins at 5pts a pin helped! So I won a $10 gift certificate f or the shop. I'm saving that for my next knitting meet-up which leads me to.....

Cami's coming next week!! I'm so excited to see her! And Happy Birthday if you're reading this!! We are going to attempt to hit a few shops including Just 4 Ewe, which is when I expect to use the gift certificate!

Ok, lastly mom-type brags (I love him but I don't get that many). Saturday son had to do a solo on his viola in front of a judge and a room full of people.. The kids are rated on their own merit and he got the highest score he could. I don't think he'll stick with this much longer, he really dislikes it, but he's still working on it through this year since I've said that you finish out the things you start. We'll see next year. But in the meantime, he did a good job.

And then, he had to do a project to make a model of a plant cell. Since our mom is one of the managers at a craft store in Madison, the very first night he went through the list of what had to be in the model and he thought of items for Grandma to pick up for him. So he has a styrofoam ball nucleus, foam core cell walls, fabric for the cell membrane.... There's stuff called cytoplasm that is supposed to be "jellylike" that fills up all the rest of the cell. Well he used tissue paper for that, basically stuffing it everywhere that wasn't occupied by something else in the cell. The only thing I did was cut the styrofoam ball and the foam core.

It wasn't too bad and he had two weeks to do it. So one of the first things I had him do after we had the supplies was think of all the things that needed to be done. things like "paint the styrofoam ball" or "write labels and definitions". There were only about 8 different tasks and individually they were all about 20-30 minutes so every couple of nights he'd have to pick one off the list. He actually finished it a few days before it was due but the teacher didn't want them brought in early. Anyway here's the finished product, with the name blurred to protect the innocent.

Lotus is starting a sock club, sign-ups start Saturday, read her blog entry for more information.

Ok, I wish I had time to write miles and miles but if I did that, you wouldn't see a post for another week.

-DFly

eta 3/11 - realized birthday sock was a huge pic instead of a smaller sized compressed one