Art show II

Just because you can never get enough KitKatKlock: "Broken" My husband took up painting as a hobby this year - acrylics with multimedia. This is my favourite. "The Queen of the Tulips" This painting was done a an artist in New York City. Her name is Laura Loving, and she's a friend of my cousin John. John took me to a party at her apartment when I went to New York on a shopping field trip 2 years back. I saw the painting and really liked it. A few months later I decided to buy it, and when I went to NYC to see "The Gates", I picked it up and brought it back home with me.

Damn Damn Damn

Well, the saga of the world cup sweater has ended. Hubby tried it on, and it is a bit too tight across the chest. It's too big for me; I could rip it back a bit, do some waist decreases, etc, but I would prefer a deeper V neck if it was for myself. I would finish it and give it to my brother, but he's a few provinces away. It's too hot to even think of frogging it tonight - I think I will thread some spare yarn through the stitches and put it on the shelf. Maybe Jeff (bro) will come visit us this summer... Time to finish off MaryElla. Good weather for cotton floss and beads. Also too hot to download pictures - will have to do a download/upload jamboree later this week.

An own goal?

For the first time ever, I underestimated the amount of yarn to take on a trip. I have a 3+ hour flight tomorrow, and about 45 minutes worth of wool for my World Cup Sweater. Argh! And to add insult to injury, I was getting stuff packed up today and passed the sweater over to my hubby and asked him "Do you like the way the colours are working out?" He replied: "Sure. Um, is the neckline going to stay like that?" I initially thought that he was concerned because it is rolling, and I replied "Oh, don't worry, I will be putting some ribbing on the collar." Then I realized what he meant - he is not a fan of V neck sweaters. I knew this when I picked the pattern, but didn't think it was something impossible to overcome. I showed him the pattern before I started, pointing out the V neck, and he did not raise the issue (he instead mocked the wimpiness of the model on the pattern). I am close to being halfway done (I think), so I told him "I can just frog what I have done so far and start over if you want. At this point, the amount of time that will have been wasted is the same amount of time that I would spend finishing it, so if you aren't going to wear it anyways, I might as well cut my losses." So we of course start getting into one of those "You're mad" "No, I AM NOT MAD" type arguments discussions. From what I gather - he didn't really want a sweater. He thought it would be kind of neat for me to knit a sweater for him, and that I would have fun doing it. I thought he wanted me to knit something for him, and that he wanted something that he would actually wear. I specifically wanted to knit something that he would like. Now he's going to feel that if he doesn't wear it, I will be upset. I'm peeved that I didn't just go ahead and start working on my first pair of socks as a World Cup Project. No wonder the Sweater Curse exists. Anyways, when we get home, I'm going to make him try what exists thus far on. If it fits him, I will finish it. Maybe I will try to figure out how to put a collar on it. If it is too small, then I will frog it. And then I will start working on a pair of socks for myself. And if I do finish it and he doesn't wear the damned thing more than once, I will either frog it and make something felted, or shrink it so that it fits me. Pictures to come in the next few days.

Knitting monogamy

I have not worked on anything but the World Cup sweater for over a week. And I am just itching to start something else. It's straight knitting in the round right now, so I can do it as I watch a movie on the plane,look at web pages or read the newspaper. I totally want to start something else(funny...I am not itching to finish any of my other WIPs). There's that sock yarn that my Knitty SP gave me, and I've also got some ribbon yarn to make a turkish string bag with. Not to mention Kitty Pi2, which will be oblong to fit their basket. That being said, hubby is getting a kick out of me knitting something for him, and I do like the colour transitions of the Noro - I can see what the attraction of it is. The fact that the yarn varies in thickness as well as colour also makes it less monotonous. Hopefully this weekend DH will have a chance to try it on; I've done about 4 inches below the armholes so far.

world cup sweater

Just a few pictures so that my hubby can see how it is going. Hi sweetie! Here's where the sweater was at last Thursday, And here's where it is at today. It's hard to say how it's going to fit you at this point. As you can see, Somerset loves it. She and Greedo both miss you. I do too.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a word worth?

My first meme Rules: Please leave a one-word comment that you think best describes me — it can only be one word long. Then copy and paste this into your blog so that I may leave a word about you. I can't even blame Blogger for the lack of photo updates. Some time this week I will dig out the USB cable and download pictures from the camera. On the World Cup sweater front, I discovered that the colourway I am using is discontinued. So now I'm not worried about finding a matching dye lot, I'm just hoping that I can find a few more skeins of Kureyon colour 51. Otherwise I'm going to find a colourway that slightly coordinates with it and use it as a contrasting band across the chest.

MaryElla

MaryElla is almost complete - I was waiting for confirmation of Ute's wrist size, and then I decided that it wouldn't be a problem if it was too big, so if it was big enough to fit me, it wouldn't be too small on her. I managed to find a pink ribbon that matches the floss. Then realized that it is key to have an even number of holes to thread the ribbon through - as I discovered when I first thought I had finished and did a trial of threading the ribbon through. With an uneven number of holes, the ribbon entry and exit points were on different sides of the cuff. Doh! Now I just need to thread another 50 or so beads on to the floss so that I can add the extra bit to make an even number of holes (and fit Ute's wrist, which needs just a wee bit more room).

Parlez vous tricoter?

For a city full of artists, it is surprising that there are so few yarn shops in Montreal. Sadly, I am on a working vacation (emphasis on the working), so I haven't had the chance to check any of them out. Mental note - if you are going to head to Montreal and need to adjust to waking up early, a wedding in Toronto the weekend before is a baaaad idea. Progress on the World Cup sweater has been slow. The combination of Noro Kureyon and the Debbie plastic cord does not make for speedy knitting - I end up having to shove the stitches down the needle. I want to go buy some Addis (now that I have aquired the Magic Loop secret power), but that whole not-being-able-to-get-to-a-yarn-store bit keeps getting in the way. Next up is a wedding in Ottawa; if worst comes to worst, I should be able to pop into one yarn shop and get some needles. I also need to get an extra skein or 2 of the Kureyon, because I don't know if I've got quite enough. I am thinking that I might mix the balls together on the sleeves, since this might allow me to keep the stripes a bit closer in width to the body of the sweater. I would post a photo, but the progress is so meagre that I would need a macro function on my camera.

Magic loop rocks!

Since I am supposed to wait for a while before officially starting my World Cup Sweater, I decided to give the Magic loop a try. It is awesome. I want a T shirt that says "I heart Magic Loop"! I was using a 47 inch addi circ on my Somewhat Neglected Cowl, and I was just pulling out excess cable intermittently. When I do pick it back up, I will definitely try magic looping it. I then set out trying Wendy's toe-up sock methods. I cast on using the figure eight technique, and made a pretty good toe (although the cast on stitches were a wee bit loose). I then frogged the toe, and did the measurements to figure out how many stitches to cast on for Wendy's toe-up sock pattern. As always, the number (56) fell between 2 different numbers that would be divisible by 4 and yield an even number of stitches for the toe cast on. So I decided that I should cast on 8 stitches, as if I was using 48 inches, but just do some extra toe rows to get to 56. Meaning that my "dry run" toe that I had just frogged could have been continued on. Arrrgh! I tried to cast on again, but had a problem with how I had the yarn organized. So instead, i just went to bed.

Knitting World Cup

I am knitting my husband a sweater. Noro Kureyon, colour 51 top down on circulars. One month to get it done, because I have selected it as my World Cup project. I don't think he realizes the sacrifice I am making by a) not diving into my first pair of socks, and b) working with slightly scratchy wool in the warm weather. I was able to swatch for it today, and am mildly peeved that the yarn shop owner I bought the pattern at convinced me that Kureyon was appropriate for this sweater. This one called for "light worsted", and there was another pattern I was considering which called for "heavy worsted". Never having used the Kureyon, I believed her when she siad this pattern would work better. It calls for US 6/4 needles at 20 stitches/4 inches. Using US 7 needles (because if that worked, I could use my Debbie needles for the whole thing), I got 16 stitches/4 inches. I gave it a try on the US 5 needles (thinking that this would justify me buying US 3 Addis), but the knit was so thick that I think the sweater would stand up by itself. I do have to say that I like the way that the colours emerge. Since it is a fairly simple pattern, I am going to proceed with it, but reduce the stitch counts by 20% (woo hoo, 20% faster to knit!). Now I have to figure out what size to make it. I am thinking the 50 inch manly size (hubby thought that the guy modelling the sweater on the pattern looked quite wimpy).

The race goes to the swift...

I have wound my first centre pull ball (my teal Socks That Rock was the lucky yarn) on my newly purchased swift and ballwinder. Somerset was quite fascinated by them even before they started to spin around. Ta Da! Hmmmm...now I need me some of those plastic sock blockers...There's just no end to it, is there?

This little piggy went to market 16 days ago...

My toes are holding out well, but I will have to have my fingernails touched up for next week's wedding. Speaking of travelling, Make One yarn studio in Calgary is a great place to spend a few hours and knit - as I did on the weekend. In addition to their very comfy couch, they have a huge space (complete with a washing machine for felting!), and stock some beautiful yarn. At last, a chance to sit and knit in a shop with people who do not have adult children Amy and Sandra are not this blurry in real life, and were very welcoming. Don't you just love Sandra's Yarn Store Pompadour?

My first package!

My awesome Knitty Secret Pal sent me a "Fear of Socks Antidote": [The cats were happy enough just to have a new box] The kit contains everything I need to get started on my first pair of socks, complete with inspiration! Damn Blogger - it crapped out on uploading pictures again!! Will have to complete the entry later We are going to be doing some travelling in June, and now I have a nice portable project to work on. It's a good thing too - I am starting to accumulate sock yarns... So far, I have managed to send stuff to my own Blogger downstream Pal, and should hopefully get my Knitty and One Skein packages out before we head out of town. MaryElla knits up superfast - thankfully much faster than stringing the beads goes! To add insult to injury, I didn't string all of the beads on, and ended up running out of beads before I was done. So I ended up unwinding the rest of the floss and threading more beads on. Now I just need to rewind the floss to keep it from becoming a tangled mess. I should have Ute's bracelet done before the end of the month. Speaking of tangled messes, I am going to go look for a ballwinder and swift, because Hubby isn't patient enough to hold my yarn while I wind it!