Happy Birthday

Happy 18th birthday to my wonderful daughter Nicole!!. Bithday pictures later.

Short post

I started clapotis with Knit Picks Andean Silk last night. It's a really easy pattern to follow. I hope to work on a couple of sections each day. I'm also starting the airy scarf from last minute knitted gifts, I think I'm becoming obsessed with scarves now. I stopped on the way home from work and picked up Scarf Style from Michaels. I had a 40% off coupon so I paid only $12. There are quite a few scarves in there that I will add to my to knit list. I just don't have enough time to knit. I need some vacation days... I do have a 3 day weekend next weekend for the labor day holiday. I must plan knitting time.

Branching out

Here are some photos of Branching out. I love this scarf and I will make more. My daughter is trying to confiscate it already. It was too big to fit on the blocking board.


Up next?? Too many choices....

Fabulous....NOT!!!

I went to the "fabulous fiber fest" in Santa Monica yesterday. Let's just say not fabulous, a little bit of fiber, no fest. I'd read on another blogger's site that there was very little for the knitter. Mostly quilting and other crafts. I'd planned to visit 2 yarn stores in the area so I made the trek. I did come home with a few items.
I got this pretty soy silk chenille yarn. It matches my chairs in my patio room.

 

After the fiber fest.. I went to wildfiber. What a very nice yarn store. The set up was nice, everyone was helpful and friendly and they had some fabulous fiber. I brought home some kid silk haze & aurora 8 for a shrug pattern they had in the window. Also, I bought a cute lantern moon bag and these cute stitch markers. The light green kid silk haze is for the airy scarf in last minute knitted gifts. I met another knit blogger there, Karyn, her beautiful daughter Noey and her mom. It was great to actually meet someone in person. She's the one who told me about the shrug. She's making one as well.

 

My last stop was the knit cafe. This is where the yarn harlot had a book signing when she was in LA. It's a nice shop, but I felt wildfiber had a lot more to offer.

I arrived home to this... My swift from Joanne's...guess I'll be winding some yarn this week/ It will be so much easier, I won't have to wait for my daughter to help me.


I have a finished object ( finally) on the blocking board. More pics tomorrow.

Late night shopping

I can't sleep due to a major tooth ache, a crown fell off my tooth earlier today and it will be fixed in the AM. Since I can't sleep, I may as well shop. I finally succumbed and decided to buy a yarn swift. I had a 50% coupon from Joanne's, so I picked it up for 30 dollars. Not bad, of course I had to buy a few other things, only some balene circulars. I had some of their new wool and wool blend yarns in my basket and at the last minute, I decided I didn't need anymore yarn and removed it from my cart. Aren't you proud of me, I am.
I'm going to take a benadryl, and knit until it takes effect.
Hopefully I'll post another finished object, or two, soon.

Major Frustration

I started a Lelah shirt for my daughter this weekend. My goal was to work on it all weekend and hopefully finish it or be close to finish by Monday. I'll add straps since she's only 12, and make a one skein wonder out of the same cotton ease to match it. I want to give it to her for her 13th birthday in a few weeks. Well it's now Sunday evening and here it is.....

yea nowhere. I've frogged twice and tinked back once. No matter how many times I count stitches, by the time I end the round, I have 2-3 extra stitches. I can't figure out where I'm going wrong. It's sooooo frustrating. So now I put it down. I'm working on Branching out. I'll finish it before I start again. I have until Sept 22nd to get it right.

I tried blocking...

and it didn't work. I knit my Tivoli in knit picks shine, which is machine washable....so I threw it in the machine, on delicate. When I took it out, it grew and grew. So, what did I do, threw it in the dryer...didn't work. It's even bigger than when I started. As I said earlier, I'm not that pleased with the final product, I have some loose stitches on the top, and some tight stitches where I frogged back 10 rows. This has really taught me to do it right the first time. Early on I thought it looked a little big, but I kept knitting. Oh well, the learning process of a beginner knitter.

I'm working on BO, and trying to decide what's next..
In other news, I'm contemplating a job change and transfer to another hospital. I should know more by Friday. This will get me 20 miles closer to my home, but it will be a more challenging position. Sometimes it's hard to leave your comfort zone. We'll see how it turns out.

Tivoli's all done!!

Unfortunately, the fit is not well. I should have knit the smaller size. It's just a little too roomy. I still have to block and weave in some ends, then I'll take another look at it. I will knit this one again, but for now it goes in the practice knit category. One thing I realized is that if there is something I don't like, and I tell my self it's not too bad,and keep knitting. I should stop and frog immediately. That one thing will bother me the whole time I'm knitting. Next time I will frog and start again. I have such an aversion to frogging, but if I don't I know I won't be happy with the end results. Anyway... here is Tivoli.

Resistance is futile!!

I couldn't resist the call of the wild....


I tried, but I have wanted to go to a yarn shop that's near my job. Of course, it was just to check out their stock, however as you can see, I could not resist. The pink will be for a lace scarf and the brown sheep will be a minisweater for my daughter.

I'm resisting...

What you may ask?? It's the call of yarn. I'm back to work and on my drive home I pass 3 ( well one is a little out of my direct route) yarn stores. Now if you look at my last post,I clearly stated that I was on a yarn diet. I have so many projects lined up and most of the yarn for those projects, but I can't resist( well so far I have). Today, I actually drove by a yarn store that I wasn't aware of. Once I realized, I wanted to turn around, but there was too much traffic. Why oh why does new yarn call to me??
I'm off to my local SnB tonight. I had to rip a few...about 30 rows of Tivoli. I didn't do the M1 correctly and it left a nice little hole.
Branching out is moving along as well and tempting.. well it's not tempting me.

Down to the wire

Tivoli is almost done. I have 2 more increase rounds and I plan to add a seed stitch border. I'm working hard to finish tonight, because I'm back to work tomorrow.
I'm already contemplating my next project, ummm no it's not on the up next list, I should change that name to the thinking about it list. Up next will be either a minisweater for my daughter or a wrap or shawl. I'm also working on some ankle socks. I'm having trouble with the short row heel, so I have to do some frogging.
Branching out is coming along, but since I have to really concentrate when I work on it, I try to do 2 full repeats a day in the early morning, when my brain is still fresh.
Yesterday I went with some friends from work to the Indian casino. I'm not much of a gambler so I took my knitting with me. After a couple of hours, I took it out, sat and knit for a while. Let me tell you, I received some interesting looks from the other gamblers, umm patrons. I almost left my knitting at home, I'm so glad I didn't.
Well I'm off to dinner, and back to work tomorrow, which means not as much knitting time or blog posting/reading time.

Gasp!!

I said earlier that I did a little shopping yesterday. Well... I went to my local Joanne's with the intention of getting a few skeins of cotton ease in red.
This is what I walked out with.

Today, I never made it to SS admin. There was a major accident on the fwy near my house which closed the fwy for most of the day. This in turn, caused major traffic on the main streets in my nice lil city, so I went yarn store hopping. I intended to make a trip into LA, but I got a later start than I planned. Instead I went to 5 Orange county yarn stores. Here's my loot from all of the stops. I did restrain myself.

Now, It is official, I am placing myself on a yarn diet. I have so much stash, it's really ridiculous and I'll buy most of my yarns online, unless I just have to have something that day. Online shopping is so much easier.

Tomorrow, is a stay home and knit and gardening day. Here my latest progress on Tivoli. Bad pic but oh well..

Day 3

Day 2 involved lots of yarn purchases. I know I said I was going to look, but who can just look. Pics to come later.
Tivoli is moving along I'm to the waist decreases. I'm not that sure about the fit, and I can't stand the curling. I'm thinking about adding a row of single crochet and a seed stitch hem.

I'm off to the Social security office, no I'm not old enough to receive it. My lovely daughter lost her SS card, fortunately somewhere in our house, but we can't seem to find it. So, I'm off to apply for a duplicate.

Today's shopping expedition is home depot and lowes, then back home for knitting and maybe a movie or speed zone with the kids.

Pics of all later tonight.

Vacation Day 2

Day one went very well. I spent the morning shopping for school supplies, uniforms, and food. I hit up Costco, Target and Mervyns, 4 hours later... gasp 600 dollars gone. Oh well it had to be done. Unfortunately, not one skein of yarn or knitting accessory to be had. Well, I'll make up for it today.

I'd planned to take the kids to the movies, they had other plans. Here are my lil ones and my neice, frolicking in the pool.





Actually it worked out well. The spent the afernoon in the pool.
I spent the afternoon here knitting on tivoli.

It's my brand new patio room. My hubby covered and enclosed our patio, because I whined that I hated getting out of the spa in the evening because it was too cold outside. He's such a sweetie.

Plans for today... A visit to the dentist, cleaning time, then a visit to a LYS just to look....

One final thing, if anyone is still looking for Cotton ease, my local Joanne's still has tons of it. I resisted adding to my stash, although I'm thinking about getting some in red.

Monday morning: What to do???

Today is the first official day of my vacation. I took one week off to relax, knit and spend time with the kids. My hubby didn't take time off, so we are on our own. When I say kids, I really mean my little one's, although they are not that little any more. They are 13,and 11. My older two are 18 & 19 and if you have teenagers, you know they want to spend time with their friends.
I did get a lot of knitting time in over the weekend. Tivoli is coming along and I started Branching out. I've wanted to knit a lace project, specifically the 2 lace scarves and flower basket shawl, but I thought I should start with something smaller with an easier pattern to get the hang of it. So far it's coming along nicely. I do have one brewing issue, my hands are very sore. I'm taking motrin and tylenol to help with the pain in hopes that I can continue knitting. I guess my hands are not used to so much knitting... bummer. I guess I'll have to pull out my stash of romance novels if the pain gets worse.
I'm planning my yarn store trek on Wed or Thurs. Many stores are closed to day and I want to hit as many as possible when I go. So, this morning I think I'll do some school uniform and supplies shopping. I'll take the kids to see Charlie and the choc factory later, and then come home relax and knit. Yea that sounds like a good plan.

Here's my progress on Tivoli and Branching out.

I heart bloglines

I'm so glad I discovered bloglines, because, my name is Shar and I'm a blogaholic. I spend so much time each day reading and searching out blogs to read and FO's to salivate over. Now that I've signed up with bloglines, it's so easy to check to see if the blogs I've read have new post. I don't waste time going through the list on my favorites bar. This in turns gives me more time to actually knit.

I'm excited to be taking the next week off from work. I want to see how much I could actually knit if I did not work full time. I hope to finish Tivoli, and to work on tempting, as well as some small projects as well. I want to try to knit socks on 2 circulars. I bought the book and I plan to buy another size 3 circs so I'm ready to go. I have so much sock yarn, it's time to start using it.

I also plan to go on a yarn escapade one day next week. I live approx 40 miles east of LA and I want to drive into the city and hit as many yarn stores as I can. I love to see how different stores set up their displays and touch, hold, and covet yarns that I don't find in my LYS.

Tivoli is going well so far, hopefully I'll have finished pics soon.

Another FO, unfortunately not tempting

I finished my daughter's, Sophie, take a look. This was her creation and she loves it. I've found out I am so out of practice sewing. I bought a new sewing machine just to sew linings in the felted purses I've made, but, I need a lot more practice. I really need to rip this out and do it again, but she's happy with it.






I've decided to rip tempting back and do the sleeves again. It's been an agonizing decision, but I know I won't be happy with it trying to make it work.

In the meantime, I've started the Tivoli shirt in Knit pick shine. So far it's going well. If only I had more time to knit and I didn't read so many blogs each day. I try to knit at least a half hour doing my lunch time and 1- 2hours each day after work. It's just not enough time or I need to increase my speed. I'm going to work on knitting continental to try to increase my speed and to help decrease some of the soreness in my right hand. If I knit too many days consecutively, my little finger aches. Does this happen to anyone else?

Late night on the internet results

Exibit #1 Elann.com
Exibit#2 Knit Picks

Exibit #3 Local Joanne's

Exibit #4 2 patterns from knitting pure and simple

Exibit #5 A FO! cotton chenille washcloth from a new skein of cotton chenille

New projects on the Horizon

I am itching to start 2 new projects. After reading blog after blog, I want to knit Tivoli. It looks like a quick knit and I need a quick successful knit right now. Tempting is frustrating me. The 2x2 ribbing takes so long to knit a few inches and I so want to be done, but I'm having trouble connecting the sleeves. I've done the 3 needle bind off and I have 2 holes on each side of the underarm seams. WAAAA, I'm not sure how it happened, all of my stitches lined up perfectly, well almost, but I still have the loose stitches from the body that I don't know how to fix. I'm thinking about ripping back, but I will have to talk myself into that. There has got to be a way to fix it without RIPPING!




!AHHH, so instead of thinking about what to do I decided to make the flower chenille washcloths from weekend knitting, however, the knitting gods were against it.
This is what I ending up with.

I just do not have the patience or the desire to untangle this mess. I will be making another trip to my LYS to buy some more of this cotton chenille today. Before the weekend is over I WILL have a finished project if I have to knit all night. Speaking of all night, it's not good to be a frustrated knitter and trolling the internet. I ending up on Elann and knit picks and I bought a boatload of yarn and knit knacks the other night. If my yarn arrives today, I will cast on for Tivoli.

Tempting is taunting me

I am so close to finishing. I've attached the sleeves and I have about 5 more inches until the eyelets. It's so hard to be so close to finishing and to not have the time to do it. We had a major bar-b-que last weekend, and I was so busy with cleaning and prep, then cooking and cleaning after the party. I was off work four days, and I was only able to knit a few hours on Monday. I so want to start my next project, that is if I could decide what that next project is. I have about 5 potential projects on my unofficial to do list (in my mind), as well as those that I have yarn and patterns for waiting in my yarn chest. Hmmm what to do??

I want to do one of these lace projects, but I'm kinda afraid of the patterns.

I will take the pattern to my local stitch and bitch meeting tonight for moral support.