Why......

Impulse buy + stash yarn = Next project.

Novice at work

So, I'm knitting the marble sweater and things are going well. I knit up the back in no time and have been working on the front. All is going well, until I got the the v-neck shaping. The pattern said Work to last 3 sts before marker,(center) k2tog, k1, join 2nd ball of yarn and work as follows...... Ok so I'm thinking what, join 2nd ball of yarn? Do I now knit with both yarns together....nah that can't be right?? Ok do I start a new skein of yarn now?? Well that makes no sense, who would join a new skein in the center of the sweater, on purpose.... Can't figure it out, see I'm still a beginner. Anyway, so what do I do, I start a new skein of yarn, the whole time thinking this can't be right. I knit and knit thinking how do you get a V neck out of this...Something is not right
Thankfully, while reading other blogs I found this entry and bingo it all makes sense. Duh....
After frogging back and working on it today, I'm almost back to where I was..

I should finish the front and I'll start on the sleeves tomorrow. I'm going to do both sleeves at once. I hope to be ready to seam it up next weekend. Wish me luck. Oh as you can see, I'm having the same mismatched skein issue on the front. I know I should stop frog and re knit, but I can't tell the color difference until after it's knit up. For now my plan is to knit it all up, decide if I can stand the difference or not. If not when I frog, I will be able to tell which skeins are the same and leave out the lighter ones. I think I'll end up with one extra skein.

Oh !!!!

Oh my aching tooth. Just returned from the Dentist. I want to knit, knit, knit. I can't due to the pain, pain, pain. Off the couch for drugs. Marble sweater update later....

Be careful what you wish for...

In my last post I wished for rain. My daughter plays soccer and I'd hoped if it rained hard, we'd get out of a weekend of soccer games. I mean this is Southern California, we do nothing in the rain. Everything stops and we go on storm watch mode. We have emergency broadcast announcements warning of heavy flooding and mudslides. So of course, there would be no soccer....WRONG, Saturday afternoon with heavy rains and a light dusting of SNOW, my daughter played soccer. Thankfully, our coach decided to forfeit our game once the snow started, the officials stated they would only call the game for lightning. The girls enjoyed it but they were cold. The parents, well, let's just say, we were not happy. My day of knitting, gone... My fingers took hours to thaw out.

Sunday morning, with cloudy skies and intermittent rain soccer was played.
Lesson learned, don't wish for rain.

Here's my progress on the Marble shawl collar sweater. The back in finished and since this picture, I'm halfway through the front. It goes quick when I have time to knit. As you can see, there's a big difference in color in the skeins. I'm trying to ignore it for now but since this is the back I may ignore it. We'll see how the front goes.

As promised, yarn porn

Lorna Laces Worsted: Not sure for what yet but I love it!!
Karabella Marble for my shawl sweater and some Kareoke for wrist warmers.
For more felted clogs for the family.
Malibrigo, oh so soft, for the Ballet wrap sweater.

And the winner is.....

It's a tie, the darn packages arrived on the same day. Of course, so how do I decide. I whip up a "swatch" ( yea I'll call it a swatch) of both yarns. Both are to die for... but, I couldn't resist the shawl collar pattern. Wendy, I saw your comment this morning, definitely the right decision.
This will be my first project that has to be seamed. I knit up a few rows last night and completed to picot edge. That was so simple and it looks so pretty. I'm not sure why I thought it was hard.
I just heard the weather forecast and it's supposed to rain the whole weekend. Aww shucks, that means no soccer games. Guess I'll have to sit in my comfy chair and knit all weekend.

Oh, and did I say I bought lots of yarn.
Yarn porn later..

I've been a bad bad girl.....

After my great stashing event, aka Stitches west, I bought more yarn, a lot more. I ordered yarn for the ballet wrap top last week from webs and I've been anxiously waiting it's arrival. In the mean time, I've been finishing some of the numerous projects on the needles. Here's one here.


Thuja socks from Knitty.

So, back to my purchases, as I said I ordered from webs, and have been waiting, and waiting for the package. I haven't ordered from them in a while and I didn't realize they were so slow. I'm used to knit pixie, yarn in 2-3 days. Since I'm so impatient,in the interim I've been reading my favorite blogs, one of which is Wendy's. I love the shawl collar sweater she just finished. I tried to resist ordering the pattern and the yarn, but I couldn't. It's all webs fault. If my other yarn came sooner, I would not have succumbed to temptation. I would be happily knitting the ballet top now. So it's a race, whichever package arrives first is the project I'll start. But, what if they both arrive the same day, no, that won't happen.

My new baby

No it's not a wheel. With all of my other hobbies, knitting, gardening and reading, my hubby would kill me if I got a spinning wheel. I'd have to help him, I can't add another hobby....that would take away from knitting time.

Stitches west goodies

I thoroughly enjoyed stitches west, unfortunately my wallet wasn't as happy.
First are the kits: A mini lace wrap(poncho, I couldn't resist), 2 shawl kits and a cute scarf kit for one of my girls.


Next up:Socks that rock yarn, do I have to say more. Once I saw them in person, I couldn't pass it up.


KOIGU!!!!! Who cares for what, probably socks, and I bought the Carley shawl pattern.

Last up, reference material to improve the knitting.


Not too bad, next year watch out. I think I was slightly overwhelmed with all of the choices. I tried to not buy just for the sake of buying. Everything is ear marked for specific patterns. Now if only I could clone myself. I have enough patterns and yarn to knit this year and next.

Oh and by the way, I made that OTHER purchase too, more on that next time.

Finally a FO

Finally essential stripe is finito. I started this on my cruise in December and through all of the illnesses and new job, I've finally finish. One thing I've learned with this project is,, I hate weaving in the ends. Multiple color change = too many freakin ends to weave. I don't think I could ever get into intarsia or fair isle. Once I'm finished knitting, I want to be finished.




Since I took this picture, I've weaved the ends in. Whew, that took a while. I'll try to get a modeled shot on the weekend. I tried to take the old in the mirror picture, but for some reason I couldn't remember how to turn off the ole flash on the camera.
Here's what I've been working on since finishing the essential stripe. Thuja socks from knitty with artyarns supermerino. Very soft.