Friday, December 07, 2007

Off the needles!

Greetings and Dear Laura:

I'm so excited for your Sapporo success - it's a wonderful sweater, and it FITS!! Always a bonus!

It's been even LONGER since my last post, and I've also been missing talking to you. I have tons of pictures, which means there is plenty to say. It all boils down to time. As usual.

I've been working overtime - 10 hours a week. My first thought was that those 10 hours had to come from somewhere - they can not come from sleep, and I prefer they not come from knitting or blogging time. While I have maintained a reasonable sleep schedule....well...knitting and blogging have suffered. But here are some pictures of what knitting (and knitting related activity!) I have managed

Most excitedly, the baby blanket I have been working on has gone from this:
IMG_3839.JPG

to this!
IMG_3899.JPG

It remains to be blocked, and very little of the 9 skeins of yarn remain.

What's left

The final 5 rows, about an hour and a half of knitting, took me a week to work into my schedule!

I also cast on this Tulip Sweater from a kit I purchased online last summer.

tulip1

I am finishing up the first sleeve and I hope to get more knitting time in this weekend.

Applied I-Cord Edging!

There has also been yarn-store action since last I posted. You don't know how sorry I was to miss the fall open-house at Blackberry Ridge, especially since I was in Kenosha that weekend!! SO close!! But my trip was barely a day-and-a-half long, and so there was simply not time for the additional driving. I consoled myself by visiting the LYS in Kenosha, Fiddlehead Yarns. I made my first visit to that store last summer, and my main disappointment was in the lack of interesting sock yarn. Well, that has been remedied!

They had several nice hand-dyed sock yarns, including one I'd never seen....Araucania sock yarn. I loved the colorways, and once I got home I really wished I had chosen it! In the end, I chose a sport-weight Lorna's Laces, and since I had to wait a bit for my ride, I cast on right there! I've got a couple of inches done, but I've decided to switch to a different pattern, so frogging is in the future for this project.

New Socks

I have a few other yarn store pictures - on our annual after-Thanksgiving shopping trip, I went to Cottage Knits in Columbus IN. I noticed online that they had moved to a new location and I was really excited when I saw it. It is a very cute "cottage" and they've done a great job of turning it into a yarn store.
Cottage Knits
There is plenty of room for yarn, a cozy room with a fireplace and comfortable chairs to just knit and visit. There's also a nice big classroom! I picked up some Collinette Jitterbug sock yarn.
Sock yarn

And finally, we are getting a new yarn store here in Fort Wayne! Knitting Off Broadway will be opening Dec 28th. It's located just off Broadway - a couple of blocks from the GE plant! They had a little "preview" last Friday, a "Bare-Walls Trunk Show" of some sweater kits they will carry. Knitting at Lunch and I went down on our lunch break to check it out - there was some excitement, I can tell you!! The shop is cute, altho a little small. Can't wait to see it decked out in new yarn!
Excitement Knitting Off Broadway!

I'll close with a picture from my niece's baby shower from last October - I like to call it "what I'm knitting for!" One of these babies was born 2 days later, one is due before Christmas, and the last in March.

What I'm knitting for!

Keep knitting!

Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter!)


2 comments:

  1. My in-laws live in Kenosha, and I recently discovered Fiddlehead Yarns while visiting them. It's such a wonderful LYS. I put a few sock yarns from her store on my Christmas list!

    Lovely projects you have going!

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  2. I was admiring a scarf someone in my SF chicks with sticks group is knitting. She referred me to your pattern on knitty. Thanks! Love the blog, too...

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