How to feel like a kid again...

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

I was having a "good hair day" today, so I decided to go to the DMV to renew my drivers' license, to give myself the best possible odds of being photogenic. There was a man having severely deformed hands running the photo area, but that didn't seem to bother him one bit, and he's one of the cheeriest people I've run across, ever. It's impossible to have any bad feelings about the DMV when his is the last station before leaving, and I just love it when I encounter people who are so outwardly cheerful! Regarding my photo, however, I must say that it doesn't make a lot of difference what kind of hair day I'm having..... In fact, my hair looks fine in the photo, but somehow my face looks really red.

Speaking of driving, I've been making a lot of use of my bike lately running errands. Sometimes my five year old and I take the bus to get him to school, which is right on campus, and then I ride my bike home. (The buses here all have bike carriers on the front of them.) It's about a seven or eight mile trip, though there are bike paths everywhere to facilitate riding without worries about too much car traffic, including some bike paths which are two lanes. Also, people biking are a friendly bunch. Most of them say, "Hi," or at least nod (except for one older guy who made the sign of the cross when he saw me coming...). Anyway, the basket I had on my rear carrier was a bit flimsy and looked like this one day after I returned home: I dug around the house, and found this much sturdier crate (which I didn't steal!), and used rip ties to hold it in place instead of bungee cords, and this seems to be much more robust. I know I look like a dork with this setup, but the bright yellow is quite visible, it's quick to put my backpack or parcels in there, and at 43 years old I'm entitled to be a dork if I want to. The best part about this is how great it makes me feel! Somehow it gives me the sense of having "more control" and simplicity (well, except for the day my chain fell off and I had to figure out how to get it back on in order to continue). It makes me feel like a kid again.

Now, what I really must do is start logging the miles on my bike, calculate how much money I'm saving in gas, and claim that for my yarn fund :-)

I finished the first sleeve of my Ibenholt:
It is a sea of moss stitch, having baby cables for the ribbing. I started on the body using the same size needles, and working back and forth instead of in the round. Gauge problems -- my cables were coming out a lot looser than they were on the sleeve. So, back to size five needles, and I'm much happier with this:I anticipate having some more gauge problems once I'm past the cabled ribbing section, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I'm starting to feel the pinch of having only three weeks until I start school full time. This week, I'm cranking through a lot of sewing / mending. Next week I plan to clean like crazy. The week after that I will be a paper filing/sorting maniac. A girl can dream, right?

I will see YOU in ONE WEEK!

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)

Graduation gift

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

I had a very nice Mothers' Day -- low key and perfect that way. DH and the boys made dinner for me, and I can't think of a better treat! The boys decided on tomato soup, which is quite a sacrifice for them, since they don't like it, but they know that I love it. They also made whole wheat scones to go with it, and I have to say that they can cook for me any time! Because it was Mothers' Day, my five year old told me, "You don't have to be so good. You should have fun." It was sweet, and endearing..... and then I couldn't stop thinking that he sounded like a college student just before a frat party. If something is fun, does that mean it isn't good? I think knitting proves that "fun" and "good" are **not** mutually exclusive!

One of my nieces is graduating from high school Memorial Day weekend, so I've been working on a gift for her. She's planning on attending Michigan Tech in fall. Their colors are gold and silver, though their sports teams wear black and yellow, so I put together this blanket / pillow / scarf ensemble:Their mascot is a Husky, but I couldn't find mascot fabric anywhere, and I can't sew a picture of a husky, so instead I made paw prints by sewing two layers together and cutting inside the stitching on one of the layers so the opposite color would show through.

Not much knitting news. I ended up re-knitting my Ibenholt sleeve twice more, because as it turns out, I'm impaired when it comes to figuring out my gauge. FINALLY, however, I think I've REALLY got it THIS TIME, and am using size six needles (instead of the size four called for in the pattern).

My five year old is running a fever today, so we're having a quiet day at home, and I'm cranking through the laundry, managing to put off grocery shopping for another day...

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)

Ibenholt

Greetings and Dear Cynthia,

For the record, I don't think there is anything wrong with KADD (Knitting Attention Deficit Disorder). You're okay. I'm okay. WE'RE ALL OK!, though I might be a little defensive about it. :-) Nice for you to arrive home to a dinner your mom made for you! If she's ever in my neighborhood.....I would be willing to leave my house, just to arrive home to a dinner I didn't cook myself :-)

Sorry that I can't sympathize with you regarding the Daylight Savings Time thing, though I'm so sorry it is messing up your system. Perhaps it is because you didn't grow up with it. I just remember that when I was living in Fort Wayne after college, my parents would awaken me with phone calls at odd hours, especially a week or two after the time changed for them, because they could never remember whether or not it was the time of year in which we were in the same time zone...

My mom and I had a great time spending the day together last Saturday. When all was said and done, we ended up purchasing the same pattern (Ibenholt) and yarn to have our own little "knit along." I couldn't stop myself from casting on: I'm starting with the sleeve, which I've come to know as my "gauge swatch." I'm confident of my gauge with the Heilo yarn, having used it many times before, though I want to make sure that my moss stitch is the right tension... Lots of moss stitch, and the first time I've ever used this much texture in a sweater. So far, very fun and engaging.

Thank you LeeAnn for your thoughts regarding the two socks on one circular heel trick! Honestly, I was looking for an excuse to put the socks on dpn's so that I wouldn't have to uphold my goal of knitting both socks at the same time entirely using the magic loop... I should have assumed, however, that you would come to my "rescue" with your method for getting 60% of the stitches onto one leg of the circular! It worked great to temporarily hold the extra three stitches while I worked around to the other side of the sock, etc... Now, unless I'm missing something else, I couldn't do the heels at the same time row by row, but had to knit one heel, then the other, true? In any case, with both heels finished, and then once I untangled all of the yarn, I was able to re-distribute the stitches and am now working up the leg with the "thinking parts" of this pair of socks behind me. Bottom line: THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP! I've learned so much about knitting because of the blog world, and feel so fortunate that so many knitters out there are so generous with their help!

MollyBee -- I don't know whether or not the oven mitts really work. I was going to try them out before I sent them off to my mom and mom-in-law, and forgot! They do seem quite dense and thick, however, so my initial impression is that they'd work as well as any of the hot pads I have around our house...

My sister and I ran a 5K, "Bucky's Race for Rehab," this past Sunday. Can you find the mascot in this photo:My sister's goal was to finish the race without walking, which we did, and it was the farthest she's ever run at one time. It was a beautiful day for a run, and just a really nice thing for us to do together. Our next goal is an 8K in fall.

Well, I told my five year old we could go on a bike ride on this beautiful afternoon, so I'd better get going.

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)

Knitting ADD.....

Greetings and Dear Laura:

Wow - that's a pretty extensive gift list you have going there! Pretty neat gifts as well! How did your run go on Saturday?

I've been rather overwhelmed lately. Trying to cram too much into a day it seems. I blame daylight savings time. Even if, by some miracle, I am done with my day by 7-8 in the evening, my body/brain can't seem to process that it's time to wind down for bed when the sun is shining in my eyes! And too many nights it's 9 before I can consider the day "done." Consequently, I'm up until 11 or so trying to relax - or after a few nights of that, I'm passed out in my chair because I'm exhausted! Either way, that 5:30 a.m. alarm is always a problem, as is staying awake all day at work! I guess my brother and I are the only ones who have this problem tho - seems the rest of the world just loves it, so you'll all just have to excuse us for a few months while we're sleep deprived!

My parents are "home" this week! There was a break in their routine in KY, so it was a good time for a trip back here. It had been over a month this time! I do really appreciate coming home to having dinner ready, and when she needs to run laundry, she does mine as well, so that as been nice!

I myself am struggling with knitting ADD. My two-at-a-time-toe-up-magic-loop socks only need about 3" more of the cuff, but suddenly all other projects seem fascinating! Saturday afternoon, I "took a notion" to "whip up" another blanket buddy as a gift for my great-niece Josie, who lives in Texas. A couple of family members are flying down for a visit and I wanted to send a little something.

I already had a pink one done for Lydia, who turned two on Saturday. It was a popluar gift, and now I have requests for 2 more. One needs to be finished this evening, and the second is for a birthday gift on the 17th. (This required a trip to the yarn store! YAY!)

I will finish with this buddy tonight - I switched to Peter Pan Velvet Touch. It's very soft, and is a finer yarn than the Crystal Palace Puffin that I had been using. The blanket buddy is a bit smaller, but that's not a bad thing. It's supposed to be easily portable, after all!

I have a new niece-in-law (I'm pretty sure she doesn't read my blog, but.... Hi Hana! Stop reading this paragraph!) and her birthday is coming up on the 17th. Since it's her first birthday in the family, I thought I'd "whip up" a couple of soap sweaters and a chenille face cloth as a little gift.

Oh, and there is a surprise 30th-birthday-party for one of my nephews-in-law in June, and he is on my list of family members that I've never made socks for. I've had the yarn for a couple of years, but I never got his name for Christmas. Those I'll be able to "whip up" pretty quickly, since they are thicker socks for wearing under boots while ice-fishing.

And while I have SO MUCH sock yarn calling my name that I can't wait to knit up...well, I was having a bit of a bad day when I went to the yarn store, which we all know is dangerous, but in my defense, sock yarn isn't stash. I finally succumbed to the Noro sock yarn!

Now if I can just stop deciding to "whip up" additional gifts, maybe I can attain knitting monogamy for THREE MORE INCHES of sock cuffs!

Oh, and I almost forgot! We had a wonderful trip to Indy to see the Yarn Harlot last week! (This may have contributed to my overall sleepiness - we didn't get home until 1 am!) Check out her blog post of the event - we are in the first row of the third picture down! That's The Rebellious Pastor's Wife, myself and Knitting at Lunch! And here's a picture of us when I was getting my book signed!

Knitting at Lunch is also on the post as one of the First-Sock knitters! We had a really good time, went to a yarn store and I did not enhance the stash at all! (I did try to post from my mobile phone, but it turns out I do not possess the requisite number of brain cells for that! Oh well!

Keep knitting!

Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)

Gifts gifts gifts gifts gifts.....

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

I lost my will to blog for a few days... I think I was giving off some general "I'm losing and I need a break" vibes last weekend, because I mentioned to dh on Sunday afternoon that I was going out for a little while, and he asked me if I'd be coming back this month. We've since had one of those "family meetings" with our kids, and arrived at some plans that seem to be making everybody happy again, so we won't have to dip into our therapy funds just yet.

I've been knitting knitting knitting, mostly gifts. In may and June, there are birthdays for three nieces, another niece's graduation, Mothers' Day, Fathers' Day, and dh's birthday. Many of these gifts will include some sort of handmade element, and I've got the stash and some time to work ahead a little bit.

For Mothers' Day, I'm making a second felted oven mitt, and will pair it with some hand soap from Bath&Body Works, and probably a plant for my mil. My mom will get the same thing, except for a book instead of the plant. Here's the second mitt, still needing the thumb, next to the first already felted mitt:I'm thinking a little ribbon, and these will work out for some nice mother-type gifts. Maybe I'll throw in a dish rag or two...

All of my nieces who have birthdays yet this year (four of them) will be getting a "Tiny Tote" (pattern by Amy Anderson) containing a gift card. I have three of them knit so far using Patons Classic Merino, and will start the fourth one today. Also, I have about 90 more inches of I-cord to knit for these: These items will all be felted, and I'll show you "before" and "after" shots when I get them. I feel like I have knitting ADD in a big way right now, having started several projects this past week, and not one of them being finished--though I wanted to get all of the stuff for felting ready to go so that I could do the felting in only one washer load.

I also made bags for my kids for their piano lesson books, to enable them to carry their piano stuff with less chance of dropping something:My kids really like these, and they are the perfect size for their music. I followed the directions in Mary Mulari's "Accessories with Style," which has revolutionized the way I use zippers. I also added applique initials by printing out really big letters in MicroSoft Word, and using them as patterns. Appliques have been made really easy by the use of "Wonder Under," which is paper-backed fusible web found at the fabric store.

My mom will be visiting today, and we're looking forward to checking out the local knitting/quilting scene on Saturday, though not sure exactly where we'll go just yet.

On Sunday, my sister will be visiting, and she and I are going to run a 5K race together. We've been training independently (she mostly bikes and runs a little, I mostly run and bike a little), and this is the first **event** we've ever done together. I hope the weather is cooperates! It looks like rain here today and tomorrow...

Well, time to clean up the kitchen and the bathrooms so the house has some semblance of order when my mom arrives this morning...

Have a great weekend!
Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)

Of Dandelions and Lace Heels

Greetings and Dear Laura:

WOW - you are just putting out projects like crazy! Way to go! I guess having all those classes coming up must be really inspirational.... The skirts look great, and very comfortable.

Funny you should ask about the heels and magic loop. It's been a bit of a theme for me this week as well. I'm working on a new theory.

It's like dandelions. My Goddaughter Renata LOVES dandelions. They're her favorite flower - and what's not to love? They are everywhere, they are free, you don't get in trouble for picking them, and mom is always willing to put the bouquet you picked in a glass and admire them. I remember a piece of open ground near their house that is completely yellow with them in the spring. We were driving by one day, and she sighed and wondered why everyone's lawn couldn't be that pretty! She has a point - dandelions are a perfectly fine plant, they are plentiful, hardy and edible. They are a weed and a pest only because they appear where we don't want them to.

I was reminded of this while working on the heels of my toe-up, two-at-a-time magic loops socks. I was kind of procrastinating (I know, I know - me, procrastinate?) about getting to the heels. Somehow, as much as I want to love them, I struggle with short row heels. I can do short rows - really I can. But somehow, heels kick me in the behind. As I was surfing for a pattern that I might be able to knit (!) I noticed that every method claims to be the way to knit short row heels without holes. (Me, I'm just trying to knit them without getting lost in the pattern.) It occurred to me that there was a lot of fuss going on about holes. Holes aren't inherently bad. Heck, when I think of how people get intimidated about knitting lace, when all it is is adding holes to your knitting on purpose....and then it struck me - Holes are the dandelions of the knitting world, and the last thing I need to worry about is holes in my heels. I have decided to embrace them. I don't have holes in my heels - I have lace heels! And glory upon glory - I have two short row heels! Only a little lace, but more importantly, I only had to rip the first heel ONE time, and the second heel not at all!!

The part I struggle with is at the point when you begin closing the heel, and the directions often tell you to knit or purl to the gap, perform some knitting together, then turn and do the same at the other end. But the knitting together seems to leave a bit of a gap, especially on the right side, so I never know exactly WHICH gap I'm heading for. So, I decided to mark every gap as I made it during the first half, so I knew where to go doing the second half.


So ta-da! I have two heels, a little lacy, but not too bad. I think I'm going to work on modifying the short row heels to have a nice little line of "lace" as a design element!

I want to thank you for sharing your red and white sock angst. I took that lesson to heart when I noticed that my stripes were a little off. I had finished the first heel, so I took a row off of the second sock before beginning the heel, to make the stripes match up better. For that I did need to take the first sock off the "loop," so I did the second heel by itself and then moved the first on back before continuing. Now I just have to head for the cuff! I'm making better progress since I'm not avoiding the heels.....

So, to your question about the 60%. I'm such an airhead - I'd heard you say that you do your heels on 60%, but somehow I thought that meant that you left 60% of the heels stitches unworked as opposed to the usual 50%. Your current question finally let me see that you mean instead of having 50% of the total sock stitches involved in the heel, you use 60%. Duh!
(LOL - after working out and typing a 2 paragraph note on how to move the stitches around, I thought to check the comments and saw that Lee-Ann answered you, which is good because a) it took me two days, and b) she was my teacher for magic loop, so she's the authority!!) Anyway, you shouldn't have a problem - just do what she said! (And since I know she's reading, maybe Lee-Ann knows some short row heel secrets..hmmmmm)

I also have to point out some striping magic going on in my socks. You might notice that the striping pattern is not completely even. The darker color stripes vary in width. Which makes it TOTALLY amazing that I pulled out the yarn from the center of both skeins and started with the first piece of aqua that I found, and yet they match! I had no idea that the striping wasn't equal, so the fact that these socks are pretty much identical is nothing short of a knitter's miracle! YAY!

I mentioned that I procrastinated getting to the heels. I saw some cute dishcloths on the Homestead Lutheran Academy and was inspired by the Checked Slip Stitch cloth. Something small on larger needles was really appealing, so I knitted one, and then started a second with the same yarn but the colors reversed. However, now that I'm passed the heel, I'm back on socks.


So, there you go. Other than that, work has been occupying much of my time and thought. The closer this project comes to "go live" date, the more convinced I am that if I have to learn one more complex piece, I'm going to max out my brain. I'm mostly amazed that there aren't pieces leaking out of my ears as it is. I come home too tired to knit most evenings, and THAT'S tired! Knitting at Lunch and I have a plan tho - Tuesday we're planning a road trip to Indy to see the Yarn Harlot, so there will be updates this week. Hmm, wonder if I can figure out mobile blogging....dare I use precious brain cells figuring that out???

Keep knitting!

Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)

Not going to make my goal...

Greetings and Dear Cynthia,

With slight ambivalence, I share with you that my initial strategy for working this pair of socks, using magic loop and knitting both socks at the same time, is not going to work. In spite of not being particularly fond of the method, I was going to at least prove to myself that I could do it. Here is what I have so far:It is a set of two toes and feet, almost to the point at which I must begin thinking about knitting the heels. You might remember that I knit my short row heels using 60% of the stitches -- otherwise the socks are way too tight. My quandary (which I thought was spelled "quandry," by the way, until I spell checked...): Is there a way to get 60% of the stitches onto one "leg" of the magic loop without completely removing one of the socks from the needle? I'm thinking it might be time to break out the dpn's... Of course, I'm sort of a "toe-up rookie", so any thoughts you might have on the matter would be very much appreciated!

I continue with "skirt fest," finishing up another skirt out of stash leftover fabrics this morning. The lighting is very poor -- it is quite gloomy outside (just had a thunderstorm), but this should give you an idea of the thing. Instead of gathers, this one has "flounces." I love flounces! I call it "casual with a bit of funk." I also call it "getting something from nothing."

Tomorrow, I regret I'm not going to be attending "last Saturday knitting." We're going to spend a good portion of the day in Milwaukee...

Tomorrow is also the annual Crazy Legs run, an event which raises money for the UW athletic department. It's not my favorite "charity", though it is a fun event and I participated in it last year. This year I didn't sign up, because we're going to be in Milwaukee. However, I received TWO e-mail notices yesterday about it being time for me to go pick up my race packet. Between that and the phone call I received this past week about voting for Hillary in Pennsylvania, I'm beginning to wonder how my name is finding its way onto these "lists." Perhaps winning the lottery without purchasing a ticket will be next?

Well, back to work.
Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)