Long Time No See (aka I've Been Lazy)

Maybe not so lazy about projects, but very lazy about posting. I think I just doubled my old record of four months between posts. Part of the reason is that I just keep making the same things over & over and it's got to be boring on your end to look at lap robes & hats when the only differences are the colors. Anyway, I started out the cooler days of fall crocheting more lap robes for the Veterans' Hospital.

This last one is knit. Our K4 group was given a number of lightweight coned yarns & I knit this one from five strands on size 13 needles. I has royal blue, navy, purple & two strands of black. Still the purple & blue seem to stand out most. Working with 5 strands of lace weight yarn wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done, so I was very glad to bind it off.

We had a request from one of our members for baby afghans for an organization serving families of Down's Syndrome babies in Michigan's Upper Pennisula. We were able to send a dozen including these two which were made from donated granny squares. Carol sewed the squares together & I worked a different color border on each. I only have photos of these two but we had five of them total.

Then my world changed thanks to this little gadget..

My DH bought me a B&W Nook for a belated birthday/early Xmas present around December 1st! With it, I can download books via our library from the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services and I've really been reading a lot - over 50 books since I got the Nook set up & figured out the download process. It's really great because when I finish a book, I can immediately return it for the next person on the waiting list. I've had a wide variety of books to read and it's much easier to balance the Nook on my knees while I'm knitting or crocheting than my old method of keeping a book open on my lap with a clothes pin. Only problem is that if I brush the screen with either my project or just the yarn, I can wind up on a different page so I switched to hats, scarfs & dishcloths - smaller projects that I can normally keep away from the screen. I didn't bother to take a photo of the 50+ dishcloths I finished because they looked so much like the last batch.

This first hat was worked in bulky WoolEase. The band is seed stitch & is worked sideways with the crown picked up and finished.

A hat & scarf set in a bulky boucle. The hat is knit in Quaker stitch & the scarf is simple garter stitch.

This crocheted scarf was made pre-nook. You start with a long chain & then work increasing numbers of triple crochet in each row. I used a narrow ribbon yarn in white. It went on our sale case & was gone the first day.

Another scarf worked in garter stitch, but this time I placed a marker three stitches in from one edge & knit the 4th stitch through the back to twist it. When I bound off, I let the three stitches unravel creating a fringe.

A couple more bulky hats knit in the round with wide seed or moss stitch bands switching to ribbing at the top.

And here again is my "go-to" hat pattern in various colors - I'm trying to work my way through the stash of K4 yarn left over from other projects that has accumulated.

You may have noticed that large orange & white kitty in one of the shots. Remember last October when I told about adopting Quinn and that he was one of the youngest & smallest cats to join our family. Well, he didn't realize that he was supposed to have already reached full size and has expanded like a cactus after a rainstorm. He's now around 20#s, up from 13#s & has grown in height & length as well as width..

And then there's my new "baby". They went & moved the Senior Center from here in the village to out on Joslyn Road about 8 miles away. I haven't had a car of my own since my 1988 Colt kicked the bucket at age 18. I wanted something small, so I've been waiting for the last year while Toyota's Scion IQ made its way from showrooms on the west coast to the south, to New England & finally here to Michigan. I think it was worth the wait. It's 10' long, two doors & a hatch with ample storage room when the back seats are folded down. Four star safety rating with 11 airbags & it's supposed to get 37mpg. The color is Hot Lava!!

Nothing Special Going On

... but I've been getting quite a bit of knitting & crocheting done while watching the Olympics in the evening..


I think this is a scarf that a Red-Hatter would love. It's worked on size 17 needles with one strand of a dark purple worsted throughout combined with different "fancy" yarns that all contain red or purple. It's draped over my antique swift because the scarf is about 7' long and I couldn't get it all into a photo if I laid it out on the carpet.


The afghan done in "brain-dead", "crazy" or "box" stitch (I've found it listed under all those names)is complete. I started another one while at K4 today but this one will be striped vertically instead of horizontally for the simple fact that it turned out wider than I thought it would - or I may decide to frog and restart as it wouldn't be that much of a problem to get to where I am now. This new one is going to have wider stripes of color as I found that I spent almost as much time deciding what the next color would be on the one above as I did crocheting the row.. {g}


Two more "Dopey" baby caps with fun fur trim at the front. These went into the case at the Sr. Center today in hopes of selling them to earn money for more yarn.


And this is where my third pair of Summer of Socks 08 are at the moment. I turned the heel last night, finished the gussets and am starting the leg. The shades in this #551 Vinca colorway are so soothing.

In other activities, I've been hanging around on Plurk quite a bit which is fun. I'm still teaching knitting & crocheting on Mondays at the Sr. Center and joining in for the fun on Thursday afternoons & our K4 group. As I mentioned earlier, I've been watching the Olympics in the evening, knitting away and reading during the commercials and transition times between events. It's been a quiet week. Our tomatoes are starting to ripen. We had BLTs over the weekend thanks to the Early Girls, but now the Beefsteak & Better Boys are ripening and we have lots of grape tomatoes for munching - so much better than last year when the deer ate the plants down to nubs..

Friday Wrap-up

I've been working on a number of different projects this last week.


A hat & scarf set made from one strand of white Jiffy & one strand of blue Coordinates.


A hat made from one strand of a bulky yarn & one strand of fun fur. Both of these will go on sale at our Christmas Craft Show in December.


This was where I was yesterday at the beginning of the K4 group on the Queen Anne's Lace lap robe. Between several hours there and watching the House Judiciary Committee on CSPAN today, the project is now finished with all six panels of lace completed.


The blueberry waffle patterned sock is coming along. I'll probably work on it more this evening. I'm not sure why the heel looks so funky in the photo - it doesn't in real life.


This is our new toy! It's a self-propelled sprinkler that follows the hose so we don't have to run out and move the oscillating one several times to get the lawn watered. I love the way it looks like the John Deere tractor we had on the farm right after tractors again became available post WWII. Of course, at the time, I was very upset that our work horses, Floss & Bess were sold. I took this photo from inside through the window screen so it's a bit blurry.


Also through the window screen, the view straight down from the computer room window. Yellow day-lilies, that came from the farm when Mom & Dad moved here, are in full bloom.

FOs!!!

A few photos of some finished projects instead of the garden.


I spread the green afghan out for the photo shoot and Boomer thought it was worth investigating. Looks innocent, doesn't he?


"Hmmm.. Maybe there's a mouse under here somewhere?"


"If I tie this chunk of green whatsit in knots, I'll have any resident mice trapped!!"



After *suggesting* that Boomer might like to visit the basement, I tried again. I finished this hat a few weeks ago and then got busy on the afghans. Finished the scarf yesterday so now it's a complete set.


This hat was knit to go with a scarf a new member of our K4 group knit. She wasn't at the meeting today but we'll get them united sooner or later.

No photos yet, but I finished up the first sock this afternoon and cast on for the second. The toe is complete and I'm working toward the heel.

In a comment a couple days ago, Angie asked about the leaf pattern I used on a vest that I made for Mom back in the April 10, 2005 post. The leaf pattern is the exact same one as is shown in the Leisure Arts booklet. I've used different lace patterns, but the lime green version was straight from the pattern, except that I knit the vest in the round up to the armholes instead of knitting a front & a back. Hope that helps.

Busy Week

I've been trying to clear the decks for the beginning of the Summer of Socks 08 which starts in about 20 minutes.


First project - which is coming up short by about 12 rows - is an afghan for Beaumont Hospital which asked our K4 group to knit or crochet two full sized afghans and a number of smaller lap robes for which they've provided the yarn. This is the first of the full sized ones (50"x65") which I started on Monday during knitting class.


Second project, which did get finished, is the first pair of socks out of my Vinca sock yarn stash. I love them, but the yarn doesn't run quite true in color sequence even though I pulled out some of the second skein until I was where I thought the colors on the toe of the first sock started.


Details: Vinca super-wash sock yarn, size 2 Harmony DPs, and my toe-up sock pattern. They didn't get finished as fast as the pair I made before them but that was in part because I wanted to work slow so they'd last until SOS08 starts tonight at midnight. I used two circulars and a figure 8 cast on for the toe, worked a small rectangle and then picked up stitches and switched to DPs.


Here are my materials that I'll pick up about 11 minutes from now. Sadie decided that she wanted to help while I was arranging needles & yarn, so she got into the photo.


What's that I see in the front hallway??? A NEW COMPUTER!!! Actually, we got two of them and DH is in the process of getting his set up before he tackles mine. This one has a sound card so I'll be able to listen to knitting pod-casts (and the Grateful Dead) on line.. More later, it's time to cast on..

Starting To Move Again

I had the knitting class today with three students, all of whom needed very little help, so I spent the two hours mainly knitting, running in yarn ends, yakking & answering the occasional question. These are the latest five sets for the Veterans' Shelter - I made hat & scarves for four of them and the hat for the brown set to match the variegated crocheted scarf that Sharon made.


These bring the total sets that I have stored either here or at the other house until Gloria takes them to Detroit in December to 45. I have the scarf half done for a set in two strands of a camouflage and one of golden beige out of the coned yarn and about half a hat in an aran with black & brown flecks for yet another set. The latter is my carry-around project as carrying three large cones of yarn would be a little daunting.


I've also been working on wheelchair sized rag-tag lap robes, using up the left overs from the hats, scarves and other projects. I love the one above in the fall colors. The one below is in baby type pastels & white.



The next big project is sorting yarn & storing it in totes for the move - I'll have to take photos as I go along so I can "flash my stash" next time that me-me is going around.. {g}

Progress Report

Mom is still at the nursing center. We'd hoped to get her home midweek, but - probably because she's putting pressure on it to compensate for the fracture in the left pelvis - her right hip is hurting more and she came close to falling during a transfer on Sunday. So it seems that she'll have to stay a little longer & do more PT before she can come home. The last thing we want to happen is for her to fall again and break something else.

On the knitting front, I received my invitation to Ravelry and have been adding some of my finished projects to my "notebook" there. I finished these two small rag-tag afghans over the last month, but just got around to photographing them.





The pink one is about 30x36" and the grey one is slightly larger.

I don't have photos yet, but the LYS, Heritage Spinning & Weaving, donated five large boxes of acrylic machine knitting yarn cones to our K4 group. The strands are too thin (mostly fingering weight) to work on their own, but four strands together creates slightly heavier than worsted weight yarn. Right now, I'm using cones in black, dark grey, brown & a beige with sections of those other colors together to knit hats (size 13 needles) & crochet scarves (size P hook) that will go to the Shelter for Homeless Veterans in Detroit at Xmas time. I think last year, our K4 group sent about 50 hat & scarf sets so maybe we can top that this year.

The Nameless Post

For some reason, Blogger isn't letting me enter a title up there, so this shall be known as "The Nameless Post".. I have a few FOs to show off, all made for the K4 project at the Senior Center.


First another rag-tag afghan. I know, you're probably getting tired of looking at a seemingly endless series of these, but I still have a lot of yarn scraps to use up. {g} This is another fairly good sized one, but one organization is requesting smaller ones, 30"x36" for wheelchair users, so after the one that I started the night I finished this one is complete, I'll try for some of that size.


It's almost hat season again and given summer's heat, I only work on afghans down in the lower level family room where it's cooler. That makes it perfect for hats & more washcloths as projects. This one is an adaption of a pattern for a child's hat that Gloria, one of my knitting students, brought in. It's knit in the round on size 10½s in worsted weight. The original pattern called for smaller yarn, smaller needles & more stitches, but this version is faster, a bit thicker and looks as good. You'll notice 1) the very neat pompom on top that Gloria made for me & 2) my favorite hat model.


This is an adaption of another pattern in Gloria's book, again on 10½ needles and worsted weight instead of 8s & sport weight. I think a tam in this soft peach yarn will look darling on little girl whether she's blond or brunette.


A view of the top - pompom by me, you'll notice that it's not nearly as neat as Gloria's version! - showing one of the main adaptions I made to the pattern. The original had all the decreases as K2 tog every other row which forms a spiral on the top. Instead, I did a two stitch center decrease every 4th row which made the hat a bit of an octagon and carried the decrease lines straight in from the eyelet edge to the center of the hat. On the increase section between the ribbing & eyelet and the upper eyelet, I increase 1 stitch on either side of every 8th stitch every 4th row.

I have one other hat of the first style completed - no photo as Gloria took it with her to make a pompom - in white & bright red and one on the needles in white with cranberry ridges and a blue & cranberry variegated for the nubbins.

Washcloths, Rag-Tags & Short Row Heels

I didn't feel like knitting anything serious this week so I worked on the epitome of mindless knitting - garter stitch washcloths for our Cloths For Crisis group. I finished nine of them since last Thursday and have another one on the needles.



For "TV Time" - Dr. Who & Little Mosque on the Prairie on CBC; Ballykissangel, History Detectives & Nature on PBS - I worked on the latest rag-tag afghan and finished it. I have about 8" done on another one. After all the afghans I've made, I still enjoy playing with the colors.

My BIG accomplishment of the week was finally sitting down last night and trying one more method of working short rows for a sock heel. This is sort of my own method dreamed up one night when I couldn't sleep and started thinking of ways to do short rows without having holes. The sample looks good, but the acid test will be the sock itself. I picked it up again last night and started working toward the point where I'll start the heel.


The sides don't look identical - probably because I'm knitting together on one side & purling on the other, but it seems to be working!



I hope it does work because I picked up another skein of sock yarn at a garage sale a couple weeks ago and I don't want to feel as guilty about that purchase as I have about the current socks being on the needles for well over a year. After several tries, I found a toe-up start method that works for me, but have been stymied by all the practice short row heels I've sampled looking messy until now.