Knitting, and a plea to passers by

... as in, you know, the whole two sticks and a string thing.

No, I have not forgotten how. I've just been busy, and with American Idol going to three nights a week for awhile, it's going to be some time before my output increases.

But in the meantime:

I'm making progress on the Not From Hell Doll Sweater (which goes with the Definitely From Hell Pleated Skirt). It's going to be lovely, if I ever get it done.

A dear friend requested purple socks, so purple it is. This isn't leftover yarn (though it will be when I finish this last foot), but it was in my stash. This is my plain vanilla pattern (60 sts, 15 rows K2P2, 6" to heel, short row heel, 6" to toe, star toe), livened a bit with alternating P and *K 2, YO, K2tog* rnds, every 7th rnd- just enough to add a little texture and interest without making them anything but mindless knitting.

Okay, so I live at the end of a 1/2 mile township road. It's a dead end, and there are no other houses, so I tend to think of it as my driveway. Unfortunately, a percentage of passing motorists think of it as a bathroom.

I swear, someday, I'm going to put up this sign.

Quickly

It's not like I've been going anywhere (what with the ice and snow, and it only being about 6 degrees outside), but I still seem to be rushed these days, and way behind on my List of Important Things I Do Every Day, like post here.

I tackled the final Doll sweater with matching fingerless mittens (for both the doll and the Girl). I finished the other three sets long ago, but somehow got stuck on this one, with 1 1/2 sleeves and the front band left to knit. I finished the set last night while watching Mike Rowe butcher a cow (now there's an odd combo).

Frog Girl is getting this set for her doll (and herself). She dyed this yarn well over a year ago- it started out as one of Knit Picks sock blanks. I think I was working on the class samples for the '09 SAFF when it was dyed, and she helped me with that chore, so she got to choose her favorite colors to dye some yarn. If she was choosing these days, I think the yarn would be Neon Yellow and Orange. But she still has a soft spot for pink. I love how it came out, and I think she will too.

And I finished one of the Fortissima "Mexiko" socks (the quotation marks are not ironic- Fortissima's Socka line looks exactly like Opal's Mexiko yarns, and these socks are being knit specifically to replace a missing Opal version). I do love this yarn- and I'm happy that I'll have another pair with this colorway in my sock drawer.
Tomorrow- we have guest paper dolls! Woohoo!

p.s. Small health update: I finally finished the inhaler treatments, and I am feeling okay, not great. However okay is a vast improvement over the last two months, and I am more than happy with okay-ness. Now I just need to remember to take it easy, and rebuild my strength (and get back into running shape) steadily but slowly- I don't want to visit Relapseville.

FO's

I spun and plied a bump of undetermined white roving (which I later determined to be Romney, or a similar long-wool. It's low crimp, not terribly soft, and has a lovely sheen. At the very least, it's Romney-ish), which came out to 5.9 ozs, and 272 yards of 2-ply. And it's going to be socks, of course, though I may have to tinker with my usual sock recipe since this yarn is not quite as thick as worsted, but heavier than fingering. I have at least one more bump of this wool, which I will spin soon.

Pretty, no? And truly, I should be saving the spent marigold blossoms that I've been tossing out, for the dyepot. They make a lovely gold yarn.

And I finished the 80's Blech Colors doll sweater, and it looks much better as a sweater than the fingerless mittens (and please, do not notice that the bottom buttonhole ended up in the wrong place. And no, I'm not tearing it out and respacing it). Who knew there was yellow in the mix? That didn't show up in the larger fingerless mittens at all.

The fingerless mittens turned out cute too.

and here's the whole set- 3 down, one to go.

Still with the Spoonflower and Doll Sweaters

I got another fingerless mitten/doll sweater/fingerless mitten set done. I finished the sweater awhile ago (I wasn't sure where it would end up) and realized that I had enough of the leftover yarns to complete the set. So this group is going in the Christmas pile too. I think the girls will like having matching gloves with their dolls (I would have at that age, and that's generally my guideline. My inner child knows dolls).

Next week's Spoonflower (link in Stash Enhancers) design contest is a Cheater Quilt- a yard of fabric that is designed to look like it was made up of lots of fabrics already assembled- in other words, a cheater quilt. It took me two weeks to put this together, with many many steps (creating the grid, creating each of the colored backgrounds, creating each of the letter blocks, working on the border etc), and though it's not hard to work with a canvas this large in Inkscape (it was 6300 x 5400 pixels), it's very difficult to work with the image in Paint or my other graphics programs. The computer wants to freeze when I try to work on it (and there are some things that I needed to do in Paint, in order to finish it).  I'm glad that the next couple of contests will use a smaller area.

This is a simple design and I will enter it in their contest, but I don't expect it to garner much interest. I want to make it up myself, and I thought I might as well enter it. I already ordered a yard.

And these are the compantion background fabrics (and the backgrounds to the individual letter squares). There's another one too- a peach block- that I forgot to adapt and order. I'm getting a yard of the yellow for the borders, and I ordered swatches of the other 3 colors just to see how they look in person.

I don't think I'll get a Nautical Theme design done by Tuesday (the deadline), mostly because I can't think of one. But the contest theme after the Cheater Quilt is Travel, and I already have a notion for it.

My Son The Artist sent me an old version of Adobe Illustrator, which I will install soon. I've been looking over the book, and I think it'll do a lot more than Inkscape does, and the process is similar, so the transition isn't going to be too difficult. I hope.

btw- this was my first version of the above Cheater Quilt, but I decided it looked too much like one of those Color Blindness Tests. One of the lovely things about Vector Drawing, is that every element is separate, so though it took time to change the color of all of the letters, it wasn't difficult.

Freebie Friday- V-Neck Cardigan and Fingerless Mittens for an 18" Doll

It's been awhile since I posted a Freebie Friday pattern, so it's fun to have one I can share with you all again. The body of this simple v-neck cardigan is knit in a single piece with fingering weight sock yarn and size 3 (3.25mm) needles, with the sleeves picked up and knit in place (though you could cast them on and sew them in afterward, if you want). The matching fingerless mittens complete the set.

My finished sweater weighed (buttons and all) 51 gr, so you may be able to knit the entire sweater with 50gr of sock yarn. But if you want the fingerless mittens, you might want to do the ribbings in a contrasting color if you are using new yarns and don't want to dip into a second 50gr ball for a few yards of yarn. This pattern is ideal for leftovers- make it in stripes, or knit all of the sections in entirely different yarns for a glorious mis-match.

Here's the drill, for those who are new to the Freebies: you may knit as many of these as you like, you can sell them... I don't care. Please don't repost the pattern though- if others want it, direct them here for downloading. If you post pics of the sweater, please post a link to here too. And if you want, send pics to me and I'll post them too. Click on the page images (2 for this pattern) to enlarge, save as jpgs, and then print from any graphics program.

Enjoy!

Sweater Sets and Robots

Short-repeat self-patterning yarns don't lend themselves very well to back and forth knitting. The patterning changes too quickly, so that the beginnings and the ends of the rows (which in this case, mean the fronts of the sweater because the body is knit in one piece) don't match at all. But it's still cute. I do believe that I'll write this pattern (sweater and doll-size fingerless mittens) up and post it this week, for the first Freebie Friday in a very long time.

The whole set includes fingerless mittens for the Girl, a v-neck cardigan and fingerless mittens for the doll. All 3 knit from 100 gr of sock yarn (there wasn't enough left over for a doll hat. I always forget how much yarn these 18" doll sweaters take).

are these cute, or what?

And here's the latest installment in the Spoonflower Obsession: a set of 3 color/cut/sew Robots. I've ordered a sample, and it should be here soon. If the robots go together properly, I'll offer this one through Spoonflower too. I was tickled to discover that someone already ordered the Skirt/Vest/Bag color/cut/sew fat quarter. I'm about halfway done with a Cheater Quilt design (quilt in a yard) for another Spoonflower contest. I haven't tackled the Nautical Theme design yet.

Yeah, I said *obsession*, and I meant it.

Bits and Pieces and Loud Noises

I'm taking four more projects to the FedEx office today, sending them to my editor. I just have two projects left to knit- unfortunately, I spent five hours working on one of those projects yesterday, only to discover that it was HUGE. So I tore it out, and will begin again. Sigh. Of course, just finishing the knitting doesn't mean I'm done with the book- several projects are out with test knitters, and I'll have those patterns to adjust (and correct), and then not long after the deadline, the rest of the work begins: copy editing and proofing. Work on a book is never really done, even after it's published. I still get questions about Knit One, Felt Too, which was published in '03.

I did have a teeny tiny little window (half of one evening) where I had finished one book project, and the yarn for the next had not arrived (it did the following morning), so I cast on a doll sweater for Voracious Reader. She came to a love for American Girl-style dolls a bit later than her cousins, so her dolly wardrobe is sadly lacking. I am looking forward to having time to sew some finery for her. This yarn is leftover handspun- I think it's from Twisted Fiber Art, but I can't remember for sure. I'm using the same pattern that I did on the many previous doll sweaters, which is an adaptation from Knit and Crochet Sweaters and Accessories for 18" Dolls, by Joan Hinds. I probably won't get to finish it until after the rest of the book projects are done.

Over the last couple of weeks while knitting, I watched Season 3 of Big Love, and am, as always, amazed that I root for The Hendricksons to make it intact (though most of The Grants could disappear and that would be fine with me). I've had the second, and unfortunately last, season of Rome on hand for awhile, and I've started watching that as well. Those Ancient Romans did a lot of naughty things...

And lastly- I decided to run the walking path in our city park yesterday, just for variety. We have a beautiful park, and the path is about a mile around the perimeter, so I figured I'd run it 3 times and call it good. I neared the end of the first circuit of a calm, lovely, quiet, and solitary run, and had just passed the Armory, when an extremely loud BOOM startled me (I'm understating here- I hate loud noises, especially unexpected loud noises. This was a LOUD noise, and my heart nearly stopped). At first, I thought someone had fired a shotgun very close by (accompanied instantly by an imperative command from my Mental Control Center: DUCK!!!!!). I did happen to look up, and near the bridge, about 50' away, I saw a puff of white smoke. So I knew immediately that  #1 it wasn't a shotgun, because shotguns don't create big, smoky puffs, #2 it wasn't a firecracker because while they do make smoke, they're nowhere near as loud as what I had just heard, and #3 whether it was purposely or accidentally set off, what I had just heard was an explosion, to which I was a witness (okay, I didn't see it, but I was there, and no one else was around).

I ducked back into the Armory (which is left unlocked for walkers who use the gym), and called the Sheriff  (and, yes, I hid in the Armory in case Explody Perps were hovering nearby- I didn't write six mysteries for nothing, lemee tellya). I waited there for the Deputy to arrive, told the impossibly young man my story, and then continued with my run (I'll admit I considered just packing it in, but I knew if I did that, that I would not finish exercizing). On the second circuit, the Deputy was still parked by the bridge. At the end of the third, he was gone, but by the time I got to my car and exited the park, a utility truck was there, and a workman was in the cherry picker up by the transformers on the light pole next to the bridge. Voila- a transformer blew.

I wasn't in the least disappointed for such a mundane explanation, though who knew that transformers could explode, much less so loudly? (Karen knew). And I'm heading to the park now, for another run. A calm, peaceful, quiet run. I hope.