Friday, April 30, 2010

In the Meantime


I’ve been busy trying to get a handle on my stash; I keep finding undocumented skeins whenever I go to put projects on Ravelry.  How can this be?  So in an effort to get things under control and make sure that I can match queued projects to yarn I have I started an inventory to compare the stuff in my actual stash to what’s entered in Ravelry. I’ve done 5 out of 8 drawers and am flabbergasted by what I’ve uncovered so far.  I suspect that it might be mating season or something, what else would explain where all this extra yarn came from?  Needless to say, I will have to make a day of updating after I get done with the whole inventory.  I’ve been photographing the missing yarn as I go.  I actually had more stash pictures than project pictures on my camera when I uploaded this time.

Yarn shock notwithstanding, it’s been good getting reacquainted with some of the things I have squirreled away and helping me focus on specific projects I should be planning.

Speaking of projects, I’m still working away on the Vines and Leaves Cardi.  I have one sleeve about ¾ the way done and one more to do. I’m hoping I can finish it by the middle of next week.  And in the meantime, I’ve managed to finish a couple of other things.

I took a short break between finishing the body of the cardi and starting the sleeves to work this up for our granddaughter in MI (who we’d like to visit sometime soon). It’s a belated birthday gift for her 2nd b-day. Her mom and aunt call her "bug" so I thought this pattern would be perfect for her.

Pattern: Mrs. Beetle from Babies and Toddlers: A Knitter’s Dozen (XRX Books)
Yarn:  Jil Eaton Minnow Knits

I also finished these socks:

Pattern:  Diagonal Lace by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Down Home Sock by Knitivity color Purl Grey
Size 0 needles / Toe Up

And started these:


 Pattern: Prism Socks
Yarn: Lang Jawoll (yellow) and Rio De La Plata 

I may have to adjust the stitch count on these, but I am really liking the effect of mixing these two yarns on the look of the pattern.

Happy Knitting!


Nana

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Do you know what today is?

Somebody special has a "birthday" today....
 

               showing her curious side

Our Miss Saucey is 10 years old!  

With Lukey (gone to the rainbow bridge five years ago)

Thought I'd share a few of her kitten pictures to celebrate.  We adopted her from the Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek, CA when she was 6 months old, so I guestimated her birthday to be in April and I picked a day I couldn't forget.  (My Dad's birthday is today too!) And now you know why she's a St. Louis Cardinals Fan.

Happy Birthday Saucey!

Was there anything else about today that we needed to remember?

Monday, April 12, 2010

Another Look


0408100844a.jpg
Originally uploaded by nanaknits21

Here's a better picture of the Rivendel Socks.... I took this one with my cell phone, go figure!

Ahh, Technology

My computer and I have been at odds lately.  Last week it contracted a virus and although it's healthy again it has had some aftereffects.  Namely I lost some of my software programs.  One of those was the one that interfaces with the camera and basically lets me upload pictures.  After several futile attempts to reload the program, I contacted the company for help, but haven’t gotten a fix yet.  Now ordinarily I would just pop the memory card out of the camera and upload the pictures from there.  That didn’t seem to work either.  It took me until today to figure out that somewhere along the way a setting got changed on the camera and the pictures were being stored in the internal memory and not on the card.  So, human error this time, not computer error; and easy enough to fix; I copied the pictures to the card and popped it into the drive and hurray – Pictures!

So now I can bring you up to date on my knitting projects.  

I mentioned in my last post that I finished the Blue Pukas sweater: 

Pattern: Pukas from Knitters Magazine K98, Spring 2010 Yarn: Dream in Color, Some Summer Sky 

I also finished my Rivendel socks:

Pattern: Rivendel from the Eclectic Sole by Janel Laidman Yarn: Noro Kuryeon Sock, color S149 Modifications:  worked chart B rows 60-44 in place of chart A rows 1-16 

And this morning I closed the toes on these:

Pattern: Knotty or Knice Socks by Chrissy Gardiner, Interweave Knits, Fall 2008 Yarn: Koigu Premium Painters Pallet Merino; color Lilac (P703117)  

And, I’m still working on the Vines and Lace sweater and it is still happier.  

So there you have it, I’ve been busy working away, it’s my computer that’s the slacker.  

Happy Knitting!  

Nana

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Moving Right Along

Well, I just need to say that March was a not-so-great month and April is already shaky. Our family has been experiencing some ups and downs. We made one trip to Des Moines together and hubby is back there again this week assisting his Mom after she had surgery. Adding to the stress, his sister recently delivered twin boys at 29 weeks gestation meaning they are still both in the hospital. Both boys are doing well and making progress as expected, but will probably be there a bit longer. His sister was on bed rest in very bad condition prior to the delivery. She is doing very well now but is very busy going back and forth with the babies and returning to work until the babies are released. So that’s all been very distracting for both hubby and I.

I did manage to get a little knitting done here and there; I think I’ve fallen behind my imaginary schedule though.

I finished the Blue Pukas sweater and am very happy with the outcome. You’ll have to take my word for it though because my computer is refusing to have anything to do with my camera. (so any pictures in this post are old).

I have two pair of socks on the needles, the Forget Me Knots and the Rivendel socks. I’ve turned the heel on the 1st Forget Me Knot, and am almost done with the second Rivendel sock.




 The pattern/yarn combination for the Rivendels is not quite what I expected but it is quite interesting. I started these the week we took the first trip to IA. The colors of the yarn matched the colors of the landscape along I-80 perfectly the day we traveled there. . (I obviously ignored the rules according to this
But fortunately we had a little rain and a little sun before we returned from the trip and it is amazing the difference two days can make, what had been very dry, brown, grey and dead looking started to green up around the edges and was beginning to look like spring might be on the verge.



Oh and remember the vest? I frogged it after I consulted a few knitting friends and the consensus was that it was bad and therefore needed to be ripped and re-knit. Well, I frogged it on Thursday and a new issue of Creative Knitting hit my mail box on Friday… guess what! There was a pattern for a really nice sweater that is really more my style anyway; a sweater pattern that calls for Terra yarn (Vines and Leaves Cardigan).

Yup! I cast on and started that as soon as I could. The project is much happier as a lace sweater!


Happy Knitting!


Nana