Sunday, June 24, 2007

A set and a sock

Maybe I'm taking this Peaches and Creme thing too far... First, a bunch of washcloths, then I did 2 baby bibs. Then 2 burp cloths. Then I reached in to the stash and realized there was yarn for a burp cloth that would match the catepillar buttons on the bibs perfectly!



But, orange and green? I know, it's pretty loud. And a big step away from the blue/green theme of the baby set so far. Not that I'm trying to follow a blue/green theme for a particular baby at all. In fact this might not get gifted for awhile. My sister has had some problems with her pregnancy of late and it looks like she won't be having a baby next January as planned after all. I don't want to go into any of the details here but things just haven't gone well. So she has some waiting to do now before trying to get pregnant again. But she & her husband really do want another baby, and say they do want to try again when they can. So I think the baby set will be gifted eventually, just probably later than planned. In the meantime I think my niece has been distracting everyone with fun stuff, like discovering just how wonderful water can be in the summertime...



In other news I'm making progress using up the sock yarn. I finished one of the Waterfall Socks.



Like I mentioned before I love this pattern. It's pretty and stretchy and fits wonderfully. I knit it exactly as the pattern reads and I just could not be happier with it! I think this was the only sock pattern I've purchased from KnitSpot. Hmm... I'm going to have to go back and check for more. Especially judging the amount of sock yarn I still have. And my surgery is later this week... Hopefully I won't be too out of it to knit, if I feel good enough to knit, I bet I could really turn out some good stuff!

Friday, June 15, 2007

Weight and creative ways to distribute it

These are done.


Yarn: Patonyle Made in Australia. Gifted to me by the wonderful Suzi at Darkside of Knitting

Pattern: regular old stockinette sock pattern knit on Clover bamboo dpns size 2.

They are done and in the Christmas bag! Look out-the holiday knitting has begun and it has it's own bag. I love putting it in it's own bag. Then when it gets to be the end of the year I have a big bag (I hope) of fo's just sitting there waiting to be gifted.

The Christmas bag is not the only new addition to the stash baskets


This is my new favorite toy. Fresh from Bed, Bath and Beyond where I practically stole it for a mere $5.99. Look it, even stores itself in itself!



Why would I have a diet food scale in my stash you ask? Well, it measures ounces and grams so I can use it to weigh my sock yarn halfway through instead of getting all the way to the end of the second sock and then realizing I'm going to run out of yarn:) In this case I can make 2 nifty little balls from one hank straight out of the gate.


This yarn was also a gift from Suzi back when I did the Punk Rock Gift Exchange. Basically, I'm trying to de-stash, it's hot and I want to knit the sock yarn the most and I'm starting with my favorites! In this case not only is the yarn awesome, but I picked a great pattern too.

These are the Waterfall Socks from Knitspot. I said nice things about Anne's patterns before when I knit the Cloverleaf Mitts from my mom and now you're going to hear me say nice things about her patterns again. I love this one! I don't even want to put it down. And this is not my usual experience with patterned socks. A lot of time patterned socks to me feel tight on the needles and I always find myself furrowing my brow and sticking my tongue out while I try to do weird stuff like purling 3 through the back loop and crap. So far with this pattern-not the case. The hardest thing is a k2tog and even I can do that. And it's coming out so pretty and stretchy- so I know it will fit well. Anyway, stay tuned to see where this one goes, I have really high hopes for it.

On the non-knitting front the sports medicine doctor did not give me good news this week, he basically reiterated what my podiatrist has already said. So I went ahead and scheduled my surgery for the very end of this month. I have 6 weeks on crutches, and then 4 weeks in a boot and then 4 weeks of physical therapy to look forward to. It sucks, but what can you do? It was bad news to get but I'm trying to be positive and keep a sense of humor about things. This brochure really helped a lot


I can choose, if I like instead of the boot to use a Roll-a-Bout! Fantastic! (sarcasm) The first thing I said when the doctor showed me this "Oh now that is SEXY!!!!" My crazy mother of course had to ask "Does the man in the picture come with the Roll-a-Bout" wink wink (Note to self-get mom boyfriend) Now I apologize if there's anyone reading this who has experience with the Roll-a-Bout and just loved it and feels strongly about their connection with their Roll-a-Bout but well, it's just not for me. I know the boot will be big and clunky but I just think it will still be slightly less noticeable than the Roll-a-Bout. Although I think it might be fun to hang out the skateboarders at the train station with the Roll-a-Bout and gauge their reactions... Am I sensing a new sport here maybe? Synchronized Roll-a-Bouting could be performed by teams set to music. Extreme Roll-a-Bouting would require helmets and elbow pads of course. Just think of the decorating possibilities- flame decals along the bars, ribbons and streamers to wave in the wind, rims on the wheels... Tony Hawk, I await your call...

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Catching up so I can hurry up and wait...

I didn't blog at all last week. I've fallen a little behind on a few things. Like getting the buttons on the red cardigan. I was with Tracy when I finally bought the thread to sew on the buttons, which had arrived a few weeks before. She said if she had finished a sweater she would have stayed up until 3 o'clock in the morning sewing them on just to see it done. This made me feel bad. Not bad enough to stay up that night sewing on the buttons... but bad enough to get it done like a couple of weeks later I guess.



I'm not crazy about this photo, it's on the hanger and kind of dark and kind of cheezy. But I promise the sweater is awesome. It fits great, it's just way too hot now to put it on for a proper photo shoot. I promise eventually to take a good photo that does it justice. Hey-for now I got the buttons on at least right...

And example #2 of not liking to sew on buttons. Two finished (almost) baby bibs from the Mason Dixon knitting book. One just needs to have the other caterpillar button sewn on.


You caught the cute caterpillar button right? See, he's on roller skates or something. Cute!



Don't worry-I still have plenty of time before the babies arrive (whichever one is getting these, don't know yet). I promise the button will be on by the time the item is gifted. Other than the crappy-having-to-sew-on a button part these bibs are kind of fun, neat gifts. They go super fast and I like how the cotton is easy to take care of the colors are kind of modern and fun and gender-neutral. Definitely a good pattern to have around to whip up as a last minute baby thing...

And I'm almost done with these socks.



I've realized the sock yarn is what has me most anxious of all the yarn amounts in the stash so I'm trying to focus my knitting attention there. There's just so much of it, I feel like I will never get through it all. The tragedy of which is that I will never be able to buy more. What an cruel, cruel circle the stash runs in!

But I might have more knitting time than usual very soon-here's the hurry up and wait part. I found out a few weeks ago that I tore a tendon in my foot when kickboxing and I'm going to need to have surgery. The bad part is-I tore the tendon in January. And I have been walking and kickboxing and cycling on it since. Yikes. When it happened I figured I had just sprained my ankle or something and figured it was temporary. I've had pain since but I never ever thought it could be something this serious. Boy was I wrong. At first it looked like I was just going to need the tendon surgery and would be in a cast for 3 weeks. That would be a pain in the tush-but something I figured I could deal with. But when we finally go the MRI done and I went back to my doctor for him to check it out he told me that since I have walked on this injury for so long the bones have been affected and the ankle is beginning to collapse. (Yikes again) It's now likely I'm going to need to have bone surgery (yeah, like they CUT off a piece of my BONE and put a screw through my ANKLE) and I will have to actually be in a cast for 8 weeks. Yes, after receiving this lovely news I am not happy. I am scared and depressed. Because of this development I've been referred to a Sports Medicine Orthopedist in Princeton. (Do you know how laughable it is that I have to go to a Sports Medicine doctor??? Do you remember the post about the hot dogs???)



Mmm... Hot dogs... Anyway, yes sad and depressed and even the looming possibilities of hours of uninterrupted knitting time are not enough to cheer me up yet. Talk to me once I have the screw in my ankle and I'm spaced out on some decent pain meds. We'll see, I'm trying to remain positive. I am. I hope to know more after I see the sports medicine doc Wednesday. In the meantime like I mentioned I'm trying to catch up (at work, around the house, socially) so that I will be prepared for when the healing period has to begin.