Dishrags

Lately I've been knitting dishrags. I love them. They are easy mindless knitting and also something useful. I give them away to my family and friends, most recently to my grandmother and sister. Here is a picture of just a few of the dishcloths that I have made recently. I love the bright colors.

I think that I have been into making dishcloths recently because I became frustrated with a sweater I have been working on. The bottom part is stockingknit and I was able to knit along on that without any problems. But the bodice is a pattern and I should have looked more closely at the directions because this pattern contained a charted pattern. I prefer written directions. Something about words and abbreviations telling me to knit two together is so much easier. I don't know why. But this pattern was charted and I ran into a snag when I was trying to figure it out. I knitted through it several times and it never seemed to have enough stitches for the pattern or either it had too many. I knit it and took it out several times. I was frustrated to say the least and I seriously considered taking out the whole thing. But I simply but it away and began my dishcloth knitting.

But yesterday I wanted something more usefull to knit for myself. Now that my dishcloth supply for gifts was built back up, the mindless knitting was not so appealing anymore. So this morning I got up and got the sweater back out. And I started to knit and all of a sudden it worked. There were enough stitches and everything slanted in the right place. All of the yarn overs made increases where they were supposed to and it all worked together to make a pretty lace pattern. Just like the picture in the directions.

Now I don't know why everything all of a sudden started to work. Maybe something just clicked in my brain and it made sense. I don't know, it may eternally be a mystery, but there is one thing I thing I know for sure. I still prefer written directions over charts.

In other news I planted a garden. Here is my squash.

And my tomatos

Peppers and marigolds

And some of my flowers.

Spring is wonderful and I can't wait for my vegatables to grow so I can eat them.

Snow and the Knitting Olympics

It's snowing in Alabama!!! A rarity indeed. And the really rare part about it is that it may actually stick a little bit. Last time I remember snow sticking in Alabama was when I was in the 9th grade, way back in 1993. So this is pretty exciting. I took some pictures of my yard so you can see what it looks like.

My back yard



The church next to my house


My front yard and street


Another thing that is exciting is that the Olympics start today! I love the Olympics. But this year I am going to participate in the knitting Olympics. After thinking much I have decided that my challenge will be to knit a pair of socks. I know, I know, I don't really like to knit socks. But this pattern is a little challenging and I have lots of sock yarn. Its not really the socks themselves that I don't like it is the finishing part. Especially the Kitchener stitch. I also have a couple of other projects that I have to get done and so I am thinking that the socks will not take me very long.

So I am trying to decide which yarn to use. These are my options:




I am going to use a pattern from Knitty called Cable Net. Here is the link: http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall06/PATTcablenet.html



I also have a baby sweater that my sister wants me to crochet for a friend of hers. Here is the yarn for that.



I am not sure what pattern I am going to do yet, but crochet goes a lot faster than knitting. At least for me. So I don't think it will take me very long.

And I have some leftover yarn from a sweater that I want to do a scarf out of.



So here is the plan. I am going to knit the socks and then I am going to crochet the baby sweater. Then if time permits I am going to do the scarf. And hopefully I am going to get it all done within the time period. The socks are for the knitting Olympics. And the sweater is too I guess since I told my sister I would have it done by the 27th.

Get out of the way people this is going to be some serious knitting.

Left Handed Knitting in a Right Handed World

I knit a pair of socks and I think that they turned out pretty good. I have never knitted a pair of socks before although I knew how to do it. I have made plenty of things knitting in the round and did not doubt my ability to make socks I had just never done it before.
Well I knitted along with no problem until I came to the end of the toe and I had to do something that I now consider to be created just to torture me. The Kitchener stitch.
I am not only a self taught knitter, but I am left handed. This is something that has given me a few problems. I often have to remind myself that when I see instructions that talk about stitches on the right hand needle, that is the left hand needle for me. When in doubt I have found a few use full videos on YouTube that have helped quite a bit. But for some reason I have not found any left handed Kitchener stitch instructions.
I tried to reverse things and do it all left handed but it came out looking rather sloppy. So on the second sock I decided to try holding the tapestry needle in my right hand and doing it just like the right handed instructions show.
After wielding the needle a little uncomfortably with my right hand and having to force myself not to use my left hand to grab it, I completed the sock and it looked no different. I looks light years different from the picture in the instructions.
So I think that the problem lies with me. Maybe I need to practice. Or may I will just have to stick with toe up socks instead of heel down socks. Or maybe I will just never knit socks again. And while this statement might meet with shock to most other knitters out there, I can think of more enjoyable and useful things to knit. All because of the Kitchener stitch. I hate it.

Sometimes You Never Know

My sisters and I always draw names for Christmas so that we only have to buy one gift for Christmas. Since there are four of us this is always nice financially but it also allows us to make the gift for the person that we draw a little extra nice.

This year I got my youngest sister Courtney's name. I decided to knit her a scarf. I am slowly trying to knit everyone in my family something. Since I am a little slow in getting this done the hand knitted items that family members have are becoming famous. Since Courtney has not yet received a knitted item I thought she would enjoy a scarf. Something useful and since scarfs do not require tons of yarn they are fairly inexpensive gifts and I could still afford to get her something else.

Well I thought I heard her say she wanted a multicolor scarf. So I bought a very pretty variegated pastel yarn. After a few false starts I finally decided on a pattern.




I knew that it looked a little baby blanketish but Courtney likes to wear pastels and so I thought maybe she would like this.

Well I showed the yarn to my older sister and she said Courtney wanted "a neutral color with flecks". What in the world did that mean? So I took myself back down to the yarn store and about a simple ivory colored yarn. I don't know what she meant by flecks but I figured you can't go wrong with ivory it goes with everything.





Then I remember that I had to go to another town that has an even better yarn store and so I would look for some yarn there. I got a very soft wool and alpaca blend but I was not really happy about the color.









I was feeling a lot frustrated and everyone seemed to be giving me an opinion about a scarf for Courtney and they were all different. So as I pondered this new yarn and what pattern to use I remembered a very nice yarn that I had in my stash. It has some neutral colors in it and because it is a self patterning yarn I think that when the colors blend it looks a little like flecks.



So this is it. My scarf for Courtney. I think it is perfect for her.

Christmas before Thanksgiving?

Today I was in the mall buying a birthday present for my nephew. I had already seen the Christmas decorations and so I knew that the mall was starting to get a little festive but I thought certainly Santa won't be out yet. But yet there he was in all of his white beard and red coat glory ready for the kids to sit in his lap and have their picture taken.
Now I am not against Christmas. I love Christmas. I most importantly love celebrating the birth of the savior. I love to see Christmas decorations. I love to decorate my house with a tree, stockings, wreaths and everything else that is Christmasy. I love to give and receive gifts. I love all of it. But I think we need to have everything in its place.
I also love Thanksgiving. What a wonderful time to remember all that we have to be grateful for. Which, regardless of how bad we think things are is quite a lot.
So I think that the wonderful Christmas decorations need to stay in their boxes and Santa at the North Pole until Thanksgiving is over. Let us celebrate that wonderful day and then get ready for the next. Why does Christmas have to be so much about making money? It the birthday of our savior.
Now that I have shared my opinion of the early Christmas decorations I will show you what I am knitting.

A new sweater

A Scarf

And here is a bunch random yarn I am not sure what I am going to do with yet. I am thinking a bunch of scarves.

My First Sweater

Which actually turned out to be my second sweater. I started this in the middle of last winter and although I knitted and knitted I was just a little short of finishing the collar when it suddenly became to warm to wear the sweater. So with a sigh I put it aside telling myself I would finish it in time to wear next winter.

In the mean time I worked on many other projects. A lovely color work vest (which is still unfinished), a scarf for my sister and I started on my second sweater, which became my first. I say this became my first because I actually finished it within a reasonable amount of time. I finished it and I wore it with in the same season. It is lovely, blue summer weight sweater that was not too hot for Alabama summers. I love it and hope that I get to wear it many more times.

My "Second First" Sweater

But back to my my first second sweater. Living in Alabama does not allow much time or need for a wool sweater. I love cold weather, but the winters are rather mild here. I liked that this one had short sleeves and I could layer it for the few days that it will actually get cold enough to need something extra warm. I can also simply wear it with something short sleeves and not be too hot on the milder winter days. I think that it is perfect for Alabama winters.

So on the first slightly cool day in October (a day I always think is funny because people in Alabama always bundle up as if they are going to freeze to death) I fished my first sweater out of the knitting bag that I had banished it to and I finished knitting the collar. Now my first sweater (which actually has become my second sweater) is finished and I wore it today. And I definitely think it is the perfect sweater for Alabama.