Warning - Don't seam while riding in a car

I finished the water bottle holder:



Doesn't look too bad, does it? Of course I elaborately staged the photo (I don't have a yard, being an apartment dweller, so I sat it on the window sill with the plants to have that Yarn Harlot look) to hide the fact that the strap is a moebius strip! Damned if I know how I did it. I was working on it in the car on the way to the wedding that I went to yesterday, which was beautiful by the way. It wasn't at night, I had plenty of sunlight. Yet I twisted the strap when I seamed it. Then I attached it to the tube without ever noticing the twist. I got home around midnight last night, went to bed, got up at 6 this morning to finish it. Once I finished, I held it up to admire my work...and there was that twist. I gotta tell ya at this point I really didn't care. He's a good guy, he knows I can knit well, maybe he'll think it's design feature? Anyway I stopped by the school and left it in his mailbox with a note.

Heady with the freedom of a completed project I signed up for this:



This brings me up to 7 knit alongs (6 if you don't count Anouk which is finished). I have the yarn for the rug and it was always on my list of summer projects so I figured why not. It doesn't start until July 15 so that's plenty of time.

I was loving this test that I found at Ann's site:





Can't say I was surprised, heck I think I'm less evil than I thought!

Of course in the interest of improving myself I went on to do this quiz, that the lovely Ann also shared:


20 Questions to being a Better Person

"Your score as a human being is 77.5.

Middle of the road, eh? Does that mean you're yellow? Yellow as a salamander frying on blacktop? Yellow as a urinal cake? Yellow as a delicious marshmallow Peep? Mmmm. Peep. Sometimes I think if it weren't for Just Born candy, I would just expel my life force and expire. Hot Tamales. Mike and Ikes.

But I digress.

Nicely done. You are robustly average, and I approve of it. "


Funny how they're so close isn't it...

Why is it that if I have a deadline, I absolutely won't get a project done in time? I am sure my regular readers know that I didn't finish the teacher's present in time for today, the last day. The good news is that the teachers will still be in on Monday, so I will stop by in the morning and drop it off to him. I really get hung up on these long pieces. It's only 15 stitches in K1, P1 rib, but it has to be 58" and that ribbing slows me down. I did finish the tube that the bottle goes into and it's actually sitting on my kitchen table with a large bottle of Dasani in it. It fits very well.

No work being done on anything else obviously. I am going to start Devan this weekend but it's rather a busy time. We have a cousin's tap show to go to tomorrow. Sunday we visit my mother in the morning, and we have a wedding to attend in the late afternoon, evening. And oh yes it's my birthday. I am planning on celebrating next weekend since we had so many things to do this weekend but my best friend is going to come over before I leave for the wedding so there will be something of a celebratory nature going on.

Have a great weekend everyone...

I have not been exactly productive of late. I did not finish the tie (surprise!) for my husband for Father's Day. Thankfully being a well trained husband of a knitter he was able to show enthusiasm and appreciation for the half-finished product. It is made with Magic Stripes from Lion Brand and is a pattern from their website. It's actually coming out quite nicely but it's over 50" long on size 5s in sock yarn. That means progress is slow.

He gave me permission to put it aside to work on the water bottle bag for Avery's teacher. That is going quickly since it is bulky. Unfortunately I forgot to bring the smaller size needles with me today, so although I finished the body of it, I can't begin the strap until I get home. I did seam it up however so my time was not completely wasted.

I tried to buy the beautiful Memphis colorway from (Threadbear) Rob's blog, but alas I was too late. My Charlotte will come, I am sure, it was just not meant to be...yet.

I have cast aside all other projects for a mystery father's day project (my husband reads my blog occasionally hence the mystery). I am concerned about being done in time. Ray is away until tomorrow afternoon on a business trip, and I want to be finished by then as it certainly would lose it's mystery if he saw me working on it. I am hoping with a late night tonight I can just about finish it. I rented Honey to watch tonight, so it should be perfect for mindless knitting.

Avery was a runner up in a contest sponsored by the New York Post and the City of New York called Little Apple Heroes. He wrote an essay on how he would spend a day, with a group of volunteers cleaning up our neighborhood park and making it a "relaxation spot". I am very proud! Thanks to this we won 4 tickets to a special screening of the first Spider Man movie tomorrow, as well as a party before the movie.

I also have to start the water bottle bag for Avery's teacher. I am rapidly running out of time, but it should go quickly enough. The pattern I found used 2 strands of worsted, although it's on a lower gauge needle than you would normally use. I assume it's to make a good strong, dense fabric.

So what's missing? Devan! I do plan on casting on this weekend as planned. I just don't think I'll get much done until the end of the week.

Where is everybody else the Devan along?

Stephanie completed a front panel but is having some concerns about her color matching. I personally like the bright lime.

Chris is working on the back piece. The other pieces look great!

The rest of us have yet to begin. I'm sure we'll catch up soon enough...

I finished the clogs. I like the way they look although I am toying with shrinking them a little more. Of course I made them a little big because Ian is growing so fast.

Here is the before:


and after:



I have puffy fabric paint to put on the bottoms for treads so in the morning I'll decide if they should go through one more cycle. If not then I'll do the bottoms.

I also swatched for Devan:



I cast on for the Mya swatch, but this morning I realized that school ends next week so that means I am way behind on the year end teacher gift. Avery's teacher likes to go hiking so I thought I would make him a water bottle holder. The only pattern I could find was in Hollywood Knits. So now I have to figure out a good yarn substitute, prefarably from my stash, and make it masculine. I think my work is cut out for me.

I didn't post much last week so I missed the opportunity to comment on the outpouring of grief over Reagan's death. Frankly I sure wasn't feeling it, but since it's a new week I won't get into now, except to share my favorite comic strip, Boondocks with you. Check out Monday's strip

Monday Morning Finishing

I got up at six this morning to finish up the Fiber Trends Children's Felted Clogs. I am going to throw them into the washer when I get home tonight. I had a number of problems with this pattern. Initially I found it odd that there seem to be so many mistakes in the number of stitches you're working with, since the pattern is so popular, but then I realized that it is the adult version that is the really popular one. I suspect the designer quickly sized it down for a kid version, but most people just do it themselves with the adult pattern.

It's a great design otherwise. I am a little concerned about it being a bit lopsided but felting hides a multitude of sins, so I think they'll be fine. Besides he's 2 so he's not very concerned with appearance! I think I will spring for the adult pattern and just work with that in the future. Wish I'd done it that way from the giddy-up.

I finished weaving in the ends on the booties on the train this morning. When I was working on the clogs I noticed the booties sitting abandoned in the tray on the end table. I realized that I had never done the finishing on them. So I grabbed them this morning on my way out the door. I only had sewing on the clog left to do on the train so I knew I had extra time. I did it all in the trip to work. Glad I brought a book for the ride home.

Tonight I am going to do some swatches. I am going to swatch for Devan and Mya. Mya is a crossover sweater in Rowan Junior, that I've been wanting to make for another co-worker who just had a baby (they're just popping out all over). And of course the felting.

The Devan Along is growing a bit, since their is no real time frame feel free to sign up even if you're not sure when you'll start. I still haven't made any real progress on my shapely tank and that knit along started in April. This is a very low pressure blog...

I am not sure what is up with my progress bars, so until I solve the mystery of the missing color I have listed the percentages on the sides. Hopefully I'll figure out what's wrong very soon...

So the Devan Along is on. See it even has a button:



It's only 3 of us so far, but I hope more people will join up as we go along. The rules? Really none. If you're knitting Devan or plan on knitting it by then end of the year join up! Chris has already started, I hope to start next weekend. I think Stephanie wanted to start by the end of the month. It's all good. Just have fun. I will post periodic updates on everyone's progress. I will also try to get a gallery together of the finished ones as we go.

I have actually cast aside all my projects temporarily, because I had ordered the Fiber Trends Children's Felted Clog pattern. Ian needs slippers, what can I say. They seem to be going quickly after a few issues in the beginning (much frogging going on until the end of the first 5 rows). I think they're going to be adorable on him.

The shapely got frogged so I'm back at the short rows section. I couldn't quite figure out where I had left off, but I also seem to have screwed up the decreases somehow. So I ripped it out and started again. I think that was best especially since I did one side of short rows better than the other, now I can make them both look good...

I have finished a sock:



It came out very well, and it fit my son perfectly. Of course I did check before I started the toe:



It was very easy. I did frog that one time when I was turning the heel, but otherwise it went very smoothly. I did have some problems with the toe. I was working on it in the car and somehow I dropped my last stitches. Then I had to pick them up and of course I had lost a few decreases. I thought I had caught them all, but after carefully following the directions I had for grafting the toe, I looked at it and I had loose stitches trying to run down the sides underneath the grafted stitches. Thankfully I was able to pick them up before any damage was done. I will be sure not to attempt to finish on the road again.

Look what came in the mail for me:



From the lovely guys at Threadbear. There service really is wonderful. As soon as I catch the right colorway for me I will be ordering my yarn for Charlotte. What is this Kureyon for you may ask? A Christmas present! Yes, I am keeping to a new year's resolution (from the year before last) and beginning my presents early. This year it will the theme will be bags. This yarn is destined to be a Booga Bag for a very dear friend who always admires mine. I am scoping out patterns and hope to have a list together in the next few weeks of all the different bags I will be making. My goal is to have a bag as one of my ongoing 3 project at all times so I will be done in time for holiday gift giving with a lower stress level than usual.

Aren't you all impressed?

I haven't heard any interest in a Devan along. Stephanie is interested but I haven't seem to gather anybody else. Still I will be forging ahead. I am going to attempt to make a button for it. Check back Wednesday to see how I did.

I turned the heel on my first sock! It went pretty well. I frogged once because the pattern was a bit off, but it was fine after that. I picked up the stitches on the sides of the heel flap this morning on the train. Which prompted my beloved to ask, "you could have done that in the car!?!". No, I always knew it would have to come upstairs for this part, but I am hoping to finish it tonight.

I ended up working on it by default. I finished Anouk, which was a big hit with my friend Kelly (her daughter is absolutely beautiful by the way, anouk will suit her well). She thanked me yesterday and called me today to thank me again. Yesterday on my way in I grabbed my shapely tank. When I was in the car on the way to visiting my mother I realized I hadn't grabbed another ball of yarn and the one I was finishing was just about done. So Ray suggested I grab the sock and so I did. He's pretty sharp that one.


You may notice in my list of projects that the lap blanket has become the Candy Wrapper Lap Blanket. This is because I have joined the:



Thanks to Mindy for the tip. I'll do anything for free candy and there is a candy exchange involved in this knit along. The pattern for the blanket has a change in yarn (and gauge) every few inches to give it a gathered effect. The pattern has it repeated throughout the blanket but I have always planned to only do it twice on each end, making it vaguely reminiscent of a Tootsie Roll Wrapper. The lengths some people will go for the sweet stuff...