Rambling Warps

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICAH & EVAN!!

13 years ago:

The first photo was taken before going back to the hospital... I had HELLP syndrome, saw the doctor that afternoon & he wanted to do a c/section asap... I insisted on going home to do a few things (like take pictures!)

Yes I was tired...

Family photo:

Size then: approximately 6 lbs each & 19-20" long...

Size now: approximately 5'3" and 5'5" tall and over 100 lbs each!

Almost 13 years later (2 mos ago):

Now they have 2 younger brothers...

Guess I oughtta see if the scanner we have on the back porch works... taking pictures of pictures....ehhhh...

We'll go out for pizza tonight ... looks like a rainy day, but we need the rain (drought/burn bans all over/fires in some areas) so I won't complain...

Knitting

Will wash & take pictures of the baby sweater in a day or two.

Did a couple of rounds of the Celtic Cap in chunky... I don't like the metal needles in this size, may see if I have some bamboos in the size I'm using (8 or 9, not sure) and see if that makes a difference. The yarn is pretty dense, so it might not.

Also have a hood in progress using Patons SWS in natural green... I love the way the edging looks, but I'm not all that sure I like the way the actual body of the hood is looking... I'm thinking this particular pattern won't work for this yarn... will do a bit more so I have enough to try it on, might be coming out a tad too big... and the lace patterning isn't showing up too well...

Hat-Attack-MAILED!

Saturday morning, I downloaded the pattern for the binary cable hat for the Hat_Attack group & finished it that night... Monday morning, I wove in the ends (about 10 of them?) and then mailed the mess out on Monday afternoon. I sent some goodies along with it, but will wait until my target receives her hat to talk about them!

Here are some pix:

The picture is blurry because I took the photo with my left hand & the mitt only fits the right hand... I'm mostly right-handed!

This one is a fingerless mitt I made a day or two before the Binary Cable hat pattern came out... the red color symbolizes blood on my hands! (I have not finished the second: it is a cuff... have not decided what to do for a design for it...should I use the same cable, the Patchwork cable (from Barbara Walkers 2nd treasury) or something else, perhaps a cable of a skull or something??

and here are two photos of my finished hat, which is now missile-ing it's way from Texas to South Carolina:

One side:

Here's the other side:

And here is a photo of a hat that I made for my friend Ann... she received it a couple of days ago. Notice the picot edging...a la claudia

I did not sew my last row down (which Claudia secretly thinks "wussy" if you're knitting a cuff down sock): I simply picked up the stitches at the beginning of the picot stockinette section (on the wrong side of the work) with another circular needle & when I was all done with the 15 rounds of picot, I did a 3 needle bindoff with the pickup needle & the edge needle.

I knit the hat from the crown down, increasing 6 sections until I got to the main part of the hat's body...did a few rounds of stockinette & then did Shaker Ribbing (which is 4 or 5 rounds of purl followed by 4 or 5 rounds of knit followed by 4 or 5 rounds of purl... the purl side poofs out in that cute way)...

Once the knitting was finished, I wove in the ends, washed & voila!

Time for bed.........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Color changes

Well it looks like UNLESS I end up deciding to go with Briggs & Little Regal yarn, i'll choose one of the B&L Heritage blues that I have since my target LIKES blues, greens & purples... we'll see how tonite's swatching goes! I've got a ball of dark red yarn making a pair of fingerless mitts to see how I like the gauge & if I do, I will go with one of the heritage blues...

No sense sending a hat in a color that she won't look good in... death with dignity, they say!

The red fingerless mitts (even if I just finish one tonite, that'll be fine) will symbolize blood on my hands!

I'm still curious to see how this all will play out. Some people live where their post office is open on Saturdays and even have places where it's open on Sunday as well... ours is not open Saturday and I think we'd have to go to DFW airport (a bit over an hour away) if we want to get something mailed in a hurry... ve shalt zeeeee....

Hat Attck!

I was bumbling around on google looking for information about LL Bean blankets & found someone's blog talking about Hat Attack which is discussed on Ravelry here and you can sign up on the yahoo site here Be aware though that TONIGHT at midnight is the deadline for signing up!

I've been noodling around in my head about which yarn to use for my "murder weapon hat" and originally I thought Briggs & Little red, but got to thinking about it, maybe Briggs & Little Hunter Orange would be a good color to use!! SO I will try to dig it up and wind it into a ball & hope I don't go blind in the process of knitting it because it IS a *bright* color...this swatch does not do the color justice, you have to see it in person:

and here's the red:

Scarlet in Briggs & Little Regal is another possibility if I need to use a lighter weight yarn, but I hope I can get 5 stitches to the inch with the Heritage...here's the Scarlet:

I guess I'll swatch a bit today except I may get tarred & feathered by my kids if I don't get dressed & try out the bike I bought from a thrift store this week & brought home yesterday... it's a mountain bike & hopefully after all these years & extra pounds, I'll be able to ride it... (and ride OFF a few pounds in the process).. I'd like it to warm up a little bit & need to put away the produce...

This week (probably later today), I'll work on finishing the LAST of the toddler sweater, the bottom ribbing... I followed the Cottage Creations Little Lillie's sweater in the 2 yr size and the hood is done, the body is done (including the intarsia sailboat section that I added that I got from this site

It's the 2nd one on top... easy to do & I did it more like fair isle (using the woven method rather than stranded) in that area rather than intarsia because I didn't want to break the main yarn up into 3 or 4 sections for it... it came out okay, I like the way it came out a little thicker in that spot...I'm almost tempted to find a little squeaker to put behind it, but it's not a duck or something like that, so I'll leave it as is!

Once done, I'll need to wash the sweater & attempt to get as many cat hairs OUT of it as possible... I'm half tempted to send it to my aunt so that she can get the rest of them out, but with 7 cats in the house, cat hairs are a part of life!

Enough for now, I was informed that I won't be tarred & feathered but dressed in every single hat or sweater & gloves & socks that I've made... it's 43 degrees now and supPOSED to go up to 53 degrees, but it's noon now and I don't see HOW it can get much warmer than 49!! Ve shalt zee....

Maybe I'll upload photos next time... of the sweater... still need to find buttons since the recipient is a boy, can't use the ladybugs... and forgot to look for them when we were at the Decatur Walmart yesterday, but I'll check tomorrow after our Spiral Scouts meeting...