exhaustion

Has it really been weeks since I last posted?  I guess school and work and kids just got the better of me and I was too tired to bother.  Since we last spoke, I've done some knitting but I've mostly been doing homework.  I'm on break right now and thank goodness I am because this last set of classes just about killed me.  My final projects were truly ridiculous and I'm still wiped out.  My back is so badly out of alignment that I've been having a hard time sleeping and I can feel that my collar bone is grinding when I move my left arm.  I really need to see the chiropractor but I just can't afford it right now.  I'm entrenched in a battle with my former employer and it's affecting my unemployment so the budget is really tight right now.  Luckily, I've been taking in some repairs and finishing work from the shop which helps make up a little of the difference. 

I've been commissioned to knit a sweater for a friend's husband and I've been agonizing over it.  I've knit 3 swatches and I've tried to cast on and get started but I do this thing where I feel like, if a person is paying me to knit something for them (and it's not cheap) then I want the finished item to look like it was worth the amount they paid.  I also get bored if the item is too plain.  Plain socks?...then I need the yarn to at least be a really pretty color.  Solid color yarn?...then I need a nice stitch pattern to show it off.  Giant turtle-neck pullover for a 6'2" man?...then I want to put a cabled panel down the center to break it up and make it look a little better.  That should be easy enough but I've gone over it and over it, and I've narrowed it down several times.  I've knit four-five different swatches and come up with three likely candidates.  Here's the issue.  My favorite one is harder to knit and harder on the hands.  The next one looks more like the first one and is easier on the hands but will still take more time than the last one.  The last one is fastest and simplest, (and Aaron likes that one best) but it's just boring!  So therein lies the problem.  Fast, or interesting.  Can't a girl have both!?  So I'm off to cast on and figure out what to do about this issue.  One way or another, I'm starting this sweater tonight.

The Monster Hat

the Monster Hat

Yesterday I posted about the Pumpkin Hat (which was met with much enthusiasm this morning), and a few days before that I posted about the Bunny Hat, but in between these, I knit the Monster Hat and I totally forgot to post it here.  It's a cabled hat that matches the Monster Hand-warmers that I knit a month or so ago for Alex.  I knit a seed-stitch brim, and then switched my favorite cable-rib pattern.  I wasn't too sure how I was going to handle the decreases, but I decided to push forward and see what happened.  I had 10 cable-rib repeats, so I decided to decrease every other one and see what happened.  That worked out just fine, but I still had too many stitches so I decided to start decreasing the remaining cables, and at the end I had something like 10 sts total left over.  I cut the yarn and pulled it through the remaining sts, and ended up with a perfect little star at the crown of the hat!  My first ever cabled hat without a pattern. 

pretty five-pointed star on top!

I'm thinking about knitting another one, in a larger size (or smaller) and trying to work out a pattern for this as there's been some interest on Ravelry in a pattern.  I used Cashmerino Aran for the original, but I'm looking to knit the samples in a different yarn because frankly, the Cashmerino hasn't held up very well in the hand-warmers, which is disappointing considering how expensive that yarn is.  We'll see if I ever get this done, as I've still got two projects due this week for school and I'm two weeks away from my final projects.  And let's not forget about the shop samples that I still have on deck.  Oh!, and I'm using the left over yarn from the pumpkin hat to knit the cowl that Alex asked for. 

Pumpkins, pumpkins, everywhere

It's the Great Pumpkin

Yesterday we took Alex to the Jack-o-lantern spectacular at the Roger Williams Zoo (which was expensive but definitely a good show).  This is just one of the 30-odd photos that Aaron took and we'll get them up on facebook later, but I thought it was a good segue to the hat that I knit for Alex.

It's the pumpkin hat from Itty-Bitty Hats.  This is one of the best baby books out there, and I seriously need to buy a copy for myself because I've knit three hats since I borrowed this one. 

the pumpkin hat from itty-bitty hats

 So the story of the hat goes like this.  I knit the bunny hat (as you know) and Alex woke up and liked it, and asked for me to knit one for him too.  Well, as he's 4...and a boy...and looks like he's 6, I decided to steer him toward a different hat.  He agreed to a pumpkin, and here it is.  I knit the hat with Berroco Comfort (worsted weight at 4 sts per inch instead of a DK at 5.5 sts per inch).  According to my trusty Ann Budd Handy Book of Patterns, his size + my gauge = 88sts, which is exactly how many stitches they say to cast on for the largest size of the hat.  With that lucky break, I was able to just follow the exact directions as written, with my only modification being how long to knit before starting the decreases (6 1/2 inches).  This hat went so fast that even Aaron noticed!

stem and leaf

 I've got plenty of the orange left over, and I had the brown left over from the monkey blanket, so I think I'll work up a quick cowl for Alex to use up the yarn.  Plus maybe if I knit one for him, I'll get mine back.

Next time, maybe I'll get photos up of the cabled hat.  It's pretty sweet if I don't say so myself...and I do.

Bunny Tail and the Placket Neck Pullover

So recently my friend from church had her baby, and I realized the day after that I'd never gotten around to knitting anything for the baby.  That might not be such a big deal, except that I'd knit something for their first baby and I have a theory that the new baby should have something of their very own so that when they grow up, they won't think that I thought that they were less special than the first born.  I guess that means that if I knit for your first child...I'm knitting for all of your subsequent children, lol.  Anyway, I realized this fact on Friday and pulled out my Last Minute Knitted Gifts.  There's a hat in there that I've knit a few other times in cases just like this one, but this time I went for the Child's Placket-neck Pullover.  It was in the 4-6 hour section and uses DK weight yarn and size 7 needles (4.5mm) to knit up a super cute and super quick baby sweater.  I modified the placket-neck a little bit to add button holes, as the pattern used large seed-beads as buttons and they didn't require button holes.  Other than that, I knit it as written using Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk DK in a taupe color that looks gray in certain lighting.  I bought 3 balls but only needed 1.75 for the sweater so I decided to go for it and knit a hat too.

My friend Denise has a copy of Itty Bitty Hats, and I knit the Bunny Tail hat with the same yarn on the same size needles, in a newborn size.  I still have about 3/4 of a ball left over!  This hat is the cutest damn thing I've ever knit, at least recently.  Knitting the ears is probably my favorite part of the pattern, and unknown to me, the hat has a tail on it!  I've never seen a photo of the tail. Anyway, there's no photo yet because the recipient has been known to read this blog and I want them to receive the package before I post it for everyone on the inter-web to see.  Now, I've got a huge amount of homework this week so I'll be busy with that for a little bit.  As you were.

Edited to add:  The package has been delivered.  Here's the photos you didn't get to see...

facebook

Recently it has come to my attention that an old friend is sick and losing a battle with cancer.  What does this have to do with Facebook, you ask?  Well, if I'd had a profile, I would have known about it 3 1/2 years ago when he started to deal with it, and I could have lent support back then instead of reaching out now and trying not to have it look like I feel bad for him and just want to say something before he dies.  And I've missed out on quite a lot of other important information because I didn't have a page.  No one I know really uses myspace anymore (including myself), but I have a profile there and since I don't use that one I figured it would be a waste of time.  One more social networking site for me to ignore.  But this last straw forced my hand and I added one.  I just want to be able to peak into the lives of good friends from high school... people who meant the world to me back then... so that I'll know they're okay and doing well.  I don't want to be blind-sided like this again.  I don't want to sit at home and grieve for the boy who took me to prom, and his young bride who I never had a chance to meet, and know nothing about their lives together except that it's going to come to a premature end and I can't do anything about it, or show any support for them other than a friend request via facebook.  Being 3000 miles away from my hometown makes it hard for me to stay in touch and I've lost friends before only to find out after the fact, one time by checking in on their myspace profile and finding that it had been turned into a memorial page.  So Now I've got a facebook and I've added a "badge" to my blog.  Feel free to send me a friend request so that I can be sure you're all alive and well, but don't be too upset if I don't show up there very often.