Thunder Snow

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My sister and brother, in Virginia and New Jersey respectively, are in the midst of a big old snowstorm right now.  It’s all part of the same big system I think?  It began with thunder snow in both places.  I had never heard of thunder snow.  A quick google search told me that it’s pretty rare.

I love a good thunderstorm.  A good thunderstorm with snow?  That sounds like the best of both worlds to me.  Cool.

I finished my sleeve last night.  Here’s the thing though.  When a person knits all these pieces, specifically sleeves, sweater fronts, and a sweater back, she ought to have an idea of how it all fits together.  well.  There is some terminology I’ve read called “setting in sleeves”.  Somehow that sleeve has to fit into the other pieces.  I have no idea, but I will soon have the opportunity to figure it out.

Davey will help me. He loves to help.

 

Knitting for Dummies (Christina)

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The Sweater.  I thought I would finish the first sleeve last night.  A sleeve is longer than one might think.  Or perhaps more accurately, it’s longer than I thought.  Then I ran into difficulties in figuring out how to do the decreases.  I have one pattern that I am following for the sleeve, neck and shoulder decreasing.  I couldn’t quite make heads or tails of it.  Why does a pattern say this? “dec 1 st at each end of next 9 rows, then on every foll alt row to 20 st.”  Decrease on each end sure – but then what?   Just decrease then on one side every alternate row?  I wasn’t sure.  So I conferred with my knitting friend, Susan.  She was very helpful.  I know I am a sweater newbie, but here is how I think the instructions should read:

“Christina, when you begin the row, decrease one stitch.  When you get to the end of the row, decrease another stitch.  Do this for NINE rows.  That is, decrease one stitch at the beginning of the row and at the end of the row for NINE rows.

Now, my dear, you are finished decreasing at the end of each row.  You will not be doing this anymore.  Instead, you are going to  decrease ONE stitch at the beginning of EVERY OTHER ROW AND EVERY OTHER ROW ONLY.”   (Apparently I respond well to yelling instructions.)

(midnight update so as to not confuse myself when I refer back to this one day.  As if I might knit this again, although I might write this pattern up.  There are 9 rows with decreases at each end.  Then decrease on Each End every alternate row to 20 (was actually 21 on mine).  Then decrease each end on 3 more rows.)

This is knitting pattern writing for dummies.  Christina dummies.

I am so curious to see what this thing is going to look like that I drape it on David or position it flat as often as I can.

Lots of weaving in left to do.

I haven’t posted a picture of Davey in at least 24 hours so I thought I’d take a couple of him:

Then he wanted to point to the sweater as I took a picture.  (ok this was my idea.)  I learned that he points with his thumb which I found very cute.

More Monday Mish Mash?

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I kinda like Monday Mish Mash.  Now if I can remember my mish mash that I have been saving up to share.

First off, I made chili last week.  We ate chili leftovers for several days.  I like to make Frito Pie, but it was never quite right.  Last week, I figured out what makes it quite right.  Mustard.  I had to think about how they “served” it at the concession stand at high school football games.  Better yet, brown spicy mustard.  That was delicious.

I made this chicken noodle soup the other day.   I think I mentioned it.  Davey ate the noodles.  I got the recipe from this blog “My Kitchen in the Rockies“.   I have to just recommend this blog in general.  I may have mentioned it before, but she’s always sharing great recipes.

Gotta finish the first sleeve for The Sweater.  Maybe tonight.

Hmm. Not a lot of mish mash.

Except I do have a little Davey story.  Every once in awhile, Davey sees someone smoking.  It was not too long ago that he saw someone smoking for the first time.  So he always has questions about it.  Today, he noticed a man smoking a pipe,  and he wondered about the smoke.  (We noticed that you can really generate some smoke with a pipe!)  When he mentioned the smoke, I told him that the smoke can make their clothes smell stinky.  (My subtle (or not so subtle) anti-smoking comment.  I pass these on to him when I can. I can’t help it.  I want his lungs to remain pink and healthy!)  Well, Davey had a solution for that.  He told me, “Mommy, then they need to smoke naked.”  Easy enough! 🙂

And that’s all for Monday.

Sunday and Sleeve!

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The Sweater update: I redid the part of the left front that needed to be redone.   Whether or not it will fit anyone remains to be seen, but it seems like it will.

I am going full speed ahead on the sleeve.  It required a little cipherin’, but not so much so far.  Maybe I will finish it tonight.  I knit last night through the first episode of Sherlock.  It’s a fairly new British tv series (2010 I think).  It takes place in modern day,  but it included a few elements of the very first Sherlock Holmes story.  (Rache!, and the title of the episode was  “A Study in Pink”.  The original story was entitled – “A Study in Scarlet”.) It’s British, and I got it from Netflix.  I highly recommend it! (I am a Sherlock fan.  Oh!  They cast a great Watson too I thought.)  Anyway, I watched that while I knit.

I’m about to start the heel flap on my tofutsie socks.  I had a little quiet time this afternoon, and so it was a good project to get out.

We’ve had a nice Sunday.  Davey just helped me make a blueberry cobbler.  I’ve mentioned it before, but he’s quite the little stirrer.  We are having leftover chicken and noodle soup for dinner.  It’s actually more just chicken and noodles, but we like it that way.  And Davey eats the noodles.  Even better.

And that’s Sunday.

The Sweater. Left Front. Not Done

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I thought I finished the left front of The Sweater last night.  I did the bind-off.  I asked David to stand up and help me position the back and the left front on him.  It was looking pretty good.  So I’d decided that I was going to knit the sleeve next to fit that side – just to see how it is all going to come together.

Then this morning, I noticed a problem.  The armhole decrease is on the same side as the slight v-neck decrease.  Obviously there will be a problem if the armpit is on the same side as the v-neck.  UGH.  How dumb is that?  I thought that I would be doing those neck decreases on the right side.  NO.  They should have been on the wrong side.  So doing it right, I did it wrong!

This will teach me to pay more attention to my knitting and less to Gold Rush: Alaska!

Time to go rip it back aways.

Cashmere and Costco

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Cashmere!  I received it in the mail yesterday (from Knit Unto Others), so today I started my second pair of “Treads” fingerless gloves.  These are the gloves where I became fascinated with the lateral braid stitch, and where I also had the pleasure of first knitting with cashmere.

A good friend from Clarksville has requested a pair of these, and I was more than happy to knit them up again.  When I am done, they should look just like these:

And then Costco.  Davey and I joined Costco last weekend.  (I say Davey and I because we had our picture taken together for the Costco card, which I thought was too cute – although the quality of the pictures is such that you can barely recognize the humans on the card.  But still.)

We like to go to Costco.  I’d never been a big Costco or Sam’s shopper, but it’s just a couple miles from us now, and so it’s fun for us to go.  Stuff is cheaper too; it’s just the sheer quantity that we have to buy.  Half the fun is making David laugh when I come home with 90 rolls of toilet paper, a four pound bag of chocolate chips, and enough dishwasher soap to last us until 2012.  And it’s even better trying to find someplace to put that stuff in our little home.

Davey and I have fun though.  I am sure it’s almost cliche Costco humor.  I pretend to put a 25 sack of flour in the buggy.  We laugh over the giant jars of pickles.  I fall victim to the “samples” and now have a 4 pound container of Costco granola.  “We make it right here in the store!”

Next time we need to take David with us.  There’s no telling with what we might leave!  Too bad Costco doesn’t carry yarn.

 

 

The Mystery of The Sweater

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I am working on the left front of The Sweater still.  It’s requiring more ciphering and research.  It’s such a mish mash of patterns now.  At this point, I am just looking to different patterns for guidance and then trying to figure out how best to do it on my sweater.

Like the neck on the front.   I looked at ravelry patterns today.  I ciphered.  I used fractions.  It has become all very mathematical which actually I find pretty fun.  It’s like “The Mystery of The Sweater.”  I don’t know how it is all going to turn out, but I sure am going to know a heck of a lot more about the construction of a sweater when I am done.

A smarter person might have read about sweater construction prior to beginning.  I know there are books that give you percentages and helpful guidelines to building a sweater pattern.  But I ain’t that bright.  I like the mysterious route.

I hope to finish the left front tonight.

And now in the world of Davey.  More mysteries.  Lucy, his imaginary dog, became a cat today.  “Mommy, I put fur on her.  Black and white.  I put her in my room so that you won’t sneeze.”  (I am pretty allergic to cats – even imaginary ones apparently.)  He’s very thoughtful.  By bedtime tonight, Lucy had transformed back into a dog.  Lucy also has a new friend named Fred.  Fred was at the store though.  Not sure what he was up to there.  But we are happy to have Fred join our family.   I think Koko and Timber are relieved that Lucy is a dog again.  They do not like cats at all.

Let’s Hear it for the Stash!

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I’ve made a resolution to knit up as much of the yarn I already own as I can this year.  I am buying a few things, but only for special projects as needed.

I finished blocking the shawlette.  I haven’t tried to take any good pictures of it yet.  I need to do that.  Davey wanted to photograph it, so I let him take a few pictures last night.  The light is not so good, but he had a good time.

So I needed to cast on for another easier project that I can carry around and knit on here and there when I don’t want to settle in with a pattern.

I had bought this sock yarn at my beloved Knit Unto Others in Arkadelphia.   Unfortunately, I didn’t keep the tag.  I think it is Tofutsies, but I am not 100% sure.  I need to be better about keeping track.  Anyway, I cast on for a simple ribbed sock.  Once I started, I couldn’t stop knitting on it.  I don’t know if it was I was so happy to be knitting on my good old double pointed needles again, or – and I think this is more it-  I am fascinated by the self striping.  It’s so fun to watch the socks stripe as I go.  I also really like purple and green together, so that made it even better.  I have had this yarn for 2 years, and I finally gave it a chance

Today Davey started his first Funny Bugs class.  He had a great time.  Miss Heather was there, so life was good.  He walked up to her and gave her the biggest hug.   He tends to be a little bashful, but not with Miss Heather.   He loved his other teachers as well.  He is a forward rolling little guy.

We also learned a valuable lesson today.  If if starts snowing.  Go Home.  Don’t drive from Littleton to Golden.  It’s not a good idea.  Don’t drive west into heavier snow. Especially when you are driving a Toyota which supposedly has front wheel drive but which was sliding all over the place.  Especially when you have spent most of your life living somewhere where there is not much snow.

It was snowing very lightly when we went to Golden to look at a house.  By the time we left the house about 25 minutes later, the snow had really accumulated on the road.  We made it home in one piece but it was slow going.

And now it is bathtime for little Davey!  He came to “Rocky Mountain High” today and had a “picnic” with me while David had a meeting.  Then tumbling.   Now he’s tired and it’s time for bath and books and bed!

Tuesday Project: The Age of Brass and Steam

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Davey and I have been hard at work this morning.   We are blocking a shawlette that I finished last night.  It was my first opportunity to use the blocking squares I got for Christmas.

Davey very much enjoyed helping to put the “puzzle” together.

The shawlette is from a pattern called Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief. I felt like I needed a fairly simple mostly stockinette pattern because of the color variation in the yarn.

So here is the shawlette/kerchief post knitting but pre-blocking.  It’s all curled and shrunk up and looks more like the size of a  hankie then a kerchief.

It needed a bath and some blocking!

As I was blocking, Davey took over the camera.  He took quite a few shots.  At some point, he figured out that if you hold down the button, it takes shots over and over and over and over again.  Oh he thought that was fun.  For the safety of the camera, we had to put a stop to that.  So then he returned to single photographs.  I really like some of the pictures he took!

I am thinking he may need to be promoted from assistant.

Now he keeps checking the scarf to see if it is dry yet.  He touches it with a finger and then shows me, “nope, Mommy, not dry yet”.

Monday Mish Mash

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Lately, Davey likes to call us Mama and Daddo.  We like it.

I made Pioneer Woman Tortilla Soup the other day.  It’s the best tortilla soup I have ever made.  And then I learned something that I think makes it even better.  I’d had some tortilla soup the other day at a Mexican restaurant.  They brought me a little side of pico de gallo. I’d never added that to my soup before.  It was really good!  That and some diced up avocado, and we have been enjoying that soup.

The pico de gallo I make is just chopped up tomatoes, chopped onion and then add cilantro, lime juice and salt to taste.   Very easy.

I also made my own chai the other day.  (It’s becoming clear as to why this is a mish mash post.)  I found this recipe on a blog that I read:  Chai Concentrate.  Davey enjoyed helping me mix in the spices.  Then we added a can of condensed milk.  I am a fan of having a sweet chai latte now and then.  You can adjust the sweetness though by putting as much of the concentrate in as you like.  I’m really enjoying it.  I love all things chai these days.

I am working on the left front of The Sweater.  For the second time.  I hadn’t gotten too far when I realized that the garter edging was not going to work with my colorwork.  And then it occurred to me that David would like the sweater better without that edging anyway.  So I ripped it out and started again.  I am back to the point where I’d ripped back though which was here:

So I really hadn’t gotten all that far.  The Sweater has become a mish mash of its own.  The colorwork I figured out from the Eddie Bauer photo, plus a couple of patterns to give me  basic sweater guidelines.

And that’s the Monday Mish Mash.