A year later...

One of my resolutions this year was to work my way through the UFO's (unfinished objects) that were floating around the house.


A few weeks ago when digging around, looking for something else, I found a one completed sock and one at the heel turn. I had bought this wee skeins kit at last year's Homespun Yarn Party! I quickly recalled that about a year ago I had thrown down the second sock, completely annoyed by the short row heel.
Picking back up and taking my time, I found this to be a super easy issue to overcome and yes, they look crazy, but fun, right? Right?

I love our garden gnome! (Yes, he's riding a pig, no idea why)

Gratuitous kid shot

It's been awhile since I've shown off my adorable niece, long enough that you haven't seen my equally handsome new nephew.




Pretty sure they are reason alone for the Tall Guy and I to stick to a dog... really, how can our potential offspring be any more gorgeous then these two!?!?

Embracing the world in wool...

It seems I've lamented time and again, that while I do have some amazingly cool friends in DC, my nearest and dearest are spread all over the country and world nowadays... this caused me to realize recently that since I don't see these friends as often as I'd like (as in, they're not at my house for dinner nightly and I'm not meeting them for happy hour every Thursday) I've subconsciously started to wrap them in wool as a long distance hug when I'm missing them. Sometimes I don't even realize what I'm doing as I cast on a project and decide "this is going to X" with no holiday in mind. It simply means I miss them and this is the best way I can show it.
The point of my little ramble is this "shawl-ette".

As you may have noticed, I'm not really a purple person, but my best friend is and she lives in San Francisco. One of the great things about being a knitter is that that city is a place where you can always use a little light something around your neck, even in the "warmest" of months. Details:
Pattern: Citron
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in Velvet Grapes. Took about 3/4 of a skein
Needles: Size 5
Mods: None.
Comments: This pattern went fairly fast when I put my mind to it, but the last repeat has a sort of out of control stitch count, so it took awhile to get through them!

So, HLP, here's a hug for you, and can't wait to see you soon-ish!

Embracing the pink

Last year, around this time, I had a new favorite sweater. Shortly after finishing, I ran into a deal on the Dizzy Sheep and bought another sweater's worth in a different colorway. It's only taken a year for me to knit it again, with just a few modifications!
Over time I realize that my favorite sweater construction not just for its ease of knitting, but how it also fits me is the top-down raglan. It has everything I like in a sweater...clean, classic lines, easy knit and a million ways to customize it!
Details:
Pattern: Francis revisited
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca, about 3.9 skeins
Needles: Size 10.5
Modifications: I knit the body about 3 inches longer the the pattern called for and only one increase/decrease on the body. I knit the sleeves a bit longer as well. In addition, I didn't do any increasing on the sleeves and did a garter ridge on the sleeves, collar and hemline instead of seed stitch. The most obvious mod, of course is that I left the cowl neck off on this one.

I've already started another top down raglan again! This time, it will be a v-neck. What can I say, for my day-t0-day clothes I am nothing, if not a creature of habit.

Restocking the supply

Over the last year or so, I've knit a decent amount of sweaters and shawls. When asked, though by a non-knitter what my favorite thing to knit is, I'll always reply the same... socks. Sure, they wear out faster then a sweater and won't become a family heirloom, but I truly believe, unless you're "blessed" with feet that run hot (like the Tall Guy) there's nothing that feels more cozy then a pair of hand knit socks on your feet! I also noticed over the last few weeks that the cold weather and my near lack of sock knitting over the last season has left me with a lot of tired looking socks.

This resulted in my kicking into high gear a pair of socks that I had been knitting a row here or there on and had managed to knit one of the socks a total of three times before getting it right. If you know this pattern, you will understand why this is funny. The Jaywalker, while notoriously a problem causer in the way of biasing=tight fit is not a difficult or challenging knit. At all.

The first time I knit the on size zero needles that I thought were ones. An entire sock. I don't know why I didn't try it on, this is not like me! The second time, I got 90% down the leg/cuff only to notice a major major error about three rows after the cuff. The third time I got it right and the second sock pretty much flew off the needles. Thank goodness.
I've already cast on for another pair of jays which will be my commuting/work knitting for the time being.

Details:
Pattern: Grumperina's Jaywalker
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Sock in Amy's Vintage Office
Needle: Size one magic loop
Mods: None. I knit the 76 stitch version and I think it's a pretty perfect pattern w/out me messing with it.
In the meantime, today is the first day where spring may actually be starting to poke its head out of the dirty leftover snowbanks. I am cautiously optimistic.

Clean slate?

I was just thinking about how much I have to tell you and/or what I haven't shown "the blog" that I've knit or baked . Back in the day, it was just the blog. Now, there's ravelry, there's twitter and for times when it's a random thought, it may even be Facebook. So, I try to blog, but this is my moment to say I refuse to feel bad when I don't post for awhile because dudes, there's a good chance you've already seen the picture!


This just went in the mail tonight and is bound for my new nephew, H.
The colors are a little off but, it was an iPhone photo at night, in my bedroom. Sorry about that!
A basic top-down V-neck raglan, I looked at pattern, but really, I didn't need one.
I hope it either a) still fits or b) is big enough for next winter!

Keeping busy

When Mother Nature hands you record breaking snow....

(the Tall Guy's car at about 2pm yesterday)

I knit socks.

Details:

Yarn: Miss Babs Sportweight in Cleopatra

Pattern: Sell your sole socks, (on the right side, pdf)

Needles: Size three Addis

I'm bundling up and heading to shovel out the car! It's been nearly a week since I've been to work, I'm starting to forget what my office looks like!

And it continues

Feds are home today as the area continues to dig out. I'm not sure I've ever seen a storm dump so much all at once. I've been knitting in fits and starts this weekend, but we've been

surprisingly social in our neighborhood with board games, an outdoor party (photos below) and a relaxing Superbowl get-together (good job, Saints)

If you haven't seen it already on Twitter, or Facebook or I've emailed it to you, here are a few pictures from *Snow*bar.

The Tall Guy built a snow fort during the last storm in December and in discussion with the neighborhood guys, the snow bar was conceived and built over the course of the day Saturday. It opened Saturday evening and people flocked to see what the crazy kids down the street were doing outside in the cold. At one point, management showed up to shut us down, and before you know it, they had beers in their hands and were checking out the creation. I love our neighbors!

And here's one last shot at some point in the night that you can see the group and the size of the structure... so much fun!

We will now begin to brace for yet another storm that's due to hit us sometime tomorrow into Wednesday. The Tall Guy is expected to fly out for work tomorrow night and we're hoping he can make it in...at the same time, we have friends scheduled to fly back in to DC tonight (their car is parked here at our house) and my hopes are not high for them making it. This snow, it's getting a little ridiculous, folks.

Holy snow, batman

So, this is sort of an insane amount of snow, kids even for this girl from NH. Like, really insane. I decided last night this called for a cowl/neck warmer because a scarf bunches up too much sometimes under my coat and I've been looking for an excuse to knit up this yarn. The Tall Guy waited patiently for me to finish it this morning and off we went in the snow!

The hat, if you're curious was knit for me by a friend, isn't it cute? I love it! It was made from the same yarn/colorway as my gathered pullover and fits me just right! Thanks NeedleBeedle!

As for the cowl, it was pretty simple... I pulled out my discontinued, Bluemoon Fiber Arts skein of Leticia, a superbulky single ply in Sapphire. I used size 11 needles, cast on 51 or 53 stitches in the round, did a bit of garter ridge, then stockinette til I started running low on yarn, then switched to a garter ridge for the end. I knit til I ran out of yarn which was about 80yds. Easy and warm!

(This is looking up the street towards the metro tracks at about 1pm today)

We tried to take a family picture, but the snow was too much for Annie to handle. She's worse then a toddler with too much sugar in this sort of weather!

Hope you're all safe and staying warm, I'm off to make some chicken noodle soup!

Perfect timing

As the snow rolled in this afternoon, I was furiously sewing on the buttons of my newest finished object. I don't normally wear this sort of red, but something about this color with this base yarn just struck me as a must-have.Details:
Pattern: A nice, simple pattern, the B.O.B (short for button on blanket) is just that. Warm, cozy and not anything one would go clubbing in, just a good winter sweater!
Yarn: Lorna's Laces, Swirl Chunky in Cranberry. I think I ended up using about 5.5 skeins, but I wasn't frugal in my yarn usage. This was my first time using this Lorna's base and sadly, it's being discontinued. I may buy more before this happens. (It's a silk/merino blend which is what gives it that two tone look)
Needles: Size 10.5

Mods?- I think I went up half a needle size and I knit everything about an inch longer then the pattern called for. I also didn't sew all the buttons on yet, but partially that's to hide my screw up on one of the button bands (sssshhh)
In other news, we're about to be slammed by a decent snow storm. We'll see if it lives up to its predictions but the latest from NOAA.Gov was coming in at 30 inches. Yikes! If you're curious, an interesting fact this season is that the DC area has seen more snow then my family in NH! Insane.
I know what I'll be wearing all weekend.
Stay warm!