What a Difference a Day Makes

Now usually I have a 3 day weekend from work. Since I work out of town this is how I manage my life. 4 days at work and 3 days at home with hubby. But once a month I am on call and I get to be home about a day and a half with 2 nights next to hubby. But this week because of co-workers vacations I only get about 22 hours at home. And I have to do it again next weekend. But I figured out you can still get a lot done in 22 hrs. I managed to grocery shop on the way back into town, 4 loads of laundry, watered the yard, finished sewing a top for DGD#1 and cooked dinner. And of course there is what comes later tonight when I get to share the bed with DH for just the one night!!!

Last weekend I started my very first Baby Suprise Jacket. I am working off the pattern from Elizabeth Zimmerman's book "The Opinionated Knitter" I am using a Colinette superwash DK weight yarn called "Cadenza" I forget what the colorway is because the ball band is in the city at the moment. It called for 3oz of baby wool that can be knitted at 6 stitches per inch but I ran out just shy of being done and I had a little more than 3 oz so I had to order a whole new skein and I have to wait for it to arrive to finish. I started it on size 7 straights but I will never do that again. I kept having trouble with my long size 7's hitting the wicker on my knitting chair and pulling the needle out of the stitches!! SO this weekend I went and bought a new size 7 Addi Turbo circular to make any further BSJ's I may want to make.. And I am sure I will be making many more. I love this design. I still want to mess around with the double decreases & increases and to figure out where to put contrasting stripes in. But otherwise it is an interesting sweater to knit despite the fact that every stitch is knit, no purling ever. To me this sweater is proof that EZ was a genius pure and simple. Read the book and discover how she came up with this pattern. It basically evolved from a mistake making a hat...yes a hat!! All my mistakes ever get me is frogging!!!

This is the new top I made for my eldest granddaughter. I am very happy with the end result. I only wish the picture could portray how cute it turned out. I always hope her mommy will take pictures of her wearing it but it rarely happens but I know she loves getting stuff I have made her. My youngest granddaughter is not girly enough to care for this pattern so I plan on going to Old Navy and finding her some T-shirts to send. She also loves what grandma makes her but I am realistic and don't want to waste the time making something she just doesn't care for. I still have some more fabric to make them PJ's and maybe I can get them started soon-after everybody gets back from vacation.

I did get some new socks started this weekend. They are the new pattern from my KAL called "I love Gansey" I am making them in a new yarn from a company called "JoJoLand" They yarn is called Melody and it is a superwash Merino that seems quite soft. It is very delicately self striping in a heathery green, fading to purple, fading to blue.. I am not completely happy with the stitch definition on these but they will be soft and warm and I can always reknit this pattern in a crisper yarn down the road. Again they did not photograph well but I will put the pic up anyway just so you can see how the colors blend into each other. I am past 1/2 way on the first leg in just one day although I sure got sick of knitting yesterday evening!!

I am sure I will get alot of knitting in this week and it is possible I can get the sock I am working on completely done and start the 2nd one. It is supposed to be horribly hot this week so I won't be doing any marathon walking and I am only working 8 hr days so I will have extra time each evening. I sure wish my rush order of yarn had come to finish the BSJ but oh-well. That can be next weekend for sure. I have no quilting or sewing on tap until we do our first progressive RR switch which is coming up fairly soon. Other than that it is just work, work, work and knit, knit,knit.......till next time

The Great Finish

Happy Monday to All-

I am happy to report that I accomplished 2 great finishes this week. I completely finished off the Peacock baby sweater set. The sweater went together well and even the sleeves which I had doubts about fit well with the sweater. I had quite a bit of craziness this week at work which cut down on my knitting time drastically but I still managed to finish knitting the last sleeve on Friday and blocked them Friday night. I ended up working 7 hours Saturday but I still came home and stitched the sleeves onto the body. I took a big stab in the dark and cast on 110 stitches on DPN's for a hat. I knit the brim in the solid purple 1x1 rib and then switched to the striping yarn for the rest of the hat. I was able to use the lace pattern from the sweater and kept trying it on the baby doll to decide when to do decreases. I am amazed that it came out well and looks great with the sweater. I went shopping on Saturday night and found a little sleeper that went nicely with the set and it rounded out my present well. I found the perfect little gift bag to package it all up in. It has a little pea pod made with sewing buttons on the front with the words "Sweet Pea" which is perfect for this recipient since that is her pet name for the new baby. Just to remind myself-the self striping yarn was Opal sock yarn and the solid was Jawoll. I knit it on size 3 needles switching to 2's to do the button bands. It took about 2 weeks of spare time knitting to get it finished. I think the newborn size should fit a newborn fairly well. The designer must have had real kids to try the patterns on!!

My other finish of the week was reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" In fact I just finished. I could not start until last night when I got home from OKC about 7. I read until midnight which got me about 1/2 way. Today I had some stuff that had to be done and I finally got to read about 6. I finished just a few minutes ago and it is just starting to sink in that the Harry Potter experience is now over forever. Will there ever be a series of books that cause as much excitement? Or encourage kids to want to read? Even Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia ever caused the same furor, probably only because of when in time they were released. Anyway I plan on rereading them all once I retire so I can enjoy them in closer sequence than when I read them before.

I did buy some things recently that I have to talk about. Last week I went to Guthrie and bought a copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman's "The Opinionated Knitter" I finally got some time to really read it this weekend and I was completely blown away by EZ!! She is my idol. Not only because she was a genius knitter but she lived her life in a way that I only wish I could. The stories she tells in this book make me realize that she was up there with the likes of Amelia Earhart and Florence Nightengale. She was not afraid of anything and forged ahead where no woman had gone before. She loved her husband, children, pets and her craft of knitting. And she wanted others to love it too. I would recommend this book to anyone who knits not just for the patterns but for the wisdom she imparts. I also bought some yarn to make the baby suprise jacket that is in the book. It is a Colinette hand dyed in a DK weight. I have some socks to finish up but by next weekend I ought to be able to get started. I am anxious to see how this mysterious jacket knits up with this beautiful hand dyed yarn.

Well I am tired from to much reading and not enough weekend. So until next time.....