About the Turtle

I finished knitting the turtle (and almost done with the square) last night. It turned out really cute!

I frogged it (pun intended) for the last time last night. I CO 35 stitches, took out my post-it notes and methodically used it help my eyes follow the correct row. I also made mental notes every row to remember that: PURL sides are the RIGHT SIDES, right sides are read right to left on the chart, KNIT sides are the WRONG sides and these are read left to right on the chart. It took me about 3 hours to complete. Once I got past the first few rows of the body, where you need to knit 3 consecutive double increases within 6 rows, I found my groove. The pattern became more symmetrical. In hindsight, the tail really screwed me up when I was misreading the pattern, because it curves to the right on the right side. By the time I reached Mr. Turtle's arms, I knew I was home free.

By the way, I found a great tutorial on YouTube on how to do the Central Double Increase. Also, one of my friends mentioned that she likes to place a safety pin on the right side of her work to help her remember - thanks Tamara!

I wonder if I can adapt this to a ladybug for my daughter?

Of Turtles, the Crab, and Sun

Yesterday, we went to the mall for the Kids' Club. My kids made hats (and we even won 2 raffles - woohoo!). The hat kits came with foam stickers in the shape of things from the beach: whales, sand castles, etc. One of the stickers was a crab, which my son didn't like - "The crab is creepy". Another set of stickers was of a sun, which wore sunglasses that you had to glue on he face, above his mouth. Well, my son decided that the sunglasses weren't enough. He thought that the sun needed proper eyes, so he used a brown rectangle with punched out holes (the leftovers from the coconuts for the coconut tree) for the eyes. We placed this on top of the sun, and glued the sunglasses on top of this.

When he was done decorating his hat, I offered to place it on his head. He said, "No, it's for daddy!" Oh, how sweet, I thought. However, when he saw his sister enjoying hers, he decided that he wanted to wear it...I guess my husband is going to have to share the hat!

First Square: Turtle

I am starting an afghan for my son. I found the CUTEST turtle motif on Ravelry, adapted from B. Walker's Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns (on a side note, I didn't think publishing this particular square pattern on a public site followed copyright rules, because it is only found in that book; I happen to have this book, so I don't feel like I am breaking any laws...) Anyway, I wanted to use a greenish yarn. Well, I didn't have the right weight (wanting worsted) but I do have a chunky weight in a nice heather green color. I cast on last night and I must have been having a really off night because I just could not get the pattern right.

First, I didn't know that I was knitting with a chunky yarn (I know, duh, I should have read the ball band). This meant that I had to find the correct size needles. Ugh.

Then I wasn't reading the chart correctly. In charted patterns, like all of the patterns in B. Walker's third treasury, need to be read back and forth. It was easier for me to read the odd rows as the wrong rows, which I read from left to right, and the even rows as the right rows, which I read from right to left.

Then, I had to keep reminding myself that the right side has a PURL background and consequently, the wrong side has the knit background. Being that I started this project at 9:00 last night, I realize now that I probably should have started with an easier square. But dag nabbit, I really wanted to knit this darn turtle! It's so cute.

So anyway, if you are knitting the turtle from B. Walker's third treasury, this is what I would suggest: Start knitting the turtle on the right side (which is on a purl background) and remember that it will be on an even row, count your stitches because most rows have different stitch counts, and FROG if you are off. I am serious about the Frogging part. It's not worth refiguring the stitch counts. Believe me, I tried.

Little Farmer

I had a bit of a surprise the other day. A few weeks ago, my daughter went to Fog Willow Farm where she received a pumpkin seed. The farmer encouraged her to plant it in some soil and a small Dixie cup, which they provided. She brought it home, watered it a bit and I placed it in our bay window in the kitchen. Once in a while, she remembered to water it; she used to get seeds for these "experiments" all the time, and the seeds never sprouted. To be honest, neither of us thought anything would come out of this seed. It would have been cool, but not a big deal.

Well, I glanced over at the cup the other day and lo and behold, the little seed sprouted. At first, it looked like just a leaf, and I thought that maybe one of my kids put it in there for whatever reason. I didn't mention it to my daughter. But yesterday, when it was clear that the plant was growing out of the soil, I showed my little girl. I told her that soon, we will have to transplant it outside, so that when the pumpkin is ready to grow, it will have room. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly, knowing her) she was against this. Her reasoning? She doesn't want bugs to eat her pumpkin. After explaining that there is not way that a pumpkin can grow in a Dixie cup, she acquiesced...although she is still convinced that monster bugs are going to eat up her pumpkin.

We bought some cherries this weekend at the Farmer's Market. After eating them, she washed a seed and planted it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one...

Blanket

It is 5:43 on a Sunday morning. I have been awake since 4:00. I woke up thinking about the Elizabeth Zimmerman/Meg Swansen pattern that I just purchased yesterday called Box-the-Compass Yoke Sweater. It was a fairly expensive single pattern (considering that I usually buy magazines with at least 20 patterns) but I really really really like the way the yoke is designed, plus, being a Meg Swansen/EZ pattern, it probably has minimal finishing. There is something about the geometry of the design that catches my eye. Plus, the gauge listed on it is 5 stitches to the inch, which the worsted weight fabric that I really like.

I also appreciated the fact that the pattern itself is striped...and my mind wandered to the fact that I have a ton of partial skeins that I need to use in something, and since all of them are wool and wool blends, I couldn't use them in the dishcloth/towel project that I am involved in.

This musing led to the afghan that I want to make for my son and one later for my daughter. I thought of all the colors that I currently have in my stash and realized that my affinity towards dark and bold colors lead me to buy a lot of "boy" colors, rather than the pinks and purples that my daughter likes. Even the soft Lorna's Laces that I bought last year for a blanket for my mom (which, never materialized when I decided that I didn't like granny squares) were boyish in hue - greens, purples, dark reds, blues, and greys. I had originally intended to purchase a bunch of DK weight yarn, so that I could double up the yarn and make something like the Illusion Cube Blanket by Kirsten Hipsky. Ya gotta admit - cool illusion blanket. I came to my senses when I remembered that I promised myself never to double up yarn. I guess you can say that I am too much of a perfectionist and I have been known to frog entire projects when I see a glaring immperfection (see Lacey Tee project). At times, I change my mind and decide to use the yarn for an entirely different (undoubled yarn) project...When either of these happen, those two strands of yarn get tangled and I wind up cursing myself for such a stupid idea as double stranding. Then I got to thinking (in my half asleep state) that I really need to use up all of the worsted weight yarn that I have in my stash. My idea now is to to make squares from all of those partial skeins and seam them together. Yes SEAM them together. How hard, and time consuming, can that be? Ha! We'll see.

It's the little things

I am home alone with the dogs, who are playing outside in the yard. My husband took our children to his mother's house yesterday and I don't expect them back for for a few hours. I woke up this morning to a quiet home, still neat from when I tidied up yesterday. I put the toys away and no one took them back out from the toy box. There was no arguing about what TV show to watch, no one asking for his 3rd bowl of cereal, no one asking to play with the PSP because her brother was bothering her. My knitting is still on the couch where I left it yesterday and I am not afraid that someone is going to accidentally jump on it and hurt himself (and break my needles in the process). I have a really good chance of folding and putting away the piles of laundry that I did yesterday because I know that there is very little chance that I am going to get interrupted by a someone wailing about a "sword" or Mario Brothers or about life not being fair. The house is quiet, the only sounds coming from my typing fingers and the refrigerator. I am going out today without someone crying to go with me; I may actually peruse through the book aisles and enjoy myself, not feeling guilty because I told someone that "...no, stay with daddy because mommy will be right back" when in actuality, I need a break from the kids and time for myself.

I am not a mother today. I am not a wife today. I am me today.

Now back to cleaning.

The Knitting Hour

Finally, after weeks of working on my lace tee, it's done. I guess you can say that when I am deterimined to finish something, I find a way. This time, I resorted to staying up until almost 3:00 this morning to do it.

I made some changes to the pattern as written in the June 2010 Knit 'n Style. The first major change was using a DK weight yarn, Rowan Purelife. I loved the color when I saw it (on sale - woohoo!) last year at my FLYS. I really like the slight color variegations in the yarn. It is also organic cotton - perfect for the summer and knits a lot softer than I expected. As expected, it doesn't hide the imperfections (e.g. the changes in tension when I decreased along the raglan shaping and the fake seam stitches). I think that washing and blocking the garment may help with these issues.

The second change was using the waist shaping from the Cap Sleeve Top in the August 2010 Knit 'n Style issue. Believe me, I need all the shaping that I can get. It makes the garment much more flattering.

A third change I made was crocheting 4 rows of SC and slip stitches, instead of just 2, because the neckline didn't look even to me. Plus, I started finishing the top at the upper corner of the front neckline...and cut the yarn in the same place. Needless to say, it didn't look too pretty, so I crocheted the extra rows to hide my oops. It was really late, what can I say?