Saturday Sky, February 23rd 2008

It was so nice to see some blue sky today, after all the grey we've had lately.

Another Finished Object For Friday

This week I finished a pair of Mountain Colors Bearfoot socks in the color "Mountain Twilight"


They are very comfortable. I also love how much faster socks knit up on size 1 needles vs. size 0. It makes more difference than one might think.



It was a close call as to whether or not I would have enough yarn to finish these socks, as you can see.

I used size 00 DPNs for the cuff, & size 1 for the remainder of the sock, with 80 stitches around.

Dropping Off the Squares

This Wednesday post is all about what came OFF my needles in the past week.


I finished my daughter's sweater in time for her to wear it to the Sticks & Stitches game on Sunday.




I also finished a third Warm Up America square during the first period of the game & handed it in to the collection basket.



Here's a couple more shots from the game. Also, more pictures from the St. Louis Blues official website are published here.



I've been to other Blues games before, but this was the first time that I was there when they WON a game. I guess I'll have to bring my knitting more often, since it seems to be good luck!

Saturday Sky, February 16th 2008

This Saturday Sky picture was actually photographed by my younger son. We were coming back from a Scouting event, & he asked if he could take some pictures through the window while I was driving. Little did he know that Mom might have a hidden motive for allowing him to take pictures... (Since I knew the day would be so busy I'd probably forget about Saturday Sky, & I was right about that.)

The picture was taken in the middle of the afternoon, though it looks more like early evening with the solid cloud cover & lack of light.

One way to pass the time while watching a bunch of Webelos at a Cub Scout event is to knit on a Warm Up America square. I finished a second one on Saturday.
Since I was knitting squares for collection at the Sunday Hockey game, speed was key & garter stitch ruled.

I may not win a prize for the most squares completed, but I think I should get bonus points for Extreme.Stash.Usage. Note the price tag. MCX Iwakuni means that I purchased this yarn for a baby blanket when I found out I was pregnant with my now-teenaged son. I was last in Iwakuni in 1993, fifteen years ago. (MCX = Marine Corps Exchange -- i.e. Military Department Store Equivilent)

Finished Object for Friday

No picture yet, but I did finish a square to take to this event on Sunday. I was happy to see plain garter stitch listed as a pattern here.

What's On & Off My Needles Wednesday

This Wednesday I have something off my needles, & two related things still on the needles.




I have about 20-30 total rows to go on the arms, then I'll be able to bind them off also. Of course, the body of the sweater only appears to be off the needles, since I'll need to knit the neckline ribbing last.

Trying Something New

No Saturday Sky picture this time; the weekend was mostly hectic, with lots of running around & a couple special events. I simply didn't get around to taking any sky pictures on Saturday the 9th of February.


That's just as well, seeing as having a Saturday Sky picture last weekend gave me an excuse to just post a picture & I never got around to a knitting update. So here is a belated picture of my Fjellros progress as of the 3rd of February. I got as far as the beginning neck row & froze, trying to decide which way to proceed after binding off for the front neck stitches.

Because that partial pale blue/periwinkle ball is all that I have left of that color, I very nearly let that be an excuse for switching to plain purple for the top of the sweater. After the stitches are bound off for the bottom of the front neck opening, the remainder of the sweater body is knit back & forth. So once I reached that point, I put the sweater down for almost a week while I considered what to do next. (Which perhaps gives a GIANT clue as to how & why I end up with so many Works-In-Progress going at once.)

This past weekend I did manage to find time for knitting after things had mostly quieted down on Sunday. I had enough "alone time" to be able to concentrate & finally I got up the nerve to try a technique which I don't think I've ever done before. (Rather timely, in fact, because I think there was a podcast in Sticks & Strings last series about trying new techniques.)

Purling in two colors was not as scary or as difficult as I thought it might be. It was definitely a bit tedious & slower than knitting in two colors. The worst thing about it, though, is that it tangled the yarn strands something fierce because I frequently had to cross them to pick up the correct color for the next stitch.
I finished the more complicated part of the stranded purling while my younger kids were away, but still had a couple of rows of the simpler pink/purple pattern to go after they got home. My daughter took this picture for me, which shows how I used the needle to select whichever strand I needed for the next purl stitch. Besides the tangling of the strands, I also needed to drop the yarns & re-tension fairly frequently, especially on the rows where one color was used much more often than the other color.

I highly recommend having the color pattern pretty much memorized before trying to purl it, because it helped tremendously not to have to constantly turn my work over to figure out where I was. I was glad that I switched the order of the charts from the way that the pattern had it for children's sizes. If I had done the body in the flower pattern only, rather than alternating in the sleeve pattern, I don't think I'd have done nearly so well on the two-color purling. Having nearly finished both sleeves meant that I had this particular chart firmly fixed in my head.

Saturday Sky from February 2nd

Missouri weather is wacky. We got 8-10 inches here overnight on Thursday, & it all melted in 70 degree heat on Monday. The kids enjoyed it while it lasted, though.