Oh so close…

Last night at Stitch ‘n Bitch I ripped back the lemon a bit to try get the nubby a bit more like a lemon end. I got that re-knit and the stem done and half of the first leaf. I’m still not sure if there will be two or three leaves. We’ll see…

The felt hat for my sister (which I think will be too small, booo hooo) is done except to weave in ends and obviously felt it. But, alas, I removed my Chibi needles from my purse/knitting travel kit before my trip to MN, knowing I wouldn’t finish my sock while gone and not wanting to get them taken away during airport security checks and now I can’t find them.

I haven’t decided if I’m headed over to Lambspun this morning or not. It fits into the rest of my day kind of oddly. But if I do go I need to check the balance on my account and see if I can’t get a new set of Chibi’s and a retractable tape measure. Ugggghhhh, I hate the very end of the month… *sigh* And I hate that it takes 4 days to transfer money from my paypal account into my checking account *sigh*

Progress!

Between Stitch ‘n Bitch on Monday night and Knitting Tea this morning I’m very nearly done with both hats. I just need to weave in ends on my sister’s hat (though I’m thinking it’s going to be too small and that I may have to make another one, hopefully I can find someone with a smaller head whom it will fit). The lemon is kind of sort at the point to add the stem, but I decided the shape isn’t quite right so I’m going to pull it back about 8 rows or so I think and take another stab at it.

But, I made significant progress! Wooo hoo!

I’ve Been Absent…

To make up for that fact, boring “in progress photos”! LOL!

The Opal Sock that I started almost 6 weeks ago now. I haven’t really touched it much this last week. But I have made progress since I broke that needle. I finished picking up the heel stitches and finished the gusset and have made decent progress on the instep…

Here is the lemon hat I’m designing. The baby shower is August 3rd so I’m hoping to wrap that up by the end of the week and send it on to MN for my mom to take to the shower with her. It should be no problem as long as all my week nights are not eaten up with socializing, LOL! This next round I need to move to the DPNs I think…

Here is the Bottom’s Up Bucket Hat I’m making for my sister. She wanted a multi-colored grey and this was the best I could do at my LYS. So, I added a darker charcoal mohair to the brim to add a touch of fuzziness to “dress it up” and add a touch of a different grey to the brim. Hopefully she’ll like it. This one is kind of going on hold until the lemon is done unless the Cottontots bothers my hands too much. I’m waiting on my mom to send me a box that includes her winter scarf that she said people are always going on about. That way I can dress up her bucket hat to go with the scarf. So, I’ll have no other large needle project until that arrives and knowing my mom it could still be two weeks….

At some point I need to cast on for the back of my shapely tank in hopes that I’ll still be able to wear it at some point this summer. Of course, as heavy as 100% cotton is I probably won’t want to wear it until late August evenings or late September days as hot as we are. I can’t complain about the heat too much since we did actually have cooler weather for June which we hadn’t had since the summer of 1999 when I moved here.

Tonight is Stitch ‘n Bitch @ Mug’s Coffee Lounge on Taft Hill from 6-8pm! Join us if you’re in the area!

Slow Progress…

Mostly because I have project ADD - mostly out of neccessity though. I’m working on the lemon hat which is 100% cotton and hurts my hands so I can only do a few rows at a time. Then I switch to the sock, which is really small needles and can hurt my hands sometimes too. Then I switch to the first to the two felted Bottoms Up Bucket Hats. All three I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Which is good. But when you’re switching between projects so much it is sometimes difficult to see much progress.

Tonight is Stitch ‘n Bitch again! 6-8pm at Mug’s Coffee Lounge on Taft Hill Rd. I might go a fair bit early just to get out of the heat. I’ll maybe work on binding a book or do some art jounaling. I haven’t done that since I got home really. I’ve been so focused on the books I’m selling on ArtByUs.com.

Speaking of that - if any of you are into art journaling or would like to be, there is an awesome 6 X 8 inch watercolor journal with 48 pages up for auction there that hasn’t got any bids yet so will be a total steal if the reserve is met.

Keep knitting!

Grandma’s Books

These include a few Tatting books and a “Learn to” books that include several needlearts including knitting.

Several “Learn to” books that contain various combinations of needlearts, though I think all include both kniting and crochet. At least one of them contains Hairpin Lace so I can use that frame I got There is also an easy glove and mitten book.

Some of the heavier items of the 41-lb box were these two big Reader’s Digest books.

This one had me hitting the roof! I had it on my b-day list but no one got it for me. Turns out my mom had given this 1971 copy to my grandmother as a gift and now it’s mine! Yeah!

Yet more tatting books (for someone who “never got the hand of tatting” she sure had a lot of books on the subject, LOL)! And a couple more knitting ones.

There were also various photocopied handout sort of books from community ed classes and such, but they aren’t so pretty so I didn’t photograph those

In Knitting Progress…

I’m poking along on the green socks. I’ve been having back crafting karma the last couple days and kept dropping stitches for some reason so I just set it aside for the moment. I casted on for the lemon hat I’m designing for my mom’s cousin’s little girl she just adopted. Only problem with that one is it’s Bernot Cottontots so I can’t do more than ten or so rows a day because of the lack of give in the yarn. So, while I was at knitting tea at Lambspun yesterday I picked out the wooks to full for mom and Amber’s felted Bottoms Up Bucket Hats they “ordered” (for Christmas) so I cast on for my sister’s yesterday and learned the joys of knitting with mohair, LOL! I picked up a small darker grey mohair to put into her brim as she had shown me some fuzzy multi-toned grey yarn, but it wasn’t felt-able. I had been getting a fair bit knit because I was burning audible.com books to CD for my mom and its a great thing to do while my computer is tied up burning CDs.

More Minnesota Treasures…

Firstly, thanks to all of you who gave your input on the mystery objects! We had thought #2 was for hairpin lace but weren’t positive. I’m going to do some searching to see what I can find about “knotted lace” and see if that is the answer.

Miscellaneous acquisitions from MN including crochet needles, tatting shuttles, rayon machine embroidery thread etc.

My great, great grandmother’s tatting shuttle.

I’m workingon decreasing the gusset on my sock and will be taking it with on our travels this weekend for my FIL’s retirement party. I hope you all have a fun and safe holiday weekend and I’ll be back next weekend with pics of the books I brought back.