Cheez Pleez

moar funny pictures

More about work, I guess.

Knitting? What am I knitting? Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a knitting blog.

Actively on the needles:

Lacy Diamante socks - I still really like these, but I get distracted. One sock is finished, toe and part of the instep on the second.

Possibly the World's Ugliest Log Cabin Florescent Kool-Aid Dyed Extravaganza of a Fambly Binkit. So I had this great idea, right? To make a blanket? Using all the yarn the kids and I have dyed with Kool-Aid? Two things: 1) It's warm. 2) And RILLY BRIGHT. Plus it started as a traditional log cabin and is moving into a Moderne Log Cabin (see Mason-Dixon Knitting for the Moderne version). So it should be interesting. Also bright.

Should be on the needles but ain't:

Mumma Smitten Hat - it needs to be about two inches longer, plus it's been fa-reezing here lately. Should be lengthened. Should only take an evening or so. But I haven't done it. I mean, I already finished it once! Status: in danger of being declared a UFO.

About to be on the needles:

Secret Pal project for the Miss Marple Read Along & Scarf Exchange. I want to do the flower scarf from the cover of the 25th anniversary Vogue Knitting in my pal's chosen color(s), but having a hard time finding yarn I like. I bought some today, but the plan is to see if I can return it tomorrow for something else that caught my eye at the shop. I would stick with this yarn, but it's a wool/silk blend. And, I don't know about you, but I have this weird habit of smelling my yarn. The silk? Kinda fishy. Not good.

In Quilting News...

I have the strips cut for another Easy Lap Quilt, this one for a baby of mystery gender. I tried to make a unisex quilt, but I'm having a hard time committing to color order and whatnot. One way it's too girly for a boy, the other way, not girly enough for a girl. So it's going to have to wait until the baby gets here, any day now. The problem with any day now is that we are going out of town in two days for 12 days, then when I get back, I work two days, then out of town again for 3 days, back to work for two days, and that's just the stuff I know about! You can see how this quilt might be done by the time the kid graduates high school.

Two quilting books I now love besides Bend the Rules Sewing (which is not strictly a quilting book, but whatever): The Quilts of Gee's Bend and Denyse Schmidt Quilts. If you like traditional, precision-cut and precision-pieced quilts, these may not be for you. But if your favorite quilting book heretofore was titled That Dorky Homemade Look (which is by Lisa Boyer and is awesome), and you basically adopted that philosophy to your whole entire life, then you might like these books as well.

(Unlinked titles not available at Borders.com. My Inner Tightwad suggests that you check your local library. Also, my inner activist says I should support my local recession-riddled state and link to locally-owned Border's whenever possible.)

Well, we're off. I'd apologize for being gone so long, but you are all probably used to that by now.

UFOctober Report, Day 19 (and FOto Friday)

It's amazing what a good night of sitting on your butt ignoring the laundry quality TV can do for your knitting. Last night was a very good night. Here's my tally thus far.

*=new progress

Blue Cascade Socks for Boy1 - Frog Frogged 10/6/07 (1:30 a.m.)

Chevron Lace Socks - Rip back to heel flap just before turn, & reknit Finished 10/6/07 (1:00 a.m.)

Early Nettie - Frog Frogged 10/1/07

* Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimono 1 - A second washing and blocking satisfied me that all the wayward dye was rinsed from the sweater. There's still some bad dye running, but - aha! - the HCBK is knit in garter stitch, which makes it kinda reversible. Reversible enough, in fact, that reverse it is exactly what I did. So the worst dye bleeding is inside, and the rest of anything remotely noticeable is on the back. Problem solved! FINISHED 10/18/07.

Behold the heartbreaking cuteness:


Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimono 2 - Figure out the sleeve seams or frog No progress yet, but feeling better after the success of the HCBK1.

Lily Pad Socks for Boy1 - Finish second sock FINISHED! 10/7/07

* Purple sweater for Girl - In progress - sewed up one side seam, picked up stitches at armhole to knit sleeve in the round. I am NEVER knitting another sweater in pieces again!

My Bad Photo:


(That's not a dye lot mistake. The color varies throughout the skein. See below.)

Presumably professional photo of the sweater from the Lion Brand site; not our family:


Yep, that's acrylic, people. Bought lots of it before I knew better, but it's soft and warm and, hello, machine washable. I'm using it. Click here for the pattern. I'm leaving off the hood, doing a roll-neck collar instead. And, as mentioned, knitting the sleeves in the round from the shoulder down.

* Recycled Navy Sweater - see below.

Recycled Navy Sweater before


Recycled Navy Sweater after


Why is this sweater in the trash? This sweater began life as an exercise in anger management. The yarn came from a 25-cent yard sale sweater. I frogged it during a particularly rough patch in my marriage, when ripping a sweater apart seemed to be the only viable outlet for the stress, anger, and frustration I felt. (Things are better lately, thanks for asking.) As you might expect, the yarn was roughly frogged, not rinsed before rewinding, and full of knots. Badly done all around. The color was SO DARK (the flash really lightened it up immensely), it was depressing. Somehow, a junior's size small sweater did not give me enough yarn to knit a little girl's cardigan. Go figure. Considering the anger, the depressing color, the yarn shortage, and the fact that I started knitting it in pieces before I knew about knitting in the round, it makes sense to me just to toss it. Good riddance. Trashed 10/19/07.

Sky Socks - Mail Mailed 10/4/07

Swap-Bot Swap Yarn - Mailed 10/6/07

* The interloper:
Jaywalker may be slightly stalled at the heel. The instructions are not making sense to me. Is it a short-row heel? Anyone know? If I can't figure it out, I'll probably just do a flap heel and hope for the best.

The Exceptions:

Jimmy Neutron sweater for Boy1

ONE ball-band dishcloth if the mood strikes

So, that's my report for now. By the way, Knitting Daily has been running a few posts recently about UFOs. They also ran a poll that shows the average number of UFOs per knitter is 7. The knitters with more than 20 UFOs easily outnumbered those with zero, by 3-to-1, in fact. Yow. That's a lotta UFOs.

If you don't read Knitting Daily, follow that link and sign up to receive it by email. It's from Interweave Press, therefore, very entertaining and informative, even if it isn't quite daily. :)

O Progress, Where Art Thou?

Forgive me, knitters, for I have slipped.

I have cast on a new project that is not on my UFOctober exceptions list.

shock!

Once I knit the entire first cuff, I realized I was fooling myself - this was no swatch. (You all knew that already, didn't you?) It is, in fact, a Jaywalker, using the second batch of sock yarn I Kool-Aid dyed in case the Autumn Leaves/Great Pumpkin didn't work out. I can't decide if I like the colors or not, but it's dyed and it's knitted, so it's NOT getting frogged. I'm calling it the Four-Berry Trifle Jaywalker Sock. (FOtos on Friday, peeps!)

So, how is everyone's UFOctober going? Here in McFrogland, Decisions Have Been Made. Projects Shall Be Tossed. One of my UFOs is so disheartening that I am not even wasting time frogging it. More on that later. But mostly, if it weren't for mental progress, there wouldn't be any progress at all. bleh.

Let's see how our other players are doing, shall we?

Gentle Sunset is making good progress, reporting one complete, one almost complete, and one frogging.

Fiber Chic has completed another Super Secret UFO and is working on one of her exceptions.

Wanna see a beautiful Mystery Stole? Click on over to Amanda's blog; she is making great progress!

Knitterary is finally able to show off her Super Secret Project - go check out the cuteness. And let us have a moment of silence for that beautiful Jaywalker. In its passing, it has given me the peace to toss out my own (aforementioned) disheartening project. ***moment of silence***

Go give Knitty Kitty a big round of applause - she is getting lots done!

Go see KP's sock and share the love.

Turtle was making good progress, but she hasn't posted since the 7th. (Hmm, I wonder if she is hiding something like I was.)

I hope to have some real progress to show by Friday!!

UFOctober Day 10 Report

Well, nothing really new to report. The beginning of the week is usually crazy busy for me, so I don't get much knitting done. But I'm home all day tomorrow, and if I can resist "swatching" the ball o' mess (I frogged the non-toe), maybe I can get some sweater progress going.

But I had to stop in and share this recent comic from HOBOTOPIA, which I thought was great for UFOctober!



(If you don't get it, click here.)

FOto Friday - October 5, 2007

Undeserved Yarn, or, My Sock-Bot Loot:

Dyed by Debbi with acid dyes on Knit Picks base. She calls this color Sweet Tart - very appropriate! Looks like it will make some fun Monkeys if I ever attempt a pair. Seeing her neat little yarn cake makes me want a yarn winder soooooo baaaaaad. She sent along some awesome purple stitch markers by Mary! This photo is really dark, I'm sorry!


Seeing Debbi's pretty yarn and after wrestling with the kool-aid Every Single Time makes me think I need to step up to real acid dyes if I want to take this yarn dyeing thing seriously.

And did you know that many (if not all) fiber "acid" dyes are citric-acid based? So is Kool-Aid! I was thinking of something far more sinister, probably since a nasty dustup between myself and some sulphuric acid once resulted in a late-night trip to urgent care. Anyway, speaking of wrestling with Kool-Aid...

The Project Previously Knows As The Great Pumpkin, Now With More Autumn Leaves Effect!:

Overdyed in TONS of lemonade Kool-Aid (pale stuff, that), then spotted with Cherry. It looks good, so I'm sending it on to the very patient Robyn once it's dry (one photo with flash, one without):



If I tried this color effect again, I would dye it with four packs of lemonade FIRST, then hand-painted it in orange, red and maybe a touch of green. The contrast of the red and green in early autumn leaves is one of my favorite parts of autumn, yet I forgot all about it.

This also qualifies as a finished project for UFOctober, woohoo!

More UFOctober Progress:

Early Nettie Before:


Early Nettie After:


Sky Socks Before:


Sky Socks After:


In other progress: I've turned the heel on the 2nd Lily Pad sock. I'm enjoying this yarn again, so this seems to be my main project right now.

If you want to participate, leave me a note in the comments by Saturday night. (I was going to have everyone leave a comment on the original post, but that seems silly to me now, so just leave one here.) If you have already signed up, check the UFOctober 2007 link list to the right and make sure your name/blog appears there.

And don't forget to grab a button! (Please save to your own account, thx.)

When Sarcasm is Not Enough...

I'm sorry, but I had to laugh. It seems a few of you took my Saturday post literally. What I meant was, it was a really rough day. The kind of day that will drive you to drink, if not alcohol, then chocolate syrup straight from the bottle.

Things are better now, but - hoo boy - has something got to give.

On an unrelated knitting note: I'm thinking of designating October as "UFOctober" or "UnFinished October" and make a goal to finish, work on, or even frog all my UFOs. Who's with me?