Gifties!

Hooray! My Punk Rock Gift Exchange box #2 arrived! It has some of the best stuff in it. My pal is Dawn of Wild Yarn and she has totally been spoiling me.

What did I get?

Yarn:


Two balls of the green/turquise Luna Park 100% merino sock yarn in colourway 200 and 1 ball XXL Trekking in color 66. I think the green yarn is destined to become the Pepperknit zokni socks. I'm not sure about a pattern for the trekking yet. Any ideas?

I also got these that I LOVE:

They are sttch markers made by the oh-so-crafty Dawn and a punk rock case that she made, too. I love them not only because they are cool but becasue they are small enough to use on socks (where they are going tomorrow). I LOVE the case.

Other stuff I got:
A sweet lacy/skull notebook
Body Poof
Yummy Apple Body Wash
Black mod-looking notecards
DPN case (also made my Dawn....I totally needed one of these, too!)
Stitch counters (not in picture as they were promptly put to use)
2 Tape measure (one is retractable, which is exactly what I needed, also in use)
Monkey stickers
Coin purse from Guatemala
And this:
His name is Sheepy (creative, eh?) He's squishy and has fun googly eyes. I'm glad Dawn was able to wrestle him away from her son to come live with me beacause I like him!

In short, Dawn is the best darn Punk pal I could ever ask for who has spoiled me silly and sent me all kinds of wonderful presents that I LOVE. I am definitely nominating her for best punk pal not just for this round, but for EVER.

THANK YOU, DAWN!!!

Thursday Tip-off

Did you know that Michael's, Jo-Ann Fabrics and AC Moore coupons are interchangable? You can use Jo-Ann's coupons are Michaels and AC Moore, AC moore coupons at Jo-Anns and Michaels, etc.

Yes! That's right. It's really true. I even called Michaels to confirm it. I just wish I had known that sooner. Go forth and shop!

Puff!

Oh so yummy Profiterole Puffs (recipe from the Pampered Chef). If you live in the Boston, Portland Oregon or Seattle areas, drop me a comment and I can come make them for you at your very own cooking show. We can do the full fat /sugar variety or the low fat and low sugar variety. Both very yummy.



Check out the website: http://www.pamperedchef.biz/carissascorner (I'm sorry it's not linked....they have new rules that I can't link to my website on any webpages...so unfortunately you'll have to copy and paste)

Wordless Wednesday

Redemption!

BOO YA!! TAKE THAT YOU RUFFLY NECKLINE SCUM!

*cough*

Um, I mean, I fixed my neckline. :-D

I frogged the first one, re-picked up the stitches further apart, knit and used a different bind off method and now Ms. Marigold (er... Lavender? Freesia?) is shaping up quite nicely. Just in time...as my husband is beginning to think I'm hopeless for anything but baby and sock knitting.

I'd say I'm about 75% done. this is my progress as of yet:

Don't let the wavy side of the neckline fool you. It just needs to be sewn down to the center of the V. It fits beautifully.

The Last Knit

As seen on You-Tube

M is for Muggle

And a muggle is what I feel like. Just when I think I've gotten the hang of this knitting thing, I go and do something of muggle-rific proportions.

I'm currently working on Ms. Marigold by Zephyr Style and now that I've joined in the round, I'm getting bored knitting round and round so I thought I'd mix it up by knitting the neckline ribbing and then coming back to the body.

So I went and bought (what I thought was) an appropriately sized needle (the pattern calls for size 5 and 3 needles and since I'm using 7's for the 5's to meet the gauge, I figured I needed a 5 instead of the 3) and came home and started picking up stitches. The pattern warns to make sure to pick up enough that the neckline doesn't pucker when you knit it so I picked up A LOT of stitches. I didn't think much of it, though, as the pattern warns you that you will have a lot of stitches. In the end I spent 3 hours (3 hours!!!) just picking up the stitches. Several more hours of knitting ribbing later, I cast off and viola! I have....wait....a ruffle? Sometime between picking up and casting off, a ruffle assassinated my neckline and took its place.

I think out of fear I wouldn't pick up enough, I picked up WAY too many stitches and now I'm going to have to frog hours of knitting on this stupid neckline so I can try again (but I think I'll finish the body first).

In (somewhat) happier news, my new ball winder came in the mail yesterday. This will come in handy for when I frog my wicked sweater (the sleeves are entirely too large and as this is a top-down sweater, I don't see how this is fixable) and my husband's Christmas sweater (which came out too large in some parts and too small in others. Plus it looks funny).

Anybody else noticing a pattern? Yeah. I feel like a friggin' muggle. At this point I NEED Ms. Marigold to turn out okay lest I resign myself to only knitting socks, hats, and baby clothes from now on (these seem to have turned out okay....adult sweaters? Not so much). That, and I think my husband is starting to wonder why I spend hours knitting things only to have them not fit and so I just end up unraveling them.

***ding ding ding***

There goes my timer. I guess it's time for my pity party to be up.

Here's a picture of a cupcake to cheer you up:

Thanks :-)

Thanks everyone for the input on what I should do next.

As much as I really wanted to cave to Lana and Jenger and blow off my second sock to knit the option1 top, after talking to Sassy, I realized “I need another ball of yarn” isn’t a great excuse. I thought “but the yarn is expensive” would work better. But when Sass asked how much the yarn was and I heard myself say out loud “six dollars” I realized how utterly stupid I sounded (I’m going to let $6 stand between me and the yarn I need to finish a project?) and that I should take my Punk Pal’s (and everyone else’s) suggestion that I just do the next Hedera and get it over with.

So on my way home from work yesterday, I stopped at the store from whence I bought the first ball of yarn I used for Hedera and they were all out of my color! What to do? What to do? To keep from feeling like my trip to the store was worthless, I bought a present for my soon-to-be-not-a-secret punk pal and another ball of the magic stripes yarn (see option 5 below) since I’m going to need it at some point to make an actual pair of socks. (don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll have more of my yarn soon)

In the end what did I do?

I…er, I mean Gertrude….yeah, that’s it….cast on for the Pomatomus. Can I just say I hate knitting twisted ribbing? Does anyone know if it is somehow superior to regular ribbing or does Cookie just like it? I thought about changing the ribbing but being newer to this sock business and the only sock I’ve knit that “works” was a Cookie A. sock (that and Cookie is a sock knitting genius) I figured I shouldn’t mess with it lest I manage to screw it up. I am planning to do the 2 socks on 2 circular needles thing with them (after I get past the ribbing, which I'm doing on smaller needles that I only have DPN's of), though, so we don’t run into the second sock syndrome problem again.

What to do? What to do?

I, while not as oddly garment-monogamous as Jenna Adorno, prefer to not have too many knitting projects going at once. I try to keep to one at a time unless that one project gets too big to carry around (or I'm trying to hide it from my husband), in which case, I may start something small like a sock so that I can knit during my lunch break without having to haul a whole sweater around in my bag.

But now I have the classic monogamous knitters dilemma: I want to do so much that don't know what to knit next! I thought I had it figured out last night, but my knit picks order arrived furthering my dilemma.

This is the scoop:

+ (a bit more grey-ish than this picture...but you get the idea)

I'm currently working on Ms. Marigold by Zephyr Style in TLC Cotton Plus (color: Lavender). I'd say I'm about halfway done. It's knit top-down and I'm about 2 inches below the V. I need to finish the body then add the ribbing to the V and the arm holes, weave in the ends etc. So between it being a bit large to haul around and I'm doing some waist/hip shaping, which requires trying it on every 4 rounds or so, it's not a really good traveling project any more.

So! I need to start something that can be my "small project" for a while. Now, while I know some of the options I'll show you below aren't small in the end, even sweaters start out small and if I do something like that, hopefully by the time sweater #2 gets too big to carry around, I'll be done with Ms. Marigold and can pick up another small project.

Option 1: Lacy summer top A

+

Lacey top from Spring/Summer 2007 Vogue Knitting Magazine (I think I'd add sleeves) in Knit Picks CotLin in Desert Turquoise

Option 2: Lacy summer top B

+

Different Lacy top from Spring/Summer 2007 Vogue Knitting Magazine in Knit Picks CotLin in Desert Turquoise

Option 3: Pomatomus Socks
+
The very popular Pomatomus socks in Patons Kroy sock yarn in the Winter Eclipse colourway


Option 4: Child's First Sock in Shell Pattern

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Another popular sock, "Child's First Sock in Shell Pattern" from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks in my brand new Knit Picks Dancing in the Hula colorway. (picture of sock borrowed from GFTC on flickr)

Option 5: Something with this

(Lion Brand Magic Stripes sock yarn)

I'm thinking hiking socks for our camping trip this summer but I only have 1 ball and I'd need a second one to make a pair.

Option 6: My Second Hedera sock

I know I really need to do this or I will have a lonely sock but I need to buy another ball of yarn in order to do this one, so it keeps getting put off.

All that to say.....HELP!

What do you guys think I should do? Please place your vote (and include rationale if any) in the comments.