Lookee what I got !

I ordered this lovely stuff:



to make a feather & fan scarf for my sister - a somewhat late Christmas present (for those of you who weren't reading then... for Christmas, I had the ladies in my family pick from a few select projects something for me to make for them).

It is hand dyed, 100% kid mohair from Brooks Farm. It's their Primero yarn in the Chianti colorway. Oh, my goodness is this lovely stuff!!! Vibrant, striking colors, and so, so soft. It comes in huge 500 yard hanks, so even though the price looks high, you're getting so, so much. It really is a good deal for the amount you get.

And, I just noticed that they've started offering (what looks to be) a worsted weight wool/silk blend for even less per yard. None of the colorways they have up now are quite me, but I'll be watching to see if they put up more... at that price, it's a steal of a deal, and I think it'd make a fantastic second Clapotis!

All last week

Besides being sick, this is what I spent my time doing last week:

Months ago, my daughter had picked out some yarn (TLC wiggles in cherry, which is a true hot pink color, even though these pictures make it look a bit orangey), and asked me to make her a poncho out of it. I've had so many other projects that I wanted to do that I kept putting it off. But, with her birthday being this last Saturday, I put everything aside and worked on it, and only it, all last week.

I started with this pattern, but since the yarn I was using (and the hook I was using... I couldn't find the one called for in the pattern) did not give me the same gauge, I just tried to make it to the dimensions (after all, it's just 2 rectangles... nothing really fancy). I crocheted a chain that looked to me to be about 13" (I was comparing it to the long side of an 8.5"x11" piece of paper), but after I had crocheted back into the foundation chain, it stretched a bit, and ended up being 14.5" long. I hate crocheting into the foundation chain, so instead of ripping back, I just figured I'd work with it. In the pattern, the length of the rectangles was roughly double that of the width, so I made my rectangles a bit longer, and then seamed it all up. It took me much longer to do than I had anticipated, and I was seaming and weaving in ends (with a smaller crochet hook... because, of course, I couldn't find my darning needle when I needed it) after midnight on Friday night, and I didn't have time to add the eyelash yarn trim (I can do that later).

So, anyways... the poncho was larger than I'd originally intended. I figured that would just mean she could wear it longer, but... um... check out how much too big it is:

Oops. I think I can fix it by doing a round or two of double crochet all around the neckline. I may only opt to do the eyelash trim around the neck, as the puppy kept biting at the long corners, and I think the eyelash trim on the bottom would make it even more puppy-appealing.

Trying to do this in one week seriously burned me out. I didn't knit or crochet a thing the whole weekend.

Generous knitters

I've been so lucky recently to win (or nearly win) a few contests being held by other knitters. Getting the packages in the mail has been a nice pick-me-up as I've been sick this week.

First off, Cara from January One sent me 6 of her beautiful Photo Art Cards. 3 of the ones she sent me are up for sale:

SP007 from the Spring Collection,

SU002 from the Summer Collection, and

SU017 from the Summer Collection

I also got 3 that she doesn't have up for sale:

I especially like the one with the bug. I don't know why, but the bug really makes me smile :)

I got these awhile back, but my computer has been acting poopy (it would take many, many tries to get it to boot up), and then it wouldn't boot up at all. My husband took it to work, and they figured out that the video card had quit working with our computer. It works fine if we put it in another computer, but it won't work in ours anymore. Go figure.

Then Lisa from BlogDogBlog held a caption contest for one of her cute doggie pictures, and she's so generous, she said everyone who entered won! Talk about generous!!! The prize was sock yarn... here's what I got:

And lastly, Bron from Bron's Blog II held a contest to name her new treadmill. She liked one of my entries the best, so she sent me this:

That's 2 fantastic patterns (The Art Nouveau Poncho and the Celebrity Look-Alike Shawl) from Stitch Diva Studios and 2 skeins of KnitPicks Andean Silk Twist. I couldn't possibly be more excited. Those just happened to be the 2 patterns I liked most from that company and had put off buying over and over again... Bron... how did you know????? And I've been thinking about that exact color of the Andean Silk Twist since Wendy made a little ipod cozy out of it. I don't know what I'll do with it yet (although I do think I would like to get some Andean Silk in Navy to stripe it with), but I love it. It is so, So, SO soft.

Thank you ladies! You're so kind.

Lots of knitting progress this week

I knit the back of Ribby Cardi up to the length the pattern states before doing the armhole shaping. I'm still trying to figure out whether I should lengthen it or not. Too many things I own are too short, and a lot of the Ribby's I've seen are short in my book. But, I measured another sweater I have that is a length I like, and the measurements, both from the underarm down and from the shoulder down are really close to what the pattern lists, so now I just don't know.



I've also knit the fronts up to 7":



I did the last couple of ankle rounds on my 2nd Fuzzyfoot, and then knit the heel flap and turned the heel... only to find out that I'd knit the heel flap 2 rows too long, so I have to frog the heel turn and those 2 rows and then redo the heel turn (if it was the first one, I'd just leave it and do the 2nd to match, but since it's the second one, I'll frog). I didn't feel like taking a picture when I'd be frogging though, so nothing to show here on that.

I also got Clapotis back on track. I frogged a couple of inches, and as per MJ's suggestion (which was the same thing the LYS owner I asked about it suggested), I eliminated a few inches (I chose to take out most of a length of green... about 10"), and as you can see, that helped immensely:



I was afraid the pooling would just start up again later, but it didn't, and I came to the end of the first ball of yarn just after dropping the 6th stitch. I estimate that I was able to knit 12,145 stitches with the first ball, and that took me through the increase rows and a little over 5.5 repeats of the straight rows. The 3rd ball should do the decrease rows and the same number of repeats. I used those numbers and figured that the 2nd ball will do 9 repeats plus enough to complete the partial repeats of the other 2 balls. That's more repeats than the pattern calls for, but I think the length will be about the same.

Have I mentioned... I love this yarn, I love these colors, and I love this pattern. It's all completely addictive, and it's all I really want to work on.

I got myself a new small project bag

I wanted to get something I could use as both a purse and a knitting project bag... both so that I can carry just ONE bag, and because I am not feeling good about carrying around all the shapeless, droopy tote bags I've been using. Maybe it shouldn't matter, but somehow it does.

I really like it. It's a good size... it'll easy hold Clapotis as well my wallet and PDA, and while it doesn't have a ton of pockets, it has one that is perfect for my keys, and I've pretty much decided that I need to find a way to easily switch the essentials from bag to bag so that I can take whichever project I want to work on with me.

I do need to find a large project bag. I'm trying to decide whether to pick up something I found this weekend, or to hold out for a Knitter's Purse, which I LOVE, but it's also about 3 times the price, and I always seem to find myself spending all my free money on yarn, so I don't know when, or if, I'll be able to pull that off.

Zhaan's first post

Hi, everybody. Nice to meet you. Do you see me meeting you. Huh, do you, huh? I'm wagging my tail... no wait, I'm wagging my WHOLE HIND END just to show you how excited I am to meet you.

I'm a pretty good puppy... at least the knothead lady says so. She and mister knothead think I'm really smart. For instance... I'm mostly house trained. The lady didn't think it would go so easily, but I just about have it figured out. Sure, there's a few accidents still, but I almost always go outside. Out the door, run over by the fence, make a piddle, walk all the way around the yard, and sometimes do that other thing on our way around.

Mister knothead says he's trying to train me. I like this part. Clicks and treats. Woo-hoo!

Oh, and do you all know about bones? Rawhide bones are so neat. The knothead lady is amazed by how fast I go through them. Chew, chew, chew... I love to chew! Oh, but sometimes the knothead lady doesn't like that. She says they give me plenty of doggie chew things, I shouldn't chew on other things... like this:

Well, it looked good to me! Yarn is fun, too, but she's being more stingy with that, since she noticed I liked it, and so I have to get it when she's not looking... and then I have to run, because even if she's sitting all tucked up like a pretzel, she will come after me and take it away.

Here's me doing one of my favorite things... getting my tummy scratched! The knothead lady wanted to get a picture of me doing my crazy face (DON'T MESS WITH MY TUMMY SCRATCHES!), but she only got the crazy eyes, and not the crazy teeth.

Until next time.

- Zhaan

All Clapotis all the time

Since I started this project, I haven't hardly been able to work on anything else. I did try to work on the baby afghan a couple of times, but I think I ripped as much (or at least nearly as much) as I crocheted.

Here's how far I'd gotten on that:

If it weren't for all the ripping and re-doing (and the lack of working on it out of frustration), I'm sure I could be done with the entire main panel by now, and be working on the edging.

So, about Clapotis... here's some progress shots:

I've gotten through 4 repeats of the straight rows, and I'm ready to drop the 5th stitch. I'm trying to decide whether to do so or not. Can you see the way the green has been pooling for about the last few inches? I really don't like. I'm also trying to figure out why it started pooling so strongly. It had been doing fine on the straight rows for a while, and then instead of the small staggered pooling, it suddenly started to stack up in wide stripes.

Would it help to rip back a few inches and redo it, or would it just turn out the same?

Also, I still haven't come to the end of the first 200 yd. ball. I don't know how much farther it will go, but this is longer than I realized it would. The other thing I could think to do would be to rip back to where I switched from increase rows to straight rows, and do another repeat... or take one out (although I think I'd rather have it wider than narrower... it's only about 14" or 15" wide now, so it's narrower than the pattern... I would think that would mean that I'm not using as much yarn per row, and I could end up with a really long piece, so widening it ought to be okay, right?). I don't know whether that would fix the problem or not... it could still end up pooling weird.

If you have any recommendations, I'd sure appreciate them.

Meet Zotoh Zhaan

Althought we'll mostly just call her Zhaan (pronounced zan... it's the name of a character from a TV show we liked). She's a lab/border collie mix that's about 3 months old. We adopted her from the humane society.



Awwww... my husband has been wanting a dog for quite awhile now. Think maybe he's happy?

Here she is playing fetch:



And here she is with another toy (I thought this would be nice to have for comfort):



She's such a cutie!

Thanks so much...

to all of you who took the time to post encouragement to me. I really appreciate it.

I also want to apologize for leaving you all hanging so long... it was rather a busy weekend, and you'll see why in my next post.

I do want to address a few things, though. I don't expect everyone who visits to comment (I don't comment on every post I read... not even close), and I don't expect comments on every post. I also understand how easy it is to get behind on reading through you Bloglines subscriptions... I have similar numbers of feeds to those who've mentioned it, and it is very hard to keep up (any time you do catch up, it seems there's suddenly a tidal wave of new posts).

I'm also not nearly as obsessed with comments as I realize the last post made me look. I do notice numbers (I'm just that way... a total fountain of factoids), but it really never bothered me before.

It's just that this particular post wasn't a regular post. This was something that was a big deal, even if I wasn't seriously hurt, I sure could've been. And knowing that even more people than usual came by and saw what had happened and none of them... well, you know from the last post... that hurt.

And yes, I do plan to continue blogging. I was NOT trying to make an ultimatum... just trying to sort out my feelings. At the time, I was really sad.... but thinking about not doing it also made me sad. That never was a solution.

So, anyways... back to my normal style of blog entries.

Reconsidering blogging

Well, where to start...

I know how many people are subscribed to my blog with Bloglines, and I have a tracker that tells me how many people visit my blog every day. I've noticed that compared to other knit bloggers with similar subscription numbers, I get far fewer comments. I've wondered why, but tried not to worry about it until now.

But these last two days... To know that somewhere between 45 and 90 people have visited and read that I was in an accident, and not a single person could be bothered to even say "Hey, I'm glad you're okay"... well, at the very least, it makes me wonder whether there's any point in all the effort I put into maintaining the blog.

I'd been trying out TypePad and planning to change my blog over to there to make information more accessible, and basically just make things nicer for the readers, but Typepad is costly, and when I'm not sure if it's even worth doing on a free site, it's hard to see shelling out money for it.

I don't know what I'll do about it in the end, but at the moment, it really seems like 'why bother?' It looks like I already have the evidence of what my doing so is worth.

Accidental knitting

I was heading to a crochet meetup last night. I stopped at a stoplight and was rear-ended. Luckily for me, I was in a minivan, and the car that hit me was a little compact. The only damage to my car that I can see is the scrapes underneath my rear bumper. I was jostled a bit, and my back was a little stiff last night and a little sore this morning, but that was all. The worst of it was that I missed my chance to go to the meetup. I'd really been looking forward to being with other women that shared my interests, and to get a chance to look at some of the new knitting magazines that are out (the meetup is at Barnes & Noble).

So, anyways... the whole time I was sitting in my car waiting for the police to show up (there was another accident not too far away at about the same time), I was wondering if I should get out Clapotis and work on it. I didn't end up doing so, but I kept wanting to.

So... what's the most unusual place you've ever knit? What's the weirdest place you ever considered?