TURBOchic knits

Rick socks

2011-09-20T09:11:00.001-04:00

The last time you saw these socks I had barely made any progress.

Not much has changed.

Probably because I've been two-timing Rick with Kai-Mei.

Ahhh, soothing 3x3 rib.

Lace Scarf

2011-09-19T09:06:00.002-04:00

There is a little project that has been hanging around on my needles since April, which I've never blogged about mainly because it's in a holding pattern.

For any of this to make sense, you should know that floating around in my brain is this mental image of myself when I'm all put together. I can see myself were my hair is styled and I accessorize. I look like I just walked of the page of a fashion magazine and my wallet and closet are big enough to handle my style. It's always fall in my head. I wear a lot of layers. So I took my wardrobe into my own hands and cast on my only skein of lace weight....

I got this far before screwing up.


Click for detail

It's a far cry from the finished product (rav), but I am hoping that the new cold weather will inspire my inner fashionista to knit it up.

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-09-17T12:23:00.000-04:00

My friend Amy gave me a skein of trekking to wind for her and in return her let me knit up a square for my sock blanket. I've never knit with trekking before, so it was fun.

This particular yarn is Trekking hand art in colorway 'Karibik,' #503 for those of you who want to know. At quite a normal blend (75% wool & 25% nylon) for fingering yarn, it knitted up to a 4.25 x 4.25 square which is a pretty normal size. Still there was something about it that feel like a skinnier than normal yarn. That's not a complaint, just an observation.

I haven't posted a group picture of my squares in a while, so here you go-straight from my bed this morning before Mr. Turbo realized I was awake and handed Lil Turbo over to me.

I love my knitted color wheel.

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-08-06T18:50:00.043-04:00

I purchased two 50 gram balls of stroll multi. One you ~~read about~~ glanced at a picture of last week and the other you'll play Where's Waldo with in the following photo. They call the colorway "sunset multi," I like to think of if more as "pine blonde."

I think the one thing that this square confirms to me, besides the fact that I will never be a professional photographer, is that I will never be a designer. I've like to say that I'm as chic as they get, but my track record just provides too much evidence to the contrary. I will be forever doomed to knit camouflage. OH well, at least everything will match.

Baby Booties

2011-08-01T08:25:00.001-04:00

As it would happen, an old high school friend is pregnant with a baby girl and she dislikes the color pink, which means that I could use the Stroll Multi leftovers to knit her up a present.

Even the family dog approves.

These booties are based on a couple patterns found in 50 Baby Booties to Knit, by Zoe Mellor. I primarily used her "Daisy Lace Bootee" pattern. However, I determined early on that these absolutely had to be ribbed cuff. Anything else is useless, I know from experience. So that's mod one.

I had fun purchasing more ribbon for my ribbon stash. How do I not have any off-white gros grain ribbon?! Ribbon curling technique found here and here.

The pansy multi booties have my second mod. I wasn't real impressed with the daisy lace pattern on the first pair, so I looked through my vogue stitchionary (vol 1) to find a new foot pattern to show off the color changes in the yarn.


and their machine washable.

Using up leftovers, destashing and an awesome gift all at once?! Score!

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-07-30T18:47:00.072-04:00

Amy and I recently made a joint purchase from kn!tp!icks online. I picked up a couple of cheap variegated

yarns in their stoll multi line and stoll tonal lines. I'll be covering them one at a time, just to drag out the blogging foder. ;) This one is the "pansy multi" colorway.

It knits up pretty much how you'd expect a 75% superwash merino and 25% nylon skein of yarn to knit up. It's nice, but not niiice-if you know what I mean. However, I am happy about other attributes. Such as the fact that it's just $3.99 for a 50 gram ball. I didn't plan on making any socks out of this stuff (too rough), so I didn't want a whole lot of leftovers. I also really like the color. I like that it's mainly dark purple with just a speckling of light purple, and though you can't see it in the above photo, an additional dark red purple.

Now I just have to figure out what to knit with the remaining 40 grams to clear it out of the stash.

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-07-23T18:41:00.057-04:00

I feel like these Saturday posts are getting a like dull. I mean what else can you say about a 4 inch by 4 inch garter stitch square? Especially one that looks a lot like my April 2nd Rowan 4ply.

Anywho, today's square is a cotton/bamboo blend with a lost tag, so I can't tell you who made it. This combo gives it a lovely fluid drape and makes it lighter weight than my other squares. These two factors put it on my I-don't-hate-you-completely cotton list. However, It's eight strands make it a touch on the splitty side. My kn!tp!cks needles didn't have a sharp enough point for this ply, but my addi lace needles weren't in the right size. If you had them I'd recommend you break them out for this yarn. That is if you can figure out the brand...

On my monitor it looks like a hot pink, but it's more magenta in real life.

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-07-16T18:36:00.039-04:00

My friend, Amy, has traded me some new colors of sock yarn. (She seems to have a lot of pink yarn as well.) She has been most generous to me. She let me knit with this electric Ms. Babs yarn before she finished the second sock, which has given me a few more Sock Blanket Saturdays. Thank you Amy.

You can't see it from the monitor, but this yarn is eye popping pink. Acid dye pink. And slippery, sproingy wonderful to knit with. I believe that this particular sock yarn is part bamboo, hence the slippery bit. As always I love knitting with Ms. Babs yarn. It's never treated me wrongly. What about y'all? Have a yarn that just floats your boat every time you knit with it in every breed, weight or color you use?

Mustang Sally

2011-07-11T07:42:00.015-04:00

The sock sabbatical I have been on since the beginning of April is over. I finally cast on my Kitchen Sink Dyeworks cashmere blend for a pair of socks.

I've been drooling over the Rick socks in Cookie A's Sock Innovation since the book came out in 2009. I wanted to perfect yarn to knit it, which I found last October at SAFF. However, I had other socks on the needles at the time and didn't want to cheat on them with any new socks.

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-07-10T19:15:00.000-04:00

I recently signed up for a group BlankieMania on Ravelry. They often do lots of swaps for blanket yarns. I thought I'd get in on this, but often they offer 5 grams mini skeins. The problem with this is that my lightest square is 7grams and the heaviest is an astonishing 14 grams! (All squares weighed after knitting.) And it makes me wonder if my 4x4 squares are so much larger than everyone else's?

Purple CCH             3/8 oz;     9 g
Aubergine Rowan    1/4 oz;    7 g
Snapdragon              5/8 oz;    8 g
Hot pink Louet         1/2 oz;    14 g
Light Pink Louet       1/2 oz;    13 g
Deuce's Pink       1/4 oz;    9 g
Pink Lemonade      1/4 oz;    8 g
Scarlett Rite             1/4 oz;    7 g
French Marigold       3/8 oz;    10 g
Autumn Oak          1/4 oz;    8 g
Hunter's Orange       1/4 oz;    8 g
Squash Blossom       3/8 oz;    10 g
Lemonade      1/4 oz;    8 g
Buttery Peeps          1/4 oz;    8 g
Lime      1/4 oz;    8 g
Green Veggies         1/4 oz;    9 g
Green Apple            3/8 oz;    9 g
River Rock              1/4 oz;    8 g
Teal CCH                1/4 oz;    10 g
Aqua KSD              1/4 oz;    9 g
Blue home dye         1/4 oz;    8 g
Light Blue Louet      1/2 oz;    13 g
Blue Striped             1/4 oz;    9 g
Dragon Fly    1/4 oz;    8 g

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-04-23T10:47:00.034-04:00

This Saturday's post is a double since I forgot to post last weekend. After all the rain that has been coming to us a weekend with gorgeous weather meant we were out in it! There have been pretty days here and there scattered about tempting us, but an entire weekend of nice weather? *sing it with me now* WoNdEr~FuL!

I dug through the stash of washable sock-weight yarns and came up with the leftovers from this (rav) still unused project (but now seamed). Yea, I'm getting a little low on yarn for squares....

These are so stiff. I knitted a sport weight yarn on size US 1/1.25mm needles. The last time I knit with this yarn I used a size US 4/3.5mm. They are solid. They have no drape. You could used these babies to protect a 4"x4.25" square of your body during a nuclear attack and nothing would get through.

I'm not really worried about it though, because I don't see it affecting the overall blanket.

WIP Wednesday

2011-04-13T18:57:00.044-04:00

Finishing up my last sweater has left me craving for more sweater knits. I've been lusting over Strikkefrenzy's Garden Pesto (rav) a Drops pattern. I picked out colors and bought yarns and well-It all kind of fell apart from there. Begin the long hard search for a pattern in the right gauge.

Nothing seemed quite right. Every pattern I found was too "geometrical" or too "Nordic-y"or not the right gauge again.

So get this I was so enamored by this pattern that I swatched just to see if I could rework all the math and get the sweater I adored. Crazy right?

The front.

The back.

The read area is what would actually be the yoke of the sweater and the rest would be grey. I'm still loving this pattern. I think I will go overboard and try to regauge an entire Drops Design just to use this yarn. What y'all think? I'm crazy right?

Maya returns!

2011-04-12T21:07:00.000-04:00

Good news! The Hubby heard meowing in the kitchen when he returned home from work.

So he began to call out for Maya. The weird thing was when he opened the door and called for her outside, he couldn't hear her anymore. Being the intelligent Man he was he laid down ear to the floor and call for her again.

This time he heard her plan as day. She was under the house. The very place I looked last Friday when she went missing.

Guess she needed 5 days without food or water and a lighting storm last night to convince her to come back in.

We're glad she's back.

Maya on the clothes pile like she never left.

Maya Impersonates Snoopy

2011-04-12T13:00:00.001-04:00

These were the last pictures I took of Maya. She likes to hang out up on the mantle (above my side of the bed) and oversee her domain.

I'm posting this for no other reason than it tickles me to remember stupid things about her.

Zip ties in photos

2011-04-11T13:04:00.000-04:00

Your winding up some yarn like normal and this happens.

(Just in case you weren't sure it's supposed to look like this:)

So I did this.

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-04-09T11:11:00.000-04:00

We interrupt this Sock Blanket Saturday for A Missing Cat Alert. My cat Maya escaped the premises yesterday morning. We are looking as best we can for her. Neighbors are on high alert, I left my phone number with the mailman and I've called the humane society. She is microchipped, so I am hoping someone will catch her and get her scanned at a vet's or shelter and we can be contacted.

She was an indoor cat with all the amenities a cat could want. I got her another cat when I moved into my first apartment, so that she wouldn't be alone all day while I was in class.

I was sure they would get along famously...

Regardless, she's been so happy since Nigel died. It was like she loathed his existence or something.

This was the closest they were ever captured on film.

And I let her rule my lap time. It's not like I tortured her or anything.

Really she was just assisting with a photo shoot. I wasn't really bagging her up.

I spent quality time with her ensuring necessary attitude adjustments when necessary.

We put put the best cat food around and picked up anything she might try to snack on so that she never ingested anything toxic.

And we gave her regular baths to help with hygiene.

I really don't know why she was so desperate to get outside.

Stash Resuscitation

2011-04-06T20:06:00.055-04:00

It occurred to me after finishing my sweater and socks left me with nothing on my needles. (Well, nothing that I can make progress on. The sock blanket requires me to knit more socks and PoPo's sweater requires me to buy more yarn.) I quickly remedied that with some stash busting. At first I thought that I might take the plunge with another sweater and pull out one of my two Kuni graduated yarns to work on one of the gorgeous fair isle pieces in my rav que. But simplicity was calling my name and I grabbed my only lace wight yarn in the entire stash. Please don't laugh about the irony of simple lace you'll jinx me.

Dragonfly Fibers 'Dragon Lace' in Holly Berry. 870yds/4oz

I purchased this at SAFF two years ago at the same time I purchased the yarn for Tree Duo. It seemed fitting to continue clearing out the event's yarn with the mojo I got by finishing a project with it. Believe it or not, I am actually knitting the project I had in mind when I bought this yarn the Myrtle Leaf Shawl with willow border (rav link) from Victorian Lace Today.

Though it's turning out considerably small than intended. Oh well, no big loss. I'm not into shawls anyway, and am suited for a scarf.

And speaking of socks

2011-04-05T11:15:00.004-04:00

I finally kicked it into gear and finished up the Socks That Never End (rav link). I'm totally blaming FO fumes from Tree Duo.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but I purposefully picked this pattern of socks because it was out of my comfort zone-you know, with all the purling. I don't recommended it for those who feel feint as the thought of purling.

I know that I have big feet. I'm okay with that. I've knitted up socks for my big feet before. I wanted to end the pattern in a particular spot, so I ended up making these socks a touch too big.

All in all, I feel kinda 'Meh' about these socks. I'm not real happy with them, but they don't have anything wrong with them either-other than the massive amounts of purling. These socks have taken their toll on me and I may just take a brief sock sabbatical.

Starting the week with a finish-

2011-04-04T11:15:00.000-04:00

I am happy to say that Tree Duo (rav link) is done! It's actually a rather quick knit regardless of what the time frame on my ravelry account says. I'm going to tell you that I drug it out, because it's such a great knit. But y'all know me well enough to interpret that correcting as-I am lazy so it took three times as long as it really should have.

Still, I love this knit. I was happy to do it again the second time. Unlike some socks I know...

This was knit up with the yarn I bought two years ago at SAFF. It took 99% of both skeins.

I'm glad I got two and didn't double up the yarn like one of the ideas I was throwing around. Can you imagine? YIKES!

Better FO shots to come!

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-04-02T12:00:00.069-04:00

We now continue our weekend series of which yarn. We've covered some of the more popular animal fibers. Let's move onto the plant fibers. Introducing Cotton, Rowan Cotton. (Sorry about the bad Bond joke.)

Originally, I purchased a skein of Rowan 4ply cotton for a pair of ubercute baby booties, while I was going through my bootie phase. You know the phase I had right before getting knocked up with Lil Bit.

Anyway, as you know Lil Bit turned out not to be a girl. Also I am lacking the other color necessary for them, and it's a now discontinued line. So overcoming my hoarding tendencies, I decided to destash and knit with it. The horrors!

I don't have a lot of experience with Rowan yarns, but this yarn behaved like most cottons do. It was smooth and unyielding. The tiny 50g skein was so tightly wound that I yanked out a clump of yarn which broke while trying to find the end of the strand.

That's not a complaint. It's simply a sign of my brute strength.

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-03-26T11:36:00.014-04:00

Question. Can a sock blanket contain more than just sock yarn?

I have some leftover Ms. Babs from my Lady February (rav). Nine grams leftover yarn or 0.375 ounces to be exact. It enough to knit up a square in a lovely shade of gold and it's machine washable. But will it look funny in a different gauge than the rest of the blanket?

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-03-19T11:06:00.007-04:00

We are up to 20 squares in 17 weeks.

That's not including the two squares I will only use in an emergency such as a shortage of sock yarn worldwide. Introducing Thing 1 and Thing 2.

There's nothing really wrong with these squares. Thing 1 has a lovely shade of aqua.

And Thing 2 is mainly in the same color family.

But looking through my rainbow colored glasses where do you place these squares? Put Thing 1 in with the purples and the red all sticks out. Stick it in the reds and the purple over rules everything. I'm not even going to try placing it in the green or blues where it would most definitely be a sore thumb. And Thing 2 knitted second, slightly overcomes those issues, but that pink just throws a monkey wrench in to everything.

I'm holding these squares out until the very end, wouldn't you?

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-03-12T11:01:00.006-05:00

The cashmere square.

After last week's interesting experience with alpaca, and I thought I'd talk about my run in with cashmere sock yarn. I picked up a skein of Kitchen Sink Dyeworks Luxe Merino Fine (rav) with 80% Merino, 10% Nylon and 10% Cashmere fiber content from the stash.

In colorway Irie.

It was all that you imagined. Cashmere heaven. I am so glad that I broke my rule about knitting with sock yarn leftovers. I was saving this to knit up a pair of Rick (rav) socks. If my current sock project is any gauge, I would be waiting a long time to knit with this. I did the math too, I should still have enough to knit up a pair with at least three yards margin of error.

This will work. I just know it.

"Oh boy more of my favorite hobby!"

2011-03-09T11:59:00.000-05:00

Not for the first time EZ's writing struck a chord with me. But I can say this is the first time I have been happy to knit the same sweater twice.

I get to fix all the errors that I was willing to live with last time, but makes for a much better sweater this time.

Like raglan increases. I have discovered with my small, but long frame that it is much better to stop increases before separating the arms from the body and throw in a few regular round to keep the size small and the length long.
And sleeve decreases. Even doing the above doesn't quite make up for twiggy arms. I can decrease at each end of the row about 4 or 5 times to get a close fit on my arms. YAY!
Waist shaping. Every sweater needs it. You know that and so do I.

Now back to knitting.

I'm skipping Spring Break...

2011-03-07T19:11:00.000-05:00

...and going straight for Easter. Lil Bit needed his very own Easter Basket this year. (Last year he was 3 months old and we decided it wasn't necessary to celebrate.) I don't know about your family, but my family uses the same basket year after year after year and it's a little bit of a production. We dye eggs, crack open the plastic kind filled with money, hunt for bags of candy, play with new toys and eat a huge dinner. So not just any Easter basket would do for Lil Bit.

I have been very happy with the majority of my purchases on Etsy, so I went there again for Easter baskets. I didn't exactly find what I was looking for. I found better. Introducing Bridget Stitches and her take on baskets.

Boys can have bows.

The basket, for lack of a better word, was $18, plus $5 for embroidery and $6 for shipping. That's an expensive Easter basket, until you break it down into how many years you will use it. In my family that's at least through college. So Lil Bit's got it for 22 years, breaking it down to just a dollar thirty one a year. You can't get a cheaper Easter basket than that every year.

What you can't see in the candy already filling the basket.

Why yes, those are monsters in his Easter basket. And we will be introducing him to chocolate.

Saturday Sock Blanket

2011-03-05T19:03:00.022-05:00

I broke my rule about using leftover sock yarn and I dove into a new skein before I even knit any socks out of it. Now I am worried that I won't have enough yarn for my Kai-Mei's (rav). I seem to breaking every rule I set about this sock blanket.

This square is knit out of Paca-Peds Semi-Solid by The Alpaca Yarn Company (rav). I purchased this yarn at my LYS, which is rare for me as I buy most of the bulk of my yarn stash online. However, this yarn was nicely squishy in the skein with just the slightest halo from the alpaca content. The label reads 20% alpaca, 65% superwash wool and 15% nylon.

Knitting with it was another experience all together. The yarn didn't feel like it had as much give as some other yarns. I'm leaning towards the fact that it contains nylon, but I don't believe that to be the only reason. Perhaps it was the quality of wool. The majority of what I knit with is merino and this wool is unspecified. This might make it less sproingy.

I also had a little bit of trouble with my needles splitting the yarn plys. The individual plys remind me more of thread than any thing else. I was using my fixed Options needles by knitpicks, but I expect a blunter pair of needles would do the trick.

Now I am off to weigh my remaining yarn on my new scale to see if I've ruined a perfectly good pair of unknit socks.

It's the little things

2011-02-23T07:49:00.003-05:00

My tag line for this blog reads "Knitting at unsafe speeds." I think I should take a moment to clarify that this does not refer to a lightening quick FO production. I think my lack of blog posts speaks for itself.
Instead my tag line refers to the portion of my brain which goes unused while knitting along without stopping. You know the bit that doesn't pause and say "WHOA there fella, you hate purling and that's pretty much all this pattern is" while the rest of my brain-it's gotta be like 2%-says "Oh gee this looks like fun!" For example, my recently proclaimed troubled relationship with the Hourglass socks. It's the bit that responsible for my entire collection of knits in timeout (but eventually destined for the frog pond). It's also the part that didn't speak up when I decided to knit a colorwork baby blanket in cotton.

Since, I've recently demonstrated my ineptitudes I take pride in the fact that I finally did the following. It only took 2 months to get it done.

Crocheted up a chain to use as a belt on Lil Bit's Ernie Pants.

You thought there would be more than one item on that list? Nope. That's it. And I'm happy about it.

The Land of Ugh

2011-02-22T19:31:00.000-05:00

Keeping in line with one of my previous posts, I have another ugh moment to share with you. Let's face it knitting isn't always sunshine, lollipops and fabulous FOs. Sometimes it's less of a hobby and more of a chore.

Enter my Hourglass sock (rav) stage left. This sock will be my undoing. It not incredibly hard, but it's just so not me. I've been fighting this fact since August 2010 when I cast it on. In fact, it seems that I have had such a rough relationship with them I've only made two very small references to them ever on this blog. First here by name and at the very bottom of this post in passing. Now a sock and a half later, I will bow my head and trudge forward, because at this point I just want them done.

The only picture I have of these socks is the first sock partially completed and posted to rav. Apparently, I could not be bothered with putting it on a sock blocker and composing a shot. That could have be foreshadowing what was to come, but I remained oblivious.

There are some WIPs-mainly sweaters, but a few socks too-that I have frogged when I came to this realization. Mostly I feel comfortable ripping back at the start of a project. But a sock with just a second foot left to go, even with it's eleventy billion stitches, seems too small a project to abandon. What about y'all? Have you ever just gritted your teeth and bared it?

Progress

2011-02-21T11:36:00.000-05:00

This is how far one skein of Ms. Babs Yowza-Whatta Skein will get you on a size XS, and really long Tree Jacket. The remnant is just 5 grams.

This is what 5 grams of yarn knits up as a gauge swatch in pattern.

This is the size of the pattern around the neck. It's much wider between the yarn over's than the pattern suggested for the body. I am not sure how I feel about this.

This just because I love a good yarn cake.

Admire the yarn cakey goodness and ignore my dust.

Holes in my Socks

2011-02-19T19:40:00.000-05:00

I'm going for a very literal title today. All of my socks are getting holes. I blame the washer. I almost never wash my socks in the washer. Normally, I use a little SOAK, or eucalan, both excellent cleansers, but some wild blue streak in me thought, "Sure, these are all superwash yarns, I'll just toss them in the front loader on wool for a little extra clean and tumble dry extra low."

That's when my brand spanking, never been washed undulating ribs came out with a whole in the leg.

And my copycat Pondscum Spring Forward socks got a hole in the toe.

Last night I pulled off my Embossed Leaves to find my rough feet have worn a hole in the soles of them too. Although to be fair to the washing machine, the yarn looks like kn!tpicks. I don't think it can handle much wear.

So now, I have a pile socks requiring of mending on my headboard. (Think more a mantel and less of a headboard.) I haven't quite reached the Yarn Harlot level of disposable hand knits yet. Ugh. Anyone want to do this for me? Or loan me their house elf?

Rainbowlicious

2011-01-29T17:38:00.002-05:00

Sorry on the delay from my poll on the next color square for the sock blanket. The weekends kind of got away from me. First, I was delaying it a week for more votes and then it was three weekends later!

So here we have the winner in the microwave before the any heating has taken place. I used the w@l-m@art brand Kewl-Aid in 'lemonade.'

Ignore the gross uncleaned insides.

Then after after one minute of nuking the water, drink mix and knitted square. You'll notice the water is slightly more clear. That's what you're going for with Kewl-Aid dyeing. You want devoid the water to of any color.

I really should have cleaned my microwave before shooting photos.

This is after two minutes and that's as clear as the water ever got. I nuked it a minute longer, but it never got any more transparent than this. I wonder if it as anything to do with the brand difference?

You know this means that I will scrub the insides of the microwave tonight in preparation for the next photo shoot and it will be dirty all over again when I take the photos.

And here's the final product wet blocking on my kitchen counter! Because things tend to look a little darker when wet, I believe that this will turn out a nice pale color yellow.

It will fit nicely into my rainbow collection of squares for the sock blanket, don't you think?

Muppet Fur

2011-01-26T07:03:00.003-05:00

While shopping for party supplies for Lil Turbo's first birthday I found some yarn on sale. Yes, I found bargain yarn at a party supply store. They also had toilet bowl cleaner. I live in the sticks. Shut up. As you might imagine, it wasn't the highest quality yarn. Dude, if that shop carried Malabrigo yarn for cheap there's no way I would be posting about it. I would be skipping work and camping out in front of the store to make sure I had first dibs.

Anyway, now that I've shown you the dark side of knitting....My new yarn purchase.

I have plans for this to become a reusable sw!ffer duster cover. The brand name refills cost on average $8.00 for a pack of six. My yarn cost $4.00 for both skeins. I'm hoping that two yarns held together will result in extrafantasticfurrydusttrappingability. If it doesn't workout I haven't lost any huge investment. But I am hopeful, because the sw!ffer mop covers I knitted up a what seems forever ago have held up quite well (turns out it was ages ago) .

Do over

2011-01-25T22:20:00.001-05:00

I've finally gotten around to starting another tree jacket (rav). I loved the color of my last one, so I decided to remake this one in the same color. I'm using Ms. Babs yarn purchase from SAFF 2009.

It's gauge is slightly smaller than that called for in the pattern. This shouldn't pose a problem as it's knit from the top down and I can try it on as I go. Why am I getting the feeling like those are some famous last words? Oh, rigght. The Undead Vest.

Still, so far it looks great.

Oh second thought, maybe I should have styled my hair....

I'm knitting at a slower pace which seems to be natural for this do over. I know what to watch out for-extra large sleeves-and I know that the final product will be something that I will not only wear, but wear often. So, there's no need to rush to the end. Instead, I am knitting in snatches here and there so that I can enjoy it for a long time.

Undead Vest FO (finally)

2011-01-23T19:20:00.000-05:00

The Undead Vest (formerly know as the Gilmore vest) had it's first day out. I wore it to work on one of those snowy days Georgia never has. It was deliciously toasty and I got tons of compliments on it.

I heart the little tiny hand prints on my mirror.

I added two inches to the waist to lengthen it for my extra tall physique. As I look at this photo I can help but wonder, "Where did my boobs go?" They are there. I know they are.

Lil Turbo and I make faces in the mirror and he can't help but pat it. :)

Besides my fears that the neckline will fall off at any moment there is just is just one problem with my handknit. The interesting pocket that forms on the back of my armhole/shoulder. It's the lump that lines up with the lampshade.

Also, I am thinking our house is looking pretty dang clean for corralling a one year old.

I think is this simply a knitter's notice meaning only another knitter would notice what we might consider a glaring flaw, but is really a non-issue for muggles. I'm not ripping anything else out on this vest. I refuse. Plus, I don't think picking up less stitches for the edge would be very comfortable on my armpits. And crocheting an edge would just tempt the Knitting Gods. So there it will live. Thankfully it's on the back and out of sight, out of mind.

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-01-22T17:20:00.047-05:00

A couple weekends ago, Mr. Turbo surprised me with a trip to the Biltmore Estate just outside of Asheville, NC for our 6th anniversary. It's a quick 2 hour trip from our house, so I was able to whip out one sock blanket square on the road. (I think I should pause here to say that the 'TURBO' in TURBOchic has never referred to the lightening fast speed at which I do not knit. It is instead a remnant of college alias--something to do with the car I drove.)

So yes, in a little less than two hours-hey, I took a bathroom break!-I have one very blue square. In fact, I think this square covers every color blue there is and some that aren't. I can't say that I'm thrilled with self striping yarn, but it'll definitely cover some blues that I normally wouldn't have chosen. That's a plus.

And from far away, I don't think it'll really matter in the long run, if I love every square completely without reservation. Right? Right.

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-01-15T14:25:00.001-05:00

I'm extending the vote on the color square to add to the sock blanket. I've got two votes for grape, one for black cherry, and one for lemonade.

Here are your choices again:

a) possibly blue? red?

b) purple

c) burgundy?

d) pale yellow

Come on peeps! What color should this square be?!

Dishcloths

2011-01-10T09:40:00.001-05:00

My sock blanket has put the garter stitch fever in me and since I can not show you all the squares I have knit up for the blanket without spoiling all my preplanned posts I spent time knitting cotton dishcloths. What I love about dishcloths is that everything about them is a plus+.

The yarn is cheap. You can knit practically 3 Grandma’s Favorite dishcloths (less about the last 14 rows-argh) from one skein. Mine are 40 stitches at their widest.
They are perfectly sized. Not more slopping a too big towel around and sloshing your kitchen counter tops with gross.

You can use atrocious variegated colors without a gorram care in the world, because you're only going to use it to scrub dirty dishes and counters. This makes me extremely happy. I want one in every color for every season and I do mean every color.

Garter stitch on the diagonal + yarn over = fancy.
It cleans better than a paper towel. Then just toss it in the washer and dryer, unlike some wools I know....
It's cheap decorating and makes my sink happy. Shiny.

What about you? Got any dirty knitting secrets you want share?

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-01-08T10:06:00.030-05:00

Last Saturday, I teased you that there would be a bonus about today's square. I am sure that you, my astute readers, guessed that the second square would be white, rather than black. I'm also sure that you figured there would be more dyeing activity involved with this square.

What I'm sure you didn't guess, even though you are rather clever, was that you would get to decide the color! Below you will find four choices of Kewl-Aid. Leave a comment as to which one you think the square should become.

a) possibly blue? red?

b) purple

c) burgundy?

d) pale yellow

Color with the most votes wins and I'll post the results next Saturday!

Sock Blanket Saturday

2011-01-01T17:09:00.026-05:00

I found more sock yarn. Remember the Space Invader socks, I knit up for Mr. Turbo a million years ago? No. Well thankfully I blog, so I have a little reminder for you.

These socks are the reason I hate turned heels and color work in socks.

It turns out that stashed in with my cotton dishcloth yarn was the yarn remnants of these socks. Kool-aid Lemon-Lime, Rit-Aid Black, and blank bare. So you know at least two of those had to become squares for the Sock Yarn Blanket.

This picture is over exposed, but the color is dead on. The second square is for next week and it comes with a bonus!

Monster Longies

2010-12-31T08:21:00.030-05:00

My friend Amy and I went yarn shopping together a while back. While we were there, I acquired enough Cascade for a pair of Das Monster pants (rav). That was my first mistake. I had a witness to my yarn purchase. Secondly, I informed my friend what my intent for said yarn was instead of nonchalantly buying it "for the stash," and she was determined to keep me accountable.

At first she and I were on the level and we both rode the fiber high of new yarn. So I was okay with the excited questions of "Have you started yet?" But as it happens with all stash enchancements, the new yarn smell wears off and I was left searching Ravelry for a new fix.

Until I saw Amy again and she would innocently mention that if I didn't get started soon, Lil Bit "might just grow out of them before I even started", which I admit was also a fear of mine. There was also the issue of practically nonexistent southern winters encroaching on the amount of time which he might be able to use wool pants.

So this past week, instead of burrowing under a pile of blankets and only coming out to feed Lil Bit, I knit up a very Ernie reminiscent pair of Monster Longies completely unintentionally.

First Ernie, in all his 1970's glory:

Second, Lil Bit's monster longies:

You saw this coming, didn't you?

2010-12-30T11:19:00.000-05:00

The Undead Vest is in timeout again. I steeked the front, and picked up stitches for the last fifteen rows. Here I am only twelve rows and a BO remaining.

You can see my beautiful 5 stitch steek (2 full stitches on each side) from the inside of the garment. It is quite lovely.

And then, you might not see this, I sort of veered with the scissors on the final few rows of my steek and I am left with one stitch, sometimes as little as one half stitch, holding my collar in place. What to do?!

Is it possible to sew it down, or needle felt it in place without it being see from the front? Or have I made another unmitigated, catastrophic disaster out of my vest AGAIN? Help.

Steeking

2010-12-15T13:47:00.002-05:00

What you've all been waiting for! I've steeked the Undead Vest. Here's the footage in all it's raw glory.

Enjoy!

Snow day

2010-12-14T19:13:00.000-05:00

I love a snow day. I love staying at home with my family. I love leaving the Christmas tree light's on all day. I love preparing a hot meal to warm the house and all it's inhabitants. I do have one problem with it. It makes me want to make warm snuggliable blankets.

Like this one, Ribbon, out of Berroco comfort. It's 13 skeins of acrylic yarn. Crocheted.

photo credit: Thayer Allison Gowdy, 2010

The fact that I don't like crocheting all that much and the acrylic is made by the devil aren't really dissuading me. Which leads me to believe I've gone loony. I can tell, because I'm having thoughts about one in wild cherry matching my bedroom while coordinating nicely with my living room. Additionally, red's festive.

Also, I want 15 more skeins in coordinating colors for Greenway.

photo credit: Thayer Allison Gowdy, 2010

I'm hoping it's because blankets are infectious, rather than crochet or acrylic. If not, I might end up spouting the benefits of spinning Rover's fur for the environment AND your emotional well being while wearing this:

At which point you have every right to commit me.

Resurrection

2010-12-12T21:06:00.000-05:00

The Gilmore Vest is back from the frog pond! After miscalculations, errors in judgement, and some troublesome directions it landed in time out despite what I might have though in August 2009. And as I began to knit on it again I wondered why I continue to persevere on a knit that is riddled with woes.

What you see below is a perfectly graphed shoulder seam. On a arm hole which is too small. I graphed before seaming the sides because finishing up the front and back of this knit without any hiccups was to too good to be true, and I was right.

Having trouble seeing anything in that picture? Here, this shouldn't clear anything up.

The front may look a little funny, because I plan on steeking. I am much more knowledgeable about steeking now. I took a class and have five, count them, five stitches added to cut into for my neckline. For some reason, I am staying positive about this knit. I've already ripped back and corrected this issue.

Next up, I am seaming the sides and cutting the steek to pickup stitches for the neckline. Don't worry I plan on videoing that progress!

Today it's snowing and we got the Christmas tree up with little tyke today. Maybe I'll be up for it on tomorrow's snow day?

Sock Blanket Saturday

2010-12-04T07:46:00.001-05:00

Maya is being helpful. She believes that this layout for the blanket just needed a touche de poils de chat. For those of you not fluent in calico, that means my blanket lacks a sufficient layer of fur. And she looks mighty happy about fixing the problem.

My Little Lap Buddy

2010-11-29T17:30:00.000-05:00

I thought that November was gonna be a good month. I was up to like 5 total blog posts for the month, which is more than double or triple my normal amount of posts. Thanksgiving happens in November, which means lots of good eats, just in case you weren't sure about which month Thanksgiving resides is or that there might be some good food around. It also means that I'd have a few paid days off from work to spend at home. yay!

But last Friday made the whole month suck. Blow chunks. Bite the big one. Just fucking awful.

I had to put Nigel to sleep.

So now I no longer have my photography interrupter.

Or my hilarious comparison tool.

Or my obliging baby knits model.

Okay not always obliging, but definitely indulging.

Or my automatic, lap warming, snuggle buddy.

Or my blogging buddy.

I fucking hate this month.

Knitting is for the Dogs

2010-11-23T19:13:00.058-05:00

-My dog that is. I am reaching the finish line for PoPo's Cabled Delight. Based off of Jill Eaton's Cabled Delight for little dogs, I've heavily modified for my-wonderfully-large-in-desperate-need-of-clothes-dog. Basically, the only think similar about this pattern is the color and the fact that it's cabled.

My dog's measurements are by circumference unless otherwise noted and taken at her largest girth. Poor PoPo. She's gonna be totally embarrassed if she finds out I am posting her her burlesque figure's measurements online. You know cause dogs get embarrassed by these things...

Collar 15"
Bust 28"
Belly 21" (length)
Back 18" (length)

Her best fitting sweater (PoPosaurus Rex), which despite it's acrylic nature has become a little misshapen:

Collar 21"
Bust 29"
Belly 13" (length)
Back 23" (length)

My working notes:

Knit from the bottom up cast on 66 stitches in 6x2 cabled rib (repeats of 8 +2). Start with 2 purled. About 12 inches wide.
Knit in pattern for about 6 inches, or the length between the start of the tail and the bottom of the ribs.
Increase one stitch at each end every other row until 12 inches long. On PoPo, this is the point at which her chest ends and her belly begins. I like to follow the edge her ribs as a guideline for increases. A edging knitted on later will add more coverage to her sizes.
Cast of 44 stitches (or enough stitches to cover the distance between sides) and begin knitting in the round.
Knit for 7 inches or until you reach front legs. If your dog is barrel shaped like PoPo, multiple tryons will help you add length for proper fit. I cast on less stitches than would fit her at her widest point, so the stretch of the material around her "bust" decreases the overall length of the sweater.

You can see I originally planned for decreases prior to the leg openings before deciding on using negative ease to accommodate her barreliness.

For the placement of the leg holes, I used the measurements on PoPosaurus Rex. This sweater doesn't bunch between her legs, nor does it pull awkwardly. I placed 15 stitches (about 3 inches) for each leg on stitch holders on each side of the center line with about the 5 inches of sweater between her legs.
Knit the back separately from the chest panel for 3 inches. Break yarn. Knit the chest panel for the same distance.
Join in round again making sure to cast on for the 15 stitches per leg opening.
Begin decreasing at the outside edge of each leg opening. I used the Rainbow Pooch Sweater (rav) pattern as inspiration on how I wanted my decreases to look. I carried my decreases through the purled section of the ribbing, so that my outside cables would "travel" up and in across the chest.

Photo copyright Caron®

Continue knitting until the desired collar circumference is reached.
Switch to 2x2 ribbing for desired collar length. I'm planning on about 2 inches.

It's a race to the finish line to see if my yarn will hold out. I still need to pick up stitches for the leg openings and the bottom hem. I know I don't have enough purple to finish it out. I don't mind the idea at all of a contrasting color like the natural from my hemlock ring blanket, but I think don't even have that!

Lofty plans

2010-11-22T09:15:00.003-05:00

I was so enamored with my Aphrodite yarn, I made immediate plans to use it as contrast color for the Drops 116-1 a pattern (rav).

When I got home, I made immediate plans to purchase more of the yarn for the main color from knitwitch's online shop. In my head it was a beautiful grey. On her website it was non existent, but no matter. I emailed her and she dyed up a special lot for me. Meet Pegasus:

I am smitten. It's perfect.

I dove for my needles only to realize...I bought the wrong weight both times. It's a dk weight. The drops pattern calls for a sport weight. Let me reiterate that for you. I bought dk weight yarn at 21-24 sts per 4 inches, the pattern requires a sport weight at 24 sts per 4 inches. It's feasible, I clamour. It's not that bad a difference. I'll just knit down a size, I tell myself. My knitwitch yarn is an 8ply (11 wpi) according to Ravelry and the pattern is requires 5 ply (12 wpi).

So I start hunting the needles I need again. And the same realization hits me in the face. That's the difference of a size 5 or 6 needle required for my yarn and a size 2 needle required for my project.

So follow Knitters, do I continue this delusion any farther and swatch? or would you pick another yoked cardigan pattern?

Sock Blanket Saturday

2010-11-20T08:53:00.002-05:00

I am having a blast knitting up pink squares and dying them whatever color I want, or sometimes whatever color comes out of the kettle.

This square is orange, because it turns out that yellow over dyed on top of pink is not orange, but a rather disgusting peach. I mean really gross peach. So I added an unmeasured amount of red to get this much improved hunter dayglo orange. Which I am super happy about. Not because I'm in love with hunter dayglo orange. No. Really. Not in love with it. But I love that I didn't buy an entire skein to incorporate it into my sock blanket. This makes me want to squee with happiness. Really.

And just for the record, pink + Primary Color ≠ corresponding Secondary Color. Just in case you didn't learn anything from the above experiment. Although, the square below may look purple on your monitor (which is how it looks on mine right now), let me reassure you that it is not. What is, is most definitely blue.

My last square this week is scarlet. It didn't dye in one perfect solid color and I am okay with that. It's pretty. I really wanted to dye more things scarlett as I saw it brewing, but as I did it Thursday morning while Baby O was getting his morning bottle, I couldn't really justify tearing up the house just to find things that needed to be red. That and I was using a really small pot, so I couldn't shove all my dingy kitchen towels into the pot like I thought of doing. Scarlet, you are my new favorite color.

I may have to buy another skein, just so I can keep playing with all fun colors. Have you dyed anything recently?

Sock Blanket Saturday

2010-11-13T17:49:00.001-05:00

I decided that I am going to try to make some progress on the sock blanket while I have an FO high from the Dino Hat. Unfortunately, my sock yarn is limited by my recent spending spree at SAFF. (The months following SAFF I am always racked with guilt, so I put myself on a yarn diet. That's a whole 'nother post.)

What is a Knitter to do when she wants is more blanket squares, but all she has is tons of KP bare sock yarn dyed kool-aid pink?

The answer is simple. Make more kool-aid dyed squares. Here I have overdyed the original square with an entire packet of pink lemonade. It's mouth puckering hot pink. That's the image I get in my brain when I look at it. Warhead induced sour.

A before and after shot. The color difference is intense. I can't say that I love the new color, and it's definitely not one I'd buy a whole skein of , but I am glad to have just one square of it for the blanket.

Leftovers

2010-11-02T09:00:00.001-04:00

What do you do with yarn leftovers? Particularly sock yarn.

I'm not one for stripey leftover sweaters or vests. Or complimentary socks. Or brightly colored hats. Or felted objects--Not that they don't look pretty, because I've seen evidence to the contrary. It's just that I don't have quite that much belief in my ability to make an attractive decision. I'd rather just leave that up to the pattern when it comes to color work. Also I hate felting. Don't get me wrong. It looks like a ton of fun, but I own two cats and I try to be realistic about the longevity of a felted item in my house. About 2 seconds. Make that zero, because I just inhaled cat fur.

So, I figure the best solution is the simplest. Since I don't know exactly how much I have or will have, but I do know that I continue to buy sock yarn, knit socks and have remenants perhaps it'd be best to make something modular like squares!

It's a pinwheel of color. It makes me uber happy.

I thought perhaps that I wouldn't purchase any yarn for this blanket ,but unfortunately the Miss Babs booth at SAFF was my undoing. She had mini skeins Toes! of "yummy 2-ply."

Squash Blossom, you are fabulously yellow.

French Marigold, you are the perfect bright between red and orange.

I justified my purchases with the thought that there are some colors I just don't want on my feet, ergo so smaller skeins are necessary for a rainbow blanket. In the long run I'm saving money. (Oh Sophie Kinsella, I love to hate you.)

So what about you? Do you use sock leftovers insulate your house? As packing material for shipping gifts? Clipped into tiny bits for birds to build nests with?

SAFF 2010

2010-11-01T09:24:00.000-04:00

I did a day trip to SAFF this year with a another new knitting friend, Amy. (Aside: I'm so happy to be friends with her. She's my age! She lives nearby! We have the same interests!)

Being a SAFF veteran I gave her a little advice:

Have a list of yarns your interested in (weight and yardage) for projects.
Avoid having a specific color picked out for aforementioned projects.
The first round is for seeing what's available. The second round is for purchasing.
You must buy soap at the Soapshed.
You must buy goats milk fudge.

...which I promptly ignored and instead I did the following:

Had no list of yarns, instead picked out vendors I wanted to purchase from specifically. Miss Babs, The Knit Witch, Kitchen Sink Dyeworks, and the best goat's milk fudge in the world.
Had no list of weights or yardage, but specific colors picked out. Aqua, yellow, and orange.
Bought several things on my first round, such as the honey sticks I bought within 20 feet of the door.
I did not buy soap, but smelled every bar again.
Fudge was my second purchase.

But enough about that you wanted to see the loot.

Yes, that is all of it. Two skeins for Kauni EG, one skein KSD sock yarn , two small skeins of Miss Babs and not early enough KnitWitch sock yarn in the pile (very bottom). Well all of the fibery purchases, I also bought 4 flavors of honey sticks, two tiny cookie cutters (a heart and a star) and the fudge, which I managed not to eat until I got home and shared it with Mr. TURBO thankyouverymuch.

We also visited animals. It was so funny to see Amy interact with all the animals. Normally I go with my BFF and college roomie Leslie, who was an ag major like me, but she just had a baby in September and wasn't ready for any travel yet. So this time my traveling buddy was a little less Dr. DoLittle and a little more City Slicker. There was very little touching of the animals until this awesome sheep, who loved her chin scritched.

Why am I sideways?

"Friendly" alpaca; These guys were the only ones not hiding in their stalls.

Baby alpaca

So pretty, but I am a llama and therefore pissed off all the time.

More sheep.

First Sock Syndrome

2010-10-29T19:01:00.000-04:00

I really like the Hourglass sock pattern (rav), so I don't know what's holding up this pair of socks. Strike that, I really do know. It's called purling and it's my nemesis. I hate purling. Is it too early for Second Sock Syndrome? Can I claim First Sock Syndrome?

Also, I bought some yummy alpaca sock yarn and it's perfect for a pair of Kai-Mei (rav) socks.

I was so excited when I bought it I immediately hand wound it into a ball.

I may not knit the second hourglass sock right away. I may knit the first Kai-Mei with my new delicious alpaca sock yarn until I get sick of ribbing and then switch back. Or the sock blanket I am working on might get some attention.

What about y'all anyone ever get First Sock Syndrome?

Dog sweater revisited

2010-10-18T14:45:00.000-04:00

My dog loves a good sweater. Don't let the colors fool you. She's hairless.

So, I purchased this plum colored ecowool yarn a little over a year and a half ago with the idea that it would make PoPo a good and affordable sweater.

I wanted to make the cabled sweater from this book, which is suited for smaller lap-type dogs and not 60 lbs pitballs. Whatever, I thought, with a heavier weight yarn and the largest sized pattern I could adapt it to fit PoPo. I cast on and promptly found that it would not work. I won't go into the gory details, but "gauge" and "pattern" and "increasing" were not friendly to me at all. In fact, they were down right rude.

In a mature fashion, I crammed it back into it's bag and left it there for a year. After some number crunching, tape measure using, and forethought, I decided to knit it from the bottom up.

So far so good.

Also not knitting

2010-10-09T10:42:00.000-04:00

The shopping bug has hit me. I have a hard time justifying shopping for myself, especially clothing purchases. But I am super capable of spending money on clothes for family members, like Mr. Turbo and Lil' Turbo.

In fact, I would like to post some purchases for Lil' Turbo right now. First up are some soft soled shoes from BugsandDaisies*. Cold days are coming here finally in the South. The shoes only cost me $9 including shipping! Super cheap compared to the brand name shoes. I've had them on him for a few days and so far so good. The elastic doesn't dig into his cute fat ankles and he can't pull them off. My only complaint is that after a few wears and washes the flannel fabric is wearing thin; It's white wear it should be blue. I do not believe that is the seller's fault, but I will know for my next purchase.

Blue Star Booties

Lil' Turbo gets the short end of the stick when it comes to fashion. Girls get like 99% of all the cute clothing designs. And poor boys clothes get shoved to some back corner of the store where only blue, blueish and slightly blue clothes exist. It drives me up the wall. I am in constant search for adorable wardrobe that isn't blue and brown.

Enter Posh Legs*. They were $7.95 plus 99¢ shipping. So far I am really happy with her service. I bought these on a Sunday night and I got an email that night telling me she was shipping them out Monday morning. That alone is enough for me to recommend her. The legs get pretty dirty after one wear, since he's crawling, but so do the rest of his clothes. (Sometimes I wish he was wet and we would just us him as a mop as he crawls around...is that weird?) And the crawling tends to make the leg warmers slide down his legs. Also, not the sellers fault. I imagine that all baby leg warmers do this. I still love them. They are so cute on his fat thighs!

(Not Lil Turbo's legs.)

Posh Legs

*WARNING* Someone hacked our paypal account after I used these vendors. Mr. Turbo believe it is likely that the hacker inserted code on to the vendor's server. I plan on notifying the vendor.

My Mom is awesome.

2010-09-20T18:58:00.000-04:00

This technically isn't knitting, but it's totally worth posting about. Ever since we moved into our tiny house my ~~husband and~~ I have been trying to redecorate the living room behind my husband's back. One might think that he would noticed when I coerced his family into manual labor switching out my floors. I think he finally caught on when I stole his truck to bring in a rug. Keep this in mind while you read on.

My mom made my brother a quilt a couple years ago. His favorite color is black and while that prolly isn't the best quilting color, she spiced it up by adding jewel toned rainbow squares to it. We know how I love rainbows. So needless to say I was jealous. I demanded my own rainbow quilt.

What I got wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

Maya inspects the my new quilt.

It was better. She designed it to match our living room! I am in love with it. It's wide enough and long enough for two long people to snuggle under. It's heavy enough to keep my permanently below freezing body temperature happy because the internal layer is a blanket. And it's covered in cats.

The cat fabric is wicked.

There is a cat quilted into each corner. Turn your head sideways.

Props to you Mom.

Sock Tuesday

2010-09-14T09:12:00.004-04:00

Wait! I forgot! There HAS been knitting. I cast on some socks the night before my son was born! I even managed to finish them shortly after and got some pictures in the (rare) snow event that happens here in the south.

That's right snow is an event. We take the day off and everyone rushes to the store for bread, eggs and milk even though it's melted off by lunch most days. I still haven't figured out the stopping list. I always stock up on booze. It will keep you warmer. Well maybe not warmer, but happier.

I chose the Undulating Rib (rav) pattern to knit up in Smooshy's 'Buttery Peeps'. Unfortunately, pregnancy caused my body temperature to change so I haven't worn them yet. Maybe it will snow again this year.

Where were we?

2010-09-12T17:03:00.005-04:00

Let's see. Oh yes, this is a knitting blog. That requires me to, ummm...actually knit. Dagnabit! I knew there was a catch. I just had a baby people! I'm trying to make sure that I'm not ruining an entire NEW person from the get go. I can not be required to shower on a daily basis much less have personal time to hobby about.

Let's not forget that after I knit I must also write about it. That's a whole separate issue. One thing at a time here.

Nigel investigating new furniture. Nothing whatsoever to do with my drivel.

And then there's the not really optional photography aspect, because let's face it, no one wants to read a huge entry without pictures. That's why the newspaper has photos. The New York Times is written on a fifth grade level. Hell, I'm surprised that someone hasn't invented a pop-up blog. TURBOchic536.blospot.com IN 3D! Geez, y'all are relentless.

Fine. Some knitting as gone on: a hat (gifted) and 1/4 a sock without any pictures. You happy now? I've got to run. SAFF is coming up and I have to prepare my cover as a faux-knitter so they'll let me in.

little knitting reminders

2010-04-13T09:44:00.001-04:00

My birthday was over a month ago, and I am just now posting a few of the events that occurred in those days. Turns out babies are a big time-suck.

1. At my six week check-up there was a lady knitting a brown ankle sock. I know this because it was cuff down and she had turned the heel. While I really wanted to talk to her about it, I didn't think I could do so without the words, "Why in the world would anyone desire to have a sock that doesn't appear to be anything more than a tragic misplaced step in a barn?" coming out of my mouth. I have never understood ankle socks. Long socks are to keep your feet, ankles and legs warm in the winter and short (aka invisible) socks are to absorb foot sweat in the summer. There is no need to have ankle socks. They straddle the appropriate sock length fence. They are just ambiguous and confused footwear, but I digress. It was fantastic to see another public display of knitting.

2. An old ex-friend suddenly decided that she wanted to be my friend again, I hope, by asking me on facebook if I was part of ravelry. Awesome. She has not spoken to me yet. I wonder if I will ever figure out what she wanted.

3. As I mentioned before, I recently had a birthday. Not everyone in my family has caught onto the fact that yarn, as a gift, never gets old-except my SIL. She gave me this card.

and a check "for yarn." I really like her.

Knitting in the background

2010-03-28T11:23:00.003-04:00

Lest you think that I have given up knitting due to my lack of blogging, I thought I might post about my recent knit related purchases.

My birthday was earlier this month and I got myself Knitting Workshop. (To be fair, I bought it with a gift card from my brother.) Which I have read through the first chapter on hats. I won't review it for you, because everyone else in the world already has and if you're a knitter you know that all Zimmerman's books are a must for your growing library. I will say that as I am reading it I can see some serious influences on some of the patterns I've knit up, like Jared Flood's Cobblestone (mine-rav). Although, he's already admitted to his preference for EZ and garter stitch so that might be cheating to say that I see the influence.

And my husband got me Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks. I did get to breeze through this book, which is more like a large list of notes than an actual book. And I mean that in a good way, because short easy to remember passages are the only way I can get through any sort of information intake nowadays thanks to Baby O. I tried reading it out loud to him and kind of "kill to birds with one stone," but he saw straight through that and demanded Dr. Seuss. I'm hoping that I haven't ruined the idea of knitting on him.

So now that two knitting books have been purchased off my amazon list, I must find two more to replace them. I don't want any of my relatives thinking that there's a shortage of knitting books to get me.

Premature

2010-03-03T11:37:00.004-05:00

I am going to stick my neck out and post this pair of socks as an FO even though the second sock is only half way finished. I am past the heel turn and having ripped once just after completing the last turn and noticing that the top of my foot was not centered between two purled columns like it was supposed to be. So I feel safe presenting my Undulating Rib Socks (rav) by Ann Budd. May the Knitting Gods strike me down.

I am thrilled with this sock. When I started it, I truly believed that I would just have to slog through it like any other ribbed sock. But NO! Every ninth row I got to swap things up with fun increased and decreases. (It was supposed to be the eighth, but I had a moment of pattern interpretation.) It really makes sections of the sock fly off the needles when you are furiously knitting to the next "fun" part.

Like Father, Like Son.

2010-02-09T12:44:00.005-05:00

The Weasley sweater fits!

And Baby O does love it.

Though he may not look like it.
(He just had his diaper changed-you think he would be happy.)

I love my Matching Men.

You asked I supplied.

Cambridge sweater revisited

2010-02-05T10:29:00.000-05:00

Ugh. Has anyone ever finished a project, in this case sweater, just to find out it isn't quite right? Even after a million questions and try-ons as you go?

Well I have. And I have learned the body cues/language uses to tell me the truth, mostly by watching my husband try on his Cambridge sweater. There are really only four cues, but they can really screw with your FO.

Cue number one If you are tugging at the sleeves, you need to add some inches.

Cue number two If you are pulling the front of the sweater down, it isn't long enough or the neckline is riding to high or both.

Cue number three If you are yanking at your armholes, you must rip and re-knit them bigger.

Cue number four If you are trying to flatten the front of the sweater by rubbing your belly, something is wrong. It's too wide...the zipper is puckering...you used the wrong type of yarn...something must be fixed.

I am so only knitting sweaters from the top down anymore.

Cloudy with a Chance of Scarf

2010-02-02T10:59:00.003-05:00

When I started this post on the 12th of January it was snowing flurries again, the kind of weather that is unprecedented for my area. So I'm guessing that the recipient of this scarf is going to be really thankful I am finally finished with it while the weather's still cold. After all it only took 7 months to knit up *ahem* 3 months after he purchased the yarn for it....

Last April, my husband's best friend, Michael, ended up going into a yarn shop with me. I could explain how this happened, but I'd rather leave it a mystery-my blog needs some sort of intrigue-At any rate Michael mentioned that he might like a handknit scarf while in the presence of walls of yarn. Is there a better why to flip the on switch in a knitter? I think not. So I immediately volunteered to knit one up for him.

We discussed what color, how long, what texture, how soft, etc., etc., etc. until he picked out this gorgeous shade of red in a merino/silk blend. The man has taste. I'm glad that I have already laid claims on him as surrogate husband in case of my actual husband's unexpected demise. (Which if he doesn't stop turning on my reading lamp every time it's his shift with the baby might be sooner than expected.)

The pattern he picked out came out of a Japanese stitchionary, so that was a little fun to interpret, but after two feet I had the pattern memorized. There were a few little errors in the chart, but they were easy to correct. First, the chart did not have a the purled stitches to either side of the center slip stitch that was shown in the photo graph. It was easy enough to add those.

The second error was a little more confusing. The pattern completely omitted a demarcation of where the pattern restarted. Knit rows 1 through 44 and restart back at row 1 got you a wonky little fish looking pattern instead of the clear xoxoxox as seen in the photos. I screwed that one up on the first repeat, but when I asked my husband (the recipient of many handknitted items by moi) to find the mistake, it took a few minutes of scrutiny and I decided it was not worth ripping out several inches of knitting. I was a fearless knitter. Fearless.

And it was worth it.

Ribbed for His Pleasure

2010-01-31T09:50:00.000-05:00

This post has been sitting around a while, because all the good words are taken. Seriously, all humorous and/or clever phrases have zipped right out of my head while I have NOT been sleeping. That's it. I can blame this cruddy post entirely on the lack of sleep. "Lack of sleep," the one topic the whole facebook community can agree on.

Anywho, when we got a few snow days off from work back in early January I completed this gorgeous jacket. And then I took really boring shot of it in the snow as proof.

I've made a more girly version before (rav) and loved the pattern, so when I found out I was having a boy I was a little depressed that I wouldn't get to use it until I saw capattbb's Prince Aaron Sweater on Rav (non-rav link), who totally jazzed it up masculine-style.

Details
Pattern: Ribbed Baby Jacket by Debbie Bliss (a random non-rav link)
Yarns: Main color was Miss Babs Merino/Bamboo in colorway Light Gray and contrast yarn was Cascade Heathers in colorway Sapphire left over from the Hubby's Cambridge pullover. Since, I subbed the yarn with a silkier blend for this jacket, it's all about the drape and it is gorgeous. *in singsong voice*
Needles: US size 8
Size: 9 months (My yarn was underweight, so I knit up the 12 month size and came out with the correct 9 month size.)

Mini Weasley

2010-01-03T10:06:00.000-05:00

I picked up some very Weasley-ish buttons from Strings 'n Stitches in Ellijay last week, you know, the store with the great door. Only $.40 cents a piece, so I have one to spare. I should have bought the whole dang tube they are so fantastic. Rustic without being overly so. This picture does not do them justice, they are more worn (i.e. blackened with age) than they appear.

Just in time to finish up a very tiny Weasley sweater. A Mini Weasley sized to fit a newborn with fabulous buttons in the back to help it fit over larger heads. It's knit from the top down with raglan sleeves. I turned the hem to give it a more polished final result. The "O" is adapted from the alphabet in the this book.

I have been working on this project for ages and am super thrilled to share it with you. Crunching numbers. Researching measurements. Checking and double checking sizes. Referencing EZ. Crunching more numbers. Writing it all down for another post. And I'm very pleased with the end result, however, untested it is until Baby O arrives later this month.

Did I forget to mention that? Sorry. As an apology I promise post pictures of the boys in their matching sweaters.

Marley Hat

2009-12-31T10:07:00.000-05:00

I think I've mentioned before my love of rainbows. I have been dying to knit up Susan Anderson's Rainbow Marley (rav), but the cost factor of 6 yarns always put it at the bottom of the can-do list. Plus it's knit up in cotton. *gag, gag, hack* My least favorite yarn to knit up.

That is until I remembered dishcloths. You confused, because you're thinking to yourself, "What do dishcloths have to do with brightly, knit toddler hats?" Well, look at it from another angle. I knit up cheap, cotton dishcloths all the time and I already had four of the six necessary colors. Now are you with me? That's right I only had to invest another three dollars to knit up this baby:

I think I am in love. Scratch that. I know I am in love.

Pattern: Rainbow Marley (rav) from Itty-Bitty Hats. I've knit up at least 5 of these patterns and have plans for more. My favorite knitting book so far. Honestly.
Yarn: Dishcloth cotton in red, orange, yellow, blue, navy and purple.
Needles: Size 7 US
Size: This should fit a 1-2 year old depending on head size.
Mods: The directions for making the topper were a little vague. While the first section on making the tassels were clear, all that casting off and casting on was a little difficult. I ended up using a knitted on cast-on instead of the recommended backward method. My loops wouldn’t curl as well without the tension of the knitted cast-on.

However, the directions for making the separate stripes turn into a pompom just plain sucked. I ended up using a crochet hook to weave one of the tails through the bottom edge of all four to make a solid piece of knitting. (Although I did not do this, I would suggest alternating which strand you pick up next, so that your pompom doesn’t turn out with solid rows of color like mine did.) Then I tied the ends together with the remaining tails to form a hollow sort of ball.

Lastly I pulled the tails through the hole at the top of the cap and knotted them on the underside so that they wouldn’t pull back through. You could weave in four tails and have the most secure pompom ever, but I didn’t want to mess with all that especially after weaving in all the tails from the color changes in the hat. The finishing point at the top was a little thick anyway from weaving in that final tail.

Monday morning finds

2009-12-22T11:04:00.005-05:00

Last Monday, the Hubs and I went out to run errands and go to doctor's appointments in Ellijay. We stopped by the liquor store for some cooking sake, and if you've seen me recently you know why that's humorous. Unfortunately, it didn't take that long and we still had some time to kill before my appointment. That's when we decided to take the road less traveled by. And boy, am I glad.

In a strip mall surrounded by Gold's Gym and restaurants was a sign which proclaimed YARN STORE. Since I was driving, the truck automatically made an illegal u-turn and found it's way into the parking lot. While I was busy trying to see if they were open, The Hubs began laughing and pointing.

He understands the dark underground rivalry of knitters vs. crocheters, so the above sign tickled his funny bone. He even took a picture and asked me to post it to the blog. So here you go.

In my absence

2009-12-05T13:35:00.007-05:00

In my absence from blogging, I have been up to knitting stuff. I even have an FO to share.

My 9 to 5ish socks in teal by Cherry Tree Hill.

These are my version of the Nine-to-five socks (rav) by Nicole Hindes . I made some changes to the stitch pattern (see the link from the title of this post). When I started the pattern I could have sworn there were dainty little holes between all of the curving knit stitches. There were not. I had to have dainty Yo's, so I adapted the pattern. Yay me.

Unfortunately, unless you want to see the next 36 inches of the cabled scarf I am currently working on, I don't have much else in the way of knitting updates. But I've been busy with other stuff, like the following in no particular order...

Pissing off the cat by bathing her. Believe it or not I do this out of the kindness and not because I am a black- souled monster with a heart shriveled from evil. She has dandruff. Bathes make her feel better. I swear.

Find leaks in our roofing and getting them repaired. It seems that the builder was equally cheap all the way around and decided that our roof didn't need to come all the way to the edge of the house, much less have a drip edge install. In case you don't know. A drip edge prevents water from rolling back up the roofing material (metal in our case), the soaking across the wood and dripping into your walls or possibly into, say, your windows-thereby letting you know you have a leak. Shitty builder.

Celebrating the holidays with the in-laws.

Spending excessive amounts of moola on one particular website to prepare for the upcoming holiday excuse to purchase lots of crap I don't need, but really want.

Buying early Christmas presents for "the family." I'll give you one hint. It has vide o.

I WANT IT!!

2009-11-01T19:14:00.003-05:00

OH MY GOSH HAS EVERYONE SEEN THIS SWEATER?! (non-rav link)

A few independents

2009-10-29T19:59:00.008-04:00

* This post is really hmmm....late. I was waiting for the funds to buy a new digital camera. I apologize for the post-dating, but the blogger in me really wants to keep things chronological.*

I supposed the goal of SAFF, or at least my goal at SAFF, is to support some of the non-commercial vendors there, which is exactly what the rest of my purchases did. I wanted to share them with you in case you got blindsided by the roving and yarn. It's okay, it happens to everyone.

First up is my FAVORITE item, even after purchasing some of the more edible items available this year....Buttons.

I saw these buttons by Clay Cat and they magically hopped into my bag. I noticed right away that they matched my Aubergine yarn from Ms. Babs, though I don't intend to use them together (but now I might just have to). And they came in the perfect number 3. All buttons should be sold in threes.* I am soooo glad that I made sure to visit way out in the back barn in my endeavor to spread the wealth.

Second up is my take home gift for the hubby. The way I see it if I bring him home surprises of the chocolate-kind he is more likely to not be upset when I announce my spending budget knowing I've set aside a little for fudge. And not just any fudge, goat's milk fudge. HeatherLane Farms Fudge (website) was a new vendor this year, I believe, but I hope they come back, so I can buy a bigger container next year! I took home the traditional chocolate, but they had three flavors out for sampling chocolate (obviously), peanut butter and a white variety-possibly vanilla-I can't say because I never really made it past the chocolate. Seriously, my wallet was open before I finished swallowing.

Most of you should know about the third vendor The Blue Ridge Soap Shed (website). He's there every year in the same spot with his baskets of soaps. I sure everyone has gotten soap from this vendor. I picked up a could of bars last year as trial Christmas favors, 'cause I can't really say soap is a gift. And my mom was utterly taken. She's big into the green culture (recycling, buying local, etc), so this one was a win-win. I picked up a couple of different scents for her and a few bars for the Hubby. Not because he wanted any soap, but because he wants what I do to him after he bathes with Stud Bubbles. Yum.

I was sad to see that the knitting needle jewelry person didn't come back this year. I couldn't justify spending the cash last year on earrings or bracelets. But I was sure to delegate part of my budget for it this year. I talked to my Mom about them and she put in a request for a few pieces, which was going to make her Christmas gift very easy. Soap + jewelry = Merry Christmas Mom, no thinking required.

And I think that rounds out my shopping experience this year at SAFF. When I get unlazyfied, I'll post what I learned in my class this year-STEEKING!

*That's a story for another day.

Yarn Loot 2009

2009-10-28T11:08:00.008-04:00

Forget all the boring SAFF details, what we really want is to pour over each others virtual shopping bags and see what goodies everyone scored.

Well my friends, I equipped myself with a shopping list, a budget and hit up the vendors. I bought only two items from my list and came in $40 under budget. Do not ask me how. The Knitting Gods were smiling on me, I guess.

Recently, I have been on a semi-solid /solid color kick. The varigated yarns are flashy like a $2 hooker, but never quite turns out the way you intended, ironically also like a $2 hooker (not that I would know). Which is my way of telling you, I bought the following yarn train:

It makes me happy just to line them up and look at them. It makes me happier to painstakingly review them individually for you. I'll wait while you go take a preemptive pain killer of your choice....

First up, Dream in Color 'Smooshy' (in Butter Peeps). I saw this last year when I bought the yarn from Bovidae Farms for my Gilmore Vest. I wanted to try it, but in 2008 I was very good at sticking to my list. Not so the case in 2009, when I saw another yellow sock yarn, it hit me that I didn't own any sock yarn in yellow. The perfect excuse to hoof it back to Bovidae Farms and lay down some cold cash for some Smooshy.

Next up, two skiens of Miss Babs Yowza-Whatta Skein (in Aubergine), also not on my shopping list. But it gave me a comforting reminder of how much I loved my Tree Jacket and how I might need another one. Honestly, I would have liked the exact same color, but I have an addiction to Miss Babs that must be fed.

And lastly, more Miss Babs Merino/Bamboo (in Light Gray). Alright, this one was on the list. I needed a grey aran weight for a pattern I have picked out and this is a lot of yardage in dk weight, so it should be fine with some fiddling. As a bonus it's got a little bamboo slink, which is making it hard for me not to use it to knit up another Lady February.

Nobody reads a title*

2009-10-12T10:21:00.005-04:00

As my number of painfully paltry blogs posts might suggest, knitting has not been the forefront of my activities recently. All the room in my brain has been taken up by converting this:

and this (that's the crawl space under our home I am pointing to):

into this:

We recently redid our floors with a laminate-wood-panel flooring. We had this dreadful builder's grade carpet, or crapet as I like to call it, that was put into the house when it was rebuilt for sale 3 years ago (when we bought it). The crapet was berber and snagging every time I tried to vacuum. That means I was yanking up these huge runners and leave wonderful jute blanks where fiber was supposed to be. Mysterious stains and blotches were coming up all over the place, even though we don't eat over the crapet. Yes, we have pets, but in the other 3 houses/apartments I have been in with the exact same pets, I have always gotten excellent reviews on the carpet (without washing or steaming or any other professional cleaning of it). So the crapet had to go.

As you can saw above we had the original hardwood underneath that we chose not to refinish for several reasons:

1. It was in dreadful shape and I'm in no condition to help. (Still facing my medical condition.)
2. There are spots where it had been cut out for structural refinishing, like adding new floor joists.
3. In some places the flooring didn't quite make it to the wall.
4. A 60 lb dog isn't all that easy on a hardwood floor, while the laminate is a little more forgiving.
5. Construction dust. No.
6. We already bought the new flooring system.
7. My in-laws were there to help install said purchased flooring.
8. I restained some of my bookcases and already bought a new chair, ottoman and a fantastic new rug for the living room.

Maybe after I stop trying to solely recover the economy with home makeovers, I can get back to knitting. Ahem, a little shopping at SAFF this month may help!!

*The other day I was reading a blog and the first sentence really confused me. It apparently related back to the title and while I had recognized the fact that there was really a title there with words in bold at the top of the entry, I hadn't really read it and instead just skipped to the juicy bit. I ate around that title like the edges of a poptart. Anywho, the point is that titles always really stick me, so you get what you get today.

Now you wear it, now you don't

2009-09-24T08:45:00.000-04:00

This post as taken forever to actualize. I am so sick that I have done this to my own knitting. I did not want to post about it. But having finally past the stages of sorrow and anger, I am on to resignation.

In my resignation, this is the best picture I can muster. An on top of the dryer, next to the recycling sweater shot. Yes, this is a sweater you have seen before. It's my beloved Tree Jacket.

You've never seen it felted. That's right I "washed" it in a bowl of soak and put it into the dry to spin dry (which I have done with other tops before) and wha-la!

Felting. I knew there was a reason I didn't like it.

Are ribbons just for girls?

2009-09-04T21:46:00.007-04:00

We all know how much I love ribbon hats. (Alright that last one isn't exactly the same, but it's got some ribbons snuck in there.) I can't help but knit them. However, I couldn't help but feel that ribbon hats are slighted biased on the girly side.

So when I found a lone skein of Jaeger Baby Merino DK in the stash, originally destined for booties, but lacking the correct color partner to knit up a pair of bear booties (ravlink). I bravely reclaimed the yarn for another ribbon hat, this time taking it upon myself to knit up a more masculine version.

I sewed the ends of the ribbons flat together and left them on the outside of the hat, so as not to have rough ends against soft baby heads. Hopefully creating the effect of a smoother finish. I tried leaving the top blank, but the hat felt naked. I briefly contemplated a small pompom, but it seemed out of place with all the ribbons. So, I opted for a curly ribbon topper rather than all the spiky ends. I don't think curly ribbons are more masculine, but hopefully they are more babyish than girlish. (The hat is newborn sized.)

This is the result-and a pair of matching booties. What do you think? Are these too girly for a boy? If you have little boys would you put it on them?

Delightful PoPo

2009-08-15T05:16:00.000-04:00

I have plans for another PoPo sweater. Cabled delight (rav link). I am hoping that the huge gauge of this yarn will make up for the fact that the pattern is for purse dogs.

I'd really like to use my leftover cream/natural ecowool as trim detailing and the gorgeous plum that I recently picked up at a not so local LYS when I visited Turtlegirl in Charlotte months ago.

But I'm not so sure that I have enough cream/natural for a trim. If you have any scraps, I'd love to take them off your hands.

Can you say no to this face?

This little teapot

2009-08-14T21:43:00.004-04:00

I'm ready for some cold weather and some hot tea. And I bet the recipient of this scarf is too, but he's out of luck.

Besides that I will take my sweet time knitting up this delicious silk, merino blend and this is all I have to show for like two months worth of effort. I just matches my new teapot too well.

Comeback

2009-08-13T10:23:00.002-04:00

After a horrendous defeat-I won't even repeat the tale-I have made a victorious comeback.

After going round and round on four bitty socks and an oddly shaped dog sweater, I was craving some flat knitting, so I inhaled deeply and slowly while casting on the back of my Gilmore Vest for like the fourth time.

But this time I decided to follow the instructions, like a wise person might do on the first try. Me, it takes several more tries and many more months. But I catch on quick ;) so after many rows of things going right, I knit this puppy up over several Bones episodes. And I am oh, so happy with it.

( no a red as pictured here after a quick wet blocking)

Now I just have to knit up the front! I love not having sleeves looming on the horizon.

Grow your own booties

2009-08-12T10:08:00.001-04:00

Last year during my mother's and my annual spend-mom's-cash-to-spruce-up-my-foliage weekend, we planted a little known variety of Crape Myrtle. It doesn't bloom the first year you plant it, but it will bloom in late summer the following year.

I can't quite remember the species, but I am in love with it's blooms. I'm no KnitWitch, but I can grow a fabulous pair of booties. If I do say so myself.

We also got our hands one a dwarf variety which blooms in blue, a very rare feat as you gardening enthusiasts can attest.

I really prefer the blue variety myself. The blooms have a nice stripey affect that I am totally enamored with.

What about you? Don't you want one for your yard?

Real Life: part two (in lists)

2009-08-11T09:22:00.001-04:00

I know. I know. On a knitting blog you are to do one of two things 1. knit 2. blog.

I have done neither of these things in several months because 1. Summer always throws me into a knitting jag 2. I need a new camera 3. I am contemplating giving up blogging.

But before I do any of those things, I thought I'd give it one last fling with at least the following sitting, currently gathering dust:

1. Pink booties
2. Blue booties
3. Some partially complete Japanese scarfage
4. PoPo's next sweater gone into hibernation
5. My Gilmore vest thrown into a corner awaiting a revival

Or maybe all of the above. Only time will tell.

Real life is always interrupting my fantasies

2009-05-25T09:39:00.007-04:00

You know the fantasies where you stay at home being paid the mega moola to lay around and do nothing. Not even knitting, because that would be too much pressure.... So.... where was I? Ah yes, bowing out to Real Life. Not that my Real Life is terribly busy. It's just terribly uninspiring. I do very normal things like go to work, come home watch TV and go to bed. All without knitting a stitch, which is precisely why cable TV is the Devil.

Although, there was that one weekend in April when my mother came up and she spent her monies on my yard, because let's face it-I don't have any. See my above fantasy. Moving on, we planted things and experimented.

First the container garden, because my yard is riddled with moles.

Right to left we have strawberries, which have produced some small, very delicious berries. I eat them straight off the vine. The strawberries sit on stacked cinder blocks for two reasons: a) to keep the bunnies away which my yard is also riddled with, but I don't mind as much as the moles, and b) to keep the dog pee away. I wish I could let my dog eat the stupid loose dogs which pee on my plants. I'm bitter.

Next are my tomatoes and onions, which according to the fantastic book Carrots Love Tomatoes are companion plants and should help each other thrive. I highly recommend this book for anyone who even thinks about gardening.

Further along, we have a fun new addition to the garden picked out by the Hubs; In the front are sweet peppers and the back are okra (also companion plants). I LOVE *say in singsong voice* it when he puts in his two cents on the vegetables we should garden. No, I really do because then he's invested to help eat said vegetables.

Then we have buckets of extra okra, peppers and onions, but I won't bore you with all the plant photos. I just show you a sampling of the okra and peppers in my recycled kitty litter containers. Don't worry. These aired out for months in the yard collecting rain water and dead bugs.

And finally we are experimenting with sod. See the hill of poor drainage behind my garden? All it does is slowly slide all that Georgia red clay into my yard. We got five squares (not all visible) to throw up on the hill and hope they rooted to help slow the creeping mud. And guess what?! They did! My Mom's a genius.

More blame placing

2009-04-10T21:35:00.010-04:00

I hand wound the largest ball of yarn I have ever wound before. It's a scrumptious plum color ecowool from CascadeYarns for an upcoming project (more on that later). After 45 minutes of continuous winding it got me thinking...

Just how big is this ball of yarn? Is it as big as my head? Let's find out.

Huge ball of yarn: 19.5 inches.

TURBOchic's head: 21.5 inches. Unfortunately, TURBOchic's head wins the size game.

Obviously, I had to get help with these shots from the only other creature with opposable thumbs in the house-my Hubby. And like any normal person on earth, when you give him a flexible tape measure he must find things to measure. He found Nigel's belly, which made me feel slightly better about the size of my head.

Nigel's Belly Swag: 22 and a quarter almost on the 'in' breath.

Good Friday

2009-04-10T17:30:00.001-04:00

Bunny Hat (rav)

This project has been sitting in my yarn bin waiting on me to get unlazyfied. (Yes, that's a word I just made up, but it suits me.) I had the remaining yarn. I had the ribbon. I had the pattern. I just needed to knit it up. Then, finally my Easter Mood sprung upon me and I knit this baby up in just one day.

I blame my Husband for my lack of Easter mojo, because every year I get excited by all the baby chicks and ducks for sale and the Poultry Scientist in me strongly desires some for the eggs and meat and the cuteness, and then the Hubby always puts his foot down. Isn't that nice the way I can blame the Hubs for stuff?

(Does this picture remind anyone else of Ghostbuster's Stay-Puffed Marshmellow Man?)

One hint that your stash is starting to get large

2009-04-07T11:09:00.003-04:00

I know that I have some ecowool leftover from my hemlock ring blanket. It natural in color. I cannot find it anywhere.

I need it to gauge the beginnings of a new sweater for PoPo.

It's snowing today and she likes to be warm.

Grandma's no frills hat

2009-04-06T10:52:00.000-04:00

Story behind this hat. Grandma loves supporting my knitting hobbies, as a crocheter she understands the need to craft with yarn. Grandma decides that she wants a hat last fall. Faithful Granddaughter (that's me, TURBOchic) offers to make her one.

Grandma announces that she's allergic to lanolin. Dang it all, I hate cotton! Faithful Granddaughter procrastinates...after all she is knitting up a whole sweater for the Hubs. Enter the new year, Faithful Granddaughter still decides that more FO's must come off the needles be fore she will cast on yet another project and continues to procrastinate. Grandma begins to offer to buy her own hat instead of getting one from Faithful Granddaughter. Faithful Granddaughter feels a slight twinge of guilt and goes out to buy the yarn. Two weeks pass, Hub's sweater awaits seaming and Faithful Granddaughter has no reason to not knit up Grandma's hat. Knits hat up in 4 days.

Pattern: Black Sea hat by Grumperina (rav)
Size: the 112 sts co
Yarn and Needles: my new BFF, Cascade's Cotton Rich DK in natural on size 6 needles.
Notes: My first beaded knitting and Grandma announces that she doesn't want any color or beads on the dang thing. I love you Grandma, but this hat is down right boring without something on it.

Covering feet one book at a time

2009-04-06T09:36:00.005-04:00

Sock innovation (preview) by cookie a. She's my favorite sock designer. I've knit up her pomatomus twice and monkeys once. Both have reached world wide sensationalism, but I'm preaching to the choir here. So you know when my mother handed me a twenty spot for gas in February I immediately spent it one pre-ordering her new book.

I could go on and on about her new approach to helping each one of us become sock designers, but I'd rather just show you what instantaneously has been added to my sock queue. Not that I needed anymore, but these next few patterns do give me the excuse to buy more variegated yarn. We know how hard I have been trying to stay away from the pretties-well no more!

First up: Angee (rav)
Second batter: Rick (rav)
And lastly, Kai-Mei (rav)
All that's left is a trip to the yarn store for some yummy yarn supplies.

Battlestar is over and so is this sweater (almost)

2009-03-30T10:37:00.000-04:00

For some reason I find myself relating this sweater to cylons...I think it's because I just keep knitting multiples of the same thing. Two sleeves...two fronts...a pratically identical back to the front. I'd say that I could knit this thing with my eyes shut, but I'm not a machine ya know. *groan*

In true cylon fashion, I followed directions to the letter on the fronts, which I knew I was seaming together for a pullover, but not collar, which I had no intention of diverting from the directions but there was no way I had room to pick up all those stitches.

And in true TURBOchic fashion, I began this sweater in the winter (december) and am finishing it up just in time for the beginning of spring (or what I hope is the beginning of spring with no unlucky cold snaps).

Weekend excursions

2009-03-29T22:01:00.004-04:00

Recently, I got to play matchmaker and normally I would not post about it (talk about unnecessary pressure), but something happened that tickled me and I just have to tell y'all about it.

First a little background info: The Hubs and I were taking his best friend Michael to meet one of my friends, a knitter. Michael is practically a mirror copy of my hubby and therefore extremely good about letting me natter on about knitting and it's nuances. He's very nice that way and as a side note he's very stylish. Anyway, I had already prepared the boys that there would be a possibly long visit to a yarn shop sometime during the trip.

Fast forward to mere minutes before the arrival of My friend the knitter: Michael pipes up that if he gets some yarn, would I knit him a scarf. His neck was awfully chilly this winter. I agree, because really what is better for a knitter than having her hand knits requested?

Fast forward to the yarn shop: Having knit several items for the hubby, I have an idea of what kind of yarn Michael should get, but I also know the most important rule of knitting for others. That rule is: The knitter, you, must listen to wearer's input. If they don't give you any drag it out with wild horses if necessary. We started with an easy question like 'what color?' (red) and moved to harder ones like 'how soft?' (very, but without all the fuzz). Michael was very good about touching lots of yarn to get a feel for them. I swear I almost feel in love for him when he started "grazing" on his own. He's fingers stopped dead when he reached the merino/silk blend, 'cause like I said, he's stylish. He had no problem snapping up two skeins to purchase. I took this as a good sign, especially when the girl he was set up with is a knitter.

Fast forward to hanging out a the host's house: Beers are passed around and there is talk of setting up the Nintendo 64 and kickin' it old school. However, Michael has been set up with not one, not two, but three pattern books and is faithfully browsing them for his scarf. I took this as another good sign. Then Michael picked out his pattern. It has cables. Lots and lots of cables.

In Japanese.

Great. I hope he didn't want that scarf in the next year.

Oh Wow!

2009-03-26T10:05:00.002-04:00

Just watch this sheepherding. Wow.

Houston, We have blockage

2009-03-09T19:59:00.002-04:00

Ewwww. That title makes my blog sound constipated and in a five year old way makes me giggle for a long time. *hehehehehe* Sorry, but I won't apologise for my potty humor. (ba-dump ching!) What all of this means is that I have completed and blocked two fronts and a back of a sweater:

I am lazy, but efficient so I blocked them all together. It was glorious. Speaking of which, how bout these apples?

Brought to you by the word "Overboard"

2009-03-08T17:35:00.003-04:00

...because I apparently do not comprehend the word. My parents sent me some birthday monies which I spent online today and am now anxiously waiting things in the mail.

Enough yarn and an entire magazine for this extravagant number (rav link) and I mean that, because the yarn for this was entirely too much money. Entirely.

2 hanks of kauni in colorway EH for under $27, and entire book of alice starmore designs (used ~$28)

It will take me a millennia to knit any of this up, but who cares. I dream big.

Sock-it to me!

2009-03-07T09:16:00.008-05:00

I totally forgot to blog about my recent birthday gift from Grasshopper! For shame TURBOchic!

Last year at SAFF, Grasshopper asked me to pick out my Christmas gift, which I was only to happy to do. I picked out a delicious 'Punky pouch and needle clutch' from KnitFitKits. This bag is slightly shorter than my other sock tote and slightly taller. It fits a freshly wound yarn cake better because of these changes, but can make cramming the yarn cake, WIP on the needles and your first sock a little tight.

I was all worked up to receive my knitting paraphernalia at Christmas (likely to be the only knitting goodies I got that I didn't buy myself) when the little whippersnapper up can held out on me! I had to wait another 2 months to get my rightful belongings as a birthday gift. Can you believe the nerve of my fellow knitter?! Let's just see if you get those wooden spoons you've been asking for in August when we celebrate your birthday...

working 9 to 5

2009-02-28T11:19:00.001-05:00

After slogging away at 24 rows of ribbing for my 9 to 5 socks, not quite 2.5 inches the called for by the designer, I began to wonder if I had mistakenly picked a ribbed sock pattern. I don't like ribbed socks, not because they don't have impeccable stay up power, but the thought of knitting MORE ribbing was draining. I currently have all the ribbing I require thankyouverymuch.

However, before I go very far into my sock saga let me show you the original pattern first. The pattern that enticed me with it's swirly columns and dainty perforations.

(This photo property of allbuttonedup -rav link.)

I began the pattern portion of the sock, which looks like cabling, but is really a clever M1 stitch from Barbara Walker's treasury. However, my sock is nothing like the above model's. I was getting the twisting columns, but they weren't the loose flowing kind. They kind of looked like the wringing of a wash cloth kind and they hurt my hands to knit. (see Original Pattern)

(Photo is grey scale for clarity.)

So I changed all the M1s in to YOs. (see New Pattern Attempt 1) This gave my three little holes, which totally relieved the burning sensation in the back of my hands and giving me the delicate perforations I claimed to haven seen in the original, but completely altered the columns flowing out of each other. Instead, each column had a clear beginning and ending point and therefore totally ruining the original attraction of the pattern. Something had to be done. Surely a balance between lacy open work and flowing columns could be reached.

That's when Revised Attempt 2 happened. I changed the first M1 to a YO stitch and kept the second M1 stitch, giving me a solid "base" for the column to flow out of on the left, but adding in two little visual reliefs lined up on the right and recreating what I thought I saw in the original. I couldn't be more happier. My hands are enjoying the ease created by the new YO's, and my eyes still like the design.

eating up my time

2009-02-24T11:16:00.002-05:00

I haven't been around much. I've been working lots of twelve hours days. There is knitting going on very slowly, but there is also this:

The new washing machine, which as you can see is already in use. It totally amazes me. I sat and watched the a 43 minute cycle in wonder and I'm not alone. The hubby sat right next to me. We both watched the entire duration of laundry without talking. The fact that this machine has a door on the front(!), uses 100x less water than the old machine and barely make a peep gives me the good kind of chills.

Oop! I hear the timer for the last load. I must attend to the machine.

Cast on

2009-02-10T13:50:00.004-05:00

I finally found a good enough pattern to knit up my gorgeous teal sock yarn: Nine to Five (rav).

I really wanted to save it for Cookie A's Thelonious (rav), but my wallet isn't coughing up any pattern money right now.

I'm thinking about using this so as an the instructional piece for teaching my second sock knitter instead of the leftover yarn from another pair of socks, but the thought of knitting more ribbing is mindnumbing when there's more than enough on the Hubby's Cambridge. My student is a highly intelligent co-worker, who just finished up her Masters in Change Management. But back to the original point, would this be confusing for you if you were the student? To have a different leg pattern than the teacher?

I will be knitting this sock up for myself regardless.

February, We have buttons

2009-02-08T08:32:00.006-05:00

I am happy to say that I found the perfect buttons for Lady February.

Like a good Sci Fi show

2009-02-07T08:39:00.005-05:00

The last time we saw Cambridge there was one.

Now there are many.(top photo give better color accuracy.)

Soon there will be more.

oh, the pain

2009-01-29T10:45:00.003-05:00

So I wanted to knit up a Gilmore Vest all for my lonesome. I saw so many good ones all over Rav and everyone's blogs in the past years. (note: I'm lazy so sometimes it takes *ahem* years for me to get on the bandwagon. end note.) I even thought that I might have enough left overs from the tweed-ish yarn I used for The Hubby's Weasley Sweater. I did not.

So I searched SAFF this past October for the perfect yarn. After more than two rounds on the showroom floors and wearing poor Grasshopper's feet and mood to sour, I finally picked up some cheap ($18+tax!), sturdy, pretty yarn for my vest. I waited just 8 days to cast on for this baby. I decided to knit up the extra small size in the round and even though I counted numerous times the total number, 198, of stitches I had on the needles to make sure I had the correct amount. It took until I had knitted three inches into the ribbing (aka my swatch) to realise that the extra small size has 88 stitches one the front and 88 stitches on the back. 88+88 does not = 198. And that might mean I was really off. Doh!

So I sucked it up and rip, rip, ripped back to literally NOTHING. Cast on again, this time using a calculator, and incorrectly cast on the number of stitches too small. (Remind you of anything?) However, this was not the point at which I realised anything. I only realised that the number of stitches was wrong after I had knit all 5 inches of ribbing and begun the st st portion of the sweater. Let me tell you, the yarn I am using and my tendency to be uptight while ribbing made for some not-so-pleasant hours of knitting.

But I still thought I was okay. I had a plan. A plan that involved no ripping, but did involve scary scissors. I'd seen my plan plenty of times on the interwebs and even on my friend's blogs, maybe not with ribbing, but I was knitting with coriedale yarn and it's plenty sticky stuff, like Spider-man's webbing. I would cut the yarn and steek in a new section! I could easily mattress stitch the vertical seems back together. I was gold.

(this looks kind of phallic...)

So I bravely forged ahead and cut my hours upon hours of work. I quickly whipped out the new ten stitch section I was adding, slipped it in among my live stitches and continued knitting smugly away. (You know it's going down hill from here don't you?)

(This is no better.)

My research was incomplete. I did not fully think this plan through. Steeking takes out more than one stitch, due to the unraveling of the ribbing a little...and seeming takes out another two stitches from the original vest and the additional piece. Altogether removing at least five stitches from the ten I added in leaving me five stitches short.

I am so mad at my incompetent math skills that this piece is living in time out as a crumpled heap on the floor.

New Additions

2009-01-28T07:33:00.000-05:00

I am adding this blog to my roll. Kazooisms. Real life conversations by a two year old. I wish I could talk like this everyday.

I put on my big girl panties and sucked it up.

2009-01-27T11:22:00.000-05:00

I finished that dang toe at Turtlegirl's urging emails and Grasshopper's demand that post more progress photos. So I am done with these. Done and done. Stupid gauge.