Moving Right Along

I have made some great progress on my CPH. After running around on Friday and finishing up some chores, I spent the evening curled up on my couch knitting CPH. I managed to finish all of the Back on Friday night and completed the Front on late Saturday morning. It really looks like a sweater to me now and I am so excited. I told my sister the other day that this is the first sweater I have made that I can actually see me wearing!! Tonight I am going to spend time on the Left Front. I should be able to knock it out in no time since I worked out the kinks and row math already for the other sections. After that I've decided I am going to knit both sleeves at the same time. I've never done that so any words of wisdom to those who have would be welcome.

So what else did I do? Oh yes, I casted-on for the second baby bootie sock on Sunday during my train ride to Long Island. Between an hour knitting on the train yesterday and about an hour this morning at work, I managed to complete all the way through to the heel. After I work on CPH, I am hoping to finish this little baby up. BTW, Mary Beth, I can understand your pain in regards to knitting your Traveler's Socks. These booties are on size zero needles and I always feel like one is going to snap in half when I k3tog or p3tog on this project. However, I figure there isn't much to these socks that I could deal with the dpns. I surprise myself sometimes!

Here is the completed, or almost completed, Mustang Sally socks. I actually finished them on Thursday at work but I couldn't take them off the needles. First, I had forgotten to bring my little thing of notions so I had no needles to do the sewn bind-off. Second, if I had had my notions I still wouldn't have been able to bind-off because about 17 rows down the back of the sock I noticed I purled a stitch instead of knitting it. And it's not like I carry crochet hooks with me all the time because since I am a knitter, I don't expect to be needing a crochet hook. But alas, on Thursday I did. There was no way I was going to frog back 17 rows. Nope. Wasn't going to happen. I wanted to drop the one stitch down 17 rows and crochet the stitch back up to the top. So, I managed to fix the sock on Saturday but I still haven't done the bind-off. Simply because I have never done a sewn bind-off and am not too sure about it. It reminds me of seaming and I suck, ooops I mean stink, at that. If I'm not too tired I'll get to it tonight, if I am then it can wait another day.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. On Saturday my girlfriend Lisa came over and I taught her how to knit. We covered the long-tail cast-on, knit stitch and purl stitch. This is actually the second time I've sat down with her. Back in the spring she started knitting and practiced but then stopped. Now she has seen all the great stuff we create and it perked her interest back up. I sent her home with a homework assignment and I can't wait to see how she does with it. I had pics to post but unfortunately I accidentally left my camera in Long Island, so sorry Lisa, I will get them to you as soon as I can.

Can You Say...

DISASTER!?! As you can see from the picture below, I have a bit of an issue. Isn't it a beauty? I think so. This past weekend I borrowed Shameka's yarn winder because I wanted to reball all the Provence yarn that I had. About half of the skeins I had bought for a previous afghan project that I took apart last summer needed to be rewound into center pulling balls. Now, I had four skeins that were still in the original state and thought since I had the winder I would go ahead and ball them too. Since I didn't have the swift, I improvised. I've done it before and had no problem. My method is simple. Place the skein of yarn around my neck and unravel some and wind, unravel some and wind. It really does work. However, on this skein I had it hanging off my arm as I wound it and before I knew it, there was a knot. As I was trying to work the knot out, the other end of the skein got all twisted in with it. Next thing I knew, I had two separate balls of knots on the floor. You can see that I attempted to wind the ball from the other end so I could maybe untangle it. Such a BIG mess! I'm just so proud of myself.

After reading responses from my post yesterday, I decided that some of you do want to see my blow by blow, inch by inch progress on my projects. So here is the first one. My Provence Throw. I just started the second skein of yarn last night. Even though I am knitting across 204 stitches it is actually knitting up pretty quickly. I am up to 6.5" right now. I'll be knitting to 55" in length. I'm really happy with it.

...and here is my Central Park Hoodie. As you can see, it doesn't look too different from my last post. When I took it to bed last night to work on it, I only got a couple of rows done before I had to put it to the side. My apartment has no air condition and last night my apartment was pretty humid. Even with my fan blowing on me, it was hard knitting on this. Tonight I am planning on devoting more time to it. The good news is that I measured it last night and I am up to 11.5". That means I am 3.5" away from starting the armholes. This is where I'll be knitting each part separately because of the armhole shaping. There isn't a way around it. That's ok though because knitting the body as one piece saves me from having to seam the sides and that it fantastic to me.

Finally, here is the link to the "Better-Than-Booties Baby Socks" pattern. Enjoy!!!

It's Bootie Time

So it's been a few days since I have posted. I really haven't had too much knitting content to add since Thursday. I mean, do you really want to see every inch I add to my CPH or Provence Throw? I didn't think so.

However, as of today, I have made some knitting progress. First, I completed Christmas Gift #2 and I am 50% done with Gift #3! I actually feel like I am finally making headway on my Christmas knitting. I'll be casting on in the next couple of days for Gift #4. BTW, I plan on posting pictures of all the gifts after Christmas. It will be a suprise for everyone. It wouldn't be fair of me to talk about these gifts without showing them to you in the end. Right?

Remember that Baby Hat and Booties I am knitting for my girlfriend who was expecting? Ya know, how I finished the hat but was on a quest for a new bootie pattern? Well, I took Kim's suggestion and searched the world of patterns on Ravelry. I struck gold! When I found Anne Bud's "Better-Than-Booties Baby Socks" patterns, I knew instantly this was what I was going to use. Ann wrote five bootie sock patterns for the Fall 2000 Interweave Knits. Three of these patterns were compiled into a PDF which I was able to download. I can't remember from where, but I can go find out if anyone wants to know.

As of August 30th my girlfriend had her baby. Now I need to go visit them real soon and I can't go empty handed so on Sunday I kicked my butt in gear and casted-on for the "Ruffle Ribs" baby sock. I finished it this morning at work. Even though I'm not too crazy about the yarn I used for this, I think it turned out cute. I had fun knitting it and the construction of this sock was pretty knifty. I'll be knitting up its mate starting tonight! Can't you just imagine how adorable this will look on a little baby foot?

On Friday night Shameka came over to my place after work for a little knitting. Even though she got to my place late (darn traffic), we had fun knitting until midnight! I devoted the whole evening to working on Christmas Gift #2 and Shameka split her time between working on her CPH and making me some stich markers! Aren't they pretty?

Now that I made some progress on my other projects, CPH will be picked back up again this week. I have about 5 or so inches before I start the armhole shaping. I hope to have some updated photos of it by the end of this week.

Oh and before I forget again, I want to give a great big huge thank you to Kim for tagging me as a "Rockin' Girl Blogger"!!! You are so sweet! I will wear the badge proudly!

A Knitting Friday

Last night before I went to sleep, I put a plan of action into play for my Friday. First, I knew I wanted to sleep in, even if that only means until 7am or 8am (anything is better than 4:30am). I don't work Friday's so while everyone else is running off to work, I am starting my weekend. So sleeping in without the alarm blarring in my ear was heaven!

Secondly, I wanted to finish the Harry Potter book. I got to a really great part the other night and hated to close the book to get some much needed sleep. So this morning when my body woke up naturally at 8:30am, after taking care of a few morning things, I crawled back into bed and cracked the book open. I told myself I wasn't going to do anything else today until I finished it. I didn't have much left to read, but let me tell you, it was great reading. By 9:30am I had completed it! I now knew what so many other people knew the day the book came out. All I can say is "Wow"!

With the little task of finishing the book done, I moved from the bed to the couch. This is where I looked at all my knitting wanting, and begging, to be worked on. After pondering which project to pick up, I immediately began working on one of my Christmas presents. Yes, that is right, Christmas presents! Right now I have three in the works, along with the stuff for myself. So after knitting for about an hour I looked around my apartment and decided I had to do some chores. With being sick for a week and a half my apartment had been pretty much neglected and was a mess. I couldn't take it anymore, and since I was feeling much better, I had to tackle it.

Now that the chores were complete, I thought I might hit the gym. I need to get back into my running or else the NYC Marathon is going to be going out of my grasp this year. However, it didn't happen for me today. Even though I an feeling better, I am still not 100%. The energy I expended cleaning my apartment was probably what I would have had stored up for my run. Tomorrow it will happen!!!!


Instead, I picked up another one of my knitting projects. As you can see from this picture, the baby hat I am making is complete. It would have been done a couple of days ago but I decided to change the pattern. I didn't like how the original short row crown shaping was turning out. I still say something is wrong with the pattern, but anyway I worked around it. I decided to just complete a stockinette decrease over 13 rows. I have to say, it was a snap and I am happy to have it done. Now I just need to make the baby booties. I was going to start the ones in the magazine, but again, I am not really liking what they did. So right now I am looking for another pattern to use.

Tonight I met up with Shameka and a couple of her friends for a little Friday night knitting meet-up at the Virgin Megastore Cafe. It was alot of fun meeting other knitters and having the opportunity to just sit, knit and chat away! Before the evening ended, I had to whip out my camera to document our event. As you can see, Shameka is beautifully posing with her Snuggle sweater. I was aiming for a candid shot but she caught me. Hmmmm can you guess what her favorite color is?

Chante was busily knitting away on one of her socks when I snapped her pic. She probably sensed the lense on her but remained in her knitting mode. I'm not sure what pattern she is using but the yarn is so soft and stretchy. It's a cotten that has elastic in it. As soon as she said that I immediately thought of the Knit Picks Risata yarn my sister used to knit her latest sock.

Here is Saunielle plugging away on her cape with sleeves that isn't a caplet but more like a jacket. Ooops actually this is her casting on to start it over again. She didn't like the pattern she was doing with the yarn so she decided to frog it and start over. All I knew was one moment she was knitting away and the next time I looked up she had ripped everything out. I guess this is what happens when you are designing something yourself. But you see, she still has a smile on her face!

Lastly, I purchased my yarn today for knitting my Central Park Hoodie. I am so excited and can't wait for it to arrive.

A Tote, A Monkey and A Baby

I just have to say that I absoutely love my felted sheep tote. This tote has become my new knitting bag. I am so glad that I added all the pockets to the sides instead of just the two end ones (as the pattern originally calls for). Even though this tote is small in size, it just seems I can keep adding more and more to it and some how room is created within it. Almost like a bottomless bag! As you can see from the picture below, I still have room to add more stuff inside. Right now, there are three knitting projects inside this tote. I have decided that I am definitely going to knit the larger tote bag using the two skeins of Manos del Uruguay from my stash. I won't have enough yarn to do all the pockets but that's ok. I just love this bag so much that I can't wait to have a larger version of it.

Speaking of using yarn from my stash, I am in the middle of another project using two skeins of Knit Picks Palette yarn in cream from my stash. I had purchased the KnitSimple Fall 2007 a few weeks ago because I loved the baby sets in it. One of my girlfriends is expecting her first baby very soon and I wanted to knit her something special. While I was entering my stash on Ravelry this weekend, I decided to see what projects people were making with the Palette yarn. Low and behold, there is someone using the very same yarn I had in my stash to make the 3 piece layette set from this mag. I never would have thought to use this yarn for this project. Maybe because my mind has been whirling around in space for the past week or so? So I decided that I am going to make the ribbed hat and baby booties. I don't have enough yarn to make the ribbed pullover.

Last night I finished the first Country Garden Monkey sock. It looks awesome and fits perfectly! One thing that I enjoyed about knitting this sock is that I learned a different way of doing the heel flap/gussett. I found it to be very easy considering the last time I did a cuff down sock a few years ago I dreaded doing the heel flap. Anyway, I am planning on casting on for my second sock sometime today. I don't want too much time passing between these two socks. I have so much knitting to do over the next few months. I don't want the mate to get lost in all my Christmas knitting!