Laburnum

Specs:

Pattern: Laburnum
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport
Needles: Size 2 US Inox dpn's
Method:
Size: Women's size 9 1/2
Started: February 5, 2007 Finished: May 31, 2007

Twisted German Cast-On over 72 stitches with Eye of Partridge heel and grafted toe.

Blocking and awaiting buttons purchased today.


I took the Bosworth Midi I bought at SAFF for spin with the Mojave merino purchased the same day. It was fun to be spindling again and the roving is making a lovely yarn but I'm am paying for it with the neck, shoulder and arm flaring up. This may turn out to be a definite no-no and I'm so not looking forward to getting rid of my spindles and wheel.

The View From Outside (In Pictures)

This afternoon I took a little tour around the house with camera in hand. With the lack of rain and rising temperatures it's quickly becoming a race against time to keep everything watered.


Oriental Lilies

Lantanas

Daylilies

Geraniums (They remind me of peppermint candy.)

Butterfly Bush

Tomato Blossoms

Closing In

A bit of seaming done off and on throughout the day and I'm down to the hard part. The pattern instructs you to pick up the border on left side and complete it. TheN you are to sew the right shoulder seam and pick up the right border and neckline and seam the left shoulder once the right side is complete. I'm going to do it all in one step tomorrow.

8 Things About Me

I've been tagged and in the words of Yargineer, " bring it with your bad self..."

1. I've always wanted to be a chef. To compensate I probably own about 100 cookbooks and I've made something from most of them. Asian, Italian, Greek, Thai you name it I'm game for it. If I'm cooking it's rarely soul food. I can't make biscuits to save my life and have given up trying. (Anything I set my mind to do I don't do it half-assed, besides it makes for some very interesting meals.)

2. From the age of about 30 to 36 I didn't knit hardly anything. My time was devoted to machine quilting, reading, logic and crossword puzzles. Things I love but rarely do any more due to knitting.

3. I also have a cross stitch stash, a quilting stash and a sewing stash. At one time I made most of my clothes and sewed for others as well. I considered becoming a Home Ec teacher before I went to college.

4. I'm an Applications Analyst and program in Informix 4gl and Coldfusion. I made my career change when I was fired by the USPS and it changed my life completely. My BS is in biology from Wofford College and I never used my undergrad degree. I've gotten more out of my AS in Information Technology which I received in 1999 from Midlands Technical College where I was inducted into the two-year college honor society Phi Theta Kappa.

5. I am a nerd. Hard as I try to deny it, in the core of my innermost being it's what I am. I've worked hard and long to erase that image of myself and for the most part have succeeded on the outside. It's fed by an inquenchable thirst to learn and I often get sidetracked when I'm checking out specific things by something interesting that comes across my path.

6. I've never been married, don't have any kids and don't see either of the two happening in my future. Too stubborn for one and too old for the other. (Technically I'm not too old for the kids but from my side of the fence I'm way-ayyyy too old.)

7. I have four siblings. We are boy, girl, boy, girl, boy. We tried to talk mother into having a sixth to make it even. Our ages are 47, 46, 44, 43 and 36. (I'm number two.) Only the boys have kids and there are eight of them. Four boys and four girls.
I'm a momma's girl. Rotten to the core. In case you haven't figured it out from reading this blog, I live with my mom. Moved back in 1995 and never left again. She takes care of me more than I take care of her and when the days are really bad healthwise I can't think of any place I'd rather be. She's my bestest friend!!!

8. People who know me either like me or they don't. I'm a straight-forward, pull no punches type of person, so if you don't want the truth don't ask. Truthfully I'm mostly bark and a little bite, but I can't stand and don't tolerate dishonesty.

There you have it. The down and not so dirty on Fiberitis.

***Note to self: Never post when dead tired. Edited to correct spelling of "thngs".

Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina...

On a beautiful spring day with a nice breeze blowing and a bunch of 7 and 8 year olds playing America's game. Even though they lost we had a great time cheering the Rangers on. It wasn't the start of the tournament as I'd thought but a rescheduled game due to testing in the schools.

I managed to capture a few shots of Jaylon in action tagging up and a surprise shot of him taking off for second base.



The biggest thrill for him was that his teacher came to the game. She had told him that if he had a game on Saturday she would come see him play.

Earlier this morning as we where getting ready for the day, Isaiah asked me to take something off of his "fingertoe." His fingertoe is his big toe and it had a little snag on it. I was tickled to hear him refer to his toes as fingers and if anyone asked him where his fingertoes were he'd immediately point to his feet. He's changed so much and is turning into quite the "big boy" stubborness and sweetness in the same package.

So for the third month in a row I've had a weekend with the boys. Darius and Jaylon joined us after the game for the shopping trip to Wally World to pick up goodies for grilling out today. The rest of their family,Dad Charles, Mom LaTina and sister Kayla joined us later for dinner. We all were stuffed, happy and sleepy. It's been a fabulous day!

Two Fronts at Once

Working both fronts at the same time isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I have managed to start knitting or purling back across the piece I just worked a couple of times and ended up with once piece about 3 rows longer than the other. The eyelets gave it away because they didn't line up correctly when the pieces where viewed side by side. I knitted on the shorter piece until it was the same length and I'm chugging right along.


After tonight there'll be a temporary knitting slow down. I'm picking up Isaiah after work for the weekend and that means very little free time. We're going to see Jaylon play in a baseball tournament on Saturday and to the Black Expo here in town afterwards. I'm hoping that he'l take a nap when we get back and I can sneak in a little knitting time. Once you get in the groove with a project you kinda hate to put it down.

The greenhouse at work has regular plant sales during the spring and summer. I bought 4 pots each of oregano, parsley and sage, two umbrella plants, a basil plant and some mint for $3.25 last Friday and have yet to plant them. I usually get pepper and tomato plants from them but my tomatoes are already planted and growing like crazy. Isaiah was totally fascinated watching me plant the tomatoes a couple of weeks ago. We're going to get our hands very dirty planting all these goodies in pots.

In case you can't tell this weekend is all about the 'saiah as he likes to call himself.

Daphne's Got Back

Hip, hip, hooray. This made my day or more appropriately my night.


I finished the back of Daphne last night. It took a few attempts to find the right short-row method. Some of them looked so wonky that I was almost ready to do the "stairsteps". I remembered that Nona posted a most excellent tutorial on short-rows a while back. (You can find it in the "Tips and Techniques" page, April 8, 2005).I opted for the Japanese short-row and it truly is far superior to any other method. I've never had shoulders look so good!

I've been doing some work from home this evening so there hasn't been any progress on the fronts. I'm going to cast them on tonight and yes I said them. My goal is to work both of them at the same time.

I've also realized that the sleeve caps are going to have to be re-done. I used full-fashioned decreasing and it cheated me out of some of the lacy lines that run up the sweater. They look so much better on the back fading away into the shoulders that to leave the sleeves in their current state would be cruel and unusual punishment not to mention just bad knitting period.

Knitting Inventory

I've seen this meme twice today and found it interesting.

Bold for stuff you've done, italics for stuff you plan to do one day, and normal for stuff you're not planning on doing.

Afghan
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with bananafiber yarn
Domino knitting (=modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Baby items
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffitti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dyeing with plant colours
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cosies...)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items)on two circulars
Olympic knitting!
Knitting with someone elses handspun yarn
Knitting with dpns
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dyeing yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Knitting two socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
simultaneously
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with selfpatterning/selfstriping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mits/armwarmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

Tag! You're it.

Daphne - Back on Track

Due to a number of contributing factors, the major one being the hole that I managed to poke in my index finger and kept re-opening every time I used the Holz & Stein needles, Daphne was not in the suitcase when mom left this morning. I am once again making good progress and am almost ready to start the armhole shaping. Mom will be gone for ten days so I may actually be able to finish this or at least have most of the pieces done by the time she returns.



This Mother's Day feels really strange. It's the first time in my 46 years that I will not see nor have dinner with my mom. I'll talk to her tomorrow by phone but it's still not the same. So to all the mothers everywhere...

Happy Mothers Day!!!

Bearfootin'

Today I received the goodies from Kim's birthday contest. Two beautiful skeins of Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Northern Lights. I'm going to share this most generous gift with a knitting friend.


The party was great. Lots of work, lots of talking and lots of catching up with people I hadn't seen in years. The gift a success and somehow with my less than stellar photography skills I was the only one who came camera ready.

I can say without hesitation that I'm no longer up to the challenge of weekend road trips. Traveling 1000 miles roundtrip in 52 hours is way out of my league. I worked on Daphne on the way up until I ran out of daylight and cast on a pair of socks before we hit the road coming back and continued on them until darkness caught up with us once again.

I've been itching to knit a pair from MSKS and the trip was the perfect opportunity to get started. These are the Broad Spiral Ribs.


At first I was hesitant thinking that the yarn would overpower the pattern. I'm getting the barber pole effect on the foot and when the short-row heel is complete there's no telling what will happen. I cast-on using the Eastern cast-on from the new IK. I thought it would be easier but the execution is almost the same as the figure-eight cast. I didn't have to adjust the first row to tighten up the stitches as I have to most of the time when I use the figure-eight. I'm certain I'll be using this cast-on in the future.

Ullared

I've been working on a very special project. My neighbor's daughter is giving her husband a surprise 50th birthday party this weekend in Ardmore, Alabama. They live on the Alabama/Tenessee line in the mountains so I figured that a nice warm hat would be a good gift for when the winter comes.

I finished Ullared Friday afternoon about an hour before we left Columbia. This hat would have been finished last weekend but my first two attempts in sizes large and extra large were way too big. Add to that an unexpected gauge issue and not having the size 3 16 inch circular and it was a recipe for disaster. Last Saturday I picked up a the size needle and after a few chart execution errors and corrections the hat is now blocking and will dry on the way to Alabama.



Specs:

Pattern: Ullared from Hats On! by Charlene Schurch
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport MC Charcoal , CC Pepper
Needles: 3 US Inox circular and dpn's
Size: Medium

Modifications: The pattern called for a "Two-Strand Cast-On for Knit-and-Purl Ribbing". I used this method for the first two hats. I switched to the "Yarn-Over Tubular Cast-On" aka "Italian tubular ribbing" for the final hat. Both of these techniques are included in the book. I like the professional finish the tubular cast-on it gives the edge and will use it again.

Even though it took the third attempt to get everything right I've learned two new techniques in the process and it was well worth the effort. This is beautiful hat. My brother Charles has already asked me to make one for him.