First FO '09

Woohoo! Finally an fo and the first of 2009. These socks have been on the needle since 2007. They kept getting put back and finally got re-worked. I'm loving the plain vanilla socks in this color. I finished them just in time for the 10 degree weather this weekend.


Specs:

Pattern: Generic Toe-Up with short-row heel
Yarn: Trekking XXL color 66 (purples)
Needles: 00 and 1 US dpn's
Size: 9.5
Started: August 28, 2007 Finished: January 15, 2009

Next up is finishing the Bluebell Rib socks. No second sock syndrome here. Two-thirds of the second one is finished.



I've picked out or purchased yarn for the two pairs of socks that will be gifted to friends of the family. I'm going to do a simple rib for Mr. Rainey and Gittertour from Omas Strickgeheimnisse for Mrs. Rainey. The book is a wonderful collection of German patterns. I'm not sure if this book is still out of print, but if you get a chance check it out.

I was reading cold weather tips in the paper and it said that mittens are better than gloves for cold weather. Too bad I read the information so late or I'd have a pair ready for the weekend. It's just another thing to add to the list. Well it's late and another workday looms ahead so ta-ta for now.

Re-appearance

Once there was a blogger named Fiberitis who used to inhabit the blogosphere.
I don't know what has happened with my blogging. It seems that even though I am on the computer fairly regularly I never get around to blogging. Christmas was so busy and hectic that it just flew from one year into the next.

There hasn't been much work on the knitting front. I still need to block both of the sweaters and put one of them together. I am currently working on socks that have been on the needles for way too long.

More of my attention has been focused on food. I've gained an excessive amount of weight, 31 pounds, in the past five months. I've been cooking at home everyday instead of eating out and paying more attention to my portions which have gotten out of hand. My diabetes is very well controlled but it won't stay that way for long if my weight continues to ballon.

On Monday I made Chicken Marsala.





It is from the Cooking Light Chicken cookbook and was delicious. I restricted myself to the 3-ounce portion and had a salad and garlic mashed potatoes. The only change I would make would be to double the wine and broth since there wasn't quite enough sauce in the final dish. I also subbed capers for the green peas. I hate sweet peas.

I would highly recommend this cookbook as it has some excellent and diverse chicken recipes. You will never be bored with chicken again.

Sweater Work

Hope that everyone had a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. We had a great time here at Chez Morris. The only person missing was my youngest brother who had to work for the first time on Thanksgiving. We all missed him. Mom and I spent the day cooking and the food was wonderful even if I must say so myself.

This is one of the few holidays when all five kids are home. Almost all the nieces and nephews were at the house. It was the usual family fun; eating, games and more eating.

I started on Mr Greenjeans last weekend. This color of Silver Thaw photographs with a lot of blue, but in person the colors are a lot different. The blue isn't as prominent and the shade of blue is different. The greys and purple show up as well as the yellow and hint of green. I didn't like the colors at all at first but they have begun to grow on me.


I've finished the body and most of the first sleeve over the long weekend. The sleeve is a little snug. I'm knitting the large as I think the 1X would be a little large. I'll have to see how it fits over this belly I've acquired over the past several months.


For the first time I haven't committed to any Christmas knitting. I have two scarf and hat sets that I would like to make for family friends who will be in the area during the holidays. I'm still searching through stitch dictionaries and patterns. I haven't set a time frame so that if they are done I'll just stick them in the mail. It feels great not to have that pressure even if I did enjoy making the gifts. I usually find the holiday season to be stressful, but this year I'm relaxed, most of the shopping is done and the plans are made.

I'm still practicing project monogamy. This sweater will be completed before I cast on the next project. There are several wips in the basket that were started way prior to this but I'm just not in the mood to tackle them. I'd like to get some cold weather knitting under my belt before I go back to them.

The next sweater will probably be a Noro sweater for mom. I'd like to get the new Noro purchases knitted up in case I need to purchase more. Since they are clearance yarns I'd be hard pressed to locate more if they go to marinate in the stash. It'll be a cardigan for sure.

Closing In

Last weekend I was at the beach and from our condo you could see the turtles sunning across the lake/pond. There numbers continued to increase as the day went on. They were there for hours and then all of a sudden they dove into the water.


One of our lys's, the Hook 'N Needle, has Noro Silver Thaw, Iro and Kochoran on sale for 50% off. I didn't think much about it until I went to the Knitting Fever website and couldn't find the Silver Thaw listed. Mom went by the store today and picked up enough for two sweaters.


Noro Kochoran

Noro Iro
She pays more attention to the stash than I realized and saw that in one color of Silver Thaw I have only two skeins. She's going back tomorrow to pick up 5 more so that I'll have enough for a sweater.

I've been practicing project monogamy and it is working great. I've finished all of the pieces for the Belted Wrap Jacket with the exception of the belt. I completed the sleeves at the beach last weekend and wrapped up the collar yesterday.


There's lots of blocking to be done and I'm going to have to break down and buy some wool wash to get that task accomplished. None of the yarn shops in this area carry wool wash. I find that amazing given the amount of yarn they sell and the number of knitters in the area. If it gets here in time I plan to finish this sweater during the Thanksgiving break.

For my next project I'm going to knit the Mr. Greenjeans from Knitty in Noro Silver Thaw, color 12. Mom, like Kathy, thought this would be a good color. I wear jeans a lot of the time and this will work perfectly with my current wardrobe. While I was selecting colors for this sweater, I found two 15 skein bags of Kureyon that I'd completely forgotten about. They are similar colorways and one seems to be a more toned down version of the other. My next couple of sweaters will probably come from the Noro stash. It's a good way to add color to your wardrobe, so don't be surprised if this becomes a Noro Knit blog for a while.

Schlumbergera Truncata

When my father died in December 2004 we received several potted plants as is usual in the case of a death in the family. One was a cactus that was in full bloom combined with other plants in an arrangement. This cactus has continued to grow but has never bloomed. The owner of one of our lys told my mom to set it outside in the cool and all of a sudden buds began to appear. It is back in the house and its' beauty is astounding. It has bloomed just in time for Thanksgiving.

Smooth Sailing

Last November I started on this sweater...


the Belted Wrap Jacket from Interweave Knits Winter '05.

For reasons that I can no longer remember this sweater went into hibernation. I picked it back up after finishing the February Sweater and have been steadily working on it for the past few weeks. Even though I don't knit on it every day I've managed to make good progress.





I casted on the last sleeve yesterday and though it's a year late I'll have this completed before Christmas which brings up another dilemma.

I'm struggling to decide on what the next sweater will be. Mom has given orders that next project must be for me and socks are excluded. I don't know what the problem is but I get bogged down in color choices and pattern details. Do I knit a cardian versus a jacket? Patterned yarn or plain? Textured, lace or smooth? I've got oodles of yarn choices which further complicates the problem. In the end, I may end up dumping slips of paper in a bowl and pulling out one.

I'm trying to narrow my yarn choices and at the moment I'm considering the following:

1. Silver Thaw
2 & 3. Noro Silk Garden Reds or Purples
4 & 5. Plymouth Galway Sage or Plum
6. Debbie Bliss Merino Aran Mauve or Olive

This is where the tendency to purchase yarn in sweater quantities makes for an obscene number of choices. How in the world do you narrow it down? I still have others under consideration but these are top choices for the moment.

At the recent halloween sale at the lys I purchased most of Elsebeth Lavold's books, so the alpaca that's in the stash is also fair game. One sweater that I like in particular is Zarah. It is knitted using EL's Angora which the lys has on sale. I'm considering subbing some of the Indicieta Alpaca that's already in the stash therefore another choice for the list. Either way I go I'll have made a decision by the weekend so that I can have another project to take to the beach.

If you have any suggestions for cardigans I'd be happy to here them. I've added several to the Ravelry queue which didn't facilitate this process. The more choices you have the harder the decision making becomes.

Hope

I'm sitting on pins and needles watching the results come in. I've been politically jaded for a while and the kind of excitement I'm experiencing at this moment is indescribable. The country is alive and vibrating with a renewed energy. We're all ready for ...

Change we can believe in!!!