mama-of-purl

I'm in a weird space, folks... I'm trying to figure out if I can realistically finish my University degree. I need money and I have a possible opportunity for a job I'd really like to do. Had an interview there 10 days ago, it went really well, so I'm going to have a trial day on Wednesday, keep your fingers crossed it's working out. No matter how I'm going to decide on the University thing, I sure can use some new input/perspective/silver lining.

Anyhow, I've had some serious finishitis lately! There's so much to talk about, I've been making notes;-)

First of all, I had finished the cabled sweater for Johanna, which tuned out really cute, but getting it over her head was close to a second birth experience for her. Man, that collar turned out so tight! Here's her posing proudly and then there's the 'after' picture of her complaining about the collar.Okay, the hood has to be taken off again and I need to rip back the collar a few rows to make it wider. Good thing I decided on knitting the hood separately and doing a bottom-up raglan this time.

The next finished item on the other hand is so stretchy, it even fits ME! Wow, me and my toddler can share some of our clothes!;-)

Here's the hand-dyed, hand-spun, hand-knit sweater in action

Finished item Nr. 3 deserves a drumroll... the Pretty Petals socks are DONE!!! 

These were actually supposed to get finished during the Trek-Along, but I've been terribly frustrated with them and had too much welcome distraction.

Some stats:

Pattern: Pretty Petals by Jeanie Townsend 

Yarn: Trekking XXL 110

Needles: US 1/ 2.25mm Pony Pearl DPNs. What an annoyance. Those needles are so wiggly and wobbly and constantly snagged on the fiber. Terrible.

Pattern modifications: Since I used smaller needles, I ended up having to add one panel of the pretty petals pattern in order to get the right circumference. Therefore I have two panels going down the foot, which I really like. I could have just used 2.5 mm needles and stuck with the pattern but I liked the texture of the yarn being knit with the US1s.  

After alreading wanting to throw out those crappy plastic Pony Pearl needles, I was up for an extra special surprise in the mail:

MY DYE-O-RAMA PACKAGE! It finally got here! THANK YOU SO MUCH, Katherine!

In it not only my luscious soft 100% superwash merino yarn in beautiful blues and greens, but also a set of wonderfully smooth bamboo US1 DPNs. Weeheee! But wait, there was a lot more.

I actually rummaged through the box extensively and wound the yarn into a ball before I realized I'd forgotten to take a picture of everything unopened. The chocolate was missing some chunks already;-) And, uh, there's almost half a Mata Hari sock there already that I've knitted Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning while waiting in line to get a spot at the local fleamarket next Sunday.

My wonderful, talented Dye-o-rama pal Katherine also sent me one of her awesome handprinted T-Shirt for which she carved the wooden block herself. Isn't it cool? She's planning on selling those on ebay some time soon.

Oh, and something curious about the tea filters Katherine included in the package to go along with the excellent Earl Grey tea- they're available here, too, so I was wondering where they were produced. Check this out: these are some crazy travellin' tea filters! Hamburg-Salt Lake City-Hamburg-Salt Lake City-Hamburg. What a trip:-) 

Hey everyone,

first of all I must say how much I appreciated all of your get well soon comments! That was so sweet of you! Johanna's ear are still a little affected, but she's been a complete angel the last few days! She's been such a pleasure to be with lately, which has immensely lifted my mood and I'm doing much better now. And I'm treating her with a visit to the zoo this afternoon!:-)

Another thing that's kept me from blogging last week was a blogging-related disappointment I had. I've been debating whether to complain about it here, but I'm fairly certain the person in question is not reading my blog anyway.

Okay, here it goes: I offered a woman whose blog I'd stumbled upon to do a translation of an English sweater pattern she'd wanted to make for her son. Maybe I shouldn't have offered to do this in the first place, regarding all the other tasks I'm struggling to master, like writing 4 papers in a ridiculously short period of time, but I wanted to be a nice supportive blogger and add to the community, blabla.

I started with the translation and since you can't really just write it all down, but you have to actually understand the pattern, which is usually a hassle anyway, it took a while. Mind you, a mere of work really focussing on what I'm doing is a HUGE effort for me these days... and she said she wasn't in a hurry, either. I sent her the bits I'd finished so she could at least start with the sweater and told her I'd do the rest whenever I got a chance to do it. Every couple of weeks she'd send me these reminder e-mails which really started bugging me up to the point where I got a little upset.

Anyway, I finally completed the translation which took something like a total of 5 hours to finish. We never clearly talked about what I expected in return, but of, course, she sent me a little package. So formally, I probably shouldn't complain and I'm feeling a little bad about my utter disappointment with what I got.

The package held some of the regular bits and pieces, tea, a little candle, printed napkins, and then- sockyarn. Good quality sock yarn, I might add, but in a hideous pastel pink and baby blue and white and purplish colorway I would have never chosen and nobody who'd put any thought into it would have chosen to give me. First I thought I'd make something for Johanna with it, but I didn't even want to make her wear anything in these colors. Sigh.

The first days I was in quite a shock about this and didn't know how to react or what to write to the person in question. I still can't stand even looking at the yarn and maybe I'm just going to put it up on ebay and buy something I actually like.

I hope you understand where I'm coming from- I just felt like I'd deserved better than that- the whole package gave off the impression that the person simply collected some stuff she still had at home and wanted to get rid of.

Deep sigh- I needed to get this off my chest...

Now to the surprise: I've been thinking about what kept me from finishing the Star Sweater- it's been lying around with only one sleeve for so long now. The reason were the 40 cm long circulars I was working with, which are just too tiny for my big hands. It was so uncomfortable to work with them! THen I had a little technique epiphany- if socks can be worked on two circs, my sleeves can, too! And man, sleeves, too, soar on two circulars! It was relatively easy to get the technique after seeing the knitting help videos on this topic and ta-daaaa!!! I finished the sweater at midnight last night. I'm so proud!!! My first sweater!! Finished!! I designed to whole thing from start to finish! And it fits! (click to enlarge pic)

There are a few things I still want/need to do on it- weave in the ends;-) for one thing, and I also want to make the bottom hem a little longer. No big deal, as it's a top-down sweater.

Aaah, what a beautiful sunny and chilly day we had today! I spent most of the morning outside, meeting an old friend, drinking coffee outside and enjoying the sunshine. I just had to take the day off:-)

Heading back home, I found this in the mail:
The Paton's pattern for the Savary Shores Sweater Ande knit. I'd seen it months ago and fell in love with it!! She also wore it a lot on the pictures she posted, so my mouth just kept watering:-) I actually picked up yarn back in November with this sweater in mind! So I couldn't help but asking her if she could somehow make the pattern available to me as I couldn't find an online store that'd ship it to Germany. She kindly agreed to send me the Paton's book:-) There's even another sweater in there that looks awesome! Uh, and I found out 'Savary Shores' is not the sweater's real name, it's only called 'Peruvian Yoke Pullover'... Ande's name for it is so much cooler:-)

Anyway, I was so excited about getting the pattern, I'd barely taken off my coat when I busted out the needles to knit a swatch!! My gauge is a little off, but I may simply knit the sweater in a size smaller (does that sound familiar, Ande?;-))

Well, this week I've been distracted from my projects by two little bunnies- the Professor's student I met on Monday asked me if I could help him modify some stuffed pets who will be starring in a movie they are going to make at his school. I added some lead weights to one bunny's paws and behind so Bertrand (the student) could make a string puppet out of if, and turned the other one into a hand puppet (I know, that is one KINKY weird picture!). Wasn't as big a deal as I thought, and he's paying $$ as well! That Monday was so fortunate, I should try to find out what my horoscope said that day;-)

I also finished one of the Jaywalker socks Monday night and did the cuff of Mr. Leftie. Grafting with the Kitchener Stitch is such a pain in the butt, ahhggrrrr! Didn't turn out that well... the sock fits perfectly, tho. 

...I finally got me a flatrate! How relaxing it is not having to worry about the bill when I'm reading all those blogs:-) or writing blog entries, for that matter!

So, here's an update...

my sister left for Argentina with 1 1/2 socks mit Missoni-Zacken, I was hoping to get past the heel, but I only managed to do the shaft right up to where the heel starts. She was happy anyway, because she really wanted to knit the same socks for herself and had mentioned that, once she'd left my mom's house and was back on the road, she didn't knit as much anymore. THis way, I'm sure she's going to finish the socks in no time because she won't lose interest as easily as she might have if she had to knit this (quite strenuous) pattern for an entire 2 socks. Sorry, no picture of the 75% finished pair.

Another little knit item I forgot to take a piture of is 'odd fellow' from Jess Hutch's booklet. Very cute and quick to knit! I made it for a friend of Johanna's who started daycare this Monday. His mother sounded a bit too 'polite' when I gave it to them. Sigh.

Oooh, great news this week: I FINALLY received a copy of Charlene Schurch's (LOVE HER!) Knitting Marvelous Mittens after having ordered it for the first time back on October 20th!!! of 2005!!! The first company lost it, then I re-ordered via amazon.de, who also had some delivery problems. A THREE MONTHS' wait for that book!

The good part: it was worth waiting for! What a beautifully made book with absolutely stunning patterns, great pictures of well-composed colored mittens, plus some sock and hat patterns. All of which I'd love to cast on for right away, but I'm trying to compose myself;-)

I finished the first of the chunky black-and-rainbow k3p1 rib socks and tried finishing the toe with the Kitchener Stitch. Ahem, that did NOT turn out good. I need to re-do that and look at a good description in the process. I've done it before and thought I had it down...um, yeah...

My sweater cuff has also been re-done, and I think it looks just fine now:

And, of course, the inevitable Jaywalker is also growing:

The heel Grumperina has in her pattern is much like the regular ones I've knit before, only that it is much longer. I'm very pleased with the slip1, knit1 on the heel as well, it makes so much sense as it adds extra padding. i'll definitely use that technique on socks in the future!

Are you all looking forward to Sockapaloooza starting next week? I'm going to be in!! YAAY!

I've finally picked up the star sweater again to finish the first sleeve. My arms are so long, it's just been taking forever.

Anyhow, the general top-down raglan instructions I'm using said I had to decrease a whole lot of stitches for the cuff and change to smaller needles... this is how it came out

and this is what it looked like on my wrist, ewwwwww! I'm SO ripping this up!

Apart from the cuff, I'm pretty pleased with the sleeve's fit! When I'm done with sleeve no.2, I will also make the body's hem longer, the way it is now, the proportions simply don't work out. No big deal though, as it is a top-down sweater.

If that's not a proud knitting mama!

First, thank you all for your encouraging and uplifting comments! I really appreciate your kind words. That day I ended up getting some paper work done and that made me feel a lot better. I gotta stop thinking and write more.
oooh, look at this...
we made a trip to my mother's store yesterday using public transit. I have sold my car recently and it's been the first time I tried this route by subway and bus. A ride that took a mere 10 minutes was more than 45 minutes on the way to the store and 30 mins back home. Dang, that sucked. Anyhow, it was totally worth it:-) I couldn't resist this beautiful 100% new wool and selected colors for a Norwegian style round yoked sweater for myself and for Johanna (already cast on). I spent all of last night winding the skeins and thinking about designs for Johanna's sweater. I've consulted about 5 books and now have a picture in my head but I think I'm pretty much going to decide on the patterns as I go along. I'm not much of a planner, hehe. I went to bed far too late and even dreamed about patterns:-)

I'm officially sucked into the Rogue! I love how there's something new in every row. Usually, I get bored so easily when I have to do large portions of straight knitting (uh, have you noticed?!), but this is fun! Looking at the pictures now, I suddenly realized why I needed to snack on pretzels last night;-)

But yeah, I'm not exactly happy how the cabling is turning out with that yarn. The soft and slick merino is not very forgiving, as you may be able to tell. Do you have any tips on making it look a little neater? Should I use smaller size needles for the cables? I've been contemplating using a different type yarn, but checking out all the bulky wool sweaters, I tend to like the look and feel of the merino much better...

I had to do some paper crafts this afternoon, a mushroom lantern, that Johanna and I needed for a lantern walk (uh, that's really hard to translate- Laternenumzug?) tonight. It went alright at first, but then Johanna got bored and accidentally sat on it. I should have kept it on the table;-) I ended up having to reinforce the thing with some duct tape. German duct tape smeels like cow poop, by the way.

Luckily it was dark enough when we did the walk, so the mushroom lantern looked okay. Not that Johanna cared anyway:-)

Note to self - need to knit Johanna a more feminine hat, about 5 people thought she was a boy today.

"cast me on, cast me on!!" I gave in to the Rogue two nights ago...I've only been working a few rows into Chart A of the pattern and already ran into some problems understanding the instructions. Luckily, there's a ton of info on every possible problem you could encounter as so many people have already knit this beauty. So far, I'm very pleased with my wool choice, a greenish-khaki 100% merino yarn from my MYS, it feels so nice and the color is so 'me':-), but my cable work is not very impressive to this point, I'm really going to have to get into the groove there. 'Fake it 'til you make it' is the motto, I guess;-)

Hey there,

I gave up my hopes of ever getting my pictures back after the blogspirit attack, so I just uploaded my entire FO gallery again, check it out!

The star sweater is finally seeing a little bit of progress since I got a small 4mm circular after I realized that I'd been working with the wrong size needles (seems to be a recurring problem lately...) and it's going sooo much faster now! I hope to finish the first sleeve within the next days. The last two days I fell asleep at 9pm, so no knitting at night...