Lots of F.O.

Most of this stuff has been done for eons.

My husband actually began to nag me encourage me to take picture by putting the projects in a bag with the camera and sitting them in the kitchen by the deck. He even included my big glass head. I'm ashamed to say these are very late going to their charities, but now that they are washed and bagged, I can deliver them. And now, without further ado ~


Preemie Hats for Howard Co Hospital







Chemo Cap With Floppy Brim from Cancer Can't

It looks more like a cloche to me, but turned out nicely and is very soft, so who cares?

And of course another No Hair Day. This one I call Confetti.




Now then.

On Ravelry I have joined a new group that has become dear to my heart. Helping Kids At Hopkins (Ravelry link) is the brainchild of my friend Nittany Knits. You may recall her daughter Gabrielle had a brief but intense illness before passing last spring. The group knits items for (you guessed it) the kids at the Cancer Center at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. There are plans for projects in other Units too. The heart unit will be in February for instance. Every two months is a new theme - and there are even prizes, voted on by the knitters. But the incentive is the joy.

Our first effort was Halloween.

Isn't it he awsome? Oh! The hat too!

Zooming Right Along . . .

. . . like The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival never happened.

I went to The Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Festival when Bobby and I were in New England for ten days at the end of May.

After a car show, The Baseball Hall of Fame and a few days of town hopping on the coast, it was on to stay in The Berkshires for the last leg of our vacation. Saturday was spent at the Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Festival. Such a lovely bunch of laid back sheepie folk. It’s more intimate than MDSW and I could navigate the paved site quite easily on my scooter. The elevator to the fiber competition exhibits was apparently broken (it was blocked off) but Bobby said there wasn't much besides the fleeces so I wasn't that disappointed. There were Sheepdog trials all day and watching the working dogs was quite fun, especially when folks explained the finer points of judging to me. It broke my heart to see a good dog get a contrary sheep who just wouldn’t stay with the other two in the group but chose to run back to the pen and ruin everyone’s high marks. I love seeing the animals – sheep, goats, llamas. There weren’t any alpacas at this fair. Waaaah! I did get to see some shearing and the 4H showmanship contests. It’s serious business for these kids. I said to Bobby, next there will be Alpaca and Llama competitions at these functions. Woo Hoo !

There were two buildings of vendors and lots of outdoor booths, nicely laid out and accessible. There were only about a third I couldn't get into with my wheels and none of them had the big "drop" like at Maryland. Shweeet! In fibre, the lean at this fair is definitely toward spinning and weaving. Roving, roving, roving. And batts. The wheels, spindles and looms for sale were plentiful as well as all the trappings. There were spin-ins and weave-ins but not a knit-in. But yes, there was yarn. I bought some crazy soft white wool to pet for a while and some funky multi hued wool at a booth with discontinued yarns on sale. Bobby bought me a little sheep pin to remember the day. I put it on my hat with my Ravelry pins - oh yes, there were Ravelry folk there. The darling of the modern knitter. I recognized Ravelers and was recognized by my Ravelry gear – it's like a secret handshake. Very cool although there was no formal gathering of the Ravelry clan as there had been at Maryland’s festival. All in all a great day with lovely weather too.

And did I mention the lamburgers? And the $1 hand dipped ice cream cones?

It's good to be a knitter.

I know I am remiss in my duties to write about MDSW. I went. I had fun. I saw friends. I bought cool stuff. I ate lamburgers. I went to the Ravelry gathering Saturday and the party Saturday night. I did not win a prize. I beg your forgiveness for not cataloging my every sight, smell and dollar spent.

I know you are a forgiving lot.

Oh! Did I mention that I finished Bobby's scarf? Now I'm working on the matching hat. A wife's work is never done.

Enjoy the pictures - you'll have to look at the whole trip to see the sheep. If you're a real glutton for stories about the trip, click the button for my brain cancer blog over on the left and there's two days worth of blah blah blah there.

We did have a good time.

Corn!

Had a great time at a gathering of the Central Maryland Knitting Guild on Sunday. Knitters communing, eating good food and knitting. What could be better? I like to sit with folks I don't know. You learn a thing or two and I've been socially deprived lately. The main staff member there surprised us with a chocolate laced goodie at the end to top it off. Very sweet of her. And quite fine - not a real sweet but chocolate - the way I like it.

The girls told me there was a sale at The Celtic Knot Yarn Shop over the weekend too. It was part of their 5th Anniversary Celebration complete with prizes - sadly no phone call came to announce my winnings later in the day oh well :-( The atmosphere was festive though and I spent the bucks my Dad gave me for Christmas on a bunch of Addies I wanted. Wheeeee! Carole had all the ones I wanted but one. She offered to have a friend deliver it to my regular knitting group on Thursdays. Funny thing, she still didn't have the Soak I want. Poor thing can't keep it in stock.

Ran into pal from Ralvelry who's working there now. She helped me pick out some cool corn yarn in a pretty lavender for a hat for my cousin's baby granddaughter which is on the way. Yes, I succumbed. Besides, the hand is okay if I knit a row or two and rest it. I first was looking for a traditional pink baby yarn and there wasn't any. Turns out that was a good thing for my intentions to do more creative knitting this year. This gives me a chance to work with something cool for a change and it's completely machine washable and dryable. The couple is young so that is a must. But now I have to decide on the pattern. Arrrrrrghhh! Here comes the patternophobia.

Ravelry. It's everywhere now. It was only two months old when I came on board back in June 2007 and had only

3063 users, 682 unclaimed invitations, and 7,303 people on the waiting list

And 8 months later on February 1 2008?

Total # of registered users: 72,879

Wooooooooah! Impressive.

Yaaaay Maryland Public TV!

I got an email from MPT and they're showing Knit and Crochet Today in October. Yaaaaaay! She doesn't say anything beyond the month of October, but it's a start. Okay Maryland knitters, set your DVRs for Saturdays at 8AM.

***************************************************************

Thank you for watching and supporting MPT!

In response to your inquiry, please note that "Knit and Crochet Today" will debut on Saturday, October 6th at 8AM.

The first episode features felting and the series will continue through October 27th.

Juliana Eagan

Audience/Viewer Services

Maryland Public Television

***************************************************************

I'll be recording them for sure.

On the creativity front, I've been pleased over the past month or so to have five of my photographs requested by editors on Ravelry for official use on patterns and yarns. Geeze. Two of them weren't even that good. I asked the girls to let me get better shots of them. After that I've taken more care about my pictures.

My little bear for the Finding Nemo hat.

The Monsters, Inc guys for my Saartje's bootees

Even photographing my stash was done with a thought to lighting and artful arrangement and sure enough, I got a notice for one of those.

I've always admired the great shots on friends' blogs and maybe some of it rubbed off on me. I wasn't president of my High School Photography Club for nuttin' and Mr G. would shake his head if he saw some of my crap. I'm relying far too much on Picassa to fix my composition blunders. I need to clean out the shelf where I sit most of my projects though.

Just look at some of my pre-crop backgrounds.

EEEeeeek!

Seasick Chemo Cap

I like this one.

After a lot of time and effort, I overcame several personal hurdles and am happy with the end result.

It started with a preemie cap Down by the Seashore - I couldn't get the hang of it. The repeats didn't make sense even after several tries so I gave up and finished it in stockinette. But I liked the pattern dang it and was peeved about being bested by it. In order to see the stitches better, I made appropriate changes to knit an adult sized hat. As chronicled in previous posts here, I persevered and even got great input from a friend at Ravelry and my husband. The final insult came when I discovered I had not two balls of the pink yarn but one.





The resulting yarmulke effect was hiddeous.

Remembering what a good swatcher I had been,

I did some eyeball calculations and frogged out the grey.













Since I saw how unattractive the plain decreases were, I dressed up the crown with a few sets of garter stitch to continue the wave effect.

It's cushy, squishy and oh so soft.

All in all, a fine chemo hat.

But, he doesn't knit

So. Last night I finished another Red Hat Society - No Hair Day chemo hat. They're a quick knit and I needed something mindless the other day.

I cast on the little Down by the Seashore Preemie Hat again. I've been in touch with another knitter at Ravelry who made it. (did I mention that I really like Ravelry?) She is giving me some help with the pattern. The wonderful woman even offered to make another one and donate it to a charity so she could better help me. What an amazing gesture from someone I don't know. I cast on (the third time for this pattern) and was telling Bobby how sweet it was etc, etc. He asked me to explain the problem, which I did.

It's a lace pattern and has a section of stitches that repeat over and over. There is wording in the pattern that confuses me. Now, I've knitted Fair Isle with no trouble. The first row of this puppy reads:

1: p1, *k1, p2. repeat from * around. end p1

After my last repeat of the *pattern* I kept looking for one more stitch to purl. It got even worse later on in the pattern when yarn overs and K3tog came into play.

He got it.

He really did. Oh, he hasn't magically decided to knit and his hands are one with the needles. However the math part was clear to him. He picked up a pad of graph paper and wrote out the numbers 1 - 56 for my cast on stitches. Then he filled in a K or a P underneath to represent each stitch. I could see it. He made a knitting chart on a huge scale. He told me that his next step would have been to tape the ends of the pattern together to make a continuous loop - but I got it without that. Now I can boldly go forth.

This was the revelation: The statement " end p1" simply means the last stitch before the stitch marker should have been a purl. Kinda like a Spell Check. Sheesh!

My husband. I love him.

It's A Major Award!

For anyone who has watched and loved "A Christmas Story" those words can be ominous. Visions of crates from Frajee-lay (must be Italian) come to mind. But when my husband came home from the Borders chanting that and handed me a copy of Simply Knitting, there was more inside the plastic sleeve than a magazine. It seems that each month the editors of the magazine send along a knitting goody. So looky here at what I got. This little flock of sheep tip protectors are three different sizes and easy to tuck into a project bag.


It's a great idea and sparks interest in their magazine - which was loads of fun anyway. Lots of British magazines offer free items such as software or music CDs as incentives. Simply Knitting also had lots of contests, although the copy Bobby picked was a bit ripe and a few had expired. Although many of the ads were for shops I will never get to, the articles were lovely, and well worth keeping. There are lots of patterns for a variety of clothing and other items. A stuffed elephant might have to be made in anticipation of anybodies baby - and just for the cute factor alone.

What fun!

Maybe he'll keep an eye out for other issues for me, wonderful DH that he is.

In other news, I turned in my lavender lace hat at the Mayer Center. It was well received with many oohs and ahhs. Diane also regaled me with the story of my Red Hat Society No Hair Day recipient and her reaction to the hat. I wish I could have seen her in that red convertible with all the fur flying. I'm glad I have plenty of that stuff in my donated stash. I should be able to turn out another for next time.

Meanwhile, I made a little baby hat and am working on booties for a layette to go to the Healthy Families of Howard County at the Kiwanis. The girls get something handmade to bring the babies home in. Miss Betty said sometimes it's the only nice outfit they have. The bootie pattern is Saartje's Bootees and they are all the rage at Ravelry. You can get the pattern from her website Saartje breit (that's Dutch for Saartje knits) I think I'm down to two patterns for the sweater. You know me and my patternophobia. But truthfully, I'm not sure I have enough yarn and it may have to wait until I can pick up some more next week. That baby white just isn't something I have in my stash - of course I already have blue in the hat and shoes so other colors will work also. Both patterns are top down, require almost no seaming and have simple designs. I can like that.

It's fun to be working on something new all the time. I like small projects. Instant gratification. Yeah. After the forever sweater and Veteran's blanket I needed a few quickies.

Hopefully the baby sweater won't take too long - it IS for an infant after all.

The Feminine Touch

I finished my Lace Edged Women's Hat for the Claudia Mayer Center ohhhhh last week some time. I just got around to taking pictures yesterday though. I swear. I am going to get some coaching on the lace thing. I know I'm using a non-breathing yarn (acrylic) because that's what the center wants, but I can see that my painstakingly following the directions didn't get the lace quite right. I know this for sure because I can compare my work to no less than 6 other knitters with pictures of their projects on ravelry.


I hate to sound like a broken record, but seeing how 6 different women knit up the same pattern with 6 different yarns is the biggest reason to sign up for a ravelry account RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

<------- click the shiny blinky ravelry button over there <-------

I'm currently working on the preemie hat. Arrragh. Well, it thinks it is a preemie hat. Once again, my gauge is right, but this thing looks rather large for any preemie I ever took care of in Labor and Delivery or The Nursery. Hrumph! I did wimp out on continuing the lace up the body of the hat. Instead I did a color change. It's very soft and suitably cute. I found a project for booties on ravelry too from Saartje, one of the designers who has her patterns available for download directly from the site. You can see them on the right side of her blog here. She has a newborn and should know a thing or two about what stays on a baby's feet. Besides, I've alway's wanted to use some of the ton of antique buttons from my Mother and Grandmother's button can. I plan to cast these on as soon as the hat is done - they are calling my needles so loudly.

Oh I hear ya. If I ever stop playing with ravelry and this computer long enough to knit anything again, right? Well in 30 minutes I'm off to Sit-n-Knit with K1P2 down at the Lakeside and have dinner with my husband at the concert afterwards while I finish this hat.

Watch me!

Fear of Socks

Why am I sooo afraid of these socks? Last night I started a preemie hat for the Kiwanis Wallis Center and all I could think about was the damn socks. It probably has to do with my whole avoidance issue with my sister right now since the socks are for her. Hmmm. Maybe I should make different socks. That's it! I'll make Jaywalkers or Monkeys or SOMETHING other than my original plan. I've seen so many great patterns on ravelry, I'm sure I can get motivated somewhere to knit something with some kind of pretty string. It's daunting you know. "Her socks are prettier than my socks" "My socks are so plain" "Everyone will laugh at my socks". You get the picture.

Meanwhile, ravelry continues to fascinate me. Just photographing and logging in my inventory is overwhelming, and by no means do I have a lot of stuff. I've seen the stash confessions of the knitters , some of whom I admire from afar. Geez! It's embarrassing to look at my pitiful personal collection. I don't really count the donated yarn, although some of it is nice for acrylic. I like to keep the two separate, and I never use the donated yarn for personal projects. I have expanded out of my original cupboard though :) something I never thought would happen. I blame Maryland Sheep and Wool for that. I HAD to have better storage for the good stuff than wedging all of it into the top shelf. I was worried about damaging the fibers. Gotta protect the investment don'tcha know.

::wink wink, nudge nudge::

Anyway. This morning ravelry won't load. The site must be down for repair. Waaaah! I'm stamping my little knitter's foot and pouting my little knitter's lower lip. After checking about every half hour (oh my, she is obsessed isn't she) I just checked the link by hand entering ravelry.com in the browser window. HUZZAH! My link in my bookmarks works too. Rejoice knitters of the land and lay down thy needles, ravelry is up and running.

Gotta go.

Swearter gets the Checkered Flag

Well, I finished my Swearter on Sunday, you win Nittany Knits. With four laps to go and Jeff Gordon battling for first place I began to cast off my four stitches. I crossed the start/finish before the checkers. Jeff came in second but retained his first place standings for the NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship. Go #24!

I can't turn the lap blanket in until two weeks from now. We won't meet on the Fourth of July for some reason ;) I know the ladies will be proud of me. I picked up some baby yarn last week so I can do a few preemie hats. I need some instant gratification. Baby yarn isn't something I got in all the donated yarn my bag o'yarn stash from columbiafreecycle. I chose some soft, silky, shiny white partial balls leaving the whole skeins for the blanket and sweater makers. I really do like this mindless pattern though. It begins each row with a simple 4-5 stitch pattern and then it's k,k,k,k. It's knit on the diagonal and increases each row until the middle of your available yarn or when you've reached you're desired length. Then you start to decrease until you reach the other side. Brilliant! It's great for Thursday nights down at the Lakeside. A pretty eyelet forms around the edge and Miss Mary tells me she threads a ribbon through it for her baby blankets. Maybe a baby blanket the next time, they do get a fair amount of pastel at the Senior Center and I do need something mindless when I talk..

In other news, I am sad to announce my retirement from knitting. ravelry is so much fun and time consuming that I have decided to give up knitting and concentrate on the world surrounding knitting. I feel really fortunate to have the account. It's like manna from heaven. When I got the invite from frecklegirl (one of the originators) I was excited. It wasn't until I began to explore the site that I got so amazed. From the site 10 days ago:

We are up to 3063 users, 682 unclaimed invitations, and 7303 people on the waiting list.

Geez! I'm more in awe than ever. I was reading in the forums today and realized something. They only started the site nine weeks ago on May 2,2007. Nine weeks ago! These people live in our heads. It has everything I've been thinking about for organizing my knitting and more, so throw away your little books and spreadsheets. They do have plans to tweak several areas like the needle inventory. It's still in Beta testing after all. But there is a forum dedicated to working out any kinks. Turns out Firefox is the browser of choice so I'm in the pink as far as that is concerned. They had no idea it would fly off the needles like that.

Huzzah! Revel in ravelry!

I've been busy exploring the site (screenshots here), entering data about my projects, FINDING the data for my projects, taking pictures of my stash to enter, gathering data about my needles . . . the list goes on ad nauseum. Seriously, no knitting for two days. Haven't looked at the needles or fondled the Austermann yarn now that the Swearter is done.

So go! Get in line. It's only going to get longer. I'm tinkknitz there too and you'll see Javagem, KnitGlit, StormMoonKnits and GiantsKnitter too. There are others I recognize and designers too. C'mon over to the dark side.

I only hope I can keep up. Back to ravelry now . . .

Ravelry

Oooo Oooo Oooo! I just got my invitation and logged in.