Lizard Ridge Progress

These little Lizard Ridge squares can be fast and addictive, like knitting dishcloths. I finished the old one I had started months ago, and now I am done with almost two more.

Pattern: Lizard Ridge

Yarn: Universal Yarns Poems Colorways 553, 556, & 564
Source: Yarns Forever
Needle: Size 9 Bamboo 24" circs

I estimate that I have about 1/3 to 1/4 of a skein left after one is knit. I hope to save some money by combining the remnants to make some more squares. Heck, it would even be neat to join different colorways together. It would probably pull the look of the blanket together even more, since the colorways are not quite as similar as Noro Kuryeon's.

Thank you for all of the comments on the clapotis! To answer some viewer mail in summary format:

• Yes, I find the four play to be lightweight. I think as lightweight as wool and silk blend can be. It has good stitch definition and a nice sheen. And I can wear it around the house wrapped around my neck like a scarf, and it does not bother me or weigh me down at all. Come to think of it, it might be lighter than my four other shawls....none of which are fine lace by the way.


• It took 3 skeins of four play. It is 80" by 12.5". That measurement may have it stretched a little bit, and I think my gage could have stood to be a bit tighter than it was with the yarn. In order to not show my woven in ends...I think they peeked through sometimes to the other side, since the yarn is variegated and the gage loose.


• I *would* do another one in four play. The end result is very pretty and comfortable to wear. However, I will probably do another one, but I might do it in the original or a different yarn, just to have and try something different.

I am thinking of doing a mini clap for summer. Does anyone have any recommendations for a lightweight yarn to do it in? Other than bamboo.

The Clapotis is done!

My Clappy is finished! Yay! Thanks to Dena at Brooks Farm, I had the courage to soldier on and finish! She went home and took pictures of her own Clapotis knitted in Four Play to show me where she had joined on her third skein. And since it looked as though I joined mine at about the same place, I proceeded. There were a few times last night where I looked at the shrinking ball of yarn with some doubt. But I finished it this morning and wove in the ends while watching Season 6 of the Sopranos on cable on demand. (Gotta love watching HBO series on demand. Somehow I fell way behind in my Sopranos. I think it was because of work.)

I want to thank Dena for taking the time to email back and forth with me SEVERAL times. It was really nice of her. It took awhile for her to respond to me because she thought she had already responded to my request. Trust me, I understand that. I used to work a job where I received at a minimum 50 emails a day (that does not include all the phone calls and internet chat requests too). And many were repetitive chains of replies between large groups of people. It gets overwhelming and one tends to get the kind of dementia where you swear you responded to an email, but you probably only did it in your dreams! (It is the kind of work situation where the only time you are not working, you are sleeping. Never again....)

SP10 Hostess Robyn (that is with a y, not an i, remember!) posted the latest contest:
Post a picture to your blog before the 15th showing me either your fave pattern ever knitted by you - or your most hated project that once you finished it - you absolutely wondered "Why the heck did I knit this". Want a challenge? Post both!

Honestly, can I include projects I hated so much that I NEVER finished them? I nominate my Einstein coat. I have not doubt it is a clever pattern, but I don't have the patience for miles of garter stitch. I am a true knitting crazy who craves challenge! In every project. I still have all the yarn, which I will use for some other sweater. Maybe I will turn what I have finished so far into a pillow.

I love alot of projects. But I think I will nominate the Clapotis because it was fast, interesting enough, but simple enough to breeze through it while at knitting groups or while watching TV. It is a good pattern that everyone from beginning to experienced knitters would enjoy.

I also think the Kittyville hats from SnB are fun. But I don't have any pictures of the two that I made from my brother and niece. That project teaches alot: Icords, knitting in the round on circs and dpns, and picking up stitches to attach earflaps and kitten ears.

Regarding my rant: Thanks for all the responses! I love the comments on being a "full-time mom" or "part-time XXX"...that is so true! And I have seen from my brother how much a new baby can absorb so much time! It is totally full-time, no matter whether you work or not. In fact, I had partially read a book (partially becaues it was a library book) that had researched the mommy wars. And you know what, it seems that the one conclusion I found is that we do it to ourselves. One side judges the other for working and being negligent, the other for staying home and being narrow-minded. Stereotypes are made and names called. Honestly, it is silly. I think we should just celebrate the fact that in 2007, women get to make choices either way. Or understand that others may have to work and don't have a choice. But we need to realize that OUR choice may not be the right choice for EVERYONE. And have empathy and compassion for mommies on all sides. :)

I have no doubt my neighbor did not mean to imply it directly. It just reminded me of others who do. I will say that I have noticed that she is a very proud woman...she recently had knee surgery, and her husband died last summer. I do my best to try to help her, offering to help her plant flowers and even pull weeds for her. But she refuses help. She is a very active and self-reliant woman. I guess I just have to wait on what else I can do.

And joke of all jokes: I am now on my HOA board. No one else would fill the offices. So I am secretary. For two years. I told my husband, now he really owes me because he skipped the meeting, and now I am on the board. Anyway, I am trying to look at it as a learning experience. And I am serving with two older gentlemen, who seem to be nice people so I was more willing to do it. We are a brand new community, so there is alot of work to do. Should be a laugh riot. :P

I have finished one block on Lizard Ridge finally. I will try to post pictures later.

Sad, sad times...

I finally did hear back from Brooks Farm today. They do not have any more of my dyelot. C'est la vie. They do so many shows, I knew not to hope. My choices are:
1. Continue knitting and pray I have enough yarn. Then frog if needed as described in step 2.
2. Try on garment, mark where I can eliminate extra middle section repeats. Go ahead and frog and rip back middle section repeats. Pick up dropped stitches and rock on.

Husband is an advocate to #1. If I do #2, I would probably want his help on marking the garment with stitch markers anyway. I think I will think about this and wait until tonight.

Inside Out sockie is progressing. I have to go to a stinkin' homeowners association meeting tonight, and I swore to DH that I am bringing my sock with me, I don't care what people say. Because we all know that I will be stuck there for hours in some uncomfortable folding chair, hoping to successfully fight the desire to self-lobotimize with my DPNs. I will have flashbacks to high school where I fought that same urge, only with pencils. Ugh. My neighbor (bless her heart) is trying to get me to run for the board because of my numbers background. I say nay. I have enough drama in my life. I made some excuse about needing to take more classes to get ready for graduate school (partly true) and that I am working on some business ideas (partly true too). I do not need to serve on the board with my neighbors whose dog keeps pooing in my yard and they never pick it up, etc., etc.. Okay, enough with that but you get the idea. I don't want to be a slave to people who are miserable and petty. If I wanted that, I would still be working as an FA in some silly pressure cooker company.

Oh, and a warning, the next statement may offend some: The assumption that a person who does not work a "regular" job and who does not have kids has all the time in the world to take on all the other crap in the world that others do not want to do annoys the crud out of me. And that I don't have enough other very important stuff going on that I am really into. I can draw two parallel situations, one of which I have been in:

1. The single person working for a company gets asked to work through holiday vacation plans, nights, weekends for any emergency that comes up because your personal time is not as valuable as those who are married (with or without kids). This applies no matter how many years of experience you have and where you are in the pecking order.

2. Mothers with children who get asked to take on all sorts of stuff at school, church, whatever (whether they work or not). Because it is assumed they "wouldn't mind" helping out, or taking on just a few more kids other than your own for an afternoon. As if you have a ton of free time yourself. (I've seen this happen to my mom and friends.)

Enough said. (You can feel free to submit your own rants on the same topic to me. I will appreciate all views.)

The Project Spectrum colors for the next two months are:
April / May: Green, Yellow, Pink
And Sundara's Bird of Paradise Yarn fits perfectly. Only I am not on gage. So I will have to frog back and start again. On socks, you can see a trend. I love to live dangerously and check gage as I knit. :)

The weather is supposed to dip much colder the next few days. I am not happy about that, but I knew it was a possibility. I just planted some dahlias, daisies, daylillies, basil and impatiens. The dahlias, daisies and basil are in pots and can be brought into the garage for refuge. The daylillies should be okay. I only planted two impatiens, so no biggie. But still. I knew I was living dangerously, but I don't want to wait till next month to plant in that heat.

And now for some viewer mail:

Beverly said...
" Not only do you have a lot of gardners in your guild, there are several master gardeners. I was definitely impressed."

I agree. I am going to go to the garden organizations with some of them. I am going to see if I want to go through the master gardener program myself or not. Growing up where I did in Alaska, the soil is so rich all you have to do is plant something and fertilize it. Here, it is much tougher and I feel I could stand to learn alot more. I also have friends and family who will think I have lost my mind undertaking such a thing; they will think I am wasting my time. I don't care. I defy stereotypes and expectations all the time as it is. :) And I have always had a natural green thumb, even for a city girl. There are also some other areas of interest I am going to pursue this year as well, but I am keeping those to myself. :)

I am ready to cry...(again)

I am finally on the third section of my clapotis! But last night I figured out that I am going to run out of yarn before I finish. I know you know how devastating this could be. Who knows if I can even get more yarn. I suspect that it is a nonrepeatable colorway that I purchased from Brooks Farm at SAFF. (Yes, I have already emailed them to ask. But my hopes are not high. I have also tried googling, but have not found anyone else with it.) Who really wants to frog back and reduce the number of middle repeats? (Not you. Not me.) When I bought it, their display said 3 skeins was enough. Since then, I have read that people may need more yardage than what the pattern calls for. (Oh no. I wish I had known that earlier. But I came to the Clapotis bandwagon late.) Oh well, if I really have to, I will frog back.

Meanwhile, I am stuck at home being all "shroomy." That is short for mushroomy. It is a gorgeous weekend in the low 80s, and I am inside watching movies and slathering on facial creams and sunblock. Why? I had to get a skin treatment for my melasma which leaves my skin VERY sensitive to sun exposure. Which will require that I wear tons of sunblock and big floppy hats for two months. I figure I will be well enough in time for Marlyand Sheep and Wool (MSW). I am also trying to figure out how to get started on my vegetable pot garden. I suspect I will be in my garage with the door down prepping all the pots and letting my husband drag them outside for me. Ladies, the lengths we go to in order to be gorgeous. Of course, I would rather be hiking, but DH LOVES LOVES LOVES the fact that I just want to sit around inside and watch movies, his favorite weekend pasttime.

I guess I can finally work on the socks I have been putting off...trying to forget about my clapotis heartbreak. :(

Ooh...an even better idea is to start my dream swatch scarf. I need to look glamorous this summer. :) Under my big floppy hats and sunglasses.

I hope all of my friends are having fun in TN at the "other" Southeastern Fiber Fair.

Now for some (obligatory) knitting content....

Just kidding. My posts are almost all knitting related. But in order to fulfill SP10 hostess request, I am now going to write about my favorite knitting accessory...

I am pretty darn low maintenance. I don't use fancy counters or gadgets very often. About the only things I use are crochet hooks, chibi needles, scissors, cable needles, and plain plastic stitch markers. I don't like heavy and very dangly stitch markers. A swap pal (see below) just sent some nice, small, single bead stitch markers for making socks with so that is an exception. I will say about the neatest thing I have bought and am actually using in terms of a knitting accessory is the Knit Picks magnetic chart board. It folds in half and closes on itself to protect your charts while travelling, the magnets ACTUALLY stick to the board (unlike another board I have purchased), and it can be folded in a way that it props itself up. It is a much better buy at $10 than the plain magnetic boards I have seen selling for $6-$7. So I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to follow a chart or carry their knitting patterns around in a protected way.

My "April Fools The Jokes on You" swap pal Cindi in Orlando sent me a kickin' swap package. Ooh, sorry, I forgot to include the mug and candy in the picture. Anyway, it included a Mountain Colors sock pattern and Joslyn's Fiber Farm sock yarn in Mocaw colorway. I was thinking this morning that the sock yarn has orange and blue in it, the UF gator colors, so I will definitely be able to use this sock yarn. In fact, DH will love it as he is the gator. Somehow she knew I was another chocolate and coffee nut. I guess we all can just sense each other.

And the alpaca yarn from my mom has finally made its way down from Alaska. She told me to tell her what to buy more of....since my mom has already claimed the brown for herself, I am thinking that I need more brown for me! Now I just need to go sit down and figure out how much more of each color that I want.

Now I know you all are jealous of my alpaca yarn. Especially the brown and black.

And I purchased some bamboo yarn to make the Dream Swatch. I love the colors in this yarn, much more brilliant than even those in SWTC's bamboo. So, even though it looks a bit splitty, I will throw myself into using this yarn by sacrificing my sanity to the splittiness just to get cool colors! I really wanted the original yarn used in the pattern because I love and wear those colors, but I have no such luck. So I think this is a fairly good compromise!

Pattern (to be used): Dream Swatch

Yarn: Madil Eden Pring Color 039
Source: Rebelle
Needle: TBD

I went to a really cool little yarn shop right off of the UK campus in Lexington called ReBelle. They carried quite a few sock yarns, and quite a bit of alternative yarns (corn, soy, bamboo, etc..) and many colors of malabrigo. I was so jonesin' for the malabrigo, as they had colors that I cannot get locally. But I held off. I really want to save SOME money to go to Maryland Sheep and Wool. Anyway, I knew I was home when the girl behind the counter sat there, quietly working in frustration on her socks! Thank goodness they had late hours on Wednesday, the day we drove in. Because I did not have any other time on this trip to go yarn shopping. Boohoo! So, ReBelle, you were my salvation! :)

I also did not get much knitting done, but I have been driving to the hoop on my goal to finish my Clapotis. I only have one more repeat in the middle section! And then I get to start decreasing! I am so excited. I will post pictures later this week.

So sorry, but I am making progress

Sorry I have not posted in quite a few days. I said in my last posts that I was going to work hard on my socks. Well...not so much. I decided to take a break on the socks because I felt tired of working on my Cedar Creek ones. Instead, I frogged back on my Clapotis a few rows, and have gotten quite a bit done on it in the last week. I am now halfway through Section 3! Yay!

I plan on getting alot of sock and Clapotis knitting done later this week!

I also wanted to share a tiny picture of my applique, since that has been detracting some from the knitting, but not much. Fortunately, the applique class is over, so now I can do it on my own time schedule.

When I get further along, I can share some ruched flowers and other flowers!

Yarn P0rn Friday and Loppyness

See Yarngineer's hand.

See Lisa Souza Sock! Merino.
See Yarngineer's hand pet the pretty Sock! Merino.
Isn't it just lovely? The color is GingerPeach. This is the yarn that Lisa Souza comp'd me since I had problems with the burgandy Sock! yarn bleeding onto my hands and needles. I have been hauling this skein around like a tribble, taking it out for my friends to pet it like yarn p0rn.


I believe I have made a mistake in my Clapotis. Not a major one....I just must have been hallucinating due to improper caffeination of my cardiovascular system, thinking that I had place in stitch markers in my last Second Section repeat. Alas, no. The total number of stitches is correct, but maybe lopsided in distribution between the two ends of the piece. So, I will frog back a few rows and try to handle by business better.




I have also completed the heel flap for my first Cedar Creek. Isn't it beautiful? I love how the color has a sort of checker effect, due to alternating slips, knits and purls between the two sides of the work. I had started the heel, but frogie-olahed back again, because I was lopsided on the two sides as to the # of unworked stitches.

Wait, I see a trend of lopsidedness here. The need to drink more coffee and be more strict about my counting of the pattern! Well, I better skeedaddle if I am going to make it to the Lizard Ridge KAL.

What a great weekend....

The SC Knitting Guild's Knit In was a success. It seems the classes were well run (I missed mine..boohoo), and people had a great time. It is nice to see things return to normal. I got to meet great people, including Fiberitis and her mom. I also got to meet another civil engineer attending grad school at Clemson who knits. It is fun to meet people from other towns who come all the way to Greenville to join in the fun....and who aren't scared away by the wacky antics of some of our guildmembers (you special people know who you are).

I made further progress on my Clapotis. I am still on the second section, but only have two more rows until I am in the third section. Sorry, I can't get my circ to not bend.

I completed one of my knitting resolutions! Well, it is not completed, but an ongoing process. I started to learn to crochet, thanks to a good friend who travelled back to SC from FL just to see her friends at the Knit In. We miss you Sandy! It is the head for a little amigurumi birdie.
Yeah, it is a little mishapen, but I can fix that with stuffing. I am already pretty fast at single chain crochet.

My Sockentine Pal's socks are finally done blocking. I will try to mail out the box tomorrow. I need to at least post this on LnV sock marathon site before I forget.

What is wrong with me? I have no will power to resist sock yarn and such. Here is what I bought this weekend.

The Universal Yarns Poems is exactly like Noro Kureyon, only softer and it comes in pastel colors. This will be used for my Lizard Ridge throw KAL and I bought it at Yarns Forever. The Lang Jawoll Sock Yarn is in University of Texas Burnt Orange, khaki, red and black and white. So it combines all of my school colors for Cornell and UT Austin. Yay! Guessin' them socks are for me. I also bought a Interlacements beaded scarf kit to make for my MIL's birthday. I will try to post a picture later, because for now I am worn out running around taking pictures of everything!