Heart Hat

I knit this hat from Knitgrrl, it's the Heartfelt roll-brim hat, knit in Malabrigo, quickly becoming my favorite yarn, the color is called Buscando Azul (searching blue in Spanish), I cast on right after Thanksgiving dinner & finished the next morning. I knit it for my baby, and she loves it! My only beef with the pattern is she tells you to cast on 80 stitches, then gives you a pattern with a 12 repeat, huh?! And I swear, there is nowhere in the pattern where you M1 or anything, so of course I just M1 every 20 stitches in the second to last row of knitting, then followed the pattern. I am suprised that I haven't seen anything about errata anywhere, maybe I'm just not getting something. Anyhow, I'm also knitting this same hat in Lamb's Pride Worsted in Periwinkle for my middle child.

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Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/68299643@N00/.

Kimono

Correction: I'm an idiot, this sweater was knit on size 5's, I misread the directions, but the nice lady at CME knit, who knit a beautiful version of this sweater, pointed out my error to me. Now for sure I will knit this sweater, and you all should too!
I want to knit this so bad! I think this is the coolest sweater I have ever seen, truly I love it, but size 1 needles? For a whole sweater? I would want to stab myself with the size 1s before I finished the sleeves! I know me & I can't do it! There's another great picture of this pattern here. It's called the Tataki Kimono Sweater & you can purchase it here if you have more patience than me, which no doubt you do. In other news, I had my whole family here this weekend for the first of the two Thanksgiving Dinners that we have, one when my sister, who has a demanding job and lives in Baltimore can make it, and one on the regular Thanksgiving. We can't combine the two because my husband always goes hunting the weekend before Thanksgiving. So anyway, it was a full house, I picked up the turkey at the local poultry store & ordered my Thanksgiving turkey at the same time, the counter guy said "what, is this a practice turkey?" Then my sisters hung out w/ me for a while, which was great, except for the unsolicited child-rearing advice that I regularly get from my unmarried, childless sister. I know she'll be pissed that I said that, but so what, it's my blog!

Progress

So I started knitting approximately a year ago. I don't know what inspired me to take it up, I was at Michael's with my kids and I bought a skein of Lion Brand Homespun and knit the scarf (garter back and forth) pictured here. It's misshapen and lame, but I was so happy at the time to finish it. My mom helped me figure out how to cast on, then I checked out Stitch & Bitch from the library and taught myself to knit and bind off. I could not figure out how to purl until I looked it up in at least 3 different books. I am still such a knitting newbie, but I learn so much from my beloved Group and various internet sites and blogs. So here is how far I've come in a year, I'm knitting the Irish Hiking Scarf in Malabrigo, color Frank Ochre, it's soft, I love it, I love knitting cables (just taught myself 2 weeks ago) and I can't wait to see what I'm working on a year from now.

Fetching II

So I finished my second fetching mitt, but not before I finished my cashmerino aran! I ran out of yarn, but haven't knit the thumb yet, drats! I noticed that the fetching author did update the pattern to say 1-2 balls (from the original 1) but I had printed out the pattern before the update. So I have a thumbless mitt. Also, notice that the second one is noticeably smaller than the first, I guess this is a common problem amongst mitten knitters. I nearly unravelled the first mitt in order to reknit & and use the leftovers for the thumb, but cooler heads prevailed, i.e. my 11 year old who said "Mom, just go to the yarn store and buy another ball of that yarn." Well duh, then she added "they're on different hands so no one can tell one is bigger." Double duh, and hey I'm always up for a trip to the yarn store, so I guess I'll just do that. Plus, I unravelled another sock that I started this weekend, like a nut I cast on 72 stitches, instead of the usual 64, and after knitting 4 or 5 inches I tried it on and it was too big! I am cursed to never knit a sock, I frog them every time, thus my name, Sisyphus Knits.

Fetching

Ok, I'm kinda proud here. I knit one of the fetching mitts this weekend. It was my first time using cable cast on, my first time knitting cables, my first time using picot bind off, and yes, my first time successfully knitting on dpns. Every other time I knit inside out on dpns, and in fact when I picked up the stitches for the thumb, I knit it inside out, TWICE, but then after I went to bed last night, I was laying there thinking about it and lightbulb, I realized I was knitting the thumb the wrong way, I got up, finished the thumb, and just felt so relieved that I figured it out. Sorry for the crappy picture, I had an artistic one set in my mind, but I'm never at home during daylight anymore. Amy, if you're reading this, see my middle finger & how wrong it looks, I hurt it in JUNE, I have been going to hand therapy for months, and it is still messed up, today the therapist suggested I see a hand surgeon because she thinks I messed up the volar plate, your job is to figure out what that means and tell me when you visit in two weeks. That is all.