Knitting and Potato Soup

I spent the day with F yesterday. We knit and talked and knit and had his wonderful home made Potato Leek Soup (Cock-a-Leekie). Everything was wonderful! :) I finished one more Heet the Feet slipper and got the sole done on a second. We struggled to figure out how to add the collar/placket to his Kyle sweater. The placket is too short and we can't figure out how to sew it in...where to keep the seam straight and where to start easing it. There is so much to ease I'm thinking it'll bunch on such a stretchy fabric. Or he could just the knit a couple more inches and we don't bother easing it... It's supposed to lie flat according to the picture....

And we tackled the shawl question I posed yesterday...how to lengthen my shawl without adding any more width. The pattern has a increase on each end of the shawl width and two increases at the tip. So we decided if I quit increasing at each end and just did the increases at the tip, it should lengthen without adding width. We'll see....

I'm getting the urge to start a new project. Hmmm I could spin today and that would keep me from having one project OTN.I have some gorgeous Black and White Ramboullet I bought quite awhile ago that I've been meaning to work on. I have 16 ounces which is enough for a pair of mittens and a hat..... or maybe something else if I combine the spun yarn with another yarn.... Don't need to worry about that now, it'll take awhile to spin it all.

Shawls and Socks

I have been working on my Feather & Fan Comfort Shawl in the evenings. Thought I'd share a ketchup pic with you. Again, this is just half the shawl from center to end. Which creates the question: How big is a triangle shawl supposed to be? What's the average length from neck to point and from side to side. This one is now four feet from side to side (along the longest edge of the triangle) and 18 inches from back of the neck to tip (down the row of YO eyelets you can see on the right hand side of the pic). If I make it long enough to cover my ample bottom, I'm guessing the long side will be about 8 feet from to make the neck to tip measurement 3 feet. Does seem a bit much.... Yes it would be warm, but 8 feet... I'm just over 5 feet tall, so if the shawl is up to my neck in back, draping over my shoulders it'll be somewhere between my knees and ankles...

Can one add more to the point without adding width? If I make it shorter it'll be like this big arrow pointing down to my bottom which I'd really rather not draw attention to. The final answer of course might be that I just never wear it out of the house, but what fun is that?

Did some work on some socks yesterday, too. Remember my Mickey Mouse Socks I worked on while I was at Disneyland in Oct/Nov? Well I pulled it out of the mouse hole and started working on it. Got the heel decreases done and am working on the foot of the sock.

And I got the heel flap done on my DIL's 2nd Waterloose Socks. I'll turn the heel and begin the decreases today. The first sock is still attached to the ball of yarn I'm using on the second sock. I'll work until both socks are even, knitting off the first sock if I have to. Then I'll put them away until I go to Tennessee. At that point DIL can try them on so I'm sure they fit.

The Year of the Frog

Remember when I said I was scared that creating something that had to be frogged on New Year's Eve was setting a trend for 2008....I may have spoken/written the words of doom.


I decided to CO the pair of socks I need to make for DILs birthday. Found a pattern I like (it has a lace pattern which I'm bound and determined to do this year). I CO with some contrasting hand dyed Knit Picks sock yarn, made the two inch cuff (have I ever told you how much I HATE ribbing?) switched to the Opal and got an inch of the pattern done and realized the pattern called for DK weight yarn. :::heavy sigh::: Frog, frog, frog.

CO again, adjusting the size for the sock weight yarn, and got the cuff done before going up for bed. Then I sat up there and frogged the errors I'd made New Year's Eve and redid all that knitting.
This is just one side of the triangular shawl. If you follow the blue stripe to the top of the pic, you can see the column of eyelets that is the center of the shawl. It's a stash buster and is nicely using up lots of left over yarn. I'm thinking I might find some beads and add them to one of the repeats. I've never done beads in knitting. This would be a good project to learn the technique.

I made two pairs of adult sized fulled clogs for Christmas, a pair of fulled boots for F and he'd made me a pair of clogs. I worried about them wearing out and then found this in one of the blogs about resoling. One could knit a sole, full it and then sew it on, too. But recycling sweaters seems like a good idea, too.

I found this sweater pattern. Isn't it cute? I put it on my list of 2008 gifts. I think it'll be fun to make for youngest grandson. I can see the value of at least two panels for the front! One to match the sweater and one to act as a bib!

I had a really nice New Year's Day despite the frog taking up residence. Youngest Daughter and grand daughters were gone for the whole day and Youngest Son was involved with his video games. I sat and knitted (and frogged) while listening to a new book I downloaded: The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen. Really a good mystery involving Oliver Wendall Holmes as a young man. I think I may have found a new author!