Got Your Back

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Two and a half inches left on the back. I've been trying to decide how to do the sleeves, not so much mechanics but colors. Red? Black? White? Stripes? The style of the sweater is a tunic, thus long. But I think this one may be too long.... I'll have to wait till I get it all put together to know for sure, though. I may end up frogging the bottom and adding ribbing or something instead of the garter stitch that's presently there. I just think it's gonna hang to his knees at this point.

Youngest Granddaughter will be starting pre-school, special ed, perhaps as early as next week. We had her final meeting for interpretation of her assessment and development of her Individualized Education Program (IEP) yesterday. All her physical activities are good, her comprehension is above average, but she has a significant speech delay. She will be going to the same school as my "more" autistic grandson went to, with the same teacher and same speech therapist. My son has nothing to say but wonderful things about both of them.

She will also get to ride the bus, which will be quite an experience for a three year old. They have a special pre-school bus with shoulder restraints, seatbelts, etc. It will take a couple weeks before the bus starts, so I'll be racing from one side of town to the other (fortunately against the morning traffic) to get her to school. I think that's a good thing as she'll only have to transition to one new experience at a time. First school, then the bus.

We are excited about preschool as she has made such super progress since she started with her current speech therapist that our thoughts are that she will be ready to go to the Montessori school her sister goes to when she's ready to transition into Kindergarten.

Another upside for the race across town, is after dropping her off, I'll have two hours till she needs to be picked up. And I'll only be about 15 minutes away from my BFF, F. So I can go have coffee with him in the mornings till it's time to pick her up!

DBS Blanket Finished

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Details:
Pattern: Diagonal Box Stitch
Hook: H
Yarn: Spundola Harvest Ombre
Start: Sept 14
Finish Sept 18

Remember this cheerful face? I started the sweater last December for a February birthday. That grandson moved to Hawaii where I seriously doubted he'd need such a sweater. It got put on hold till the October birthday of another grandson. When I dug Jolly Roger out of hiding, the front was finished and about three inches on the back. Working on it all day added about nine more inches of the total 20 I need. Then the sleeves. I'm just trying to decide if I want to do the sleeves flat or in the round, one at a time or two at a time....I'm using the Weasley Sweater as my basic pattern. I've made it before and it's a nice simple, big sweater. The inspiration and Roger's head comes from the Piraten-Pulli pattern. (Ravelry link.)

Of Troy has everything you wanted to know about cast ons but were terrified to ask....

When stressed, CO!

Jolly Roger is in Davey Jones' Locker for now. He'll be rescued later for another grandson's October birthday. This is a tank top made of Gong, a nice cotton yarn. I'm using needles a bit bigger than necessary so it's nice and airy to be cool in the Hawaiian humidity. Youngest Son picked the sea and sand colors.

I CO another relatively mindless project. An arm cover for Eldest Son's wheel chair. His right arm is pretty useless and rests on the plastic arm of his chair, which results in a rash. This cotton cover should eliminate that for him. I'll make another MN Vikings color one for him in the fall when football season is in full bloom.



I finished up the second sock for my first pair of Heet the Feet. See those cute little slippers over to the right? Ann is have a KAL to make them. They are rather neat, don't you think? Oh, and there is a contest for the, well, here's what Ann said: Send me a photo of your Very Best Pair of Foot Covers. They can be hand made or purchased, but only one entry per person, so photograph the cutest, or wildest, or funniest, or funnest. (Send to the photo to amcmanus@ptd.net with Heet The Feet Entry in the subject line.) It'll be a People's Choice award.

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Flat Feet Sock Yarn! <-- be careful of this link. It takes loads of time to load and then doesn't work well. SpinOff (I think.. or was it Piecework?) a few years ago and I thought it would be so much fun. However, alas, I don't have a knitting machine and there isn't one in my future, either. And I'm certainly NOT going to hand knit 200+ yards of sock yarn only to re-knit it into socks after I dye it.

Check out this crocheted donut pin cushion. I think it's cute than the cupcake ones I've seen!

And how about these really cool strawberries!

Monday Blues

I didn't get a whole log accomplished on the second Waterloose sock. Now, don't get me wrong, I knitted all day.... and if I had all the sts I frogged..... the sock would be ready for the heel flap. My glory in being able to knit a lace sock has all diminished and I'm back to the knit six rows, frog five...When I do the pattern row..with all the yos and K2togs my count comes out fine. When I do the next pattern row, with five rows of st st between, the count is all wrong, I have to frog back to the previous pattern row and do it again. Then I get ten rows done and have to frog back again to the last pattern row, redo it and continue. I don't understand.... I'm determined to finish these, though, so I will persevere!

Now for the Jolly Roger.... I just found out this morning my daughter is sending my grandsons (7 and 9) to Hawaii to live with their father. As she hasn't spoken to me in several years now, I don't know if it's permanent, where she will be living or any other details. I do know he won't be able to wear the Jolly Roger sweater in Hawaii so it'll go on hold till later in the year and I'll finish it up for my other grandson who lives here. His birthday is in October and he'll be able to wear it.... I asked on the Knitlist about knits in Hawaii. 66% of the answers were, "Don't bother" to "Light cotton or linen shirts." No socks needed. Silk would probably be good, but I'm not knitting silk for a 7 year old! I'm open to suggestions! I suppose I could learn to knit toys...

I'll see what kind of brain dead knitting I can do today till I recover from the shock of not knowing if I'll ever see my grandsons again or not....

Worked Hard!

I finished up the first Waterloose sock as far as I'm willing to knit until it gets tried on (which won't be until I go to TN in March). In fact, I'll probably have to unknit a bit from this sock onto the other. I weighed the remaining yarn and I've used 6 gms too much on the first sock. I have no idea how long six grams are, :) but we'll see if it's enough to make a difference once the second sock, which is CO and the cuff is finished gets down towards the toe.


What a sense of accomplishment!


I also finished up sock #1 for Heet the Feet (link for more info over there ----> ) The next step on the second sock is turning the heel, so that one should be finished up in short order. Then on to the next pair!


And I'm proud to announce, the front of the Jolly Roger is finished. This pic is right before I did the neck shaping. Arggggggg! Will CO and start the back today. I think....

I feel much better about my progress on accomplishing my goals for the Gift-Along. (More info over there -----> )

Another adorable baby sweater! If I had lots of money....or even some money.... Someday I'm going to make a sock monkey. And a Dalek! Extermiknit! Extermiknit! What a cute Skull Sweater!

A Cowboy’s Wife is having a contest on her food blog! You can win a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer and she’ll ship anywhere so everyone is eligible!

FO

I joined a Knit-A-Long (KAL) to get next years' gifts done in an organized manner. The rules state that a current list of five projects is published and then regular updates on how it's going. I made my list yesterday morning and have already finished one project. I wanted to take at least one gift with me when I go to visit my son in March. So I made some fulled kitchen stuff...hot pads, and a cover for a skillet handle. The round hot pad and handle cover are crocheted. That's why I was able to finish it so quickly. I want to get some blue dye for them, though. Their kitchen is in blues and I just don't think the pink and purple makes it!

One of the nice things about making my gift list up now is it's fun looking through all the pattern sources for ideas of what to make. I do enjoy looking at other people's finished projects and seeing the changes they've made to the patterns, what it looks like in other than the recommended yarns, colors, etc.


I was able to work on the Jolly Roger for awhile last night while watching The Karate Kid and Hook with my granddaughters. It's moving along quite nicely. I'm sure my grandson will be tickled with it!

Book of Secrets

What a fun movie! I thought it was easily as good as the first National Treasure. I love movies where the boy(s) get the girl(s), the good guy wins, the bad guy has a turn of heart and is filmed in great locations in the world, the best, of course, being near where I was born, the Black Hills of South Dakota. If you're looking for some great entertainment that the whole family can enjoy, this is it!


Worked a bit on my Jolly Roger sweater for one of my grandsons. Those are the bottom on the crossed bones on the sides and the lower jaw (minus a few teeth) in the center. This is what I'm aiming for. The pattern is in German, so the only thing I have to go on is the picture and the chart. That's okay, though. I'm using the Harry Potter sweater in Charmed Knits as the basic pattern. It's the same pattern I used to make another sweater so I don't have to worry about construction issues. This is only my second "normal" sweater. I've done some simplistic ones, and an EZ based one in the round. Because of the colorwork, I'm doing this one flat so I'll get lots of seaming practice!

I did some work on the Tomten, too. I'm listening to the most recent book in the Alex Cross series by James Patterson, Double Cross. The Tomten is better to knit (row after row of garter stitch) while listening to this as I really don't want to miss a word of it!

Freezing Cold

It froze last night. And it's still below freezing outside according to the little icon on my computer. I think we may have lost our citrus fruit.... And I didn't get one grapefruit off the tree this year. (For those of you that live in the north and wonder what the big deal is about freezing, we rarely get that cold here in the southwestern deserts.)

I took this picture of the lemon tree that's outside the kitchen window. It's so heavy with fruit it almost blocks the view of the ugly concrete wall! The grapefruit tree is the trunk you can see at the bottom right corner.

I started a sweater for one of my grands. If you remember from last February, he's into pirates. I wanted to make this sweater last year but didn't know how. Now I do! As you can see, the language barrier would have stopped me last year, too, but now having a basic idea of how to construct a sweater, and with my trusty pattern from Charmed Knits I can improvise. I sat watching Season 2 of Doctor Who and knit all those rows of black without a hitch. In fact, not paying attention to my knitting really kept my tension nice and even!

Now I need to put down the sweater and start the other Skully Sock! Christmas is just a few days away!

For those of you that have finished all your holiday knitting, here's a pattern for paper snowflakes...so you can make the nice six pointed ones. They really are very easy, once you know how to fold the paper!