Yippee!! They are done

The Big Black (Boring) Socks are done! I can't even remember when I started them, but I kept on them and I have finished. I did have to force myself to take them with me so that any time I wanted to knit while I was out and about that is what I should work on, and it paid off! And best yet, my Hubby will have nice warm toes for the winter. He desperately needed them, his other good pair (not handmade) wore a hole through, and he needed a new pair.

Note the yellow toes. The last pair of socks I made for him had 12" legs before the heel and took 4 skeins of yarn. I only had 3 skeins of black, so I told him he needed to pick a different color for the toes. He picked yellow. I thought at first they would be his Shocker (Wichita State) socks, but that is just the color he wanted. It was very rewarding to get to the yellow and know that I was almost done however. The black yarn is Wildfoote and the yellow is Jawoll.

I was also working on my August socks of the month for Twist. These are the Sake socks made out of Panda Silk. They are supposed to be geisha socks, but I don't own flip flops, so I have no need for a split toe. Also, I love the yarn and wanted them to be a bit longer, so I made the legs 6" long.The twisted stitches give it a beautiful texture! They are light and soft and very enjoyable to wear, especially on an unusually warm fall day!And, not to neglect the sewing... Debbie and I found this beautiful fabric for a Needle Nook Fabrics customer and put together this ensemble for Debbie.

The gown is a camisole, Kwik Sew 2930 lengthened, and the robe is a combination of Kwik Sew 3257 lengthened for the body, 2923 for the cap of the sleeve, and 3162 shortened to 3/4th length for the rest of the sleeves. The gown is out of nylon Lycra swimwear and the lace is a stretch lace.

As you can see, I did manage to get a lot accomplished this first week of winter sports. Now it is on to more socks, and I think I need to start a hat or two ... only time will tell!

Mittens !

Twist yarn shop has begun a new knitting club of the month ... Mittens! Knittamittamo is the latest craze, and of course I had to join in on all the fun! The club started in September with the Very Cabley Mittens using Cascade Cloud 9 yarn. The yarn combines Merino wool and Angora. It is super soft and was a fun fast knit.As Jen of NuttyIrishmanKnits had suggested. I knit the cuff on size 4 (3.5 mm) needles and changed to size 6 (4.0 mm) needles for the hands. I am totally thrilled with how they turned out. Super soft and fuzzy!October brought about the Genmaicha by Kirsten Kapur. They are beautiful cabled fingerless gloves. The yarn for the month was Plymouth Happy Feet. This was another fun pair of mittens to make. I really love how beautiful they are, and I can function with keeping my hands warm. Sometimes it is cold in the basement at the computer, and I can wear these and they really help me stay warm. The best part is I can still knit with them on.
I still have a full skein of yarn left, so I am going to make a cabled hat to go with it named Shedir. I love the pattern, and it should be a good challenge as well.

November is bringing a bit of colorwork to the mittens. Bird in Hand by Kate Gilbert. I am planning on using Cascade 220 in a dark purple with grey for the contrast color. Should be a lot of fun. Also a fun, colorful challenge.

My Other First Sweater

So my Big One's sweater was not actually the first sweater that I have started. The first sweater I ever started was a raglan t-shirt knit from the top down. It is the Neck Down shaped T-shirt # 233 from Knitting Pure and Simple made out of O-wool Balance. I started it in April, and then I had other things happen or call to me, and it rested from time to time. It had humble beginnings.

Then I got to the point where it was supposed to begin decreasing for waist shaping. I had one, okay well two, big fears. I was not sure it was going to fit nicely over my rather large chest without pulling funny. At this point, I determined that some bust shaping of some sort was going to need to happen. So, not knowing what to do, I took a break from the sweater. Then I discovered Bust Dart Math from Knitting Daily! Okay, so I now had a plan and was going to put in bust darts instead of the waist shaping, because that would also create the waist shaping. Here are the results of the darts. It was fitting nicely.

After I got the bust darts in, I discovered one big problem. I had gotten it over the bust nicely, but now it was shorter in the front than in the back. Now I needed to do some short rows in the front to even it out. That took a lot of trial and error. I learned a lot, but I did it! I finished my sweater. I was even able to wear it at least once before it gets too cold again!

It fits nicely, I learned A LOT! I can now say, I have made my own adult sweater, curves and all! Now that was a lovely accomplishment!

My First Sweater!

So, this is actually the second sweater I started, but the first sweater that I have completed! This is for my Big girl. It is based on Elizabeth Zimmerman's Elizabeth's Percentage Sweater. I was using her book, the Knitting Workshop. I am using Cascade 220 Superwash. It is 100% machine-washable wool. I started with the body, and then made the sleeves and attached them at the underarm. This is seen here.

I then did a stranded fair-isle yoke as she instructs. I only used one contrast color in my yoke, and I charted the big snowflake pattern myself. The other patterns come from various parts within the book
It blocked out beautifully!
And it fit her even better! She loves it, and I am so thrilled with how it turned out.

Next stop ... Mittens, and socks, always socks, and maybe a hat or two...

Would have been FIRST...

A very dear young friend of mine is very involved in 4-H, and was getting ready for the Sedgwick county fair. She asked me if I had any knitting that I would like to enter. She is working very hard to keep the art form available at the fair, and wants to promote knitters in the area! I was getting ready for a trip, so she took care of everything, I just provided the knitting. I got blue ribbons, more knitting was entered, and life was good. I was not particularly heavily invested, but it was still kind of fun allowing others to see my work, which I have worked hard on. Next came time for state fair. I was fully immersed in football two-a-days, and just thinking about adding anything extra in made my toes curl, but once again, Grace made it easy for me. I entered the same things below:

This is my bad hair day hat. It got a white (3rd place) ribbon and said good job. Not really all that much of a big deal! I like the hat, I'm happy, move on.

I also entered my rambler socks. This is a sock of my own design, out of beautiful yarn that mom bought me for my birthday. I am very invested in this pair of socks. I love them, I love how they feel and fit. I am very proud of them. This is what they look like:

The yarn changes colors in magical ways, and the two balls were not identical, but marry very nicely, and I love them. I am not hung up on having matchy-matchy socks. This yarn makes it impossible to know how they will turn out until you are done. That is the nature of the yarn, and I love that. My self-striping socks do just that, self-stripe. I love that, and I don't care if the stripes line up exactly, fraternal socks are just fine by me. They are still beautiful, and created by my own hands. That being said, this is the comment that I got from the State Fair judge:

Click on it, blow it up, it says "Would have been first but not a pair...

I did have one person ask if I left the second sock at home, but I did not! I take no offense what so ever to the people who did place and get ribbons. From the pictures I have seen (Football season - did not make it there in person) there was a lot of lovely work. I am glad to see that so many people entered. That is what makes the state fair wonderful. That said, quilters have no business judging knitting. The socks turned out the way that they did, because that is the nature of the yarn. They most definitely are a PAIR. And then to tell me that I would have gotten first, but instead did not even get a participation ribbon (not sure if they did that this year or not) is nothing short of frustrating.

I worked hard on my socks, and I am very proud of them. In fact, I am going to work on writing up the pattern after having so many ask about it. It may end up being a sock of the month at Twist at some point in time, but I am going to write up the pattern (not sure how to fit it all into my schedule - that is why I am starting now). This judge will certainly not deter me, or change how I want to make my socks, but it just stands to show, quilters are perfect to judge quilters, but only knitters should be allowed to judge other knitting work.

It is one of the reasons that I am working on this pattern, because other knitters like it, and have asked for it. Okay, I will get off my soap box now.

Summer Knitting

Summer Knitting, had me a blast!

Summer Knitting, happened so fast!

Summer Knitting, all socks and hats.

Socks! Basic sock patterns, Glowing Toes, my Noro Sock, and My Mountain Berries sock (Crosshatch Lace found in this book) (souvenir yarn from Texas), and the Bamboo Sock. Some are from the sock of the month, and some are not.

Hats! Basic hat, Elizabeth Zimmerman colorwork hat (my first colorwork EVER :), Foliage, Zig Zag Beanie.

Click on the image to make it bigger and clearer, I am not sure why some of the pictures look fuzzy on the blog. (I will work on that later!)

Coming up next, along with more socks and hats, Mittens. Twist is now sponsoring a new Mitten of the Month Club. Should be grand fun!

Colorado - Finale

Well, now that we are into September, and I am back to work, and have my first football game on Friday, I figure I should probably finish up blogging about our Colorado trip, back in June. I have truly enjoyed the look back though, and it has helped me savor the trip, which was so wonderful. But I am back in the swing of school and work, and now that games are starting my schedule is starting to stabilize a bit. (Well, one could only hope)

First, walking around Breckenridge, this beautiful flower was planted in a pot along Main Street. It was so pretty, I had to have a picture of it!

And being as Breckenridge is one of my favorite places to ski, and beautiful in its own right, here is a picture of the ski slopes from the parking lot off Main Street. I had even found a little yarn/quilting shop that had some beautiful hand-dyed sock yarn from the Leadville Ladies.

We also had to go back to the spot where we watched the sun set at Lake Dillon, because I turned around and there were two llamas in a backyard. As a knitter, I could not get over them. They are not your average backyard pet. If you click on the picture, you should see a light colored one by the swing and animal crate, and a dark brown one by the stairs. It was warm and sunny that day, so they were staying cool in the shade. Llama, Llama!
As we were leaving the mountains to head back into Denver, we stopped at Lookout Mountain and Buffalo Bill's Grave. I had told Hubby about it, but never got him there until now. It was neat to see all the different views, including Coors Brewery, the (in)famous brown cloud to the east, and the mountains where we had just come from to the west.
We then stopped and had a picnic lunch at Red Rock Amphitheater. Always a fun place to be, but now they have an amazing visitor's center below the seating that goes through a history of how the Red Rocks were formed, how the Amphitheater was built, and all of the musical acts that have performed there. It was a lot of fun, and a little break from the 1/2 hour rain storm.
We spent another few days in Denver seeing other sites. We went to the Denver Aquarium, which has tigers on display there. I would have never imagined tigers and fish, but there they were right in the center of it all. I do think my favorite fish were the archer fish who hunted crickets in the leaves above them by spiting, very accurately, and knocking them into the water to feed on. It was something I had never seen before.We took a tour of Hammond's Candy factory. It was fun, and fun to go back and watch the Food Network's Unwrapped visit to the factory. My "sweet" little one definitely enjoyed the sugar high! We also went downtown and visited the ESPN Zone. That made my Hubby's downtown trip. This is truly something you only find in Denver, a replica of Coors Field made out of Coors Light labels. We also enjoyed the sound scape's, coming out of the sewer grates between the 16th St. Mall and the Denver Center for Performing Arts.
We had a wonderful trip. We concluded it driving home on I-70. We happened to stop in Oakley, Kansas, which is the birthplace of Buffalo Bill. We thought that it was only fitting that we were able to see the start and end of his life, only backwards. So here is the statue honoring William "Buffalo Bill" Cody in Oakley, KS.

Now with the trip concluded, I can get back to all the knitting I have been doing throughout the summer, and you know that has not stopped!

But I thank you now for letting me share such fond memories of a wonderful trip. Now back to regular programming...

Colorado - Part 2

So on our next day's adventures, we headed to Silver Plume, CO to catch the Georgetown Loop Railroad that runs between Sliver Plume and Georgetown. The train was really beautiful. This is the inside of the first car right behind the engine. That silver circle in the middle of the picture is the train's horn. That made that car quite noisy, so we did not sit there for the whole trip.

We did not stop for the silver mine tour, because the kids are just not ready for that yet. But we did get to see lots of waterfalls and beautiful scenery.
This is the Devil's Gate bridge which is not exactly a low bridge, and must be taken very slowly, but the view is breath-taking.
We crossed over Clear Creek at least 5 times. The water level was up quite high, and rushing very fast. This was due to the vast snow pack they experienced over the winter. It was amazing to see all the fast running water and snow in the mountains compared to the drought they are experiencing in Denver.
This was our view of I-70 and Clear Creek looking toward Georgetown from Devil's Gate Bridge.

Then on our way back to Dillon, we took Loveland Pass up to the top of the Continental Divide at a point of elevation of 11.990 feet. Then, my camera battery promptly died!

So we had to go back up the next day. There were beautiful views every way you turned. It was also a very cool 55 degrees up there, so we were in jeans and sweatshirts.

I got to teach my kids about the Tundra, and some of the unique plants that grow up there like these little yellow flowers.At the top, we looked down over the Loveland basin valley.And we were passed by a few hikers with skis on their backs heading up to ski down this glacier. If you click on the picture, it will come up bigger, and you can see the lines created by the previous skiers. Definitely not for the faint of heart, or unacclimatized to the altitude.

It was amazing seeing all the hikers, truckers (several were having difficulties with their breaks on the way down the pass), and bikers training up and down Loveland Pass. Definitely not an easy task to accomplish!