Extreme Knitting!

This past week has been CRAZY. I finally  finished the Husband Sweater and the Husband is thrilled! It was definitely trying, and I sacrificed much sleep and sanity to finish. Why was this so terrible? Well, since I am teaching at the Urban Craft Center, I have to make some samples of what I am teaching. I wouldn't allow myself to continue with my sample knitting until I finished a very important project: the Husband Sweater. Pressed with my self-made deadlines, I worked into the night with my friend, Lynne. Bless her, she stayed up with me on Sunday and met me at a Starbucks the next day to help me finish for three hours!!! At Starbucks, we realized that I had mis-read the pattern and the sleeve cap decreases were wrong so we had to rip back about 4 inches of work. Plus, ripping out the seams I had worked on all afternoon to complete. At one point our conversation ceased as both our sets of knitting needles were smoking from knitting so fast! At this point, Lynne politely mentions that the sleeves look a bit too long, and I say that I have measured Pat's arms and that it's probably fine. Lynne sewed seams as I wove in many ends and we finished. I couldn't have finished without her. Then, exhausted and drained, I drove home to present my hard work to the Husband. He was sooooo excited and put it on immediately. He hugged me with the sweater still on and thanked me. I step back to look at my handy-work and gasp-- the sleeves are waaaay to long. Of course, in my delicate state, with the realization of possibly ripping it apart AGAIN, I put my head down on the kitchen bar counter and cry.

The next day, I had recovered from my break-down. I called Lynne to thank her for the millionth time or so for helping me and told her about the sleeves. Basically the next step is to pick up stitches, cut  off some of the sleeve and re-knit the ribbing. Ugh, another week...

So this past Monday I spent some time at the Urban Craft Center waiting out traffic after a trip to the chiropractor. I live in Sherman Oaks, so the drive home from Santa Monica is reasonably horrific during rush hour traffic. I was working on a baby blanket for My Cousin, Tracy, when I said hello to the owner, Angharid.  To make a long story short, the center needed a teacher for some knitting and crocheting classes and they asked me to do it based on this baby blanket! I said yes of course...

I'm really excited to have this opportunity to spread my passion for yarn and sticks with others, and actually get paid for my time and efforts.
The inspiration for this color combo came from a woman at my stitch and bitch, Ellen. She had made a potholder with similar colors and I fell in love with it. I went to Jo-Ann's in Porter Ranch, went straight to the Cotton-Ease and chose these colors.  I'm really happy with how it turned out-- and even more happy that it landed me a free-lance job knitting. woot. I will be giving this away October 9th at the baby shower. I hope my cousin likes it... I know I do. :)

Labor Day Weekend

My Labor Day weekend is coming to a close. It's been seriously uneventful. I got sick last Thursday and fought a cold the entire three days. Friday I went home early from work and took a nap. When I woke up, I took some medicine, felt a little better but didn't feel like watching TV. So instead, I went to my wall of yarn and began to do some non-commital crocheting. It felt good. I was a little inspired by this, so Sunday night I made two amigirumi owls for Patrick's friend Ron's daughter's first b-day party for next Sunday. It turned really soft and cuddly. Tonight, My Husband and I had dinner with his folks at a Restaurant near us, Blue Dog. My Husband raved about the burgers... I thought they were OK, and the service was slow and super disorganized. Anyway, when I got home I made espresso brownies fo work and cinnamon muffins for the hubby. Not to mention today we already did ALL the laundry and cleaned the whole apt. Whew! Now, time to wind down and prepare for the week

Frogged.

Woolpse is right. I'm staring at my scrap of knitting that will soon be frogged and stashed back onto my Ikea Expedit cubbie system. My calves, however muscular, are too big to fit into these epic fair isle socks. Thinking back to last weekend when I discovered this tragic bit of information I nearly cried, swore and promptly explained myself to my friend, Crystal, who was looking at me suspiciously. I suppose anyone else it would seem like the socks fit except I KNEW that the socks stretching themselves to near breaking point not even half way up my calf meant the inevitable frogging.

At my Knitting group, of course I received plenty of support on how to salvage these socks and frankly, I'm kinda over them all together. Good-bye pretty socks.

Getting Started

OK, round 2 of blogging, but hopefully, this time I'll stick to it. It seems that this year has yielded a lot of firsts. For example, this past October I became reunited with knitting and have been on a rampage learning new techniques. I made my first sweater, pair of socks, mini shawlette, etc... I started a blog, but only made one entry and then forgot the e-mail address. Then I got married and moved into a nice apt. with Patrick, My husband.  Then we bought our first couch this past weekend and last month we went to Hawii for the first time. With all these firsts, there can only be seconds to follow... more knitting, traveling, and blogging. Hopefully, this will become my first real blogging experience. Wish me luck.