Sheldon

I finally present to the world Knitty's sheldon! The surpise that I knit for my sister! I took a bunch of photos along the way and here are some that show the process of how Sheldon comes together.

Behold: The pieces of Sheldon (minus the legs)

He has a shell! And 3 legs!

He's naked! But he has 4 legs now and they are sewn on!

And finally he has some eyes. Creepy...er cool!

I went a little crazy and made him a tag.
It's hard to read but I gave him a D.O.B. of 3/24/2007

I went a little crazy with the hot glue gun after I glued on the eyes. I also glued those hearts on the tag. I felt particularly crafty that night I guess. I even wrapped him up in some cute paper. I sent my sister some peeps along with the turtle. I mailed it out on Monday and she got it today! Yay for priority shipping. From what she says she likes it and said it is cutie.

Oh, I should mention that I decided to rip out the sleeve that I messed up. I ripped it out yesterday and start working on it again. I haven't gotten far, but I think I'll work on it tonight. Or tomorrow. At any rate, the sleeve might be done (again) by tomorrow night.

The requested post

Stephen worked on my bike again tonight. Last night the tube had a leak when he tried to fill it up, so he tried again today. The second tube he put in tonight started to leak also. Well, I guess the third time's the charm because now the tube is in, filled, and ready to go.
The result is my awesome bike with brand new yellow tires! yay! I think that maybe I should have gone with blue or perhaps the silver, but oh well. I like it even if it doesn't match the bike all that well. I like the yellow because it seems happy and cheerful.





Here is a picture of Stephen's bike. He didn't work on his, though he does have a new tire to put on the rear. His bike is gigantic compared to mine. When he carries my bike or has to move it in any way he likes to remind me that my bike is "like a child's bike".

This post was per the request of Stephen as he harassed me all evening about taking pictures of the bike. Now he just revealed to me why he really wants me to post the pictures - I guess he wants to use the image location to post the image in one of his crazy forums.

Typical Monday Night?

I completed the other sleeve tonight - yay! Look at this beautiful work. It's almost a real sweater. Almost. From afar you can't see how I messed up on the first sleeve. I don't know if I mentioned this yesterday. I thought that it wouldn't bother me. But. It. Does.

If you look closely, you can see that not all the columns are the same (the knits, not the purls). You can see that they don't all have what looks like a twist at regular intervals. The first full one in view from the right - just look at it. Compare it to the one next to it. Blah. Luckily I didn't think it would bother me and I bound off and even did a knot. I know it's going to bother me. Maybe if I just try harder, than it won't bother me.

I might have to get some help to rip it out and reknit it. I don't think I have the confidence to rip it out and pick it back up correctly.

While I knitted and contemplated my sleeves, Stephen worked on putting the new tires on my bike. He wasn't going to do it tonight, but I guess he needed a break from the paper he was working on. And on goes the yellow hotness. (Yellow hotness refers to the tires, not Stephen or is it both???)
A close up of where the tire comes from! I just like how it looks though I couldn't get a good close up because I'm not good at taking close ups. Or my camera isn't good at taking close ups.
And last but not least - tomorrow's lunch! Yum - sushi - California roll style - my favorite. These will be consumed at lunch at the lys with fellow knitter Kate. Tuesdays rock.

A wicked, wicked sweater

I've picked up my sweater project (again). Not really sure why I'm dragging my heels on this project, but despite that I was able to get one sleeve done this weekend. I thought I would have both done by today, but well - that dragging the heels thing. I think that the sleeve looks pretty good, except of course where I had to join in the round with purls (which conveniently is where the arm pit is). A close up of the sleeve follows:


This sweater has also currently become too big for the ziplock bag that I normally keep it in; so I've decided that it needs its own bag. The bag that my mom recently sent me fits the project perfectly! Though, I should note that this bag fits only this project at this time and I'd be hard pressed to fit another project into it. Anyhow, I present the sweater in its current home!

A knitting related injury

My sister's surprise is coming along nicely and I've got the thumb "cramp" to prove it! I worked on an i-cord for part of it tonight after Kim over at the lys helped me start it/showed me how to do it this afternoon. I finished all the i-cording tonight. And now my thumb hurts. Maybe hurt is an exaggeration, but it seems sore or annoyed or a little jammed. Anyhow, this is a picture of how the i-cord turned out on the piece.


Again, I don't think that picture is giving anything away. If she figures it out then I will be very surprised. After the thumb fiasco, I somehow limped on to knit another piece of the puzzle. Now this leaves me with one more piece to knit. I could to it tonight. I should do it tonight. It is easy enough and quick enough.

I could theoretically finish tonight. I could knit the last piece and take care of the final finishings. However I suspect that it would take me the rest of the night and then some. I don't think I'm prepared for that and/or in that much a hurry. It will definitely be done by Friday.

A Surprise for my Sista

This week I've been working on a surprise for my sister, Mary. I'm going to post two pictures of 2 parts of it so far (there are more parts). Now, it seems like I might be giving the surprise away, but I don't think that it will be discernible from the pictures. Kate will know what these photos are as she is knitting the same thing. Mary if you read this, don't check Kate's blog in case she posts pictures there.

I worked on the above piece at the local yarn store today, which Kate and I visited during our lunch break. A 3 hour lunch break (oops). However, it was well worth it and helped to refresh and recharge for the rest of the day. Did I mention that I am more productive during the days that we meet and knit? At least that is what I like to tell myself.


I started this piece tonight. I had been avoiding it because it starts with 6 stitches distributed on 3 needles and the first row is kfb all stitches! Eeck! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I'm finding that I'm actually enjoying it.

Last but not least - Apparently I can't post without putting in a cat photo. I got this one of Merlin (black, front) and Arthur the other day. This was between their fighting for the sun spot even though there was more than enough sun for the both of them!

Aren't they handsome? Little cuties!

Another crazy pic

Just wanted to post another quick picture of my mom. The purpose shall be revealed later...

Mom's knitting

Since I started knitting, my mom decided that she needed to get back into knitting as well. She recently sent me some pics of her works in progress (WIPs!), which I thought I'd post here. I'm also posting these because she has had trouble posting them on her blog and I wanted to see if I could do it..... here goes.

Here is my mom modeling that hat that I taught her to knit. She's been working on this one since December. Also, she loves red!

Next, she wanted to learn to how to knit socks. So she signed up for a class at one of the many local knitting stores (lucky girl!) and learned how to do socks using the magic loop technique (I want to learn magic loop!). The following are her sock progress....

Sock on the needles...

Sock being modeled. She also loves multi colored things.

The end.

Projects

I decided that perhaps I will post a list of all the projects that I would like to make and that I actually have yarn for.

1. Calorimetry - I just bought yarn for this last night; it will be made with Noro Garden Silk Lite, I don't remember the color way that I got, but it has oranges, blues, purples, greens, browns (I don't think it's one of those pictured in the link - I'll check later when I get home)

2. Peekaboo - these are some mittens that I thought would be cute. I believe that I bought Ella Rea wool yarn for these. The yarn I got is multi colored; one is a yellow/greens/blues/whites and the other is blues/whites/and something else.

3. Fad Classic - with tahki cotton yarn (color 3807, I believe). I've tried starting this, but I'm having trouble with gauge. Don't ask.

4. Wash cloths - these will be with a cotton yarn that I got on sale from a yarn store. I have the following colors: white, cream, turquoise, green, and possibly another I am forgetting. These could also be dish cloths.

5. Fingerless gloves - pattern is from a store my mom goes to. So, no link. I bought some silky cashmere for these...color 007 (periwinkle perhaps?)

6. Einstein coat - I bought some cotton yarn to use for this. The pattern calls for alpaca, which would cost ~120, but I got the cotton for a total of $60, so I'm making it for half the cost. Also, I plan on doing the short version of the coat.

Okay, I think that is all for now.

A package, fabric, and a mess of yarn

My lovely mom sent me a package this week filled with goodies! And they were knitting goodies - one of the best kind. I got an awesome knitting bag, two project knitting bags, a British magazine with a free little gift in it (a gauge ruler with a lamb on top!), and some chocolate. Unfortunately I gave up chocolates for lent, but I can at least enjoy the knitting tools! The only thing not in the picture is the magazine as Kate saw it and was immediately interested, so I lent it out.

I also received an item that I bought on ebay. These are the lovely Amy Butler fabrics! I am the proud owner of 6 fat quarters of this very beautiful fabric. Now, I just need to learn how to sew....all in good time! Aren't they pretty?

And finally, this is how I spent most of my Friday night and Saturday morning. Untangling a horribly mangled mess of yarn, which was mostly all my fault in the first place. These pictures don't really even do the mess justice as this was towards the end of untangling that took me just about an hour to do.

Here is the mess from afar (above) and up close (below)

Here is a close up of it on my leg....

And finally on its way to being a nicely put together yarn ball or cake, whichever you prefer.

Finally, a finished object

Could there be a better way to start out the month of March than with a finished object?

Of the three projects I currently have going, I have finally finished one. But not after knitting these wristers 3.5 times (the half for when I ripped out half of one to re-knit it better).

Yarn: (I will fill in the exact type of yarn later as it is downstairs)
Pattern modifications: Many. First I knit one the way the pattern called for by casting on 45 stitches. This one turned out too big (see previous posts). Casting on 36 stitches worked better, giving a "glove" that fit my hand. I also made the top part longer so that it covered more of my fingers - they basically go to the first joint of my pinky finger. The other modification I did was to knit the first row after casting on the additional stitches and then started the k2p2 ribbing, but again just knitting the newly cast on stitches then finally following the k2p2 ribbing for all the stitches. Sorry, that probably did make much sense to anyone but me.
Time: Each wrister takes about 4-6 hours. However, this whole project ended up taking me approx. 3 weeks due to having to redo them many times and then becoming discouraged.

And now for a recent amazon.com purchase! Yay for Mason-Dixon Knitting!

And finally just for fun, a picture of some peeps because I love peeps and it's one of what is now the many times of year that they are available! Don't they look pretty in green??

Yum.