TGL Classic

1.7 miles run in under 15 minutes. Thank you to everybody who donated, I hope I did you proud :)

Stash Equilibrium

And so the love affair with Trekking XXL continues...

It's been a bit slow going with this sock particularly considering that a whole CPH got in the way during the leg portion and since I'm knitting them on US 0's (eeep!), but still LOVE. Hopefully I'll have this one finished up soon and I can get onto the second quickly enough that I wont forget what the hell I did with yet another made up pattern. Remind me again why I buy so many sock pattern books when all I seem to be doing lately is blindly stumbling through my own creations??

I think I didn't quite get the point of the de-stash blog. DE-stash. You see the DE? I obviously didn't. Although I did manage to lighten my stash by 29 balls of acrylic, I somehow managed to snaffle myself 5 balls of Peace Fleece and 11 balls of Skye Tweed. How'd that happen?? Unfortunately the site seems to be suffering through members lack of understanding of the rules and so the site is down for a while, but hopefully it'll be up and running soon enough for me to spend more money...

Ramble

Well then.... I think I promised a finished CPH by now.... Ahem.

The body is all knit and is blocking as we speak. A slight diversion up a freakin' huge cliff prevented me from sewing it up, knitting the hood and neck bands and getting it D.O.N.E. in time for my self-imposed deadline. Aw, shucks.

In other news, my fund raising total has reached $180!! Thanks so much to those of you who donated, I'm starting to really look forward to race day :)

I've also joined the de-stash blog to hopefully clear some room for a little Mohair (Wave your needles in the air) that might be coming my way soon, haven't really decided on the purchase it all depends on how the sales go.

And to round off a rambley post, after finishing my 20 minute run with my class in central park today, I flipped the bird at Mr. G. W. Bush. Felt good, felt mighty good.

Run rabbit

Oh my God, I'm going to die...

A good while back I recognised that knitting had effectively replaced exercise in my life, a common complaint, I feel, among we obsessed. The better the knitting got, the worse my arse-spread became. Yes, yes, I know I'm still relatively slim, but my fitness levels have fallen down the toilet. Take for example my last flight home. I had to connect in Edinburgh for a short hop to Manchester, but in order to catch the connection I had to run the entire length of the airport. Edinburgh is no O'Hare but still it took me the entire 30 minute flight back to MAN to get my breath back. Not good.

So in March I began a running class with NYCRR and am now on my 6th week. And you know what, it's kicking my ass. But, instead of giving up, what do I do? I sign up for a race and talk two of my fitter friends along to join me! Like I said, I'm going to die...

I'm taking part in the 5th Annual TGL Classic in Central Park on 29th April. Admittedly I'm just doing the 1.7 mile Health Walk but it is fully my intention to run most of the way. I have a modest fund raising goal of $100 if any of you feel so inclined. Bless his heart, my Daddy's already donated :) All the money raised goes to the Thomas G. Labrecque Foundation for lung cancer research. It should be a fun day if I make it that far!

We interupt this regularly scheduled sock knitting...

There are many reasons why we stash yarn. to make ourselves feel better, because we just couldn't resist that sale, or just plain because. I like to think that I stash yarn specifically so that when I attend a Sit n' Knit meetup and I casually mention to Tawana that I'd like to get a hold of a copy of the Central Park Hoodie pattern which she then hands me there and then.... it means I can immediately go home and cast on for a sweater I've been coveting for a while. Thank you Tawana :)

It has been noted by some Sit n' Knit members that I'm somewhat of a turbo knitter, cranking out sweaters at break-neck speed. Never one to disappoint let me tell you that I cast on for this on Friday night at 6pm and that there was an almost completed right front before I realised I had forgotten to go up a needle size after the ribbing. I blame The Exorcist for distracting me. Rip, rip, head twist, rip and I'm back to the ribbing again. Next time I'm douse it in holy water.

Mini-Me!!

I'm sure you're all mightily sick of seeing the same yarn over and over and over again, but this is the last of it, I swear!

SO CUTE!!

Pattern: Baby to toddler sized socks by Miriam Felton (pdf file).

Yarn and Needles: Left over Trekking XXL 100, Susan Bates US1.

I don't know whether anyone with baby-foot experience greater than mine (which mostly involves being kicked in the crotch while holding a squirmy 7 month old, who is incidentally so freakin' cute it physically hurts) can tell me whether they turned out the right size, they're about 4 inches long and super stretchy at the cast on. Even if they are too big, babies grow as sure as they poop so I might just have to knit some more :)

Oops!

For Annie, a close up (guess who discovered the super close up setting on her camera yesterday?!) The top half is plain stockinette whereas the bottom half is half brioche (my bad on the name of the stitch yesterday, always check your references!) To be honest, my version doesn't look like the sample in my book but since I only wanted a subtle texture and a short repeat to make the knitting faster, I really don't mind. In fact I think the twisted stitches bring more movement and life into the colours, blurring the boundaries between colours a little more.

Oh, oh wait! It might have helped if I had read the abbreviations before I started knitting! K1B is not the same thing as KB1 (daft English books having non-standard abbreviations!!!!). My bad, this isn't half brioche stitch at all....

Whatever, I still like it :)

Happy Feet

Pattern: Cast on 68st, 20 rows of K3P1 for the cuff. Now these socks may look like plain vanilla stockinette but they're actually mini-brioche with multiple twisted stitches that throw the colours this way and that. Row 1 and 3, knit, Row 2 K1 K1tbl repeat, Row 4 K1tbl K1. I did a mini-brioche heel flap over 34 st, decreased to 16st on N1 and N2 for the gussets and did some kind of made up round toe.

Yarn: Trekking XXL colour 100. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!!! This yarn makes me happy in ways I never thought possible from wool. It's so exuberant you can't help but smile when you knit with it.

Sigh.... I'm so sad the knitting's over :( But, I do have enough leftovers to make a dinky pair of socks for my favourite little boy baby. Yay! More knitting with rainbows!!

And I'm back....

Please share with me the joy that is a two hour conversation with Dell Technical support:
My computer (fully wiped down, smacked on it's bare bottom and sent away to think about what it had done) has been returned to me a little meeker and maybe still a little bit eff-ed up. I'm not holding my breath as to how long it will take for this 6 month old albatross to break again and I've probably not learned my lesson about backing my shit up. But for now, iTunes is reloading my library and I have interweb access again. Hurrah! By the way, I was on my own when that picture was taken, there is no one but myself to blame for my insanity.

But Onwards! And Upwards! And FINISHEDWARDS!!

Pattern: Killybegs from Debbie Bliss' Donegal Tweed book.

Yarn, Needles and Notions: Berroco Peruvia, colour Grano, 6 balls total. Knit Picks Options 6mm. Four leather buttons and a 14' zipper (bought in person from zipperstop headquarters here in NYC).

Modifications: As always I added at least an extra inch in length because, and I'd like knitwear designers to note, REAL WOMEN AREN'T 19" LONG!! Please, 21" is far more reasonable and honestly, the world would be prettier without so much midriff on display. As previously documented, something is decidedly fishy about the directions for the sleeves. I ended up increasing until ten stitches less than the pattern called for and then knitting the rest of the sleeve straight. In hindsight I might just have been better re-knitting the whole sleeve spacing the increases out over the entire length but, meh. I've already christened this sweater the "so-good-I-knitted-it-twice-Killybegs" since I had to rip and re-knit just about every piece of the thing. Not that I'm complaining, it was fun. easy and quick and one day I may knit it again :)

Comments: This isn't a sweater for the fainted hearted, and by that I mean those folks who aren't so fond of seaming. The directions were pretty vague as far as the collar, cuffs and bottom trim were concerned and not only did I have to alter their length dramatically once sewn in, it took multiple attempts to get them lined up right. Same goes for the zipper but I'm a novice at that so I'll let it go. This is a sweater that is definitely going to see some use, in fact it's already had it's debut outing! At First Year Journal Club yesterday my friend Emily tried it on and refused to give it back for at least ten minutes. I've offered to show her how to make her own :)

System32

I was going to post a picture of my newly finished Killybegs with it's zippery, buttonly spleandor. I was also going to post a picture of my happy little sock.

But then my computer had a catastrophic meltdown. It is no more... well until IT retrieves my hard drive and Dell tells me how to wipe and reformat the computer.

Until then, I'll be gentley whimpering in a corner.