It has been just crazy in my world. You know the drill, travel, Thanksgiving, cooking, shopping, visiting with friends, work, and yes Knitting all those gifts for everyone on your list. Plus you have to pick and choose what you knit and where so as not to give away the surprise of that perfect knitted gift.

Thursday Nite at my LYS, Churchmouse Yarns and Teas, has become a delight of knitted gifts. Mittens and gloves, wraps and scarfs, sweaters and vests, and cute toys. I would love to show you pictures, but they are all  knitted gifts each for someone very special. Pity the poor soul that would give away that secret.

I have been knitting full speed, working thru all the projects I have on my gift giving list, plus tossing in a few extras here and there because I could not help myself. Please somebody stop me now!

The good news is there are finished items, some I can even share with you.

First up, I completed my Thanksgiving Skirt. The pattern is Lanesplitter. So cute with boots and a warm sweater.

Then I tossed in a couple of extras, because I could not help myself. Our god-daughter has two young children. A baby girl and a toddler boy. I just had to knit them Christmas Hats that they could wear now. So Eve gets a bonnet of Angora and holiday sparkle yarn. The pattern is My Sweetest Friend. It was a fast afternoon knit and just soooooooo cute!

Henry gets a big boy style stocking hat in holiday green. The pattern is a modified version of Churchmouse’s Boyfriend Hat. Again a fast knit and perfect for a little boy with red hair.

I also finished a cowl on a business trip to DC. Sorry can’t share that one as it is one of those special gifts. Am almost ready to pick up stitches for the ribbing on the miles and miles of vest I have been knitting for himself. Think 6′ 4″ tall man, size 4 needles, and loft yarn….Phew.

And in the middle of this I wrote a mitten/fingerless glove pattern for you! It is in tech edit and will be released next week.

So what is left…….fingerless mitts, slippers, Christmas Cookies, Holiday Parties, still need to decorate a house…..maybe a little sleep, and maybe a sweater and scarf for me….because I can’t help myself!

Autumn is in the air. The sun is bright but the air is suddenly cool, in fact, chilly in the mornings. I made this long vest just for those chilly mornings.

It is lightweight, knit in sock yarn. Just warm enough to take the chill off, but not bulky like my winter sweaters. The vest is dressed up just a little with a beautiful curve along the bottom front edge and a large shawl collar that you can fold up around your neck

I have plans to wear it now as my go to for over a t-shirt. But, as the days continue to get cooler, I think it will be great under my all-weather coat for another layer of warmth. Just perfect to chase the chill away.

The details you need to know:

Sizes 32 (34, 38, 42, 46) Intended positive ease of 1 – 3″. Model shown with 2″ positive ease

Yarn 2 (3, 3, 4, 5) skeins Dream in Smooshy in Slippery Trail 400 yds and 40z per skein

Needles US 7 and US 6

Gauge 21 sts and 28 rows = 4″ in Stockinette sitch on US 7 (it is very open for this yarn)

You can buy the pattern thru the Ravelry store here >>  buy now

Enjoy!

So I had a plan, the perfect plan…….I had all my knitting planned thru the end of the year. I needed to get everyone’s gifts finished. You know the endless requests for slippers and scarfs. Then there was a couple of sweaters for me, a Thanksgiving skirt, and a baby gift. All do able, all scheduled, some already on the needles. Just perfect!

Until a beautiful Saturday of shopping. Our little town was having a special event with discounts in all stores including my favorite, Churchmouse Yarns & Teas. And just to make it a little more tempting that same weekend was the Jared Flood trunk show.  Do you hear trouble?

To control my yarn addiction, I decided to take himself with me for a little shopping.

It was a great day to be out walking in town, a few clouds in the sky, no wind, a comfortable temp….so of course he came along. We stopped at many shops along the way. Himself has great patience in my wanderings into the multitudes of women’s clothing stores and very cool shoe stores. To humor him, we always check out the art gallery’s, the book store, and this time Lindsey’s, one of the few stores on the island that actually have men’s clothing.

Himself got into a shopping moment as he found three great shirts!  He also tried on a vest, but it just did not look that great on him. I told him, that I could probably knit one for him that he would like better. O silly me!

Since the mood was happy, I moved along to Churchmouse. Himself rarely walks into the store, but sits out the in the courtyard while I do a little shop. He people watches. I touch yarn. It’s a good thing.

Did I mention there was the Jared Flood trunk show, did I mention the special shopping day discount. I got to try on the sweater “Burr”. It was soooooo cute! So I walked out and showed it to himself. He liked it and said “get it”. And the queue just took it first hit.

Now small town America is delightful. You can walk out of a shop to show off a sweater. You can carry yarn outside to check the color.  I am grabbing yarn and walking outside to himself as he helps me pick the perfect color for my sweater.  I found a beautiful dark blue Shelter. Just perfect!

While a little skein winding is going on, I pull a couple more colors of Loft and see what might match the new shirts himself just got.  Of course, we found this beautiful brown tweed. I go to put it back and himself pipes up “But the yarn is on sale today, you should go ahead and get it.”  Wait did I just here himself say yarn and buy it in the same sentence. Somebody must want a knitted item. Run quick before the buzz of the new shirts wear off.

Back in to buy more yarn and to find a simple vest pattern. Plain, no cables, just stockinette. Did I mention himself is 6’4″? Think miles and miles of stockinette.

Did I mention this is his Christmas gift…….did I mention my perfect plan is now in its third revision…….did I mention I am now behind schedule on my perfect plan……..

Yup, it has been one of THOSE weeks. I have lots of knitting projects going on. Most at that last dash finish line. This was supposed to be the finish line week. But then…….

I went up to water my garden, my fenced garden, my deer stay out of my fenced garden. Unfortunately, the raccoons figured out how to get into my garden. Those dirty dogs climbed my apple tree and decided to have a bite and toss a few apples around for the fun of it.  No way were those raccoons getting one more bite of my apples. So all plans were stopped and I picked every last apple from that tree!!!!

Sounds simple, but now I had a bucket of apples to deal with. A multiple of new projects were on my to do list. Applesauce for the ugly ones……frozen slices for future use……and finally apple pie, deep dish, with scratch Crisco crust. A day and 1/2 later and the apple crisis is under control. Plus we have a yummy pie.

The raccoons…..well they have moved on…..to my neighbors plum tree. 🙂

In the middle of all this I had socks to finish….tha’st right…I picked up those needles and pushed thru all five pairs of those baby socks. I did the striped ones last and made them into sport socks.

Phew….I think I need a glass of wine…..and a piece of pie!

That right, I had to put myself in a time out.  Work has been nuts lately and I took on this detailed research project. Can you say millions of data fields to sort, organize, and make sense of. All this was doable until…….I thought I should knit socks.

I have never knitted a sock, our daughter is the sock knitter of the household. Both himself and I anxiously await for Christmas morning to open our daughters gifts to us of beautiful hand knitted socks. Since she is the sock expert, I never felt the need to go there. Then Quince & Co. and Ann Budd did a really cruel thing. They announced a new sock pattern. Mind you, not one pair of socks but five pairs of socks, for a BABY!!! Just too cute!!  And……since our god-daughter just had a baby girl….of course I was going to knit socks. All five pairs of the socks.

I ordered the perfect purple and pink skeins of yarn. Printed off the pattern thinking what perfect little road trip take along’s. O stupid me. First off, if you have never knitted a sock, you probably want to start with a little larger size than a little baby size that takes really tiny needles, and just a few tiny stitches to cast on. Not me, I am going for what I thought would be fast and simple.

Did I say I have never knitted a sock…..there are special cast on’s for socks. Thanks to my very patient daughter for trying to teach them to me. One I have mastered, the other she just rolled her eyes at me and suggested I wait and learn that one after I finish all the socks with the first cast on.  Then there is the heel thing. I know short rows, but not yarn over short rows. I did not like the look of the yarn over short rows. So I thought I should modify the pattern with some other type of short row. I researched various types of short row heels on-line and followed the YouTube video’s to perfect the heel of the sock. Oops, there was a reasons for the yarn over short rows for a Baby Sock, it is called fat feet and ankles. Did I mention I have now knit the heel section five times, on tiny little needles with just a few tiny stitches. Did a mention the costs of baby socks is escalating by the quantities of wine required to rip out and pick up stitches of this tiny little sock.

So, back to the yarn over short rows. Next to the zig zag bind off. Another new technique for me. But finally this one was fun! And I love how the little sock has the look of an athletic sock because of the zig zag bind off.  To get to the bind off required another section of yarn over short rows/long rows just like the hated heel section. More wine please.

Success one purple pair complete, one pink pair with fancy feather and fan complete. And now they are in time out.

I know I have three more pairs to knit, maybe. One thing I know for sure. I hate knitting socks! Give me scarfs, hats, mittens, even slippers, and giant sweaters any day, just don’t make me knit socks.

Daughter of mine, I love you, and grey with multi flecks of color is my favorite new “socks that rock” color. Christmas is coming hint hint…….

So, I was all set to post a new pattern for you this week when……..this showed up on my Yahoo news roll, “Knitting community outraged over Olympic dig; USOC apologizes”  If you haven’t read it, you can read the full story here

Yup, the Olympic Committee chose to pick on knitter’s. Now I am not going to get into the middle of the right or wrong of it; as copyright of anything, including knitting patterns, is important to all of us. But….as himself knows……”don’t piss off a knitter”  We are powerful people who carry sharp pointy items with us at all times. We travel in groups, talk secret code… ” SSK, K2Tog”, and will kill for a perfect skein of yarn.

Just saying that maybe a few politicians should pay attention to what happened with the Olympic Committee this week. You know a knitter sitting on a candidate’s podium just might change my perspective of them. And if  a candidate was a knitter…….we just know how very special that person must be. Total that up to the number of us knitter’s out there and it could clearly make a win or lose difference.

So pull out your needle’s and knit with pride knowing that you are part of a powerful group of men and women that can change the world…..one knit, one purl at a time!

You know how your gas gauge gives you that warning that you need to gas up, but you believe you can go that extra mile because you know your car and know just how many more miles you can go before you are really out of gas?  Yup, that’s what I did this past week…..but not in my car……on a knitting project.

It all started with a really cool vest pattern called MeadowLark. The pattern called for lace weight yarn held doubled. Love the pattern have some beautiful lace weight in “my stash”. But……the pattern called for 900 yards. I have 840 yards. This is Madeline Tosh Prairie, in Byzantine. I really want this vest out of this yarn. I can see this vest in this yarn.

So I did a little research on Ravelry to see just how much yarn everyone was really using. The numbers were pretty true to what it called for in the pattern, but……some of the projects chose not to add the i-cord around the armholes and front edges. Bingo….I can make this work…..or so I convinced myself I could make this work.

First I swatched, but did not block the swatch. I took it off the needles measured without steaming or washing, just guestimating that I was going to come out OK. I knew I would need this yarn so I carefully ripped it back.

Then the two strands of yarn problem. I had hoped that I could pull from both the inside and outside of the skein, nope, yarn was tooo sticky and kept knotting up. Did I say I needed every ounce, this yarn was not paying attention. Out comes the scale, and I wrap yarn into two balls, as equal as my scale would allow.

Off and running again. I cast on three times, just to be certain I wasn’t leaving too much of a tail. Then the full on knitting began. It was beautiful!

The pattern itself was a fascinating design, of picking up stitches without having to sew seams. It was looking good as I turned for the right front I started to panic……the balls of yarn were really small……there was a lot left to knit…..could I make it?

I took it with me to Thursday Knit Nite…..hoping for encouragement. A look of doubt, maybe, good luck, knit faster….was all I got. I checked for more of this yarn in this color…..I was committed to this vest.  No luck, I bought this skein last year…..it was not a this year color!!!

So, I did what I had to do, what every knitter has to do…….keep knitting.  I made it around the front, to the pickup of the back neck stitches, checking the remaining amount of yarn almost row by row….pushing thru, praying thru, drinking wine thru……thru to the finish line!!!!

Yup, I made it!!!!! Even the three needle bind off for the neck edge!  I had exactly 7 inches of yarn left on one ball and 11 inches of yarn on the other ball. Oh the exhilaration of pulling into the gas station on fumes!

It is blocking…..there will be no i-cord edging for this one. I don’t think I will miss it. But she is a beauty!

It was definitely “mother’s day” around here this past week. It all started on Friday with a call from Jeff letting us know his wife, our god-daughter, finally had their baby girl. Evelyn Vera…9+lbs and chubby cheeks. Both mom and baby happy and healthy.

On Sunday even more babies joined the world. I looked out on the water as our Canada Geese were pushing their 4 new chicks into the water for their first swim. Two hours later, this happened outside our window.

Yup…twins. Mommy deer got tired of us looking out the window and moved her babies along to a quieter location later that day. Frankly, I am happy for that as they would have eaten thru my flower bed in about five minutes otherwise.

So in honor of all you mom’s and baby’s here are a few wee finished objects……

Hat’s a girl must have a few hat’s. The pattern is a Churchmouse shop pattern. Easy rollup hat, done in DK and worsted.

And a summer sweater. That is Sock’s that Rock…one skein.

Can I say Evelyn is going to be one styled babe thanks to her “Auntie O”

Happy Mother’s Day!