It was supposed to be so easy, the gift knitting was pretty much finished. The first round of shopping complete. I even had a photo of that beautiful, calm, transition moment between Thanksgiving and Christmas

……..and then….the melt down happened.  No not me, not even himself, and the cats…well cats care but not that much. No much worse, My COMPUTER!!!

It became, angry, crazy, yelling at me….telling me it had been attacked my a major virus and I needed to BUY this software to fix it NOW!  Yep, that’s right the major virus was the software to buy.  Not only does it jam your computer, it also wants to steal your credit card information.

I did not buy into it’s request. I pulled out all the stops and ran every type of virus cleaning software I had to no avail….

I called in the big guns…corporate IT….we walked thru even more virus cleaning software. No luck, the ugly just got worse.  Then those horrible words were spoken “You will need to ship your computer to corporate”. Yup, had to pack it up and ship it over 2,000 miles and wait several days for the return of the computer.

Withdrawal set in, I am use to being connected and my Blackberry was just not enough. eMails were stacking up, blogs were now behind, as well as status reports, expense reports, budget reports……..

The computer finally arrives 4 days later, 371 emails later, every id and password needed to be reset, favorites needed to be located and reset.  But I am finally back and connected!

So, the melt down put me behind. By the time I received the computer, I was now beyond my week of calm. I was on the singing week. That’s right, I sing in a Chorale and a Women’s small group. The Christmas Holiday performances hit on the same weekend. One week of 4 rehearsals, one 4 hour dress rehearsal, and two Chorale performances and one Women’s small group performance.  Can I have a little knitting PLEASE.

I survived all and am getting back on track. For you, I have two patterns coming this next week.

Coffee Run, a fun poncho

and Frosty, beautiful fingerless gloves.

In the meantime, I have cookies to bake, gifts to wrap and a sweater to finish for me to wear Christmas Day. 

No more melt down’s I promise!

That’s right all my friends that don’t knit and even some that do have started the “you could knit that for me” hints for their holiday gifts.

I fixed them this year, sorry you are tooooo late! All my knitted gifts are finished!! Yah right….right….except maybe I will make just one more scarf or another pair of slippers…….

So without giving too much away,  here is what I began in June. Yes June. The weather was warm, I did not want heavy sweaters on my lap, but scarfs and slippers, and little gifts were the perfect summer knits.

I made lots of multiples of some items.  One for me, a dozen more for gifts. Not only was I able to perfect and scale the pattern by making it for me first, I got all my BFF’s feedback of the ” I like or don’t like, I would like one in blue please”.

Below are the photo examples of what I made for me and the patterns I used. Your gift is neatly hidden away until just the right moment when we both can share the joy of a knitted gift together. In the meantime, I get the joy of a little knitted stash!

All patterns are from Churchmouse Yarns & Teas just in case you want to knit a little gift for someone as well.

Shoulder Cozy

Turkish Bed Socks

Churchmouse Family Slippers

Yup, that’s right, I am ripping back an almost completed sweater….UGH.

Ebb Tide was my own design. A copy of a jJill that I thought I would love. Fit was perfect, Yarn was perfect……then I got to the front with the extra six inches of ribbing. I finished off the right side and tried it on. Can you say UGLYYYYYYY. It was exactly as it looked in the picture, but just did not look good on me.

With one side of ribbing to go, I frogged it. No regrets. I love this yarn and the color is perfect on me. I want to wear a sweater I love. Lessons were learned…..a reminder to all of you knitters that have sweaters you finished for the sake of finishing and then do not like and do not wear. Have no fear to frog!!

So it is now neatly wound, placed in a bag, listed on my stash list, and officially in a little time out. I kinda know what I want to make with it but am not ready to face the yarn just yet.

On the upside summer finally arrived on the island. Eight days over eighty. Really hard to knit big items with the heat beating on you. So I have been busy with little items, accessory’s….scarfs, very light shawls, slippers…..

The garden has been busy as well….with green beans, tomatoes, strawberries,  and cucumbers. I did a few little accessory sides here as well.

So far three kinds of pickles, dilly beans, and NO frogs!

Sock Summit, yup,  went,  saw,  shopped!!! and shopped!!!

As you can see by the photo, serious damage was done to the yarn budget.

When photo was emailed to himself a one word reply was returned…”STOP!!!!!”

Needless to say, it took a bit to recover from the hysteria. But, the yarn is now in my Stash list on Ravelry, tied to some items in my queue, and being swatched. That is all a good thing.  I highly recommend you create a Stash list and refer to it often. It is very fun and satisfying to shop in your Stash. No good yarn should ever go to waste.

The same as your clothes closet, a couple of times a year clean up your stash, organize it, and throw out the silly purchases that you will never wear or use.

I love that clean house moment. My brain goes into the creative side….if I take this yarn and knit this sweater it will go with the pants I found at the back of the closet that I love but forgot about. New outfit…..new season…….let’s get knitting!!!

So what came first the muffins or the sweaters? Good question, I replied………..

It must have been me dreaming, hoping, of summer that took me on this berry journey.

First there was Summerberry, a beautiful strawberry colored sweater with buttons the color of biscuits.

Then there was Summer Blues, another sweater about the time of blueberry season.

And in the middle of all this knitting…..I have been perfecting a muffin recipe. Red, White, and Blueberry.

That’s right , blueberry’s and raspberries, with cinnamon chips, topped with  white sugar crystals. So Yummy!

So life does imitate art it appears, particularly in cooking and knitting.

Therefore I needed to finish the Red, White, and Blueberry circle by knitting Vanilla Cream.

This one as you can see is in progress. Two things of note. This is my second pattern of the Red, White, and Blueberry set by Hannah Fettig. Vanilla Cream is her Contented Cardi pattern and Summer Blues is the Featherweight Cardi. I cannot say enough about her classic designs and well written patterns. You will be guaranteed of a successful wearable sweater if you choose one of her designs.

The second other enjoyable item of the Vanilla Cream knit is the Yarn!  Beautiful Swans Island Certified Organic Merino….soft, buttery, light….a delight. Just like a muffin!!

It all started as I was standing in a store trying on a beautiful sweater. Himself says, “You could make that”   DOOMED!  He is right of course I could make that sweater so why am I thinking of buying it.  So right then and there the challenge began. I would no longer buy sweaters, but would only buy yarn and knit sweaters.

It sounds reasonable. I get to buy beautiful yarn and knit, which I am doing anyway. Soooooo why not knit sweaters that I want to wear.  For the most part of a year this has worked.  I was able to find patterns that are a style that I like and knit beautiful sweaters custom for me. BUT……there was this sweater that I really liked, no fair jJill.  AND……..I could not find a pattern similar to the style Soooooo……..the “crazy” began.

If I can follow a pattern, I should be able to write a pattern. Clearly I must have been drinking when I had that thought. Now mind you this is not a simple top down raglan sleeve pattern, oh no, this is a set-in sleeve, shawl collar, swing cardi. Let’s just take on the difficult project as our first project…..again the wine was talking.

I purchased the yarn, Madeline Tosh Vintage, bought a design your own sweater book, Knitwear Design Workshop, pulled out a sweater that fit me to perfection and began.

A giant swatch, a big calculator, graph paper, and tons of notes and I took the leap of knitting faith.

I created a bottom up design that had the shawl collar knit in as I went. Did a three needle bind off for the shoulders, and did the top down w&t sleeve method.

Did I get what I wanted, YES!

Does if fit me to perfection, YES!

Will I do it again, Maybe.

I love to knit for the relaxation of knitting, pattern design and constant calculations are not relaxing. With that said, I have already started another sweater, on the fly…..this time it is a top down, raglan sleeve, utilizing the Elizabeth Zimmerman percentage method. Not quite as crazy, except it is lace weight yarn.

In the meantime, I am off on another business trip. This time to Jacksonville, FL. Any great yarn stores there? And yes, the lace weight sweater project is going with me. 11 hours of travel should give me time to add a few more inches to the body of the sweater.

“Put down the needles and step away from the slippers. I promise no one will get hurt, just hand the pattern over and I will figure it out!”  So says that daughter of mine.

It all began as something so simple. A really cute slipper pattern, a short road trip and  a beautiful gift for my BFF…..

I thought this little twisted slipper pattern was soooooo cute. Since I had a two-day road trip coming up and a couple of short flights, less than two hours each, my brain is going perfect. Bought pattern and beautiful yarn and I am ready to go.  I swatched yarn two days before the trip and was spot on gauge. Thinking I would knit one foot going the other foot coming home and have completed one of the many gifts on my list this year.

Packed up the yarn, needles and copies of the pattern in a ziplock ready for “carry-on” knitting.  I waited until I boarded the plane to cast-on. I pulled out the copies I had made of the pattern and realized that my skipping the first page in the copy process I did not have the sizes with me. Confident that I remembered the size breakdown, I cast-on.  Unfortunately I had a business colleague across the aisle from me and he felt it was necessary to chat with me the whole trip. So only finished the sole of the slipper. Got to the hotel room and had three hours before my dinner meeting. Perfect! I put my feet up and continued knitting the slipper.  It seemed small to me……I held it up to my foot….it seemed really small…..but they are slippers and need to stretch to fit on your foot and stay on your foot so kept knitting.

I was buried in meetings at the conference and did not even touch my knitting until I was back at the airport two days later.  Pulled the knitting from my bag and realized why the slipper was small. I picked up the wrong size needle’s when I packed for the trip. One size smaller 4’s instead of 5’s …………..I will take that glass of wine while I frog all the way home.

OK home, a really good nite’s rest, a weekend to solve the worlds problems and the slipper hysteria. Pulled out the Size 5 needle’s double checked needle size, double checked shoe/slipper size and knocked out the first slipper. Looked cute until I put in on my foot. UGH! it was not tall enough to stay on a foot. What was this designer thinking!

Now the stubborn side of me was determined to make this work. Maybe I need a heavier yarn that will change the fit a little. So pulled some yarn out of my stash and cast-on AGAIN. Did not compete this slipper, but did just enough for compare and contrast at knit-night.

That is where the slipper frog party happened.  My daughter and friends around the knitting table all agreed…..everything had to be ripped back and a full do over was required.  The pattern was flawed and a creative re-write would be required to make this slipper fit on anyone’s foot.

So………I have ripped back both “test” slippers, neatly packed away the test stash yarn, and set the beautiful yarn and evil slipper pattern to the side. I know I will come back to it someday soon, but in the meantime I need a simple garter stitch pattern and a drink!

So where are you? Are you still going to write your blog? Yeah…..Yeah…..I know. Things just got a little nuts and then my computer had a major melt down. It got a nasty virus. I hope you never have to experience a full system attack on your computer.

It was supposed to be a nice morning, a relaxing morning, but NOOOOOOOOO!  A giant warning notice displays on my computer screen telling me I am infected and must click this button to clean up my system. I did not click the button as I did not recognize the software. I did click on my antivirus software and begin to run it. My software did not recognize this software as a problem…..problem!  Shut down computer re-boot hope for best. Try to get to Yahoo, but no, the virus software will not let me get anywhere unless I run its software and buy its virus upgrade. NOT.

Did I mention this is Saturday so my technical support team was not available. Fired up the blackberry and emailed support, explaining issue and hoping first thing on Monday they could assist. Decided the best thing I could do was to leave the building so I did not have to face my computer anymore. When all else’s fails a little shopping always makes a girl feel better.

While out shopping an email arrives on my blackberry from technical support with full instructions as to how to dance around the virus, download the virus killer, and get my computer back on track. Jason, you rock!!!

Feeling much better being assured that a solution was possible, I did what every girl does in this situation…..continue to shop.

Sunday, after my double espresso, I began the task of downloading software to another computer, transferring  it to my thumb drive, and running the software from the thumb drive to kill the virus.  Three hours of clean-up, of babysitting a computer, two more espresso’s and “magic”. My computer was whole again.

I was able to connect to the world, read all my emails, blogs that I follow, newspaper’s on-line and catch-up. Phew.

In the meantime, I have finished my Featherweight Cardi in the beautiful Panama yarn.

Almost have my Summer Berry complete.

And am moving along on creating my own pattern for Plum Crazy.

Stay tuned, as I am back among the connected and virus free!

The story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears was spinning thru my head the other day. It all had to do with this.

Yup, a stack of needles and some red tweedy yarn. All I was trying to do was knit a swatch. But…..the yarn was pulling a Goldilock’s on me.

I cast on at my LYS with some borrowed Rosewood needles, Size 7, the prior evening  just to determine if I this yarn would come close to the gauge I needed.  Gauge was a little large and the yarn was  fussy on these needles. It would not have a been a comfortable knit. However, I loved the yarn, knew I could pull gauge, and believed my Signature Stiletto’s would be “just right”.  I bought the yarn and went home excited to start a new project.

If you have the need for speed in your knitting, Signature Needles are the bomb, add the stiletto points and you can scream thru a project. Any project, so I thought.  Time to swatch with new yarn and Signature Needle’s, Size 7. I knit a little tighter on metal than wood and thought I would land spot on gauge. Cast on for swatch and was amazed. I could barely move yarn along the needles to knit one row! The Goldilock’s voice was saying this is toooooo firm.  Rip, rip, toss Signature Needles aside and reach for another pair.

Next up, Clover Bamboo, Size 6. I knit looser on the Bamboo and based upon the Rosewood experience the prior evening thought this would pull gauge. Cast on for swatch. Ok so I could move the yarn along a little better, but could not envision knitting a whole sweater on these needles with the effort it required to do the K2Tog YO pattern. Goldilock’s was saying this was toooooooo soft.   Rip, rip toss Clover Bamboo Needles aside.  I was about ready to give up when I remembered I had one more type of needle.

Yup, the cheap ones, the Prym teflon coated needles. Pulled the size 6 and cast on. And Goldilock’s said “This is Just Right”  Needles and yarn were the perfect match. Gauge was spot on and pattern was a breeze to execute with these needles.

Moral of the story……..sometimes you need to step beyond the swatch and have to try many needles before your find that “just right” match for your “Goldilock’s” (yarn).

In case you are wondering the yarn is Rowan Summer Tweed and the pattern is the Belvedere Cardigan from the winter/spring11 Knitscene. I have been speeding along and only have a sleeve and 1/2 left before blocking.

You pick one up and knit it on… 655 little beads in a bowl.

In case you have been wondering what I have been doing.  Beading the beautiful Bitterroot Shawl by Rosemary Hill. Let’s just say I took on a project when I had two others going at the same time. This one has multiple charts to read and beads. Did I say BEADS.

Smart things I have done, lifelines. If you have not used them I urge you to give it a try. It is a simple trick of pulling a little yarn along a row and leaving it there just in case……you really screw up and can’t seem to solve it. You simply rip back to the “lifeline” , pick up your stitches and begin again. You can see the green yarn in my photos. And yes, I did use it one time in the project.

So today, I am four really big rows out from binding off, and I am guessing about 200+ more beads to go. Was it worth all the effort ? Absolutely!! It is going to be stunning and I already know I will wear it to death.

These are the kinds of projects you should be doing when you knit. Always ask yourself, if  it was on mannequin in a store is it something I would try on? Does it fit with how I live? Will I wear it to death? If the answer is no to any of the above; put the yarn down, do not buy the pattern and do not let the excitement of your LYS overtake your common sense. Or you will have another unfinished object taking up space in your basket.

For me, a few more beads and I will be blocking something beautiful that I am going to love! Stay tuned for the final pics.