Whew!

Thank goodness for Erica!!! She saved my clapotis! After the "incident" with the dogs, Erica came over and put the scarf back on needles for me. I've done a few repeats of the straight section and have dropped 2 or 3 stitches so far and it looks good.

I also started to knit with the Patons SWS yarn. I'm going to felt a bag with it. Right now I'm just doing a rectangular garter stitch bottom and then I'll pick up stitches around the rectangle and stockinette stitch til it's as big as I want. This is the first time I'm not really following a pattern, we'll see how it goes. I'll post some pictures in the next few days.

On the quilting side of my crafty life. . . I've started working on a rag quilt again that I put aside a while ago. It was going to be for my husband, but then my mom made us a beautiful rag quilt that he loves, so there's no need for me to make another one. This one will be donated to the auction that my knitting group holds around the holidays. I've got quite a few blocks ready to be joined. I haven't decided how big it should be. I'll see how far the blocks that I've already cut will take me. I was planning on making it huge since my husband is 6 feet tall and doesn't like short blankets, but now I'm thinking of making it a lap blanket.

More later, hopefully, I've been pretty lazy at home so we'll see if I get pictures taken and posted.

Puuuuuups!!!

My pups are now officially monsters!!! I made the horrible mistake of leaving my 100% alpaca yarn and partially knit clapotis in a bag in the den while my dogs were both in a bit of a frenzy (there were tons of squirrels outside and lots of garbage trucks. . . one loves squirrels, the other is terrified of trucks). This is the result:

They chewed the remaining needle (the other one has been lost in the backyard after they ran around with it), all 5 of the double pointed needles, and the instructions. My friend Erica is going to help me salvage it. The good news is it didn't unravel since part of the needle is still in the stitches. The really bad news is that if you look at the upper right of the scarf, the yarn has been torn!

On a happier note, here is my first knit-a-long dishcloth. I think it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. The picture really doesn't do it justice. It's a cool little pyramid, diamond thing. I can't wait for next months. I got some yellow yarn since my kitchen is mostly green and yellow towels and mats.

I went to Michaels today to get some replacement needles (metal this time!) and I found this cool yarn. It's so soft! Patons SWS (soy with stripes). It's wool and soy. It supposedly felts well. I think it will look great as a felted bag. So much for not buying any more yarn for a while!

Lots of Projects II

Ok, this thing is much faster now!

Here's my clapotis with 5 dropped stitches. Isn't it gorgeous! I can't wait to block it. I thought it was all over when my dogs decided to run around the yard, one with the ball, one with the scarf. But luckily only 3 stitched dropped off the needle and I think that I fixed it well enough. I guess we'll see in a few more rows. I did lose one of my needles in the yard, but I had double points in the same size and could use one of those with the handy yello sock on the end to keep the stitches from falling off. I may jinx myself, but I think that this is going to be a fast project!

Now onto my craft room. I wish I had taken some before pictures. I couldn't see my sewing machine and there were boxes of non-craft things all over the place. My craft room is a small addition to the house that I took over from my husband, who was using it as a computer room. This side is my quilting side. There is a book case filled with fabric and notions. I haven't decided what to do with the small cubbies. They were going to go on top of the cubbies on the other side, but it's not stable enough and would probably fall on the pups if they knocked into it.

Here is the sewing center. There is still some non-craft stuff (the big box on the left and the file cabinet on the right). It still needs a little work. I could also use a much sturdier sewing table, maybe in our next house!

Here is the knitting/quilting side. The built in shelves (on the left) have quilting and knitting notions and some work stuff. the cubbies on the right have fabric boxes that pull all the way out and are filled with yarn!! All my works in progress are kept on top of the cubbies. There's also all the prints that my husband and I had professionally framed and never got a chance to hang before he left for Iraq. That's ok, we'll find a place for them int he new house. No point in putting more holes in the wall at this point. And now for something completely different! My new pup, Trapper, is obsessed with playing fetch. Every once in a while he sneaks a ball in the house. Yesterday he snuck a ball in and then fell asleep with the ball in his mouth. I didn't ge tthe camera in time to get a picture of him sleeping with the ball in his mouth, but I got one of him snuggling up next to the ball. He's so cute!

Lots of Projects

Blogger is pretty slow right now and I'm having trouble posting my pictures, so this will be a multi-post day.

Here's a picture of the first few blocks for a quilt I'm making for my neighbor. The one on the left isn't finished yet. My neighbor's having a little boy and she's due the end of October. We probably would have never gotten to know each other if it wasn't for our dogs, who love each other! So I thought it was rather fitting to make a puppy quilt. It doesn't go at all with the decor of their room (light green and classic pooh) but that's ok, it can be a quilt to use anywhere but the nursery! I think it's turning out great. I'm doing 6 puppy blocks and then 6 four patches using the same bright colors.


Hopefully I'll be able to post about the clapotis and my craft room later. I'm taking the dogs for a walk now so it will have to be later today.

Beginning Clapotis

Ok, so I haven't posted in a very long time. I've been very busy though. I'm working on my dissertation, which honestly doesn't take up much time as compared to our pups. They are a handful and require a whole lot of exercise and attention. I love em though and they're keeping me occupied while my husband is over in Iraq.

I've been slowly working on my first pair of socks. I turned the heel and everything and now I've got to do like 6 or 7 inces of straight knitting and it's pretty boring, so it's being put on the back burner. And it's only the first sock! It's going to take forever.

I got some new yarn though and just had to make something with it. My sister suggested the Clapotis pattern from Knitty and I think it's looking real good so far. I'm using 100% alpaca. It's all natural, undyed yarn in three colors that are spun together. I love it!! I did one one repeat of section 2 and I'm not sure how many I will do of section 3. It's going really quick though. I'm glad I'm doing the smaller scarf size one, other wise the stripes wouldn't be so nice. It would probably go half a row before changing color. I've dropped 2 stitches so far and it looks pretty good. My sister's looked real good without blocking, but mine will definitely need to be blocked.

Here's a detail of the stitches and dropped stitches. It will look much better when it's blocked and the dropped stitches will be straighter.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have some real progress to post soon!

I finished a project and have nothing on my needles!!!

I know, how could this ever happen. . . what kind of knitter am I to not have anything going on. Well, I blame it on a very difficult pattern. The scarf has been scrapped yet again and I'm going to try again with a new pattern that will hopefully look very similar but isn't so difficult. The pattern wasn't really that bad, there was just a weird part involving a yarn over, a slipped stitch, and passing that slipped stitch over. It was very hard to tell the yarn over from the slipped stitch when it came time to psso. So, I will start it again and it will be my next project. My new dog is keeping me very very busy though. He's a little (well, big. . . he's 60 pounds) fireball and is absolutely obsessed with tennis balls. Right now he's running 4 miles a day and walking another 4 miles, plus playing fetch all the other spare time of the day. Unfortunately, I don't have a treadmill so I'm also getting 8 miles of exercise.

So, some finished projects. Here is a picture of the bunny that I made and gave to the dog (I really didn't like the way it came out!)

Her is the sweater for my niece. It took me long enough, didn't it? It's very big and I hope it looks good on her. There's a hood and a pocket. Besides the enormity of it, I think that it turned out pretty good. It will probably fit her well into her teen years. Although hot pink may not be a part of her wardrobe much longer. I think I feel confident enough to move onto a big sweater. I think I'm going to make one for my hubby for when he gets back from his deployment. I just have to find the perfect pattern and buy a whole bunch of yarn (there goes my promise not to buy yarn until I use up what I have in my stash!!)

Here's a picture of my pups. The dark one (Cooper) we've had for almost a year, the white one (Trapper) we got one week ago today. They're already best buds and Trapper is fitting in just great!!

The dog ate my homework

Well, not really, but he did eat a few other things! I made a bunny stuffed animal and it looked absolutely horrible because I didn't measure it correctly before sewing and the head was tiny and the butt was huge. So I gave it to the dog. He immediately pulled the tail off then didn't touch it again for a few days. Now it's one of his favorite toys and he's always got it in his mouth when I come home from work. He was a little troublesome this morning though. I left him at home when I went for a run and he wasn't happy about that. He has knee surgery 2 months ago and still gets mad when I leave him home when I go running. One more month and he'll be able to join me again. Anyway, when I got back home the yarn for the scarf I'm working on was stretched across the den, through the kitchen, and into the sitting room. Luckily he didn't manage to pull any stitches off the needle!!

So, I've ALMOST got one sleeve done of my neice's sweater. The thing is going to be so huge!! I also started the scarf for the 3rd time. Hopefully 4th time is a charm! I somehow managed to lose the instructions though. I had them scribbled on a piece of paper that I was able to find, but the original pattern has disappeared into a black hole somewhere. I'm sure I'll find it the day after I finish the scarf. I think that's all I'm working on at the moment. I'm hoping to work on a baby blanket for my neighbor while I'm in NY at a conference and visiting my family.

The neverending blanket

The neverending blanket has finally been finished!! It took forever and I'm never making another blanket like this!! It came out very pretty and it's a nice lacey pattern, but I'm never making another thing so big on such small needles.


Yarn: Bernat Coordinates
Needles: Size 7US
Pattern: Baby Chevron Afghan, on Bernat label

Here's a picture of the blanket all packaged up and ready to be mailed. The baby shower is on Saturday and it's Wednesday right now. It should get in the mail today (if I ever get changed out of my pajamas) and it MAY make it there for the shower. I can only hope.

I also finished the seaman scarf for my husband, but didn't take a picture yet. I'll get it up eventually.

So, my projects that are on the needles now:
Pullover for my niece (I just messed up the sleeve, so it will probably go even slower now)
Bunny (a pattern from my sister to make a little bunny from a square, it will be an accompanying animal for an auction baby blanket)
Scarf (well, it was on the needles until I messed up the pattern for the millionith time, I just unravelled it and now the bunny is on those needles so it will have to wait a little bit)

I've also got a few random things in the craft room. I have a sock started and some washcloths and I think an ugly scarf, obviously not all that interesting since I haven't worked on them in a very long time.

Some pictures of my projects

I finally remembered and had time to download my photos I took a week ago. Here is the scarf I'm making for my hubby, more than halfway done! I'll have it done by next year since it's a little too hot now.
Now for the baby blanket that will never be a whole blanket. It is getting very boring since it's the same 4 rows over and over and over again. But, I've managed to finish the first skein of green and now I'm starting the second skein, which is white. Then I have one more skein after that, a yellow one.
Here's the detail of the pattern. I did mess up a little, but of course I didn't take a picture of that part!!

Oh to be a stay at home wife!!!

I just returned from a month of working in Australia. Unfortunately, I brought no knitting projects with me, but I did manage to read 3 books from the Kathy Reich's Temperance Brennan series. . . highly recommended. I've done a little bit since I got home. I'm mainly working on a scarf for Josh, although he's going to Irag for a year and won't need it, but I just want to finish something, and I'm also working on a baby blanket for my cousin. The baby shower is in June so I don't have much time left. It's getting a little bit boring, but it's good for when I get home from work and don't want to think.

I'm thinking of things to make for the charity auction this year. We're starting things off pretty early being that it's in November, but I might as well start thinking enven though I won't start anything until October!

The best thing is that I've been able to work from home for the last 2 weeks since I've been home from Australia. My dog had knee surgery (poor pup) and I needed to stay home with him a few days. Then I realized, wow, I'm a million times more productive at home then at work. So, I've been working from home. It's been real nice because I can actually take a lunch break and knit of go for a walk with the dog. Not having to drive to work is great too, I've got an extra 90 minutes every day to do anything I want (mainly fold laundry or sleep). I could definitely be a stay at home wife for a while!!!

Well, that's it, no pictures or anything, they'll just have to wait til my next post, which will hopefully be in less than 2 months!!