My pinwheel!

I finished it! I finished it! I pulled it out of its hiding place, found some needles, grafted, cursed, grafted again, knit some, grafted, cursed, searched the house for more yarn, unravelled part of the first sleeve to salvage enough yarn to finish the second one, soaked, blocked and admired my lovely pinwheel ;0)


Isn't she beautiful? I started her this summer and then put her aside during those dark days of early pregnancy when knitting made me nauseous. When I picked her up again, the sleeves tested my patience (I knit them upside down!) and I buried the whole thing in a grocery bag at the bottom of Julian's diaper bag. I dug it out this week in an effort to come clean about all the projects that were still unfinished and it was worth it! Here's a picture of the back...

Looking at it in all of it's blocked beauty I can't help but wonder why I almost gave up on it in the first place. Seriously, I had planned on loosing it forever! The only little itsy bitsy problem it still poses is that I knit it for my cute little neighbourette who just turned 3 (actually, that's not true...her birthday was in June!!! See what I mean about procrastinating?) and let's just say that while my Pinwheel is the same "size" as it was when I started it this spring, it's intended recipient just kept on growing and growing as little ones tend to and I'm not sure if it will fit. Of course the only way to find out for sure would be for her to try it one but I'm too afraid that it might not fit and don't want to break her precious little heart.

Anyone out there have an average sized 3-year old? Please help a procrastinating knitter out, won't you? Please? I need to know about sleeve width, sleeve length and waist measurements.

Do tell...

Wow!

You may have noticed that I’ve been MIBA (Missing In Blogging Action) lately…that’s because I’ve been MIKA (Missing in Knitting Action)! I’ve been back at work for 3 weeks now and still haven’t really found my groove yet. I just don’t know when I’ll get to fit in all the knitting I want to do! Turns out, I don’t feel like knitting at 7am on the train as I thought I would. Turns out, I just want to lay my sleepy head on my hubby’s shoulder and sneak in a few more zzz’s. Which works out because since we travel together, I get to do just that ;0)



I’m still working on my pinwheel. I finished the body and the snazzy loopy border which is actually 16 million I-cords knit together! It looks pretty cool but was a bit of a pain to knit. I actually had to use some Lamaze breathing techniques to get through it at times ;0) But I did and am really glad I did it because it finishes it off so nicely.



I unpicked my scrap piece of yarn to reveal my sleeve stitches and am happy to report it worked marvellously. I made it up about two third of the way on the first sleeve (note that I skipped the ribbing because the intended giftee is 3 years old so there won’t be a need to fold the sleeves up at all) before realising that the sleeve shaping is on the wrong side! That’s right, the decreases are lined up across the top of the sleeve - and they’re not so neat! I have no idea what to do about it. Should I just keep going and hope that blocking will neaten it up and make it acceptable? Or should I let her rip? I decided to put her away for now while I compose myself and plan my exit strategy ;0)



So I started another itty bitty project for one of my new colleagues’ grandson due in mid-August. The pattern is from Debbie Bliss’ Special Knits and is indeed a nice and simple train knit. I finished the back last week and started knitting the front this morning. I’m knitting it out of Bernat Softee Baby in blue and using my Knit Picks classic needles in US 3. So far, I’m kind of on the fence about the needles. I like the nickel plated tips and the great price ($4.99) but the tips are really pointy and hurt my index after a while plus one of them is kinda bumpy about 1 inch from the tip which is really annoying. I should probably send them back but can’t be bothered. Besides shipping would probably cost as much as ordering another pair.



And in Julian news…he said his first word!!! Are you ready for this? His first word was: “Wow”! He started saying it at a friend’s pool party last weekend when we put sunglasses on his nose but we weren’t sure. Then on Tuesday at grandma’s he said it again when we placed a makeshift crown on his head. So cute! Wow wow wow!!! Here’s a picture of him sleeping in his swing. I really don’t know how he can sleep that way. I tried straightening him out a few times but he kept slouching like that and holding his feet. Go figure ;0)

Have a good week!

It's the thought that counts!

It was my darling husband's birthday on Monday and Julian and I improvised a great birthday dinner for our favourite guy! We took out the china and crystal, made lasagna, garlic bread with cheese and ceasar salad, put on clean clothes and waited for daddy to come home to light the candles atop his two-bite brownie cake!

I even pulled our mutual card out of it's frame and found a spot to scribble a new message. (I'll tell you more about the card when I get it back for my own birthday on Monday ;0) And his present? A pretty fly video card to enhance his computer gaming experience! He was a happy guy.

After dinner, we drove to my sister's house to hand deliver the bunny and kitty cardis and to give my niece the One Skein Wonder I've been promising her since Christmas! (I know, I know, I'm the last person in history to knit this!) I knit is from Schoeller Merino Stretch and totally fell in love with the yarn. Good thing too, cause I still have 6 balls left in the stash!

I knit it on small(ish) needles and the resulting fabric is very stretchy and form-fitting but looks like it was felted. Very cool. I ended up using about one and a half balls for this 15" inch shrug. So not quite a "one skein wonder" but close enough ;0)

And then, with all that deadline knitting out of the way...I finally started my Knitting World Cup project . And it's going a lot smoother than I thought it would. I've already knit my first 8 mitered squares. I'm using the Mason*Dixon blanket pattern and stash Bernat Satin. And boy are these fun to knit! I haven't yet decided how big I want the blanket to be. I'm unsure if I want to make it smaller (say 30" by 30") so that it is a good size as a lap blanket, stroller play blankie or plain old security blanket or much larger so that he can sit on it to play with the interactive bits and can sleep under it for warmth ;0) Any thoughts?

I'm thrilled that Deb, Renee, Rhonda, and Samantha joined my pinwheel sweater knit-along. Go checkout Deb's self-striping yarn version (and while you're there prepare to drool over Rhonda's GREAT grand-daughter)! Pretty neat, eh? I'm thinking this just might be the project I've been looking for to honour my Noro Silver Thaw stash... But since I only have 4 balls, I'm thinking of sticking with my original idea and going for a solid coloured Peruvian Highland Wool version. Well maybe I'll sleep on it some more.

Send me an email at annypurls {at} hotmail {dot} com if you'd like to join us. The more the merrier. Check out the Pinwheel Sweater Knit-Along blog here.

Cheers!

Round and round

I've fallen into a bit of my routine with my pinwheel this week: I knit around and around on the train home after work, notice a few stops before mine that I missed a bunch of yarnovers, shove the whole thing in my bag and unpick the offending rows on my way in to work in the morning. No kidding, I did this everyday this week! Literally, two steps forward, one step back!

But I still love it! You may notice a weird thin pin-stripe in the picture: I decided to knit the 18 sleeve stitches on a piece of scrap yarn instead of fussing with a holder and provisional cast on. I have no idea how this will work out since I've never done this for a sleeve before, but this technique works great for making thumbholes in mittens and I thought it might do the trick here too.

Basically, you knit the sleeve stitches on a piece of scrap yarn then put them back on the right needle and knit them again with your working yarn and keep going as usual. When ready to pick up the stitches for the sleeves, all you have to do is unpick the scrap yarn to reveal 18 top and bottom stitches (I hope). Much better than a holder and provisional cast-on, don't'cha think? Provided it works of course ;0) I'm about halfway through the second to last colour change and will be ready to move on to the sleees in no time. Can't wait to take it off the needle and see what it looks like!

In other news, I picked up a really cool package from the post office last night: my hot off the presses (okay, maybe not presses, but you get the idea) needles from Knit Picks. I needed to get some US 1, 2 and 3 circs to round off my collection and thought I'd buy my beloved addi's but since we're in money saving mode right now, I need to curb the yarn spending for a while and so decided to give the Knit Pick needles a go because at $4.99 each I got 3 for basically the price of one addi!

The small needles (US 3 and under are not available as interchangeable needles so I bought their "classic" circs instead and while I haven't tried to knit with them yet I did take a close look at them and was really pleasantly surprise at how similar they are to my addi's. The wires are just as flexible, the joins are ery smooth and the tips are very light and tapered just right. I think I'm going to like them. I also ordered a few tips and cables to try out their interchangeable needle mechanism and will let you know it goes when I try them on the weekend.

Have a good one everybody!

Pinwheelin'

I'm finally pinwheeling whoohoo! And what a fun knit it is ;0) ...well, except for the yarnovers I keep forgetting! I'm knitting it as part of the Pinwheel Sweater Knitalong I'm hosting and after seeing all the really cool versions popping up I really couldn't wait to start. I've already made 3 of the 6 colour changes and so far I'm pretty pleased with my colour selections (it sure took me long enough).

I had originally thought of knitting it in a solid colour, but in the end I managed to pick 7 yummy colours for a very subtle (I hope) gradation of colour from cream to the deepest purple. I am using the recommended Peruvian Collection Highland Wool from Elann in natural, rose pink, orchid pink, lotus blossom, grape, aubergine, and eggplant.

It's real quick (the start anyway) and fun to knit and I can't beleive how far I've gotten after just a few hours. Okay I realise that the rows just get longer and longer from here on in, but still! After Jujube's interminable blanket, a cool quickie is just what the knittin' doctor ordered. Yippie!

If you want to join the knitalong, drop me a line at annypurls {at} hotmail {dot} com.

Happy knitting!

Go, extra time, go!

The French, Italian and Portuguese nations were well represented in my northern suburb this week. There were flags everywhere! So even though we haven't really been following the tournament, we decided to have a bit of a World Cup party today. We put together an antipasti platter with bean salad and bruschetta in honour of Grandpa's team: Italy.

In honour of the French team (and Julian's love anything bready and anything dairy!) we had profiteroles for desert (they were still kinda frozen in the centre which explains his hilarious expression:

And me, I was rooting for extra time as I was furiously trying to finish my World Cup knitting project before the winner was declared. Needless to say I was thrilled that the match went into overtime ;0) And so here is my mitered square blankie for my Jubilee Bubilee (the embroidery on the border reads: for my little Julian, may all your days be filled with giggles, warmth and whimsy from mommy with love):

I even weaved in all the ends and finished off the underside as neatly as I could. Nice, eh?

So some of you may be thinking, "that's nice, but where are all the nursery rhyme whimsies?" And to you observant folks I say "shhhhh!" ;0)

Let's say I've been a little handicapped with the whole going back to work thing... I still plan on knitting them, but I'll do so on my own time and just add them on during weekend nap times here and there. So there'll be lots of surprises when my lovely awakes. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

And now, finally I get to start something new!!! Yay! Up next is a pinwheel sweater for my neighbour Emily. I got my yarn from elann this week and can't wait to get pinwheeling. I might start it tonight so that I can get gauge issues figured out and get it advanced enough that I am comfortable bringing it on the train tomorrow morning.

Have a good week everybody!

And then there were two!

I finally finished the second bunny cardi on the weekend. Actually, I finished knitting it on Friday but couldn't find carrot buttons anywhere! I bought the original ones at Wal-Mart, but they only had three cards of it and I needed four. After checking out 3 different stores in 3 different towns on the weekend and 2 fabric stores to boot, we had to improvise.

So here are the bunny cardi and the kitty cardi (click here for bigger picture)! You may notice that the bunny cardi looks different than it did earlier in the week...I held my breath again for open knit surgery and knitted in an afterthought pocket (Elizabeth Zimmerman really is a genius) and am really stoked about how it turned out. The pockets are exactly the size of the finger puppets who are snug as a bug in their custom tailored pockets!

I just love how neat they look and I must admit I love the thrill of snipping a stitch and unravelling a garment I've been working on for several days with the potential of disaster! It's unnerving, but just like the afterthought buttonhole, totally worth since it makes up for lack of careful planning! Check out the inside:

{blogger is throwing a hissy fit again, click here to see picture on the better-mannered flickr}

Now I really have to finish my niece's one skein wonder so I can deliver it and both cardis tonight since she's leaving for Algeria tomorrow! Talk about cutting it close. Plus I really need to get started on my World Cup project. I'm already 3 days behind! Not good. Although I did watch the England vs Paraguay match on Saturday (really nothing else on the telly) and it wasn't as boring as I remembered. Just boring enough to make even tricky knitting possible :0P

Finally, remember the amazing pinwheel baby and lady cardis I told you about on Friday? Well I love the pattern so much I thought I'd host my very first knit-along! I set up a dedicated blog for it here (or check out my fancy button in the sidebar) and would love for you to join if you're interested. I won't get to mine until after the Knitting World Cup on July 10th (though you can start earlier or later if you prefer). It would be really cool to see it come together in different colour combos. I'm planning on using the recommended Peruvian Collection Highland Wool (total baby version cost is $20..., now that's a deal!) but can't decide on which 7 colours to choose. Too many choices! Good thing there's plenty of lead time ;0)

Hope you'll join me!