Frog Is A Four Letter Word

The little Gabe sweater is complete, minus sewing on the six buttons. I'm so sleepy now, though, I will take a picture tomorrow. Besides it's so dark you would have to imagine the details anyway.

I altered the hell out of the pattern, Sweater with Square Set-In Sleeves, from Debbie Bliss' Baby Knits for Beginners. Gabe is a catchier name, right? In fact the only thing I kept about it was the diamond pattern. Anyway, I've been emailing with Ayelet about how Debbie Bliss patterns can make a person insane. But we're the ones that keep knitting them, aren't we?

I went to The Fine Needle on Saturday and got some yarns to begin holiday gifts. Hmm, maybe I'll put up a page of yarn reviews. I also want to change my FO pages. It is so unecessary and audacious of me to have a FO page for every month. Hello? I barely had one FO in August.

Okay then. Falling asleep. Pics soon.

Oh yeah. I totally forgot to mention that Haystack Mountain had a cancellation in the textile workshop so I'm back on! I'm soooo excited about this workshop/vacation.

The Gabe sweater is moving along. Almost done the first sleeve. What project should I pick up next? If I were an organized, linear person I would pick up a languishing unfinished object and finish it. Ha! The likely candidates are:
1.) Dobby's Big Bird sweater (this is fresh in my memory because I just stole the needles out of it to finish Gabe.)
2.) My second sock (this is not really likely)
3.) Purple Wavy. Poor Wavy, so neglected, so boring.
4.) Something NEW! Today I found a sweater pattern for my mom's xmas gift in some VK. Or the hoodies for Niblings #3, #4 and #6 for xmas. Or something else!

We all know what my choice is, but which would you choose?

The little Gabe sweater (finally remembered the baby's name) is moving along. The first sleeve is started and the second sleeve will finish the whole thing! I do think I'm clever for not having any seams. This picture should prove how much I hate seams because I'm using dpns to avoid them! And we all know I don't like dpns.



To you sweater experts out there I pose a question. Why does my neck ribbing stick up and look like a mock turtleneck? Do I have too many stitches? Should I have picked up and then decreased? Or should I just do fewer rows? Because honestly that's an easy fix. I'm sure it won't be obvious once it's on a baby but it bothers me. Doesn't it bother you?

It certainly feels like a Monday to me. I broke a tooth this morning while eating my breakfast. Funny story--I thought it was someone else's tooth (I bought breakfast) and was about to hurl and I got all mad, but then realized it was mine. And Haystack Mountain sent back my application because they are full for the workshop I wanted to attend. So now I have to replan my vacation.

On the sunnier side, I've been working on the little diamond pattern baby sweater for my friend's new dude. This is the Debbie Bliss pattern for which I had to get smaller needles. I am altering the pattern quite a bit:knitting the body in the round; putting buttons/plackets at the shoulders (who designs a crewneck pullover for a baby?); and knitting the sleeves in the round. I won't have any seams! I'm done the body to the armholes and am working on the top of the front.



And to answer Shannon's question about my sock, yes it does fit perfectly!

Really this sock took more than a year, but I'm too lazy to go back and see when I started it. April '04 probably. It's oddly shaped and there are holes on the heel short rows, but hey it's my first sock. And it's done.



As I dug through my stash to get the other skein for the second sock (what? you thought I was done the pair? fool!) I realized I have a lot of sock yarn for someone who doesn't knit socks. Obviously it's nothing compared to those serious about socks. But come on. Which of my alter egos bought all this sock yarn and what were they planning to do with it?

That's all for now. Hang around another year and you might just see a pair of socks!

..I did promise to share my cool vacation plans with you guys. Okay, only fibery textiley people will think it's actually "cool". There is an "Extreme Textiles" workshop at the very groovy Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. When I checked last week they still had an opening for the textile workshop and if they get my registration in time, I'll be going up there in a few weeks!

I went to Maine several summers ago and fell in loooooove. I mean with Maine. In the summer. So I'm debating between driving and flying. The school will pick me up from the airport, but if the tickets go up over $400, I will probably drive. If so, I may have to get up with some knitbloggers on the seaboard!

So it's exciting for me anyway. I haven't had a roadtrip/vacation for years. It will be difficult leaving the guys for a week, especially since Charlie is moving into diapers. But this should be very creative, inspiring and refreshing.

What is your ideal getaway?

Well I should tell you that Nephew #3 really liked the fingerpuppets. In fact they were the only toy he played with after he opened all his presents. He treated them with all the care and finesse a sweaty two-year-old boy can muster. I think the pig even accompanied him to the sandbox.

And like an airhead, I didn't even take a picture of my mom's scarf once it was complete. But here are some shots of the process. I used a book on shibori as my guide and it says "Iro Iro" means many colors or very colorful. Okay, so both of the scarves I worked on were green, but I'm getting there.

I am lucky to have lots of silk lying about so I chose some ivory and green. I cut and hemmed them into scarf size. Then laundered them gently in the machine. I tied the ivory in several places widthwise.



Then I stitched wavy lines in the green silk lengthwise.



And gathered the stitching up tight to create a pressure resist.



Then I dyed the ivory silk green with some Rit dye. And I discharged, or removed dye, from the green with Rit color remover. The Rit color remover does indeed remove all color, just like the box says. So the gathered ball of silk is now just taupe. No cool wavy green resist patterns. Next time I'll use the discharge chemical the book recommends. But the green on ivory turned out nicely.



I wanted a lighter green in a loose plaid pattern, so I laid out the scarf (outdoors) and applied very concentrated color remover in stripes lengthwise.



The scarf is wet here so the dried colors are much lighter, but it turned out nice. Please note: Whatever you do, don't use discharge or color remover indoors. The stench is horrible and I'm pretty sure it's bad for you, too. Imagine the nastiest home perm your mom ever did and multiply that by ten.

So this was just me messing around with dye stuffs I had on hand. I'm very excited about getting decent materials and making more cool stuff. Oooh, I'll also fill you in later on the cool thing I'm doing for my upcoming vacation.

Here is a better photo of El Perro.



And the one that may just be my favorite not only for cuteness but ease of construction--El Pato!



I think he's as cute as the pig. Look at the little duck tail! That's one thing I noticed about the patterns in Weekend Knitting, the only one that mentioned a tail was the cat, but they didn't even show it.

So I'm totally making more of these, and not just because I have pounds of sock yarn leftover. They are so fun and cute! I think I'll complete this set at Christmas time. Do you smell a tradition in the making? I'll probably whip up some for my other young niblings, too. Perhaps North American wild animals since their daddy is a wildlife biologist.

I finished my mom's shibori silk scarf since it was her birthday Sunday and she'll be at my nephew's party tomorrow. It's not ultra fancy, but I did document and photo it as I went, so I'll post that later.

Go make some puppets!