Out Like a Lamb

The temperature has been hovering around fifty for the past few days so, even though its drizzling today, I’d say this is lamb-like weather. I’ve been pretty busy this month. I accomplished everything on my list. I forgot to post this yesterday, here’s a picture of the finished Slouchy Hat!

I’m still not sure what to call it other than Slouchy Hat! I threaded elastic thread through the cast on stitches and now the brim, which was too wide, is nice and snug and it stays on my head.

Here’s my March Design It! entry. You know it as S.S.P.

They’re nice slouchy socks that one can wear around the house instead of slippers. Here’s the link if you want to see what everyone else came up with this month. There isn’t much to report about the Blanket today. I spent most of the morning cleaning but I did get some time in last night while watching Battleship (The Hitchcock was broken, who ever rented it from Netflix before us had cracked it and tried to glue it. 😦 )

I think I need to weave in some ends before I go any further. It’s getting a little messy. My goal is to finish the bottom row by Wednesday.

Chicky-poo

Today was errands day. Over the course of three hours I dashed here and there, picking up last minutes items for Easter dinner. There were a few treasures in this egg-less Easter hunt. I bought a rainbow of Kool-Aid pouches for dyeing. I owe a friend a pair of slippers. She wants multicolored neon ones. The only neon yarn I could find online was plastic. So I think using Kool-Aid will be my best shot at achieving the colors she wants. Without the yarn squeaking as she walks.

Roy G. Biv

On a more natural note… I also bought two packets of seeds.

Lavender will produce a yellow color and will also keep moths from eating clothes dyed with it. Fennel will create a yellow or green color.

I started my birch bark dye. I boiled it then let it simmer. Here it is as of this afternoon. It’ll soak in here for a week or more. Then I’ll strain it and dye my white yarn completely. Afterwards I’m going to overdye 1/2 of it with coffee so I end up with a pink and brown variegated yarn for the Blanket. I hope.

It actually smelled good while it was boiling. Almost like pine. Of course here’s my progress on the Blanket.

8 and 1/2 squares out of 14 (or 15 I’m not 100% sure yet) for the bottom. If there was one thing about the Blanket that I didn’t like I’d have to say it would be doing the crochet cast on with a broken hook. I was checking out a new (to me) blog and the author said she wanted some chick fabric to make curtains out of. When I was in Jo-Ann Fabrics today this is the first thing I saw.

Chicks N’ Eggs

Parachuting Chicks

Personally I’d use Parachuting Chicks! 😉 Happy Easter Everyone!

Orbit of Insanity

I meant for the Blanket to be a stash buster. An in between projects project but, unfortunately, the Blanket is very addicting. I managed to make four squares yesterday alone. I’ve been digging around for sock weight yarn. I don’t have all that much sock yarn but I can at least make a start,

I frogged my Summit scarf  to feed my addiction.

I rationalized by saying “It’s been sitting in hibernation for months, the yarn will actually be used this way…” Here’s the Blanket as of this morning, I added a little more as I drank my coffee.

I’m sure you all can see the myriad of loose ends hanging off. Most of your are probably cringing too. I have been weaving ends as I go though, I’m trying to keep the orbit of insanity following this project to a minimum. Nevertheless it has already sucked me in.

New Project

Look what we have here…

Two little swatches. What ever could they be?

And another one on the needles? Oh my.

Does anybody have any guesses as to what I’m making? It is a pattern on Ravelry, but not by me.

Here’s a shot of my new yarn bowl. I can’t wait to try it out.

Ps. I’m making this

Day 2

Just now, as we are well into our second day of spring I am feeling it. I noticed today, when I was on a walk, the birds were chirping and I did see some crocuses. I think that’s what they were. Sadly, my flower knowledge is a little bit lacking. Anyway, Bunny Hoppers is in the mail and will be at Rosie’s house well before Easter so I feel like I can relax. All of my deadlines are met and I’m not rushing to finish one project or another.

 

I think they turned out great. I’ve gone back to Slouchy Hat but it’s slow going. There are 178 stitches on one round but it is good mindless knitting and I am enjoying it. I’m not sure but I think it won’t be much longer.

D’oh!

Ever have one of those moments where everything is going fine then suddenly it hits you. You made a really stupid obvious mistake.

Bunnies generally have two ears. I am making a set of bunny slippers. That’s two bunnies. So at two ears per head times two heads I need four ears. Then why on earth did I only make two? At least it’s a simple fix, not structural. It didn’t take long for me to whip up two more ears. They’ll be felting tonight and, with any luck, be mailed tomorrow.

 

If you though my last post Eating Crow was a little odd, it was. When I published it the first paragraph disappeared and I didn’t notice. I have no idea why it did that. I wasn’t copying and pasting it in. Oh well I wasn’t important. Just some small talk about the weather…

Eating Crow

 

My poor ambiente… Somebody had found it and pulled it out of my zipped backpack (I discovered that part of my camera strap had hung out; it apparently makes a nice puppy handle for unzipping a jansport…) They also demolished my knitting encyclopedia and a wooden needle. It’s too depressing to even post a picture of the book.

I have never had this problem before. I have left W.I.P.s unattended before by mistake when I went to do a load of wash. I don’t know what was different this time but… The silver lining is that, being bird dogs, they didn’t actually chew on the yarn. They just gently pulled a couple of layers off. It took only fifteen to twenty minutes to fix.

I also have made some progress with Bunny Hoppers but not much.

Here they are after three washes. The measurements are 5 1/2″ by 8″. They need to be down to 2 1/2 ” by 5″.  One more wash ought to do it.

One of Each

What with the weather warming up (a teeny amount) I’ve been spending a lot of time outside with the dogs. The other day a neighbor brought his blond lab, Emma, up to play. We had all three colors of Labradors playing football on our front lawn.

I am almost finished with Bunny Hoppers. Here they are before felting.

Here they are after two washes.

They’re in the washer right now felting some more. I’ve made the pom-poms for the tails too.

The S.S.P. is going great. I’m about 1/2 done. I love my current W.I.P.s  but I would love to not be on a deadline… But I guess if I want to make a real shake at being a designer I better get used to it huh?

Gauge, ’nuff said

Friday night I started Bunny Hoppers and it has been an upward battle since. I cast on 30 stitches on my U.S. 11 needles but I couldn’t get the gauge right for the life of me. First I misread the dimensions and it was too short for even what I thought was correct. After I fixed it is was still too short. I’ve added an extra 10 stitches to the cast on to compensate for the lack of two inches in width. So now I have knitted it twice and cast on three times.

Second try, it’s nine inches.

Eleven inches. Finally!

I don’t know what it is with this project. I must knit very tight, because I’m using the right size of needles. I don’t own any larger ones, except for a pair of U.S. 15s that I can’t even use. They’re too big. The S.S.P  has been languishing a little, I just simply haven’t had any commute time. Hopefully I’ll have Bunny Hoppers done by Wednesday. Wish me luck.

Friday, Finally

It seems like this week has been extra busy. I finished Klya’s fortune cookie.

I wrapped the hot pads as well.

The yarn for Bunny Hoppers came yesterday.

I can’t wait to get started. The S.S.P. (Super Secret Project) is going great. I wish I could show you all the progress but… Alas the rules! I have had a lot of extra knitting time lately. This is quite fortuitous and I hope it’ll continue through the rest of the month. Bearing that in mind I have a list of W.I.P.s that I want to turn into F.O.s by the end of the month in the order it needs to happen.

• Bunny Hoppers By: Kathleen Taylor (Insert Link)
• S.S.P. By: Me (entry for the March installment of Design it!)
• Slouchy Hat By: Me

While it’s not a very long list it is a very high-reaching one. Slouchy Hat has several inches left. About four I think. I am going to start Bunny Hoppers tonight but I do need to felt a swatch to see the shrinkage. Then knit the actual project. The S.S.P needs to be done by the 31^st with nice pictures. I think it’ll go rather quick though. It is a good commuter project.

Wish me luck!