Knitting 40 shades of green

Secret pal strikes again

In the middle of a very crazy week, I come home late from some meeting or another in the evening and what should be on my front porch stoop but this cheerful package.  Yes, it was another package from my secret pal.  Well, of course being a person of restraint, I waited until I was 3 feet inside the house before ripping it open.  Inside were more needles from Gracie & Company.

That is size 11, 13 and 19.  I think I will have to get a vase to display these needles in they are too pretty to be put in a drawer.  As I dug further into the package ripping and grabbing at the tissue gently removing the various gifts, I encountered a gorgeous bookmark made by a local artisan in Connecticut.

Isn't it just beautiful.  The photo doesn't do it justice.  The glass bead hanging from it is absolutely stunning, not the dark blob sphere it came out in my crappy photo.  But that is not all, deeper in the cheerful pouch was this: 

It is hand deodorizer for cooks.  (Sorry about the glare).  What a great package my Secret Pal sent.  Thanks, Secret Pal!!

Thanks, Secret pal!

h I have had a very busy week this week between work and meetings and social obligations and I came home late on Wednesday to find a package on my front porch stoop.  How exciting, and I haven't even ordered anything in the mail.  Maybe it was the good karma of finally getting my sockapaloooza package mailed. The return address was in Maine.

Inside the shipping carton was a box.  It was sealed with a sticker that read Gracie & Company.  Inside was blue tissue paper and this note:

It reads The enclosed gift has been sent to you from Your Secret Pal.  Enjoy!! (Sorry about the blurry photo) . 

You can bet I quickly ripped into that tissue paper and what did I find?

Beautiful wooden needles.  They are hand crafted of Birch in sizes 8, 7, 6, and 4.  And another picture out of their protective plastic sheaths.   

And a close-up of the beautiful wooden beads on the end of each one.

What a wonderful gift!!  But wait, there is more... in a second bundle of blue tissue were three skeins of Knit Picks Shine  in Butter which will be perfect for some lemon hats for shower gifts of co-workers (yes, it is true, more people that I work with are pregnant  -- that will be 6 work baby showers this year.

Thanks secret pal!! It is just what I needed.

Socks, socks, socks

Well, nothing to make me feel guilty like receiving my socks from Fayme and knowing that I have to finish mine yet. Here they are -- they are fun and green (although the color didn't show too well in my pictures.)

I e-mailed my pal secretly so she wouldn't tackle the mail lady everyday and I have been knitting away on the cuffs -- little entrelac triangles and squares.  Maybe I should have chosen a simpler, quicker knit -- I sure hope my pal likes these.  I am a little further along on the cuffs and will be knitting this evening.

uh oh, I'm in trouble

I am in big trouble -- my sock pal socks are supposed to be mailed out tomorrow and well...  There were some baby sweaters.  Some travel for work which led to less knitting than anticipated.  Some days where I just didn't knit. And the final paper for my class.  Here is where they were as of when I left work today -- I haven't even finished the feet let alone started the cuffs. And well, they just aren't finished yet.  please excuse me while I go knit...

Warming Grace

I "met" Cynthia when she stopped by the blog after Christine sent her readers to meet some of the bloggers who had participated in creating the blue squares for the Comforting Jef blanket.  Cynthia has a niece who just turned 5.  In addition to being spunky, and sassy and having the prettiest blue eyes ever, Grace has Leukemia.

Now, I have a niece who is almost 5 and I can't stand the thought of her having to endure endless hospital trips and chemotherapy, and the like.  So when Cynthia asked for pink squares, I went looking through my stash and found some Debbie Bliss Casmerino.  But then it came up that the chemotherapy had caused a sensitivity to synthetics.  So, I dug a little deeper and came up with some Classic Elite Attitude which is Pima cotton and mulberry silk and very soft.

I will start knitting up the 5" squares after I finish posting.  If you have extra pink yarn in your stash why not knit up a square or two as well. 

blue squares

Earlier this week I sent off three squares to Christine`who is making two blue blankets.  One for her brother who is suffering from a brain tumor and another for Vickie's brother Mike who was in a horrible car accident.  Check out the gallery of squares here.

They are knit of Debbie Bliss alpaca silk in color 04.  I added in color 14 which is a rich chocolate brown (not that you can tell from this photo) when I decided the plain blue square was boring.  I fell in love with these squares and now I want to make a throw in this color combination although it wouldn't match anything in my house and will cost quite a bit unless I could procure the yarn on sale.  I may have to do a search.

hmm, it is $6.29 at Wool Needleworks but at almost a ball per 8x8 square.  Let's see with 4 squares by 6 squares that would be a 32" by 48" lap blanket without a border and would cost $150.  A bit dear for something that doesn't match the decor.  I do have two more balls of the blue and could likely churn out 3 squares.  Maybe I will just buy a ball or two more and make a pillow.  I will check Hancock fabrics to see what size the pillow forms are when I go to Sock Sunday.  (My dear friend Sue [blogless] wanted to learn to make socks so we started meeting on Sunday mornings at Panera for knitting and breakfast). 

Well, I think I will go listen to a little book on CD and do some seaming as I ordered some possible ribbons for my Salt Peanuts (scroll down) and still have one side and one sleeve seam to go, plus about a dozen ends to weave in.  I am procrastinating frogging the yoke on the Olympic sweater to start it over which will be my next project for this evening.

Finally Cast On for...

I have been putting off these socks because I needed to cast on with a provisional cast on and I don't like them much.  There must be an easier provisional cast on than the ones I try to use.  However now that I think about it -- and the first one is cast on, I could have just started toe up.  I think this would have put me at the same place as starting knitting the cuff up and then adding the foot on the provisional.  Anyway, being unable to make my notes make sense (I know I need to cast on 1extra stitch for the provisional but not wanting to work on the resulting odd number stitches) I decided to start with the foot of the sock and will work the cuff after finishing the first part.  I do hope these work as they are a grand experiment on my part.

I have been pulling balls of yarn out of this great pile and adding then into the sock. This yarn is coned singles from Green Mountain Spinney in Vermont (they are a green mill-- maybe one of the only ones in the US?)  It was dyed with Lanocet dyes under the direction of Kathryn Alexander who feels the more colors available the better.  These socks will be a multitude of color when they are done.  I have not decided yet if they should match or not.  The only direction that I received from my sock pal was "I prefer natural fibers. I'm pretty flexible on color and design.  Something fun!!"  These will definitely be fun.

Here is where I am so far -- the orange and the pink are part of the provisional cast on but I am sure that I will use the orange in the cuff.   The chocolate are left over from the bag I had to buy since there was no chocolate in my hotel room.  I had no choice then to find a drug store and buy a huge bag of peanut butter cups (some of which seem to have dumped out into my knitting bag).  Here is another view with some of the other yarns to be used (but the photo is no better).

This will be a very busy week with little time for knitting due to work obligations every evening until 9 or so.  But maybe I can show you the yarn I bought at the yarn store in Tampa.

No time to post

Just all knitting, all the time -- have to keep plugging along at this sweater.  I have cast on for a sleeve with a lucky find of my other 4 US 3 DPNs.  They were stashed in a bag in the hall with a half started project that hasn't even made the side bar -- I think I have some work to do on that no, no  after the Olympics.  For now I just have to focus.  I am so tempted to start my sock pal socks and pulled out hand dyed yarn and started contemplating colors, no, no, after the Olympics, must focus.  Then, I became sidetracked by some patterns, no, no, after the Olympics, must focus.

Speaking of the Olympics, I have finally caught some on TV.  Yesterday while waiting for the George Washington Birthday Parade to pass the house I grew up in (which has cable), I watched the bronze and gold medal women's hockey games.  What beautiful, clean hockey.  And these amateur athletes are young (not like the men's teams made up of pros from the NHL) and interestingly enough regardless of their nationality it seemed they all were from US colleges (or at least that was all the US announcers kept mentioning).  Women's hockey is still so new that countries like Finland struggle to get girls involved in the sport -- their goalie is a 16 year girl who plays on the men's junior team.  I was glad I had a chance to see it and was on the mindless part of the sweater so I didn't miss any plays.  Women's hockey is the Olympics at its finest.  An interesting thing though, you have to lose to win a silver medal.  You have come out of your final Olympic game with a loss and you get to wear a medal.  It must be a little strange.

Must continue with my knitting.

The Challenge Continues

"Who so loves believes the impossible."  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I looked at my remaining balls of yarn (there are quite a few) and then at the calendar and started to worry.  Only a week left and even knitting rather diligently yesterday I didn't finish a ball of yarn.  141 meters/ball -- they seem to take forever.  I am starting to worry about three letters DNF (or is it UFO) but I throw caution to the wind and soldier on in my knitting.  I have 12 inches of body completed.  Each inch is 2646 stitches.  At 15+ I am to put the body aside and start on the sleeves.  As tomorrow is a holiday I will likely get to start them tomorrow.  Looking at my dpn case I notice that all my size three needles seem otherwise preoccupied. I can't think of where they might be or which project they might be sticking out of, I could sift through the bags and boxes of yarn but then time is of short supply.  This could be a problem.

Pierre de Coubertin,
The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.

Well, I was going to get all inspirational at this point, but while I still have a glimmer of hope that this may get done (or at least close), instead of knitting tonight I went to a wine tasting.  A friend called and asked what I was doing this evening.  For some reason I didn't think she would understand "frantically knitting on a sweater so I can finish it before the Olympics end".  So I went to a wine tasting sponsored by her alumni club and then had a glass of wine at her house afterward.  Maybe a Mary Lou Retton quotation would be more appropriate: 1984 Summer Olympic Games
"There can be distractions, but if you're isolated from the heart of the Games, the Olympics become just another competition."  Yes, there are distractions...

• wine tastings
• chocolate
• cooking dinner
• eating
• reading blogs
• work
• walking the dog

But we must remember that it is about balance.  If you start a marathon too fast you never cross the finish line.  I must rest up for tomorrow's competition which will include the parade watching for President's Day. 

Final training

Well the opening ceremonies of the Olympics are tomorrow and with them is the start of the knitting Olympics.  I have been having second thoughts about entering.  An entire sweater on US size 3 needles in 16 days -- and I have to work in the mean time.  What was I thinking?  I doubt I'll even be able to cast on until 3 or 4 hours after the official start. I will be knitting this Dale sweater in the shown colorway. 

I will have to add an extra two inches to the sweater (14 stitches) beyond the largest size.  So I decided I would swatch and work out the math this evening.  Luckily, I got gauge on the recommended needles (well my 3's were 3.25 mm as opposed to the 3mm that they said were US 3's) because I seem to have a dearth of really small circular needles with long cables.  As it is the only needle I have in that size only has a 24" cable -- but it is enough to get started and I could likely buy another needle this weekend if I think I need it. I don't seem to have any 2s other than DPNs and straights -- but they don't come into use until near the end of the sweater.  The only saving grace of this project is it is knit in the round so there will be minimal finishing.  I have not decided if I will do the textured bit in the middle of the sweater  -- I hadn't noticed it when I bought the pattern.  But I have a spell of knitting before I have to make that decision.  Well, I better rest up before the competition begins.  Good luck Knithletes!!  Let the games begin.