Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Hoist on my own petard.

My Aunt and my Grandmother came down to stay for the weekend. They mainly came to visit because my sister is here for a few weeks before she and her family ditch me and move to Europe. At New Year's I made a deal with my Aunt that I would learn to quilt if she would learn to knit. I knew I was safe because she always said she was too busy with quilting to knit.

Guess what she pulled out of her bag the first night she was here? Very quietly she pulled out a scarf in progress and not one hook (she used to crochet) but two shiny gold knitting needles.

Ahem.

Sister, Auntie, and Grandmother were all entraptured by my multidirectional scarf (still in progress) so we headed off to Yarns 2 Ewe for supplies. Noro Kuryeon is just gorgeous. My Auntie chose the same colourway as I did for mine, my sister chose one that matches her current mitten project and Grandmother chose one that I covet unashamedly. So we ended up having a little Knit Along while they were here.

My auntie had to leave Sunday morning and took a little extra home with her. She opened up her bag to show her husband and there was my sister's yarn! She was quite chagrined especially because my sister had finished her first ball of yarn and had nothing to knit. She told us that she must have grabbed the wrong bag of yarn and for us to look for her bag. Well, we knew it wasn't at my house (had searched high and low for sister's yarn) and I got the bright idea of telling her to check her handbag. There it was! Item: her handbag is what I would call an overnight bag. HUGE. We will get a lot of milage out of this for sure. My DH is a wool-pig and my Auntie is a Wool-THIEF!

My sister is on a project starting spree. She currently has in the works: a pair of mittens, an cross stitch sampler, a multidirectional scarf, and a hooked rug. The hooked rug was actually my UFO but she needed something to do as she had no yarn to knit and had left her cross stitch pattern at my parents' house. I had started this hooked rug a while ago and it had been languishing for a while. She wanted me to show her how to do it so she could make her own. She liked my pattern so I told her she could keep it and just go to town. She's v. fast. I think I was too concerned with getting each loop the exact same height as the other (damn OCD) and she is of the opinion that it's going to get walked on anyway.

My grandmother flew home this morning and unfortunately took her lovely yarn home with her. In fact, she tucked it into her purse to make sure it went with her. Hmmph.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Okay, so I'm not done.

I tried the wallaby on DS several times. The neck is just too tight. I keep having to yank it over his big ol' melon. I ripped it out and am reknitting (again). This time I am taking my sister's suggestion and knitting in a button so it will open up. A wooden or wood-look button will be really cute with this tweedy knit.

I can't find my other skein. I decided to just go ahead and use it instead of returning it. While I was getting the house ready for guests I put the skein in the shop bag with the receipt because I planned on returning it. I wonder where it ended up? I suspect it is in the black pit that is my closet.

In Father's Day news my sock yarn came for DH! He looked so sad when he opened the gift bag I thought he didn't like it. He was teasing me because it wasn't knit into socks yet. I cast on right away for his new socks while he and DS took a nap. I was knitting a pair of yellow Opal Magic socks but I am just not enamoured of them so am glad to do something else.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

DS has a big melon.

I am just about finished knitting the wallaby for DS. I was about to knit the neckband at work on Monday and thought it looked a little small. DH thought so and so did Crafty Woman. So I slipped the neck stitches onto some waste yarn and tried it on DS that evening. It was plenty big. So I started the neckband on the 7 needles that I was knitting with and then switched to some 6s so it would be a little snugger. At this point I ran out of yarn! I have another skein of this yarn but I hate to use a couple inches of it. I just want to return it! So I kitchenered the underarms and used the left over to finish the neckband.

I need just a few minutes to weave in all my ends and then I'm done!!

I'm still knitting on some yellow Opal Magic. I'm not too hot about this colourway. When I bought it I thought I needed some yellow socks but why I don't know.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Score!

Remember the red and black sock yarn (Steinbach) that we bought in Austin? We could only find one ball so I used it for socks for DS. DH asked me to find some for him. And I did on Ebay! Hooray! I hope it will be here in time for Father's Day. If not, DH has a birthday in July and will still be thrilled.

March Block

This is the Saturday Sampler block for March.