Vine yoke cardi

It's all done. I'm quite pleased with it. It took just about a month to knit so a pretty fast knit by my standards. It flares out to the sides a bit at the bottom (hidden strategically by the well placed hands in the pocket pose) but I think I can fix that the next time I wash the cardigan. It fits really well. It's probably the best fitting garment I have ever knitted for myself. There was no waist shaping instructions to the pattern but I think the vertical garter stitch creates a natural waistline to the cardigan which I like. The yarn I used is Cascade 220 heathers. It's easy to knit with, not the softest yarn but not itchy, but I'm not that sensitive to wool itchiness so it may bother some people, I don't know. This is the second of Ysolda Teague's cardigan designs that I have knitted and I really like her attention to detail which makes a big difference in the finished look of the garments.

I also knitted a hat for myself. The Tarris Heeter hat the second:
This is knitted with Berroco Jasper. Very nice single ply yarn though perhaps not as nice as Malabrigo. I realized I don't have many hats and and certainly nothing that matches my jackets and coats. This is one step towards remedying that situation. This hat will go well with my blue fleece jacket which I wear a lot. I'm planning to knit a pair of gloves out of really pretty yarn that would complete the ensemble. I'll update once I start knitting those, that is if I can keep myself from getting distracted with other projects.

Kramer getting a well deserved break after climbing Mount Pile O' Clothes:
Yes yes, I have already cleaned up the mess, no need for comments.

Bacon cupcakes

Bacon cupcakes. The recipe can be found here. It's the second cupcake on the page: Bacon, Toffee, Chocolate cupcakes. I doubled the amount of bacon but I feel like it could use a little more bacon. For the chocolate toffee, I used chopped Heath bars. yummy. I love the combination of salty and sweet.

The security repair guy took forever on Friday. He said that he has a dog, two cats, two screaming kids and a screaming wife and wanted to say hello to Kramer. However, Kramer wanted none of it and hid under the bed the whole time. It's a bit unlike Kramer, he may initially hide but usually, curiosity gets the better of him and he feels the need to be the center of attention when someone else is here. No doubt he was quite put out by the fact that the guy said that Kramer kind of looked like a raccoon. I'm not saying raccoons are ugly, but seriously, Kramer does NOT look like a raccoon. How many raccoons do you know who does this?

Waiting..........

for the security system repair man. I hate that a lot of the service appointments like security system repairs and cable installations involve a range of time in which they may show up rather than one specific time. I realize that each appointment takes different amounts of time to accomplish so they can't tell you the exact time that the repair person may show up but a time frame of 4hrs during which the service person may show up is kind of a wide range. I know I'm bitching about something that everyone faces but can they not give a narrower range of time like 2hrs? 4hrs is half of an 8hr work day and you could potentially lose half a day's worth of work. Oh well. In the mean time, I thought I'd update my blog. I've been a busy little knitter. I'm making good progress on the vine yoke cardigan. It's a good fast knit, really good directions and I can't wait for it to be done. I'm liking the cascade 220 yarn. It's not a fancy super soft yarn but it's easy to knit with and perfect for a sweater/cardigan that I would wear not necessarily next to my skin.


I'm also knitting a pair of socks for Wendy Johnson's 'socks from the toe-up' Knit along. I'm following her directions for the slip stitch heel basic sock recipe. This is a 'monster' sock where I pooled together left over sock yarn from my previous projects. The sock is going to have crazy mix of different colors as it's knit up. Fortunately, all the colors of the yarn that I pooled together are all shade of some sort of blue so it's not going to be too 'monster-like'. To make it a bit more interesting, I picked a stitch motif from a stitch dictionary to add a bit of lace pattern to my sock. I really like the lace motif I chose, I think it would look great knitted with a semi-solid, or solid color yarn. Here is my progress so far. You see that light blue yarn appearing all of a sudden? yep, that's where the yarn change happened. It's unpredictable and fun!
I'm going to keep knitting on this sock until the repair guy shows up.............

Hemlock ring blankie

I finished knitting the Hemlock ring blanket. It was a fast knit for a blanket. The feather and fan portion is so simple to knit, it was great TV knitting. I washed it and blocked it and immediately attracted Kramer's attention.
This is knitted with Fiesta yarns Naturale wool. Nice and soft yarn, single ply but pretty tightly wound that it is not pilly. I can't wait to put it on my lap and read or knit on a cold night. That is...if I can wrestle the blanket away from Kramer:

"Over my dead fuzzy body"-Kramer says.
On a completely different note, sometimes I just blurt out things that I'm thinking without a filter. The other day, a co-worker brought in drawings that his son drew (I think he is 5). It was a halloween themed drawing with lots of black and orange. Very cute. He had a tree, and on the branch of the tree was what looked like a bird. My co-worker asked me 'guess what that is?' . So I looked at the 'bird' and several thoughts went through my head. I thought...well, it kind of looks evil like a devil with horns and fangs, but it has wings. These thoughts probably took less than a second to get processed in my head and before I could sensor it I blurted out 'A Devil Bird!'. My co-worker looked at me and said "What the hell is a devil bird? Where did you get devil bird from? It's a BAT!" Apparently what I thought were horns were bat ears. What made matters worse is that every single person who took a guess as to what the 'bird' was guessed it right away as a bat. Fortunately, he didn't take offense to my totaly whacky analysis of his son's drawing but thought it was quite funny and refers to bats as devil birds now.

Anyway, Happy Halloween!

Slanting Gretel Tee

The slanting Gretel tee that I've been working on is finished at last. Click on the images for a closer view. Too bad it's a bit too cold to wear it now. It turned out ok, but I think because of the the color of the fabric and perhaps because of the fabric (50% cotton, some silk, nylon), the cables don't show up as much as I would have liked. Also, there is too much fabric around the belly portion (the moss stitch triangle around the tummy area). This is so unwanted, the last thing I want is a fabric 'tent' around the tummy area...... But otherwise I'm pretty happy with it. The yarn I used is Classic Silk from Classic Elite Yarns.

Yesterday, I was at a local conference for work. It's pretty casual, nobody is wearing a suit or anything. It was a jeans/pants and shirt type of meeting. However, we saw someone who took casual to a new level. He was wearing a tye-dye T-shirt (blues, pinks purples...) with grey sweatpants. His T-shirt was tucked tightly tucked into his sweatpants and he wore black socks with high-top sneakers. Now, us scientist, we are not a breed well known for our fashion sense. I am really the last person to comment on other people's fashion sense, but this, this I had to celebrate. To stand out like this among us is saying something about his fashion sense.

Cooler weather....

The weather has turned dramatically cooler and I’m loving it. I get to wear all my knit wear! It’s not so cold that it feels like my nose is about the fall off my face, but cold enough that I’ve been able to wrap myself up in my swallowtail shawl and Aestlight shawl. Starting around now until spring, Kramer sleeps stuck to my leg at night to extract every ounce of my body heat. It’s great knitting weather too and there are so many things I want to knit that I think I spend more time deciding on what to knit instead of knitting. I’m close to being done with this slanted tee. I don’t know if the weather will warm up enough for me to wear this when it’s done. I may have to wait till spring to wear it. I’m making steady progress with the Hemlock ring blanket as well. It’s really simple and very pretty. I love the idea of a circular blanket to put on my knees while I drink tea and watch a movie. There is another circular blanket which I think is pretty called Girasole that I would love to knit as well. So many things to knit, so little time…Hey, stop knitting and give me a belly rub!

Dexter, Hemlock blanket and such

I'm addicted to the show 'Dexter'. It's a TV series on Showtime. Dexter is a forensic scientist in Miami who analyzes blood patterns as part of the police force by day, vigilante serial killer at night. It's really addictive. Michael C. Hall does a really good job of portraying a creepy character who you can't help but kind of sympathize with a bit. It has a good main plot with side plots, but doesn't get too much. I'm on the 3rd season and will be all caught up for this season which is the 4th season.

Knitting wise, I'm still working on the Slanted Gretel tee. I'm at a point where I'm dividing the top between the body and the sleeves. It's getting cooler too so I'm feeling less inclined to work on it. I started working on something different, more weather appropriate. I'm working on the Hemlock ring blanket. It's really pretty and I've wanted to knit it for a long time. I'm using yarn I bought from WEBS. It was on a closeout sale and you know how much I love closeout sales. The yarn is Fiesta yarns Naturale Wool. A really soft yarn and easy to work with. Here is Mr. Krames, with his butt parked in a paper bag. Paper bags, one of his favorite things!