Knit My Dog

Compared to this fabric stash!

I spent the day at my friend's new studio. Can you tell she's a quilter? An obsessed quilter with a need to surround herself with fabric. This isn't even half of it! She has similar shelves lining the other wall with stacks of fabric also.

The good news is she's a knitter too! I didn't get any photos of that stash, but it's pretty substantial also. She only knits one thing though: felted bags. Which she of course lines with her beautiful fabric. They are absolutely stunning. Sorry, I only took pictures of the fabric today because I was so in love with the way she displayed it. I love looking at the colors. The blues were so soothing to me.

I taught my friends how to knit felted bowls. It's a little pattern I made up, easy as can be. I made a bunch this past summer but haven't done any since. It even got me knitting another one. Photos after I felt it.

OK, I better go pack....

Posted by Brenda at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Ribby Cardi, she grows. The back and both fronts are done, and it's on to the sleeves. I started them last night, both sleeves together. I love making sleeves that way. They come out exactly the same, there's no second-sleeve-syndrome, and they seem to work up faster. I'm sure that last one is just in my mind, but it makes me feel good. No pictures though because it would just be black blobs of knitting all curling up at the edges because they're not blocked or anything.

So now I have my plane project - the sleeves. We're leaving on Friday for a week in CA to visit Howie's relatives AND a quick trip to Catalina Island for some scuba diving. Do you think we could go anywhere near water on vacation and not go under the water??? Of course not!

Last night we packed the scuba gear. Two jam-packed heavy bags. And we have gifts for his relatives. And of course, we're going to need something to wear. So we'll be checking two bags each. We never do that! Usually it's one or two bags of gear between us and one bag for all of our clothes. This is NOT traveling light! We always seem to need "one more thing" when we pack. That's because Howie loves doing this adventure traveling.
Going to Alaska?
Great.
We should go camping and kayaking while we're there.
Sounds good.
But I don't want to rent a life vest, paddle, spray skirt, etc, etc. Their gear is junk. I want my own gear.
Have you ever packed kayak paddles for a plane? I have. Twice. They only got lost once!

Today I have the day off and am spending it with two friends. We're planning on hanging out at Bonnie's house in her new studio - beautiful room! We're going to knit, sew, and show each other our favorite projects. I'm bringing some felted bowls and the supplies to make more so we can go crazy with the felting. I'll bring my camera....

Posted by Brenda at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Equals lots of knitting time!
I've been nursing my first cold of the season. Hopefully it's NOT the first of many. Taking care of kids all day exposes me to everything that's out there. Especially when you ask them to open wide so you can look in their mouth and they sneeze on you. Not the most alluring part of the job for sure.

After a weekend of basically sitting around and knitting, I'm almost done with the back of my Ribby Cardi. Now that I have the right size needles and correct number of stitches it's just flying along. Our one big outing of the weekend was to go for a drive today. It was a sunny, cloudless day and the trees are just beautiful! No pics though because I couldn't even think to bring my camera.

Instead, a picture from our scuba diving trip two weeks ago to Eastport, ME. There is so much underwater life there, plenty to see and photograph.

Posted by Brenda at 08:25 PM | Permalink

I started my Ribby Cardy the other day.... I thought I was being so good. I measured myself, I measured a similar sweater to make sure the size would be right. I checked my gauge. Of course, the gauge uses the larger needles. When I cast on, I neglected to read the phrase "With smaller needles, cast on..." So after about 4 rows I noticed I was holding the larger needles. RIP!!

Try number two, I knit happily along for about 5 or 6 inches and kept looking at the knitting. I know it's ribby and it will stretch, but I kept getting nervous. So I pulled it off the needles and measured. I don't think my gauge was off, but it was smaller than I wanted. You guessed it, RIP!

Yesterday I cast on one size larger and knit happily away for a few hours. It was my day off, and I think I'm getting my first cold of the year. I work as a PA in a Pediatrician's office, so I get just about every cold known to man. Yup, it's October, time for my first cold of the season. So pretty much all I did yesterday was sit around and knit. Now it's about 8 inches long and I'm not ripping again!

I also finally had daylight time to take photos of these:

Plain stockinette sock with Picot edge
Opal sock yarn, ball band long gone.
One Moebius hair right in the middle that I didn't notice until it was too late.

Posted by Brenda at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)