My First UFO Month Finished Object - Trice

Now I know that September doesn't start until Saturday, but I was feeling motivated the other night so thought it best to go with that feeling. It did take me two days to finish this off (not entire days, but I did the bits needed across two days!) and I finally sewed on the last piece last night! L took it to bed with him and seems to love it. The eyes are a bit dodgy (as are many other bits of it LOL) but it's finally finished and I am soooooo relieved!!





And I think I am done with toys. I really didn't enjoy making this much, apart from the fact that I knew I was making it for my beautiful son and I knew that he would love it no matter what it looked like LOL but it was just so fiddly, and generally a pain to do. I think it actually looks more like a pig in this pic than a triceratops LOL but L doesn't seem too bothered by that. There are actually two more dinosaurs that I promised to knit him but I'm definitely not motivated to do that. He did say he wants me to knit him a mouse, so maybe that won't be quite as painful. I'll see how I feel.

UFO Month

September is going to be UFO Month on Woolaholics, so here is my list of UFOs that I will be attempting to finish by the end of September:

• Ear Flap Cap - just need to edge it once I learn how!
• Rainy Day Sock - must avoid SSS!
• Dinosaur for L - this is the oldest UFO, but see next post ;)
• Central Park Hoodie - I am going to attempt to actually finish it, but just in case I am going to state at the outset that my goal is actually to get as far as starting the band and hood (which means I need to finish both sleeves and seam the pieces together by the end of September)!

I think that is all I will offer up right now. I have a few things I need to start in the coming months so I'll leave my list at that and see how it goes :)

Oh, and I don't have a pic of all of these UFOs, and I really can't be bothered pulling them all out in order to get one, so you'll have to imagine them and wait for them to pop up in the "Finished Objects" list!

Do you think he was hungry?

And all along I've been saying he doesn't like carbohydrates. Seems I was wrong, AND he likes plastic too. Must get lock for pantry door.

Stitchmarker Swap!

My stitchmarkers from the Woolaholics Stitchmarker Swap arrived today. They are just beautiful! And they came in a great little case which is fantastic, because all my stitchmarkers are currently floating around loose in the bottom of my zippered bag that goes with my Sea Horse knitting bag, so it's all a bit unkempt and crazy in there LOL



So not only do I have some beautiful new stitchmarkers, but I have a way to keep them organised now also! Thank so much secret swapper :)

Finished Objects

My goal since finishing the Rainy Day Sock has been to complete some UFOs that have been hanging around a bit too long (not as long as some other people's UFOs, but long enough that they are now not suitable for this year). Anyway, the first of these is the Child's Hoodie. I can't even remember when I started this now, but I lost interested around halfway through the first sleeve. Mostlly because I ran out of dyed wool, and never got around to dyeing what I did have left, and I suspect that I didn't have enough left to complete it anyway. Also, one or two of the balls that were dyed, got all tangled up and I couldn't be bothered untangling. So motivation was low.

After seeing a different pattern that was quite similar though, I realised that this particular knit didn't actually need arms. Especially since the weather is now not so cold and it would be move suitable as a vest-type of garment. So I ripped out the arm, popped on some garter stitch bits, did a bit of garter stitch around the neck, instead of doing the hood and ...... voila!! A Finished Object :) The *Armless Child's Hoodie sans Hood*.

And what amazes me is that L actually asked to wear it two days in a row and didn't once ask to take it off. I'm still stunned by that.



And in other knitting news... there is another *almost-finished-object*. The Ear Flap cap is nearly done. All I need to do is figure out how to do a crochet crab stitch to edge it with, and possibly make a larger pom pom for the top, and I can cross that one off too.

I also did some work on my Small Things Swap on the weekend, but I'm not happy with the way it turned out so I'm going to do it again.

And no, the second Rainy Day Sock has not be cast on yet, and I am not allowing myself to do it until I have the Ear Flap cap complete, and the swap item done, otherwise I'll become completely obsessed with it and not touch anything else.

It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie

Ok, well not quite. But it certainly scared the &^%$ out of me! Picture this....

Me sitting at the computer (might be hard since you may not know what I look like really, so just insert random female form), M in bed sleeping, L having a bit of quiet time watching ABC2. I get up to go back to M's room to close his bedroom door and what do I see? Two birds flapping around IN MY DINING ROOM!!!! I let out a loud "Holy S**t!! (not something I say regularly mind you, but it seemed an appropriate exclamation given the situation). L comes running down the hallway, which sets these birds off again, flapping their wings and slamming into the windows trying to escape.

Seems I had left the back (side really, but let's not get too technical) sliding door open, and I suspect these birds - which I might add are frequent visitors to our yard - just trotted in for a look-see while the coast was clear. They were some kind of pigeon-ey dove thing. Not my favourite bird, and not too intelligent either I believe. Quite large too I might say. Anyway, after the scare of L coming running, one of them actually managed to find the door after banging itself into the windows a few more times and took off leaving it's *friend* to fend for itself. A quick phone call to DH to tell me how to get rid of this intruder, some masterful moves by me, hiding behind a sheet and a bit of poking with a broomstick, and a bit more flying into the windows, the second bird finally found the door and took off too. phew.

I like birds. But I don't like birds, iykwim. They are cool to look at (well, not these birds, they are pretty boring and we wish they'd go away, we like natives and get quite a lot of them in the backyard), but I don't want them flapping around in my house and I certainly don't want them flapping around my head.

It only occurred to me AFTER I managed to get the bird out, that I should take a picture of the bird in my house to put here, and to prove to all that I will tell this story too, that it did actually happen. As it is, I have this picture of a feather, which the second bird left behind before leaving. A calling card of sorts. It smelled a bit *birdy* for a bit, but we have now recovered.

Rainy Day Socks (or should I say *sock*)

One down, one to go. The second one will have to wait. This was quite a challenge for me, even though the lace pattern is quite simple and easy to remember.

Things I have learned while knitting these socks:

• comedic television and knitting do not go together at all (particularly The Chaser's War on Everything)
• Playgroup and knitting anything other than stocking stitch do not mix well either
• I am not good at frogging lace
• I am now an excellent "un-knitter"

I think I spent more time *un-knitting* these than knitting them. Oh and I might add that there is a couple of mistakes in the, despite my frequent un-knitting. Grrrrr. Anyway, don't let my struggles put you off if you want to knit this sock. The problems I had were more to do with me than the pattern.
Ok, maybe I should include some specs?

Pattern: Rainy Day Socks



Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in Pink (#340006)

Needles: 3.5mm 100cm circular (Knit Picks), magic-loop

I shall post a pic in here when I finally finish the other one, but I'm putting it down for now.

Flashing My Stash

Another *entry* for Woolaholics! This time it's *flash your stash*. I must say that I'm quite suprised by my stash myself, after unloading it all from it's storage onto the bed. I know it's not as huge as some, but it's certainly pretty big for someone who's only relatively new to knitting and wool hoarding LOL So what do we have here (you'll have to pick them out yourself, but I'll try to work from left to right in the pic):

• *Pacific Moon* dyed BFL from NDS on ebay
• Patonyle sock wool (black and white) which were for DHs Jaywalker's
• Sock Swap yarn (green/blue/white)
• Monster Knits sock yarn *Kai*
• Cottone from spotlight (for dinosaur toys)
• 200gms Utiku white yarn, hand-dyed badly by me LOL
• Various balls of Monster Knits yarn - Earth Sky, Channon, Shipwreck, Navy and Green Treliske
• Utiku Gems
• Utiku Chocky Swirl
  
• Utiku Chocolate
• FBF Merino in *Black Rainbow* (including small black skein) hand-dyed by Rach from Stitch Sista
• Longies yarn swap (green/blue/white)
• Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed - approx 7 balls there, the rest is my CPH
• Zhivago in a navy colour (there's more of this somewhere but I can't find it)
• Cleckheaton Country Naturals (dark yarn in bottom right hand corner) for DHs throw
• Patons Shadow Tweed, which is for my Small Things Swap on Woolaholics
• 150gms cream Merino Supreme
• 400gms cream Merino Spun
• 50gms of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran in cream
• 200gms some merino yarn that I bought ages ago from ebay
• Some undyed BFL from Monster Knits

and the piece-de-resistance......

• 700gms undyed FBF merino *insert incredibly shocked smiley here*

There is more that isn't in the pic also. I have more MK *Channon* on the way, another ball of the shadow tweed and some other bits and bobs of yarn that I have for some reason, which is probably not ever going to be used for anything except maybe stuffing the toy dinosaurs, if I ever get around to making those.

Phew. Feels better to have that out now. I knew there was quite a bit, but when you spread it all out like that, it's looks a bit scary! Now I really must get knitting!!

Knitting Bag Challenge

Here's my *entry* into the knitting bag challenge issued by Bec on Woolaholics.

Pretty boring in comparison to some others, but in my defense I rarely take my knitting out with me. And I actually have two knitting bags here (technically I have three, but the other one is stuffed with UFOs and even more boring than these two!) - my Sea Horse Bag and another little bag that was a Christmas gift from DH. Both of these contain current WIPs, so I'm entering them both.


Ok, in the Sea Horse Bag we have:

• Ear Flap hat in BBR Bulky *Talyn*, which is still on the needles and needs finishing
• The arms of my CPH, one which is almost complete but which I can't bear to rip out yet, and the other I ripped back to the ribbing to redo
• Knit Picks Options set
• Calculator (i was wondering where this had got to!!)

In the Blue Bag we have:

• Rainy Day socks WIP
• Dinosaur toy WIP that I've been *knitting* for L for some time now (it's actually done more lurking in my bag than anything else
• All of my Addi Turbo needles (there's way more there than it looks like in the pic!)
  
• Naturally Bamboo circs
• Sea Horse zippered bag (which goes with the other bag) which contains various bits and pieces like stitch markers, needles, scissors, pen, ruler
• pins
  
• tape measure (crappy one from spotlight which has been chewed numerous times by M)
• Pattern folder for patterns from the net (this normally lives in the Sea Horse Bag, but I'm using it for my socks atm)

I think that's about it.

A little more self-indulgence

Well this purchase actually occurred before the Debbie Bliss self-indulgence purchase, but it only arrived today, so here it is:

*Kai* sock yarn from Monster Knits.

I haven't got a pattern for this yet. Must get to work finding something suitable soon.

Nothing like yummy yarn to make a girl feel better ;)

A Little Self-Indulgence

Everyone (well, ok, maybe not quite everyone LOL) on Woolaholics has been knitting up these Rainy Day Socks. I love them. They look so sweet. And when I look at the picture I see pink for me. So I decided that I wanted a pair in pink.

I was a bit confused by the pattern as *everyone* said it was a DK weight pattern, which I always think of as 8ply (although I'm a complete novice so really have no idea how much "DK" could encompass), but the pattern says that Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino was used, which is a 5ply. So, Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino it is for me. Not cheap at $11.40 per 50g ball! But what the heck. I want pink socks, so I'm getting pink socks :) And it was pay day today, so I can spend my spending money on whatever I like, right?!

This pattern looks like a bit of a challenge for me - attention and technique I think - but I'm looking forward to it. I should be able to finish off my other sock of doom tonight and then I'll be starting on these.

The colour of the yarn is so pretty too. I'm not usually a *pretty* kind of girl, but I do like pink :)