Fat Tuesday

So today is Mardi Gras - not really a holiday or anything but oh well. I think I am going to put myself on a yarn diet for Lent -no new yarn purchases until after Easter - considering how much yarn I have at home it shouldn't be an issue even though it's always nice to buy more yarn... I am going to start Colleen's wrap today - hopefully I have to do some laundry and clean up a bit before tomorrow when I report for duty :)

and now what?

So the knitting olympics are over : ) and my sweater is done... and what to knit now? I am going to start with colleen's shawl which I promised to make after Christmas and of course some of the afghan squares for Warm Up America before the knit together party : ) and I have cotton ease for sitcom chic from knitty and I have the brown corriedale from Whitefish Bay Farms... I'm taking tonight off from knitting I need a bit of a break. I'm going to go to Milwaukee and go to Kopps for Mr. Fudgie the greatest frozen custard flavor of all times.

olympic sweater

olympic sweater
Originally uploaded by KellyKnits.

done and barely....

a few days left

to finish olympic knitting - I finished the second sleeve and attached and got about 8 rows done I have about 30-40 more rows to do to get to the size neck I need then I need to knit the turtleneck part -I've never knit a turtleneck so I'm hoping there isn't anything special involved I don't think their should be - I will try and post pictures on Sunday of the finished sweater (if I finish)

the 2nd arm

I have 8 rows done on the 2nd sleeve - no pictures today
so I need to do that and attach it tonight and then I have until Sunday to complete the sweater up to the turtle neck : )
We shall see how much I get done tonight - I haven't measure or estimate to see how much more I have to knit - it's several inches on the body and then the turtle neck as well
I should get it finished
I can knit in traffic tomorrow ;)

One Armed Bandit

Here's the picture of the first sleeve finally attached to the sweater. Monday night I didn't do any knitting so I finished sleeve number one last night. I did the sleeves on two circulars instead of using dpns. The problem I discovered with this is that if you are an idiot you don't remember which side is the beginning (more like don't pay attention) and instead of putting the stitches on the holder from the beginning of the round you put the opposite sides stitches on the holder and then instead of putting them onto a dpn or something to knit from you knit them off of the wrong side of the stitch holder...over the loop because that's apparently easier.
And I did the cast on for sleeve two before I decided to concentrate on figure skating.
I was thinking I should find a background other than my couch for the pics since they are very similar it makes the photos less interesting.

Trivia

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Kelly!

1. Kelly can't drink - she absorbs water from her surroundings by osmosis!
2. Only twelve people have ever set foot on Kelly.
3. A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are individually known as Kelly.
4. Dolphins sleep at night just below the surface of Kelly, and frequently rise to the surface for air.
5. Kelly has three eyelids!
6. Kelly is the oldest playable musical instrument in the world.
7. Over half of Americans are officially Kelly.
8. Kelly can give birth ten days after being born, and is born pregnant.
9. Only one child in twenty will be born on the day predicted by Kelly.
10. It took Kelly 22 years to build the Taj Mahal.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

Catching Up

So I worked on my sweater quite a bit this weekend and got up to the part where I need to add the sleeves.
I measure my arms (should have done this before eating potato chips) and figured out how many stitches to cast on.
So tonight I can go home and cast on for the first sleeve. I found the other size balls of yarn so I'm ready to go. (they were hiding under a coat).
I also discovered my home phone hasn't been working since Friday so hopefully they'll get that

fixed today! (not that I use it but I want Tivo to be able to dial in).
So here's the picture of the cupcake pattern book and new kacha-kacha counter I got on our yarn crawl delivered to me on Thursday by Erica!
I also had spinning class on Saturday the yarn is still in my car so no picture today - hopefully sometime this week.

Here's how far I am on my knitting Olympics sweater there is definately some progress being made - I am done doing teh decreases for the bottom and have to do some measuring of myself when I get home to see how much to knit plain before I starting doing the increases... To give a size reference the ribbing at the bottom is about 4 inches so the body of the sweater is about8 1/2 to 9 inches right now. I really like the sisik because of course it's discontinued, at least I know I have enough yarn for it.

Knitting Meetup was last night and some of us (maybe not me) have been hard at working making our squares. Our total is up to 18 we need to have 98 to make two afghans so I need to get working when I am done with the Olympic Knitting. This is a terrible of the pile of squares on my table!

My final spinning class is tomorrow, at least I hope it's my final one, I'm a bit remedial so you never know : ) Hopefully I'll have a picture of the yarn I spun for Monday!

New Glasses

I got new glasses on Monday - here's a picture I took of myself this morning - You can't really see the color on the sides but when you are taking a picture of yourself you can't really expect too much :)

I worked on my sweater last night as well I got the first 3 decreases done so I'm on about row 33 - it doesn't really look too much different than it did yesterday just add about 12 rows of stockinette on to the top. I did my knitting while watching Can't Buy Me Love from Tivo - that's a great movie- everyone loves Patrick Dempsey know because of Grey's Anatomy they should have loved him because of Can't Buy Me Love - not everyone can be a lawn boy.

30% done

So the Olympics are 30% over and I may not be 30% finished with my sweater. I did finish the 4" of ribbing on the bottom of my sweater and worked 4 rows (well 3 minus 3 stitches - I'm still deciding on what decrease I should use) of straight knitting. It's a really pretty color but it did leave little red hairs all over my pants. The ribbing looks terrible but I'm sure after a good soak it will look better. I'd guess I am about 10-15% finished.

Pinwheel Blanket and Olympic Sweater

I finally started my Olympic knitting on Saturday night at about 10:30. If you can read my row counter I had completed 1 whole row before I went to bed at around 11:30. I used Ann Budds handy book of patterns to help determine the number of stitches to cast on but the chart only includes even number guages and I was getting 4 1/2 stitches per inch so I did a bit of math.





And I finished the pinwheel blanket at around 7:30 on saturday night. I think it looks great. I haven't measured it or blocked it (it definetely needs blocking) I'm sure it will grow.

I did a row of yarns overs the row before the bind off row to carry on the yarn over increases used to make the pinwheel shape and instead of doing the decreases I left the stitch increases in to make a nice ruffled effect around the edge.






Let's just hope that they were right and it is a girl :)

Made from Bernat Cotton Tots - Strawberry and White on Size 7 Needles.
2 Skeins white
3 Skeins Strawberry (Someone may have run out of yarn the rows before the bind off) You could probably do 2 skeins of each if you didn't do the yarn overs before the bind off row

The Opening Ceremonies

Today is the opening ceremony of both the olympics and the knitting olympics. I didn't finish the blanket last night I have about 17 more rows to do which is about 9,000 stitches or so. Hopefully I can finish that tonight and then start my olympic sweater tomorrow, after I do a gauge swatch.
I got new glasses last night which took away from my knitting time and I had to pack up for the weekend which included 2 bags of knitting and only 1 bag for clothes and such - I'm pretty sure that's normal.
Today is also national turn off your TV day - I think they shouldn't schedule that on the opening ceremony of the Olympics doesn't seem like the best timing. Though Tivoing what you miss while turning off your TV probably isn't the point of the day either.

One More day

Until the knitting Olympics start and the blankets isn't quite done. I've just started row 100 which according to calculations makes the blanket 38 inches across right now which is pretty good it's really hard to measure as a double check since it's jammed on the needles. If I can get 20 rows of pink it should be just about 45 inches - I'm hopping I can get 20 rows and the bound off edge. I should also probably do a swatch for my sweater and maybe think about the design no sense in planning ahead to much I mean I have until tomorrow that's plenty of time to finish the blanket and design a sweater and do a gauge swatch and go to the eye doctor and do laundry and....

Meetup

Here's a picture from meetup last night - don't we all look like we were having fun...

And it was only me who was worried that their Tivo wouldn't record GG and called to have a back up Tivo just in case.

The picture isn't that good the background light for the artwork made it dark so I had to lighten it up a bit.

And here's a picture of my pinwheel blanket... Thanks for the spreadsheet Erica (leetle knits) I finally have an idea of how big it is...

Here's a picture of Jonah and Samantha at the super bowl party on Sunday isn't he cute!

And I'm using the cute baby to distract from my remedial spinning it was pretty bad - I'm a bad drafter oh well... the combed corriedale also looks like dirty hair stuck in a hairbrush which may take away from the otherwise attractive look of the spinning.

not naming names

but someone may or may not have forgotten their camera at home again - that's even farther away than it was in the car yesterday
I finished up the skein of white for the third stripe on the blanket last night I still have part of one from the middle that I'll add to make the blanket bigger then the pink and I'll be done... I'm thinking of doing a picot bind off on the edge or something else decorative if anyone has ideas.

Pinwheel blanket

So this weekend I went to spinning class on Saturday and spun some horrific yarn - it didn't go so well - I may have to sign up for remedial spinning.
Then I drove through the snow and got to help babysit Jonah which was great.
I went to a superbowl party yesterday and worked on the pinwheel blanket - I knitted it on to all the size 7 circular needles that I have to take a picture but it's still hard to tell how big it is... and then I left my camera in the car so I'll have to add pictures to this post tomorrow... I'm on about row 88 so I got quite a few rows done but still have about a skein and a half to finish knitting before Friday.
I have meetup tomorrow so that's good I should get some done then, so I can get the olympic sweater started friday.

Friday

Happy Friday everyone - I don't have any pictures of the blanket it looks pretty much the same as it did it's white pink white now and I'm even past row 75 - I find that impressive...
hopefully I can finish before the knitting olympics - maybe I'll have a warm up and have a superbowl of Knitting so I can finish the blanket :)

Yarn Crawl and Pinwheel Blanket Update

Okay so here are the rest of the pictures from the yarn crawl:

This is the 2 hanks of Manos in Bramble and 2 skeins of nature spun fingering weight for my experiment in Latvian Mittens - superwash v. felted insides - and clasps for the sweater that I haven't made yet... but all the supplies are in a ziploc bag together that should count for something.






The tiny stitch holders were my only purchase at the Fine Line in St. Charles it really was a nice little shop but I think we were more than a little yarned out by shop #6. There's also a closeup of on of the clasps.














and an update of the pinwheel blanket:


It's really hard to see how big it is - I think I'm going to have to start using two circulars as the cotton isn't moving over the needles very well... I have about 75 rows done - well I have 74 rows done and I've been on row 74 for about 3 days now.