Hearty Fair Isle FO

Here she is, my very first Fair Isle FO! Can I just say one thing? Thank God for Starbucks! I love Starbucks and the Venti Vanilla Latte and the Venti French Vanilla Capuccino
***sigh***
Between Excedrine Migraine and Starbucks I had the ability to finish this thing. Yeah you guessed it, another one of those pesky headaches. They've been a lot less frequent lately, something about not stressing so much about life in general. However, one gut wrenching therapy session getting down to the nitty gritty and bang, a thousand tears later and a migraine. yaay

Anyway, enough of that. I arrived one hour early to my session and knit one of the two sleeve edgings

I had already done the other.


I knit the part that goes around the neck today, then tore it out because I couldn't get my head in. I'll say this for this Navajo yarn, it fulls fast.

It doesn't take to tearing out very kindly AT all. That's cool with me, because I don't love tearing out so much either.

So no neck edging, but I don't care. I'm DONE. It looks cute on, too, but I'll share that another day when I don't have a monstrous reason not to take a pic of myself on my chin. seriously monstrous



After I was done with the vest, back to the flower garden to check on things.

Lavender roses are just... so cool.

Oh yeah, it REALLY rained today, so that's actually got water in it.







These things are cool, too, some sort of rosett succulent. I stink at taking care of them, but they seem to like it outside.

(they're pretty much screwed come Winter because I'll have to bring them in and they really don't like it indoors)


Sure are pretty though, look close for the rain blobs. (too big for rain drops)



















Then we played outside for the rest of the evening. Running. Making chalk drawings, which I really should have photo'd too, but... maybe the day I model my vest?

It was nice. For a day that started in pain and still crying it ended very nicely. Smiling and playing with the kids. What would we do without our kiddos?

Fair Isle is Where the Heart is

Check it OUT! It actually looks the way it's supposed to!

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I think that the shaping even worked right. I'm going to do
one more purple row and then start the V part.

I have to say that my hands aren't used to doing Fair Isle, of course, but I have to pace myself or suffer the consequences. I should have very muscular fingers by the time I'm done, that'll be weird to see. =)*)




Here it is close up and you can actually see the colors a little better than before. I must have caught that magic time of day when the light was just right. Or maybe it's just that I wasn't trying very hard, when before I was trying SO hard to get it right.



...and for those of you who like to look at the back of Fair Isle projects... this was several rows ago.

I can barely wait to get started today! yaaay

Project Progress

Hello everyone! Here she is in all her partial glory! I guess I should really come up with a catchy name for this pattern. I'll have to be thinking about that while I knit. Some how yesterday and Saturday while I was knitting I seemed to have caught on FIRE or something because the rounds just started flowing. I think I had been away from knitting long enough to get slow again, because my last couple of projects really seemed to drag along, in spite of the fact that they were not such large projects. I think I'm back in my knitting groove now. (and now I want to take a nap)

The colors don't photograph so well, so you'll have to take my word for it that the purple is much more purple than it shows up here. The blue is just about right.

Here's what I have so far. All the waist decreases are finished and I've got about an inch of rounds done past them.

I have the stitch markers placed at every 20 stitches. That's how I kept track of
how many I cast on - 200. Then I put stitch markers in the middle of the two panels going up the sides. I have one contrasting marker in the exact middle of the front and one in the middle of the back. The panels of twenty stitches going up the side front and back are the ones I took the waist decreases from. I put markers in the middle of those (10 stitches on either side) and I decreased from the 10 stitches closest to the middle on either side. You can see the orange stitch markers in the picture. The white markers are only 2 stitches away from the orange ones b/c I decreased 8 stitches per panel. I decreased by 1 every 3rd round down to 168 stitches. I started out with 36 inches.

I'll be knitting several rounds before I start the bust increases, which I'll do a little more drastically, every other round instead of every 3rd round. Up to 192 stitches which happens to be divisible by 12 which is the number of stitches in one repeat of the heart pattern motif I plan to to use.

Hopefully I know what I'm doing somewhat. I'm using another hand knit of mine to gauge where I start and finish my decreases. It may turn out a little big, but that'll be ok, since I'll probably have a shirt on under it anyway.

We'll see. I'm hoping for the best, since I can't exactly try it on because my needles are too short and I'm too lazy to do the 'put it on a piece of yarn' thing and try it. Maybe later on.

Is there anyone besides me who gets all caught up with the stats to you blog?

My hits a minute ago were 23,456! I thought that was cool. I also like seeing the other countries in my stat's, that's always cool. I'd like to have a comment from one of my foreign lurkers =) HI! Thanks for lurking and adding to my hits!

Too Much for 1 Title

You remember this hat, right? Well now it has a buddy to match. Presenting scarfness!

Are you ready to see what I'm working on now? Because I finished the scarf last week sometime and the next day started on my next project. I decided to dive RIGHT into the Fair Isle Sweater Vest thing that I said I was going to do. I didn't find any patterns that I liked so as usual, I decided to wing it and make up my own pattern. Here's the motif I picked for the panel across the chest. I think it's going to be really cute.

Here's my 'vision' of what I hope it'll resemble when I'm finished, except the colors are grey, blue and purple instead of what this looks like, substitute the purple in your mind with the pink in the picture.


Here I am doing my first trial and error stranding. Continental with the left hand and English with the right hand. Guess what? IT WORKS AND I CAN DO IT! I decided to try it first around the bottom just above the waistband ribbing. I didn't want to get all the way up to the panel and suddenly discover my fingers wouldn't co-operate with me and my plans.




But it worked just find and my little practice strips look ok. The purple color is on the bottom and the blue is the upper strip. Of course I went with every other stitch and they are offset from each other for interest with a strip of grey between them. I'm really proud of how it looks so far.


The yarn is the Navajo stuff from my local LYS, it doesn't even come with a label, but the colors are SO great and it feels awesome. It is going to full very nicely, but not too much. I don't think I'll end up doing steeks after all, but I'm still not sure about that. I'm winging it, after all, writing the pattern as I go and I'll be fitting it to myself with waist decreases and increases. I'm SO happy to be knitting again.

Red Sky at Night to My Delight

But before sunset THIS is how it looked.
Yep, rotation and lowering, and if I was a really GREAT photographer
or had a better camera, I'd have some
AWESOME lightning strikes to share.
Sorry peeps you'll have to just look at my clouds for now.

Yes, that IS a wall cloud, thanks for asking.

That's what it looked like straight up, above my head.
You can see 4 different levels of clouds up there.
I love storms, mostly. Damage, not so much, but storms are mostly coolish.

This anvil top thunder head looks to be about 30 miles off to the NNE. =)
This particular batch of weather had the BEST smelling rain that
I've experienced in some time. It smelled of rain, watermelons,
horses and hay. I just sat out there in my chair,
sniffing and sniffing it up for at least 2 hours,
maybe 3, because it was just SO good.
I didn't want to stay inside because it just was too
nice out there. I miss having horses = (

Then the sun started to go down and I was forced to take MORE pictures.
All the storms were long gone, off to the SSW at 10 mph taking their tiny hail stones,
dangerous lightning, decent rain fall and great smells with them.

Say what you will about Fort Worth,
but we definitely have the great sky photo ops in these here parts.

Hallo, my name is.....what 's my name again?

Oh yeah, April the flower power, shower not mower person.


Yeah, I don't know what the heck I'm talking about either, so don't fret, it's not just you. IT'S MEEEEEEE - faint. (clunk)

Here's a closer look at the Lavender Moon roses. The smell HEAVENLY! **sigh** I SO missed having good roses to take care of. I have 2 other rose bushes, but one is a miniature yellow rose, which IS very pretty, it just isn't high maintainence enough for me. Two clips and I'm done and the stems are so small! A bouquet of roses is very tiny. These though, aaaahhhhh a bouquet is awesome and smells SO GOOD.

I hate to brag, but I'm a genius with roses and they thrive under my care. (I wish I was equally genius with men - not so much - again with the DRAT) lol

ah well, can't be a genius in EVERY area, right? ha

I can be a genius at garter stitch, right? That seems rather easy to say, but I'm finding that I'm much more the stockinette stitch in the round genius, rather than garter stitch. Or as Anastacia put it so aptly in the comments last post: Miles and miles of garter stitch. She also said the illustrious E. Z. would be proud! IS THAT TRUE? a w e s o m e =)

HI E. Z.!

just in case! ahahahahaha YEAH RIGHT i wish


But I DO love the way it's turning out and since doing a scarf in the round isn't such an option (unless I am going to do steeks and fight with the rolling.... nope) I will carry on like a wayward son and hope that there is peace when I am done.

ha

ha

ha

?ha?

=0/

oh well, it's gonna be a great scarf

Holy Hat Head, Batman!

Here I am sporting my new beanie hat thing that's long enough to cover my ears! Yaaaaay! I really like it and it doesn't look half bad, if I do say so myself. Now I have to decide on what sort
of scarf I'm going to make. I think I'll go for plain old garter stitch lengthwise, easy. I was getting a little tired of ribbing by the time I was done with the hat.


I know it'll look different than the hat, but...hey it's function not fashion at this point. Stockinette stitch always rolls and like I said, I'm over the ribbing thing, so... garter stitch it is. (I think) =)

So far, the scarf is 234 stitches cast on to equal 54 inches if my count/measuring skills are correct. So far, so good.

Edited to add:

Lookie, lookie! I got two rose bushes! I've been looking for good roses ALL Spring and today I finally found some at Home Depot.

Lavender Moon




Passionate Princess



Beauty, yes?


Oh yes, and I finally planted my pink blooming
Dogwood Tree...
(it finished blooming last month)

....and what's that? Oh yes, my Scarf in progress

There's a Forest in my Flower Bed

I've never seen so many cute little mushrooms in one place. It's almost like an animated cartoon or something. I know it's probably because of the soil I bought at Home Depot. Plenty of good humus and manure =) great for flowers and mushrooms.

how cute are they?

another hibiscus bloom

and the profile

This is the beginning of a Clematis.
A climbing vine thing with purple blooms.

....and finally KNITTING!
I'll actually be able to start calculations for
the decreases soon, but not too soon.
I want this hat to be PLENTY long.
Long enough to pull down over my ears when it's cold oh so cold.

Sorry for the flashy photo, it's past my bedtime and
I'm too tired to fanagle natural looking light, you'll forgive me this time, right?

For those of you worried about us Texans and the storms tonight, we're ok, it was a bit dicey there for a bit. (I don't like it when the trees are blown around in circles while the tornado sirens are going off) Just to be sure, I had the kids holed up in the bathroom with plenty of cushy stuff to hide under and sit on. Hopefully it's a good enough spot b/c our stair well is really out in the open and doesn't seem very safe. Anyway, we didn't have any damage, but plenty of others did. It was a rough evening for many. The storm is pretty big and still headed East, so hopefully it's done it's worst already and Oklahoma and Arkansas don't have it to look forward to.