| Monday, March 28, 2005 |
| Tired! |
Oh my gosh I feel like I haven't sat down or rested in 5 days. Ok I have sat down quite a bit as I've done a lot of knitting, but still.
Friday I wasn't working so I raced over to the LYS to take a pic of the Duffle Coat before it's owner arrived to pick it up. I was going to wait and see if she'd take a pic for me, but as it turned out I had to go down to my dad's store anyways so I just made a detour.
Here it is, buttons and all:
 
Then, since I was still off the rest of the day, I got a huge chunk of progress done on Spoilt Rotten, the 2nd dog coat that Urban Pet asked me for a few weeks ago. I feel horrible that I still haven't given the sweaters to them, but besides Duffle Coat I had spent almost a week and a half trying to get gauge on the Classic Cabled Aran and no matter what needle size I used I just couldn't get it. I'm officially giving up on that one and taking it off my available list. There is an Aran dog sweater in the book that has Spoilt Rotten, if they insist on one (even though the weather's changing now) I'll make that one. Besides, after reading through the pattern for the CCA it really wasn't that nice. It was mostly moss st, very boring, with only one diamond on the bag. Ehh.
Saturday I hurried home after work to take off for up north to have Easter dinner with Yannick's family. There was still tons of light outside so I got more knitting done in the car. It was a really nice drive up. I'd been listening to a great book on CD in my car and had finished the first 2 CDs. I knew Yannick would like it too, so I brought it along in the car for the ride. It's called Artemis Fowl. I forget the author at the moment but it's read in a wonderful Irish accent and is a great tale of underworld crime, deceit, and faeries.
We spent the night up north, stuffed on a yummy rack of lamb dinner, and woke up bright and early for brunch the next day. Truthfully, it's hard not to wake up bright and early when there are 4 kids under 9 running through the room searching for hidden chocolate eggs. :)
When we left we had to come straight back because my grandmother's 81st bday party was at 2pm. We made it just in time, and I had enough of a long car ride to finish all but the pocket on Spoilt Rotten. It was fun to be at my bubbie's. It had been a while since I'd seen her, plus it was nice having my whole family there. My mom's sister Mimi was in from TO and Fran was there with my cousins Mark (in from Ottawa) and Jon, plus my cousin Warren was there and cousin Barbara Anne and her hubby and daughter, PLUS my parents and my 3 siblings. Once you add in the other residents of the home and the on site staff, it was a full house! In keeping with the productivity theme of the weekend I had a chance to discuss my parents' 30th anniversary gift ideas with my siblings (I have a great idea but I can't discuss it here 'cus you never know who might be reading...lol), AND discuss an upcoming trip to Las Vegas. See, a year or so ago my auntie Mimi took my brother Michael, my cousin Mark and my cousin Barbara Anne to Vegas. Why I was skipped I don't know, since only Barbie is older than me. In any case, this year is mine, my cousin Warren and my cousin Mitchell's turn, and then in a few years it will be my brother Aaron, sister Laura and cousin Jon. Mimi hopes to travel in May or June, so we're trying to work out everyone's schedules and come up with a fun itinerary. Warren has been there before, as has Mimi, I'm not sure about Mitchell, but I've never been. We'll be going down for 5 days so I don't know what to expect!
Hmm...any Vegas wool shops I should know about?
Finally last night after a quick dinner and more of The Making of The Incredibles on the extra features DVD Yannick took off for my parents' house to play poker with my dad, brothers and a bunch of others. I stayed home and (guess what?) knit. I finished SR but for the embroidery on the pocket, and started swatching for a very selfish project- one for me! I started looking through my wips still outstanding. Right now there are:
-To Dye For sweater from Stitch 'n Bitch. It's all knit up, just needs to be blocked and seamed.
-Mini Plain Cardigan. It's a 6" high cardigan that just needs buttons sewed on.
-Entrelac Throw. Only a row and a half done. No where near completion.
-Birthday Suit. Ha! Only 6 rows done out of an entire long sleeved shirt and long skirt knit on sock yarn.
-Yannick's Thrum Socks. Not yet started sock # 2.
-Lace Socks. These are the ones for my knitting class. I'm working on the foot, almost at the toe decreases. Only on the first sock though.
-Heart Warmer. This is a baby sweater for charity.
I really should have worked on finishing some of these, especially the first 2 since they really are almost done. But instead, faced with the thought that I couldn't finish SR until today when I met with Nicole for embroidery tips, I knew I had a few hours of selfish time, so I worked on selfish knitting. My DKNY-designed Landscape Cardigan. It doesn't really have a name, but since the main feature is all the cables that work up to trees and a fence, I named it the Landscape Cardigan, and before bed I finished my swatch. Yay!
Today I slept in until a door-to-door guy rang the bell. Then I made my way through the rain to my LYS armed with a huge bag of projects that I wanted to go over with Nicole. (And I mean huge bag, it was large enough for over 30 sk of yarn!)
First I decided to swap my 11 or so sk of Alafoss Lopi for 11 sk of Classic Merino Wool. I'm told that when it felts it is much less fuzzy and simply a dream to knit up, so I ordered it and will swap once it comes in. It's cheapter than the Lopi too, so bonus!
Then we measured my machine knit swatch on Paton's Astra so I could get an idea if it was feasable to use to make the charity baby sweater. It turned out to be spot-on for the rows, but too big for the stitches. I'm going to have to arrange a meeting with Nicole just to learn how to recalculate a pattern.
Then she showed me that the embroidery on my SR pocket was no more difficult than backstitching in cross stitching, so I knew I could do that later.
Finally I remade my LC swatch 'cus it was too big. With a 5mm instead of 5.5 I was good on the stitches, but a bit off on the rows. I was given the go ahead to make the cardigan body and then Nicole will help me recalculate the set-in sleeves to fit.
Armed with all that, I finally made it home around 3:30 pm. Whew!
I finished SR and just need to cut out my custom labels. I think it's cute. The words were a bit difficult to embroider, but they are on a kangaroo pocket which looks really cute on a dog sweater.
 
While I was working on it I got a call from my contact at the hospital auxiliary about the charity baby stuff. She'd given me the yarn in January, unfortunately right before I started making the dog sweaters, so I have yet to make her anything for the hospital gift shop. She's understandably a little upset. After I call her back I'll know if I'm to continue working on the sweater, in which case that's what I'll do tonight, or if she wants all the yarn back, in which case I'll work on LC and give her all her stuff back next Monday. But first I'm going to eat supper! :) |
posted by Jennifer Lori @ 6:26 pm   |
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