Behind the Bruins

I was at my grandparent’s yesterday and saw a cute photo from when I was a little girl.  You’ve got to click the photo and see what it says on the back of those pants!

My aunt was at UCLA when I was a little girl and made sure everyone knew who her niece was supporting.  There are more pictures of me in cute Bruin gear that I’ll post as I find them.  They crack me up, especially since I don’t have any memory of any of them.  I do have lots of memories of spending time with my grandpa, though, just like in this photo.  I’m sure he was either fixing something for me or I was “helping” him fix or build something.

I love both sets of my grandparents so much.  I am grateful I live close to them and get to see them more often than a lot of people get to see their grandparents (including all the rest of my siblings).

 

Catching up on the Week of Catch-Up

Sometimes my life cracks me up. Take this week of catching up, for example. Monday my week looked pretty open, not much going on, just the right kind of week to get caught up on some things, like my blog. So, of course, life had to kick me in the rear and reminded me that when things are looking easy, go find some wood to knock on. Anyways, days 2, 3, and 4 were obviously non-existent, so I’m not going to make any more promises and just post whatever I can.

Have some socks.

Have some socks knit by me.

My first socks, in fact. These are the socks I started in February. I finished them around the middle of March (apparently by March 10, according to the date stamp on the picture, which, by the way, is why all of my pictures have date stamps on them!). These turned out really good, especially for my first socks. I had a great teacher over at Unraveled who was so helpful and knowledgeable. The only wonky parts are a small hole at on one of the gussets and I had a hard time with kitchenering the toes, so one toe is a little better than the other. Still, all in all, they look, feel, and fit great.

Details:
Basic Knits Basic Sock Pattern
Knit on size 6 (4.0) double-pointed needles
Yarn: Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Superwash in #3 Pale Pink
Used about 1.4 skeins (305 yards)

 

A Week of Catch-Up, Day 1

I think I’ve figured out why blogging is so hard for me. I’m not a natural writer. I sit here at the computer, hands over the keyboard, and struggle with what to say, or how to say it, or … oh, I don’t know! I feel like I’m over analyzing everything as I write it. It has always been this way. When I was in school, it used to take me hours to write even the smallest of essays. I struggle to get thoughts out of my head and onto the pages of my journal. So please, bear with me. This just does not come easy for me. Hopefully it will get better over time.

Around the middle of March I knit and felted my first Booga Bag. It gets to be the first project update because it’s the only thing I already have pictures of in my camera and the light is really bad today. The pattern was very easy and straightforward and I loved not having anything to seam up at the end. I was worried about felting it, though. I have a top loading high efficiency washing machine. I ended up messing around with the different cycles until I found the combination that seemed to felt the best. It ended up looking pretty good. Here are some pre- and post-felting pictures.

I started to use the bag and realized it needs to be felted a little more to make the fabric tighter. I’ll probably throw it in for another cycle the next time I felt anything. I still think it turned out pretty well, though.

This was also my first time using Noro Kureyon. I loved this yarn. I loved the texture of it in my fingers as I knit it. I loved the beautiful colors. I loved the color repeats. I loved everything about it. I don’t think I would like it in a sweater, but for this project, it was great.

 

Not gone

I know, I know.  What kind of person starts a blog then disappears for a couple months.  One who’s not a natural blogger, apparently.  I’ve got so much to update you all on, so its going to take a while for me to get up to speed.  So, this week will be a week of catch-up.

 

What the heck!?

So I was taking all these pictures to post about my Valentine’s Day project and decided I should take some knitting pictures as well. I took a picture of the dishcloth I made my Grandma Sharon for her birthday.

(I actually took many, but this is the only one that I could get to turn out). I took a picture of the Falling in Love scarf I’m knitting.

I’m loving it. First time knitting with Lorna’s Laces and its soooo squishy. It makes me happy. Then I went to take a picture of the right front of the Slouchy Cardigan (from this book).

As I was pulling it into place to show the little pointy bit at the bottom corner, it started to unravel.

What the heck! I pulled a little more and some more unraveled.

Finally, I ended up pulling out the whole second bind off section. I have no idea what I did. Maybe I dropped a stitch. Maybe I did the bind off incorrectly. Whatever, now I have to frog the entire six inches and start over. Great. Next post will be happy Valentine’s stuff, not bitter, ranting, knitting stuff.  Freakin’ knitting.

 

Bad yarn, no biscuit

I’m having a hard time getting into the swing of this blog thing. I don’t have much going on in my life right now to post about. I do have knitting updates, though.

First off, a Koolhaas update. This

will be frogged. I hate how it is turning out, all stripey and stuff. It is not what I imagined at all. This yarn is driving me crazy. I think I’m going to set it aside for a while and maybe find a scarf pattern that will work for it later.

On a happier note.

This is the beginning of my first sock. I’m taking a class at Unraveled and I’m pretty excited. I’ve wanted to learn for a long time but haven’t been able to work out a class until now. Oh yeah, apparently knitting Koolhaas made me forget how to knit normally because I am now having a hard time not knitting through the back loops.

While I was at Unraveled I dug through their new Koigu shipment to find yarn for the Chevron scarf. I bought the purple and the pink from a fellow Raveler but didn’t like how they looked together.

I’m hoping these work. I’m also hoping I start thinking of better things to write in the blog. I’ve never been good at writing in my journal and I’m hoping this will help me chill out and just write what’s in my head (which may not be a good thing!). We’ll see.

Man, my pictures are looking funny. I’ll fix those later.

ETA: Pictures fixed, but still too big.

 

And for my first real post…

Work in Progress #1 - Koolhaas by Jared Flood. Interweave Knits 2007.

This yarn started out as Foliage, a beautiful pattern which vexed me to no end. Let’s just say that A ended up rescuing my yarn and needles from the front yard after I had finally had enough of trying to start a hat from the top down. I hadn’t even got to the leaf pattern yet, so I figured if I was having such problems with just eight little stitches, I should cut my losses there and start on something new. (Thank you A, I really do love that yarn.)

Monday I searched through Ravelry and decided on Koolhaas. Many thanks to the Ravelry tips pointing to Grumperina and her excellent tutorials on cabling without a cable needle (my hand written cheat sheet can be seen in the picture above). Yesterday evening was spent learning this great technique which has helped with this pattern tremendously. I finished row 5 of the chart before I went to bed, then when I went to pick up the pattern this morning, I realized I had forgotten to change to larger sized needles when I changed from the ribbing to the cable pattern. I am now on row 2.

The only thing I am worried about at this point is how the colors in the yarn are pooling in the hat. Hopefully now that I’ve switched to a cable pattern it will use up the yarn at a different rate and variegate differently. Cross your fingers for me.

 

Hello world!

Alright everyone. Be aware that this is the beginning of this blog and I’ve never done this before. More than likely, this site will change a great deal over time. I’ve felt the need to start a blog for a while now, both to keep our family and friends updated as well as a journal exercise. The content will be wide and varied. Whatever’s going on in my (Dewdop) or my husband’s (Orangerider, A, Hotstuff, etc.) lives will make for my blog fodder. If you care or like it, stick around.