Do not ignore me

I WILL NOT be ignored! - Bert

OOPS! I didn't mention Chief and Bert in the things I'm grateful for last post. What was I thinking. They have let me know in no uncertain terms that this is not acceptable and will not happen again. Mea Cuppa.

Well, if you've learned your lesson I'll let you pet me again. - Bert

(Chief is off sleeping somewhere but feels the same)

In other news - I've done some knitting and we get to play - "What the Heck is it!?"

Here's a picture of the knit item before it's put together. Bert got in the picture for scale. It's garter stitch, 15sts wide with strange added on squares of knitting. Come back tomorrow to see it finished.

Play with the KNIT Mouse

I've been knitting the past few weeks

I finally decided the sun and my camera will not be seeing each other for a long time during the week (Minnesota doesn't see the sun when you're not working during much of Nov., Dec, Jan.) So - here's some pics of the last few projects I've finished. Pics taken inside with a flash and colors are a bit off.

The Quick Suri Scarf - I had a couple skeins of Knit Picks Suri Hand dyed hanging around the house since last year so I decided to knit a simple scarf. It started out being garter st but I decided to add a lace section for a little interest.

The garter st section is 10 rows then the lace section is 3 repeats of a 2 row pattern - row 1: k2tog, yo. row 2: purl. Very simple. Very quick.

My Ravelry knitting group (NW Twin Cities Burbs) decided to do some charity knitting in November. We decided on preemie hats to donate to the local hospital. My hats so far are below. The pink/purple ones are all one skein of a dk weight yarn I picked up on sale for $2.25. Not bad! Five babies will have warm heads for $.45 each.

I bought some Talinay a few months ago thinking I would make a hat and mittens. When I came across Crazy Aunt Purls Quick Beret pattern I knew I found the hat. The color is fairly close in the picture but the blue/green is a bit more teal than the pic. This is a bulky yarn so I knit it on a size 13 and the hat was done in less than one night. I've already started the next hat in Knit Picks Suri. I see Christmas presents getting done rather quick this year with these hats!

About a month ago my fingers needed to knit something quick and I ended up making one of Mason/Dixon's baby bibs. I have no current need for it but the way babies pop out at work I'll probably need it before I hunt up a button.

Finally - Dad gets Elizabeth Zimmermann's Woodman's socks every year to warm his cold diabetic feet. This years socks are Woolease because they need to be machine washable at the memory facility. Last year's pair head up well and were in green. The white band at the top is so I can write his name on the inside while he still looks stylish.

Bert & Chief play Mousie-Mousie

When I came home from work tonight I could tell the boys were playing their favorite game. The fish on a string was in the middle of the living room, their knit mice were all over, the broom was knocked down. It looked like they had a great time. Then I went to the hall. The hall where I just finished pulling up the carpet to reveal the hardwood floor. The beautiful "new" hall. They were playing in there too but they upped the ante. There in the middle of the hall was a little body. A dead mouse. Ick! Well, at least they didn't try to eat it. At least they caught it and I don't have a mouse running around the house. I should be proud of my hunter kitties but - ick!

Actual Knitting Content Ahead

Don't drop over - I have some actual knitting content and pictures for you.

One of the sympathy cards I received after Mom's death was from a friend I haven't seen for 25 years. She was my closest friend in Sunday School and after her marriage she moved away and we somehow lost track of each other. On the card she gave me contact information and I was thrilled. Last week we decided to meet today for lunch halfway between our houses.

Lucky for me there was a yarn shop very close to the restaurant so I left an hour early and went to visit Knitter's Palette in Lakeville. What a wonderful shop. It has plenty of yarn but isn't crowded feeling. There are wood floors and a couple couches to sit at. The yarn choice is wonderful and they have spinning wheels for those interested in spinning.

I did not leave empty handed. I left with some yarn, a Rowan book and something else.
The yarn is something I had not heard of before Talinay from Chili. It's a great looking wool. The picture does not do it justice because today is a very overcast day and the colors are much more rich than it seems. The Rowan yarn is Tapestry and is to be a a swatch for a project that hopefully you will see one day but - not for a while.

The Rowan book is their 30th anniversary pattern book/magazine. It's huge and has some great patterns in it.

As I was ready to buy the yarn I noticed something calling to me. It sat there with quiet dignity saying my knitting projects deserved to be carried around town in something better than an old tote bag or a Target plastic bag. I listened to it and decided to bring it home.

This is my new project bag. It's nice enough to double as a purse. Has lots of pockets inside and outside. It's a Namaste according to the tag and was very reasonably priced. Some of my blogger functions aren't working right so I can't link easily but the site is www.namasteinc.com and the bag is in the Cali collection - Laguna.

The knitting that's been keeping me busy much of the week is my Jade Sapphire Cashmere/Silk scarf. I decided to use a simply pattern (KnitPicks 1,2,3 lace scarf) so I could take this anywhere. It's very soft and once finished and blocked it will be fantastic.

Other knitting is the continuing of the Soft Shoulders sweater. You know - the one I started back in 2003 and kind of forgot about. I have to pay attention to this one because there are different cables with different numbers of rows per repeat. I wrote up the design row by row and it had a repeat from rows 15 - 38. There's enough going on that I don't want to goof up a section by getting distracted so this project stays home and is only worked on during boring TV shows.

In case you're interested- Lunch with my friend was great. It's hard to catch up on 25 years in just a couple hours but the friendship and bond is still there. We're not going to let 25 more years go by before getting together again. We've already started hatching a plan to get the old Sunday School group together. Wish us luck!

Floods and Wedding Knitting

This weekend was family time. My cousin's daughter was married in Chicago and many of us went down there to celebrate with her. We had quite an adventure getting there because the freeway was closed because of the flooding in Wisconsin. One cousin started 2 hours sooner than our car and took over 10 hours to get there - should have been 7 hours! He stayed on I-90 till he got to the cut off. Our car hit the dead stop on the freeway area and after a bit (which included my Uncle deciding to get out and walk around the freeway - twice) we decided to turn around on the highway emergency area and head out a different way. We were not the only vehicle to do this and we didn't even decide to until many cars went ahead of us. But - it was the right move. We headed north a bit then headed east and back down to Chicago adding many miles of driving but we got there in 9 hours saving more than an hour of sitting around wasting gas.

The weekend definitely got better after that. I got some socks knitting in during the 3 hours I didn't drive so that helped. We partied Friday night and the wedding was Saturday night. Between those I ditched the family (sent them to the city with my car to see Navy Pier and take one of the boat tours - been there, done that). I got to meet Sharon of She-Knits podcast. We've been email, Skype, Ravelry buddies for a while and couldn't believe our luck when it turned out the hotel was 10 minutes from her house. We had a great lunch at Panera (one of my favorite places) and returned to the hotel to hang out in the lobby to talk and knit.

On the knitting front -

I wore the knit lace top and shrug at the wedding and discovered I'm not a shrug person. Long story - I won't bother you with it! A few days before the wedding I figured I had a ball of yarn still and a bit of time so I made a purse.

It was a quick and easy knit using part of the lace design from the lace top. I'll be writing up this cut little purse shortly and it will be available for all of you to try.

It's Growing

It seems the blob is becoming something.

Chief is excited.

Alpacas and Llamas and British Shorthairs - oh my!

Lots to catch up on.

Last weekend was the Shepherd's Harvest Festival and the MS Bike Ride. I promised a yarn raffle and you'll get one - but first some llamas and alpaca.

I've got a thing for critters like most of us do. Here's the alpacas and llamas from last weekend.

Can you tell the difference between the llamas and alpacas? The last pictures is the alpacas. It's hard to tell the difference from these pictures but at the festival it was much easier - they all had signs telling me which they were!

Bert has become thrilled with the nature channels lately, well, with HD in general. Any time I put on a show on one of the HD channels, he sits and stares. Makes it hard to see but then -

he gets all excited by whats going on the screen and wants to be part of it. I'm worried that the screen will get damaged with all his pawing on it.

The gray blob is done. It's now a gray lace shell. It's made from Berroco Denim Silk - part silk, part rayon. The pattern is on the Elanns.com web site. Time to start the shrug that goes with it.

Finally - the MS Bike Ride give away. The randomly drawn name will be receiving a skein of Lang Jawoll sock yarn which comes with it's own little skein of reinforcing yarn, and a sock pattern from Amazing Threads - my LYS. I took all the names of people who donated and let the Random generator pick a number. The winner is: kmkat. YEAH!!! I'll be contacting you to get your prize sent out.

Thanks again everyone. Your donations will help the wonderful people at MS Society work on finding a cure.

Happy Mother's Day - give me a hug

I spent yesterday involved with the MS Bike Ride but no the way you'd think - my engine light came on and I didn't feel safe driving over 50 miles without getting it checked out. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it checked unless I gave up the bike ride. If I didn't do it then I'd have to wait until Monday night and I just didn't dare wait that long. It turned out to be a bad gas cap sensor. I think our cars are getting just a little too automatic. BUT-

I did ride my bike around the area in my own version of a mini- ride and more importantly - your donations are still going to a very worthy cause. I will let you know who won the knitting goodies shortly and get a hold of that person to let her/him know something is coming their way. THANK YOU EVERYONE!!

This morning I went over to the Shepherd Harvest Festival and it was cold. I didn't spend much time in the vendor buildings but did get some good pictures of the llamas and alpacas. One problem - I brought my new phone that has a good camera to try it out but I couldn't email myself the pics. I'll play around and get them off the phone and post them, hopefully tomorrow.

The count down to my cousin's wedding continues and the gray blog is starting to have a shape. I've bound off the sleeve caps so it can now look like what it will end up being - a top down lace shell.

If I have time I will also be knitting a shrug to go with it. Ya gotta love rayon on silk. This yarn is a ribbon yarn and a bit rough to knit with but once it's in a knit stitch is already starts the softening up and just feels good.

Last fall I had all that work done on the basement and my window wells to waterproof the basement. In the process my plants got abused. I had some peony bushes that were here when I was a little girl. I think Dad planted them the first year they moved in so those plants were over 50 years old. It looks like they may have survived- we'll see but one of the tulips made it through the construction.

As you all know I have a couple cats. If you don't know that, you are obviously totally new to reading this blog cause all I seem to talk about some days are the boys! Anyway- every once in a while I mention Bert and his love of dragging his toys around. Here is today's view of the living room. The only thing I put in the picture was the kitty tunnel. Everything else is Bert.

That's - 1 knit mouse, 1 stuffed mouse, 1 fishing pole, 1 green sock, 1 piece of paper, the fishy on a rope, and inside the tunnel - 2 more knit mousies. Sadly, this is clean compared to what he usually has it looking like.

Happy Mother's Day - come play with me!

Chief's way to celebrate Mother's Day is to climb on top of me while I try to work on the computer on my lap. Little hard to see the screen but - the purring makes up for it.

Happy Mother's Day - give me a hug! - Chief

Bulky is good

So Mom, While I've been keeping this chair from falling apart by holding all the rungs together, what have you been doing? - Chief

I've been knitting. Ya wanna see? - Jill

First off the Elizabeth Zimmermann February Baby Sweater. It took less than a week to make and is for a baby expected at work. The yarn is Sirdar Snuggly and was very nice to knit with.

I'm putting in snaps instead of regular buttons but will have cute little flower buttons on top of the snap so it doesn't look so Santa Claus!

Next up - the Sensational Shirttail Sweater from the Knitters magazine. This is done with Knit Picks Wool of the Andes - Bulky in Taupe. Size 10.5 needles. I started this Saturday as part of a KAL on the She-Knits group on Ravelry. It's going amazingly fast. I haven't knit on bulky yarn for a long time and all I can say is - Bulky is good. It's a great way to get instant gratification.

I finished one front piece and started the back. The middle is moss stitch and this carries thru to the mock yoke.


The band on the front is done in a way I haven't done before. One the front it's k1-sl1-k1-sl1 and on the backside you purl the slips and knit the knits to create a garter st. The end result is a thicker more defined band that doesn't roll or curl.

Time for supper and I have to get back to this quick sweater.......

Finally some knitting

There's been some actual knitting going on at Maison Chat. My friends that come over every Friday night couldn't make it this week because of various reasons but I had the time to knit instead of teach/coach. Earlier this week I started a new pair of socks. This this Araucania Ranco Multi. It's wonderful yarn with a firm twist and very minimal splitting. The pattern is a mix of patterns. It's my basic toe-up design but the pattern on it is from Eagle's Flight. A free sock on the internet.

I like this design with this yarn. The yarn isn't so busy that the design gets lost.

I've also started another baby sweater this weekend. There's something in the water at work because the past 6 or so months everyone has had a baby. At least that's what it seems like. This is the 4th baby and I'm tired fo the EZ surprise kacjet so I switched over to Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Sweater on 2 needles (February sweater from Knitting Almanac). The original is 1 color but last week when I was at the NU Outlet I bought 1 skein of 2 different color of Snuggly DK by Sirdar (can't beat $2.75 a skein!). Once I decided what to make I didn't want to go back down there for more of one of the colors so - the yoke and garter stitch areas are white and the body red.

House Rules

One rule we have in the house is - all bags that come into the house must live on the floor for at least a week. It's not my rule but I must follow it if I want to live in peace. This bag becomes the toy & nap place of the week.

OOH This Paton's bag is just the thing to sleep on! - Bert

15 minutes later -

Are you sure there's not something inside the bag. Let's explore. - Chief

You're bothering me. I want to sleep! - Bert

30 minutes later -

Like I said, It's a great place to nap! - Bert

Misc. Item

When I was at the MOA last week I found a pillow at Bloomies that I managed to kinnear. It looks very easy to make. It was expensive. And it may be a project in the near future.

20 Year old Christmas Sock

Well I survived the second day of Mom's surgery stuff. Today was fill in the pothole on her face day. She got a skin flap put on and it ended up taking a long time. I planned on 2- 2.5 hours away from work but it took 4 hours. But - we're done other than keeping it clean and getting the stitches out in a couple weeks.


So- here's the pictures I promised for several days.

1. The Christmas Sock - I started this about 20 years ago and just had the foot to do. It's a bulky wool - I still can't remember the name. Size 9 needles. There may have been a pattern at one point but the heel and foot were just me horsing around with patterns. After all -it doesn't have to fit.


Here's the 20 year old part of the sock. It aged well.



2. The Mitered Washrag. This is the Sugar 'n Cream stripes cotton. Size 7 needle. The basic miter square. I think I started with 70sts. I tend to throw stuff on the needle and just wing it so I'm really bad a details some time. I like the way this yarn stripes. Looks like I did more work than just knit!
3. Which way is up Cable Scarf.



Back over a year ago ( I was still in the other house) I saw a reversible cable scarf in a shop and thought - I can do that. I didn't have any time to really look at it other than to see the cable was done with k1,p1. But driving home I thought about it and figured the body of the scarf would need to be reversible "flat" stitches with a little bit of variety so. I work on it here and there and here's what I have so far.


Sorry the picture isn't better contrast. The basic pattern is:
CO 36.
Start with 6 rows (3 ridges) garter st.
3 garter st, k1, p1, 3 moss st, cable ([k1,p1]x4), 4 moss st, cable, 3 moss st, k1, p1, 3 garter st.

Do a left 4x4 cable every 10th row keeping the k1, p1 pattern.
Knit to desired length.
End with 6 rows garter st. I'm using Woolease on size 8 needle.

Final set of pictures is a present to myself. I ordered some stuff from KnitPicks during their move and it finally came. Yup, that's another sock book. Can't have enough even though I NEVER use any of the patterns but they're great inspiration.



I got some Options needles and cables. I didn't buy the full set because I have so many needles and I have the Boye Needle Master so I just wanted a few of the basic sizes. I also got the size tags.

I got some yarn. Wool of the Andes. I have absolutely no idea why I bought this. If I had a project in mind I can't remember. These aren't my usual color choices for stash so - got any ideas?

Once everything got out of the packing the Box Inspector got busy to be sure it was made to the proper specs.

Yup. Looks like we'll need to inspect this further. - Bert