a little blue, a little brown

I liked the look of this variegated yarn (Lion brand wool) and decided to make some socks out of it. For some reason I ended up making a pair of socks that would fit a two year old and managed to think up a two year old I know that I can give them to.
I like the blue and brown and green and it was easy to work with. I'm not sure how they would work on the practicality scale, though since this is the yarn thats pretty much made for felting.

selfish me

I started a sweater for myself. And its not actually one of my own bastardized creations. Aside from the way I set up the colors, its straight from a book that I bought at a yarn shop when I sent to Seattle from my birthday. I've been drooling over the pattern for months now and when I bought some of the Jaeger Roma for a completely different project, I fell in love with the yarn and knew it would be great for this sweater. I originally used 3 colors of the Roma and some Filatura Di Crosa I had impulse bought a while back, but I just wasn't warming up to the way it was looking. I was digging around my stash places looking for something completely different and ran across my Trendsetter's Pandora that I had also bought a while back to "play" with. I loved it, but wasn't sure what to use it in. And then the light went off in my head. I decided to put the Pandora with the Roma and the Venezia and see how it looked. And when I did, I knew I was home.
I loved putting the colors together and how they look together. It is soooo me. I may look like a hippopotamus with all these stripes when the sweater is done and finished, but I don't care. The combo of the colors makes me happy and the Roma is soooo soft. I'm about to embark on my second sleeve while I wait for my size 9 addis to come in from Jimmy Bean. I did decide to knit the back and the front all together until I get to the arm decreases, so in that regard I am bastardizing the original pattern.
I know its very out of character for me to knit something for myself when I am in the midst of 1900 other projects for other people, but sometimes you just have to take care of yourself.

groovin on a Sunday afternoon

My boys just left to go back to their dad's. We all went to Whitewater yesterday. It is truly an act of love for a mother to go run around in public in a swimsuit for the sake of entertainment purposes for her children. I can tell you that there is nothing better for shooting down the self esteem of a 40 year old mother than to have her parade around with a bunch of teenagers and twenty-somethings all in their barely-there bikinis, copper skin, and pierced navels. I did sport my own belly ring a few years ago, but the damn thing kept snagging on my jeans and it just became a painful ordeal so I took it out. I also do have to admit that since I have been divorced from the father of my children (a man who was very adamant about my going to the tanning bed and tanning) I am a shade worshipper, wear SPF50, and embrace my caucasianness. I have no desire to submit myself to an increased risk of skin cancer. Other forms of cancer run rampant in my family history and I figure its in the cards that I'm going to meet up with some cancer gene gone active at some point in my life. I certainly don't need to add to the cancer risk factor pot.
Anyway. The picture is of a trinity knot that I cranked out while my stepdaughter was at the dentist the other day. I did make an alteration from the original pattern that I found in a cap pattern, but have not had near the grief with it as I have been having with the peace symbol. I plan to incorporate the trinity knot in the instep of a pair of socks. I seem to be a sockaholic these days. Perhaps I should rename myself the sock whisperer.

that's the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it, uh huh, uh

This is like take 6 or something on this blasted peace symbol from the top down. But I think I may finally be on to something. Comments and criticisms are welcome.
Wow. If I finally have it....... I can actually work on something else for a change. Go figure.
I'd write more, but I actually have to go do domestic things now since I've spent the good bit of the morning trying to get the peace symbol to my satisfaction.

p.s. I'm looking for comments on the pattern, not on my photographic techniques which really suck.

besting Barbara Walker part 2

My husband went out of town yesterday and he'll be gone until Friday. I've spent a good part of yesterday and today trying once again to get the best of Barbara Walker. Through much trial and error, stubborness, complete lunacy, and a few pina colada wine coolers, I've come up with a "cuff down" version of the peace symbol that I am bound and determined to incorporate into a sock. After ripping the damn thing out half a dozen times, I got to where I thought I had got the damn thing figured out. I even took some pictures of the finished cuff part that has the peace symbol on it to post, but as I was looking at the pictures of it I realized that I'm still not happy with it. Hell, I even typed up all my hard work thus far and saved it to my knitting designs file. The branches off of the center vertical line come off of it too low for my taste. I just don't have the strength to rip the thing out tonight and reconfigure it tonight. I'm ok with the basic overall pattern............ I think. I just want the diagonal lines to run a bit longer before they disappear into the circle. On paper, it should only take a minimal amount of tweaking to get it where I want it. the thing is I'm actually going to have to frog rows and rows of knitting in the round to get it back to where I want it to branch off.
I have these dreams of one day being a knit-wear designer, but I feel a bit humbled and disenchanted with the fact that it has taken me 2 stinkin days so far to work out this peace symbol (in the reverse from how Barbara Walker has it in her book) and I'm still not where I want to be with it.
I've had enough of "peace" tonight. I am most likely going to go work on a mandala window painting that I'm doing. If I pick up the needles again tonight it will most likely be to do some mindless knitting on a dog sweater I'm doing for our dog Nemo Xavier. I'm also posting a dog sweater that I finished on the way to Florida last month. I opted out of ribbing around the armholes (or legholes as it were) since somebody once told me that some dogs freak out having stuff like that around their legs so I opted for finished the hole with a crocheted crab stitch instead. The pattern is a variation on the dog sweater pattern on the Michael's site. Thus far its been my favorite dog sweater pattern. However, the dog sweater I'm working on now is knit int he round from the neck down (of course I had to alter the dimensions from the pattern since Nemo's chest size is bigger than the largest size they have listed and of course I had to make up my own intarsia pattern to put in it instead of the one that they have, but that just seems to be the way I'm wired..... can't leave well enough alone.)

leaf baby sweater

Just a quick note with a picture. I just finished my own take on a nashua pattern. I used Reynold's saucy for the yarn. I actually have done the real nashua sweater with the actual called for yarn. Well, I have yet to finish one of the arms. I'll post the picture of it as well when I am finished. The Reynold's was part of a recent single balls of yarn purchase so that I could play with a few different types and get the feel for them.
Anyway, I have to help my son with a school project so its just a short post.

post without pictures

I just wanted to put in an update that I found a home for the tank dress that I made for my stepdaughter for her birthday that she decided she didn't want. After contacting my niece, she had adopted the dress and I put it in the mail this very day to send it along to its new, loving home. My oldest son has taken up crochet and is learning to knit. He also included a double crochet belt that he made for his cousin.