an exercise in thumb gussets (aka when good knitters do dumb stuff)

My hubby just went off to fish with a buddy of his, my stepdaughter is at the neighbors, and my kids just left to go to their dad's. So, its me and my blog (and the 4 cats and one dog). I bought some malabrigo (sealing wax) at Knitch last week and was determined to make some gloves I saw online that were entitled "malabrigo gloves". I started them but wasn't too keen on how the thumb was happening so I did some online research about some gloves and found a cute fingerless glove pattern with a thumb gusset. Plus it has tiny twisty cables and I'm just a sucker for tiny twisty cables. I started the glove yesterday and worked in a row or two here and there among the tidying up of what will soon be our meditation room, helping kids with various projects, and doing laundry. I managed to complete the glove today while we were in the car. Its one of those fingerless gloves that has an open space for all the fingers, not one where there is a part knit for each finger. I figured I would tackle the concept of thumb gussets first and the move on to full fingered gloves. I did the glove in Patons SWS. I decided to save the malabrigo for when I figured out how to actually make this all work. Anyway, here are some pictures of the work in progress and the finished glove (without the ends weaved in). I messed up on my knitting math and the the two long lines of tiny twisty cables ended up being closer to the thumb gusset than they were supposed to be. It also ended up being a bit on the big side for me since I have hands the size of a 9 year old (no, really, I do. My 12 year old stepdaughter has bigger hand than me. Its like the only thing on me that is in proportion to my height. My rear end should be on somebody about 6'4 as well as other parts of me, but my hands and feet are tiny.)
Also, I made some more stitch markers and one is featured on one of the glove pictures.

works in progress

I've taken some pictures of a few of my works in progress (there's more, but it was just too frightening of a concept to go around taking pictures of ALL of them. I realize some of them are not knitting, but that's just the way it goes.
the blue and gray sock is actually for me. I'm doing it in flaming wave pattern from the Favorite Socks book. The orange and brown sock is for my son Jonah. Its the "sock-over" I'm doing since the other one didn't fit him. One of my coworkers had big fun frogging the ill-fitting sock at work yesterday. Jonah's sock is a pattern from Cat Bordhi's new book. There is a small taupe panel of my own doing that I plan on incorporating in a baby sweater that I hope to then go on to make a big person sweater (but since it IS my own doing I figured I'd do a baby sweater prototype first). The shawl is for my mother in law for Christmas. Its done in Trendsetter sesamo and that picture does not do the fabulous colors justice. Perhaps Amy can take a picture of it when its finished. I've also taken a picture of the kitty bling I made for TingTing and there is a goddess necklace which my stepdaughter and I (mostly I since she got bored with the project after the first set of 17 tiny sliver beads) made for her mother's birthday. We found the goddess pendant at a rock show and also found a loose opal (her mom's birthstone) to put in the circle that the goddess is holding. I then got some matte opal swarovski crystals and strugn them with some itty bitty tiny silver beads. I just finished it this morning so it will most likely be going in the mail tomorrow.
So, now that I have blogged, I'm taking my plethora of sock projects and heading back to bed with my motrin and my heating pad. I may even eat chocolate!!!

a blog before bed

Amy and I had a great time seeing The Yarn Harlot Wednesday night. We did, however, decided we were too tired to do The Varsity afterwards and pretty much came straight on home.
I took my boys to Knitch yesterday. Thus far, their yarn exposure has been limited to Michael's, JoAnn's, and Hobby Lobby. When I took them upstairs to see the cascade 220 and the malabrigo they were in culture shock. Both of my boys crochet and I am trying to convert them into knitters. They were also bummed that they didn't get to see Steph on Wednesday night. When I told them I was going to see a person who writes knitting humor, my youngest son said, "you mean like At Knits End for people who knit too much?" I was pretty stunned that my 9 year old had been paying that much attention to my knitting books lying around!
The field trip to Knitch provided a skein of malabrigo for each of them and my oldest son has gone felting mad. When he takes off to the bathroom (the kid scrubs the wool in the sink and then throws it in the dryer. don't knock it............ it works!) he calls it "The Felting Factory" and has let me know that he is there for all my felting needs. Perhaps there is a bit of entrepreneur in him there somewhere.
I've been working on some sock patterns lately and after knitting one whole sock in artyarns chocolate/orange for my oldest son, I came to find out that it barely fits him. So, I just cannot live with that and intend to frog the whole damn thing and am going to be brave and delve into some patterns from Cat Bordhi's latest sock book for a "sock-over".
My two hour drive to Taccoa today (to drop them off with their Nana) gave me plenty of thinking time and I've got an idea for a shrug pattern running around in my head......... and now, thanks to the boys, I'm itching to do it in........................... Malabrigo!
My sweet husband has been kind enough to cut me out some sock blockers from some wood (Ramone was kind enough to trace her sock blockers for me) and now I am in the process of painting them.
Anyway, here are some pictures of my works in progress............. note that they are done in Knitch colors!

bad bad me

I know, I know. I'm posting without pictures. I should be ashamed. And I haven't posted in over a week. Even worse!!!
So, today is when the yarn harlot comes to town. I'll be heading down the Va Highlands way a bit later. I'm looking for Brittany (aka knitwitch) and her hubby. I told my husband this feels like I'm going on a match.com date where I've been emailing with somebody for a while but haven't actually met them yet, but tonight I am. I've not even had a phone conversation with Brittany although from our emailings she seems very nice and my kind of knitting buddy! The last time I emailed with somebody and never actually talked to them until the day I met them.............. I married him! However, I'm not looking for romance this evening. Just wanting to hook up with my fellow knitters so we can take over the world! Ok, not really take over the world, but perhaps infuse a bit more peace and love and tolerance in the world through our knitting endeavors.
So, to my fellow harlot fans, I'll be seeing you tonight! Knit on!

the poor and the tired

I went to the Yellow Daisy festival today with my three youngsters in tow. My husband is currently working at the Rome film festival. Personally, I'm thinking there's a lot of knitting to be done when all you're doing all day is running Indie films for the eclectic of Rome. Anyway, after my recent trip on Friday to Knitch in which I had 15 minutes to get what I came for and get out before the restaurant across the street towed my car and my purchase at Kati Russel's booth, I am poor. And having spent the day in the heat I am tired. Therefore, I am both poor and tired. I can't say enough about Kati's paintings though. She's really the only vendor I gave a flip about seeing while I was there. Sure, I did check out some jewelry vendors' wares and feel fairly confident about my own beading and jewelry making skills, but it was Kati I went to see. I encourage anybody who likes abstract angel art or metaphysical art to check her out. My friend Zoie told me about her last year and I've gone to her website on occasion to look at her work. Her orginals up close and personal were amazing. http://www.katirussell.com/order.html
I apologize for no pictures today. I am loving my kaalund silk strands yarn that I bought on Friday and am using to make myself a pair of socks. Go figure. A pair of socks for myself. What a novel idea!!
Oh.... on another sock note......my husband took his hugs and kisses socks with him to the Rome film festival and informed me that he was wearing them today. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!

things to do in Atlanta when your depressed

For some reason, I started a new project with some yarn that I bought at Knitch to "play" with. I had only bought one skein and had to wait until the yarn spoke to me and told me what it was to be. So, the yarn spoke, and I cast on and did about 10 rows on a cast on of 95 when I realized that this was way too big. I know that frogging is in my future. Normally, I frog it with reckless abandon and knit until I get it at least as far as I did when I had to frog. Unfortunately though, its not been a stellar week for me as I have had issues with the father of my children (my ex, not my current wonderful hubby Steven) and I've just been a bit down in the dumps. I know I'm not supposed to give him my energy, blah, blah, blah, but sometimes we just have to realize we're going to have human emotions in this human experience of ours. So. Rather than frog the damn thing, I decided to do some beading. I needed the immediate gratification. I took a few pictures, but as I have said before, I am not the greatest at taking pictures. I'll post the pictures that turned out. They all have some swarovski crystals in them, although you can't tell it from the pictures. The necklace with the heart stone actually has pearl seed beads and brown and dark teal beads. In the pictures it keeps looking like red and turquoise beads.