Who in the heck gets pimples on their eyelids?

Apparently I do.

Trust me. Not Cute.

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Eh–I’ll admit it. I’m just not in the mood to knit right now. 

Perhaps it’s the heat. Our little house turns into a complete furnace when it gets hot out.

Or perhaps it’s because the last project was such an abysmal mess and I still can’t find those blasted buttons anywhere. 

Or maybe I’m just burned out on the whole thing right now.

And I do have things I could knit, but just chose not to this weekend.  Just not feeling it.

Well, I’m close to finishing a sock. My bar/car sock–the one I bring to bars and knit or knit in the car. Just have to finish the heel.

What I should do is focus on doing some sewing. I’ve been craving a nice sundress and I have the perfect pattern for it too! And a cool vintage one to boot. A nice quick fix of craftiness would be lovely! And wouldn’t I look darling in this?

My friend came to a party wearing it and it was fashion love at first site for me.  So I bought some darling black cotton with polka dots on it.

I’m hoping to make it before August. But these lazy hazy days of summer are certainly kicking my knitting/crafty desire in the gut. So much more pleasant to just sit still and sip ice tea. We’ll see…

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Still can’t find those cotton-picking buttons for the brown Harmony sweater I just finished! And I’m a touch burned out from all that knitting and nothing that I like to show for it.  So instead I decided to clean out my knitting basket. It sits right next to my red velvet knitting chair or by the side of the couch waiting for my needs (and I have many…)

Here it is pre-cleaning and organizing:

Not too bad, I guess.  But out of all of the completely random things I found in the basket I was kinda surprised to find a vintage pair of glasses and the completely forgotten Mrs. Beeton muffatees that I thought were lost.

Best surprise (which should be mandatory in knitting baskets) was the bottle of Vicodine. Boy, how I could have used that yesterday. 

OK–must scoot. Off to watch Project Runway!  

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Have you ever had that bad knitted item that you worked so hard on and when it’s finished it’s just plain not flattering?

Yeah, that’s pretty much Kim Hargreaves Harmony sweater. Three weeks of knitting with the world’s crankiest yarn to get this B- just plain weird shaped sweater that just doesn’t do anything for me is a bit of a bummer.

Well, at least I’m into the process, so when these blunders happen I try to keep pretty zen.

So, onto the next knit. You know what time it is? Why baby sweater knitting time, of course! and sock knitting on the side.

I will post pictures as soon as I find the buttons that came with the kit.  But to tempt you I will show you THIS:

Yeah, not too tempting, but this pile of yarn consists of all the extra bits I cut off in finishing the 20 or so bits of yarn that had to be weaved in. Oof!

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How was everyone’s weekend?

Lovely? Did you all go to fun parties and sleep in and run your errands? Yes, yes…Always too much to do on the weekends. Really–the world needs three day weekends. One day to do housework/errands, one day for socializing, and one day for complete battery recharge. Just think how much more productive we’d all be?

Anyway, the good part of my weekend:

• Started and finished Plum Sykes’ latest book Debutant Divorcee. Hilarious cotton-candy reading
• Saw the Pirate movie with Johnny Depp–loved the cgi work
• Picked up my wedding ring. Needs to be resized, but just lovely
• Toasted ring with champagne and oysters

Oh, and did some vintage clothing shopping that led me to the most marvelous dresses from the 1940s. The vintage store owner told me that he bought a “bail” of dresses from Germany. He just took the bail apart and put them on the racks.

They were wrinkled and dirty, but the patterns are wonderful and the best part is that they fit! The white one with daisies is just adorable but had some holes that I spent the majority of Sunday fixing. And the blue one is perfect! Look at that peplum! Check out those buttons! Perfect for swing dancing! I can’t hardly wait! The photo above just doesn’t do them justice! And I didn’t even take a picture of one of the best one! So beautiful! (I need to calm down–I mean, just look at the blatent overuse of exclamation marks describing these dresses. Shameless–really.)

Oh yeah, and then the bad news.

Kinda falling out of love with Harmony. Blah! Finished the last sleeve and started finishing the sweater.

Completely botched it. First sleeve was weirdly puffy and the second sleeve–er–I put it in on the wrong side.

Smart, eh? You can barely see it in the picture. What a miserable brown blob. Even though you can’t see the shoulder seam tne the neat sleeve seem, trust me, it’s a mess.

I’ll try to fix it tonight.  We’ll see. And I wasn’t even drinking when I did this! Just plain not paying attention. Very naughty. Very slapdash. Will I ever live down the shame?

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I have not even finished the final sleeve on the Kim Hargreaves sweater and what am I doing?

Shamelessly knitting gauges for the next sweater, the slouchy cardigan from that Knit Cafe book I bought ages ago. Plus an additional 4 inches added to the back & 2 inches on each side. (Uh–hello–since when did 34″/36″ constitute as a large???)

Yes, I know–I’m very very naughty, but I couldn’t help myself. This soft Babe yarn was calling to me with is sweet fresh grass coloring and oh so soft hand. What a dream to knit. Albeit a touch on the warm side after dealing with this cotton silk stuff for so long for the Harmony sweater, but what yummy spongey goodness! Oh, and do you see that darling ballet-pink skein in the midst of all that spring green? That’s going to be the edging.

And I’ve decided to do the knit-a-long that has been created with it. Hoorah! So I’ll start that in August. I’m sure I can keep myself busy for the rest of July with the Harmony and of course a couple of pairs of socks and I’m sure a baby sweater.

But first I must finish this brown thing. Heaven willing…

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After a much needed break of baby sweater knitting it’s time to reward myself with something knit for me. This is such a rarity. Over the past few years I only seem to make one knitted object for myself each year, but that needs to change. So, I’m rocking this knitting kit from the lovely Kim Hargreaves for Harmony.

So, remember how much I bitched about that annoyingly stiff brown rowan tweedy cotton blah yarn?

Well, I guess it’s grown on me, because I’m making good progress on the sweater. That yarn edging was a 36 row yarn repeat. And the first repeat took me oh–two hours. And the second of course took one and a half hours.

Now I’m just in garter stitch pergatory, but it’s not that bad thanks to random TV-viewing. Thank you Comcast DVR for having all of those back episodes of Sex In The City. Perfect for knitting. Who knew?

Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far:

Here’s a look at that complete pain in the ass edging:

And I’ve finished one sleeve and am about halfway through the last one. Why WHY do sleeves take a million years to finish? One of the true mysteries of knitting… There should be an “In Search Of” episode dedicated to it!

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Every knitter I know gets the “how did you learn how to knit” question asked.

So, here is my chance to answer it.

My mother is not a crafty woman–she’s amazing, but not crafty. I, however, was born with bottle of modge podge wrapped in my little fist.  Determined to knit, I took out many knitting books from the 50s and using pencils and twine from the garage knit my first square. I think it moved my mother to do something about it–sheintroduced me to her friend, Mrs. Jones, and it was craft love at first site. She taught me everything craft-related–quilting, knitting, sewing, you name it.

But my real love for knitting came during the summer between my junior and senior year at college. I was working at a museum editing a book on antique clocks for college credit and needed some extra money. My boss said I could probably get a job working part time at the living historical museum that was part of museum complex, called Old Sturbridge Village. So for the rest of ths summer I was transported to 1830s to milk cows, churn butter and knit in the afternoons twice a week.

Ah Delicious & Nutrious!

Anyway, they took their knitting seriously. From sheep to dyeing to knitting.  Here are some of the knitted relics I made on 000 needles. And all from 1830s patterns where “purl” stitches are called “turn”. Messed me up for years afterwards.

They killed me.

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