wip pic

This is the chevron scarf with the yarn I dyed. I am making it for my little sister (for her 38th bday). Its looking cool because the chevron has added almost a pleated kind of texture that you can't see in the photo. When I tried using the flash it washed out the colors. I'm thinking there is a kind of missioni vibe, but I may be deluding myself. I am going to take the kids to see the rents for a week so there will be no new photos, just texty posts, so I will add another cute kid photo to boot. Its medium and small ejoying a bath and their shower caps. Nice red eye!

book review

Well, its been a tough week in knitting land. Last week I cast on for a lace scarf using one of my fingering wieght hand dyed yarns using the book Lavish Lace. The book was published in 2004 but the production values are straight out of the eighties, even the models hair and poses are dated. I kept getting stuck on row 7 of the pattern and after the 5th time of ripping it out and starting over, I realized maybe it wasn't me. I carefully counted the chart and low and behold, the section that should have had 11 stitches needed 12 stitches to complete the pattern as charted. Huh? So after 36 years of knitting I was forced to do the unthinkable. I called the publisher to see if there was a correction on the page. It seemed possible because there are several published corrections for this book. Well, they had someone call me back. While she was prompt and pleasant, her advice mystifies me. She claims that it is common practice among lace knitters to have to remove a marker and borrow a stitch from another segment. Now unfortunately this common practice is described nowhere in this book. I went back and tried to find a stitch to borrow and damned if she was not completely full of crap. There is no extra stich anywhere in the row to be borrowed. Well, there is a week of my life I will never get back. I ripped the entire thing out and started a chevron pattern scarf out of the yarn, it looks great and no searching for the missing stitch. In summation, the book is not even capable of being a door stopper. I would give it away but I don't want to frustrate any of the other knitters that I know. I will post the scarf in progress when DH returns with the laptop.

& I thought it was the food that would kill you!

So I took two of three kids to the "Golden Arches" for lunch so that George could get the Cars toys. I know, not the best food and not much fun for the mommy. Anyway, he was playing with the toy car and I was knitting a sock in front of him. A lady started chatting socks with me, and ran out to the cars to get hers (ML 2 at a time in a gorgeous Lorna's Laces Color). We discuss yarn, technique, ribbing - all the important stuff. George came over crying and asked for milk, I don't normally nurse him in public but he was crying. He fell alseep. When we got to the car, he woke up and began bawling. He was holding his wrist and his lower lip was trembling. I asked a friend who is a nurse and was getting into her car if she thought it could be nursemaid's elbow, but she's a cardiac nurse. So I started driving towards the doctor's office while trying to get through on their busy phone. I got them on the phone about 6 seconds before I got to their door and they saw me right away even though they were on lunch (Yeah Unionville Pediatrics!). It was nursemaid's elbow and they had to reduce it (in otherwords pop it back into place while the little guy screamed his head off). After the fiasco was over the five year old told me that some kid yanked George's arm. So I now know that the food is not the only dangerous thing about fast food.

superhero boy

No new knitting to post, or dyeing for that matter. But I had my little guy's hair buzz cut and he looks so different. He is living a parrallel life as superhero boy, mostly it involves jumping off things and yelling superhero boy to the rescue! Note the fake smile for the camera.

swatched dye job

This is the swatch from friday's dye job. I tried to post it yesterday, but blogger clearly hates me. Now yesterday's attempted post was filled with pithieness and wit. Today I'll have to settle for functional. All I need to decide is whether to send my dye pal the previously posted bright selection or the more muted tones from this swatch. Hmmmm, what to do!

a good day

So today I dyed superwash with acid dye, and tryed to modify the color. It was pretty successfull, except I accidently overdyed the beautiful mustard yellow with brown because I didn't mix the second batch the same as the first. I still like the results. I guess this is why smart people write things down. My hope for this weekend is that the 9 year old makes it through her 2 night girl scout camporee. Last year I had to drive to the end of the earth at 2 am to retrieve her.

square feet and new dyed yarn

So I finished my 5 yo daughter's footies but it turns out that short row toes and square toes aren't a good match. I have enough of the yarn left to make her squarer socks.

I dyed yarn with acid dye (on superwash) and found it to be more predictable, now I just have to work on color choices. I was kind of going for a fall thing, I wanted to use brown and bright colors. So I like the green, yellow and orange together. Love the brown and red next to each other. Some how when I see green and red together it strikes me as icky. Maybe its the big jew in me responding to "christmas" colors. I knitted a swatch and am trying to see if the colors grow on me. The yarn was a pain in the ass, it got a little pilly which made it stick together and I was trying to untagle it until 1:30 AM. In the morning, it finally broke so I had to dispose of the rastafarian knot.