My first WEBS order

Yep the call of the wool is a hard thing to resist. Last winter I found myself woefully lacking sweaters. Now in the past I've had a hard time knitting sweaters, actually when I first started knitting I never saw myself knitting a sweater. It does not matter if your socks are not perfect, they go in your shoes and hide under your jeans. As long as they fit the world still spins. 

Sweaters on the other hand are so very visible. I found a pattern and stuck with it. But then this winter came and I wanted more. No, not wanted, but needed more. And I started consistently exercising. I felt I no longer had to wait for things to change, I was making things change. Now I have not really lost much weight but I have regained some rather pleasant curves. 

So as I was knitting my latest green sweater, I love green sweaters, I promised myself that I would only buy more sweater yarn when that one was finished. It took some negotiating with myself but I held firm. My sweater is now ready for the fall to return, so why not place my first WEBS order?

I decided some new tools would also be nice to try. For keeping the sweaters looking nice I bought a Gleener (lower left hand area) to remove pills from my knitting. It looks like a big ol' razor for your sweater. It has three snap on heads, not actual razor blades, which depend on how fine your knitting is. The big end is a lint brush to smooth everything out.

I got a set of Knitter's Pride interchangeable needles, and four sizes of DPNs too. I like the sock size DPNs that I already have from Knitter's Pride so I thought I would upgrade some of my sweater tools too.

How could I resist yarn that is named Chipotle? Even the name makes me feel warmer. It is a nice rusty brown color. My favorite sweater last winter was one I reworked from D's collection. It may not have been the most beautiful or best fitting sweater but it was my warmest and snuggliest. So what is a knitter to do?

Go find more Berroco Peruvia yarn, buy it and knit another warmest and snuggliest sweater. But first I think I'll finish my saddle shoulder sweater, maybe. You know I have new needles I could cast on another sweater right now. And that my darling husband is why I need so many needles. That question was posed to me in a genuinely perplexed manner. We have a friend that thinks you only need two dish towels. Me? I like to have a lot of tools for the job. You can not find the best tool if you don't try them. What? It is a valid theory.

I had heard stories about WEBS orders sometimes taking a while. Something to do with not shipping partial orders and not telling the customer when items are on back order, thus delaying an order. They even have a disclaimer on their site that lets you know your card will not be charged till the order is shipped. As a person that takes forever to make a purchase I was worried when I place the order on Sunday. How long would my order take? When should I start worrying?

I got shipping confirmation Wednesday morning and when I tracked the package it was on a truck for delivery. Oh happy day! A few hours after email notification I was holding a box of knitterly things.

Well done WEBS. My first order was a success.

Now with actual knitting

I know for a person that has a knitting blog, the knitting is quite absent at times. In between worrying about Gus I knit lots of things. I even occasionally finish things too, but more often I seem to be starting things.

I have a new pair of favorite socks from Icelandic sock yarn. They are a tad big now but I am hoping they do what the other socks did and felt a bit. Either way I'm sure I'll love them too. In fact I'm wearing them now.

D's socks seem to be taking some hits. D is wearing a pair for the last time today. I was going to repair them, but the yarn is just too thin. So he'll just have to settle for new ones, it is not like he is married to a happy sock knitting machine.

Since he likes some funky socks from time to time, I'm knitting these too.

And since I finished a sweater just in time to warm up the weather, I cast on another one. This yarn started out as a sweater knit in pieces, but I am still not comfortable investing that much time into something that may not fit me. At the time I was knitting it I was gaining weigh so I just did not want to be disappointed.

Since then I've had some help and figured out how to read the patterns in Ann Budd's Top Down Sweater book. I decided to tackle a saddle shoulder sweater this time. Hopefully this winter I will have an understanding of  three different ways of knitting sweaters. Maybe I can churn out a few before it gets cold. What? I can alway hope I will be a better person and have winter knits, knit before winter.

Not pictured is a pretty pair of socks for me that are in the second sock stage. They're a bit more complicated than my normal plain jane socks, thus they're taking a bit more time. But I'm not needing more socks as much as other feet in the house. 

Oh excuse me the timer just went off on my Blueberry Buckle. I hope it turns out good.

Whew

Well this was a full weekend. I took Friday off from work and enjoyed myself. I got lots done and then enjoyed some knitting time with my boys. I bound off a first sock for me and of course cast on one for D. Yes the in progress sock ratio is tilted in favor of the D side. He has two and I have only one.

This was only partially necessitated by our discovery of yet another pair of D socks in need of repair. We did a shoe inspection and we may have found out culprit shoe. Darn you rough edges! Don't think I won't apply duck tape to save a sock. I grew up on a farm there is nothing that duck tape will not fix. I once mended my broken heart with duct tape...true story. (No not really.)

I guess his shoes just want me to get really competent at mending socks. Practice makes perfect?

I also caused some concern for some of my knitters in crime. Since I had not posted here in 14 days I was worried over. While it is nice to know others care, I did not mean to make you worry. I will try to do better now.

I will not stop encouraging you to buy yarn however. Especially my beloved Zauberballs unless we're talking about colors I just have to have. Yep I welcomed two more over to the Zauberball yarn side. The yarn is just so dang pretty.

Gus had some difficulty this weekend with a new UTI so we started him on some antibiotics tonight and he is here sleeping hard beside me. He says it is tough getting old but you all knew that. Now I know why he is grey, my boy is made of steel.

Well I must go get a workout in so I am off.

Home Front

Things are pretty good here at the Yarnkettle home front. I've been knitting, kitty snuggling and exercising. And the mundane things like doing laundry and getting groceries too but who wants to hear about that?

On the knitting front I have new socks.

While I think they are beautiful socks and I will enjoy wearing them immensely, I hated knitting with this yarn. Why is it that the shaded yarns like this are all single ply suckiness? (Except my beloved Zauberballs.) I'm sure there are people out there that can knit with yarns like this quickly and efficiently but me? I turn into a really incompetent knitter, the yarn splits and takes all my attention. If any of you see me in a yarn shop considering this style of yarn ever again come on over and slap some sense into me. Hubby that goes for you too, just take the yarn out of my hands for my own sanity. You can of course replace it with another sock yarn. We don't want any hysterics in the yarn shop.

Gus is doing OK. He has good days and not so good days. I worry equally about him regardless of what type of day he is having. Last night was the first time in a couple of months that he vomited, but we cleaned it up and all went back to sleep rather quickly. Today food is not his best friend and I'v had to coax a bit more but he is eating so that is good.

 Gus has a lot of shawls, most of the time he will share with me but I think he has a favorite, my grey alpaca Multnomah shawl. It is almost as soft as he is. I had thought at one point in time of giving this one away but now it will always be known as Gus's healing shawl. We both like it because it warms you up just enough without over heating you.

You'll notice he has if favorite ball of yarn there too. He carries it around the house yowling quite a bit. Sometimes it is nice to have a friend that does not talk back.

Then there is Jack. D took this picture for me while I was out one day, just to prove they can get along. You know, think of this when they're fighting in the hall instead.

Finally I asked D to model his Christmas socks and he obliged. They turned out rather nice if I do say so myself. However the other night I went to wash them and discovered the toe was coming undone. I think these accidentally snagged on a nail a while back. I found a yarn snag wrapped around a nail. I could not figure out which socks it was, till now. Luckily it snagged in the easiest place to repair, the vert tip of the toe. 

The red pair of socks I just repaired developed another hole right above the heel flap. I know I said I was done repairing, but this hole is in a place that does not get walked on so I may just have one more repair left in me for these. Then again I might just darn them right into a trash can, who knows?

Well that is all the news here that is fit to print. So I'll leave you with happy thoughts and get back to my knitting.

Things I learned about myself at a quilt show

You can make the cashiers day by paying exact change all in ones. For many years I worked as a cashier, I learned how truly valuable ones are when all you receive are twenties.

I have to hold my hands together as I have an irresistible urge to pick lint and cut threads off quilts. They had signs up requesting you not touch the quilts unless you wore gloves. But man! Was it ever so difficult not to pick the threads off. I guess I should have pulled out my knitting to keep my hands busy.

Someone there appreciated someone else's work by entering two quilts from the 50's that they bought at a garage sale. It takes one to appreciate another's work. Nice to know that sometimes our work finds its way back to people that love it as much as the creator.

Quilters have vendors too. I don't know why they wouldn't, but it felt weird not to see any yarn piled up. You quilters have lovely colors too, but they stack easier than yarn.

Some quilters have the same battles with their stash as knitters do. They are also forced to buy more when their special use-up-the-stash project actually uses up all the stash. It was a Christmas themed quilt on that one.

Quilters have dormant works-in-progress too. It can take years to finish a project when you're not activly working on it but "trying to figure out how to do something." (I'm still so happy I finished my sweater.)

When given the option I am an odd voter. Many times I will not vote for the best quilt, but for a quilt that I truly like. You know not the most beautiful complicated one but the one you could most see using in your own house.

Sometimes prettiest and most appealing design have nothing to do with how well something is crafted. Especially when you don't know the ins and outs of the craft. I found it hard to tell why one quilt was deemed better than another.

I would totally tattle on someone touching, when they are not supposed to be touching. But I will not confront them myself when there is no one to tattle to near by. I so wanted to hiss Stop that!

When left alone with my thoughts I will compose a blog post in my head, while I look at quilts.

Finally

Oh new sweater of mine can I just say how much I love you. Especially since you have moved from here...

To the real world, even though I don't have photographic evidence of your completed state. And that I will not truly enjoy you till the weather turns colder again, which hopefully will be a while. I am so happy to have all my cords and needles back, that I may just cast on another sweater. You know since I left almost everything I could about you unfinished so I could try you on. How many sets of needles was it there at the end? Five!

Plus I had to pry you out from under Jack a few times. He may love you more than me.

Oh sweater I am glad to say you're finally done. You may have stumped me a few times but I can say you taught me to knit a set in sleeve, twice.

Don't worry I'll take a picture soon. Did I tell you, you look pretty today?

Back in the Drawer Again

The other day I did not feel like knitting, but I did feel like playing with yarn. Usually when this occurs it is thankfully temporary and I just use the time to stash dive and plan some future projects. I may match some yarn to a pattern or I may replace the cedar chips in the bottom of the stash basket, or I may just do a bit of a fluff and sniff. Yes I really do like to smell my yarn. 

But this time I pulled out some socks of D's that have been in the repair pile for quite a while. Luckily they were put there just before the weak spot became a hole. So I tried duplicate stitching as my repair method. 

I gotta say I like it. I still need to practice more but it turned out rather usable in my opinion.

Just as I got that pair back into rotation again, I noticed a true hole in another pair.  The yarn has worn thin on the whole ball of the foot here. So instead of using the same yarn for repair I found some left over thicker grey yarn to make repairs.

Turns out that was a bad idea. My duplicate stitching kept getting wonky and generally looks pathetic. But this pair too is back in the rotation for a time. 

I told Hubby the red pair will not be repaired again, since I had such a hard time. I was also worried that they would feel uncomfortable with the uneven thickness. He wore them the next day without noticing anything. 

Guess I'll have to get busy knitting him some new socks. The repairs are still worth doing but nothing beats new socks. I should really buy some more work horse sock yarn but the hand painted stuff is so much more fun. Maybe I just need to examine the socks more closely when I wash them. That way I can pull them from the rotation and fix them before they get truly holey. 

Don't worry he has half of a first sock on the needles now, and a couple more waiting to get on the needles too. His magic sock drawer still works.

I also made monster cookies for him, from his mom's recipe. The recipe makes 6 dozen cookies and that is half of the original recipe that she received from the neighbor lady. Whew, that is a lot of cookies, but they are ever so tasty.