Livin' On A Prayer

Woo hoo!

Well... they aren't sheep, which would definitely keep in the theme of this blog, but they'll have to do:

Yes, people, it's true.  I'm finally halfway there.  The prayer will be needed to finish this monster.  I told hub I'm sick of knitting this sucker.  He said he's surprised it took me so long to get sick of it.  It's all downhill from here.  Here is the pic I promised.  It's sort of hard to take it myself and show how big this is so far, but at least you can see the pattern:

This afghan already comes highly recommended by my dog, who seems to spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to successfully lay on it without getting kicked off the couch.

Also...

After my last post talking about the (assumed) wonderful German person who is reading this blog, I discovered there are (assumed wonderful) readers from two new countries.  Go figure!

Accueil to the French reader.  I love crepes.добро пожаловать to the Russian reader.  I love vodka.

Weekend Update

Wie Gehts?

I was checking out my blogger stats and saw that someone in Germany is reading this.  Pretty cool!  (Especially since I thought I only had two readers, one of which I'm married to and the other one of my good friends.)  Willkommen!  When I was in high school I took German.  Fast forward to many, many years later and the only German I remember is, "it is cold outside".  And now that we're getting into warmer weather, that's not going to do me any good...

Blanket Progress

I'm on the fifth skein!  I hope to have a pic for you all (Hubby, F & my German reader) tomorrow.  I think after blocking, it's going to be the perfect size.  That's the good news.  The bad news is apparently I started new skeins a couple of times in the wrong spot (middle) instead of the end of a row.  The owner at the LYS said it could unravel because I didn't start the new skein on an end.  WHAT?  I asked if I should tink back to where I added the new skein and she said no.  If I have to weave in *and knot* the ends of the middle skein, damn it, I will.  I'm going to have to do some research on this.  Especially since my yarn is machine washable and I'm sure they will be popping it into the washer from time to time.  I don't think they'd appreciate opening the washer to a mess of yarn.  And I wouldn't appreciate hearing that they did after all the time this sucker is taking.

Why I Like Machine Washable Yarn

Speaking of machine washable yarn, the main reason (besides pure laziness) is I had a bad experience with a scarf I made once.  I chose this fantastic yarn that was hand wash.  I decided on a pattern than was a little more complicated than normal.  The end result was beautiful.  The recipient, before wearing it even once, put it in the washing machine rather than hand washing it.  It shrunk and fuzzed up and I had to make another scarf with machine washable yarn.  What a waste of money and time - especially when it didn't even get to be worn once.  Now I shoot for machine washable only, because people are going to forget to hand wash these handmade, *precious* items and I'm going to get pissed if it gets ruined.  This helps both parties, as far as I'm concerned.  Lesson learned.

Friday Project Update

Afghan Progress

Well, I'm into my fourth skein of yarn, which is why you aren't seeing my progress photo yet; you will when I'm finally done with the fifth skein!  I'm finding the pattern easily memorized, however the bigger it gets the more cumbersome it is switching it around so I can add a row every time.  I have to say, it looks pretty good so far!

Odds & Ends

All of that stuff (baby blanket, afghan square, etc.) that I have completed except for weaving in the ends?  I still haven't done it.  I don't know what it is with me and the ends, but geesh.  I need to get my butt in gear. 

Austin LYS

We were gone last weekend to Texas for a wedding.  One thing I like to do sometimes when we travel is to check out the LYS in the area.  We recently went to Austin, and I discovered Hill Country Weavers.  In a word:  Wow.  It was absolutely fantastic.  Now I love my LYS at home, but it's quite tiny.  This place was at least 4-5 times bigger and had tons of yarn.  I was smart (even though now I'm kicking myself) and stopped by on the way to the airport.  This meant I had a limited amount of time available to look at yarn - about 10 minutes.  I didn't even make it into some of the rooms.  I walked in and asked where their machine washable stuff was and was directed to some of the softest cotton yarn I'd ever felt.  Between the softness, the quantity, and color choices, I was in a daze.  It took all my time to choose which color I should pick (especially since I didn't have a pattern in mind), but I knew I wanted to make some sort of sleeveless summer sweater.  I have to wait until the freakin' afghan is done, though, to begin.  I bought several skeins of two different yarns:

Insane In The Membrane

The day before yesterday I finished (well, other than blocking) the baby blanket. As I said, I will take a pic once the blocking is complete.  Yesterday I did one square for a charity afghan.  Today?  I started on my first afghan.  We are going to a wedding this weekend and I decided for the wedding gift I would make an afghan.  I think this is the definition of insanity.  I mean, come on.  I just finished that dang baby blanket, and it is smaller than what this afghan is going to be!

So much knitting.  My  hands actually hurt a little bit. I've never knit through a skein of yarn in one day before.  I'm 1/9th of the way through this sucker, and I doubt I'm going to knit this much on it in a day again, so who knows how long it's going to take to complete this.  I will say it's a cute pattern.  I'll take a pic when I'm 50% through.

Afghan Block

I still need to block it, but yesterday I knitted a square that will be used in an afghan that will be given to Mazy's husband from her friends from the bc site.  It went very quickly.  I really like this checkers afghan squares pattern.  It's super easy.  Clearly I need to work on my project photos, but you get the idea of what it looks like here:

Done!

Well, mostly done.

I finished the "8 hour" baby blanket today.  I still need to block it and weave in the ends, but I'm done with the knitting on it.  I even added an extra strip than what was called for in the pattern.  I think it looks nice, and I hope the person I give it to likes it :)  Pictures to come!

Like Grandma Used To Make

Before I started the blanket, I decided to knit a dish towel.  Yeah, I know.  Why?

1. We have friends that have a new-ish kitchen and the cotton yarn I had happened to perfectly match their kitchen colors.  
2. I've never knitted a towel before, so why not?  
3. People aren't going to need scarves for a while.
4. I was putting off starting the blanket, plain and simple

I checked around on Ravelry for towel patterns and decided on the leftover dishtowel.  Just like the ones Grandma used to make!  And really, those goofy looking things are practical.  It was a lot of fun to knit, and it's actually super cute.  I decided I want to knit one for myself now, too.  I ended up having enough yarn left over from the two skeins I started with so I also ended up knitting the basket rib dishcloth.  I finally wove in the ends (not sure why I take so long doing that since it takes less than 3 minutes to actually do).  Also, the dishtowel was the first time I had to both create a button hole and sew a button on my one of my knitted projects so I actually learned something just knitting a dish towel.