It's a Sweater

All my hiding from the real world in my knitting has produced a sweater. Woohooo my first sweater and it actually fits. Yea, it is soooo stinkin pink, under the flourecent store lights I thought it looked almost salmon to pinkish, but it is very very pink. At least it's not pepto pink or barbie pink, yuck gag. We all have favorite colors, and usually gravitate towards them when picking threads and yarns. But do you look good wearing your favorite color? I really am not a pink or purple fan, but I look nice in pinks, so I was brave and bought pink.

Weird Week

I can finally get to my blog after having computer issues all week, sigh, it's amazing how frustrating the techy stuff can get when it's suppose to enrich our lives. Well not this week. This week is my weird week of too much to think about that I'd rather not, so I've buried myself into my knitting. An obsession to help me get past this odd period.

The chicken scratches on the back of a knitting pattern are a tatting idea, I haven't had the urge to design, really design a specific thing in forever, but after reading a blog entry from the Tatting Goddess, Gina, it just sort of hit me. I want to do a Goddess. I've already mentioned that I'm in a period of emotional and mental overload, so while I have faith in my God to get me through this, I also need a bit of a goddess to help me feel good about me, who I am, what I stand for, what my life is becoming. She does look like she is tattable, basic shapes, easy flowing lines. Really she might be more goddess like without the face and perky hair, hehehe. Well it's a start.

Socks

Hand knit socks, I can remember just a year ago saying to myself and aloud, "Why would anyone take or waste the time to knit socks?" Next thing I knew, there I sat in a class to learn to knit socks, it was more of a I want to know why knitters do it and how to do it, than the wanting to have or make the socks.
WARNING
Sock knitting is addicting, and the sock yarn is just as bad. I'll never be able to walk through a yarn department again without fondling the stash and dreaming of socks in beautiful colors sliding off my needles. It is a craft much like the tatting, easily portable, the process itself soothing, and yet the variations of patterns keep the brain involved, interested, while others have no clue as to the hows or whys.
This pair went to my Mom for her 70th birthday. The yarn is trekking, a four ply that each ply varies through shades of blues, creating a constantly altering pattern that cannot be matched one sock to the other, fraternal instead of identical.

Found Treasure

Amazing what treasures can be found in an antique store for almost nothing! This one is a beauty, the coarse fabric in the center, notice the fancy stitching over the hem, many of the chains are tatted in ruffled sets, all the picots perfectly even and laying straight, and such a wonderful design. My Mom says that I need to label my tatting or work from all my found treasures, as years down the road my daughters will not remember which ones I have tatted. Probably a good idea for many of us but how? Tags like the fair wouldn't do, I can get little hearts charms at the fiber store that say "made with love", maybe a fine ribbon, or a small beaded decoration on my work.
Hmmmmm.... Still needs some thought.

Too Lefty

The TAT 2 button sampler is finally done with all buttons on the top and every flower in the right place. I struggled with this one and it is my left handed tatting to blame. I'm not sure why Grandma didn't just teach me right handed tatting, but forty years later I'm not going to change, the hands barely tolerate the tatting at all with the arthritis. Shuttle in left hand I make my way through patterns usually with little thought, visualizing the pattern flipped mentally, rarely needing to make any alterations as most tatting is symetrical. This little sampler surprised me but I eventually won the battle.

Knitting Again!

This must be the month of finishing, this hasn't been unfinished long enough to get UFO status. It is knit in a cobweb weight mohair hand dyed on size 10 needles. A simple pattern, cast on loosely an even # of stitches, then k1, ( yo, k2tog) repeat to last stitch, k1, all rows are the same. Every stitch must be watched in the fine mohair, it's so easy to knit the fuzz only and later the stitch drops. The colors remind me of the portulaca flowers in my porch pots, yellow to salmon, lt. orange to pinks, and a touch of moss green, yummy.

Now I must get back to the TAT project!

Motif 6

Ahhhhhh, tatting is so much better than cleanning, I did finish my mess yesterday before I tatted, it was a goal, finish sweeping then you can tat, fix that drawer then you can tat, wash that carpet spot then then then you can tat!!!!
Many of us do this,
please say you do,
I can't be the only one.

This is Mary Konior's Queen of Hearts form Tatting with Visual Patterns, with some variations, the point is longer because I was trying to recover from an ooops and I added the inside point to accentuate the shape. It is Sulky again, and yes it is easy to work with, it doesn't twist up as bad as some other threads for me. It is the same size as the DMC 12, close to a 50 I'd guess. If you tat this pattern, use two shuttles, it doesn't say so but I was shoe string tying more than I like with a shuttle and a ball.

Wrapped Up

I finally finished the knitted wrap, yea!!!! It's knitted in two skeins of cherrytree hill super sock, very nice to work with. I always peeked at the cherrytree hill and told myself it was way too expensive, but it really is great yarn. Super sock seems to be the way to go for a gift that I know will get thrown into the washer with little thought. It appears complicated but not really, I even toted this one to knitting guild with only a few retro knits.

Ever have a day, week, year where you can't seem to get things to go right. Like I'm trying to reglue a dresser drawer today, manage to break a piece in the process of removing the old glue, bend every nail I try to hammer into the particle board, dang that stuff is hard, and make a mess all over the room with dry glue chunks. So now I'm sweeping, it needs it anyway with my zoo, so the animals are running stupid because of the sweeper and a cat has to leave two choke and barf presents, which the dog promptly cleans as best she can, gee thanks. Sweeping is not done, drawer is still drying, sort of, maybe, kind of, fixed, not, and I need to clean the carpet now. Hmmm maybe I should quit while I'm ahead?
Tatting should be safe, wink wink.

Speaking of Zoos, oldest daughter comes to visit every Friday, mom has scifi and it's stargate night with little sister. So she brings the ferret babies to visit "grandma", I'm not grandma to those weasels. Shelby wants to play with Simon and is always so excited to get company. Ever see a ferret snorkel? Yep that's what they do in the dog's water bowl, stick their front feet and head in the water, then sway the head back and forth in the bowl looking for what? only the ferrets know.

Motif 5

This is Vickie Reynold's Black Magic Cross, an adaption from a Mary Konior design. It can be found at Georgia's site. This one doesn't have beads, I thought it might make it hard to use as a bookmark, I figure most crosses end up in a bible. Perhaps it needs a tassle, maybe, maybe not. It took longer than I expected but this is a really nice pattern, well worth the effort.

www.georgiaseitz.com/classes2001/magic.html