Day 363

It dawns on me that in a couple of days the 11 for 11 challenge will be over, and I'm going to have to be more clever with titles.   Oh well.

I was amused earlier this evening realize that I was running around the house with a hank of yarn draped around my body like a bandolier.  Purple alpaca as ammo belt.  hahaha

Successfully cast on the back of the kimono.  DAK will be doing it's thing to control the patterning this evening.  I was surprised to see that I had trashed a needle on the ribber bed while knitting the hem.  Since I don't have to get up for work in the morning, I'm planning on staying with it until it's complete.  Yeah, three day weekend. 

Lunch with Marjory and Barb tomorrow.  It'll be like old times.  It's been about ten years since we all worked together.  And months since we've all been in the same place at the same time.  There will be much laughter to share.

My good news for the day is that I don't have any broken bones in my wrist.  It only took them a week to let me know.  The bad news is that the insurance company is still refusing to authorize the nsaid that was prescribed on the 21st.  This wrist is never going to heal if we can't get the inflammation under control without making me nauseous or trashing my kidneys.  I've expressed my frustration to the insurance company today.  I am severely right handed.  I want this blasted brace off my hand soon.

Saw this on the BBC feed today.  Enjoy.

Day 356 - 9 Days to Go

There are nine days left in Heather's 11 Minutes for 2011 Challenge.  Nine days of celebrating the joys of fiber related craft and skills.  Have I found it difficult? No, not really I was already pretty firmly addicted to the stuff.  My major challenge has always been documenting it.  I still need to get better about taking pictures of the process rather than just the product.  And I think that's more of an issue of me forcing myself to find some way to make the photos interesting.

Has my writing improved?  You'll have to tell me.  I know that technically I'm a fairly decent writer.  I can actually spell and generally punctuate a sentence correctly.  That doesn't mean that I'm necessarily interesting.  I'm a long time member of the short and sweet club, so I find it somewhat difficult to write volumes on a topic.  I don't talk that way but writing, oh yeah. 

Did I make my 11 today.  Oh yes.  I worked on the sweater yoke at lunch.  And have spent the evening MK a sleeve for the kimono and have started the cast on of it's mate.  Do I think I'll get the Christmas knitting finished in time?  I think it will be tight.  Mittens yes.  Sweater maybe.  Kimono, not assembled before Sunday but probably knit.  3 pieces done, 3 to go.  This employment thing this year has really thrown off my holiday rhythm.  Think about it, I basically have had December pretty wide open for the last several years.  This is a good thing, but I need to adapt.

I hope that your holiday prep is going well.

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Day 354 - Mission Accomplished

This is the center point of the front of the sweater.  Shaped and short rowed garter stitch form the yoke.  All of the MK is done.  Only handwork remains.  It will be a challenge, but I think it is possible.

This is slowing everything down.  I am overwhelmingly right handed.  Yes I can knit in it.  No it doesn't hurt.  But everything is slowed because of it.

Day 353 - Late

While I wrote the  Podcasting for Machine Knitters post earlier in the evening and had in the back of my mind that I needed to write this one, I forgot about it until after I had shut down the computer and was ready for sleep.

My evening was spent MK the back of Robin's sweater.  Knitting and ripping and knitting and ripping, replacing dropped stitches and reknitting, before I finally got it off the machine around 11:30.  I was determined to get to bed at a reasonable time.  I did get the front on to a set of circular needles and started to work the garter stitch yoke.  I'm reading Todd McCaffery's Dragongirl while I knit.  Think about it, it's basically mindless garter stitch, I need something to keep me focused so I don't get bored and lose interest.

I have Tuesday off and plan on getting the sleeves knit and set aside and just maybe get some work done on the kimono too. 

Day 352

Spent the morning weaving in ends.  At least 3 FO and one of them a Christmas present.  Went to write the pattern for my sister's sweater only to discover that the computer had somehow ate her size chart.  Off to remeasure her. 

Pattern written and sweater cast on.  Not really sure why I thought full figure shaping was a good idea, but almost to the waist and then back out again.  I want to have this piece off the machine tonight so I can HK the short row garter stitch yoke at lunch tomorrow. 

I did get the balls on the redbud this afternoon.  It may be the only tree that gets decorated this year.

Day 343 - Busy Day, Evening to Unwind

Busy, busy, day at work.  I was supposed to cut out by 2 and avoid the requirement for a lunch break.  By 1:30 it was obvious that that plan wasn't going to work, so I grabbed a 30 minute lunch, and went back to face the afternoon.  Despite my best efforts to hole up and finish what I needed to complete, I kept getting called away to help answer questions.  I pointed out to the ASM who pulled me away at one point that while I was happy to help, I was really trying to get finished with the quotes I was working on to avoid OT.  I flat out asked if she would approve my OT for the week and she agreed.  My supervisor thought that was one of the cleverer things I could have done as it got him off the hook.  Finally clocked out around 4, and headed off to meet my best friend at our monthly hair appointments.  Spent about 3 hours unwinding at the stylist's and came home with a wavy mane.

I did work on the stocking on the machine tonight but ripped out and reknit almost every row I put in due to dropped stitches.  Exercise in frustration was what it was quickly becoming, so I gave up for the night in favor of blogging.  Giving up on blogging in favor of sleep.

Hope your holiday knitting is going well.

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Day 342 - Progress

I more than made up for yesterday.  I worked my way through the gusset on the foot of the stocking at lunch.  I MK past the garter stitch details on the second stocking this evening.  And I managed to empty the three trash bags of quarantined yarns and got most of them sorted, cataloged and into storage bins.  I have about a dozen unidentified cones left to go.  I'll did out my McMoran balance to figure out the yardage and the bins can go into the studio.

Day 330 - Swatching

For another commissioned Christmas stocking.    It's acrylic yarn.  It feels like armor.  So happy that it's not mine.   I have to match an existing stocking pattern and gauge.  I have to get something close to 21 stitches to 4 inches.  I swatched 3 different settings and it's off the needles and resting.  Hopefully one of them is close and I can start knitting tomorrow. 

I need to take pictures to document the process.

Yes I made my 11.  But not much more.  sigh....

Swatching

After spending some time figuring out how to separate the jacquard portion from the fair isle patterning, and then correcting all of the color change and color errors that DAK found, I started knitting my jacquard swatch.  I quickly discovered that re-threading the tensioner every couple of rows really bites.  And I'm not half done with the swatch yet.

So I found my pdf of the parts manual and emailed Lea-Ann at Knitting Today  to see if she could order me the parts. One of the pluses of becoming gainfully employed again is the ability to buy the tools I need to correctly solve a problem.

The other thing this swatch is showing me is that I'm definitely going to have to come up with a plan to deal with the LONG floats on the back of the jacquard portion of the pattern.  This book, Jacquard for All arrived in the mail earlier this week.  Written for Silver Reed and Brother machines, both punch card and electronic, I'm finding that I have several options available.  And that's what swatches are for too.