Progress, Progress

 

Checking His List Progress

 

I’ve been trucking along on Checking His List. The cross-stitching is done (except for several rows at the top, where Little Miss’ name goes), and I’ve backstitched the little bunnies, the bag full of toys, and Santa’s legs. My goal is to finish by Monday, including cutting out the frontpiece and the two felt pieces, so that it can be all sewn up before next Friday.

I always think the backstitching will take longer than it does.  (I hope I didn’t jinx anything now!)  As I got down into the bottom half of the cross-stitch chart, K kept saying, “You’re almost done!” And I kept saying, “No, I still have all the backstitching.”

“Skip it,” she suggested.

But now that those little yellow blobs have outlines that make them look like stars, the glory of backstitching is apparent.

While I work on this, I keep eyeing the three skeins of Smooshy that arrived earlier this week.  Lovely, lovely yarn.  But there will be no knitting until this stocking is done.

WiP Wednesday

I had Halloween off from work, so, while Little Miss napped, I finished clue #3 of Secret of the Stole.  I seem to be falling farther and farther behind.  And I’m okay with that.

 

Secret of the Stole Progress

I have no idea what the theme is.  For a while, I thought the large motifs might be flowers, and then someone said they looked like spiders, and that’s all I could see for a while.  And that little X at the top looks sort of like, well, one of those guys who waves in the airplanes at the gate.  I’m pretty sure that’s not it.

Last week, something very bad happened to my lovely MacBook, and the widget that was counting down the days until Christmas Eve went with it.  (Since my iBook is still running Panther, there are no widgets on that one.)  But even without the clock, I know there’s not much time left, so all crafting efforts are currently focused on one thing:

 

10/25/07

 

That’s “Checking His List”, as of two weeks ago. Since then, I’ve finished the red portion of the coat and started on the trim. I might manage to finish this stocking yet.

WiP Wednesday: Christmas in July

For months, I’ve been saying that I wanted to cross-stitch new Christmas stockings for the family. K has a stocking her mom made for her when she was little, but my stocking is plain red fake fur (although my dad did recently send me my childhood stocking), and Little Miss doesn’t have one yet. So, when JoAnn Fabrics sent me an email about their “Christmas in July” sale, I went for it. I ordered three stocking kits, all featuring Santa. I’ve started on the one for Little Miss. It’s a Dimensions pattern, called “Checking His List”.

So far, I’ve finished Santa’s belt and a bit of the jacket. I have a long way to go.

Checking His List

FO: Baby Shrug

babyshrugfo2

Pattern: Baby Shrug
Source: Simply Baby, by Debbie Bliss
Size: 12-18 months
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, color 300601 (Lilac), about 5 skeins
Needles: 7 and 8 Denise Interchangeables
Modifications: None

This is a lovely little sweater, but I’m concerned that Little Miss is going to outgrow it before it gets cold here. Especially since my unfortunate row gauge seems to have resulted in a sweater a good three inches shorter than it was supposed to be. Love the yarn, though. Which is good, since I have two bags of it earmarked for a Hooded Jacket for Little Miss and a Cardigan for Arwen for me.

WiP Wednesday

Inspired by something I read on (where else?) Ravelry, I’ve decided to start doing WiP Wednesdays. So, of course, I’ve been having technical difficulties with this here blog all evening. But I’m here now, with three hours to spare.

Allow me to present the Baby Shrug, from Debbie Bliss’ Simply Baby.

The yarn is Cashmerino Aran in lilac, purchased from SuperCrafty a few months back. It’s very cute and oh-so-soft, but even though I made the 12-18 month size for Little Miss, who is now only 5 months old, I think she may outgrow it before it gets cold enough to wear it.

The pattern is fairly clear, although I didn’t see any need to switch from straights to circulars – I just used my Denises the entire time. And I ran into an issue in the sleeve shaping after the right front. If one starts with a right side row (as one does) and then works an odd number of rows, then when one reaches the instructions for the front shaping, one is on a wrong side row when the directions say one should be on a right side row. I think I solved this by knitting an extra row (or maybe one row short – I don’t remember), but I’m wondering if I missed something. Missing something would explain why the chest and sleeve measurements are right on, but I seem to have come up a couple of inches short in the length to the shoulder. Well, missing something and the fact that my row gauge is off.

Still Little

onemonth

That’s the Little Miss at four weeks old, wearing her Baby Bolero. She’s worn it once – maybe twice – aside from posing for that picture. It was usually too warm, or else she was wearing a warm footed outfit and didn’t need a sweater on top of that. Mostly, the sweater’s been hanging in her room on a decorative hook. And now it’s considerably too small.

K gave me two knitting books for my birthday – four days before the Little Miss was born – and I’ve been working on a sweater for next winter from one of them. Occasionally. Knitting’s taken a bit of a back seat in the last five months around here, although I did spend the week or so before Little Miss was born frantically finishing a pair of cabled baby socks.

Still, I was excited to finally find an invitation to Ravelry in my inbox. Come find me, I’m on there as Plexippa.

Baby Bolero

Yes, I have been knitting!
061201a

The picture quality is somewhat lacking, I know. I discovered last week that the focus button on my camera has gone missing, and without it I now have a fixed-focus digital camera.

Pattern: Baby Bolero
Source: One Skein, by Leigh Radford
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton, slightly less than one skein
Needles: 8 and 9 Denise Interchangeables
Modifications: Left out the eyelet pattern. Not really a modification, since that’s an option in the pattern.

It’s a cute pattern, but it seemed more complicated than necessary. And I don’t know what happened with my provisional cast-on, but I could not get it to come out without the help of scissors. Effective, but slow going. Also slow going was sewing in the sleeves. Sewing is not my strong point. I seamed the second sleeve before pinning it in place and sewing it in. Looking at the picture, it looks like one sleeve is bigger than the other, which is odd. They’re the same size, really! I even managed to knit both of them at once, working from both ends of the skein on my Denise needles.

My main reaction so far? It’s so little!

Knit a Little

Hey, yeah, remember knitting?

I remember it, too!  I’ve even been doing some of it.  I started working on a sweater for the baby while we were in Alaska, which then got pushed aside when I started working on a Secret Gift-Type Project.  And those Retro Rib Socks are still in my bag, waiting for me to work on them now that I have a second set of the needles.

Maybe for my next entry, I’ll even have pictures.

In the meantime, let’s go look at some pretty pictures in the new Knitty, shall we?

Let us start with Sherwood, which is so darn cute.  And then let us contemplate Serrano, which is lovely.  And, really, lacy cardigans might just be one of the few practical knitting items here in sunny Southern California.  And Diamante intrigues me with its promise of a heel turn that doesn’t result in a hole in the knitting.

There we go, three new projects to ponder until I manage to get some actual pictures of actual knitting progress up here.

Busy Like A… Busy Thing

Two months. Yikes.

In my defense, I have been busy. No, not busy knitting. Busy working on this:
12week

I know, it’s a little fuzzy. But it’s a baby, I swear. See, there’s the head, and the ribs, and an arm, and a leg. Really.

We also went on our Big Alaska Adventure, and I’ve been working. What I haven’t been doing is knitting, hence the big silence around here.

It seems silly to complain about the heat when the rest of the country seems to be having triple-digit temperatures, too, but, really, it’s hot. How am I supposed to knit when it’s hot?

Excuse me, I think the baby needs a Slushee.