A Quickie

After knitting my husband's sweater I needed a quick project to make me feel like I was able to accomplish something in a short amount of time. I chose to make something for myself - for a change. Armed with leftover odds and ends of my kitchen cotton, I decided to make a case for my earphones. This is something I've been wanting to make for a while now, but never quite seemed to get around to it. The new case sure beats the ziploc sandwich bag I had been using :)






My grandmother's button box which was handed down to my mother and then to me really came in handy.

I rummaged through my button tin of all kinds of old, really old buttons. I had a few different buttons to choose from, but finally decided on a navy blue one to sew on my case.
 
We also celebrated my middle son's nineteenth birthday yesterday. He's home from college for the weekend and we decided to celebrate his birthday early since his actual birthday is Monday and he'll be back at school. I can't believe he's nineteen! College is really turning him into a fine young man.  I'm not sure how it happens  whether living away from home makes them more tolerant of their poor old parents or what, but they do become nicer people in general. I know I observed this as it happened to my oldest son. It certainly makes me hopeful the same thing will happen with my youngest. Fun times ahead :) 


I can't believe February is just about over. Where did the month go? I'll be glad to see the spring weather finally arrive. There are no signs of spring around here...still too much snow yet to melt. Good weather though to stay inside and knit. Happy Knitting everyone :)


Copyright ©2006-2011 hakucho, All Rights Reserved.

An easy fix

 ....thanks to Nancy. In my last post, a plea for help in stopping my knitted sweater from flipping up at the bottom, Nancy commented listing two Techknitting links: mysteries-of-knitting-part-1 and December 25, 2007 post. They were very helpful to me in seeing the error of my ways.


After reading the information and once I was able to digest it, I knew immediately what I need to do to fix my problem. No blocking, no ironing, no lining, no sewing, nothing out of the ordinary...just a little ripping back, an easy fix to fix a problem I created myself. Yes, you see I changed the pattern because my husband wanted the sweater to fit loosely. I thought if I just skipped the decrease row before the ribbing, all would be good. I was so wrong. If I had followed the directions to begin with, none of the flipping up or curling would have occurred. This was a very good lesson for me.  Follow patterns as written, especially sweaters as there are reason for all the steps even if you don't what the reasons are at the time. Any way, all is good now, very good. Here's the sweater modeled by my husband:


...and he seems to be very happy with his new sweater. It's very warm and soft and I have to admit I'm going to miss it on my lap every night keeping me warm. Enough is enough and it's time to more on.

happy knitting :)


Copyright ©2006-2011 hakucho, All Rights Reserved.

Uninspired...and worried....

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. All day yesterday I wanted to write a post, but it never happened. Such is life ;) The good news is that I made a point to post today and here it is.... Thought I would show you what my sweetie brought to me on Sunday: a lovely Valentine bouquet of fresh flowers...

My husband doesn't always bring me flowers, but this year he surprised me!

Here are the brownies I made for him:



I used a new recipe. They are VERY rich and fudgy and chocolaty. The recipe calls for 2 sticks of butter, but I substituted half a cup of canola oil for one of the sticks. Still can taste the butter, but halved the amount of saturated butter. I also do this with my favorite chocolate chip recipe and no one notices the difference. Here's the brownie recipe I found on the back of the King Arhur all-purpose flour sack. I didn't use the expresso powder. (It wasn't listed in my recipe from the sack.)

I've been diligently working on a project for my husband. I had hoped in the back of my mind to finish this sweater for him in time for Valentine's day. It didn't happen, but I am close to finishing. I'm  really uninspired by this pattern. It's not totally the patterns fault. I am exited though as it's knit totally in the round. NO sewing, YES!! It's relatively easy, once you take all the measurements. You fill in all the blanks and it guides you through all the knitting. Lots and lots of stockinette stitch, not very exciting and I think that's the problem. I think I would use the pattern sometime in the future, but would do cables or a pretty stitch pattern, or color work. Then comes the sleeves. How can I put this nicely. My husband is a big guy, therefore he needs a big sweater. This is a really big sweater...and the sleeves are, well really big, too. The pattern only tells you a little about how to decrease for the sleeves. A knitting novice wouldn't know how to even begin. Even after I did all the deceases written per the pattern I was left with way too many stitches. I had to do some creative decreasing. Hopefully the second sleeve comes out the same as the first one. I jotted down notes as I went. I may need to re-work the sleeves....we'll see. I'll be glad when he can try on the sweater.

Another thing that is worrying me is the ribbing around the bottom of the sweater which has a mind of it's own. It wants to stay flipped up...both front and back. I used wool-ease yarn. Has anyone had this happen to them? Have you ever blocked wool-ease yarn? Do you think it will flatten out if I wash and dry it? I am very worried. Hopefully it will flatten out. I knit it top down, so didn't find this out until  it was too late. Maybe I should take out the ribbing and finish off the sweater in a different way. Any of your thoughts would be greatly apprecited, especially from knitters who are familiar with wool-ease.

Here's the almost finished sweater. The actual color is a darker blue. The photos are washed out.






You can see me here, hoding down the ribbing:



Well, hopefully it will all work out. Wish me luck:)
happy knitting :)

Copyright ©2006-2011 hakucho, All Rights Reserved.