Dishcloth Mania

So, haven't really been knitting much.... it's just Too. Dang. Hot! But, August is for dishcloths!

It is Summer Under the Stars over at TCM. This is the month where each day is devoted to one star! So Excited! Knitting dishcloths gives me an excuse opportunity to sit and spend the day with one of my fave actors and some of my favorite movies.

This month also leads up to two events at my church, the Labor Day Festival, which raises money for the school, and the Ladies Guild Church Bazaar. I make up these dishcloths and package them attractively to sell at each event. People are depending on me and I'm not going to let them down!

So, August is the perfect month ........knitting dishcloths while watching old movies! Can it get much more fun than that? ;~)

Frogged

Yep, had to do it........Pioneer has been frogged for many reasons, one being that I didn't like the way the neckline increases were looking. I was doing right leaning and left leaning increases and there was such a difference in them; you could see the increases on one side but not see them on the other. I'll be starting it again but I need to give myself and it a couple of days rest and relaxation from all that tension. 

Meanwhile, back at the cowl.......I could knit with Epiphany the rest of my life! Especially using the rosewood needles! I think I'm going to have to ration my knitting time. Use a little discipline and reward myself with knitting with the rosewoods and Epiphany..........knit a while on something I'm procastinating with then I can knit with my new best friends!

Truly Scrumptious

Oh my! I’ve figured out what it takes to get the knitting mojo going again…………just a bit of luscious yarn and some truly scrumptious needles! For Mother’s Day my wonderful children gave me the most fabulous set of  Rosewood Interchangeables. I happened to have purchased some Cascade Epiphany (alpaca, cashmere, silk) for the Gaptastic Cowl. Needless to say……. I’m in knitting heaven! The Rosewood needles are going to make many a knitting project quite a delight!

Gettin' there.....

So, my resolution has been to get my yarn into some semblance of order, no small feat, and I've been hard at it. I've gone through the whole yarn stash keeping what I like and finding good homes for the outcasts. Now....to set up a photo shoot for all that yarny goodness then rework my Ravelry stash page making the match up between yarn and pattern much, much easier and making "shop at Shai's" a more pleasurable experience!

On the knitting front...I'm still plugging away at Pioneer, started then frogged the bed slippers. I did take some time out to just knit dishcloths, a guilty pleasure, and the spiral hat from 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders.

Send me some good vibes to get through these knitting woes to enjoy the knitting fun!

Let's just say

So far, no good. But I may have found the solution to my knitting woes............crochet!!!

Cha cha cha

That's right, I've been dancing around with Pioneer........5 rows forward, seven rows back. I think I've finally, after four faulty starts, gotten back on track.

I finished Tami the scarf....... blocked and everything! So easy..........afterall, I do love me some 2x2 rib!

So now I've picked up another project Plein Air Tote. It is a KAL with several friends in my knitting group. They are way ahead of me, as usual! This challenge makes me think that I cannot count nor read charts. It is knitted in the round beginning with 64 stitches in a section and decreasing each round. I kept coming up with 2 extra or needing 3 more stitches per section after carefully watching all my knits and purls along the way! Dealing with that and Pioneer made me decide to put knitting on the back burner for a while. Actually, it almost made me want to turn the burner on full blast but I refrained! I do think I'm ready to get back in the swing of things.

Queue

Well, I haven't gotten around to kitting anything up yet but, we should be snowed in by Wednesday.....YES! Bring it on!.... this means a four day weekend to work on that! I have started a few projects: 1)Turkish Bedsocks - a friend and I are having a KAL, 2) Pioneer- a sweater for my daughter. I have casted on and worked the first two rows......this is going to take some concentration!, 3) Tami - a scarf from Yarnplay for my sister. I've already made her the hat. So, three projects...one new and two old..... that's a pretty fair start on my resolution. The socks will be fun, the sweater a kind of long term project and the scarf a mindless knit for the car or when I'm to tired to think and keep up with a complicated pattern. I'm sure the sweater will get easier as I get into the rhythm of the stitch pattern.

Besides the projects above there is a couple of days substitute teaching this week. I, also, need to catch up on some house cleaning and put together several blocks of a sampler quilt for a class I'm taking at a local quilt shop. IMO things are progressing pretty well. Afterall, I can't concentrate just on knitting all the time.......can I?

No You Didn't!

Oh yes I did..........I went to a knitting shop and bought more yarn for new projects! I know.....I lower my head in shame............But, I really want to make this scarf like one of my friends made........She was wearing it the other day and we all thought it was totally awesome! So, now I have 4 skeins of beautiful Cascade Sierra and some big coconut buttons to make that luscious scarf. Another friend tempted me with Turkish Bedsocks......she asked me to pick up some Koigu for her so, of course I had to buy me a skein as well! I need those bedsocks! Then, when I left the shop I found the FedEx truck parked right behind me........what to do........so I went right back into that shop and bought 2 wildly colored skeins of Noro Silk Garden to add to my collection for Brooklyn Tweed's Striped Scarf. From my previous purchase I had finished a customer appreciation card so I practically got the Noro for free! Who could pass that up?!

This is what being housebound for almost a month, due to weather, will do to a person!

Now that I have been refreshed with a yarn shop visit I can get on with my project of matching yarn to patterns and kitting them up........wish me luck!

Introduction

Hi there!

This is my first ever blogging experience and I am super excited. I've decided to make myself more accountable to my knitting and hope this experiment will do the trick. I do love to knit but find myself mostly talking about knitting. I have a fair stash of yarn, patterns, books and not nearly enough finished items to justify it all.......you can check my Ravelry page to understand more fully!

I've been inspired by  Yarn Harlot's "self-imposed sock club" and have decided to make myself a "Project of the week" club. There are several popular knitting projects out there that I think are great but have never knitted, i.e. Monkey socks, Jaywalker socks, Clapotis......just to name a few. Also, I know some people have knitted their way through EZ's Knitter's Almanac which, again, has several patterns I'd like to try.

So, I'll gather up yarn and patterns for some of the most popular items out there, plus a few others in my queue, and put them together in their own little kits. Some items may take longer than a week to knit....like Pioneer, the sweater I promised my daughter over a year ago. Might better make that my first project!

No one may ever read this but, I know it's here and making a promise to myself in print will, hopefully, jump start my knitting engine into knitting action.