Monday, July 09, 2012

Just Breathe

Summer just keeps trucking right on by.  I saw that they've even started stocking the stores with school supplies already.  This gets me excited not because it means Summer is half over, but because I just love office supplies!  Hand me a blank pad of paper and color me happy :)

This past weekend marked the arrival of the minions' new cousin, H.  H and the rest of her family are doing well and we're all anxious to see her when they come out to visit in August!

Aside from the heat wave, we've been enjoying fresh veggies, sweet corn, and grilling, the Olympic trials, and the gentle lull provided by the cicadas.  I know I've posted about them before, but in case you're unfamiliar with the sound cicadas make, I found someone's video on YouTube that you might enjoy.  Yesterday, little man found a dead cicada and had a good time checking it out and appreciating "its patterns".  Doesn't miss a thing, little man.  He wanted me to take some pictures to "put on the blog".  Here you go, buddy.

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He also caught a moth the other day and asked that I share that as well.

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Both minions began swim lessons again this morning - let the fun begin! 

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In fiber-related news, I finally finished up a pair of fingerless mitts and sent them off so I can post a FO photo :)  These are the Fallberry Mitts from Knitty that I made using my Superwash Merino DK in the Evergreen colorway.

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Though I'm not officially participating in the Ravelympics, (well, I guess it's now known as the event formerly known as the Ravelympics), or the Tour de Fleece this year, I did bust out my spindle again a few nights ago as I caught the tail end of one of the TdF races.  Last Fall, a friend of mine was able to score me a Phat Fiber Box and I decided that I wanted to improve my spindling and spin all of the samples contained within said Fiber box with my medium weight Turkish spindle.  It's been sort of slow going due to the fact that I am a sporadic spindler -- I'll spin up a few mini skeins and then I will set it down for a few months and then I'll pick it back up again...  These are the skeins I have managed to finish thus far.  

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I have no idea how many yards each skein has -- I suppose I should figure that out at some point because I do want to make a project using all of them when I am finished spinning the lot, though I have no idea what that project will be.  Each skein is a different fiber/blend of fibers, some superwash, some nonsuperwash.  Some are scratchier than others...  They are nice and tiny though and they fit just so in one of my felted bowls :)

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I have begun my Holiday Knitting as I mentioned in a prior post.  Right now I have a blanket on the needles as well a few smaller projects and patterns I am working on; I figured I should get started on some of the bigger projects sooner than later.  The other largish project that I just CO for is a sweater for the hubby.  The Dude Sweater.  Both the hubby and I are fans of The Big Lebowski and when I saw this pattern first come out I was planning to make it for myself.  Then the hubby saw it (the hubby, aka, "no I don't need or want you to knit me anything" hubby) and asked me to make one for him.  Well I'm not making two of these sweaters, (hello, stranded knitting worked back and forth in rib) so I will make one for him and I will just wear it now and then ;)  And he can't refuse because I'm the one who made it, Ha!  I don't remember stressing out about a project so much or wanting it to be finished so much BEFORE I even CO.  My hubby is tall and on the slender side with broad shoulders and lengthy appendages (i.e., not the easiest to fit).  In my head it would make more sense to knit it top down and make sure it fit him in the shoulders but that would mean I would have to start fudging the pattern even more than I already am due to my gauge difference so I finally threw caution to the wind (after making him wait for more than a year, ahem) and am hoping to get an XL dimension by knitting the M size due to my gauge.  I'm only about 5 inches into the bottom of the back but when I held it up to his shoulders last night it appeared as though this might just work out.  Maybe.  I have a feeling I will be holding my breath until I see it completed and on him.  I will be wearing it regardless of how it turns out, I just hope I only have to make one....

1 comment:

katherinelynn_04 said...

Suggestion for your Dude Sweater - why not knit it in the round with steeks? They're not as scary as you think. I recently made a little baby sweater with steeks and it turned out wonderfully. I prefer sewn steeks, they seem more stable to me than the crocheted kind. This way you don't have to worry about purled colorwork!