free at last! free at last!

thank you, lord, i am free at last! and, boy, i am one happy camper!

these two sweaters are just about as cute as they can be, but man, have they been an albatross around my neck this past month!! this whole project has given me fits but i have absolutely no one to blame but myself - pure and simple! no one held a gun to my head and made me knit these - i did it with my own free will!!

the sweater pattern itself was quite simple and my favorite type - knit from the top-down with absolutely no seams to sew!! can't beat that!
what made this ordeal so torturous was the fact that i had to knit each sweater twice!! that is four times!

one of those was because of my own stubbornness and stupidity!! i am so mad at myself because after an inordinate amount of knitting i know better! if i could i would kick myself in the butt!

what was the infraction you ask? it is one of the key mantras of knitting - rule numero uno - 'check your gauge!!'. did i do that - oh, no, not i - i know what i am doing!! yeah, right! well, i do know several things, like i always need to drop down one or two needle sizes because i knit loosely - did i do that? "oh, no," as i so cavalierly stated! 'things will be fine, after all, i'm using cotton not wool and since it is for a baby, if it's a little bigger that will be great, the baby won't outgrow it so quickly!!" well, it was so big that it would've fit a 5 year old and that would be just a tad too long for any mother have to wait to use a gift! so....frog i did! ripit! ripit! ripit!

the problem with the other sweater was with the pattern. once i got the entire sweater finished (seamed and all!!!) i decided i didn't like it! it just wasn't what i wanted - not at all! so...frog i did!

that is when i pulled out this pattern, KNIT A GAUGE SWATCH, made some variations and started knitting! i took some little side trips along the way -like those cute little socks from the last post - but finally i reached a point where i had to put blinders on and ban myself from looking, touching or feeling any other yarn or patterns. i could tell that i was over this project as i found myself wandering aimlessly around my garden and the house, looking for other things to do - and that even included cleaning!! that is when i said to myself, "self, enough of this - get these mother's out of here! get them done so you can move on!!" so, after making a deal with myself that will involve some type of reward, i proudly present the baby sweaters for twin a and twin b!!! i hope they keep the bambinos nice and toasty because i'm burnt out!!

cuter than a bug's ear!

aren't these about the cutest little socks you have ever seen? had i been bright enough to set a quarter by them in the picture you might be able to visualize how small they really are. apparently i wasn't hitting on all cylinders when i took the picture and now that the socks have been sent to their new owners i guess you will have to rely on my size guesstimate - approx. 3 inches tall by 2.5 inches wide - sooooo tiny and soooooo cute! they will be adorning the little feet of my grandnieces who are due to enter this world on june 16.

yikes, did i really say 'grandnieces'! ouch, could that be possible! apparently while i was blinking i seemed to age - it really seems like it has been an overnight thing, i mean really! but, alas and alack, i find myself really appreciating that tv commercial by kaiser permanente ' when i grow up i want to be an old woman'! well, no shit! as opposed to the other option who wouldn't want to grow up to be an old lady!! i just hope that i have realized the approaching dilemma early enough to make up for my earlier errors in judgement like spending way too much time in the sun and abusing my body in a variety of activities both legal and illegal! one can only hope and ...... keep on knitin'!

one step forward - two steps back!

argh! it has been one of those knitting weeks! i seem to be on a roll until i forget to pay attention to what i am doing and discover several inches later that i have made an error! argh!i spent 3 hours one evening trying to carefully correct an error by undoing several stitches for about 10 rows. i managed to complete this task but it just didn't look 'perfect' so i called it a night and, wouldn't you know, this dominated my nightly dream! argh! the next morning as i attempted to clean up this area i discovered another error so i frogged the entire sweater, which i am knitting in the round, three full inches!! typically that wouldn't seem like much if i was knitting with worsted weight yarn on size 8 or 10 needles but this is skinny yarn on size 3 needles! another argh!!

i picked up the stitches and went on my knitting way and after knitting about another inch, low and behold, i found another error! argh again!! so again i frogged, picked things back up, and went on my merry way, only to repeat this whole process for a third time!!

so.... at this point i am not feeling that nirvana and trance like state that knitting supposedly creates. to top the whole thing off, on my yarn harlot calendar, the purl of wisdom for the day dealt with this specific subject:

"Lots of knitters decide whether or not to fix an error in a piece of knitting by using the galloping horse theory. That's to say that they don't correct any mistake you wouldn't be able to spot were you on the back of a galloping horse."

and there in lies the rub: i can't seem to let sleeping dogs lie - in other words, i can't leave a mistake that i have knowledge about in my project! never have been able to and apparently, never will. as dave berry says: "There is a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'."

don't i know it!!

right on, jane!

“When people ask me ‘What can I do?’—I say, ‘There’s two things. One, you must realize that, unlikely though it seems, your little life does make a difference, what you do each day. And secondly, leading from that, people must learn a little bit more and think a little bit more about the consequences of the choices we make each day—what we eat, where it comes from, how it was made, has it got chemical poisons in it, whether it involves the torture of animals.”

—JANE GOODALL

right on, sister!

yum! yum! yum!

"we act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about." - charles kingsley

well, my friends, i have found it!

aside from knitting, it is this yarn! tye-dye by knit one, crochet two. my, oh my, it was like butter to knit with, soooooo smooth, soft and easy to needle and heavenly once upon my feet!

i don't know what it is about photos and color but the true colors are so not what you are viewing! the real things are a combo of my favs - variations of green and red - sort of rhubarb and spring green, leaning way toward pond scum! yum! yum!

the pattern is loksins! socks by cassie thoreson which is available on ravelry. it was a quick and easy knit, relatively speaking. by relatively speaking, i mean that it didn't take me toooooo long to memorize the pattern or at least be able to see the error of my ways when i made a boo-boo! and, yes, i would knit this pattern again which is highly conceivable since my sock stash seems to multiply on a regular basis. it appears that i've never met a sock yarn that i didn't love!

speaking of love! i am no longer in love with rain! i was just about to hit the garden this a.m. as the drops started falling. it has been a steady downpour since! argh! my garden is calling but, alas, i cannot answer!!