My hands have been bothering me all weekend. I think too much time on the computer at work and at home. I’ve been on the computer more this weekend than usual working on my website and other things.

I’ve updated my projects pages. Unfortunately, they look very much like works in progress. They looked great on my computer at home and at work they look terrible. I’m also noticing that some of the links on the individual pages don’t work, I apologize for that ahead of time. I need to refine them a bit – here are the new pages, understand that I will be making changes to these over the next few weeks:
Sweaters
Scarves
Hats

I’m also planning to revamp some of my other major pages on my website, which have been completely neglected for not just months, but years! When I set out to create my own website in 1996, I had no idea that it would grow to be such a monster that I couldn’t keep up with. I’m so tempted to get rid of some of the now unnecessary pages and kind of streamline the site down to something much more manageable. As I update things, I’ll keep you posted.

Since the kitties have noticed that other pets are on knitting blogs, they demanded that photos of them be posted. So I’m just doing as I’m told.
Chloe has been extra cute lately, so there is no shortage of cute Chloe photos.

And, yes, she’s just as sweet as she looks. The slobbery head-butts are especially endearing.

George, seen here in his usual sleeping spot, wherever the shoes are, the George must sleep.

George has been his usual cute self, but also causing his mom and dad many headaches. He has an inflamed spine-tail joint, hence making his use of the litter box much more occasional than mom and dad would like. We’re hoping that once the carpet is cleaned this weekend, the use of the litter box will be a constant as it was before the honeymoon.

On a more knitting related thread (or should that be yarn), I blocked the Lang cardigan’s button bands. Unfortunately, I had to block the bands because they were pulling in. They look much better now. I still need to get buttons for it.

I finished the Charm scarf for my mom that I started in November, thinking it would be a quick weekend project. I forgot how tricky that yarn can be to work with and how fast it doesn’t really go. :) Another project to cross off my list.

I also started a little hat that matches the Daydream sweater. I will be giving the sweater and, hopefully, the hat away this weekend! I can’t wait to give it to the mom. :)

Tonight, I am going to be working to finish the Giraffe blanket. I need to sew spots on two giraffes and sew legs on. It’s getting very close to finially being finished! I hope to send it to the mom this week!

My project list is getting shorter! It’s getting down to the projects that I know will take me a while to finish. Unfortunately, almost all of the projects, except for Pagan and Petula, all of the other projects are on small needles, so they will take me a while. Pagan is on size 8′s and Petula is on size 5′s. Both Pagan and Petula are summer sweaters, so I have a while to get them done. They’ve taken me this long, they can wait another five months to be finished. I have a ton of yarn in my stash, so I’m trying to finish either Pagan or Petula before I start one of the ones that I have in my stash. I might have to show some self-restraint, but I won’t say that I won’t be surprised if another sweater is started before one of these is finished. :)

Have a great evening! And happy knitting! :)

I’m beginning to wonder if anyone even reads my blog anymore. I know that you’re out there because I see it on my stats each week, but I get no comments. Okay, so I get a comment once every few months, but I wonder how some bloggers get several comments a day and I get zero. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don’t write about stuff that people want to comment on.

Well, on to the reason I’m here. I have photos to share!

The Daydream sweater. It’s completely knitted and seams are sewn. I need to get a ribbon for the waist and buttons. It’s such a sweet little sweater.

Joy from Rowan Cotton Tape collection. I finally finished this, it was waiting for a second side seam for about 16 months.

The Little Brown Bag. Another project that is long overdue. Last week, I decided to get it out and work on it. I’m glad I did because now I have a finished bag. I carried it to the theatre last night when Meredith and I went to see Mamma Mia.

Progress on Bryan’s sock. It’s coming along nicely. I have started decreasing for the toe, so I’m nearly finished with the first sock! (George is checking out those weird things stuck in the sock, could they be potential toys?)

Tuesday evening, Bryan had to work, so I spent my birthday dinner with him at the library. That was fine because originally there was going to be a book group that night for The Time Traveler’s Wife but there weren’t enough people to sign up. After dinner, I went home and knitted for a while. I finished the second button band on the Lang cardigan (I’ll get a photo up soon) and have another finished project to cross off my list! Then I worked on the Charm scarf for my mother, which was supposed to be a quick scarf that I would have done by Thanksgiving, I worked on it while I was watching Sex & the City. It was the episode about Carrie’s 35th birthday, it was one of those episodes that everyone can identify with.

After an hour or so of knitting on the scarf, I decided to get out the Barbara shawl. I haven’t worked on it in a really long time, so I figured I would do some work on it. I’m using the Jaeger Cashmere yarn that was discontinued a few years ago. I was getting a bit frustrated because the yarn was just coming apart. I’d be working and all of a sudden the yarn would just break. I’ve never had that happen to me before, so I just unknit a few stitches and would knit with the broken strand and the new strand for a few stitches. Of course, this was always in the middle of the row and each row now has at least 220 stitches on it, so there was no way that I was going to unknit an entire row. I’m tempted, the next time I work on it, to get another ball of yarn out and try again. I don’t want to continue with this ball of yarn if it’s going to be like this the entire ball of yarn. How frustrating. Has anyone else experienced this with yarn? I wonder if it’s because the yarn is a few years old and because I didn’t have any lotion on my hands. I would welcome any help regarding my yarn problem.

So now that I’m nearing the end of my nearly finished projects, I’ll have to crack down and make myself finish what I’ve already started. I have to finish the Giraffe blanket soon! I have duplicate stitched spots on two of the giraffes, sewn on all of the horns and finished sewing in all of the ends! Now I just need to finish stitching spots and sew on seven legs. I hopefully will have this done by the end of the weekend, so I can send it out on Monday. I can’t wait to see how the finished blanket looks. I’ll post a photo as soon as it’s done!

What a day. The sun, though hidden by clouds, is really shining, really, for it’s Erica’s birthday. And all good people are polka-ing on stilts 31 times. And all good animals have on their Sunday best for the 31 years that have gone by, for the woman we have now, for the years of E yet to come. Thank you, E. Your heart is too big for a mere blog. I love you.
Bryan

The Little Brown Bag is completed! I finished it on Friday evening. I haven’t used it yet. I will though!

I’m nearly finished with the first sock of Bryan’s socks. I’m currently decreasing for the toe. I worked about 9 1/2 inches (24 cm) and had Bryan try the sock, unfortunately, it was way too big. So I had to rip out an inch and a half of the sock and then started decreasing. I’m glad that I had him try it on before I finished the sock. So now I’m ten rows into my decreasing, who knows how long that will take. I should have the first sock done by the end of the week, I’m sure it will be done before then.

Bryan worked this weekend so on Saturday, I worked a lot on the Giraffe blanket. I sewed the tails on and sewed in ends for another column of blocks. I also crocheted all of the little horns that will be sewn onto the giraffes. Now I have a little over 20 ends to sew in, horns to sew on, spots to duplicate stitch onto each giraffe and legs to sew on to the giraffes. I still have quite a bit of work to do on this blanket. My goal is to have it done by this coming weekend! I want to get it sent off so it arrives at least a week before Christmas. There are offically 19 days until Christmas, so I really need to get working.

In addition to my other knitting accomplishments, I also managed to resew the arm of the Lang cardigan. I had sewn the entire sweater seams together about a month ago and when I tried it on, one sleeve was puckering in a not so attractive way. So I decided instead of ripping out the seams for the entire left side, I would just take off the sleeve and resew it. It’s taken me a month to get up the courage to reattach a sleeve with all other seams being sewn. Once I did it, it wasn’t so difficult. I pinned it and counted a lot so that everything was just right. Now I have a lovely sleeve attached to the body and it will soon be ready for wearing! :) I also reknit the button bands, one of them isn’t completed yet. So I may have another project to add to the completed list very soon.

Oh, and not to be forgotten, I finally sewed the side seam to the Joy sweater that has been awaiting a side seam since August 2003!

So nice to have such a major sense of accomplishment in the last few weeks! I am now down to 9 projects on the Works In Progress list. Soon I’ll be down to 7 projects as soon as I finish the Lang cardigan and the Giraffe blanket.

4pm – Tomorrow is my birthday. Bryan has already ordered my gift, I can’t wait to see what he got me! :) I wanted a Circular Solution for my birthday, so I’m going to buy myself this for a birthday gift. Yeah! My circular needles may finally be organized. I am currently using two pants hangers for all of my circular needles, I think I have nearly 30 needles. All of those needles sound like a very nice wind chime, but it’s a pain to find a needle when I need it. I have to get out my needle gauge almost every time I need to get out a circular needle.

Just to keep track of what I’ve completed since November 28.
- Daydream sweater (still needs buttons)
- Joy sweater
- Little Brown Bag

Here’s progress on my to-do list.
1) Knit button band/collar for Daydream sweater
2) Knit 8 giraffe legs, make 4 tails and 8 horns for the Giraffe blanket
3) Sew in ends on the Giraffe blanket
4) Work on Bryan’s socks
5) Re-sew sleeve of Lang cardigan to body
6) Sew side seam of the Joy sweater that I finished in August 2003
7) Work on the Vicki Sever afghan square
8) Duplicate stitch spots on Giraffe blanket

I will officially have a new bag on Sunday. I’m nearly finished with the Little Brown Bag. Hey, maybe I can carry it to Unitarian services on Sunday morning. :) Maybe it will get me out of my rut of carrying my boring black square bag that holds more than I need. I have so many cute bags at home that I could carry, I just get stuck in a rut every so often. Last night, I finished the first of two handle holders. I’ll probably do the second one tonight. Then tomorrow I’ll sew the handle holders and the button on, and I’ll be done!

I also hope to have the Giraffe blanket done within the next week or so. It’s a matter of sewing on giraffe legs, tails and horns. And sewing in about 50 ends. There’s a bit of work but I’ll get it done soon. I keep reminding myself – 22 days till Christmas and I want the kid to receive it at least a week before Christmas!

Yeah, another project to cross off my list. So now I will only have 9 projects in the works. Slowly but surely, I’m finishing them. My goal is to have no more than 6 projects in the works by the end of December next year. So I’m giving myself a year to finish what I have in the works. Of course, the Great American Aran Afghan will take some time and the Barbara Shawl and, of course, the Glint and Hobo sweaters that are on size 2 and 3 needles. I think I can finish the Petula sweater and Pagan within the next 6-8 months, depending on how busy I am. I would also like to work on the TKGA Master Level 2 a bit this year, but we’ll see how things go.

I just measured this morning, I have just over 8 inches (20 cm) of the foot of the first of Bryan’s socks. Man, he has a big foot, he wears a size 10 1/2. I have a small foot, which made the foot of my socks go faster. :) I hope to be decreasing for the toe by Monday.

Have a good weekend!

I don’t think re-found is a word but let’s just make one up for the day. I went home at lunch yesterday and saw the Little Brown Bag kit stuck between one of the end tables and a chair. I had probably seen it a thousand times and hadn’t thought twice about it being there. But now since I’m on my finish-as-many-projects-as-I-can kick, I noticed it and decided to get it out to work on. So I finished knitting the bag part (about an inch) with closure and knit the bottom of the bag. While we were watching a movie, I sewed the bottom of the bag to the body of the bag. Now I need to sew the hard base to the bottom of the bag, make the pieces that hold the handles and sew in the handles. So I have several more hours of work to do, but I should have another project to check off my list within the next week! The bag is all that I worked on yesterday.

1pm – What a difference 1/2 an hour at home for lunch can make. After I ate, I sewed the hard base to the bottom of the bag. Watching Jane Pauley helped, of course. :)

I have class tonight so I probably won’t get a lot of knitting done. Bryan is working both days this weekend and after I clean up my messes in the apartment and get my library essays worked out, I’ll have some knitting time. I just have to make myself sit down and enjoy the zen of sewing ends in and sewing giraffe legs to bodies. I read on someone else’s blog that they would really like to just sit and enjoy the act of knitting instead of trying to rush through and trying to get stuff done as quickly as possible. I don’t know where the “racing” started but I always feel like I’m in a race against time with some of my projects, they may not have a deadline but I get it in my head, for some reason, that I’m not a good knitter if I don’t finish something in so many weeks/months. Like it’s bad to have something that I’ve been working on for over a year. I do admit that I need to concentrate on what I already have on the needles and finish those before I start something else but I need to learn to enjoy the knitting more. Maybe I should get out the Barbara shawl and work on it for a while to get me to relax a bit more and not rush. Working on the Hobo sweater would probably also help. I need to slow down with projects where I see very little progress and just love knitting for the sake of knitting.

Last night, I finished the Daydream sweater. On Monday evening, I knitted the button band/collar. And last night, I sewed up the side seams. So it’s done! I need to buy buttons and buy some ribbon to go around the waist but that will get done later. Another project that I get to move to the completed list!

Also last night, I knitted eight legs for the giraffe blanket and crocheted four tails and two horns. I sewed the two horns on and one of the legs. It looks really silly with the legs but it makes it look more like a giraffe than just a yellow blob in the middle of a blue square. I am sewing the ends in stages. Monday evening I sewed all of the ends around the edges and then last night sewed all of them in for a column of blocks. I have about two more nights of sewing in ends before that’s all finished. I hope to have all of the legs, tails and horns sewn on by the end of the weekend. Then I’ll have another project completed! Two in one week would be quite an accomplishment for me.

Here’s progress on my to-do list.
1) Knit button band/collar for Daydream sweater
2) Knit 8 giraffe legs and make 4 tails for the Giraffe blanket
3) Sew in ends on the Giraffe blanket
4) Work on Bryan’s socks
5) Re-sew sleeve of Lang cardigan to body
6) Sew side seam of the Joy sweater that I finished in August 2003
7) Work on the Vicki Sever afghan square