Pixie Purls

I knit the first one for a co-workers baby and I don't even think I ever took "final" photos of it with buttons. Here in that tradition is the second one finished without buttons.

I just love the color it's in! I plan on knitting the matching hat (I'm pretty sure I have 1 ball left for it). The pattern is Plymouth Pattern # P630 and I used the called for Oh My! yarn which makes the pattern so wonderful and soft (and quick to knit!). The first time I knit it I knit the hooded version, I was tempted to do that again but I was curious about this other neckline so I wanted to try out this version. I can't wait to get buttons!

In the photo it's in a nice Eucalan bath, I'm not sure that was neccisary with 100% nylon yarn but I figured, what the heck!

Posted by pixie at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I went all crazy with the colors and got some fun Cascade 220 and Fizzy yarn;

To the left bottom is Fizz and to the right of that is some sort of Eyelash-ish yarn with sparkles in it!! I wonder why arn't more knitted childrens toys made with sparkles and bright colors!? That's what kids like right?

I find it hard to believe that is a future hedgehog. it looks like a huge blob of increases and decreases to me.

I found out yesterday I will not have to fly to Texas next week. I am thrilled! I was not keen on the idea of flying 3 times in June. Work has been kind of crazy and I was hoping June would be more calm so I could take care of personal stuff, but amazingly it's STILL not June. The end of this month has gone by so slow but I think that's a good thing.

I am really excited about one upcoming event which is only like 2 weekends away. I am all set and paid for to attend the Atlanta AKG Barbara Walker Mosiac knitting class! The last time I was at Knitch I finally went ahead and purchased her first pattern book;

Maybe I can have her sign it! I also have her knitting down/around book and I think something else of hers at home. What else is that you spy in that photograph? Those are the wonderful little Flipknit.com flip books! I think they are simply marvelous and showed them off to all my knitting friends when I was at the shop. I only have one point about them I would like to make, other then that I think they are a great addition to a knitting library. They are really good for beginner knitters with the purl and knit stitch booklets, the increase and decrease booklets I think can be enjoyed by newbie and advanced knitters alike. My only other point is that I think most people, in particular newbie’s aren’t always aware of what "style" they knit!

Grumperina has a nice explanation here. I actually attended Annie Modesitt's combination knitting presentation and I found it very interesting and I think all knitters should be aware of it. It has changed my knitting world in that I don’t freak out about twisted stitches and I know how to easily fix them (knit through the back loop for my style) and I have much more respect for twisted stitches and it really has helped my knitting. Her presentation opened my eyes in many ways! So the booklets say "Basic techniques are shown in both Western & Combination". Well prior to Annie's presentation and prior to having these booklets I always thought of knitting as two kinds "Continental" and "English”. I knit “Continental”. So in that respect I think a person needs to think a little bit before they look at these booklets and realize which way they knit. I might have been scared off by these flip books before I had learned all of that, or I might have been very confused when they arrived! She does provide a wonderful leaflet with them which explains it very simply. With all that said I think they are just pure genius and I could see there being these booklets for all sorts of techniques! They are so handy and small and can be kept in your knitting bag. I could imagine one of these for Kitchener Stitch or for Short Rows! Oh or maybe one for how to knit socks on circulars? They would be invaluable. They are fantastic little books I think very much worth having!

Posted by pixie at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I had a very good knitty weekend! I have soooo much I want to knit so I wonder how much I will get too. Both the last cardi and the other one I am working on have matching hat patterns that I need to get to eventually. I have now decided I *must* knit a neon Fibertrends Huggable Hedgehog after seeing that one (follow the link).

Lookit what I finished!

Here for scale, they are next to some 6 thru 12 month old shoes.

Next up after the Oh My! cardi comes Rowan Babies Ellie;

and then a Nashua Bloom Leaf Yoke Cardi;

Posted by pixie at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

It's certainly addictive because it's such instant gratification.

The duplicate stitch does take a little while, I think it took me nearly 2 hours total but it was my first time doing the complete fluffy part so I figure it'll go faster the second time around. Considering I only started it last night around 8pm and I had to rip it out and start over around 10pm it's a really great/quick project.

I used the smaller needle this time, a 3 and a 4. The pattern calls for 4/5 and 5/6. I knit the last one on 4/5 I believe and this one is noticeably smaller but it's not a huge size difference. I like them smaller as the stitches look nicer. I'm tempted to rip out the first tan one but I probably should just knit the pair to each and be done.

Posted by pixie at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Well it's been a busy week. I made the decision to fly to San Fran in a few weeks for a conference. I had gotten approval form work months ago but decided not to go because work wanted me to fly 2 or 3 times in May/June to do user testing. That all got cancled, so I got permission to go ahead to the conference again. Right after I purchased the tickets, flight and hotel my new boss told me they want me to fly to Texas for work in a week or two to do some usability testing. Wow okay I'm going to fly 3 times in June now! Texas, San Fran and VA. Lordy this will be fun. The good news is after this I won't be flying at all A) because I don't want to and B) because technically I'm not allowed too, which is fine by me!

The other good news is my husband is going to come with me to San Fran and probably durring the very short 3 days we are there we will try to see my aunt and his cousin. I'm not sure if we will get to all that but we can try!

I had a wonderful piano lesson (I can play with two hands at the same time now!) and then I ran to Fry's to look for a small TV for our bedroom. Something small and flat, I was shocked that it still costs nearly $500 to get a flat 19" TV. Wow. I didn't leave with a TV. It's just silly it costs that much for a flat screen (and I don't want or need HD).

So then we ran to IHOP because the sushi place by our house was closed, and after that we went to see Pirates 3. It's worth going too, but I was not impressed. My husband liked it better then Spiderman 3, I liked it better then Pirates 2, but it just didn't impress me. Johny Depp of course was wonderful and my husband liked Captain Barbosa.

I knit up the right front of the Oh My! cardi on friday night and then had a seaming fest. I'm once again not thrilled with the seam and look of the armholes/sleeves but when I went back and looked at the debbie bliss cardigan after blocking it didn't look nearly as bad as I thought. So maybe this one will block out as well. It's still pretty cute!

I even went ahead and finished the neck, all I have left now is 1 sleeve and to seam up the sides. Tonight I started the little pink baby ugg bootie. I had to redo the heel because I started with the wrong size needle but luckily it's not a knit that takes very long.

Posted by pixie at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why it's a cute little Debbie Bliss Cardigan! I put some Eucalan and it smelled all fresh and clean. Toby was extremely curious about the goings-on. He has never seen me put anything in the bathtub like that before I suppose.

I'm pretty sure I used my hands too much tonight however it still doesn't hurt like it did that one weekend. All in the name of baby knits!

I spent the evening finishing up 1 sleeve for the OH MY! cardigan, and then I decided to go ahead and finish the above cardigan so it could officially be an "FO". Now I have to figure out how to get cute photos of it. I don't really have any dolls or toys to put it on, maybe Toby would oblige?

Posted by pixie at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

At midnight I forced myself to put the bootie down, it still needs the cute fuzzy white lining up along each side and over the instep. Baby Uggs are too cute! The pattern was pretty easy and fairly clever, how ever the YF then knit through the back loop as ushual was confusing as it is written, but worked out fine when I just simply did it and didn't ask questions.

Not too shabby for a few hours work!

Posted by pixie at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I am holding some orange and green cascade 220 which I plan to make a cute pumpkin hat out of!

Knitch Knitters

Adorable little baby cardigan

I bought the yarn to make the "newbown" size and it was only $16! So cute, isnt it? Nashua Bloom

Habu Textiles - So Pretty

I've never purchased any Habu but I always like to look at it.

Happy Knitters!

Melissa, Jen and Claudia all very pleased to be at knitch.

Sadly, I have no self control and if I walk into Knitch I always buy yarn, but it's not like I get out that way that often so why not, right? Right?! :)

Posted by pixie at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Well so I haven't knit much this week, because starting late last week my left hand started hurting a lot, by last sunday night it was driving me insane. I had knit too much it seems. So I stopped knitting and then when I saw the doc on wednesday he told me I could be getting carpel tunnel or something like that. He told me not to knit and to sleep with a wrist brace and to keep my hand elevated. So I tried the wrist brace thinking yeah right this will fix it. What do you know but the next day my hand felt pretty much fine. It's been a little tweaky if i have to lift something heavy or open a door but overall it seemed much better.

I practiced piano but didn't allow myself to knit at all, until tonight of course. I have stopped because A) I know I should because it's been over an hour and B) I hit a snag in the pattern.

I'm knitting a button band and here are the instructions;
Row 1: P1, *k1, p1*
Row 2: k1, *p1, k1*
Row 3: As 1st row
Buttonhole Row: Rib 3, [rib 2tog, yf, rib 8 sts] 3 times, rib 2tog, yf, rib to end
Rib 2 more rows
CO in rib

Now if you look closely the buttonhole row is on the row "2" and if I follow it as I am reading it I will k1, p1, k1, then k the next p1, k1 together. This leaves the NEXT stitch after the "YF" as a purl. Well I HAVE TO BRING THE YARN FORWARD for a purl so how in gods name does that make a button hole?????

On my way to the doc (did I mention I am tired of having blood drawn? I'm RH negative so I get to have it drawn LOTS!) I stopped for lunch with my friend Sue and her adorable 6 month old Samantha.

Samantha is a perfectly wonderful little baby who is all smiles and sweet! I had fun getting to hold her and play with her. Sue had lots of fun "new mommy" advice.

Posted by pixie at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

As I can't do anything to taxing with my hands this evening (my left hand seems to have been overworked and is on revolt) I spent the evening looking at knitting blogs, I can not even remember how in the world I wound up finding once again those DIY Ugg Baby Booties that I always wanted to knit (sense 2004 actually wow!). Supercrafty sells a kit.

Would it be really awful if I had an urge to make a pink pair? Hah!

Posted by pixie at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Here is my happy little rant for the day. I went to the Blue Moons Fiber Arts site to order a skein of Lunasea in that new Silkie yarn, to try it out. It's a neat blend and who wouldn't want socks with silk in it? I was thinking it would make a fun baby knit.

I ordered 1 skein last week. So today I logged into their site to see if it was track-able. Well there was no order in there! So then i went to paypal and saw, no order in there which I knew I had selected that option to pay. (Granted, their site has a warning telling you to get a newer browser however you can still go through the entire order proccess despite that fact! It doesn't say if you don't upgrade you won't get yarn).

I'm not sure if you have ever purchased of their website but it requires IE 7 (vs IE 6, it does work for other browsers as well but I was at work and only had access to IE). It's the only fiber site I have ever tried to purchase on that required I update my browser. From a web design perspective it's not a smart move. You can lose customers that way and I am not going to upgrade my browser for their sock yarn. Heck ebay doesn't require IE 7, IE 6 works just fine! On top of that fact I normally order yarn on my lunch hour at work, so not only do I not want to upgrade my browser, but I cant even if I wanted too. I have IE 6.0.2, it's not exactly a cave man browser.

So I tried again just now to see, and it didn't go through again. I'm not a huge STR person, I purchased 1 skein of “Lucy” many moons ago (har har) and I don't even remember how I ordered it. I thought I might try out this new silkie yarn and see if I might catch the STR bug, but I am really frustrated that they would force me to update my browser to order yarn and on top of that, it didn't let me know the sale didn't go through. I was expecting my hank in the mail this week!

Most websites will show that IE 6 is the most common browser right now, and there for it is what at a minimum should be designed for. To be fair we can look at my sites stats, which users are primarily knitters...

IE 6: 19553 Requests
IE 7: 12467 Requests

Not only does IE 6 have more, but even if it was an even 50/50 split it would still be a bad choice, heck even if IE 6 had 40% and IE 7 had 60% it would STILL be a bad choice!!

I wonder how many sales they lose because of this and they might not even realize it. They are pretty popular so I suppose it might not be a big issue, but it really makes this pregnant lady angry, but then bad web design always does. For those of you who don't know I am an Information Architect & Usability Engineer so that’s pretty much what I do for a living, determine the proper way to design and execute websites for the optimal user experience and of course to make the most possible amount of money (I work for a fortune 100). I would bet all my stash they lose sales they don't even know about, just like this one.

(updated to correct my spelling, it made someone else angry)

Posted by pixie at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I felt pretty special today, and anyone who has people knitting for them should feel very special! I am so lucky that I have such wonderful friends (who knit to boot!). Today I met up with some of the grrls and we knit some!

(look close and you will see Rebecca eating an addi!)

After my 4 month hiatus from buying yarn my first purchase was some very special seasilk. Jen was going to knit up a shawl and I said hey, make me one too! Well apparently if you feed a knitter yarn they will indeed take you up on the offer. So I got Jen some seasilk in a pretty purple colorway she picked out, and then I picked out some pretty arctic colored skeins for myself. Would you look at the beuty this women is creating with her hands! I am in awe, and can't wait to be able to wrap a hand knit shawl around my shoulders!

Someone is knitting something special for pixie junior;

The cardi I was working on is all seamed up and all I have to do is pick up stitches for the beck/button band. Our air conditioner is on the fritz so I picked up something a little less complicated.

Some how I am knitting pretty fast again, wahoo!

Local News: Quilted Hearts in Gainsville is DUNZO!! :( They are closing up shop in July. I learned to spin there, and it was also my constant source of supplies and inspiritation when I was teaching myself to quilt. I'm very sad as it was a wonderful quilting shop (and they had yarn too!).

Posted by pixie at 08:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I finished the second sleeve this evening, but before I finished it I got to seaming up the shoulders and the first sleeve. Now all that is left is to finish seaming in the second sleeve, and then pick up stitches for the neck and button bands.

I wanted really badly to finish but I've been really tired from work this week. We had a re-org and I found out yesterday my boss is no longer my boss! I adore my boss so no matter how cool the new boss is it's a hard to change to accept, I don't foresee any problems at all but it's still a change at a time when I would like there to be as little change as possible! It's all good though.

I think it's really funny that in my last post I talked mostly about knitting and 15 out of the 16 comments actually were about that stubborn pear I have. Thanks for the tips! I'll let ya know how it works out... hehe

Posted by pixie at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Latley all I want is pears, not like in a bad have to have them kind of way, but a pear taste pretty darn good. I actually have 2 pears we bought well over a week okay and we bought them not ripe on purpose so I would have it for later in the week. How the heck long does it take a pear to rippen?? These suckers are STILL hard! It's okay though because I got some more that wern't hard.

So check it out, massive progress (even if it's a tiny/easy knit) on the little Debbie Bliss baby cardi. I have as you can see in the photos completed a sleeve, now I have one sleeve on the needles which is about 2/3rds complete. I am so close to the end I can taste it. I'm tempted to start seaming but I want it to be as clean as possible so I am leaving these guys pinned over night. I've never actually blocked anything beyond using an iron, I'm not sure if this will actually do anything or if I'm supposed to mist them or something. I don't really have any thing to mist them with however. Recommendations are welcome! It's a silk/wool blend.

Posted by pixie at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Well saturday was extermly busy. I was woken up at 7:00am by a dear friend telling me she had gotten engaged the night before, then a yard guy never showed up or called about 8am, piano lesson at noon and then I ran to Cast on Cottage to grab some pink yarn, after that was dinner with Family and after that the husbeast wanted to go see Spiderman 3, which really wasn't bad like the reviews said, but #2 was still better.

Check out the pretty in pink Plymouth Heaven yarn for a cute "baby bunting". The little bolero/cardigan I think would be really cute in the Plymouth Baby Alpaca one of my favorite yarns (and not to badly prices with it's yardage either!), it's actually the first yarn I ever knit with.

Sunday has been a day of rest, knitting, cleaning and now I'm cooking some cupcakes! I actually slept most of the day sleeping, I woke up at 10am, and fell back asleep around 1pm (I think?) and then woke up at 6pm!

Wish me luck with the cupcakes, I don't have a blender and the mix was looking a little lumpy tonight!

Posted by pixie at 08:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Or that's what I like to tell myself, because I can, I did! Well I figured ya know I finished the whole back of that baby cardi and after 4 months of no knitting and no yarn puchases it would be alright if I enhcanced my stash a bit, with a focus on baby knits of course.

I got a cute Lantern Moon bag in a pretty greenish color that actually matches my purse so I can stick my knits in my purse and not have it get tangled with my keys.

Starting from the left; I got what I thought was italian yarn and maybe it is but apparently Plymouth sells it, the label tricked me! Filati Bertagna - Torrione which is a 100% cotton ribbon yarn. The colors caught my eye and it's fiber content made me think of baby knits. I got 2 balls to experiment with and I thought it would make a cute baby hat. I really like the tank in that link, except for the "artsy holes". It's I think in the same color yarn I purchased. I believe it's a new spring yarn and it's really soft! I'm not a ribbon yarn fan but I really liked it.

The large amount of pretty pale teal is more "Oh My!" (Plymouth) so I can make another hooded cardi.

Last but not least is "Tofutsies" yarn made from superwash merino, soysilk and get this, chitin (something to do with crab shells). Wacky! It's very soft and comes in neat colors. I was thinking the EZ baby suprise jacket might work in this yarn, if not some sort of baby sweater would be cute, and if there is enough yarn maybe a matching hat and tiny socks.

Posted by pixie at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I got a postcard in the mail from Cast on Cottage yesterday. It was letting people know that the owner has sold the shop! At first I was like OH NO! I'm supposed to meet Claudia there this Saturday and I want to pick up some Oh My! Plymouth yarn while I was there.

I quickly called them up and they are not closing or anything like that. The postcard mentioned the new owner would be running it as a yarn shop and everything but I wasn't sure if they would close it and re-do the signage etc. When I called they informed me they will not be closing and they aren’t taking stock out, just improving things over time I think. I actually learned to knit at that shop, and it's 15 minutes from my work so I have gone on many lunch hour expeditions. I'm glad to hear they aren’t closing.

Update: I heard from another source that they are turning half of the shop into needlepoint supplies. Interesting.

Posted by pixie at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay so my first baby knit that I would like to actually finish is called "Stripped Cardigan" except I'm doing it with no stripes. It's from the Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino 2 book.

So I'm a bit rusty and plus DB patterns can sometimes be a bit odd. Please help me because my pregnancy brain is not letting me understand what it is asking. I completed the back, and when you end the back you have 12 shoulder stitches bound off on each side, and then the center stitches are left "live" on a holder.

So then I worked the left front of the cardi:

Basically you knit the bottom ribbing, then several inches of stockinette. Then after that you shape the armhole which logically is just on one side of the knitting.

Shape Armhole:
CO 3 st at beg of next row.
Work 1 row.
Shape Neck:
Next row k2, skpo, k to last 4 k2tog, k2.
Next row P to end.
Rep last 2 rows 3 times.
Next row k to last 4 st, k2tog, k2.
Next row P to end
(So I guess that makes it so the next edge has a pretty decrease, but your only doing it on one side so the other armhole side I guess has no shaping and just goes straight up like normal)
Rep last 2 rows until 12 st remain.
Cont straight until front measures same as Back to Shoulder, ending at armhole edge.
Shape Shoulder
Cast off.

So when it says "Shape Shoulder" is it saying I need to make something up to shape the shoulder or is simply casting off shaping the shoulder??? Why would they write Shape shoulder if there is no shaping?? On top of that remember it has 12 stitches left and I know the back has 12 stitches bound off so I would assume it's perfectly fine as is! Why would they write it that way?? Am I on target?

Funny thing is I had knit this left front FIRST and had to come back to it and realized I actually messed it up because I skipped the step that said to shape just the neck adge and leave the armhole alone and keep going up, but that should be easy enough to fix.

So after this I have some white/creamy yarn to knit something else out of the book. I let me husband select from these;

What this means is they are thinking we are having a girl, but I actually have another ultrasound this friday to double check the gender. I could have waited until tommorow to post this but I really want to know if I am mental or not with these pattern instructions, and that one that I am knitting now is gender nuetral.

Oh yeah, my husband picked this one;

He felt that is would keep the baby the warmest out of all the items I had selected. I actually liked it a lot so I was happy he picked it.

Posted by pixie at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Only a week or so ago I blogged that I had an urge for Knitch's custom blend of coffee that they sell in their yarn store. It's created by JavaVino which is an Atlanta based company. The blend Knitch has in their store smells beyond yummy. They also always have it available for customers to have a cup if they sit down and knit, and of course you can buy a bag if you like. I had a cup the first day I walked into Knitch. I bought a bag later as a gift for a coworker and I think I drank at-least 1/4th of the bag, my coworker who only likes "Strong" coffee's had to admit it was very tasty. I don't tend to like a super thick/strong coffee.

So I had mentioned that I had some sort of weird craving for it which I thought was such an odd random thing to crave, it must have been looking at that yummy teal-ish yarn I had purchased at Knitch that was close to the colors the store is decorated in (so pretty!). Ya'll know I rave about Knitch, it's simply the nicest yarn store I have been in. I have been to yarn stores in Seattle, Virginia, Atlanta, even London and I can still safely say Knitch is the best.

I checked the mail last week and there was an package addressed to me and I wondered what it was. The only stuff I was waiting on was from Amazon.com, I felt it and it kind of felt like yarn but I knew I had not ordered any. When I opened it up and saw that signature teal (blue?) paper inside I knew it was form Knitch and my brain clicked and I wondered, would they have actually sent me coffee?? OMG! So I tore the paper away and quickly saw the glorious Knitch coffee sitting in my hands. So here I want to say a great big thank you to my friends at Knitch who so kindly sent me this gift! I was delighted, and even giggled out loud when I read the dacaf on the label which is simply perfect as I am pregnant and I have pretty much totally stopped consuming caffeine. I allow myself a sweet tea now and then though!

(I also got the new Wild Fibers in the mail the same day, great issue this month!)

It's also kind of funny that I am the #2 result on google if you do a search for "Knitch Atlanta", it's actually my little review of the store which I think is neat! I really truly love Knitch, they welcome everyone into their store with open arms and they have a wonderful staff of all ages to assist you. Okay I'll stop gushing about Knitch, but I will admit to you that right before I sat down to write this entry I actually opened up that coffee bag just so I could smell it (I had a cup the first day I got it, of course!).

This is my first piano music stash type purchase. I Actually got the two versions they sell (easy piano solo & piano solo). So far I can't spot anything different in the music except the size of the printing. Hrmmm....

I have no idea how hard the music is but the "easy" in the title makes me feel better. Now I am going to go knit!

Posted by pixie at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)