The Picture Post

I finally had enough time to take some pictures in between running around. I think I resized them so they will look okay once they are published, the problem I had the last time was that they looked fine during the preview, but got squished once published. I have learned my lesson, and hopefully these won't look quite so awful.

First up are the finished, but ugly mittens, hat and waffle scarf. It hasn't gotten above freezing here in NJ, so waffle scarf & I are best buddies. I think I'm also drawn to the scarf because I've got a pair of matching mittens and hats. I probably look ridiculous, but I love to match.



Here are the ugly mittens. Really, only the right one is ugly, they were both used with the same yarn, on the same needles. After the ribbing, which was done holding one strand of yarn (normal) I doubled up the strands for the palm/fingers. The right mitten's thumb is extremely ugly - I know - I haven't had the chance to rip it out and redo it. I should also mention I changed the colors on purpose.



Ah, the hat. Customary with my "knitting by the seat of my pants" I haven't weaved the ends in on the hat. I love this hat, I wear it alllllll the time. The only thing I may do is add and icord to keep it on my head. It has a habit of sliding off, its not a "tight" fitting hat.



Here is the hat and mittens underneath the waffle scarf. I couldn't get a good picture of the scarf, I'm going to throw another picture on here of the scarf alone, but I don't think it adequately shows off the beauty of the scarf. It is very possibly my favorite scarf I've knit to date. The scarf was done on size 8 straights, I forget how many stitches I cast on, but I changed knitting/purling every five stitches to start off with, and made each "square" about five rows long.
'Cause I'm visual:
xxxxxoooooxxxxxooooo
xxxxxoooooxxxxxooooo
xxxxxoooooxxxxxooooo
oooooxxxxxoooooxxxxx
oooooxxxxxoooooxxxxx

It is so pleasing to my eyes, I love it.
Here's a picture.



Its a rather long scarf, I want to say five feet long? But I could be wrong. Now I need to know... I'm measuring..



Okay - It measures at 7 inches wide, and with my best guestimation, six feet long. My physical person is 5' 1/2" tall (each half inch counts, shush), and if I hold one end with my hand, and put my arm over my head, and the other end is touching the ground.. I think its like six feet. I know, I'm so accurate it just kills me hahaha.

In other news, I GOT MY SURPRISE! Ohhhhhhh! Yeah I got it! The day after I swore I was being patient, it came in the mail and OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS, its so wonderful. I took a few quick pictures, they are not the best, but what I got, is so beautiful.



Inca Alpaca yarn, and a Lantern Moon measuring tape - oh my goodness, I almost fell over when I saw it! My camera captured the color fairly well, I noticed also that it depends on how I look at my screen, but its the most rich color of green. I love green!



A magazine! Which had a lot of cute stuff:) There was also candy, but I ate it. Thank you, Lynne! Thank you so much!! :)!

I realize the pictures may be ridiculously huge again, but I finally got them up and I don't care. I'll have to play with photo shop this week and figure out how to make them smaller. I found a cool thing online, but I forgot to book mark it. ::sigh:: Sorry about not posting sooner, I should have a better handle on time management as the semester goes on. Wooooo presents!

Jersey!


PS: I realize you can't see half of the mitten picture. I'm going to try and fix it, but right now I need to walk away from the computer before I throw it out the window. Give me a few hours...

Hospital, mittens and comments; OH MY!

I don't know what it is exactly about hospitals that both comfort me, and freak me out at the same time. The mere thought of walking into a hospital makes me feel itchy and scratchy. Once I'm there, its a very different feeling. It's not warm fuzzies or anything but my itchies go away, and it's like visiting a friend in an apartment with lots of house guests. Or maybe I've just had some interesting experiences in hospitals. At this point, I really don't know.

The great thing about this round of hospital sitting is that I knit. I busted out almost an entire mitten in about four hours. Friday, after a perilous trip to the vet, I dog sat. So while the pooch was resting from being poked and prodded I watched The View and Law and Order reruns and finished my second mitten. Yes, I actually finished a pair of mittens in slightly over a day. I couldn't believe it. I started them Thursday and finished by 3pm on Friday. Unbelievable. But hey – I told Granny that I'd have mittens to show her after her surgery. What surprises me is that I actually do. I did them on one circular US 8 needle, and with an increase here, and a stitch holder there, I busted out mittens that only needed the thumb to be seamed.

This – ladies and gentlemen and people – this is profound! I have a love affair of things knit in one piece. The idea of it being stronger because its one solid piece of fabric just tickles me pink and probably makes me weirder than I ever thought I could be. I can't believe I just said “tickles me pink”. Moving on; almost every mitten pattern I've seen you need to use dpn's OR straight needles with seaming. And let me tell you, I avoid seaming like its bird flu and e.coli mashed together. I made them so they're each a little different, and once the ribbing of the cuff ends, I held two pieces of yarn together to make them extra warm.

Needless to say, I've gotten a lot of compliments on my knitting over the past week. When you hospital sit, there are only so many hours of General Hospital and Geraldo: At Large you can watch until you just want to claw your own eyes out for the sheer fun of it. It's also helpful because you aren't really thinking as much about why you're in the hospital to begin with. In my case, I was more worried about the thumb and the decreases... But now, with the 9 degree weather slowly warming up to the mid-twenties, I only have one project to concern myself with. No more hats, or scarves, no more quick projects oh no, I'm in the marathon of knitting.

....Except I'm like that guy from the Mastercard commercials who gets a snack and sees a movie instead of running.

In other news, I won a contest! I know, I couldn't believe it either. I woke up Saturday morning to an email that said I won. I had to read it about four times before I replied. I'm still in shock. While poking around I found an image resizer which I plan to use as soon as I have time to take pictures of Matching Mittens, finished Waffle Scarf and Hat.

For the record: I am definitely not afraid of DPN's. It's partially a “I'm too broke to buy them” / “It's hard to teach yourself how to use DPN's.” So right now, I'm content with circular needles and I absolutely plan to learn how to use them, because I want to knit socks. It just may take another few years to sit down with someone and bust out my first pair of socks. I also want to be a better knitter, even if I learn how to use them and I hate DPN's, I want to say I know how to do it – you know?

Thank you for the comments, I appreciate them :) Thank you Lynne for the contest, and the prize. I also stuck my email address on the blog because I noticed someone couldn't post comments. Thank you, thank you, thank you! :)