Monthly Archives: August 2010

Patience

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I had to tink* (That’s for you, Leah!)  back to beginning of the gull pattern on the February Baby Sweater.  I’ve made some headway but it’s still not ready to travel with me to work on during lunch.  I need to be confident in what I’m knitting so I don’t have to carry all my gear in case I need to tink.

I made another swiffer cover.

Mr. Aitch and I tried to MacGyver** our vacuum cleaner on Monday.  It’s a canister type and has a “power head” that is controlled by a switch on the handle.  This thing is nine years old and was designed to fail at the connection between the handle and the wand/power head.  The electrical connection has too much give so when you push the handle/wand/power head, it works.  Pulling it back disconnects the power.  So we cut a synthetic wine cork and tried to wedge it into the space so the connection would stay.   Didn’t quite work.  I thought I would try it again and cut a bigger piece of cork wanna-be.

Mr. Aitch doesn’t have the patience and just ordered a new vacuum.

Sometimes I have too much patience.

*tink is knit spelled backwards.  Used when you have to unknit, frog, or rip out a few rows or stitches.

**MacGyver was a 1980’s TV show starring Richard Dean Anderson.  He used everyday things to get out of harm’s way such as a paper clip to disarm a nuclear weapon.

Punctures and paint

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My goal for the weekend was to paint the dining room.  Mr. Aitch helps and would have helped more if I asked him to but I did all of the painting myself.  As I was removing a vent, the screwdriver slipped and I punctured the pad on my left index finger.  To say it hurt is an understatement.  It’s a lot better now but is still tender.

Getting the room ready for paint is a chore.  Getting the room back in functioning order is something I detest.  I don’t have a china cupboard and I really want/need one.  I do have a huge buffet full of things I don’t want but they were gifts.   Expensive gifts.  Not my taste gifts.  Things I don’t use gifts.  What do I do with these?

If I had a place to display my china, I could have room to store these above mentioned gifts.  So the hunt is on for a china cupboard.  Not like I’ve been looking for one since 1999.  I just haven’t found the right one.

Saturday night I decided I better get started on a knitted sweater for my granddaughter’s first birthday.  September 10.  I started the Elizabeth Zimmerman February Sweater on Two Needles.  Is it me or are her instructions a bit hard to understand?  I’m thinking it’s me.  So far the only modifications are I’m using a worsted weight yarn (Caron Simple Soft in pistachio) and size 8 needles.  I hope this will be big enough for a size 2 toddler. 

I’m into the gull pattern and I think I made a mistake and will have to rip one or two rows.  Mr. Aitch was talking to me as I was just getting into the pattern rhythm and I think I miscounted.  Whatever.  It’s happened before.  The puncture wound does bother me when I’m knitting so I can’t knit for very long before I have to take a break.

Oh, and my swiffer covers work great!

Evidently my computer is still having issues as I cannot get any pictures off my camera.  😦

Knitting Police

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Ms Ida’s Chain Link mittens are in a time out until I figure out how to finish the ends as I don’t like the pointiness (made-up word).  

MS Ida CLM right back

 

Courtesy of Knit Picks Ms Ida Chain Link Mittens

 

 I’ve got two Swiffer covers almost finished.  It’s just the sewing/seaming on the multi-colored one.  Have I mentioned how I hate seaming???  

Swiffer covers

 

The green one was from a pattern I can’t find right now (but it was 17 stitches in seed stitch using size 7 US needles, knitted for 15 inches) and the multi one from this pattern.  

At first glance the multi one looks like a keyboard.  Heh.  

I knew a woman many years ago who knit sweaters for herself  and her husband during lunch.  She could get a sweater done in a week.  I asked her how she finished her seams as it takes me almost as long to seam up something as it does to knit it.  She said she gave the pieces to her mother to seam.  And she sewed them on her sewing machine.  

I had never heard of such a thing.  Isn’t that against the law?  Isn’t that just wrong on every level?  

Yet the Knitting Police never arrested her or her mother.  

I live in fear of the Knitting Police therefore I rip out and redo when something just isn’t right.  But sewing seams on a sewing machine on hand-knitted items is just sacrilege, is it not?

Slump Day

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Yep, that kind of says it all.

Slump Day for work, knitting, sewing, cleaning, you name it.

I want to knit EZ’s February baby sweater in a 24 month size.  I’ve never knit a top-down sweater before.  Do I just start the pattern and make the body bigger?  Seems like a no-brainer.  Is it?

And I need to have this finished by September 10.

Yesterday I stopped by the Big Box store and bought six balls of cotton in assorted colors for the Swiffer covers.  Quick, easy, portable project.  Maybe these will get me out of my slump.