Thank You, I REALLY needed that!

Maybe you've got to be a knitter or maybe just be in desperate need of comic relief after three trips to the ER in one month. I dunno, but this is hysterical! And this ...

The Rose that Saved the Shrug

In my typical bipolar knitting way, I am actually liking my Circular shrug.


I knit a rose to put on it (completely ripping off gloriana's idea -- thanks!). I'm not thrilled with how the seams on the shrug turned out, but oh well. Live and learn. Also, the shrug is a bit bulky and short. I'm blocking it now, so maybe it will come out fitted and long -- I'm pulling it for all I'm worth.

The Urge to Hook

blogging the lazy way -- cut out passages of emails to friends and post them.


So I turned to the hook -- it's probably just a passing fancy. I wanted to make Suzanne a hair scrunchie for the St. Patrick's day parade and thought I'd use the goddawful acrylic I bought to make myself a St. Patty's day spiral scarf (I'm so sick of spiral scarves. I was going to crochet this one, but then I went to the ER with hives and thought I'll just do mindless knitting while there and was able to start it and do about half of it. I'll crochet on the fun fur edging).


The scrunchie turned out okay, except I somehow twisted it -- but it's going to be twisted in her hair, so who cares? Got the pattern from Kids Can Do It Crocheting. When I get bold, I'll add the beads. Something very exciting about crocheting, all that twisting. And my knitting has helped me get a feel for working with yarn and identifying stitches. I think knitting will always be my first love, though. I don't really like the way crochet looks, especially not in clothes, which is what I like to make.


Though I may get crazy with the scrunchies for awhile.

Such a Beautiful Poem

I just wanted to share a link to this beautiful poem, Desiderata by Max Ehrmann. I found an excerpt of it on an unschooler's profile page. It does read like a creed for unschoolers, homeschoolers, or anyone who is trying to make their way on their own terms.

Thing 2 Lost an Upper Tooth

sort of creepy, huh? The best part was I got to pull it -- the top front tooth was much harder to get out than the bottom ones.

The Temptation to Frog

So I've finished the shrug and just need to seam it. But I'm running into problems. I thought I was smart to anticipate that I'd want the 2x2 ribbing to line up for seaming, so I was sure to set it up so that 2 purls would end up next to 2 knits. But it doesn't work that way.

I was just now reading Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Knitting and she says to end one piece with 1 knit and it's seam-mate with 2 knit stitches, since you'll lose a stitch when seaming. Oooooooo, so that's why my seam looks so crappy, because I'm losing a stitch. So, it's just a seam, right? Only the seams on this shrug come across your bust, so they are front and center. Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!

Kooler suggests one way of avoiding having to seam the ribbing is do a provisional cast on, knit the body and seam it and then remove the provisional cast on and pick up the stitches on a circular needle and knit the ribbing in the round (no seaming). Brilliant, but a little late for me. Though I am pondering ripping back the bottom ribbing and seeing if I can cut the initial ribbing to remove it (someone did that on ravelry with another garment, so it's possible). I guess I would cut the yarn in the last row of ribbing so I have enough yarn to weave in so the body doesn't unravel.

I could do that, but then I think, well, the body of the garment isn't all that great, so should I just frog the whole thing? I've made plenty of mistakes. I've made peace with the design on back, that doesn't bother me anymore. But, I only knit 14 1/2 inches for the body, most people did at least 18 and I now know why, it just doesn't look right shorter. I could rip back the last ribbing section, knit the body longer and re-do the ribbing, making sure I have a column of 1 knit to line up with 2 knits for better seaming, but that's a lot of work for something I don't really like. Even if it's perfect, I don't really like it. It's shapeless and sort of clumsy. I always wondered why everyone pins it in the middle. Well, it doesn't look good if it's not pinned and/or it feels like it will slide off the shoulders.

I've learned a lot making this - I'm not even sad to frog it because I got so much out of it. Or, maybe I'll wear it a little, since it's so cold and I can always frog it in the summer. Or maybe I should just block it, see what that does and just suck it up. The yarn wasn't that expensive and I'm sick of being stuck in a cycle of knitting and ripping. I re-did the left seam, so it no longer puckers like in the picture. I did some funky chain stitching and then seaming. Now I think the left seam looks better than the right, so maybe I'll re-do that seam, block it and be done.

Onward, I've got a Cherie Amour to ruin!

Adventures in Arithmetic

This is a post I wrote for the community blog, Life Without School. It tells about our approach to math. I notice that one link in the post is dead, but I will update it here.

The excerpt from my post with the working link:

I also found a great article in Book Links, a publication by the American Library Association, that lists and summarizes a number of books that help preschoolers through elementary aged kids learn about math.

Shrug Update

for all of you out there with baited breath for me to finish this thing, I feel I should tell you I don't think it's going to look like the mock-up I did in my earlier post. Working up the diagram, the knit stitches sort of frame the purls - but it doesn't look like this working down and I'm not sure how to fix it, or whether it can be fixed. I've been knitting and ripping, knitting and ripping and I'm tired of it, I'm just knitting through. It will be interesting to see how it turns out -- and I'm really glad it will be on my back!


Note: the safety pin marks where I stopped knitting up the pattern chart and started working down. You can see that the older yarn is in touch with it's angoraness, getting a little fuzzy, while the newer part has yet to fuzz.




I think I'm going to rip it back (yet again) to the point of reversal (the safety pin) and just knit it following the pattern. That will be fine, this reversal just didn't work out.