Size Does Matter

One of the problems with having a baby that weighs only 6lbs (at 2 weeks old) is that none of her clothes fit. At all. She looks so silly in just about everything we have (except for 2 kimono shirts), including all the soakers I knit for her that I thought were going to be "too small". She would fit into preemie clothes, but at ~$30 for a single preemie outfit... Everything she has is huge on her teeny little body. Except for one thing.

FunSize First made and gave me a cute little pair of baby socks for her, and tonight I was finally able to get them on her wiggly feet. Surprisingly (or maybe not so much) it was infinitely easier to get the socks on her feet than it was to actually take pictures of said socks on her feet.

These socks are the only thing we have for her that fit perfectly. And they are so cute!!

So thank you, funsize for gifting something we can use now. :o)

I'm Knitting, I Swear!

I know it looks like not a lot of knitting has been happening around here, but there really has.. I just haven't had time to take pictures of anything yet. Just tonight I cast off a pair of cable socks I made. This was my first pair of socks made with Claudia Hand Painted Yarns. This is also the first time I have had to use almost all the yarn from both skeins. Usually, I am able to get a pair of ankle socks from one 50g ball, but it this case I really needed to use almost all of the 50g ball for each sock. This is one reason I love knitting both at once, toe up. I can tell instantly when I am going to run out of yarn, how much I need to use, and how far I can get. These ended up being "tall" socks compared to what I usually do. I'm pretty pleased so far! Of course, I haven't yet had a chance to wear them more than tying them on.
I also cast on for Placed Cable Aran tonight. I had to play around with gauge and needle size a bit on a swatch before starting since I was not using the yarn that is specified in the pattern, and I had to make up for it being slightly different is size and weight. I'm happy though! This looks liek it will be a very fun sweater, although right now I have miles and mile of stockinette stitch to knit up! Oh well, I have some nice mindless knitting to go on after having to pay so much attention to the socks and sweater before this one :o)

SP and FO

I have a couple of things I need to write about here. First of all, I have to thank my Secret Pal for the package I received on Thursday after work. I had a nice little package with a card stuck inside along with 3 amazing peices of jewelry. There are two bracelets and a pair of turquois earrings. So cool!

Thank you pal! I am sure these will quickly make it into not only my regular wear, but also into dance costume peices. They're perfect! :o)

Thursday evening I also finished Mr Kiwi's socks. They were promptly washed and left to dry over night. The next morning they were not quite dry so he did not get a chance to wear them. This morning he asked if he could wear them, but I had not yet taken pictures. We just arrived home from a few activities and I let him put the socks on and model them. I don't think he is going to take them off for a while.


Instead of staring yet another pair of socks, I have cast on for a quick hat. I need some fast knits before delving into a huge project. Plus, it breaks down my stash, which is a major goal for the moment.

Memorial Day weekend

I love 3 day weekends. Especially 3 day weekends that come when I absolutely need them the most. Up until this weekend, I was approaching my breaking point. Work was incredibly stressful, and I more than needed time to get away and not have to think about how it was just around the corner waiting for me to come back. Funny, how one extra day can give you that feeling of relief. Usually, at about 5pm on Sundays, Mr Kiwi and I realize "the weekend is over!!!", however yesterday at 5pm our celebrations were just starting. Really. We were at that moment on our way to a BBQ at a friends house, where later we got to spend some time under the stars in a hot tub, looking out from a hillside over the entire Silicon Valley. It was awesome.

I also managed to get a heck of a lot of knitting done, and made some progress on Mr Kiwi's monkey foot sized socks. They are coming along very well, and I am knitting the ribbing along the leg. I expect that before too long these socks will also be finished, and I will be on my way to another project.
I hope everyone in the US had as great a holiday weekend as I did, and a Happy Birthday weekend to a certain someone - hope you had a very excellent weekend ;o)

Finished Items!

After some persistent knitting, I managed to finish not just one but two items before the weekend began. Friday evening I finished the socks I was working on and got them blocking. Here they are right before I took them off the blockers.

Needing to start something new, I decided to get a start on the baby items I needed to knit. I started on the Vine Lace Baby Hat from Interweave's Knitting Daily. It went surprisingly fast, despite my working them on DPNs (I have learned through this that I am not a DPN gal, and will stick to my circs). By Saturday morning I was trying to figure out how in the heck I was going to block it, seeing as how I didn't have anything resembling a baby head near by. I stuffed two wash cloths in a plastic bag and vigorously molded it into as round and head shaped as I could, as stretched the little hat on top.


Knitting things for babies rock! They go so fast and look great also. And this hat took slightly less than half a ball. I can make another one! :o)

Knitting Weekend!

This weekend was accidentally filled with yarn and knitting. Without meaning to, both Saturday and Sunday Mr Kiwi and I visited a few yarn stores we had never been to. Saturday we had made our way to Western Railway Museum in Solano County. It was very much in the middle of nowhere, and it was quite windy. It was really neat, and I got to knit on one of the trolly cars as it ran on the tracks. On the way, however, we stopped in Benicia at the Benicia Knitting Circle. The store was pretty small, but it was stacked to the ceiling with yarns. Giovanna was the woman who was there at the time we showed up, and was very helpful with a few questions I had. I ended up grabbing a few skeins of yarn that I am going to be using to make some baby hats for a coworker's future baby. The ultrasounds said girl, so let's hope so! One skein is Baby Star merino wool, and the other two are Plymouth Yarns Dream Baby DK.


Today we drove in to San Francisco and went to two knitting shops that I have been dying to see. The first one was ImagiKnit. It was so overwealming! I have never seen a place so big and so full of yarn! Interestingly enough, before I even got past the door and the sock yarns, I heard some one call Mr Kiwi's name and say hello to us. It was Romy who had hosted the WWKIP get together next to the Berkeley Rose Garden last year. I can't believe it had been a year since we saw her and of all places, we run into each other at a yarn store that I almost didn't go to. This shop had two very large rooms filled with yarns. They had a huge variety of just about everything; lots of silks, novelties, sock yarns, and wools. It was an incredible store, and when I asked one of the staff some questions, they were quick to help. I was impressed, but didn't buy anything since I was waiting to see what the next yarn shop had to offer.

Very near by was Noe Knit. While it was not nearly as large a shop, it was very nice. After touching almost every since skein in the place, I ended up buying a few. Four were Debbie Bliss Rialto (two in admiral blue and two in blue) and one skein of Regal Silk by Art Yarns in color 123 (descriptive, huh?)

The Debbie Bliss is so soft! I bought two skeins for myself, and thought a certain pal of mine would appreciate the other two. I am keeping the "blue" ones, and they have a future as a pair of fingerless mitts. Also, although I can't keep from touching silk, it is also going to go to my pal. I hope she doesn't see this before it gets to her. It's some awesome stuff, and I hope she can knit a cool scarf with it. I'll have to touch it a few more times before sending it off.

And since it is picture time, I started these socks last Sunday.

These are craptastic pictures, which is odd since I used the same camera settings as the other pictures and they were taken moments appart. The yarn is Tofutsies, and it is the warm colors. I think the oranges and pinks are making the pictures look kinda bright. These socks are going to be a gift for another friend. Who doesn't know it yet. Ha ha. It's also hard to tell, but at this point, I am in the middle of making the heel gussett, so they are near half way finished. I'm really enjoying this pair, and I can see progress after I knit for an hour!! ..Unlike the lace that became huge and it was hard to see how much I done in one sitting. Speaking of which, those pictures will be up before too long. The shawl needs some blocking before pictures can be taken.

Twin Ribs Complete!

Saturday was a very relaxing dayafter a very long week. I spent the majority of the day knitting my socks, the toes of which can be seen 3 posts ago (I need to update more regularly). I hadn't been knitting all week due to professional and personal stresses, and unfortunately, knitting couldn't be my cure. I turned the heels in the morning, and had both heels completed by noon. Mr A kept saying "Look! You can be done today!!" I told him that I was far from finished and expected that I'd be done next weekend, or depending on how much I dedicated, sometime this week. I guess at that time, I wasn't expecting to be able to just sit and knit all day. I ended up finishing them Sunday evening. I only used 50g total out of the ~100g of ChaCha that my SP sent me. I was so excited that they were completed, that I wore them all day yesterday before I had a chance to get in any pictures. I managed to get Mr A to help take pictures of my feet since I did not want purely arial views. Out comes the tripod (and Mr A's concentrating face which includes some lip pouting... hard to be still when laughing at the lip) and many pictures later I get the perfect one.

Hooray for new socks! They were made two at once on Addi Turbo US1, magic loop style, toe up. :o)

Socks!

On Sunday morning I finished Mr A's socks. I made them with short cuffs because I basically knew they weren't going to end up fitting Mr A after all. Of course I had him try them on one last time, and yeah. I just made myself a new pair of socks. On the plus side, my feet are small enough that only half of the skein of Trekking was used, so I still have enough to at least make a pair of short cuffed socks for Mr A. This time, I will have patience and turn the heels when I know they will fit him. I haven't taken recent pictures, but this is a picture of what they looked like only a few rows before finishing.




Last night I decided that I would crack into the skein of ChaCha that my Secret Pal sent me near the beginning of SP9. I spun off two small balls and cast on with the brand new Addi Turbos that I just got from my SP, and the magic loop is on its way! I have the toes done and will be starting the pattern soon. This yarn is very nice to work with already, and I can tell that the socks are going to be very comfy. I am also very happy that magic loop is so easy. I think starting with one sock one circ, going to two socks on two circs and then to two socks on one circ helped. Each prior step helped with each transition. And now I think I'll work more on those socks. This is my progress thus far. :o)

The Monkey Feet

I have been on vacation since Dec 22, so needless to say I haven't had much chance to knit a whole bunch, nor have I had much chance to write about the little bit of knitting I have been doing. I've still been working on Mr A's socks and have been trying them on my feet as well as his with every couple of rows. I have come to realize that making socks for myself is easier than making socks for him. I tell him he has monkey feet since they are bigger than mine and his big toe is probably the size of my pinky finger (yes, I have small fingers, but that is besides the point). Last time I tried the socks on myself I would be about to the point of turning the heel (toe up). When I shove the socks on his big feet, I still seem to have anywhere between 3-4 inches left before thinking about heels. Sigh!!! ;) Since I have been knitting these both at the smae time (and since the cats had decided a few weeks ago that it would be fun to drag them out of my knitting bag and play with them) I have been keeping the two balls of yarn in their own little ziplock baggies. It has actully been working out very well this way. I can take the little baggies and socks with me places and not worry about getting tangles. Especially as I am using more and more of the yarn and the balls are becoming looser and looser, I don't get so many tangles since it is all confined.
Before I left home, one of my friends was vrey kind to give me a gift certificate to Flying Fingers. In April of this year, I had bought a few balls of Karabella Breeze in Camel and of course didn't get quite enough for me to make anything with. So I held onto the yarn while I figured something out. With this gift certificate, I bought two additional balls of the yarn. I figured I would get two different dye lots and hoped that the colors weren't too far off. Lucky me, I ended up getting the same dye lot I had with the other balls. Much to my amazament. Maybe Karabella Breeze doesn't have many dye lots? I don't know how it works, I just know that I ended up very happy.
For Christmas, Mr A bought me the KnitPicks interchangable needle set. He bought me just the starter set, with no extra cords, tips, or circular needles. The cords are so cool! When I open them up, they actually stay straight and don't re-curl on themselves. I am really excited to try them, but I only have sock yarn with me and the tips only go down to US4, so I will just have to wait until I get home to start fidgeting with how they actually do while knitting things.
That is about all that has been going on knitting wise out here. I wanted to check out a knitting store in Palm Beach County, but I haven't even had time to stop in one. I've been too busy meeting up with all of my old friends who still live here. And needless to say, I haven't been dancing while out here. I haven't been stretching really, either and that is something I should be doing. Oh well.
Happy New Year, all!

Mr A's Socks

Just after finishing the Boise shawl, I had begun wokring on socks for Mr A out of some nice orange blends of Trekking sock yarn. I had maybe 2 inches of pattern done when I set them aside in favor of working on the two Christmas gifts (which are now completed). Last week some time, I came home and found an orange trail leading from my living room to my bedroom where a large bundle of yarn had ended up; wouldn't you believe it was the cats' favorite sitting spot. Hmm I wonder how it got there. They had done this a second time to another ball of yarn I had and was measuring for a future project. Sheesh! I hadn't knit anything since finishing the Daigonal Lace scarf on Thursday. I decided that tonight while I have some time and was not rushing to complete something travel related, that I would begin unraveling the mess the cats made. It took about an hour, but the yarn is unraveled and in knitable condition. I might need little containers to keep my yarn in while I knit so that cats can't run off with it so easily.
I did get a chance to knit a few rows as celebratory reward for fixing my problem, and it was very interesting to be using US1 needles instead of the US8 that I was using for both of the scarves. But I am very happy to be able to knit these socks again. Woo hoo! These will definitely be going on the plane with me to work on.

Socks!

I have broken my monogomy on Saturday (for a moment, it's only really going to be a short affair, I swear!) and cast on socks. I decided that I wanted instant gratification.. as instant as it can be when knitting, that is, and didn't want to have the potential for second sock syndrome, so I decided to try knitting two socks at once on two circular needles. It took a couple of tries to slip the socks on the needles facing the right directions, but I got it! I have them facing the same way, and knit one whole round with pattern in it for both socks. Right now I get a little lost when knitting them, because both socks look *exactly* the same and the neeldes are exactly the same, so I initially couldn't tell if I was knitting the same sock over and over or if I was actually switching socks. I put a teeny piece of orange tape on both ends of one of the needles so that I could have some sort of visual cue.
Success! I am very proud of my new ability, and Mr. A will not have mateless socks when I am finished. Now that I have completed the first pattern row (again, just to make sure that it was actually working) I am leaving it alone until I finish the shawl, which is going awesomely!

My name is Kiwi... and I have a problem...

Tonight I walked into MFA with a completed felted frog bag (that I am testing out to make sure it works before sending it out... we don't want it falling apart while I am not available to fix it!!) ;o) as well as the desire to start my first pair of socks. I wanted to go all out with this pair; knit two at once on the magic loop! I can start big! I've never knit socks before, but who cares?! I have my book on knitting socks and my 2 print outs on how to do the magic loop. I didn't quite get off to such a booming start as I had hoped. With Warren's help, I started slightly slower by getting myself 2 US1 Addi Turbo needles so that I could knit one sock on two needles. Ehh. Two socks on one needle, one sock on two needles.. who's counting? Warren showed me an excellent cast on using a crochet hook (which also reminded me how long it has been since I have crocheted anything) and once I got the hang of using such small needles, things went very well.

Socks are addictive. I haven't even finished my first TOE and I know *why* socks are addictive. They flow so nicely, everything moves smoothly, it is truely relaxing. And with my half finished toe at 9pm I decided it would be more than appropriate to join the sockanon club. Because it may be a little early to tell, but I think I am going to be addicted. Socks are going to become my default projects. I can see it now. Once I get my first pair done, I am going to move onto the magic loop (I'm on a mission with this thing.. there's no stopping me) and just pump these critters out as quickly as my little fingers can get them. The most recent knitty was dedicated to socks and I can't wait to try them. No sock will be left unknit. Guess what everyone I know is getting for Christmas this year. So yes, I think joining sockanon was a good idea. Plus, I'll be able to get more tips from Warren on how to do special sock-knitting techniques. (he couldn't show me te toe up cast on he was working on at the time since it is scheduled to be shown at the next meeting and a riot would have ensued by at least two of the members had I learned said CO early and as a non-member, no less) But I am very excited!

I also got a chance to have a turn at "looky what I did!" with the frog bag. Everyone watched as it was a large green pile of stockinette and now it came back as a teeny, put together, felted bag. :o) The only problem I have discovered during my test drive is that the flap doesn't stay down. ::sighs dreamily:: If only I could find a button in the shape of a bug so that it wouldn't look odd coming out of frog's tongue. :gasp:: What's this? Warren has buttons? In the shapes of LADY BUGS?! I bought the purple and green one, and before too long it will forever be perched precariously on the tip of the frog's tongue. Hooray for knitting.

Oh, and it is a sad day in the knitting community. The authors of "You Knit What??" have decided to hang it up. The comments and hilarity in regards to the never ending fug that people seem to be drawn to create and knit will never be the same without this site. Here's to hoping someone takes it over and continues making fun of the fun fur, unidentifiable creations, and other odd knittings.