The Eternal Question.

Why is it so darn satisfying to stick pins in a Princess's face?

I think I enjoyed it just a little too much. I might feel a bit guilty pinning things to Spiderman, but when the time comes to block some massive lace I think I'll get over it :)

I finally got off my duff and soaked and blocked the long edge border of the Lacy Hug Me Tight. Barring unforeseen circumstances or blocking tragedies, I'm going to be sewing this little lady up tomorrow afternoon and ticking off another finished object for 2009. Yee Haw!

39 Inches of Funk.

In the seemingly never ending quest to complete the lace border for the Lacy Hug Me Tight I spent a good portion of the weekend picking it up, knitting a few repeats, and setting it back down again. I had a hardcore case of the "dear Lord, please let me finish one of these knitting projects!-any knitting project will do!" itis, which also led me to knitting miles of Over the Forest socks when I wasn't slogging away on the 'ole huggy.

Basically all that this back and forth got me was 2 projects that are very nearly at the end, but with no actual crossing of the finish line. If I had stuck with one I would have surely been done.

Good news on the massive lace edging knitting was that upon the last measurement, I finally got beyond the Bermuda knitting triangle of 32" and I am now the proud owner of 39" instead ( of unstretched/unblocked length...) Bad news is that its starting to look a little dicey because I am almost out of my last ball of yarn. Fingers crossed that they still have a hank of the correct dye lot squirreled away somewhere.

I continue to remain on my best behaviour as the Webs anniversary sale continues...I haven't made any new stash building purchases, even though I am mad with wanting the Cascade Ecowool to make Brooklyn Tweed's Hemlock Ring blanket. Yep. I'm on a yarn diet. I will only buy what I need to complete projects that are currently on the needles and no more.

I keep telling myself that I need to do major stash busting instead, and I'm sure that I have enough stashed fiber that I could spin for it instead of buying yarn anyway. What a fun project to spin! I'll keep you posted if and when this one gets started. It probably won't gain momentum till after I get back from Peru. I should be good and hold off on the knitting on it till I make a dent in the christmas knitting (Since it is purely a "yay pretty!" project for Boygenius and myself) but spinning up the yarn and knowing that its there for the knitting will be nifty.

Or... (and this is one masterful stroke of rationalization) I could totally cheat and make it a Christmas present for Boygenius...then it would be Christmas knitting.

Oh, I like it! If only I used my powers for good instead of evil.

So I like Fungus. Got a Problem With That?

Boygenius and I just got back from our kind of random sometimes nightly walk, which happens if the weather smiles upon us, and while we were walking we happened upon these happy little mushrooms growing out of a tree. They are so sweet, like something out of a fairytale.


Is it weird that seeing them makes me want to knit a gaggle of lawn gnomes? OK...Don't answer that. I know its weird :) But it begs the answering of the larger, more important question...


What would you call a large grouping of gnomes?


I mean, there are schools of fish, a murder of crows, and a (fill in the blank) of lawn gnomes. Anybody venture a guess? I almost just want to end the post there...Not really a graceful way to segue from gnomes to the knitting, but here goes:

On to the actual knitting content!


After what seems like endless lace knitting, I am still about half way done with the long piece of edging that goes around the main body opening of this. It's like the song that never ends. I know I keep happily knitting repeats, and I should be making mad progress... but it always seems to measure 32". Its freaky twilight zone knitting at its best because although it never seems to grow, I still like knitting it. I'd say thats a first. Most of the time I would be cursing like only the daughter of a truck driver can.

Something clicked in my brain, and now lacy goodness makes all the sense in the world. Don't believe me? Just look at my newly lace stacked queue on Ravelry. If I actually get started on these projects I could literally be knitting lace for the rest of my natural born life.

Well, I'm off to get my geek on: I'll keep on keeping on with the lacy border and some Netflix episodes of Firefly on DVD.

And I'm guessing that when I measure the lace when I'm done tonight what do you wanna bet that its gonna be 32" :)

Slow and Steady Wins the Race (but only if you use lifelines)

Here it is...its photographic proof that I finished 12 full inches of lace trip for one of the armholes. It is truly the first time that a lace edging and I have done battle and I have not come away totally bruised and bloodied. Yeah, I had to frog this edging 3 different times before I stopped being cocky and started moving a lifeline to the end each time I finished a full repeat of the 12 row pattern. But I'm so happy with the way it turned out, and for folks who have never tackled lace, its a good little project. Yay! Pretty! Since I don't consider the tiny lace panel in the over the forest socks to be lace with a capitol "L", so for some reason, it just doesn't inspire the same kind of excitement in me....those babies have been seeing a tiny bit of progress, but I'll save that for another post.Now, I only have 7 inches left on the second sleeve edging before I start the marathon of lace knitting for the trim that circles the main body opening. I think that one is about 60 inches all told.

I've gotta get going...the lace is calling my name. (well, lace and some coffee. Boy, I love me some Sunday afternoons!)

Progress = not hulking out of the knitting.

Yesterday I managed to finish the ribbing and seam up the major body piece of the Lacy Hug Me Tight. I'm awfully glad that I put safety pins on the sides at the recommended measurements before I seamed the sides up, because otherwise I would have been hulking out of the arm holes with my massive guns. err...or maybe just cutting off the circulation to my tiny little wimpy guns, but whatever :) Same difference.

Now, its on to figuring out just how to make the lace pattern work and make sense to my wonky lefty style of knitting. I know I need to alter the stiches in some way, but I haven't figured it out just yet...I tried the first repeat three different times last night, and I kept ending up with an extra stitch so I'm obviously making a mistake (or twelve) somewhere. I'm sure I'll get it if I fiddle with it enough. Plus, if I don't get it exactly right, as long as it looks good I'm not going to sweat it. Pretty will win over perfect.

Boy howdy I'm glad its Friday! I'm totally ready for the weekend. I'm thinking the marathon of lace knitting will commence. I'll also pull out the old digital camera so I can post a few pics of the joys and horrors of me attempting to knit this trim. Whee!