Pre-Christmas Warm Up

Short little blog to let everyone know that the knitting continues. My new favorite pattern, the Better, Better Bucket Hat, made and packaged up to mail to Erin Carmody. I hope she likes it. Check the button out, PERFECT match. On to the next one for Sarah.


I've got 8 sweaters ready to send to Kristin/ISU. And I've got a pretty good start on *)*'s @#$%&%$. You'll have to wait until after Christmas for those photos. Pray to all the Christmas angels in heaven that I don't run out of yarn. . . I'm off to knit.

I Don't Want Yarn for My Birthday

First, I've completed all of the teacher gifts for Christmas, the BYOB (check ravelry or knitty), and 2 hats from the Shall I Knit You a Hat book. All turned out great - even though my first plan was to make three BYOBs. WAY too much seed stitch. The hat/book idea came from my knitting mentor, Susan B. Anderson. I made them complete with fleece for a nice, warm hat (even though they probably won't be worn outside). The yarn that I chose was even like the color of the hat in the book. Lucky me, well stocked yarn closet comes in handy again. The photos - aren't Cece and Will cute? I practically had to beat Will to get a decent picture, he's constantly goofing around. Come on, knitting photos are serious business.


Remember the Better Bucket Hat from the last post? We'll this weekend, it was completely frogged and re-knit into the Better,Better Bucket Hat and I LOVE it. I seriously ranks up there with one of the best FOs. The match of yarn to pattern was perfect, again that yummy Malabrigo. It's like knitting with butter. I went with the Better, Better Bucket because the brim needed to be wider and the pattern was perfect. The button that I got from the Dollar Tree was, yes, only $1, and again it's perfect. Mom said that she liked my hat after seeing my post - wait until she sees the BB and feels that yarn. The hat is hers - for her 65th birthday. I can't wait to give it to her.

One more photo for a little mood lighting - I could have used some cropping/editing of the photo - see the flowered chair in the background, oops.

I've got an 'order' for 55 ISU sweaters - holy knitting Batman that's a lot of sweaters. I've got 3 more dish clothes to make for a total of 15. I've got 2 sweaters on my mind (yarn secured), and the Plum Blossom mittens.
Here's some great news, I'm teaching Trisha at work to knit. I hope she enjoys it even 10% as much as I do - we'll never be at a loss for things to talk about. Go Trisha - knit that dish cloth, learn that knit stitch!
Last but not least it was Will's 6th birthday last week. Here's a true story. He woke up from a nightmare crying and came into my room on the night before his birthday. When I asked him what was wrong he said, "I don't want yarn for my birthday". No kidding, a yarn nightmare. I assured him that I wouldn't give him yarn for his birthday and he fell back to sleep. Me? I cracked up, couldn't wait to share the story with my sister Biddy, and fellow knitters. Here's Will and our signature sign (a tradition from Jane).

Other, Small FOs

Here's a few pics of the projects that I finished over the weekend - a lot of soccer equals a lot of knitting.
A Better Bucket hat, not quite finished, still needs a button, or a band, or something.
These are ISU Christmas ornaments/gift tags - whatever - I'm going to 'pitch' them to Kristin and try to sell them to ISU. I'll make them with engineering monograms like the little sweaters.


I've started a BYOB (check Ravelry) for Evan's teacher. My mission is to make 3 to that I can use them for Christmas presents for all the teachers. That's my plan. I'm using up some Cotton Ease, 10 skeins to be exact, all in St. James' colors.

Clara Dress

Here's the story behind the Clara Dress. I saw this little dress (in the Soak ad) as I was leafing through a knitting magazine at work. That is to say my old job - - certainly not this new gig. ANYWAY, one of the nurses saw it and asked who I was going to make it for, my reply was that I didn't really have anyone in mind (as is true for a lot of the baby knitting that I do) she said she'd buy the pattern/yarn and I could make it for her new granddaughter. So I was suitably hooked up. She ordered it, delivered it to me and presto. The Clara Dress was born. It was challenging, required much frogging, and much concentration, it wasn't TV knitting. It turned out great, those of you who knit, may notice a few small boo-boos near the bottom center. I'm considering making it again in a baby yellow with cotton yarn so that it looks more like the Soak ad itself. Enough. Photos.
And a close up - check out that gift tag/washing instructions, cute huh? I snagged it from a fellow raveler. This photo shows the true color, a nice celery?
AND I've completed all the ISU sweaters. AND I'm working on dishclothes and the "Better Bucket Hat" with my new-favorite yarn, Malabrigo. YUM.

The End of Summer

The end of summer is near. Things are about to change in the Lounsberry house. I've taken a full time position at the hospital. Meet your new surgery scheduler. I'll be working 10am-6:30pm M-F. Everyone will be in school all day and then go to the after-school care until Dave picks them up at 5pm. I'm excited to do something new and to have evenings and weekends off.

Soccer is going full steam ahead. Evan is playing on 2 teams. Cece and Will each play and Dave is the coach of Cece's team. We're going to be busy and I'm going to knit a lot. The knitting keeps me from being a complete freak during the soccer games - screaming and yelling needs to be kept to a minimum and knitting helps.

Okay, here's what I've completed since the last post. A February Baby Sweater by Elizabeth Zimmerman. You might remember my previous post about how much trouble I was having. Well, it's done and damn cute too! I made a pair of Saartje's Booties to match. They're cute too. Hopefully, the sweater will fit a baby (yes, again, I knit with not recipient in mind) at the same time the booties will. Judging only with my mother experience, the sweater seems small and the booties big. Here comes my mantra. . . "Oh, Well."




I also finished Cece's room. It was the one thing, other than knitting, that I wanted to accomplish before school started again in the fall. Check these photos out. The handles on the dresser have since been repainted a chocolate brown - it's all complete now. The circles are so cool - they're static decals from Lowe's, 5 for $10. Quite the eye catching detail.





The ISU sweater count is a a mere 2 1/2. I've got to get going on those. That's what I'm going to concentrate on. Never mind all the other things I want to make...

Let's get down to some serious bloggin'

This blog had to be interrupted as Will just got stung by a bee TWICE! . . .




I've just come off of working 10 days in a row - 24hrs this past weekend alone. It may not seem like much for those of you that work 5 days/week, but for this part-timer it's a lot. Just prior to this stretch I was lucky enough to squeeze two vacations in. The first to California (thank you Jane & Pat), and then a family trip to the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore.

I've managed to get a little knitting done and a lot of yarn buying in. I've won a contest or two, purchased a few books, and signed up for a knitting class at the LYS. I've completed a few projects and started a few too. I've also got a project in the 'basket' that needs to be started and I haven't touched it! Yes, that would be the ISU sweaters (24?). Anyway, you get the picture.

Here's some more exciting news to those of you that knit. My brother made me a pair of sock blockers. He's amazing, he made them the very day that he got the pattern, AND he made 2 pair. Well, you know that gets a girl's mind spinnin', we've got to sell'em I told him, as I dropped an overstuffed envelope full of patterns in the mailbox. Can't wait to see what he comes up with. He's every bit as talented with a saw as I am with a pair of DPNs. In return I've got a pair of socks in mind for him.

So on with the photos...

This is a captain's hat made with Kool Wool from the stash. It was easy and turned out cute - it's also up for grabs, not spoken for yet.

These socks were part of the car knitting on the way to the Black Hills. They were made with a generic pattern and a 3x1 ribbing. They're heading to Grimes, after they get photogaphed in those new blockers that is.

This was made for my mom. A July 4th gift? Fashioned from self-striping kitchen cotton.

This is the before photo of the Christmas stockings that I made for Claire and Joe. And then the after . . .

This was the Snow Boarder hat for Sarah's birthday - it was a little big and this picture makes it look a little like Pippi Longstocking's hair. The photo doesn't do it justice. At least it will be warm. It's made from Kool Wool (again), and also from the stash closet (which is becoming seriously over-stuffed).

Some of you may recognize this - as the February Sweater from Elizabeth Zimmerman. I'm back at it. AGAIN. It's been only slightly less of a pain in the butt. I started it while working overnight. I had to do plenty of frogging. I can't for the life of me figure out why this pattern pushes my knitting abilities so. I think it's in the way the pattern, 'pithy' as it my seem, is written. I'm going to finish this little one and show the end product soon. It seems to be quite small - all this trouble for a tiny baby sweater with no recipient in mind. Oh, for the love of the craft.

Here's the LA group. What a great trip. There are far too many highlights to mention, but let me just say . . . a short walk to target, Amy's already at the car, 2215 AAAAAlllma, beautiful wedding, great party, and THANK YOU.

one for for susan b anderson

cool huh?

again

i'm so enthralled with this. you can input a data source, say amyknit40, the blogsite and the wordle will create it's own group of words based on how many times each word is used in the text provided.

SOOO FREAKIN' COOL.

VACATION

this is the coolest thing ever check it out at wordle.net

it took me only about 6hrs to figure out how to get it to the blogsite - finally got it

more later

Misc FOs

Here's a quickie - a bunch of photos of finished objects.
This is Daisy, a cotton ease sweater - I love it. It was fast and turned out very cute. I made it for a nurse at work to give to her new granddaughter.

(sorry for the blur in the photo - must have had a smeared lens)
These are ballband dishcloths - made for another co-worker. Her kitchen is red, white and blue. They constitute mindless knitting and they turned out nicely.


Here's Cece's new anklets - they were made during the first 3 days of swimming lessons. They're cute but they don't stretch much.


Next up - a book that I won on a fellow knitters blog. I won by guessing the amount of change in a dish - I guessed $54.20. I'm reading it now. Sorry, too lazy to go back and rotate the photo - I'm sure you get the picture. I think Biddy and I met this author in MPLS at the Knit-Out.


I've been on quite a yarn buying spree lately - I can't even begin to count how much cotton ease I've bought. (Something like 42 skeins - wow - when you put a number to it . . .) ANYWAY, I bought some and it arrived vacuum sealed. Here it is without air.


And with air.



This is the beginning of a Christmas stocking. It's only one of four skeins to knit to complete it. I'm done with it now and have yet to felt it. I've started on the other one, I'm about 1/2 way done with it. I'll felt them at the same time and show photos on the next blog.



I'm ending with my favorite photo (supplied by another baseball parent) of Evan. His Farm 8 team, the Black Sox are headed into the tournament as the number one seed - for the second year in a row I might add. He's quite the utility player, even got to pitch to 3 batters, struck 2 out and threw a home run ball. Not bad. Notice that crazy hair - it's since been cut (thank you Pauly).

Where are you comin' from...

Here it is, Will's Spiderman blanket. It was a challenging knit and I'm glad that I stuck it out (numerous emails to the designer, corrections to the pattern, ordering more yarn, using multiple circulars) and completed it. It's a nice blanket, even if it is all bunched up under Will's bed.

The photo is on our mauve carpet so the colors are off just a bit. It was made from cotton ease and the black is something else from my stash (purchased in NYC=Gotham City). I really thought that this project would help deplete the stash - nope I have more now than ever with 21 new skeins of CE on the way! God help me.

Okay, I finished the dishcloths too! Here's a photo - bad one. Cece helped in the picture taking. They turned out nicely too. I just got some self-stripping cotton for a few more.

There are 27 of those babies - each one different (for the most part - I got kind of lazy at the end).

I've completed the little Daisy sweater - working on the buttons now. It's soooo cute! I've also completed 4 of the 25 ISU sweaters and I've picked Kristin's pumpkin sweater back up and I'm hoping to have it done so that I can give it to her this Friday. We're making a trip to Adel, IA for some sort of fiber fest. Spinners, dyers, and SELLERS of indie yarn. Lord help Biddy.
I almost forgot to post a photo of Erin's Math Hat. If you can't tell it has the Pi symbol and it's never repeating 3.141517 (or something like that). It's red with pink numbers but the pink is very light and looks like white. Again, I give it the knitter's "Oh well". Hope she likes it anyway. I actually made it twice. I finished the entire hat, then took off the ribbing, redid it, took off the top and redid it. I like it much better on the second go-round. I'm going to mail it tomorrow.

Evan is the model. He was thrilled.

A Bitter Pill

These photos are of my most recent project. It's (or was going to be) Elizabeth Zimmerman's February Sweater. I'm making it for Ann Spellman's new baby. I've already frogged it twice - just the yoke. NOW, I've really jacked it up. I had to call Biddy to have her regurgitate some of the same advice I constantly spew about how you MUST rip out and redo so that when you're done you're not focused on the mistakes that are left, but on the finished project at hand. Okay, it was a bitter pill to take, but swallowing hard, I took it out. It will be worth it. It will be worth it - my new mantra.

At Biddy's suggestion, I'm going to concentrate on something else - at least in a physical sense - and work on the never ending spiderman blanket or some newly requested ISU sweaters. Either one will be worked on with the EZFS on my mind.

As far as FOs go, here's my mint-chip Jaywalker socks. I love them.



p.s. the spiderman blanket is huge - it takes 20 minutes to do one round. Should have those last 15 rounds done sometime in 2010.

I Must Digress

I just finished RUNNING for 31 min. on the treadmill. I had some random thoughts while running today, which, by the way is only the second time I've ever ran that long. I'm used to walking for up to an hour but running is somehow mentally different. Okay, so my thoughts . . .
running for runners (which i will probably never categorize myself as) is like knitting to knitters. it's mentally and physically taxing. while I was running i thought how exciting it is to finish at a particular time or distance. It's fun to talk about it to other people who run. I wanted to get off that treadmill and call someone. I want to do the same thing when I acquire new yarn/patterns/technique. my sisters (each for different reasons are the ones i want to call). this lead my to another random thought, cece has no sisters - who will she call?
i'm going to keep running on that treadmill thanks to the howards and i'm going to keep having random thoughts. i actually thought about running outside and it makes me a little nervous. that's my next hurdle, like cables, intarsia, or 2-handed knitting, you must learn something with every project.
since January? but surely since February i've learned that i can move more and eat less, i can find the time to both walk/run and knit. sarah and johanna thanks for the encouragement, biddy thanks for being able to share knitting (my FAVORITE OBSESSION) with me. i'm rambling and tearing up, maybe that's what those endorphins do to ya'.
but i digress...

Thanks To The Wannings

Just a short note. Wanted to give a great big, Lounsberry, shout out to all of the Wannings that visited. I know it's hard to travel such a long distance and we're sure glad they did!
a few pics...more later to include knitting for the Wannings.
Thanks for coming! We love you and miss you already.

March Madness

All I have to say about the NCAA tournament is GO DRAKE! My dad used to follow Drake back in the day, and who doesn't remember Dolph Polliam from 1-2-3! ... that's how elementary it's 'gonna be...
I've finished a few things lately. The weather is getting better and this might be my last push before the knitting mojo is gone.

These are a nice cotton-y socks for Kristin - I hope they fit. They seem a little small,as I suppose they should be, for my size 10ish foot. They're super soft and made from Comfort - a yarn I now love. They're a basic, top down, 3x1 ribbed sock with nothing fancy. That toe up sock was too much for me. I did use a size 3, 11" circular needle - it was fantastic.
Okay, project number 2 is a baby Giacomo hat for Sarah's friend's brother's baby boy (poor grammar, I'm sure). It was knit up in one night using some left over Falk yarn and a few odd skeins from KnitPicks, Wool of the Andes. It's cute and was simple. I may try a larger version and some baby, thumb-less mittens to match.

Next up a photo of the Inga hat that I finished. I love the colors the pattern and the process (which I'm much better at now having watched a tut on knitting with 2 hands).

Anyway, the only thing I don't like is the fact that the hat is too long, too tall. Next time I'm going to take a few rounds off the bottom for a shorter, better fitting hat. I loved the braid and used it on the very next hat, the Center Square hat from Knitty Winter 2006.

It was a joy, made with double strands of a worsted weight yarn, nothing note worthy. I made it while the rest of the family watched an incredibly long, Pirates of the Caribbean. It's for Cece but unfortunately, it too is a little small. Next time I must remember to add some extra room for that ponytail! Here it is, I incorporated the braid from the Inga hat. It was even shorter before I picked up the cast on stitches and made a short ribbing. I think it needs a pom-pom/pon? but Cece says no.
Next up? More ISU sweaters, but with a different top-down pattern that must be perfected. After that, (in no particular order) Kristin's Pumpkin Sweater,White Witch Mittens, felted clogs/slippers,more hats, those unpaired socks x 2, Christmas stockings x 2, and the Must Have Cardigan. Wow that seems like a tall order - good thing I love to knit.
Thanks for taking the time to check this blog out.
Best
Amy
p.s. after adding that photo of Dolph, I thought, wow - how does Dolph Polliam end up on a mostly-knitting blog. 'Ya never know.