Half way through the night

Arabian nights, that is. This is one half of my Arabian Night stole. I stopped a little short of where the pattern ends because I'm trying to do a seamless graft in the middle. I stopped where the border and side column charts end. I might need to do 2-4 more rows to make the center panel look better, but I'll determine that later. That's why the yarn is still attached. I also stopped because look at the little ball of yarn that's left. That's from the second ball out of 4. My husband brought this yarn back from China. I have no idea what the yardage is on each ball, but I had guessed it to be in area of 600-800 yards. Now, I'm leaning more towards the 600 yards after finishing this half of the stole.

I've started the second half already. I'm into the long non-beaded section. I got ahead of myself and didn't pre-string enough beads for the second half. Argh! I'll just have to cut the yarn to add more. This stole is going to be another huge one. When I pinned it out for the picture, it measured 31 inches wide and 42 inches long. That wasn't even stretching it out completely.

This is what the beaded center panel looks like. I like the row of beads on the border and how the twisted stitches make a neat line on either side of the bead.

All of my other projects have been neglected because of this stole. I want to finish it and wear it! Posey is still around and waiting for attention. So is the chick/egg toy. I have some sewing projects that I want to do after these knits. I know that I've been saying that for a while now, but it's time to make summer dresses for E. I have the patterns and fabric and I just need to find the time.

Speaking of E, look at her new smile:


Cute!!! She's lost another tooth. The second tooth was very loose after she lost the first one. She was actually excited about going to bed because the tooth fairy was coming. I told her that the tooth fairy might be on vacation. She gave me the funniest look. She knows that the tooth fairy is me, but she still talks about her like she's real. The tooth fairy did visit last night and E was happy with the goodies that she brought--stickers and a new toothbrush. The tooth fairy was a bit cranky because she had gone to bed and then remembered that she needed to visit E. I had to drag the tooth fairy out of bed, gather the goodies, and then sneak into E's room.

In other news, see that song down there? That's on the latest cd that I've bought and I love that song. I'm surrounded by princess talk around here and it's so funny to hear a song like that. To me, it's about not wanting a fairytale because they're not real and not perfect anyways. In other words, being realistic.

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Now playing: Fairytale - Sara Bareilles
via FoxyTunes

Yeah, I'm still here...

Yummmmm. This is what we made for dinner on Monday. This pizza is so easy to make and so yummy. We fancied it up by adding some spinach. I don't think E or D minded the added green to their pizza either. Now, if we could only find a whole wheat crust recipe that we like. The crust on this one is out of a package. After making the crust, you just layer the mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, spinach, grilled chicken, Parmesan cheese, and oregano.

I've made some knitting progress. I'm slowly working on my Arabian Nights stole. I'm nearing the center of the stole. I plan on tweaking the pattern in the center. The center is supposed to have three vertical lines of beads. I don't want those there and I'm going to try grafting it to be as seamless as possible. I'll have to find a good place for this half of the stole to end before I setting it aside. I think that I'll run a lifeline and keep this side on some needles and still attached to the ball of yarn. That's just in case I have to rip, tink, add more rows, or do whatever to get the center to look how I want it. I'll take some pictures when this half is done.

I finished the mittens from Selbuvotter for E. Steaming really does wonders for evening out funky stranded work. ;-) These mittens were so lumpy before I steamed them that I hid them away and didn't want to look at them. After steaming, they're acceptable to me. I still need to do more practice with my stranding tension. You can really see my tension issues on the backs of the mittens. I tried doing one mitten on two circular needles and one mitten with dpns. After the steaming, the mitten done on two circulars looks better than the dpn mitten. I don't like small circumference stranded work. The thumbs on both mittens look bad. :-(

Details:
Pattern: NHM #3 from Selbuvotter
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill solid in Pink and Knit Picks Bare
Needle: size 2 (3mm) Knit Picks circular and dpns
Start: March 4, 2008
Finish: March 18, 2008

I have a few other projects on the side too. I haven't gotten much further with the chicken/egg toy from Craft magazine. My hands and acrylic just don't get along, but I do like how acrylic looks for toys. It was supposed to be done for Easter, but I don't think I'll get two done before this weekend. Oh well. I'll just give them whenever they're done.

Can you figure out what this is? If you said a sock, then you must have looked at the new spring Knitty. This is going to be the Posey sock designed by Lisa Kay. I just had to try it for the cool construction. Those little squares are tiny and a bit awkward at first, but they fly by once you get the motions down. I'm making the sock one row shorter because I can't count. ;-) Really, I was eager to see where the sock was going, so I shortened it. Lisa was so nice and linked to my picot edge tutorial in her pattern. It will be a while before I get there, but I think that I'll have to use my own tutorial. It's been a while since I've done a picot edge that I've forgotten how to do it. I still have one more row of squares to do before I start sewing the leg together and make it look more like a sock.

In other news around here, our wonderful postman is leaving our route. :-( He was so nice and he's been here since we've moved to this house. The kids loved it when he delivered a package to the house because he would always talk with them for a bit.

Snow, teeth, and more knitting

Is this what March looks like? Looking through my old digital pictures, I can see that we usually get a dusting of snow. This probably isn't our last snow either. Almost every year, we get a little bit of snow after the azaleas have bloomed. We got a bit of the snow storm that came through yesterday. We got around 5 inches of snow and thankfully not the 20 inches that Ohio received. The birds love coming to the bird feeder when it's snowing. Yesterday, we had birds all over our trumpet vines and the ground underneath the feeder. I spent a lot of time watching them. These pictures were taken through our kitchen window.

We had something exciting happen last weekend. E lost another tooth. She has a cute gap toothed smile now. She was very brave. The tooth has been very loose for a few days and she finally let Dwight give it a few tugs. She said that it didn't hurt that much and no tears were shed. I think she was more focused on what the tooth fairy was going bring. She does know that the tooth fairy is me, but I play along and pretend that the tooth fairy is someone else. She gives me the funniest look when I talk about the tooth fairy. It's similar to the "come-on Mom, you're not fooling me" look.

The tooth right next to it is ready to come out too. She's working on it, but it will probably be at least another week. This picture was taken last Monday, when it reached 70 degrees. It's been a crazy spring weather week with temperatures that high and ending with snow.

In knitting, I'm slowly making progress on Arabian Nights. This picture was taken a few days ago when I was 70 rows into the second set of charts. This section goes faster than the first beaded section. As of Sunday afternoon, I've knit 120 rows out of 200. I wasn't sure if I liked the edging on the sides. It seemed so loose and floppy looking. After pinning it out, I've decided that I like it a lot. I like those large holes that it makes and the little loops with beads on them. Here are some closer shots of those sections.

I've started a few other projects too. I started the NHM #3 mittens from Selbuvotter for E. I'm knitting them out of a Cherry Tree Hill solid in pink and Knit Picks Bare. The mittens are done except for their thumbs. I'm not too happy with my stranding. I need more practice to stop the puckering. I think it might have something to do with switching between projects too. I'm also knitting the chick/egg toy from the Play! issue of Craft magazine. So far, I only have the chick body and half of the egg knitted. I want to make two of them for Easter.

Busy, busy, back to knitting...

Mingus completed and Arabian nights begins

Mingus was completed this weekend. What a fun knit! The second sock flew by compared to the first. This pattern is odd in that you're knitting part of two different rows on the charts for each round on the actual sock. It was confusing at first, but easy once I got into the rhythm.

I gave Fleece Artist another chance after having problems with their color saturation on two different pairs of socks. Those were both with SeaWool and with a darker color. Somoko is a great yarn. I like the addition of mohair and the subtle shine of the silk. This yarn feels quite durable. Dwight claims that it doesn't feel soft, but it felt soft to me and I was the one knitting with it. ;-)

Details:
Pattern: Mingus by Cookie A.
Yarn: Fleece Artist Somoko in Burgundy (used around 85gms)
Needles: size 1 (2.5mm) for the leg and size 1 (2.25mm) for the foot
Start: Feb. 26, 2008
Finish: March 2, 2008

I started my Moroccan Days/Arabian Nights shawl. I suppose mine is the Arabian Nights variation since I'm using darker colors. Something important was brought up on this shawl's ravelry board. Someone mentioned reinforcing the beaded fringe because it would be tragic to get that snagged on something. I never thought of that and I'm the type of person that would get it snagged. I plan on going back and reinforcing it with another strand of the same laceweight. The beads flow easily on the yarn and I think it will be no problem to weave in another yarn. Speaking of beads, I've been dragging them along and pushing the down the yarn with no ill effects to the yarn so far. This yarn is a pretty durable yarn for a laceweight.

This is another shot of the beaded fringe. I ended up twisting the stitches on both sides of each loop. The beads wanted to travel around and I had to stop that before it drove me nutty. That's why I like the crochet method of adding beads. The beads stay exactly where you put them.

I've finished the bottom border with the beaded diamonds. Now I'm knit up to row 4 of charts D, E, and F. I'm knitting this on a 32 inch circular needle, so you can see that this is going to be a wide shawl. Here's what it looks like so far.