Knit Night 2/5/09

Little knitting happened last night, but it was nice to have a homecooked meal. Even though I've been cooking for myself, Addie's shepherd's pie was lovely. I have done 13/70 rows of the chart on my hemlock blanket now, and as with most large things with me, it seems much more daunting halfway through than when I started. I just knit along, lalala, then think ,"Wow, self, well done, this is going swimmingly. What do you mean you're only 25% done? That's crazy kookoo bananas! This will take forever."

Dana says she's done with the band for her hat, but left it at home, and the baby booties... did not go as planned. She creatively cut the amount of knitting required in half, because the first bootie turned out for a giant monster baby. Addie, unfortunately is too busy with work, school, and homework to have any time to relax or knit. She spent all of her time off yesterday cleaning for us to come over. Her sister got a new puppy, I'm so jealous, it was soooooo cute.

WIPs and Knit Nights

Bleh. I'm having trouble working through the WIPs. There are only two, and they're both blankets. One is the Hemlock Ring Blanket, and the other is a one piece baby blanket in a snappy jacquard. Extra colorwork, no fuss - love that. But they're on the extremes of interesting. The baby blanket is mind-numbing, but now too big for bus-commute knitting. Hemlock is a serious brain exercise, and I barely made it through the first 37 rows when I was alone in a quiet apartment this weekend. I tried working a couple rows while the boys were over, and that failed miserably. I'm one stitch off, but hell if I know where.

I have stash matched up to queued items, but starting another project when I have two so far from being completed is a horrifying idea. I really do need more mittens, though as my Knit-a-Day calendar reminded me yesterday, if I start something warm now, it will probably be finished just in time for toasty spring weather.

On a different note (can't decide whether it's an upside or what) Knit nights with Dana and Adrienne have been going really well. I think they both hold themselves up to some kind of standard like "we should be able to knit like Emily" which is ridiculous. Haha! No one can knit like me! But seriously, they've only done two or three projects each, and are doing really well. It's going pretty quickly, and they can both knit, purl, decrease, cast on and bind off - more than some knitters learn in their whole lives! We've been frequenting the Knit1 yarn shop on Lincoln Ave, just north of Addison - the owner is open late both Wednesdays and Thursdays, and I just happen to be in love with the selection there. Fortunately, I haven't gone in with a shopping list, since I can never find what I want if I know what that is going in. Does that make sense? Can't have a mission. Never works.

We've started rotating apartments to hang out at each week, and I suppose we'll throw in the yarn shop whenever necessary. It was kind of nice to give them each some yarn from my stash. Love to get rid of that stuff. Just some Homespun and baby yarn, but helpful nonetheless. I'm trying to mature into a new era of quality yarns, and getting rid of anything from Hobby Lobby and Michael's, much as I love them.

Knit Night 1/29/09

Dana thoughtfully had us over for Knit Night last night, since no one needs to buy from our LYS. Addie didn't make it over until almost 8:30 because she was working and then, as usual, "stopping at home" became a 45 minute ordeal. Oh well - she's one of the busiest people I know, and I won't begrudge her any "home time." I brought some stash to give to each of them. Addie now has a great red and green (but not Christmas-y) 2x2 rib scarf going, as well as another 2x2 in pink baby yarn... for her dog. Why she thinks that her pit bull won't eat that scarf in about three seconds, I have no idea. She did manage to get a pretty cute picture of the other, bigger dog wearing her scarf, so I suppose the attraction lies there? Unknown.

Dana wanted to make baby booties in 24 hours. Since this is almost impossible for a beginner knitter, I had a hard enough time finding her a pattern for booties at her skill level. A free pattern, mind you, my library is too small for such a specific request (booties with no shaping? Don't hold your breath.) But I did find a crafty origami-like bootie that only required garter stitch squares be sewn together in a certain way. I gave here more Homespun, since she liked the dark blue-brown colorway that she received as a gift with her first needles. I am totally over Homespun, but see its appeal, and really like the simple bias-knit black blanket that I made with it. Dana finished a scarf for her mom for Valentine's day with the old Homespun just a couple days ago. The new skein was a green-grey-teal sort of colorway, and will become a similar scarf for her dad for Valentine's Day.

For dinner, Dana served us cheese ravioli with shrimp and caprese. I nommed on the mozzarella but not the tomato and balsamic. The ravioli were fantastic. Addie said her hours got cut at the shop, so she won't be working next Thursday and is going to take that opportunity to claim next week's Knit Night as well as dinner. I brought all of my magazines and books for everyone to look through, and as a confidence booster because they could make almost anything in there pretty soon. I think a cabled hat or scarf might be a good idea soon. Something added in.