Woo Hoo! We have a chick row!

I was worried, really worried. The chicks looked like yellowish, lopsided blobs that were NOT going to work out to be chicks, so I'm really relieved at this point.

Just for a refresher (and since it's going to be a while since I finish), here's a pic of what the dress will look like when done.




My other project, the contour rug, has three rows of green left before I add on the lace border. Even though I am in the June challenge, I just went ahead and bought two more skeins to get me past this and hopefully through the rest of the toilet portions of the project.



The last toilet parts to make are the oval cover for the lid, which has tufts, the cover for the lid of the tank portion, and a cover for the tank.



These are the pieces to make after I'm done with the toilet stuff.

June Destashing Challenge 2008

I didn't get very much accomplished for the May challenge. I actually went up in yardage instead of down, but I got some great yarn in the process (Sonny and Shear was having an economic stimulus sale).

Here are my new favorites.

This laceweight (Mama Llama Jaggerspun) is going to be for a shawl project. I'm afraid I'm going to need another 2 balls of it to make a Forest Path Stole. I may pick a project with smaller yardage.

I love this yarn. I love the way the color runs from the pinkish to another color that's almost cafe au lait. It is beautiful stuff. I wonder how it will look knitted up.





This is a skein of Shibui Knits sock yarn. It's so pretty and springy and cute. I love the way it stretches, and look forward to buying more sometime. They have an awesome Midnight Blue colorway and a few others I'm looking at.

I want to mix a row of multicolor Shibui with a row of coordinating solid color of Shibui to make a sock, with the hope that the solid would mute the wildness of the multicolor, and blend in at the same time. If I'd had more money when I'd placed the order, I would be trying this technique right now.

I also brought these two Cascade Arcadia yarns, in aqua and sprout:

I want to make the Triple Braided Diamond Turtleneck with these, if I can find enough yarn. It's pictured on the cover of a book called The Pleasures of Knitting ($20.40) by Ann McCauley. There are a lot of beautiful sweaters in there, but the cover sweater is the main one that caught my eye. This is one of the first sweater books I've looked through that gave me the Jones to knit a sweater. I think it will go a lot faster than the sock projects, and where it doesn't, I'll have the cables to keep me interested.

I found a copy of it at the library, which shocked me, because they almost never have the books I'm looking for. I'm going to buy it one of these days. It's a lovely book, full of inspiration.

And for even better news:

I have added progress bars to my page! Look at 'em! I found a link to how to make them by doing a search on Google, and I am so very pleased. Now I can list everything I'm working on, and everything I've finished. I'm going to figure out how to add pictures of the projects too, like I've seen on a few other blogs. Yayyy!!!

I'm seriously considering giving away the ball of Lily Sugar and Cream yarn. I don't mind the peachy color, but I really dislike knitting with the stuff. Every time I look at it in my stash, I'm underwhelmed. I should just find a good home for it on Ravelry and call it done.

Oh, one more thing. There's this site online that sells knitting bags for way less than I've been finding on other sites. I will get the link later, but I gotta tell you. I have been balking at paying upwards of $60 and $70 dollars for a tote. The one I have been using is not perfect, but it's not $60 bucks!

The link I found earlier has bags for $9.99 and up, which is way more my speed. There's a lady on Ravelry selling a $50 something dollar one she bought from Knitpicks for $29.95; I have to know what she'd charge in postage before I bought it. I'm even balking at that price, if you can believe it. I'm also not sure where I'm going to put it. It has bars on the outside to keep it standing upright. I don't know how unwieldy that would be.

I've joined the May 1,000-yard challenge on ravelry

I was all lackadaisical about it the first few weeks, but when it came time to add up the total yardage of my stash, I freaked out because there was so much yarn in there. I'm a slow knitter, and I got scared that I would never use it all up. So scared that I'm determined to destash 2,000 yards instead. I may not make it, but at least I will make a dent.

That said, the last two skeins of yarn I got in the mail are beautiful things. The first one was the laceweight by vieux rouet on etsy. She did this beautiful water-colored yarn that is mixed blues and green (no bright, bright colors). The second is a trade that I swapped for the reddish brown sock yarn in my stash (from Kindre d Spirits Yarn on etsy.)

The yarn swapped for is this gorgeous skein from Scout's Swag called violets or something. It's a floral-looking mix with pinkish/burgundys and greens and white blended together. I love it! I'm going to have to find a nice pattern for it.

Dude! The Eight(ieth) Time's a Charm!

I lost my ability to read pattern instructions when it came to doing the yarn over heel on the Twinkleberry sock pattern, so I had to search the internet for help.

I sweated a couple of bullets looking at the instructions that popped up, but fortunately for me, I came across this link:

The easiest way to do a short row heel

This woman has saved me untold hours of sock heel making misery. I have recommended her two or three times already.

Thanks, Kaityvr!

It took me about 3 tries to learn the method, and a few more to make smaller holes and learn to recognize where I need to start knitting and purling the next slipped stitch.

If you try it, do your best to keep the yarn on the end loops close to your needle when turning and starting the next row. Also, keep count of where you are on each row. One easy way to figure out where you lost your place is to use a piece of yarn as a lifeline before you start the heel. Then you can count the number of rows you have worked to figure out how many slipped stitches are supposed to be on each side of the heel.

These double lines showed where I picked up the bar at the end of the row, which clued me in that I needed to knit that stitch, and pick up the bar for the next one.



I have had to frog back several times to make a decent heel with this sock, and having a lifeline saved me untold amounts of trouble.

My first yarnover heel

It looks like the pieces of this heel are not going to meet up, and I'm going to have big holes where the ankles should be. I'm going to ravelry for help. If I'm not back by Wednesday, please donate my pitiful stash to some worthy institution...