My latest obsession is knitting podcasts. Who knew so many knitters were making podcasts?! So far I've spent most of my time listening to the Knitmore Girls and that is the best way for a knitter to get through a work day. Seriously if you haven't listened to them then you are in for a treat. They have several segments of which On the needles, Review and When knitting attacks are my favorites. They have so much knowledge to share and they are so charming that they keep me coming back for more.

You can look forward to more podcast reviews from me in the future. Happy listening!

And here is a little picture of my daughter enjoying our rare central Texas snow.

Relax while you knit

10 ways to relax while you knit:

I love knitting but when I started it wasn't very relaxing. Also I am a working mom of young children and as you probably know this brings plenty of challenges. I've been referred to a physical therapist twice in the past 3 years. Once to solve a frozen shoulder and another time to address neck tension so bad that it caused long-term headaches behind my eyes. Unfortunately my tense knitting was not helping matters; so I had to re-learn how to knit in a relaxed manner. Here are some of my techniques and I hope they help you.

1. Make sure you have everything you need within your reach (ex. pattern, scissors, yarn, waste yarn, errata, row counter, row markers, cell phone, baby monitor, etc)
2. Sit so that your head is supported; relaxing your neck muscles will immediately relax your shoulders
3. Sit so that your arms are supported and you can easily see your knitting with your head relaxed (I use pillows propped under my elbows.)
4. Relax your jaw muscles
5. Read through your pattern before you start knitting and look for potential gotchas. Highlight increases and decreases, repeats and circle the numbers for your size.
6. Pretend that you are holding something fragile alongside your needles. I like to pretend I'm holding a bird egg along with my needles; this helps to loosen my grip.
7. Stretch your neck, arm or hand muscles
8. Use the best tools/yarn you can afford for your project (Bamboo needles with a cotton yarn that has no stretch and doesn't move nicely across the needles will make your knitting a tense affair.)
9. Relax your eyes; if you are working stockinette or some other easy stitch let your vision get a little soft.
10. Don't knit when you're hungry or feeling rushed; if you have a few minutes and want to do something knitting related browse through a knitting magazine or read the next step of your pattern

Let me know what you do to stay relaxed while you knit. I'd love to hear your comments.

My Matagorda shawl

This is a very simple triangular shawl I knit from 3 balls of Noro Chirimen in a green colorway. The colors remind me of our summer trip to the beach so I named it after the beach-town my family lives in.
(This photo is of the wrong side of the shawl. I was excitedly taking pictures with my new camera and didn't notice that the shawl was backwards. I'll get a better picture up soon.)
I've never had a shawl before and I wasn't sure how often I would use it. I've worn it twice in two weeks.

Do you wear shawls?

Currently on the needles

Weekly unravelling

So what's unraveled here lately? Me for one. And my baby's new sock for another. First here's why I'm unraveled.

I knew that having a toddler and an infant would be tough. I knew this because I'd read a book and heard a few stories from other parents, that makes me an expert right? But wow, it did not adequately prepare me for this, one of the greatest challenges of my parenthood so far (I know, it's only been 2 1/2 years sigh). My infant is now 8 weeks old and most of it has been a blur. But one thing that stands out is how my sweet 2 and 1/2 year old turned into a bitter teenager in such a short time. It seems like nothing my husband and I do is right; she yells at us and tells us to "let me be" or "just go away". Where did she learn this language anyway? Her new nickname is the "obstructionist" because apparently her resolution for 2010 was to impede whatever it is that Chris and I are trying to do, walk through the hall, open the bathroom door, and it goes on and on.

So I've been thinking of how I could explain the juggling act to my girlfriends. And then life provided a good example for me. So I'm changing Violet's diaper on the changing table. And Olivia insists on getting into the room to stand on her stool and watch. As I'm cleaning up one of the poopiest diapers Vi has created in her new short life, I mean there was poop all the way to the poor girls chest with an impressive amount pooled up in her bellybutton, Liv has put her hands on every part of Vi that I'm trying to clean or dress. I can't pick up Vi to remove her poopy onesie without prying Liv's hands off of her. Then I've got to remove Liv's grip from Vi's arm just so I could put on her clean shirt. It's amazing that neither Liv nor I ended up splattered in poo. And the walls were still clean too! Now that's some juggling.

Now for the sock's unraveling. Like I mentioned in my previous post I'm adapting a pattern for an adult-sized sock to fit an infant. So I guessed at the number of stitches to cast on. I thought well if I cast on 60 for me surely Vi's foot couldn't require more than half of that! So I'm knitting happily along, and watching the Oscars (hello George!) when I get far enough with the foot portion to want to see the cute little sock on my chubby girl. I had tried the leg section on her a day ago, before I worked the heel and thought that it was just big enough. Well I can't quite figure out what changed but I was wrong! I couldn't even get it over her ankle tonight. I am a stubborn Texan and so was tempted to "make it work" and then realized that having a screaming baby was not what I wanted to sacrifice in order to see some knitting success. So I made my husband admire the sock, I even made him touch it, he rolled his eyes and muttered something about me being a little scary, before I ripped it all out. I'm pretty sure he thought I was losing it but I just haven't had a lot of knitting success lately and had it in my mind that this project would be a slam-dunk. And now my cold has blossomed into something finer and the paranoid side of me thinks I must have pneumonia and pink eye. Oh I'm not sure when I'll have the fortitude to start the sock again, is it wise to knit with an itchy, swollen eye?

Violet's Baby Socks

A few nights ago I realized that my baby has only one pair of socks that fit her. So I grabbed some sock yarn from my stash and started looking for a baby sock pattern on Ravelry. There were a lot but I didn't have time to search for one written for two circular needles. Since I was anxious to start knitting I decided to use the pattern I have and adapt it to fit an infant.

I really like the Adam's Rib His and Hers Socks pattern. It's the pattern I used for the first pair of socks I knit and it is very easy to understand. Also it is written for two circular needles which suits me because I am all thumbs with double pointed needles.

Cherry, cherry and Adios 2009 (a bit late)

2009 was a bitter sweet year and I thank my lucky stars that it's over.
In the bitter category:
In January I found out my company was essentially up for sale and my job stability was highly questionable. Hello stress!
In March I learned that my sister needed surgery.
In April I lost one of my grandmothers.
In April I hit the extreme fatigue and sickness that comes with the first trimester of pregnancy.
In July and August I spent every spare moment looking for a new job (while preggers).
In August 95% of my friends and co-workers were let go.
In September my daughter started preschool and therefore was sick almost every day for the rest of the year.
In October my daughter got the swine flu and I had to leave the house for 5 days to avoid getting the flu while pregnant. We'd never been apart before and this was extremely difficult for us.
Also in October I started having regular contractions and was put on bed rest.
In November my husband had major surgery on his nose and sinuses. Goodbye bed rest.
In December I was 9 months pregnant and quite the grinch.

In the sweet category:
My sister is well and the results of the surgery were all good.
The rest of my family is now healthy and my husband can breathe better than he has in probably 10 years.
I kept my job although working in a mostly empty building is quite depressing and humbling.
And of course expecting our second child brought great joy.

And now for knitting! I have been doing quite a bit considering the year I've had. But unfortunately I've been too busy or sick to post about any of the projects. So here is a picture of my daughter Liv in my first successful project of 2010, the Felicity hat.

I cast on 60 stitches and did a few less increase and decrease rows to fit Liv. This is Malabrigo worsted in a striking red. Liv picked out the color herself.

My first cables

I picked the Asymmetrical Cable Hat in Leigh Radford's One Skein book as my first cable project. I bought the yarn in February of this year because it seemed we were going to have a cool spring. I finally started knitting it at the end of August for my daughter Liv. The cables were surprisingly easy once I got the hang of it. The largest cable was 10 stitches and some of the stitches were a little too tight to easily knit. But I made it to the end and was very happy with the results. I wish the pom pom was a little fuller but Liv is pleased with it. I think she will enjoy wearing it this fall, in fact she's already been wearing it around the house, despite our record breaking heat wave.

Olivia's Christmas stocking

I finally got my very busy pro photographer husband to take some pictures of the stocking I made for Olivia last year. I've started on one for him and I'm about one quarter finished. Calendar check...it's September and I've got loads of knitting and crafting projects to get done too! He keeps saying that he's going to have another Christmas with the ugly blue fuzzy store bought stocking. I can't let that happen!

Still kickin

Well, gosh, thank you, thank you.
(I'm imagining my friends welcoming me back to the blog world. - humor me)
Thanks to all of the friends that have hung around while I've been out of blogging commission for a few (okay, several) months. I won't go into all of the details that have kept me away but I'll just say that it's been one hell of a year and it's not over yet! I will however divulge one secret that has been a major contributor to my absence. That secret is a little bundle of joy that I'm expecting to deliver in January of 2010. I'm (knock on wood) just a few days shy of finishing my first trimester. I'm still quite low on energy but nothing like the extreme fatigue that hit many weeks ago.
So what have I been working on craft-wise? Well for some reason along with my appetite for food, my appetite for any project that required thought flew out the window when I got pregnant. So I started a Christmas stocking for my husband. It's a kit with stamped felt, sequins, beads and thread and only requires that I be able to read instructions and thread a needle. So it won the battle over all knitting projects cause gosh darn it I still struggle with gauge and it hurts my brain.
Life is still nuts around here so I can't promise that my return to blogging will be full steam ahead just yet. But I just wanted to pop my head out there and say "Hey, I'm still kickin".

Updated links...more to come

I've been really behind in updating my links (like months behind) and have much more updating to come. Baby's crying...gotta run. But in the meantime please check out some of the great blogs on the right.

I have a lot of unravelling going on but I will save that for my next post (it has to do with my Easter projects).  Right now I'm going to post the promised pictures of my Calorimetry v2 and a few of the v1 flop.  V1 is blue and V2 is red.  You can see how the V1 is too wide.  For V2 I cast on 90 stitches and it worked out perfectly.

Crafty toddler

Some of my favorite childhood memories involve crafting. I made clothes for my dolls, tents out of sticks and leaves, and ironed Holly Hobby patches onto canvas bags (included iron marks from leaving the iron in one spot for too long). My daughter is almost two years old and I've got the itch to start crafting with her. One of the great things about having a child is getting to relive your favorite pastimes. So this past Saturday we did our first craft project together.

It was pretty simple but loads of fun; we made plant markers for the garden. I had some colored wooden pieces in tongue depressor, heart, star, circle, square, oval and other shapes and sizes. I laid out a waterproof table cloth on the floor, poured out the bag of wooden pieces and got some gel glue. My daughter was the designer. When she was drawn to pick a piece I asked where she would like it to go. She would lay it down on a stick and I would then glue it into place. After a short time she wasn't content to just "design" and she got the urge to do some gluing for herself. Gulp. Toddler + glue = ? I checked the glue lable and it washes off so I encouraged her to play with it. Also her hands were not strong enough to squeeze much glue out of the bottle. She got the sense that she could do it herself and I didn't have to scrape her glued pants off the floor. After the pieces dried I used a permanent marker to write the plant names on them. I would definitely do this project again. She had fun picking out the pieces by colors and shapes and I had fun encouraging her creativity. And I think she will enjoy putting the sticks in the garden by the plants she and her daddy are growing.

Weekly Unravelling

(or "knit one bitch two" according to my husband)
I've unravelled the Murano scarf at least 4 times in the past week and now I've called it quits for a while. I started the scarf on a whim which is really cool except that I have a few projects to finish by Easter. So while I was knitting and frogging the scarf I was also thinking tick tock, Easter is just around the corner.
There were two problems with the scarf. One was the p2sso that I couldn't find a definition for in the Interweave Knits magazine that had the pattern. I got an explanation from my friendly LYS but it still didn't turn out right. For the p2sso I was instructed to slip 2 stitches knitwise (individually) and then slip them over individually. But the pattern called for a slip 2 stitches right before that. So I think I was slipping a total of 4 stitches and then passing over only 2 which got me off pattern by two stitches. I'm not sure about this theory and I won't have an answer for a while since the project is hibernating.
The second problem was that I picked out lovely yarn but then changed my mind about the colors of one of them. I'll make a decision about that later.
I'll post again soon about the Easter knitting projects I've started.

What a Wednesday

I had a lovely surprise in my mail today. My fellow knitting bloggers Domie's Mom and Lara have given me the Kreativ Blogger award. A big thank you to both of them! And now I'm going to share the joy.

The rules are

1. copy the Kreativ Blogger award to your blog

2. put a link to the person from whom you received the award

3. nominate 8 other blogs

4. and link to them

5. then leave a message on the blogs you nominated

It's going to be hard to pick just 8 but I'm going to try. And if I've left you out it doesn't mean I don't love your blog too!

1. Right Out Loud

2. The Crazy Lady and the Baker Man

3. Paradise Found

4. Lunaticraft

5. Sew Liberated

6. Maternal Spark

7. Knittinwizardry

8. Tante J

Weekly unravelling

What's got my yarn unravelled this week? The lovely Calorimetry that I completed last night that doesn't fit. Nope, I didn't read anyone else's blog posts about sizing. Shame on me! I'm a blogger and I didn't read anyone else's blog before I cast on. Okay maybe I'm over reacting a little. The finished measurements are 21 by 7.5 inches. My husband says it's still cute even if it hangs off the back of my head with a hint of a ruffle.

But I'm going to cast on again. This time around I will make some adjustments. Calorimetry I was almost 6 inches too long. And since I knit 5 stitches an inch I will cast on 30 fewer stitches for number II. This should also make it less wide. I'm sticking to my "I knit mistakes so you don't have to" motto. I'm going to post pictures of Calorimetry I and Calorimetry II so you can see the before and after side by side. I hope this helps you.

I'm still here

You may be asking yourself where the heck has this girl gone? Has she forgotten that she's supposed to be a blogger? or maybe her pile of dirty laundry finally consumed her in the middle of the night? or better yet has she lost all of her knitting needles in the teensy weensy craft corner of her itty bitty house?
The answers: nowhere exciting, no, not yet and thank goodness no!
I've actually been working on my first knitted design project. shhh, it's still a secret.

Where are my knitting needles?

I'm hopelessly disorganized. I'm one of these people that is organized in a perfect world. I know what organization should look like I just have a problem achieving it. I criticize myself endlessly on this topic. And I answer myself by saying "Self, life is complicated" or "I'm busy" or "I'm creative". I think I have to have an intervention with myself. I am not organized. Just because I love the Container Store and all things related to organization it does not mean that I am an organized person. Okay, there, now I've done it.

You may ask what sparked this confession and self-intervention. I lost my knitting needles damn it! I had them in my hand one minute and they were gone off the face of the planet the next. And this has happened not once, not twice but at least a dozen times in the last few months. Knitting needles, knitting books, yarn for goodness sake! I'm fed up with myself. Help!

Olivia's Simple Baby Bib

I made this bib from the Simple bib pattern and it was a very quick project. I enjoyed using one of my Grandma's vintage buttons. It's the first time I've used one since I inherited her collection and sewing kit this past year. It makes the bib extra special to me.

The yarn is from Blue Sky Alpaca. I'd like to knit the world a big fluffy blanket with their organic cotton. It is so soft and the color is so fresh. My color choice was inspired by a vase of hydrangeas that my mother has on her table. It reminded me of spring, Easter eggs and little girls' dresses.

Ruffly is done

My Just Enough Ruffles scarf is complete and I'm so happy I could run around the house squeeling. A little like my daughter does when we mention the word "outside" (you'd think we keep her locked up in a closet). It is my first finished object of the new year and it is a success.
I love the Malabrigo merino yarn and once I figured out the short rows all was well.
So I've decided that I need to knit the scarf in another color. Because lime and blue just doesn't match all of my outfits. I have a couple skeins of some peach colored wool that I bought two years ago and have been stumped with what to use it for. Maybe this will be a good project. On the other hand I'd like to have this scarf in cotton, since winter doesn't last long in Austin. I'm currently enamored with Blue Sky Alpaca's dyed cotton so maybe I'll buy some of that.
And since I'm on a roll with short rows I've decided to do the Calorimetry ear warmer. I've had my eye on it for a while. It will be perfect for our chilly (but not too cold) winters.