FullOfStitches.com blog.A good laugh leaves me in stitches!

Well, it’s nearly official. Ben’s found a place, he just has to fax some papers to me.. Hmm.. that’s going to be fun (I hate going out if I don’t have to, FIL’s fax isn’t set up to receive, and Ben didn’t want to send them so that they’d be here already whilst I was out of town, so he’s got to send them on my time [sigh]). I’ll be leaving Oklahoma for the coast at the end of this month.

In exchange for the quiet open expanses that I’ve come to love, I get to return to my native state, massively overpopulated cities, and traffic clogged byways. I try to focus on looking forward to being with my dear husband again.. I get to make all new friends. Again. (I’m really an introvert at heart, so this is a bit of a challenge for me). I’ve looked online and there were no listings for homeschool groups in the San Francisco area at all. San Jose wasn’t mentioned at all. Fun fun.

On a brighter note: the first 3 inches of Angelina are knitted. I’m using size 2 needles.. I tried the 5s and got 6 or 7 st/in, so I tried 4s and got 7/8 st/in. I don’t own 3s, so I tried 2s and got 10 st/in.. and I’m happy with that. I’ve only had a 36″ chest measurement when I was full of milk, and my ‘baby’ is almost 21 months. So, I’m aiming to have the finished size closer to 38″ (the smallest listed finished measurement is 40″). Yes, this means I’ll have to add a few more rows in the front because there’ll be a few more in the back, but it’s worth it. I hope.

She spoke softly, calling to me in the darkness of midnight, begging me not to leave her alone on the shelf.. “Do you see me?”

‘Yes, yes!’ I cried out and petted her soft strands.. Purple.. Angelina.. I see you now.
I bought the pattern last year as inspiration.. I finally taught myself to knit and she has such simple construction. Yes, she will be mine.

I stayed up till after 7 this morning. I was on a hunt for a sweater pattern. I have some yummy 70% wool 30% silk yarn that is begging me to knit it.. but I’m a new knitter and am afraid. What if I mess up my yummy yarn? What if I don’t like the design? Well, I like raglans, so I’m on the hunt for a simple raglan in DK/sport weight.. I’m thinking this may work: Knitting Pure & Simple #241 My yarn is a deep purple.

So, that brought me to the fact that I’ve only ever knitted socks.. Shouldn’t I do a practice sweater or something and learn a few more knit stitches? So, I saw this one for TJ; I may not do the trains, there’s this spider begging to be cabled.. I bought the book so that I could make a sweater for TJ with the spider. He will adore it!

Socking away at the needles. I made socks for Ben last week, just need to weave in loose ends and kitchenette the toes.. But, not until he tries them on to see if they fit, or if they’re mine.

I tried out an afterthought-heel sock pattern for TJ, but the heels weren’t given enough space. The next time I think I’ll do the 2/3 ratio for the heel. I like that I can set the heel in the middle of a stripe and just match the color and have it continue. I think it looks nice. If I make a turned heel next time, then I’ll just have to use a separate strand of thread to keep the continuity of the stripes.. Though they’ll still be off because of the gusset decreases. Fitting is better than perfect stripes, right?

I took a break from the blue stripes yesterday and made about the world’s ugliest sock (or at least a contender) for AJ so I could test the 2/3 vs 1/2 heel. I’ll have to get a picture of the children’s socks when I finish TJ’s. I have a bunch of ‘Magic Stripes’ yarn for practice before I get the really good yarn (though, I really want to make TJ some flame socks! and maybe a NBaT with flames). The yarn that AJ picked is ugly! The stripes are random and where there’s lots of colors it looks okay, but I started toe-up and it was pink-white-red/green-white and it was driving me nuts how little color there seemed! Finally the foot got more interesting. I added some fuzzy yarn that was on sale last week at Hobby Lobby and voila, half a pair of socks.. (Somebody’s got second sock syndrome and only taught herself to knit last month!)

**note: AJ gave her ugly sock to her best friend and I never got a picture.. and it never got a mate**

I can’t seem to keep track of the time. I finally got the baby down for a nap and looked up and we have to head out in 15 min to get to music class {sigh}.

I was thinking of the ‘practice’ sweater and came across TJ’s helicopter ‘sweater’.. umm.. they use it as armor because I crocheted the front and back and sewed the shoulders together. It’s got about 1/3 of a sleeve. The ‘armor’ has been washed at least twice.
It’s time to rip it. Froggy froggy rip rip