Tube Top of Blueness
Pattern: Coquette Lace Tube Top by Stephanie Japel in Fitted Knits
Yarn: Knit picks Cotlin color – Desert Turquoise 3 1/2 skeins
Needles: Clover US 4 Circular and Crystal Palace US 6 Circular
Thoughts: Great quick knit. I did major negative ease on this garment so that it would fit smoothly and stay up. I don’t think I will put ribbons or a strap onto the garment but that might change after a day of wear. I included 2 inches depth of short rows over the bust so that I had more ease.

So the FO picture location was chosen by churchable and he had a great time taking these pics.

This week has been great and I have been getting stuff done around the house and keeping on top of my work.

FYI – It is taking me longer to post comments because I am starting to get comment spam. I don’t know if I can put any more hoops to jump through and they are not leaving them in the anonymous section. I also want the ability to leave comments to be easy for you the reader. I know what bugs me when I try to leave comments on a blog and so I try to make it better for all. But hey I guess I am popular enough to get spam comments now.

Houston we have a problem. This UFO has surfaced in the general vicinity of the mending basket. Is there really a mending basket or is it the place clothing goes to die a sad lonely death?

This here vision of oranginess has been hanging out since the afternoon of churchable’s surprise 30th bday party. That was almost 2 years ago. I love orange but this here goddess of loveliness has a problem. A big ok minor problem of strap length so that the girls are decently accentuated.

See that makes a big difference. I don’t know why I forgot this sweet maiden but I am in desperate need of FO land. Ok yes I get high on FOs. I like them. What? you mean that there is joy in the process of knitting. I was there once, but then I learned to knit fast and became a FO addict. Mu…st ha…ve fin..ish..ed ……..ob…ject NOW.

Oh you want to know the name of this simple little tank. It has a plain name since the translators don’t really care for fanciness in the Rebecca magazines. It is simply called the pale green top # 13 in Issue 12.

Um Oh hi! I got distracted over on the Rebecca website looking at the new issue. I started dreaming about cabled shorts. Ok seriously I would not wear them in public. I am not sure if my inner self could take it, but think about sleep shorts. Oooohhhhh… They even have a poncho that is crying out to me. Now that is just wrong. Me? a poncho? Picture, go lie to some skinny model that they would look good in it. Not me.

Well I will babble on about Rebecca and the siren call of weird but oddly compelling German knitting fashion on Friday. Um was I seriously scarred by my year in High School in Germany to like their fashion? I came away with a serious love of German techno music. Did it effect my fashion sense? Well I can tell you that I would never knit the cow sweater or cave women dress. (FYI you can still buy the cow sweater mag. I wonder why it is not sold out?)

On to happier shinier almost finished items.

The tube top is coming along nicely. Isn’t it grand? I have one skein left. I almost want to forget about the other projects and cheat on them and only knit this baby. Well we will see. Just to show how much I am in love I will leave you with two more pics at the end of the post.

My monkey sock is coming along nicely. It has caused me to abandon my other socks. Hmmm…. I have not been bitten by the monkey but I do realize that I need to have some interest in my sock patterning or I don’t care about them. Now a message to all you socks and socks to be. Don’t ask to be plain vanilla socks. I will turn up Lime and Violet high enough not to hear you. If you are wondering what color my monkeys are, don’t ask I can’t tell you? (the answer is at the very bottom.)

Hello Anonymous commenter. If you are my secret pal, please email me and I will be happy to answer your questions there instead of here on my blog. Thanks.

This has been a melancholy day. My mood matches the weather. It has been a long time since I have allowed this to happen, but right now I am taking a day off. I am allowing things to happen. I am not bothering with stuff unless it is necessary. Is food really necessary?

The day started out with a bang literally. I woke up at 5:30 am thinking someone was breaking into my house. Come to find out it was only my shelf of cookbooks with their glass shelf falling to the ground with a resounding bang. Not really my chosen way to wake up on a morning alone. I crawled back into bed and slept until the dogs got annoyed and stated that they needed to use the backyard. I let them out and crawled back into my warmth and phoned a friend – A great friend, an artist and confidant, Care-bear. She talked me out my mood and told me that she talked to her company and she might be able to move back out here that cheered my morning. I can’t wait for her visit in October. We are going to spend time exploring our art together. Maybe we can create somethings together to be placed in her etsy store.

I did not do much today. I got up and went walking with my friend Carolyn, who is blogless and computerless. No worries she is a great friend and moral support. I slept, which felt so good. I did not realize that I have been running my sleep battery ragged. I started a new project with the yarn I got last night for free. I read the new Cat Bordhi book. I watched a movie about Beatrix Potter. It was a nice day. It was ok.

Last night I was in Portland for an event. An event put on by Blue Moon Fiber Arts. This event was the big launch for Cat Bordhi’s book on sock architectures. The PDX Bloggers met up early and sat in the front row since we are all such wall flowers. It was a lovely event where we got to spend time talking because traffic had detained many people. We played a game to find unusual items in your knitting bag – the prize was free yarn. I had post-it notes in my bag, which was the first item that was on the list that Tina and the gang had compiled. You still got yarn if it was unusual and not on the list. Kathy from Vast Amount of Spare Time had the most unusual item. Since my camera died as the event started, I will recommend that you look at my fellow bloggers entries. As the event ended, we were informed that the first edition has been sold out and the second printing will not be available until October.

Now since I have been Blog Hopping it this week, ya’ll have missed out on my knitting. What have I been doing? It does not feel like much but I have been busily knitting my work project at every possible moment. I feel the looming deadlines. Oh how I hate thee. Well they are a fact of life. But I have a few things that I can show you. My plan to knit on things in segments has been working. All my projects have been progressing.

My favorite one so far is the Coquette Lace Tube Top. My mannequin who is modeling it for me is a little smaller in the cup size than I am now so it doesn’t look so smoking on her. I added Short Row bust darts across the front while I attended a drag race last week with churchable. As you can see I am almost to the waist with the second ball of yarn. I have already started the third ball and I am almost ready to start the ribbing around the hips.

My secret knitting for Christmas has brought me to finish one panel and start the second. I have been bad and not actually finished the second ball of yarn. I am loving the pattern. It is really easy to follow and I hope it looks great on her for Christmas.

My Entrelec sock has cheated me. It did not want to be knee length. It demanded that I stop at the top of the ankle. So I have started the toe of the second sock and plan on doing this pattern again with a different sock yarn.

Churchable’s mariner socks are coming along nicely. They get some play whenever the projects near a switch point. For some reason, it refused to pose for the camera. It kept coming out fuzzy.

Lastly I mentioned that I cast on something new. I joined the crazy masses that have become Monkey crazed. After finally figuring out Churchable’s fit and understanding things about socks, I decided to join the next sock swap whatever it may be and to put my knowledge to use. I joined the Monkey Sock Swap 3 this month. I think you can still join. I got the rather fortune opportunity to knit for the hostess of this lovely swap – Rebecca of socks for mum. Thus I get to post wacked out photos to throw her off the scent.

What do you think? Is this picture odd enough? I have finished the first lace repeat. I would like to say this is a super easy pattern. I had the lace memorized before I was finished with round 4. Since it is my first monkey, I am not messing with the pattern much. I prefer knitting toe up but maybe I will give it a try next time. Or I could knit one top down and the other toe up. Hmmm. We shall see.

Edited to add new links to the Cat Bordhi event.

This is the second WIP of the month. Where are we? Well I almost finished that first project for Blue Moon. I am currently writing up the pattern which I have found that I hate doing. I don’t mind writing long hand but typing it into the computer is a pain in the butt. My goal is to have that done by midnight tonight (if not churchable may come home from his night shift to find a blear-eyed crazy women armed with knitting needles.)

Ok happier things. I finished two things which is great that means you have something to read about on Friday.

I also have some pieces that I have cast on. One you can see here on the blog because it is for me. I am knitting the Coquette Lace Tube Top from Fitted Knits. I decided that the Knitpicks Cotlin would be great for the overall feel. It is working out, but in the process I found out that I have 2 Crystal Palace US 6 circulars that have different mm sizing. Man does this throw off your swatch gauge. I don’t even know which one is which. Oops. But I do know that the one skein that has been knitted into the top fits. Yeah. Of course there will not be any modeled shots of this item till later. Much later.

The other project I cast on this weekend was for Si my SIL for Christmas. Now I know she reads this blog because she leaves comments. What a nice SIL? But that means we have stealth knitting. I have come up with an answer well sort of. That is to send you to my project page in Ravelry. Yes I know some of you are still waiting, but I have heard rumblings that we are going live soon so you won’t be left out for too long. Now Si if I find a profile of yours on Ravelry. I will be very upset. Her present is reported about here. I am also one skein into this project.

I have decided that I will be working on a project one skein at a time so that I can get work done and give my WIP equal attention. The entrelec socks will get one row of blocks at a time and churchable’s socks will get some time (I don’t know how to divide that.)

I have also joined to swaps for the next couple of months. I will be posting about those over the next couple of days. Before I post my SP info, I have promised myself to finish up the pattern for my SP from SP10 and send it off. Yes I am a bad pal, but the yarn was back ordered for 3 months.