Well I have not had too much time to knit away but I have been plugging along on my endpaper mitts. I really want to finish these since I want to wear them. The pattern is so easy to follow and understand.

I hope to be finished with these by next week. Then I can cast on for some new projects. Hopefully my skirt and a giant Beet.

I hope your week is going well, I am plugging along on some swatches. I think it is interesting that I don’t mind knitting a project with tiny stitches if I am making progress but a large square swatch makes me want to hurt myself. The pains of designing.

Mittens:

My mittens were frogged along with my socks on Wednesday but I created the pattern and marched on to a spectacular finish (ok it was only one mitten but I am claiming all the victories I can these days). This mitten is lovely and I am smitten with its beauty. I hope to release the pattern in a few months or so after it goes through tech editors and test knitters. So look for it.

I also hung out with Churchable and my best friend Kayleen. We wandered around Portland, going to the Saturday market, lunch in China town, a walk through the Chinese garden and a trip to Uwajimaya. While at Uwajimaya, I stopped in the bookstore and looked at the knitting books. I was stunned and it took a bit of time to figure out what books to buy. One of the books I did get, I wish that there had been a second book to buy for my mitten swap partner.

The book above part of the Heart Warming Life Series. ISBN 978-4-529-04510-0. It has twined knitting and fair isle. As soon as I got home, I looked up the mitten book to purchase. It will be arriving in a month so mine will be mailed with the package, but this book is so beautiful.

Swaps:

Click on the picture to see exactly all that is there.

This week I received my BBM: Little things package from Megan of Megan’s Cookin. She sent a lovely package. This swap was supposed to represent the small good things that can be offered and that we keep the shipping down. She sent me 14 items. All very much appreciated.

I also received one of the 2 ATCs that I am to be getting from this round of PS3 ATC swaps.

I also did the two above for my swap partners. I had fun with my puns and pens.

Contests:

Well I am not having a contest, but 2 other bloggers are and I am going to share with ya’ll. One ends tonight at 10 PM EST and the other by the end of the month.

Up first is the contest at Beautiful Thing’s blog, she is celebrating one year of blogging. Very cool. She asks that you do a simple things and answer her questions.

• name : Chrispy
• flickr id : pursuitoffiber
• ravelry username: RChrispy
• your vote for your favorite of my 2007 FOs: I love your A-line tank it looks lovely on you.
• link to or description of your favorite of your own FOs (knitted or otherwise – anything you made): wow well I am going to have to go with the one I wear the most. Some people are in love with their most recent FOs. I would be but recently those have been a bit slim. So I am going with my Rusted Root.

The second contest is over at Knitting in Pink. She wants us to list our 3 favorite things about where we live.

1. A new working fireplace.

2. A big backyard for the dogs to run around in.

3. Close to the biggest city park with a lake to walk around and exercise the dogs at

I was so excited to blog today. I was going to babble on about my mittens and socks that had progressed so far over the weekend.

Tuesday afternoon found me frogging my mitten back to the yarn. I love the pattern. I have named the pattern. People who don’t knit have been asking me if the pattern would be good for a beginner to learn. Such high praise for mittens not yet sent. I Rippit because I was not happy with the decreases and the detailing was roughly thrown in. I needed to refine the pattern so I did. I wrote up the Firebrick mittens last night in a fit of Insomnia.

Then this morning, I received a call from my friend to tell me about my the socks that I had sent her way yet again for her daughter to try on fit but were really snug. Well yeah, but my pal really would rather be a bit smaller than snugger. So I frogged that yarn all the way back to two small balls. Good thing the yarn frogs repeatedly like a dream. If you intend to knit and frog alot and want a fancy yarn then silky sock is your yarn. I am shelving the socks until after I finish the mittens

I went away for President’s weekend and I came back with a wicked bad cold. My throat was so sore that I lost my voice and then my nose ran so much that I used an entire box of Kleenex in one day.

Thankfully the weekend was fun and I have decided that next year I will be leading this same game again because it was a blast to run and I think I picked the right time to do the game. I GMed Robo Rally a really cool board game where you control a robot that has lasers and is trying to run a race through a course with moving parts. In addition to having a good time, I met another knit blogger. She is the one in green.

Well I am back and feeling a bit better. I still have the lingering bit of it all, but no more fever or heavy symptoms. I did knit during this time. I knit on what I now have titled the Big Green Monster. Arwen is almost done. It just needs a hood. I tried to get out of knitting the hood, but when asked what 16 year old would opt for a plain cardi. I knew I was delusional when I asked.

Now I have been working away at my swap sock which keeps causing me problems. The first sock was done and I am down to the heel of the second one. A friend’s 3 year old wanted to try on the pretty sock so I let her and it was almost too tight on her. So I passed the sock to a friend with a child of similar size to the sock recipient. She could get her foot down the leg but not through the heel turn. So I will be ripping the first sock back to the heel turn. I have a bit more time than I thought with these socks. I thought they were due on the 15th of March but I have till the end of March.

Sadly these are all the WIPs that I have going right now and they are making me a bit crazy.

I have been taking a lot of PS3 pictures. I have compiled them into a slide show for you. If the java messes up for you here is the flickr slide link

I have been craving glazed carrots recently. I am not really a fan of cooked carrots but it is project spectrum right now and thought I would try to appease the masses. So, I gathered the supplies – honey and carrots. I started to mix up a batch of yarny goodness, …………..

I have not started but I really wanted a new hat and have really fallen for all the hats made from Malabrigo that I have seen.

Next up on the block of food is the lovely but fishy pomatomus, it really needed a nice classy wine to be a stand up entry.

This week things worked out a bit better for me. I whipped through the leg and am one repeat from the start of the toe. I really love this yarn. It is a really nice and I want to make myself a pair of socks from it.

Lastly I have been laboring away at this exquisite Christmas present.

I just wish it would go a bit faster. I am definitely making progress. I think if I keep knitting it while I watch TV, I will be finished sooner than later.

That’s all the knits for now. I have been creating designs this week. Lots of creating more details and swatching. I am really falling in love with some of these designs.

This sock has been chugging along. Although, what you saw last week is not what is now in the picture. I was knitting it on US 0 so as to shrink the pattern to my pals foot size, but I shrunk it a bit too much. Yes in deed I made her have midget feet. She does have small feet but this was insane. I frogged once after one full repeat, then knit half the lace repeat and measured the lace part to check that going up to a US 1 (2.25) was making it just big enough. To my shock, the sock had not gotten any bigger with the needle change. So I stuck the needles through a needle gauge and well I seem to have picked up the US 0s again. Rip went the sock and I started over with the right needles. Making sure to put those too small needles into their case before picking up the stitches and double checking the needle size of the needle that I was picking up the stitches with. Yes I was a bit paranoid but you would be too if you had made my mistake. So now I am half a repeat beyond where I was before ripping the first time. It is definitely going to fit this time and I think the colors will cause her to love them. Just so you know 2 of the PS3 colors are in the sock.

I started gathering supplies for my PS3 ATC Swap. I have been missing my inks since I finished art school. I pulled them out laid them out on my bed to sit and contemplate what to do about them all. I love small work in pen & ink. It holds a preciousness that can’t really be expressed. Now all I have to do before I can start is to cut the paper to size. I can’t wait.

Several people on ravelry started talking about a PS3 diet (ravelry link). Trying to incorporate foods that reflect each element. This element is, of course, fire and the suggestion was to make baked goods from scratch. Since I make bread every week, I knew this would not be too hard. I love fresh bread. In November, I decided that I needed to start making sourdough. The starter has stayed alive since then even with our crazy schedule. I think I only had to actually feed it once. All the rest of the times, it has been fed because we had used it.

I passed this gourd as I was cleaning up a bit of the house so that I could set up my loom and realized this gourd would be a great PS3 pic. Don’t you love how it looks like it just got pulled off the vine with all the dirt clinging to it still?

This last one might not fit with the PS3 fire theme, but I am excited that I have noticeable progress. I think it was barely 3 inches last time. This time I am sure it is at least twice that. I am so happy that it is growing. I don’t know if I don’t like the reversible cables or if it is the yarn. Only another project will allow me to decide.

I shall leave you with Mr. Bun. He has been hanging out around the desktop computer. I think he is contemplating hijacking my blog and writing about his experience in this house.

I took this lovely skein of yarn for a walk this morning. I saw this bright picnic table in the distance and felt it was the perfect back drop to the firey orange. I am thinking of coming up with a one skein firey project to make this into. Part of my plan is to create a project per segment of Project Spectrum.

This bit of malabrigo was acquired in an avalanche of malabrigo that I stumbled into and spent my Christmas money on. My buddy and I hung out in Portland on Saturday. Since we were snagging the max at Lloyd center to head downtown, I convinced her to make a stop at Twisted. It was great. She was so great and started pulling yarn out that she liked to show me and she was stunned at how nice the yarns feel and how pretty they are in the skein. I think I smell a new knitter.

The new yarn that arrived is below in the slide show:

So far I have not really decided what I want to do. My Pomatomus sock for a secret pal is in the fire arena but I don’t know if it counts since I won’t show the colors till late March.

The only other thing to arrive this weekend was a nice present from my mitten swap pal. She sent me wristies to keep my cold hands a bit warmer while I am knitting and doing computer work.

This was hard. I needed this finished object and I worked for it. Man it is not good to be without an actually finished object for this long. Hopefully this new month will be better. So here is my new years project started 31 days and 12 hours before its finish right before midnight on the 1st of day of Project Sprectrum 3. Those of you who visit the blog might have noticed a color change. Do you like it? It is to celebrate PS3 starting. This month and next are Fire: red, orange and pink. Those who know me well. Know I love orange. I even have an orange bedroom. Pumpkin to be exact. The only squashy thing other than pumpkin pie that churchable cares to partake in.

Pattern: Twisted Flower by Cookie A (ravelry project link)
Yarn: ChickChick Studio Toes in the grass 1 skein 100 grams = 460 yds (60% superwash merino, 30% Bamboo, 10% Nylon) Colorway: Olive Oil [Gifted to me by my SP11 pal]
Needles: Knitpicks US 1 (2.50 mm) circulars until Mr Bun cut the cable then DPNs.
Mods: I love these socks. They are stunning. They are show stoppers. They make my day. I loved the flow of the pattern. It was super easy to memorize. The first sock, I needed to check every once in a while. The second sock only needed a glance at the cable on the foot, the rest was smooth sailing. I knit this exactly to specs with only one tiny mod. I kept the purl stitches all the way to the toe. On one toe I grafted in st st and the other in reverse st st. Can you tell which one in the very first photo? If so is one better than the other? If not I will go change to the st st because it oddly feels better.