Pattern: Thermis by Kris Knits (ravelry pattern link) project page
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted in Marron Oscuro (152 yards)
Needles: US 5 (3.75mm) Inox Express circular (lazy loop method)
Mods: Instead of casting on 8 stitches in backwards loop method, I picked up the stitches from the back so as to avoid seaming in the end.
Facts to Remember: This pattern is off on the gauge, so I just grabbed one needle size down from the stated needle size and cast on.  The knitting went perfect from there on out, but its always good to check the ravelry forums and the comments on the pattern and people’s projects for errata info.
Things I Love:  The color of the yarn.  I can’t wait till the weather is perfect for this yummy cowl.

Pattern: Fabrege Cowl by Nina Machlin Dayton (ravelry pattern link) project page
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted in Buscando Azul (150 yards)
Needles: US 7 (4.5mm) Harmony Interchangeable Needles & US 6 steel(1.6mm) crochet hook (for beading)
Mods: I knit it tighter to give my friend a tighter cowl than my first one.
Facts to Remember: That random isn’t always good.  I used a multi-colored bead set (the website I purchased from is weird so I can’t link you) and at first I just grabbed a bead and added it.  It looked horrible and thankfully I had screwed up the stitch pattern (started too late at night) and so I had to rip back to the beginning of the beading and alternate matte and shiny.
Things I Love: The color.  Hmmm… I seem to be a broken record about this, but I got this yarn and felt it was just a touch too bright but I’ve loved the FO pictures of it on me.  I bet Jess will look fabulous in it with her winter coloring.  I sent it to her in March and she loved it.  Now I need a cowl in this color.  Thank goodness I still have a portion of the skein left.

Pattern: Cliodna Cowl by Jenny Raymond (my design partner) project page
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted in Applewood (119 yards)
Needles: US 7 (4.5mm) & 9 (5.5mm) Harmony Interchangeble circulars
Mods: None
Facts to Remember:  This pattern was so smooth that I just need to remember the pattern.  Highly recommended and not just because I the designer and I are partners, but for the beautiful FOs and the perfect sizing and clear chart pattern.
Things I Love: This skein of Applewood is fabulous.  The last one I had was a bit too pale.  This one is just perfect.

Pattern:  Coniferous Cowl by Amy Duncan (ravelry pattern link) project page
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Seleccion Privada in colorway R (95 yards)
Needles: US 10 (6.0mm) Kollage Square Circular needles
Mods: Duncks loves a smaller cowl than I prefer so I increased from the small to the large size.  Thus this test knit is goes from the small snug size to the large loose size.
Facts to Remember: That highly variegated colorways do have a purpose.  This is pattern was perfect for this yarn that hadn’t decided what it wanted to be until Duncks tweeted a picture of this.
Things I Love: The fit even if it isn’t the standard one and the swirlies.

Pattern: Berthe Collar by Karin Maag-Tanchak in No Sheep for You (ravelry pattern link) project link
Yarn: Madelinetosh Pastoral in Nocturne (42 yards)
Needles: US 8 (5.0mm) Harmony interchangeable circulars
Mods: Cast on 71 stitches and knit till I ran out of yarn.  This was the leftovers from a hat which will be shown next week.
Facts to Remember:  Ripping is necessary when trying not to waste a single inch of yarn
Things I Love: That my Lime E. Wedge pin has a permanent place to live.

Patterns:

Hedgie (aka Smith by Ysolda) in Noro Silk Garden Sock

Pearl Drop sock in Madtosh sock

Dr. G’s Memory Vest in Malabrigo Worsted

I’m super happy to be sharing with ya’ll a journey I took this summer to gain back me. One where I was willing to face the camera again. Its funny I design clothing for a living and I love it, but I was starting to dread standing in front of the camera. More and more I was dissatisfied with photo session with churchable. He might be telling me “You are beautiful”. His nickname for me is even: Beautiful. Why couldn’t I feel that beauty.

I had a shocking realization at the end of my 30th birthday. We had just driven back from a friends wedding in Southern Oregon. I felt horrible and hated the car ride. This was something new to me. How could this have happened?

Well that night before we walked to dinner, I stepped on the scale just to see if it was my imagination or was there some facts to go with this. And I should point out that in the 5 years of dating/marriage, churchable has seen me grow from an almost too skinny size 6 to you should be in a size 14 not those size 12’s you stuffed yourself into. I was ignoring the size change, maybe the number on the scale would get me back to reality. It stated 168. “Ok not bad I thought,” but on the way to dinner I shared with churchable that really I wasn’t that off. With the next few words out of his mouth my spirits and self-flattery hit rock bottom. He informed me that our scale weighted in 10 lbs light. EEEP!!! I was 178. No freaking way I had gained 43 lbs in 5 years but the cold hard facts were staring me in the face. With determination I ordered the healthiest thing on the menu at the Mexican place (not like there is much when its smothered in cheese and sour cream). I focused on reducing my portions.

Monday morning dawned with a realization that I needed to do something and one of those things was to get that lying and cheating scale out of the house and bring in one that could be trusted to tell me the cold hard true.

My journey had a few rules.

1. Eat three meals a day (I was knitting so much that I was luck if I hate one meal at 10pm)
2. Stick to proper portions (and no a bag of salt & vinegar chips aren’t a good lunch)
3. Make sure my fat was low (I tend to eat a lot of fat. I love my cheese and full fat dairy)
4. Make sure I have enough protein to get me through the day.
5. Find a breakfast food I could stomach every day and look forward to eating (I need a new one but yogurt, ground flaxseed and fruit got me through 4 months)
6. Exercise at least 30 min a day (Sadly I hurt my knee in mid-July so I’ve been relying on diet since then)

To help me through this journey, I used Sparkspeople.com. Its an amazing resource with articles, food journals (that calculate the calories, fat, carbs, & protein for you and tell you what range you need to eat in to lose the weight) and exercise journals and videos to get you moving in the right direction.

As of this morning, I’m sitting pretty at 149. An almost 30lb drop from that initial weight in, but I log my actual drop to be 24 lbs based on the number the new scale gave me.  I’ve gone from a bad muffin top in size 12’s back down to the size 8s I refused to toss out.   And you know what I feel amazing to have shed so much weight: Emotional weight (I discovered several reasons that I packed on the pounds and I hope to have beat those monsters) and Physical weight.

Well I’ve come to a plateau of which I’m happy to sit on for a while, but churchable and I have figured out that we both need to lose another 10lbs. So this goal will hopefully be completed by the new year together. 2.5lbs per month isn’t that hard to get off especially if I can add back in physical exercise now that my knee has stopped hurting. I just can’t ever run again.

I’ve been super busy with so many things that completely forgot plus I wasn’t even home on Monday so that doesn’t help the routine.

Peace an etymology:

A simple definition that is two fold.  Harmonious relationships and the absence of stress or anxiety.

How many of us struggle with those around us?  Maybe there is that one person that just rubs you the wrong way time and time again.  I know I have a few people like that and I know that I have been that person for other people.  Its just human nature to have conflict in one way or another.  We don’t strive for it; it just happens.

Also our modern culture seems to encourage and breed stress and anxiety.  We are rushing here, there and every where in between.  We never have enough time to just sit and be.  Maybe that’s why so many of us who read this blog enjoy sitting and knitting.  It allows us to just be and pulls that stress away from us.

In some of the older languages, peace is a greeting.  Like in Hebrew or Arabic, Shalom or “salaam” respectively, has multiple meanings: safety, welfare, prosperity, security, fortune, friendliness.  Most people use it for many different purposes.  Growing up in that part of the world, I’ve always understood it as “Hello, I hope you are at peace today”.  This might not be how native speakers are meaning it, but I think is like a shortened for of the American greeting, “Hi how are you today?”  A question that rarely gets an honest answer.  Normally just a “fine, thanks”  We like to put on an appearance of being ok.  Being peaceful.  Being happy with where we are in life.  But in reality we are far from this inner peace.

Peace is a sense of balance between it all.  Its not really an easy thing to balance out.

People that experience inner peace say that the feeling is not dependent on time, people, place, or any external object or situation, asserting that an individual may experience inner peace even in the midst of war.

Maybe you don’t think you feel peace.  Have you every used one of the following words to describe yourself or a situation?

Calm, calmness
Placidity, placidness
Quiet
Serenity
Tranquillity
Hush
Lull
Stillness
Untroubled

But then maybe you yearn for those feelings, words, attitudes, sense of being.

Preview of next weeks peace focus: Malabrigo March is starting and I’m knitting something “peaceful”

Wednesdays are for WIPs:

There are three items actively on my needles.

Tapestry Cowl

In yellow soxs I box my Gox

& a new design with a macro preview

Fridays are for FOs and Pattern Releases:

For several months I’ve been mentioning a secret squirrel project of which I had also roped the ever talented knittymuggins into testing for me.  She is stunningly fabulous in her abilities to help me clean up a pattern for release to the general public.

Let me introduce the Pearl Drop Sock.

She has been a lovely labor of time and energy to get my vision and her (the sock’s) vision into a cohesive clearly understood manner. Each step of the way I knew a bit of what was to happen. From a lovely toe-up start to the slowly graduated pearls:

to the a gusseted heel flap with an optional reinforced heel:

to PICOTS!!

I was commissioned this summer by the lovely Bette of Beyond Basic Knits to create an exclusive pattern for her sock club that she was developing. I had never tried socks but I decided this was the perfect situation to attempt sock design. I loved the challenge and the small canvas that I had to work with.

The pattern will be available for sale here and on ravelry for non-sock club members on October 10th, 2009.

First up, the Wheat-ear Re-Mix.

I cast off the hem on Monday night while siting in a lectural hall learning about financial peace.  Its ever so interesting that I’m realizing that churchable and I are actually really good with our finances, we just need a bit more savings to really experience the peace of it all.  Upon returning home,  I quickly stripped off my sweater to try on wheat-ear.  Oh I’m in love and the feel of the silk/wool on my skin is lovely.  I now can’t wait to finish it, but the sleeve islands await me.  Maybe I should try it on every once in a while to encourage myself to finish.

The tapestry cowl actually saw quite a bit of action this weekend. I’m about ready to start round 20. I love this pattern but its not a fast knit. It will all be worth it in the end.

This has been in my stash since June or July during Project Spectrum: Air.  I really don’t do yellows all that much so I think I spent most of my time acquiring whites, greys and yellows.  Of those three colors, grey is the only one to occasionally appear in my closet or knitting, but normally in the dark metal earthy greys not the light floaty greys.  I knit the Grey skies Bubble Pullover to symbolize that color and idea.  Well this skein of yellow yarn sat, kicking its feet against the boot box tub it lives in.  I knew it needed to have a purpose but what purpose.

After gifting BIL with his annual Christmas socks, Si (my oldest SIL) pulled me aside and asked if I could knit him some yellow socks.  Um yellow for the man who snubbed my choclate brown nicely striped shirt because it had a robin egg blue stripe every so often.  So I quized her about why he would want YELLOW socks.  I love that my brother in law wears my socks all the time, but I wasn’t so sure about this yellow thing.  Its a nice color but he’s not so adventurous in the color wheel.   Si proceeded to say that he had been asking for yellow socks to wear while he held a box with a gox.  Yes BIL has been slowly turned by the sweet poetry of Dr. Suess.  I can imagine with 3 little kids he will spend many hours reading One Fish Blue Fish and wearing these darn yellow socks.  They will be basic stockinette socks with some ribbing.  I love knitting for him because he’s so simple in his sock needs that I can knit them while waiting at a stop light or in the movie theator with all the lights out.

Details are on Ravelry to save me time.

Brother-in-law: Received his second pair of Camo socks.  Blogged about here.
Reception: Good.  He asked what they were made of, since they were different.  I think he likes the bamboo.  I also sweetened the gift with a Starbucks’ card which the whole family knows I despise their coffee so ….

Oldest Sister-in-law Si: Received a lace mohair cowl
Reception: Well received after I explained what a cowl was.  She wore it most of the week either around her neck or as a headband.  She did ask if next time I could not use mohair (this was asked for feedback), since it was just a touch itchy.  So I see a Malabrigo cowl or two in her future.

Nephew Frog Boy: Received a lion dishcloth
Reception: This was a bit of a gamble since he screwed up his face at the handknit hat from last year.  He ripped open the box and yelled: “A blanket for gee!!”  Gee is his stuffed frog that he must not be without.  So I guess it won’t be used as intended use; the frog sure does get alot of my handknits.  More sock scrap scarves were requested so she could change her “outfit”.

Nephew Dog Boy: Received a light blue sweater as requested
Reception: He really liked it especially the dog bone buttons that I picked up in Hawaii thinking about this sweater that he had requested.  The neckline was a tad bit wide because I had an extra long row gauge compared to the pattern.  Oops so I added a second set of buttons.  He wanted to hold Lexi during the photoshoot but she refused to hold still or just wanted to lick his face.

Younger Sister-in-law Bud: Received a hat and a pair of earrings.  Hat blogged about here.
Reception: She loved the hat and was happy to have a hat to match her fingerless mittens.  Everyone including me kept borrowing it during Christmas week.  The earrings astonished her that they were knit.

My Parents got their presents in September if you will remember.

Churchable didn’t get anything from me.  Bad wife.  Bad wife.  I have plans but they involve him helping me find memorabillia to make into a shadow box.  I was going to do it on my own but then I ran into my present and didn’t want to find any others.  Sadly I ruined my only suprise.  Darn it! Why do I keep doing that.

My Father-in-law requested a hand knit original design cabled cardigan, so guess what this years big challenge will be.  I might be buying almost everyone else’s gifts.  He was informed last year that it would take me 2 years to make him one.

I am done with all the projects that you saw last week, but now that means I need to buckle down and work on a commission for a yarn company.  Mums the word till it is released.  I have been knitting away all day and had many false starts and icky ideas but I’m super happy with my current idea.

So if you could help me out and cheer me on that would be just peachy.  I’m not really that helpful as you can see above.  I let the lava in Hawaii eat my husband.  I tried to pull him out but now he’s in some deamon dungeon trying to rid the underworld of Diablo.

Pattern: Faberge Cowl by Nina Machlin Dayton Raveled Here
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted – 3/4 skein in Polar Morn
Needles: Knitpicks Harmony Interchangeables US 8 (5.0mm)

Mods: None unless you consider shorter and less beads as a mod.  I bought 3 tubes of beads and ran out so I stopped.  It was 5″ tall.

Facts to Remember:  When beading with a crochet hook, don’t hold the hook in your mouth with a bead attached, because the bead just might go down your throat.  I lost two or three that way.  You think I would learn my lesson but of course not.  Also don’t doubt your gauge unless you are on vacation, my gauge changed while I was on vacation.  This was done after vacation so I should have gone with the US 7 needle, so this turned out a little bigger than written.

Things I Love: How easy it was and that my friend Nina (ravelry) gifted me this pattern.  I didn’t expect that kind of generosity nor do I expect it again, but it was nice.  It made me feel special.  The beading was super easy with 0/5 E beads and a tiny crochet hook.

I have been knitting my little heart out for the Ravelympics. I had a 24 hour late start and I had a few days of no knitting. I finished first sock Sunday night. Monday I cast on and knit my daily need to finish by the end of the race, but had to rip it all out since my cast on was too tight on the second sock. I caught up yesterday but have had little time today to knit. Most of my knitting has not been to the olympics but rather David Paul Boreanaz movies and tv shows. All spring Churchable would ask me how angel was doing and I would stare at him funny cause I had only been watching episodes of Bones. Well silly me did not realize that the male lead of Bones was Angel. So far this summer I have watched Buffy season 1 & 2 plus Angel season 1. I am a bit smitten with his acting abilities. Ames probably will be happy that I have finally fallen for a male actor. Her current obsession is the guy from Supernatural, which is off her norm since she loves the bald dudes especially Vin Diesel.

So I might not be knitting for Ames but CareBear almost has a pair of socks, I am sure she is getting antsy to have them on her feet. My goal is to ship them off before I fly off to Hawaii. Hey CareBear our art school adviser says hey. She is getting a masters in counseling right now.

I had many variables that went into my Ravelympics project. I wanted something that went with Project Spectrum 3: Water. I wanted something Malabrigo. I wanted something that challenged me, since sweaters at the most are finished in 10-14 days. I thought and thought and then realized that all of these factors fit into one project. A sock. I knit them but I am not entirely fast with the knitting. I also had a sample skein of Malabrigo sock yarn in my stash that I won in March for Malabrigo March. So I finally settled on a Malabrigo sock yarn which just happened to fit into the PS3 triad and a Cookie A pattern – Mingus.

My progress as of last night:

I love the yarn and I love pattern. I had it memorized about a quarter of the way through the first repeat. Since this yarn is not released yet, let me share my thoughts.

Just a bit on my sock knitting preferences. I adore 2.50mm needles for socks. I feel they aren’t too small or too big and I am a loose knitter so it just feels right to use a 2.50mm. I also like to have a firm gauge for several reasons. 1) It allows pure merino socks to wear for longer and 2) it does not hurt the soles of my feet (I hated the first 3 pairs of socks I made. They were easy enough to make but I hated to walk in them).

The pattern I am knitting requires a 32st to 4” gauge in Stockinette St. I started out with my 2.50mm needles and I was surprised at how thin the yarn was, but I knit on hoping to learn something. I did the 2.50mm needles are the perfect sock gauge. They produce a gauge of 36st to 4” (9st per inch) in Stockinette St. The Mmmmalsock yarn created a firm thin fabric with a super soft feel when squished and unsquished unlike any other sock yarn. It has the yarn circumference of Lorna’s Laces, which I dislike knitting with because it feels like rough string. The softness at this point is incomparable.

One problem with that swatch was that it might be my perfect sock gauge for Mmmmalsock but I needed about a stitch less per inch to do the pattern and have it fit my foot. So I went up a needle size to my 2.75mm needle, My swatch is almost perfect with a gauge of 33-34st to 4” in st st. This gauge is a bit too loose to have on the sole of my foot, it would be painful to wear but I got almost pattern gauge. I decided not to go up another needle because I felt I would really dislike the fabric produced.

So I will be knitting the sock with 2.75mm needles, except on the stockinette sole where I will be switching to 2.50mm so that socks will feel nice on my feet.

This is the review, I left on the Malabrigo Junkie Ravelry group.

Of course I can’t be forgetting CareBear’s sock. I worked on it on Sunday because I wanted something that did not require chart reading for church. I have pushed through and I am almost at the second heel.

Or at least that is my feelings on the issue. CareBear took a stab at the colors yesterday. Do any of you think she is close? Thanks goodness none of you knit with me IRL so you can’t go and tell her the real colors.