I need a knitting project

I'm sure I'm due for a better update than this, but I'm tired and kinda brain dead right now.

But several times over the last few weeks I've thought I want a new knitting project. I do have some started (droid hat, droid hat, socks) but they either feel out of season (droid hats) or too much work (2nd C3PO hat) or too much of commitment right now (socks)

SO ... I want a new project. Something fun and maybe kinda quick, and small, that I could tote around in my purse and work on in the little minutes. Not that I have a lot of little minutes right now. But when I DO have them, I'd like some project in my purse. I have lots of yarn in the house, so something that doesn't require me buying yet more yarn would be nice.

Any ideas? :-)

If you needed a low-stress summer knitting project, what would YOU tackle?

Imaginary Decorating - Take Two

Alright internet peeps, I need your help.

I'm sure you'll recall I have no decorating sense.

Here's the long wall of my living room. Pardon the barrel-and-stitching distortion, my floor and ceiling aren't really curved. Here's what I've got to work with: A very long wall, two couches along it, the lamp in the middle is the one controlled by the lightswitch to the room. If you wanted, we could move it to the end of the left (flowered) couch and put another one at the far end of the right (blue futon) couch. You can imagine the left couch without the *stuff* on it - I was taking down and moving around the pix FOR these pictures and left it on the couch when I took the pic. Silly me.

Anyway. The wall is actually WHITE. The room is pretty bright and airy, but only gets indirect light from outside, the windows (far right) face North. The North wall has big windows on the left (see small pix at end) and the TV armoire in the middle. The East wall (opposite this one) has bookcases at each end, and a long fireplace/mantle wall in between with family pix on it (see small pic at end) - the south end of this room has the navy loveseat recliner and then a space to walk through between the front hall and family room, and behind that is the piano alcove and kitchen.

Still with me?

So here's a picture of that wall with no pix on it:

I had some pictures in other places, and then I bought these cute 6 little shadow boxes in a rainbow of colors. I don't know what I'll put in them. (Ideas welcome!) So I was going to move around some pictures and try to place the shadow boxes.

here's my first attempt at driving the pictures around and arranging them.

But I'm pretty sure you could do better. So ... where would you put stuff?

if you are really into this and have something that will open Photoshop files, you can grab the layered file here and drive the layers around, which is always fun. Each piece of wall art is in it's own layer. Or you can write out instructions and I'll try to do what you said. :)

http://www.andfam.net/kimblog/blogpix/lr_upload/r_whole_layers_ps.psd

Other random rambles related to trying to decorate this room ...

the other couch in here is a navy blue loveseat recliner, coming out at a right angle from the left end of the left flowery couch. The floor is wood. The room is all painted white, other than the brick fireplace across from this wall.

I tried to find a recent picture of the LR but I can't find one. I can take a few if you need to see the whole room. I don't know how this decorating works.

Anyway, can you drive around - verbally or with photoshop - those things on the wall and tell me where you would place them, if you were decorating my living room?

What else would you do to the room (here's where the seeing the whole room might help, eh?) I guess there's these pics from before we started the OrgoWork:

but we've moved furniture around since then to be more useful. The white wicker is gone. The two black chairs are still in there, they move around depending on whether we're watching videos or playing the wii. The navy loveseat recliner is in the same place as in these pictures. Some of the excess clutter is gone. :) Does that help any?

Oh, but anyway. Short of buying new furniture, what else would you do for the room? I like light, bright colors and am leaning towards a little "rainbow" focus (like the 6 shadow boxes) to try to tie in some of the warm hues in the room without *decorating* in warm browns and golds and oranges. Does that make sense? I have no real sense of how to decorate, though, so if I'm just going in the wrong direction, tell me. The worst i can do is continue to blunder and reject your advice, right? :-)

I'll quit rambling and let you get to work.

Violet Jelly

Eminoodle and Moogie saw great potential in our yard-of-not-grass. Each spring our yard turns into a violet field. Moogie mentioned to Eminoodle that they should make violet jelly with all those violets, and Noodle was off to surf up a recipe and pick a heap of violets.

Here are the results of our first small batch.

We don't know how it tastes yet, but it sure looks pretty!

There's a few more artsy fartsy jelly pix at my Flickr photostream if you want to see more.

And Then They Were Socks

Well, I had joked that the yarn looked like an easter egg, and maybe if I were lucky I'd knit them by Easter. But, in the end, after the detours to knit manly mitts, R2D2, and C3PO hats, I didn't finish by Easter.

I did, however, finally finish them! Ladies and Gentlemen, I now present.... The Kool Socks.

KOOL because they are hand dyed with Kool Aid.

Here's the Extreme Close Up of the sock, taken out in the sun -- the colors are fairly accurate, at least on MY monitor.

They're nice and bright and fun. And no, they don't smell good anymore, although they did when I was dyeing them. The scent rinsed out.

The Pattern is Grumperina's Jaywalker Socks -- the pattern for which seems to be down right now, I'm not sure why. I'm about two years late on the Jaywalker craze, but pleased with myself for finishing my first pair of socks for myself.

But, to avoid having this post ONLY be self-congratulatory, I also offer you my favorite sight of spring: When my squill bloom at once and make a small ocean of blue:

Isn't that beautiful?

Not Quite What I'd Planned

You know, I don't see a lot of flops posted on knitting blogs.

And I guess I could wait until I had something good to post.

But ... I'll show you my flop. Or maybe it's not a flop, but a rough draft.

'Cause sometimes things don't turn out like I planned.

I give you: The C-3PO hat - Attempt II

Attempt I was frogged before you ever saw it.

Attempt II didn't go quite like I'd envisioned, but it was a learning experience, and in some ways I needed to press on to see how I'd like it in the end.

So here's the idea:

From the front - a regular beanie, yellow/gold. The BACK of his head.
From the back - C-3PO's face, with an extended "chin" panel.

Why? Because, like Kelly said earlier, "Wouldn't a C-3PO cap just be yellow?" -- I needed some way to get his face in.

Some problems I ran into:

Well you know when you're knitting a rib and the purl columns pull back? That doesn't mean they'll do that if you're working horizontally - a purled section puffs OUT ... thus the spookiness around the "cheekbones" ~ in my head it was going to pull back, not puff out. I should've known that, because I know knitting horizontal ribs the purls stick out. But ... oh well. I didn't think that through.

Stranding and Intarsia. Wow, they're just hard! Getting the tension right, not gapping, not puckering, especially working in the round. This added to the spooky eyes. So next time (yes, yes, there will be a next time. But I should really finish that sock, too ... Hmmm) I will try the "duplicate stitch method" which makes more sense on this anyway, being that there's not really a LOT of other-colored parts to deal with.

I tried a pseudo-bobble for the eyebrows (because I was too lazy to learn how to do a horizontal cable) and should've purled instead of knit the extra stitches.

And I guess it needs to be a little smaller. Or I need a bigger headed model (looks around for Gark) ...

Since I haven't started Attempt III yet, I'm open to gracious suggestions. :)

Enough babble, here's what you really wanted to see. Just don't laugh at me too much. I've already admitted it's not what I intended. But I still have high hopes for next time. Plus, I made everything but the shaping up myself (I did use the shaping from the R2D2 hat) so I figure I should get some points for that, right?

Old but colorful news

We went to the butterfly exhibit the 2nd day it was open. Most of my pictures are just like everyone else's, so I spared us all the cropping and posting. But I will share a few.

I did get this pretty cool closeup of a Buckeye that perched on Eminoodle's hat:

click on it if you want to see it even closer up at flickr ...

Buzz liked them - except when they landed on him:

And, while this isn't a dazzling photo, it was exciting ~ one landed on me, way down here by my thigh, and worked its way all the way up to my shoulder, over my back where I couldn't see it.

on the way out, the girls and I - who were walking home - jumped off the ledge for awhile. I really wanted to do this on LeapDay, but was a bit late.

I should jump more often, I like mid-jump hair. And do you like my new "girly" coat? And how it matches my boots? I'm quite pleased with them. :-)

Last colorful news doesn't fit with the rest, it's the old "hack it into the same blog entry or it'll never get posted" routine.

WAaaaaay back in 4th grade we had a chalk drawing assignment. It went to tour somewhere, as Elementary school Art is known to do. There wasn't a mall in town way back then, so maybe it was the Big City Mall a half hour away, or maybe it was one of those cool Mezzanine Library Art Shows I always loved. But anyway. After it was gone, my art teacher said someone contacted her because they wanted to buy it. As a budding artist, I was thrilled. She helped me set a fair price, and I never saw the picture again. I didn't forget about it, though, once in awhile something reminded me of those old days when I thought of myself as an artist, and that I had actually SOLD a work of art.

So anyway. Back in the dead of winter '08, on some bitterly cold day, I got a phone call. Some lady said she had just talked to my parents, and had been at an antique show / flea market. Well, if you know my parents you would have hung up right there. We all know they weren't at a flea market or antique sale. But I didn't hang up. Turns out SHE was at a show, with her friend, and her friend saw this framed chalk drawing. And looked on the back. Where it still had the original school art display sticker, with my former name, address, and phone number. So the lady bought it, took it home, and sought to reunite it with the 4th grader who made it. Fortunately for me, my parents still live at that phone number, and gave her mine. She gave me the drawing for free, happy to reunite it with it's owner.

So here it is! Are you so curious?!?!

I'm sure some of you are struck by the smudgy nature of chalk, some of which was at the advice of the art teacher, as I recall, and you are thinking, "messy."

Others of you, surely, are struck by the delicate artistic balance and signs of budding genius (like the clever signature, complete with exclamation point!) Uh huh.

And the rest of you are stuck thinking, "What IS that?!" because you want to understand and it looks a little abstract, which bothers you. Right?

It's skunk cabbage!

Skunk Cabbage!

nifty, eh?

So now you know a famous artist.

Er. An accomplished artist.

Yeah.

As a result of the return of this work of fine art, I will in the future need your decorating advice. But not today, all this typing is too much for my poor weakened state.

Hard Hats Not Required - Now With Ham!

My mom had a neat idea while we were at their house yesterday.

Her mini marshmallows were just a little stale, and she had appropriated some of Poppie's toothpicks from a project he'd done with a Youth Lay Speaking retreat. We modified the project to suit our group.

Our assignment: Build things out of marshmallows and toothpicks.

This was one of the days where the candid pix delighted me even more than the posed ones. But here's a little of both:

Tobi-wan laying on the floor next to his self-made Tobi-Robot:

And Buzz wanting in on the floor-laying-photo-shoot. Would you like a little ham with your tower?

Mom and I took up the challenge to see how tall a tower we could make.

Here's mom after adding the final spike to hers. Where do those kids get their hamminess from?

The marshmallows made it tough to build very high before things got wobbly. Originally we were trying to beat Poppie's claim that the youth could only build about 1' tall ... as we worked, Poppie came through and mentioned more and more ridiculous rules they'd used that we hadn't. Like only using your 'other' hand (left if you're right handed) ... and working in teams ... and only having 15 minutes.

I was glad we hadn't started with all those rules, I would've quit before I started. Using both hands, not having to coordinate a team, and having as much time as we liked, Mom and I were both able to make structures around a foot and a half.

And then we piled her structure on my structure.

Look, it's as tall as my extended fingertips!

Yes, Yes, I know I look like a dork in that picture. Apparently hamminess does not skip a generation. Why am I doing that next to the tower? Because I'm mimicking this picture from my past!!

This is Randy-the-neighborhood-kid and I with our very tall block tower when we were 4. Nice outfit I'm wearing, eh? It was purple plaid.

Okay, really, ours wasn't that tall, I'm squinched down and it's on the table. Here's me leaning to get out of the picture before the tower tips over. I'm not pregnant, and not fat. Well, not that fat. I'm leaning. Leeeeaaaaning.

But really, the combined tower held up pretty well, even when iliacat carried it around the house, balanced on one hand. Can you spot the ham in this picture?

Or the ham in this picture?

Does it look like Buzz is building in the background of that last one? Look closer. He's just eating the building materials.

When we were all done, the marshmallows were divided up amongst cups of cocoa. A good time was had by all!

Thanks Mom!!!

Big Giant Manly Mitts

Ta Da!

I finally finished The Mittens, after several starts and re-starts.

I'd link you to a pattern, but I changed SO many things that they really aren't at all like the pattern I "used" ... maybe if I'm quick about it I could re-write what I did, if I haven't forgotten. Ha ha ha!!!!

I have to say that I really liked the two-at-once-on-two-circulars approach. I am wondering if I can/should transfer my one poor 1/3 done sock to a circ, knit up a 2nd 1/3 done sock, and then continue them together. Hm. Not sure if that would be more work or less, but I loved knowing when to switch them together, and knowing they'd be the same.

I'm not a big fan of pointy-tipped mittens. It seems to be trendy these days, at least many of the patterns had them. Somehow I thought I would avoid them if I switched from knitting two rounds between decreases to knitting one round between, and then kitchnering up the end. But apparently that's what makes the pointy tips. I guess. I don't know. Anyway, meh. I ended up pulling in the tips a little to reduce the pointy look. If I had to do it over, I'd do it differently. But they're done, so there.

Don't they look HUGE?!?!?!?

But I have puny little girly hands. And I used The Grand Lunar as my hand model, since he also has Big Manly Hands, and they fit him, so ... phew.

Next up in the knitting world ... um ... back to the sock(s) ?

Goodbye half-done mittens ...

Alas.

I've been working on some mittens as a gift.

I already frogged them once, early on, because I was totally doing the two mittens at once on two circulars wrong. (Which, when I finally got it right, I must say is a way cool thing to be able to do, knit both at once!) Then I frogged them again after a few rounds of ribbing because the knit was too loosey on the big needles, and I thought I might want a few more stitches, too. So I was pleased with how these were looking. And they seemed like they'd be stretchy enough to accomodate even larger hands.

But I don't know. I think they'll be too stretched out for the recipient, when worn. They actually fit me fairly well, but they aren't for me.

I kept going, for awhile, not wanting to waste the effort I put into them.

But I think it's better that I frog mid-palm than complete them and have them be an "it's the thought that counts" sort of gift.

Goodbye mittens, about to be cut down in your unfinished youth. So sad.

Oh, and I owe Rosanne a MEME which I'm going to rebelliously call a MEME, so look for that, oh ... eventually. 'Cause right now I've got some frogging and knitting to do.

The Real Day 5 and an Easter Egg

I'm back! Did you miss me when my email and blog server were dead?

OrgoDay 5

Today was the 5th day of 'real work' -- we had a little less time, but still made good progress!

http://andfam.net/kim/OrgoDay5/OrgoDay5.html

Today we attacked the storage in the front hall ~ there's some built in shelves with a cupboard underneath, that I've 'curtained off' as storage because I just don't have (or want?) that much cutesy display stuff. If you were to come in my front door and down the front hall past some bedrooms, you'd pass this area.

Also, the coat closet doesn't have a door because long ago the carpenter ants ate the bathroom door, and the door isn't a standard size, so we replaced the bathroom door by stealing the coat closet door, which just has a curtain now. Is that weird?

So I don't know if getting those two areas cleared out doesn't look like a lot, but really, a lot of it was "nightmare" stuff to me -- things I'd stashed up there long ago and just made me weary to think of going through. But with Hollie to chat with and keep me moving (and guilt me into working with her ceaseless work, and me standing around realizing I ought to be working too) it wasn't too bad at all.

I think tomorrow we'll start on children's bedrooms!

And an Easter Egg ... of Yarn

In other news, I spent my non-organizing time on a craft project.

Yes, that's right, I didn't work on any decluttering and organizing without Hollie.

Aint no Orgo when she's gone ...
Aint to work when she's away ...
Aint no Orgo when she's gone,
and she's always gone too long,
and I find new ways to play ...

So yeah. I bought some undyed superwash wool sock yarn from http://www.knitpicks.com/ ... and read up on Kool Aid dyeing at knitty.com ... and finally decided Sunday evening to get to it.

So I knit a row of stockinette and a row of the funky zig zag in the sock pattern I want to use. I marked the start and end of the rows, then frogged it and measured and got about 40" per row. I decided I wanted 3 rows, more or less, of each color band, and that I wanted it to go blue, green, blue, pink-variegated, and then repeat.

So ... 3 rows x 40" = 120" per color band, which equals 10' per band. (right?)

4 colors before repeating = 40' circumference of the pattern.

So I made a 40' circle of some old burnt orange yarn, and placed it around two chairs around 20' apart, and then walked with the hank of yarn around, and around, and around.

You would think that would be one of those peaceful, mindless tasks, right? But it wasn't. It was really stressful! I had to keep carefully flipping the hank so that it didn't tangle as I went. And as careful as I was, I couldn't keep the tension of the big loops even, so some were saggy. At the end the last few rounds got tangled and I had to sit and carefully untangle before wrapping and I was just really stressed out by it. Plus it took a lot longer than I'd naively imagined.

After wrapping, I measured off a 5' (doubled) loop at one end, then two 10' sections next to each other in the middle, and let the last ~5' (a little more, I don't know where I measured wrong) doubled end be for the red. I carefully did a criss-cross banding to mark the separations and to hold the loops so they would tangle less ... for the pink I zig-zagged the loop back and forth and tied it loosely so I could just dip half of it in the pink, giving myself a few stitches pink, a few white, repeating pattern for those rows. I hoped.

Then I dyed the sections in Kool-Aid on the stove.

green = lemon lime kool aid, 2 packages
red = strawberry, 2 packages
blue = ice blue raspberry lemonade and berry blue, mixed, 5 packages total

A few things I'd do differently -- 2 packets strawberry was a much deeper and redder "pink" than I wanted. Plus I should've wrapped the zig-zag much tighter, effectively tie-dying the white section off, because it started to come undone and I got less white banding than I wanted. I pulled the red out early, before all the dye was absorbed, and so it bled onto the 'white' and made it pink. Oh well.

There's more pix at Flickr by the way, if you want to see the rinsing step and the hanging in the basement to dry part.

If I thought wrapping around the chairs was tedious, I hadn't even dreamed of laying out the 20' long band and then UNwrapping the dyed loops, trying carefully to pass the half-rolled ball over and under the places where it had twisted. It took me over 3 hours to roll it into a center-pull ball.

I'm really hoping there's some sort of yarn dyeing initiation that I just went through, and someone will say, "ha ha, now that you did it the hard way, here's the easy way!" because the Kool Aid part was fun, but the wrapping and unwrapping, not so much!

But in the end I got this pretty little easter egg, with which to make socks from. Do you think I'll get them finished by Easter?

The Poor Child and His Hat

I finished Sputnik's (The Child Formerly Known As LittleD) hat ...

it's a cute hat.

It's ... um ... pretty roomy. Gives him room to grow a giant crop of poofy hair, I guess.

You might recall this is the second hat I've attempted for him. The first was a bit small. It's like living the goldilocks story. The 3rd hat would be just right. Except I'll probably stop here and move on because the child, bless his sweet little heart, loves the roomy hat with extra hair-growth room.

I frogged the first point twice before being happy with the points. Why I didn't frog at the start, when I knew the hat would be extra roomy, is beyond me. I guess I had a frogaversion. But maybe next time I'll be bold enough to frog early. We'll see.

Isn't he just the cutest thing?

Even when he's also a little blurry?

One hat, two hat, green hat, blue hat

I've been knitting some hats, LittleD (didn't we say we were going to find him a new blog name? Hmmm) asked me to knit him one, and my dear friend Robin (hi Robin!) had sent me some beautiful blue and green yarn. So I found two patterns (because I can't knit just one!) and I got started. The first hat turned out to be too small for LittleD but I was hoping it would fit Buzz, rather than frog it and start over. And it does. Barely. So I started in on a 2nd, bigger one. Which might be a little big. But the boy's head will grow, right? Apparently I really really don't like to frog.

Oh, I forgot, the yarn & pattern info. I can't tell you the yarn because it doesn't have it's wrappers but it's a worsted weight variegated color yarn, and I'm pretty sure it's acrylic.

The base of the hats are this pattern: Maggie's Rags Tassled Hat
But instead of two points, I decided I wanted to try three, like this pattern: Iceland Printed Wool Baby Hat

So I followed the first pattern as written, or at least I thought I did, but when I was almost done and re-read it I realized I was doing the waffle stitch wrong - I somehow didn't process row 3 and 4, so I was just doing rows 1 and 2 - so instead of my knit-into stitches alternating their position, they lined up, making fatter lines. Which I like, so that was cool. But on hat #2 I did decide to try it the right way. Oh, and the first hat was a little too small to knit on circular needles, so I ended up needing to learn the two-circlulars thing, which worked out well, but I like the larger hat on one set better. I could do the two-circulars to make socks or something, but I am pretty sure I'd prefer the 3-4 dpns for that, having done that already.

Then, when I got to the end of the hat, instead of stitching it across into 2 points, I divided it into 3 and kitchener-stitched to 3 of the end of each point, then did the icord thingie as listed.

Both hats look chunkier in their pictures than mine turned out, despite using worsted weight yarn and the same size needles. On the 3-pointed picture I think it's because their hat was tinier yet. Anyway, I like how the hats are turning out, and fairly pleased with my combining of the two patterns.

So anyway, here are the two hats together, the finished and the half-done larger one. Note how differently the yarn lines up on the 2nd hat, it must be just the right circumference for the striping pattern. Funky.

one hat, two hat
green and blue hat,
this one is a little small
this one's in a big big car

Yeah, I really held up the blog entry an entire day to put all those pics together into an animated gif. Excellent use of my time? Perhaps not. That's Buzz in the little hat, enjoying it in the car on the long and bouncy ride back from Wisconsin. Which, for those of you who might not know, is pronounced Wis-GAHN-sin. Anyway, I hope that picture doesn't give anyone a seizure.

Holding up the blog entry wouldn't normally be a good deal, but yesterday I was flying high on paranoia, having read my wonderful friend Face to the Sunshine's blog (isn't that a great blogging name?!) about occasionally cleaning up her links and how we shouldn't be offended if we got cut, and it struck fear in my heart, I was sure she was preparing me for getting cut. Which, really, is fine, because everyone should have the right to change their links as they see fit, I agree wholeheartedly with that. But still don't want to know I'm being cut, LOL. But today I see that I'm almost tenured there, LOL! So I'm safe. Now if I could just shake all the paranoia and anxiety clouding my interpretation of the rest of the world, I'd be all set.

I still have something deep to blog about, but that'll have to wait, so the hats have their moment of glory.

as a side note: I want to make one of those little sidebar thingies that measures the progress of my knitting projects, but I really want to re-do the entire blog, and that's a big undertaking ... ramble, ramble ...

So ... back to LittleD, who originally requested the hat that started this post. What should we change his blog name to? It's the 50th anniversary of Sputnik's launch this week, should we change him to Sputnik? That would put him in space with The Grand Lunar, and he does barrel around like a frantically launched rocket sometimes ... what do you think? Does it fit? Or should I hold out for a better blog name?

Socks are not so hard ...

Knitting socks is easier than spray painting lockers.

I'm almost done painting the lockers. I may or may not do one more coat of green on the 'background' part. Then I need to make arrangements to somehow get them IN the house. Which will require entreating some big, strong, willing men to assist the Grand Lunar. The outside spray paint portions have gone on much better than the awkward inside. They won't be perfect, but they will be, I believe, good enough.

But enough about the lockers. Let me show you the socks!

It took me all summer, but only because I didn't work on them much, until recently.

I learned:

1.) how do do the kitchener rib in the round, incorrectly (the sock on the left)
2.) how to do the kitchener rib in the round, correctly (I think! the sock on the right)
3.) that they don't match when you do one wrong and one right and don't frog the correct one to match the incorrectly previously done sock
4.) that I don't like the kitchener rib stitch
5.) that I prefer ribbed socks to the bloated look of unribbed gussets.
6.) kids don't mind bloated gussets or mismatched cuffs.

In other news ~

Today I'm taking the big kids all the way up to the Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Pray for us to stay awake, alert, and healthy!

Pictures tomorrow! Maybe. Tomorrow starts school.

A Happy Sock Post

I finished my third pair of socks today! A pair for little Buzz that I started last Friday while lounging up north.

Buzz was very very pleased. Click here for a little video of him showing his socks and pointing out that he has "two-uh" of them.

And here's a picture of Iliacat from last night at her concert, in her tux shirt, tie, and cummerbund. I didn't get a good picture of the whole choir, which is too bad.

Doesn't she look nice?

Not so bad, really

You know, "S.O.S. - Save Our Sock!" might have been a better title yesterday than the Unclear on the Gusset title. Although that was a tribute to Mr. Boffo, my old, dear friend.

Okay, anyway, I stayed up way too late and finished the sock anyway. Despite my bloated gusset reservations.

Really, it's not so bad once it's on the foot.

Turns out, too, that Tobi-Wan and Little D have almost the same size feet.

Anyhoo, here's the sock on its intended foot:

Like the bag in the background, Becky?

Anyway, you can still see the hole, and the gusset bloat, but it's not TOO obvious, and Little D is pleased and anxiously awaiting sock #2, which of course will in no way match because that self-striping yarn doesn't actually have a repeating pattern. I think if I had just ribbed the sock, it would've been fine.

Anyway, despite declaring it "not so bad" I'll still take thoughts, suggestions, and advice to further my future sock making skills and alleviate my gusset and flap disability. Don't let the project being completed stop you from saving me.

In sort of related news ... After a weekend of taking EMinoodle out, knitting, working in the basement, and then doing n-o-t-h-i-n-g yesterday my house is understandably trashed.

But ... Little D needs another sock. One for each foot.

Isn't that reason enough for a NothingButKnit day?

**addendum** Shari reminded me that I didn't say what kind of yarn and all that stuff that good knitters remember to say. LOL.

I am using Moda Dea Sassy Stripes: "Spring" which is listed as "light" weight but seems about the same thickness as the "worsted weight" I just used. I really don't GET those weight labels. I am using size 3 (3.25 mm) wood dpns.

I'm sort of using the same pattern as I used in the other sock, which would be The Super Simple Knitwit Sock Pattern but I used 36 stitches instead of 40 (which made very little difference, really, even with the supposedly lighter weight yarn) ... I made it "preschooler" sized by shortening the leg portion and the foot portion. And I already mentioned the bad-idea-gusset modification I made LOL. I only bought one skein of this, 50 g, and I am guessing it will be just about enough for two preschooler socks. Which makes for expensive socks, when you think about it.

There are a lot of other self-striping yarns ~ the yarn I bought for *my* socks is Paton's Kroy Sock Yarn in Krazy Stripes ... it looks darker in person than in those images online.

I'm enjoying the "magic" self striping enough to consider getting some more to try out, I am thinking of trying Lion Brand Magic Stripes in Bright Spring or Jellybean -**After** I make my own socks, that is.

Unclear on the Gusset

Calling all sock knitters! Calling all sock knitters! Please respond to a knitting distress call!

Help me out here.

In my first socks I followed The Knitwit Sock Pattern and my heel flap looked fine until I followed the gusset directions, picked up 10 slipped stitches along each side, and continued. While I think I followed the directions correctly, somehow the flap curved around and the turn ended up midway through the sole of the heel.

I decided maybe it was because I'd picked up too few stitches for how many rows the heel flap was long? (It said to make it 2.5" so I did) ...

See how it curves around and the turn isn't really where it's supposed to be?

So then I was trying to make a sock for my 4 year old, whose feet aren't a lot smaller than Eminoodles. I thought maybe the flaps on hers curled because I only picked up a little more than half the rows so that I'd get the 10 stitches per side it said to pick up. I tried to distribute those 10 evenly among the flap rows. But then it curved around and I thought maybe the too-few gusset pick ups were pulling it around the corner?

So on this sock I picked up 13 stitches on each side, because I had about that many rows (actually, about double the rows, because I was doing that slip-stitch double-thick heel thing - on both socks) ... anyway, because of that, my 36 stitch sock jumped to something like 52 stitches and it took a long time to decrease back down to the 36 stitches, and the whole while the gusset is big and flat and bloated.

I mean I realize it's supposed to be a little bigger, but wow, it's like he'd need a swollen broken ankle to *fit* the socks.

I haven't frogged it back to the flap yet because I'm just confused. Plus it's a lot of work and I don't want to do it over, LOL. But seriously.

I don't really get what's going on during the flap-and-turn-and-gusset. I mean, I see where the stitches go, but I'm not sure how to get them to work together.

Am I doing something *way wrong* ? Or ... what?

Also, what's up with that little hole at the top of where I picked up stitches. I know it LOOKS like I didn't pick up close enough to the edge, but if anything I went a bit too far and somehow picked up something that was on the edge of the two parts. I don't know, I'm just confused.

See how *square* it looks in these instructions? No bloat. No curved flap.

Should I frog back the bubble-footed sock, or persevere since I'm almost done and a 4 year old won't care anyway? He's just happy to be getting socks.

But I need to have all this figured out before I do MY socks! :-D

Can you help me get a clue?

New Socks, Two Socks

New Socks. Two Socks.
Whose Socks? Noodlesocks.
Who sees who sew whose new socks, sir?
You see Kim sewed Noodles socks, sir.

As you can see, I finally got them done. It's hard to tell, but I think #2 might be slightly shorter than #1, I found it very difficult to get them the same, and I think #1 had been slightly stretched out by the tryings on and such. Eminoodle is very hard on socks, she seems to wear holes in things almost immediately. So I'm wondering how long all that effort will last.

But she likes them.

I will get started on my crazy striped sock yarn for myself, next. Although all the little boys are clamoring for socks of their own. I am looking forward to trying smaller needles, thinner yarn, and more stitches for a more polished look. Hopefully.

I was so sad, all along I had wanted to join the Green Sock Knit-Along, which has such a cute graphic - here, I may as well steal it and use it, it's such a nice graphic. Only the link no longer goes anywhere. I'll link it to what it was linked to, so you can see for yourself. If it moved, I never found it.

Anyway, earlier this year I read about the green sock knit-along on Wool Winder's site, and that's when I decided I would try sock knitting. And so I have. My green socks, my very first socks, are complete. Amen.

** edited to add info on the pattern & yarn:

I used this pattern: The Super Simple Knitwit Sock Pattern

I used Caron Simply Soft Brites in Lime green ~ a thin worsted weight (I'm a little confused on all that, it SAYS worsted weight, but it seemed thinner than average to me) and size 3 (3.25 mm) needles.

Yarn Alert!

Becky alerted me to this deal:

Amazon has TLC yarns for only $0.69 per skein through Joann's Amazon store. Shipping for under $20 is only $6.95, and for only a dollar more you can spend up to $39.99! And my Michigan tax was only a few bucks, so my price-per-skein was still less than a dollar ~ The same yarns were $3.69 and up at Joann's site. And I figure with three of us gals in the house learning to knit and or crochet, I may as well stock up when the price is right. Plus, I think some of the "baby" yarns might make very nice socks!

Of course, I didn't figure in the cost of building a new room to store all the skeins I bought.

***Yoinks!*** Update ~
(Sunday evening) They are now all listed at $3.00! I guess it wasn't supposed to be so great a deal. I hope they honor it!

Choir Concert and the Sock

I finished the first sock!

As I was nearing the end I tried it on ~ I will spare you the pictures of my unattractive naked toes sticking out the end, through the needles. It was scary.

But the fact was, the sock was nice, and I *could* get it on, but it was stretched unhappily wide. I realized that, while I could continue knitting to make it *long* enough in the foot to fit my feet, that I would never *love* my first knit pair of socks (assuming there's ever a *pair*) ...

The pattern I used only started with 40 stitches, and my yarn, although labeled worsted weight, seems to be thinner than average, and my needles were slightly smaller than the ones listed ... and yeah, yeah, maybe I should've done a swatch for the gauge. Live and learn. Truth be told, I've never knit a swatch and aren't really sure how to measure and count or how that little doo-dad thing comes in .... I bought one, am I supposed to somehow use it?

And so, anyway, I decided to stop, make the toe decreases, and give it to Eminoodle, whose foot was more it's size.

So here is the finished sock:

And here is my covered-for-your-sake-toes inside the sock, which I could still squeeze my foot unattractively into, so you can see how it was too over-stretched even though I could get it on, so you can agree it was best to give it to Eminoodle.

Here it is on her lovely, petite foot:

What do you think of my first sock? Is it a good first sock? Does the heel turn fall in the right place, or was it supposed to not go around the corner but be AT the corner? The pattern said to make the heel flap 2.5 inches, but I wasn't sure if it was supposed to stop at the sole of the foot, or supposed to round the corner with it's reinforced stitches. But the actual "turn" of the heel comes past where both my heel and Em's heel turns.

Does my knitting look terribly uneven? I think my sock looks fairly lumpy and uneven. Maybe I don't like the fact that it's fairly fat yarn/stitches, compared to tidy store socks with tiny thread, I guess. So I can't tell if it's good.

Here is Iliacat's first non-baby sock, which looks to be a more reasonable size than mine was. Hers is 60 stitches and I think it's sock weight or baby weight yarn or something. I don't know. She started it last Thursday, isn't she amazing?

And here's one pic from the choir concert. I guess The Grand Lunar shot some video of me leading the Bible Verses part, but I didn't digitize that for you. But he did, so now it's a link to his blog, go check it out, LOL.

I must confess, I'm glad choir's done for the year. I have to decide whether I'll help again in the fall or not. I really enjoyed teaching the Bible Verse part. We did motions to help remember it, and it was fun to see all the children recite long passages (Psalm 24 and Psalm 8) with the motions. But only a little of it was *real* sign language, and I'm wondering if it would be better to do it with REAL sign language, instead of just made up motions to jog memory.

Anyway, that concludes my partial report of Sunday Afternoon And Evening.

Even If You Don't Like Lentils Easy Lentil Soup

So you don't like lentils.

I didn't think I did, either.

For one thing, I was buying those sludgy olive gray ones. Ew. Plus, I have tasted a few misguided attempts at lentils-as-meat-replacement. There are many reasons to think you hate lentils.

May I encourage you to try them again? Just one more time. If you still hate them, you may officially say you hate them.

First, skip the sludgy gray green ones. Buy some "red" lentils. I find them in the international section at Meijer. They're a light reddish-orange color.

Second, don't try to make a lentil loaf. And if you don't like international food, don't go overboard on the international flavors. Our friends from Sri Lanka made us some excellent spicy dahl (which happens to mean "lentil" I believe) and I've even made some myself, but it's okay to tone it down. The Grand Lunar isn't fond of middle eastern and Indian flavors, but even he liked this soup.

Ready? Don't be scared. It's easy and good, and not too strong on the eastern flavors.

Even If You Don't Like Lentils Easy Lentil Soup

1 cup red lentils, rinsed
1 cup rice ~ you can use white rice or brown rice
6 cups water
2-4 cloves garlic, or garlic powder to taste
~1/2 cup chopped onions. I've used both sliced green onions and dried onion flakes with success
1/2 tsp. cumin - this is a very tiny amount
1/4 tsp. turmeric - this is even smaller, but makes it such a pretty yellow
1/4 tsp. paprika - again, very little
2 T. chicken bullion (equivalent to making 6 cups of stock)

that's it. bring to a boil and simmer ~20 minutes OR let it sit in the crockpot for 2-3 hours on high or 6 hours on low. It seems to be pretty flexible. If you do it on the stove, you may need to add a little more water as it cooks.

The lentils don't hold together in their lentil shape, they sort of become one with the soup, making it thick. The taste is like a very mild curry, but it's so mild you should try it even if you don't like curry. Seriously. And if you DO like curry, go ahead and add a lot more of the spices, to taste. Add some hot pepper flakes if you like it hot. But you don't have to, it's simple and good just the way it's written.

Oh, and in other news, here's how far I am in the first sock.

You can see I completed the heel flap, the heel gusset decreases, and am working on the "foot" part heading towards the toe. I only hope it fits me, and not someone else, when I'm done. But that sounds kind of selfish.

Five Feet of Love

I finished a gift I've been working on. I need to learn to make more time to knit, this really knit up pretty fast when I was working on it. It was the long gaps in between that delayed the project.

It's going out in tomorrow's mail, a little over a week later than my target date. And I'm blogging before it's received, which I hope doesn't ruin the surprise; since it's not a total surprise, to begin with, having been previously discussed. But the pictures can't capture the colors or the softness, I must admit I'm a little tempted to keep it. Or knit one for myself.

Here is Mogh, modeling The Ocean Scarf.

It's a K2 P2 rib knit on big size 17 needles with both Lion Suede in demin and some kind of foofy woofy soft yarn of which I apparently lost the label. Bummer. It might be Lion Fun Fur in Deep Sea, I'm not sure right now. It's a little hard to see the ribbing, but here's a detail pic:

So watch your mailbox, Linda! 5 feet of love is on it's way to you. Hopefully you'll still have some winter left with which to use it!

Yeah, that could be me ...

I swiped this quiz from antknit.

I have to admit, I got "dishcloth cotton" at first, but it really didn't sound like me (hardworking? born to clean? I don't think so!). So I changed 2 answers that I'd waffled over, and decided this sounded more like me. I guess I cheated a little. But not so much as that time I took the color quiz over and over and over until I got the color green I wanted.

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Acrylic.While you are very versatile, your plasticky countenance can be offputting. You are very good with children but can become a pill if left alone with them too long. You are very flexible but don't give in to manipulation.
Take this quiz!

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Baby, it's cold outside

Ta Da!

Baby, it's cold outside.

Sometimes, when you're out walking, wouldn't it be nice to have a warm place to tuck your hands?
An additional layer when your gloves aren't keeping for fingertips warm enough?

Okay, I didn't invent this idea. I was inspired by some pattern for pocket-ended and mitten-ended scarves I saw somewhere*, but then couldn't re-find. I was even going to BUY it. But I still haven't been able to re-find it. Plus, the pattern had complicated things like cables, which I don't know how to do.

Then, when I was surfing for mitten patterns, I came across these crocheted ones that are crocheted in one flat piece with a hole, then folded in half to seam up. Of course, I don't crochet, so I couldn't use the pattern. But I thought the idea would lend itself perfectly to the end-of-the-scarf idea, so I just muddled something out myself.

So I made this up. It's not bad for a "first draft" if I do say so myself ~ the mitten size was a little off. I did want them roomy, so that they could go over gloves, but they ended up kind of wide and squat, don't you think? But it works, and I still like the idea. I'm happy with the results, even if they're not perfect. Hey, I'm happy just to come to closure on a product, if you know me at all you know I don't finish things.

Here's the scarf, knit all in one long strip, before the mitts were folded and seamed:

Here's a close-up of the way the mittens are knit (and you can see my Excel spreadsheet "pattern" I made half-way through the first mitten, so I didn't get confused. Next there's a pic of one close up when it's folded and seamed.

I'd make them a little longer through the fingers, and maybe the ribbing at the wrist tighter (and longer?) if I did it again. Which I plan to do.

This started out as a gift to match the hat knitted by Iliacat, seen at the top picture (thus all the secrecy). But the hat turned out to be too itchy for the recipient (and thus did the scarf) so now I'm not sure who it's for. But we get to make another with softer material. So that's fun.

We used Lion Suede in teal (although it's darker IRL than it looks on their site, almost a dark spruce) and Red Heart Super Saver Yarn in banana berry. the Banana Berry is 100% acrylic and a little scratchy.

Oh, and the edges roll. A lot. What's up with that? I guess I need to learn how knit so the edges don't roll. Is it because I was using two yarn strands at once?

But anyhoo, I wrote down what I did, so that i can do it again, with kimodifications, of course.

So ... that's the big secret project. What do you think?

---
* look!
I finally found the concept-inspiration scarves again!

half done with the almost done ...

I did work on the project today. I got half the sewing-up part done. Tried very hard to do a nice mattress stitch, but between the increases and decreases and ribbing in one part, it turned out to be ... adequate. not a pretty mattress stitch joining.

But it took me over an hour, and I almost missed my much needed nap.

And then I didn't get around to doing the other half.

I could do it now, maybe. Although it's already 11:30.

I feel bad making everyone wait another day. 'Cause I'm sure you're all waiting at the edge of your seat to see the great unveiling.

But the Grand Lunar's game is no longer making happy bling noises (that's not bling in the popular (but nonsensical) sense, but the noise the game makes. Onomatopoeia and all that.) and now he says he's going to bed.

So ... how about tomorrow. I'll work on it tomorrow and get it done.

Deal?

Remember the Top Secret Project?

I am pleased to announce that I'm almost done!!!

I mean, I finished the actual knitting part around midnight tonight. Or is that yesterday, now?

But I still have a portion that needs to be seamed or sewed together or whatever you call it.

And since it's 12:17 now, I probably shouldn't start learning it now. I don't really know how to do it, but I think I remember seeing a little category for seaming things up at knittinghelp.com. So I'll have to look.

Tomorrow.

After school.

After naps.

After choir, perhaps.

So don't hold your breath. Just know that it's coming. Soon.

Technically it's not even a secret anymore, I had to let the cat out of the bag over the holidays. But I didn't tell you yet, so I guess it is still a secret. Ha ha! You have to wait.

Oh, but i did take pictures all along so you can see the progress, and so, if it's semi-successful, I sort of documented what I did. It's not perfect, but I think it'll be a good start on what I wanted to do.

Anyway.

In other blogworthy news, I need a new Apple iPhone. Really.

We watched the keynote address from MacWorld while I was finishing my knitting and wow. Wow. And more wow.

Oh, and lastly. The up at 4:40 thing?

Someone suggested that maybe I was up that early because I had gotten enough sleep. I am still laughing at that idea.

Turns out it was because I don't know how to set the alarm on a clock we've owned since, well, I think The Grand Lunar had it before we got married. The clock I've been setting for years and years. Yes, when I set the alarm, I accidentally set the clock ahead two hours. I was up by my own stupidity. Yessiree, Bob.

I've got a secret I've been hiding under my skin ...

I am working on a project!

A Knitting Project.

A Top Secret Knitting Project.

I am *totally* making up what I am doing. Well, sort of. I have no pattern, but two inspiration pieces. One which I saw, lost, and couldn't find again. The other which is actually a crochet pattern. I don't know how to crochet.

Ha ha! Doesn't that sound like fun?

I'm actually very excited about it.

But I can't show you yet.

Because it's Top Secret.

I finished The Poncho!

You remember I was working on a poncho, right? The one I had to frog, twice?

I finally finished it!!!!

My first non-dishcloth project!

It ... um ... didn't turn out exactly like I envisioned it. But, to be fair, I didn't really follow the pattern, either. Not that I didn't "trust the pattern". (I take it that's a knitting mantra?) but because I wanted to do my own thing. Why? Because I'm Kim. It's how I cook. It's how I live. And, apparently, it's how I knit.

Here's the original pattern, for those interested.

I knit on much bigger needles, for one thing. Going for that open look. Which you can see I achieved. And every 8 rows or so I added in the fluffy pink yarn for a knit-purl-knit set of 3 rounds. In retrospect I found that the K YO K YO K pattern down the middle doesn't look very tidy if you're knitting on oversized needles. And I should've knit the YO pattern even on the Purl rows, I think. Oh, and I was going to do the fringe, but decided at the end not to. But it turned out interesting, eh? And we like it. LOL.

The biggest surprise was that as I was knitting in the round, to to bottom, I never could get a good feel for how it would hang, because the bottom was always bunched in the coil of the needles. I forgot how the YO increase would angle it, so I knit until I thought it would be a little past waist length on Eminoodle.

But that was the short sides, and the long ends turned out, well, really l o n g.

One thing I'm a little not-sure-of is why my angle of increase is so much greater. I did re-read the pattern and it sounds like you do the K YO K YO K portion front and back, which I did, which adds 4 stitches per round. But hers made a tidy ~90 degree point and my is, well ... so long. Is that because of the big needles? Wouldn't that make it proportionally bigger in both directions? Or maybe I'm knitting goofy, doing something wrong. I might be. I just started, I don't really know what I'm doing.

Although I am having fun, what with the knitting stuff.


Anyway. As you can see, the poncho looks great ... as long as you pose like this:

Here's a little detail of the knit:

If I had to do it over again, would I do it the same?
Well, I don't like to cook the same exact thing twice. I don't think I'd want to knit the same thing twice, either. I do need to make another since this one was intended for Eminoodle but is too long for her. So this will go to Iliacat, and I will make a similar-but-different one for Noodle.

Since I have to do it over again, will I follow the pattern this time?
Ha ha! Of course not. What's life if you can't Kimodify? But I do plan on knitting hers on the smaller needles, just to compare. I think I'll keep the same pattern of occasional pink fluff rows, but knit the YO portion of the purl rounds. At least, that's my vague plan. I guess you'll find out when I do, LOL.

In unrelated news, my hardly-a-baby Buzz loves these hats Iliacat and Moogie knit on the Nifty Knitters. He's always putting them on and wearing them around. He's as cute as cute comes, don't you think?

Lunar Love and Poncho Frog

First things first, a health update:

several of you have asked how we're doing. The Grand Lunar recovered fine from his stomach pains. Only to get a bad headache, today. :( But I think a little extra sleep and he'll be fine. He's sleeping now. Shhh.

And me? The children asked me, today, "Why are you talking like that?" I've got a combination of a husky Cyndi Lauper and a squeaky Bobby Brady going on. My coughing fits, they come and go. Some are fast and some are slow. Some are loud and some are soft. Each one of them make sure I've cough't. Oh, sorry, I was lapsing Seussian on you.

I drank my weight in hot tea today - no small feat, I tell you. (Actually, my feet are small. Size 6!) but I have to admit to stalling about going to bed. Not looking forward to laying there coughing and wishing I was asleep. So I'll have another cup of hot tea and blog awhile first.

Lunar Love:

Today's the Grand Lunar's Twelvity-Tooth Birthday (minus 80 or so) and we celebrated yesterday at my folks'. But to make today special, I baked him this:

I might do really poorly in speaking most of the Love Languages, but I do okay speaking food. Nothing says love like apple pie, right?

Some website told me to sprinkle sugar on the crust to make it sparkly. It didn't say how hard it would be to sprinkle lightly and decoratively. Oh well. It was still a tasty-good pie. Special thanks to my long-lost friend Jodie Out West for the crust recipe, and for Christine to my near-West for looking it up when I'd lost that same recipe.

Good night, Poncho. I'll most likely frog you in the morning:

It turns out my "to frog or not to frog" dilemma has been solved for me. You might recall that I didn't really learn to knit in the round so much as fumble through it on the fly. I thought to myself, "how hard can it be?" -- and since I managed to knit round to where I'd started, I thought I'd figured it out.

I knit many more rows today to see whether, as it grew, I would like the pattern and all. And when the stitches went round and round and the length grew and I could see the knitty side and the purly side I thought I had it made in the shade.

Except for that pesky problem of not being able to untwist the loopy needles to get a good look at it. I blamed the extra loop from being wound in the package. Until I looked closer today. And found an irreconcilable loop. Yes indeed, the hanging edge of my knitting, the one that started it all, with the cast on stitches, must've been twisted on the needle when I started. So my knitting goes up and over the loop. I'm knitting a permatwist in it. There is NO WAY to fix it other than to frog bag to where I went wrong. Which was, of course, the very very first row. Ta da! I'm so clever.

So here's a picture of it, so you can say goodbye to it. It'll probably be frogged before you see this. Yes indeed.

If you're watching the score, that makes: Poncho: 0 - Frog: 2

very not sick and knit

okay maybe not very not sick, but still pretty "not sick".

I thought I was getting better from not being sick, but coincidentally the only day I really felt pretty good was the day after I got 11 hours straight in bed and actually slept most of them. Since then I've been back to my 7-and-under sleep plan, and have been feeling rather worse. Today I was coughing up a lung, off and on, and hoarse off and on, and feeling generally poopy. We ended up calling off tonight's small group Bible study because I really wasn't up for the cleaning/prep for it, much less sitting and trying to cough politely instead of hackingly. I'm sure it would've been hard for The Grand Lunar to lead over my hacking. Yesterday the kids kept looking at me funny and saying, "Are you alright?" Plus there was the whole spewing germs around thing.

The final straw, though, was when The Grand Lunar got some mysterious stomach pain. I'm hoping it's not appendicitis. I have no real reason to think it IS, but then again it was a strange, fairly sudden, fairly intense pain. So. We'll see. Anyway without him to be my right-hand-man for getting children-and-home ready for the study, we copped out. I feel bad calling things off (sorry, lurker-friend! I was looking forward to chatting with you!!) when I don't meet the 'sick criteria' but I think I at least quality for 'Mom's not sick only because mom's don't get sick' and there's no such rule that The Grand Lunar can't be sick, his family had different rules and can count stomach pain and coughs as sick.

So what was I saying? I'm a little in a fog here. I tried hard to nap, but couldn't sleep, which is amazingly weird for me. Maybe not being able to sleep qualifies as sick? I don't know why I couldn't sleep, I wasn't even as over-caffeinated as usual. But since The Grand Lunar obviously felt poorly AND can sleep at any time, I figured he would be better suited to capitalize on the nap potential than me. So I'm up.

So here's a question for the knitterly folk out there.

If I don't like something now, two handfuls of rows into it, does that mean I won't like it? Or is it hard to tell early on?

The beginning of the poncho.
It's knit from the neck down, all in the round.
Those holes at the centerish are the yarn-over pattern
that goes down the front and back.
You can't see it very well here.

Here's the rub: I'm knitting like I cook. I read sixty bazillion recipes patterns for ponchos and finally picked one I liked, but I'd previously liked ones with big lacy "open knit" looks, so I'd previously bought big fat size 19 needles - the roundy-ones. The pattern is NOT for gihugic needles, but I figure since it's a poncho it'll change the look but the size is fairly flexible ANYway, another reason I liked the pattern. I mean, I'm confident it will make a perfectly useable poncho.

I like the big fat needles because it knits up really fast and I feel speedy.

And I like the color of the yarn. It's bright and a little bit shiny-sparkly.

but I don't like:

1.) the feel of the yarn. Eminoodle picked it, and it's 100% acrylic. Worsted weight. It has a cheesy old 70's feel to me. It's pretty, but it just doesn't feel nicey.

2.) I'm not sure I like how the pattern looks with the extra "openness" of the big fat needles. It looks so much less tidy than the pattern. But of course it does, with the big fat needles. And in general I like the "open knit" things I've seen, but they've all been with fancy-pantsy yarns. And I'm afraid the YO pattern will just look like it was poorly knit or is unravelling or something.

3.) with the circular needles I'm having a hard time smoothing it out and thinking about what it'll look like. It seems like it's twisted, although it's not twisted that I can figure out - when I try to untwist it, it gets worse and I can see an obvious twist. But maybe it's just because the needles were looped around in the package and are stuck in loopity shape?

ANYway ... I'm debating frogging it and starting again on smaller needles.
OR working in some fancy yarn. I figure I could start it in the middle somewhere, so it won't be obvious near the YO pattern, and go around a few knits with fluffy pinkity yarn? Make some stripes now and then, as I feel like it?

(shrugs vaguely)

Maybe both.

What's your experience, knitters? Can you usually tell right away if something's a "keeper" or do you sometimes need to press on and give it a chance to grow?