Monday, January 30, 2006

trucking along

I figured out the mattress seam finally. I've got the left side of the sweater done. I probably could get the right side done tonight. Right now I'm feelin a bit tired though. I think I just ate too much. I'm just going to have to eat smaller meals more often or something. Anyways, I'm glad I did this sweater in acrylic. I would feel bad if I had wasted wool on it. hehe When I made the sleeves longer, they became kind of baggy. I know if I had ripped the seam back I could have fixed it, but it is too late now. I weaved the tails from the color changes into the edges of the seam. Someday I'll learn how to weave in ends without ending up with a thick hard fabric.

Ignoring all the other wips I've got and feeling pretty good about nearing the end of the sweater. So of course I cast on for another project. :OP I've always wanted to try Fair Isle knitting. I finally realized that the way I change colors in knitting is actually not the way you would in Fair Isle. I bring the new color under the old one and if I'm working back across I untwist them in that row. It keeps the yarn from twisting unless I'm adding a brand new skein. When I add a new skein I put a small knot in the yarn. Before ya freak, I do undo the knot before weaving in the ends. The knot just holds the yarn from pulling and creating loose stitches.

Anyways, I found a chart for sort of a flower I guess. I'm doing the flower itself in pink and the background in red. Yes it is acrylic. Since I'm just kinda screwing around I don't want to risk nice yarn on it. The only thing I would change is the pink yarn is either sport or dk and the red is worsted. I was tired when I started this so I didn't notice. It just kinda makes the background look a lil puffy. I'm doing 6 repeats of the pattern and if I do keep working it, it will end up being a small bag. The chart is kinda big, so I may only have to do one or two repeats high.

I did come up with an interesting idea on how to keep the pink yarn below the red. I've got a ring that has a large stone in it and it fits on my index finger. I wrap the yarn under my pinky, over my ring finger, under the middle finger and over the index finger on my left hand. I put the pink yarn on the inside of the stone and the red on the outside. Unless I work a longer stretch of one color, it does a pretty good job. I need to figure out a better way of weaving the floats though. There are a few spots where there are 7 or more background stitches and I don't want the pink yarn floated free that whole time. The fact that the pink is thinner yarn is helping hide the weaving a little better.

Btw thanks to those of you that have commented on my yarn storage. I really am liking having it organized up there. I'm going to use some of the extra grid pieces to divide the patterns. I just need to decide how to attach them.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

The seaming has begun

Well, last night I began the seaming of Nick's sweater. I started with the left shoulder.


I think I did pretty good considering I've never actually seamed a knit piece before. Next I moved on to the sleeve. It made me realize I have no clue what the hell I'm doing with seaming up two sides. End to side, peachy. End to end, peachy. Side to side, not so much.

I need to get out some of my technique books. I swear I can picture what to do, but when it comes right down to doing it, my brain freezes.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Quick hello

Not that anyone has missed me.

I'm working the cap shaping on Nick's sleeves. I'm about ready to start putting the whole thing together. I ended up having plenty of yarn in the end. I may add some patch pockets. I'll just wait and see what it looks like put together.

I haven't been working on any other projects right now. I've been taking the sweater with me everywhere. I'm tired of sitting in doctor's offices with nothing to do sometimes for hours.

I've got about 16 people asking to join my always tag list. I guess I better get my butt in gear and make some new tags. I've just been uploading my old tags to a new web site that I'm designing.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Stash flash

Well I've got some of my stuff half sorted and organized.



This is the new shelving unit I built on top of my dresser. In the top left are crochet and knit leaflets. Top center are knit and crochet magazines and a cone of burgundy thread. I think there is enough to make a large table topper for my dining table. Top right is some misc papers and the cone of gray wool I'm going to use for a shawl. I'm going to use it doubled.

Middle left is fabric for baby blankets and bags. Middle center is misc wool off of eBay, a large skein of peach chenille and some baby yarn. Middle right is cross stitch and craft magazines that will more than likely go up on eBay and the hemp wool I'm going to use for a sweater for me.

Bottom left is two bags of Caron Perfect Match that will be tops for me, some thin boucle wool, recycled silk and Noro Kuryeon. Bottom center is a whole bunch of thin chenille that will become a blanket and a bunch of sock yarn. Bottom right is the remainder of the green boucle for my long unfinished sweater, the extra white Caron Sayelle for Nick's sweater and some misc yarn.

Is that all my stash?

Not by far. hehe

I've got 2 small totes and an underbed tote under my bed and various boxes and bags of yarn and thread in my closet. I've also got 2 tall and one small rolling stacked drawers of yarn and thread in the corner. None of this has been sorted through yet. I'm a bit slow. I need to find some magazine boxes that don't cost an arm and a leg. Either that or go through the ones I already have. hehe

Time to go work on Nick's sweater.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Step one

It's a very important one. One that I'm not very good at doing. The first step is to READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. Step two: Read em again. I had the kid at a doctor's appointment again today. This time I wasn't going to sit in a dang office with only a 6 yr old to entertain me. Granted he was hyped up on his medication and looked like a speed freak. I brought along his sweater and trucked along. I'm doing them at the same time. I'll do a stripe on one sleeve and then do that stripe on the other one. I had read the instructions to say: Increase one stitch at the end of each 4th row until I had 72 stitches. I was like, cool beans I got this covered.

Jump ahead to a couple hours later and a couple stripes done. I'm watching a cool new show on Sci-Fi called John Doe. ohhhhh mammma that boy is hot hot hot. He was the original Dracula in the 3rd Blade movie. mmmmmm Anyways, I decided to figure out how many stripes I would have done when I had added the 32 extra stitches. Ohh..... didn't tell you I started out with 40 did I. Well I hadn't been thinking about it either. So I'm thinking, ever 2 stripes I'm getting 5 increases. So 32 divided by 5 is roughly 6 and some changes. But wait, if I'm increasing 5 stitches in every 2 rows and I need to do this 6 times, that means I'll be doing 12 stripes before doing the shoulder shaping. Did I mention that this is a kids sweater? Each stripe is like 2 1/2 inches deep. That was going to give me one looooong ass sleeve.

So I get out the instructions that I finally printed out at Mom's cause she can actually afford to buy printer ink. Me? not so much. I had to read the dang instructions like 4 times before it hit me. I am supposed to increase a stitch on each end of the 4th row. So in a 2 stripe repeat, I'm actually increasing 10 stitches. So we are talking 6 stripes plus a little into the 7th stripe. Well shit that actually matches up with where the cap shaping starts.

So I got to do a little visiting to the good ole frog pond. I wasn't pissed off or anything. I blame it on lack of sleep and being worried about the kid. Forget the fact that I actually started the increases on the first sleeve before he got real ill. lol After I get some sleep tonight, I'm going to get working on the sweater at full speed. I'm really looking forward to deciding how I'm going to deal with the shoulder. I'm thinking of adding a small band across the top to help lengthen the sweater. I didn't take in to account that the kid is pretty tall for his age. He may only be 6 1/2 but he is almost up to my mom's shoulders. Then again the woman is barely over 5' tall.

Enough about the sweater for now. I'm loosing mental cohesion. Oh, I got the magazine that my brother subscribed to for me. It's Creative Knitting. I kind of like the mag, so I'm happy. The boy did go out of his way to spoil me this year. The thing is, I already own the copy that just came. If any of y'all want the extra copy, just send me an e-mail at froddopsycho AT yahoo DOT com with Creative Knitting in the subject. Just give me your snail mail addy and I'll have the magazine off to you asap. Ok so I'm not as fast as Fedex or UPS, but I'll try to get the mag mailed out within a week of someone claiming it.

Well, hell but I've just yapped like a mad hen here. I guess that is what happens when I'm stuck home with the kid for almost a week with no outside contact. Mom doesn't really count cause we have never mastered the art of chit chat. Heck tonight she slept on the couch while I watched tv and knit. Dad was too busy spackling the walls in the basement and keeping an eye on Nick while he played on his pc.

Time for bed. Cross your fingers that I'll pass out quickly. lol

Thursday, January 19, 2006

A long day

I spent 3 1/2 hours in the ER today. My son has had a cold since Monday night and he just wasn't getting any better. I've kept him home because of his asthma and this afternoon he was having a lot of trouble breathing. He almost had to stay the night for observation because his blood oxygen levels wouldn't come up. Thankfully a steroid shot did the trick. I've got to give him breathing treatments every 4 hours tonight. And then every 2 hours tomorrow when he is awake. I'll be calling one of the doctors where he regularly goes in the morning to see about changing his meds.

Never again will I go into a doctor's appointment or into the ER without my knitting. 3+ hours with no tv, radio, computer or knitting and only a 6 yr old is not fun. He did sing for me a little bit which was nice. That was when I knew he was feeling better. Kids can be fun.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Scarf Update

Finally found the pattern link http://www.twinwillowsfarm.com/lacy_v_scarf.html The reason I couldn't find the link in my history is cause she forgot to change the title of the page. It says that it is a short shawl.

Feel like a bum

I started a scarf the other night. As if I need another WIP. I would post a link to the pattern, but I can't find it. I swear I saved the pattern but it isn't in my scarf folder. I keep my history for 10 days so hopefully I'll find the dang link again cause I really don't want to have to decipher what I have done so far. hehe

Still not done organizing my stash. I didn't realize just how many leaflets and magazines I've got. Of course, I've been saving crochet patterns since the mid 90s. I do have a couple crochet magazines from the 80s. They are good for a laugh. I've got loads of copies of Decorative Crochet and Magic Crochet. I think I subscribed to each for like 3 years. I've also got many cross stitch mags and old copies of Family Circle. At one point I think I got 5 or 6 cross stitch mags each month. I'm going to try and sell some of the cross stitch ones. I haven't done any real work on any of it for 6 years. Just the thought of working from a lil chart and doing the stitches gives me a headache. hehe

Monday, January 16, 2006

yawn

I swear, if I don't go back to work soon I'm going to go into a coma. I'm going to slip back into the daze that I was in for a year after leaving school. I had been doing quite well at staying alert and moving, but for the last 3 weeks or so not so much. It doesn't matter if I sleep all night, I'm tired all day. At least when I had somewhere to go and a job to do, I could trick myself into feeling half awake.

I tried using the organization program that came with the Instant Stitch set. The damn thing kept writing over records. I finally gave up and made my own database. I was going to make a spreadsheet, but decided that it wouldn't be as easy to sort. I had to get out my Office 2000 book in order to remember half of the crap in Access. I still had to use the help feature a bunch. I've got a fairly well running database though. I still don't have all my books and magazines in there yet. I just got bored typing stuff in. hehe I'll probably create a database for my yarn and needles too. Well those may work better as spreadsheets.

I've also started working on a new central web site for myself. I've got too many small ones that I don't work on enough. I have/had a tag site up on Anzwers but I can't get even the homepage to open. If any of y'all can get the site to open, let me know. I'm hoping that they just had a server or two go down and that they didn't go belly up. I have hundreds of tags up there and a couple web pages. I'll provide a link to my new site when I get a few pages up and working. I had to mess with the darn css for about a half hour to get the layout and the colors the way I wanted it. I've got to create some buttons and such for the site.

Time to try and work my way through some mail. Either that or I'm gonna go play some poker. hehe

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Whining over

Well, as much as it ever ends for me. I'm a whiner. It's just the way I am, you will just have to deal with it. :OP

I took the offending shelf kit back to Shopko. I told the clerk that the person who designed it was a moron. hehe I then went over to Target and got the real deal set. I got a 6 cube set for less than the 4 cube set at Shopko cost. I'm going to put 3 of the cubes next to my bed as a night stand and the other 3 on top of the 6 all ready on my dresser. Once I get everything organized I'll post a picture of it.

I also have a nice supply of Pepsi in the kitchen. 4 six packs of 24 ounce bottles. I drink 2 or 3 bottles a day. What can I say? I'm addicted. If I don't get my caffeine I get a headache and can get dizzy. Yeah that is bad, but I don't smoke and I don't drink booze often. I'm also loosing weight. Not that my cholesterol is going down. Doc put me on Lipitor. I guess cholesterol is only 20% controlled by your diet. The rest is all genetic. I try to eat fairly well. I mostly eat frozen diet meals. If my son would start eating real food, I would actually cook. For now though, if I actually cook a meal I over eat. Not good.

No knitting progress to report. I've been just too damn tired. I need to get back to work. I'm just not active enough when I'm home all day by myself. Oh well. Off to read mail and then I'm going to build those shelves and get organized.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Send in the maid

If you are expecting tales of yarn or knitting. Skip this post. If you are expecting me to be even half amusing. Skip this post. All this is, is one great big ole pity party and whine fest. If you don't want to read a rant by a self abosorbed wackjob that can't spell, just keep surfing. I don't feel like being witty (which I'm not) or amusing (which I rarely am) or cute (which I know I'm not).


I'm so frustrated. Yesterday I bought one of those crate shelf kits for organizing my books and yarn. It's one of those metal grid kits that you put together into cubes in the configuration that you pick. I've got 2 other shelf sets like it in my room. The difference with this one is that it is from a different manufacturer and whoever it was that designed the connectors was a complete and total fuckwad. If the connector isn't completely seated on the grid, it pops all the way off. If you are pushing on the connector to get another grid aligned, it will pop off. I managed to get one cube put together but as soon as I started adding on the second one, it all started falling apart. The kit is now back in the box. I will be returning it to the store and going to a different store looking for the sane version of this shelf.

The part that is really pissin me off is that once again, my bed is completely covered in stuff. Oh it isn't all just on the bed either. There are baskets of stuff out in the living room and hallway. I DO NOT want to go in to town tonight. But I also want to be able to sleep in my bed without piling all this stuff on the floor.

I'm tired and half depressed and I don't want to go take another shower and get dressed and drive 20 minutes into town and deal with the twits at Shopko and then deal with the twits and Target and then go to Wal-Mart for soda and then drive all the way back home and put all this shit together. (sentence long enough for ya?) What I want to do is lay down until my headache goes away. But my damn bed is full of stuff!!! I had pizza for lunch so I have heartburn. My ears are ringing like a son of a bitch. I'm hot and sweaty. I can just feel the damn grease sitting on my scalp. I would give anything for a great big ole tub. It doesn't even have to have the hot tub jets in it. I just wanna lay in a bunch of bubbles without either my whole top half or my legs half out of the damn tub.

I'm goin batty cause I haven't worked since before Christmas. I'm sick of my own company. I want to deal with other adults besides my freakin parents. My dad is more like a freakin 3 year old anyway. I can't stand one more conversation with my son right now where I know he is going to come back with "How do you know?" Six year old boys can be such pains in the butt. :OP

Please excuse all the glaring spelling errors that I'm sure are in this post. Blogger is being a pain and none of the posting tools will load. I'm gonna go stand in the damn shower until the water runs cold. Maybe then I'll feel like heading into town and getting the crap I need. Don't count on it. I'm sure I'll end up going to the gas station for a bottle or two of pepsi later. Don't worry, I'll pass right on by the beer and other booze. They don't sell Southern Comfort. ha

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

It isn't my fault!!

I blame Ann.

She started it.

I was being good. I swear.

She had to go and post about the yarn she got at Smiley's. I didn't even have them in my bookmarks. Yeah, I've visited the site before, but I've never ordered anything.

That is until last night.

I ordered four skeins of Cervinia Calzetteria. Two in Naples and two in Verona for $2.50 each. Eight skeins of Lion Brand Kool Wool for $1.35 a piece. Two each in Camel, Khaki, Blue Jeans, and Eggplant. Five skeins of Bernat Berella Sportspun at $0.77 a piece. Three in Soft Yellow and two in Too Blue Print. Lastly there is eight skeins of Jamie Classic at $1.00 each. There are two skeins of white and one each of Peppermint Pink, Peach, Lemonade, Candy Blue, Pistachio and Lilac. Total price with shipping = $41.50. Not too bad considering how many skeins I ordered.

I've only got one project planned for sure for any of the yarn. The Jamie Classic will become the crocheted rainbow baby blanket on the cover of Baby's Best to knit and crochet by Helen Passey. I've made 2 of the blankets before and one each of the jacket and booties. Only thing is, I made them about 13 years ago. hehe I had three cousins expecting babies all at about the same time. I made my favorite cousin the whole set. Another cousin got a blanket. I started a blanket for the third, but I never finished it. I've still got it somewhere in a bag. This one is going to be a throw for lil ole me. :OP

I had originally borrowed the leaflet from my grandma. She was the only person I knew that crocheted. Somewhere over the years, either I had given the pattern back to her or lost it. Last summer, I wanted to make the blanket for another cousin but I'll be damned if I could locate the pattern. I gave up and made her a large blanket out of Baby Clouds I think. I kept searching for the pattern and found it on a web site about two months later. I managed to snag it for less than $3 including shipping.

Oh and by the by. I won five skeins of the Caron Sayelle in white on eBay last night. The shipping ended up being more than the yarn. Now I can match the yarn for the neck and front edges though. I'm about halfway through the second front piece. I'm going to wait to join the shoulders until I have the arms done. I may end up adding a strip of the black at the shoulders if I have enough of it left. The top stripes are only 6 rows high compared to 10 rows for all the other stripes. We shall see what I have left.

OK, off to do some knitting. Cross your fingers for me. I've got a job interview tomorrow. Not great pay, but it is temp to hire.

Monday, January 09, 2006

The things we do for yarn

I just got done moving my queen sized bed and putting it up on blocks. I did this so my under bed storage tote will actually fit UNDER my bed. I can fit some of my shallow totes under there now too. But boy am I pooped. I can't wait for the first time the kid starts jumping on my bed. I can just see the look of fear on his face as it falls off the blocks. HEHEHEHE No it isn't unstable but he has been known to get bouncing good. Maybe now he will listen when I tell him to stop.

I'm trucking right along on Nick's sweater. I'm almost to the point of shaping the left front. I need to decrease 10 stitches in order to have the right number of stitches for the shoulder. So, I'm going to decrease one stitch ever 2 rows. I figure this will give me a nice V-neck. If I'm wrong, oh well I guess I'll take a trip to the frog pond. :OP I won't cut the yarn at the end of the last 2 stripes just in case. I've got a lead on some more white yarn for the neck and front edge. Cross your fingers for me that no one else is on a mission to steal this yarn out from under me.

I've gotten a few of my eBay wins in the mail in the last week. Yeah I know I shouldn't be playin on there but.... well..... HUSH!!! From one nice lady I got 4 older pattern leaflets. Pattern #557 Kim Hargreaves from Rowan which is a pattern for a nice cotton sweater or tunic with chevrons on it. I'll have to do a little bit of adjusting to make the chest measurement fit me. Pretty typical for me. hehe Pattern #82001 ColorBlock Family with Striped Backs from Reynolds. This is for either a pull-over or cardigan and the largest size will fit me. *BG* Patons leaflet 1130, Classic Raglans. There are 2 pull-over versions and a cardigan. The largest size will fit me but I'll probably add a lil more ease to them. Finally I got Classic Elite Yarns leaflet #486. This is for a baby sweater and an adult sweater with lots of color. I don't have to alter this one either unless I want to. Yeah!!

From a different seller I got a copy of the Drifting Dreams Jacket from Just One More Row. This one is going to be interesting to do. I just have to find some pretty yarn. And from yet another seller I picked up the Instant Stitch cds. There are 4 disks: PM Stitch Creator, Sweater Design, Personal Patterns for Children, and Organized Expressions. I really got it for the sweater creator, but I like the organizer program. I went a little nuts when I tried to install everything. I got PM Stitch to install just fine, but I couldn't get the others to install. I tried everything I could think of and was getting very ticked. I ran Disk Cleanup and defragged. Still nothing. Finally I ran the setup files as administrator and it worked. tg

No more eBay wins. Those wins were over the last month though. It isn't like I won them all last week. hehe The yarn co-op that I belong to is doing a co-op with 100PureWool on eBay and I ordered 2 skeins in a real pretty green. I'm not real sure what I'll make with it, but I've been coveting their yarn for quite some time.

Well, time to finish reorganizing my room. HUD is doing inspections soon and the landlord is flipping because I have a low dresser under my bedroom window. Big whoop. Granted I'm not good at keeping tons of yarn and books off of it. :P

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Sweater picture

Ok, here is a picture of Nick's sweater so y'all can see the colors.



I'm up to the second dark blue stripe. The neck shaping is in the black stripe after that. So, the back is almost done. I'm probably going to have to do the edging around the neck and button bands in Red Heart yarn. It would seem that Caron in all their wisdom discontinued Sayelle yarn. I've searched everywhere for a skein of the white. I've found a few other colors on eBay but not the one I need. sigh I'm going to put out an ISO for a skein of it on one of the knitting groups I'm in. I doubt anyone will have it though. sniff sniff

Oh well. The color of the two yarns is the same and the weight is almost identical. The Sayelle has a much tighter twist though. It feels much more dense than the RH. But then again, this is a play sweater for a 6 yr old boy. I'm sure he will kill it within a month or two. hehe

Ok, off to do some mail and get my tired butt to bed.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

must sleep

must turn off pc...

must crawl to bed....

wait....

must finish quizes on the Mythbusters web site....

much too funny...

can't control my fingers.....

help meeeeeeeeeeee.......

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Oh for Pete's sake...

For the last two days I've been so worried about how large Nick's sweater was going to turn out. I'm making the Danny sweater from YarnFwd, btw. I couldn't understand why the heck my sweater back was about 16 inches wide when the finished sweater is supposed to be 27 inches. I just checked my gauge and I'm getting 17 1/2 stitches by 24 rows in a 4" square on size 4s. The gauge for the sweater is 18 stitches by 24 rows on size 7s. I guess I'm knitting a bit looser than I ever thought. hehe I had gotten gauge on size 5s but went down a size for the edge like the pattern calls for and it seamed so darn wide so I stayed with the size 4.

Long story short, I read the pattern wrong. The large is to fit someone with a 27" chest. The finished measurement is 32". hehehe So, my 16" back is just perfectly on gauge. wooowhoooo!!!

I'm still going to make it into a cardigan. It may be the right weight yarn at the right gauge, but man it feels heavy. I would rather he wear it over a shirt to play outside than to have him wear it as a sweater inside and be too hot. I've never been one to buy him sweaters. I usually feel too warm and I don't want him getting all overheated when he is running around. There have been many times when he was running around my folks house and ended up covered in sweat just from a long sleeve t-shirt.

Off to work on the sweater a little more. I'll post a picture showing the colors when I get the next band done. I'm really liking the colors. :O)

Monday, January 02, 2006

Yuck!!!!

While I was at Wal-Mart today, I was going to pick up a size 4 circular needle to use on my son's sweater. Well the smallest size they have is a 7. Well Hobby Lobby is across the street. So I head over thinking maybe I would pick up some bamboo needles. They of course didn't have them small enough either. They did have some Balene cirs though. I picked up a size 4 and size 6. By the 3rd or 4th stitch I was about to scream though. Now I know what everyone had been talking about with acrylic and plastic needles. You would swear I was jabbing a plastic needle into styrofoam. I don't know if the sound or the feel of it was worse. shiver I gave up after about 2 rows. I guess I'll work the sweater on my metal straights and when I need to put it down I'll knit a row onto the circ.

I'm afraid to go over to Micheal's to look for different needles. My mom said that most of the store was 50% off. I so do not need to spend any more money right now. You see, the needles weren't the only thing I picked up at Hobby Lobby. All books were 50% off. I don't remember seeing that advertised. Anyways, I picked up The Sock Journal and The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. I have now officially bought every book at Hobby Lobby that I care to own. Ok that sounded weird. I meant that of the books that they have in stock, I've bought the ones I want. They do have a stitch library that is nice but I have 3 or 4 large books of stitches. I doubt there is anything in that book that I can't find in one I already own.

Well, I'm pooped. I did manage to take a half assed nap during Harry Potter this afternoon. I would have gotten a more restful sleep if Nick hadn't of kept jumping on me and punching me in the butt. hehe As soon as Medium is over, I'm hittin the sack.

whimper

It's 5am. I think I slept about an hour. I've got bloodwork that has to be done early, so I had planned on getting up at 6:30. My eyes are finally back to feeling like maybe I could sleep, but I don't fall asleep very fast. I really don't think that Laying down is gonna help me much. I would just postpone going into the lab until later but Nick has been sleeping later and he goes back to school on Thursday. He needs to start getting up earlier. So do I for that matter. I would feel so much better if I could have a damn Pepsi. But nooooo... I have to fast for the damn bloodwork. I haven't had any caffeine or sugar since 8 last night.

I want my Pepsiiiiiii!!!!!

Yes, I'm addicted. No, I don't want to stop. No, I don't want to drink some gross tasting diet soda. I can not stand the taste of artificial sweeteners. They make me want to gag. It drives me nuts when people say, "Oh you get used to the taste." I'm sorry, I drink Pepsi cause I like the taste. I'm not gonna drink something that tastes like shit just cause it has no calories and no caffeine. I want me damn caffeine too!!!! I don't drink coffee. Love the smell of the stuff but it tastes like shit to me. Pepsi is my only addiction. Well, unless you count yarn. hehe

I almost ordered some pattern books online last night. There were 3 of them on clearance for a total of like $8.50. I kind of changed my mind when I got to the checkout and the shipping cost for 3 books was going to be $7.50. It doesn't cost no damn $7.50 to send 3 damn booklets. Off and on I've sold stuff on eBay and it never cost me more than say $4 for a fat envelope of booklets. Call me cheap but I ain't paying shipping like that.

There are tons of sellers on eBay that charge $10 to $12 for shipping for one skein of yarn or one book. They can kiss my cheap ass. I've seen some clothes and such with a pay now price of $2 and the shipping is $20 or more. I pity the people who don't pay attention to shipping. The only time I got suckered was when I won an auction for crochet thread. Pretty stuff and I won it cheap. Only thing was the guy was in Turkey and only accepted Bidpay. It cost me more for shipping and charges at Bidpay than the thread did. Live and learn I guess.

I decided to go ahead with Nick's sweater on size 4s. The sweater is only supposed to be 27 inches around but for some reason the back is 16 inches wide. Yes I did check my gauge. With size 5s my gauge was spot on even thought the pattern called for size 7s. I have no clue why my stitch width would go up so much when I went down a size for the garter edge. It is going to be one thick heavy sweater. The fabric is still pliable and all. I'm using Caron Sayelle. For acrylic, it is nice and soft but dense. I figure for a sweater for a 6 year old boy, I'm not using expensive yarn.

Since the sweater is turning out so heavy, I'm going to adjust the pattern to be a cardigan. I've just got to do a big of math and make some diagrams. So far I've got 2 stripes done and the edging. The stripes are 10 rows by 72 stitches. Once I get another 2 stripes done, I'll figure up exactly what my gauge is.

I'm hoping by turning the sweater into a cardigan that I'll end up having enough yarn for it. *blush* I found this pattern a few months ago and ordered the yarn off of Herrshner's. I probably ordered the yarn late at night and didn't look at the pattern properly. It calls for 150 meters (165 yards) of 7 colors. Well I ordered 7 skeins of yarn that are 150 YARDS each. doh I don't mind ordering another skein of the edging color, but I don't want to order another skein of each color and have tons of left overs. I suppose I could make a matching hat with smaller stripes. sigh

Question time. I noticed that when I left the sweater sit on the needles while I was eating dinner that it caused the stitches on that row to look different when I got farther into the sweater. Will this relax after awhile? When I was done knitting tonight, I put the live stitches on a piece of yarn to avoid the problem, but I don't always have enough time to do that when I have to run off after Nick. Is this just a problem with acrylic? I haven't really noticed this with the other yarns I've used. It may be cause I'm knitting on such small needles with worsted weight yarn.

I think I'm going to do some digging and see if I have any size 4 circs. At least when I'm not knitting I can slide the sweater onto the cable.

Well, I'm gonna go fold some laundry. Maybe if I take a shower it will help me feel more alive.