My interview

Will post the rules at the end of the post if you want to play. But for now, my questions came from Sarah. Ready? Let's go!

1. You live in Brooklyn and I think that's rad! Have you lived in the city all your life? If not, what inspired you to move? I have lived in NY my entire life. I grew up in Queens and moved to Brooklyn in 1997 out of love. Then boyfriend-now hubby and I couldn't bear to be apart, and we had such conflicting schedules, we decided to move in together. We'll eventually move to Queens, because I'm a Queens girl at heart.

2. Okay, Okay - gotta ask the obvious question! You are an amazing knitter... How did you find knitting and how long have you been at it? Shortly after my son was born, I was shopping at a store called P.R. Grand, a local everything store. There is an section in the back that has yarn/needles. I saw a pattern for a scarf and said, I could do that. So I bought some yarn, some needles and a small booklet that taught me the basics. I still have that booklet, and the scarf that I made. They've been collecting dust (ok, not the scarf, I wear that proudly, mistakes and all) for about 4 years.

3. Your son is ridiculously cute. Please take this opportunity to tell us all about him - be as mushy as you want!!! Every mom's dream is to be told to go on and on about their child. I'm no different. :) My son Daniel is my little fighter. Born 11 weeks early, weighing in at 3 lbs 2 oz, he has grown up without any of the normal preemie problems. In fact, he's been off the charts for height and weight since about 6 months. He's 46 inches today (we had a drs appt. :) ), and headed off to Kindergarten in Sept. He's excited, and I'm a nervous wreck. He's incredibly bright, even the doctor mentioned it today. He's your average boy, loving Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles, but the sweetest boy ever. He loves hugs and kisses and I'm "the bestest mommy every" according to him. He's incredibly funny and loves to make people laugh. I swear he will be an actor one day, and when he accepts his Oscar, he'll thank...his papa. :)

4. What are your favorite types of projects and why? You seem very fond of lace, as well as cables! I don't have a favorite type of project. I look for projects that will test me. If the cables look really hard, I want to tackle it. If the lace looks intricate, I want to study the intricacies of knitting it. I picked up socks because they looked fun, wanted to tackle all the little needles and wanted to see how the sock formed. My first project after the scarf was a hooded sweater for Danny. The next? A sweater for myself with a band of fair isle in the front. Neither were made on gauge and neither turned out well, but I taught myself fair isle and how to do a sweater. :) So basically, I look for a challenge in my projects.

5. What is your proudest moment of life so far? My proudest moment? It's got to be the day that I saved Danny's life...twice. After coming home from about 7 weeks in the NICU, we had a drs appt. When we got home from it, I put Dan in his carrier on the bed, while I bundled up trash to have hubby take out. In the 30 secs I was gone, he stopped breathing and turned blue. I performed CPR on him while calling 911. He was breathing again before the ambulances arrived, literally 2 minutes later. At the hospital, he stopped again, and no one believed me because they thought I was still seeing him blue from earlier, like in my head. I finally got a dr to look at him, and sure enough, he had stopped again. Not the best day of my life, but I'm proud to have given life to Danny, not just once, but three times.

And now the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions here. They will be different questions than the ones above.
3. You will update YOUR blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Clapotis Version 2

I started a scarf version of Clapotis out of Helen's Lace that I got from Threadbear. I don't know if the color comes out well, so if you need to peek at the true color, scroll down to the March 1st entry at Blackdog; it's the Glenwood colorway



I'm speeding thru section 3. I can get one whole pattern repeat done on one leg of my trip to work, and then another repeat on the leg home. I'm not quite sure how long I'm going to make it; it's already 24" long. I like long scarves, but I may tire of this section before long.

I still have not gotten any yarn to do my TKGA swatches. I should do that soon. I think Friday I'm going to go on a serious hunt thru the NYC shops for some suitable yarn for the baby blanket. I really need to get it done and sent out. Baby is due in May and while I'm fast, I don't want to be pushing it.

Also, I'm going to be taking somewhat of a break from knitting. I will still post whatever I do, because I will be knitting some, just train knitting though. I've decided that this summer will be the summer of video games. I've got a Game Cube and a bunch of games I've started and never finished. Hubby wants to play them, but I won't let him til I finish the games. So my goal is to finish them this summer. Unless of course, the Spring Knitty has something or more than one something that I have to have......

By popular demand, me wearing Mariah. Forgive the pants. And the retarded eyes closed pic. Hubby made me laugh.

Finito!

So, I used Bonne's zipper installation walk thru and it took over an hour, but it's in. Ends are all weaved in, and the fit is great. Here's my finished Mariah:


And here's a close up of the zipper:


I don't know if I would do another sweater with a zipper, but aside from the zipper frustration, this sweater was so fun to knit. I used Filatura di Crosa's Zara, almost 15 balls on size 7 needles.

On to the yarn bus. I was so giddy with seeing the bus and getting to ride it (and buying yarn!), I neglected to take pics of me in front of it/my mom in front of it. So you get the pic as it turned the corner on the way to pick us up, and then just before we got in it to come home.

Zippers suck

No pics, no nothing. Why? Because zippers suck. I consider myself smart. But putting a zipper in is going to be the death of me. I'm following directions from Knitter's Magazine, some back issue that I bought at Flying Fingers, just for the article. Oh the pics make it look so easy! They LIE! I spent hours trying to pin the zipper in to baste and while I KNOW both fronts are of equal length, one or the other kept ending up longer. Then I finally got it right and I basted it, but I was too tired and frustrated to sew. I forgot that Sarah told me to use the directions from Bonne Marie, and I may just take it all out tonight and redo it. Bonne's makes it look even easier. Maybe another post with pics tonight...of me strangling myself with the zipper.

You know when you're on a roll and you just can't put the knitting down til you finish? Well, that was last night. I was on the hood and at last measurement before I sat down to knit, I needed another 7-8 inches to go before binding off. Woo hoo, right? Well, I did close to 6 and tried to drape Mariah on me and see how the hood was coming along and realized, hey, you'd get a better idea of how much more to do if one side was sewn and could actually sit nicely on the body. So out came the needle and one side got sewn up. And then I knit a few more rows. And then I started weaving in some ends. And that's about when the hubby came out into the living room and said, what on earth are you doing up at 1am? Yeah, 1am. And by the time I put everything away, took my contacts out and everything, I wasn't in bed til 1:30. So I'm struggling at work this morning.

In other knitting news, I've abandoned the second stripey sock. Poor sock is half finished; I have to pick up heel stitches and do the gusset decreases and I'm home free on the foot, but the lure of a package from Threadbear containing one skein of Helen's Lace in the Glenwood colorway had me winding it up and starting another Clapotis. I'm using it doubled like Six and a Half Stitches. I'm wavering on making it smaller than my first one, but we'll see how anxious I am to get to the 3rd section and eager to drop stitches.

I still have not received my one orange skein of Takhi Cotton Classic II from Yarnware.com. I know it's on backorder, so I can't fault them, but I'm anxious to finish up the baby blanket and send it off to it's new owner. The baby is due in May, and while I do still have time, it's sitting there yelling at me to finish it. Finally something out of my control. Maybe, just maybe, anyone who reads this and has one orange skein of Cotton Classic II, and it must be II, in their stash would want to send it to me? I'll love you forever and would be glad to send you something in return....homemade cookies, some sock yarn, my boss. Oh wait, sending you my boss doesn't make you want to give me yarn. Scratch that.

Mariah progress

So, almost 2 weeks after my sleeve debacle, this is where I am in Mariah. It's dark, but you can see that there is a LOT of progress!



I have another 12 2 row decrease repeats on the yoke and then it's on to the hood. And I'm hoping to have it done this week...my boss is out of the office 2 days this week! :)

Because it's too big for train knitting now, I'll have the stripey sock done by the end of the week as well. That leaves the baby blanket left and well, I can't do that since I'm missing the orange for the intarsia of the duck. S'ok though. I got my TKGA Level I package and will focus on the swatches. Or, when I go to Flying Fingers, maybe I'll pick a new project up! :)

Just for fun...my little guy playing around:

The first sleeve

Mariah's first sleeve, finished this morning at work.

We have a sleeve!

Well, almost a sleeve. I've got close to 16 inches on the first sleeve for Mariah. I'm a bit nervous though...the sleeve increases say to continue in pattern, and I took that to mean once enough stitches, put another cable. I've looked at other Mariah's and their sleeves are plain. Obviously you can't see the underside of the arm in the picture, but am I making too much work for myself? Why do I even ask? I'm going to leave as is; I'm not frogging back 10 inches. Pics to come tonight/tomorrow when I have them.

Looking forward to my yarn shopping trip to Flying Fingers on their yarn bus. My mom, sister and I have a date with the bus on the 19th. I hope I can control myself...their Blue Sky Alpaca is on sale til the 20th. Mmmmm...Blue Sky Alpaca.

I have neglected the second Stripey Sock. The poor thing calls to me, but I'm deaf to its cries because of Mariah. Mariah's cries to be worked on are much louder. Poor Stripey Sock. Will have to give it some love this weekend.

Cry

Can I just say how sad I am? I cast on Sunday evening for Mariah, did the cuff and put it down to work on the train to work. Worked til I had roughly 7 or 8 inches of the sleeve. Cables looked great. Took day off today and was super psyched to have a whole day to knit. Picked up where I left off and at about 13 inches, looked at the work and was amazed at the cables. But noticed it looked kinda small. I know I was on gauge, but I measured anyway. Measurements off. Looked at the pattern, and that's when I noticed. I didn't do any increases, starting at about 6 inches. And since the cables are slightly complex, I couldn't rip back to 6 inches with ease. I ripped out the entire thing. Even hubby sympathized with me over the phone. It hurts. The cuff is knit again and I'm not psyched anymore to knit this sweater. :(