It never comes out the way you think...

Well, I wonder why??? Because I never have the yarn that's in the pattern, or not enough, or because I refuse to follow instructions??? Or a little bit of everything?

I am reading Adrienne Martini's Sweater Quest right now, and one of the questions she poses is how much a knitter can alter a pattern before it's not that pattern any more...

Okay, enough musing... Remember the 14 skeins of Berroco Cliche, color Krispie Treat and the DROPS Design "1-1 long jumper in moss stitch" on Ravelry? Well, here is what became of them:

And the two skeins of Vinca # 803 (a green-blue marbled hue) for the standard toe-up socks turned into this:

Since there is still plenty of yarn left over, I thought I would start another pair exactly the same way. This way, since the colorway is rather different between the two skeins, I thought I could match them up between the four different footsies. But again, I can't even follow my own instructions, so the second pair is coming out a bit different. I am making the toe part longer, so they are not quite as open and will hopefully stay on the foot a little better. Stay tuned...

Done, done, and done!!!

Most of the cactus garden is done. Gravel is spread (mostly), cacti are planted (mostly), edges are put in place (mostly)... Well, you know the saying: 90% of the work take 10% of the time and the remaining 10% of the work take 90% of the time. For now, though, I am enjoying the fruits of the 90% work and try not to think about the odds and ends that still need to be finished.



Here, again, is the front part of the yard:

As you can see, I desperately need the plants to grow :).

This is the side of the house where the truck had dumped the 12 yards of gravel. You can still see a tiny little elevation with a little extra gravel (for those remaining 10% of the work, remember?). But I am done working on the yard for now and wanted to leave it looking somewhat "done."

This, apparently, is a sago palm. I bought this one a little while ago at a school plant sale.

 

I also received a few "pups" from another kind freecycler. And they look like this:

 

Okay, last gardening picture (I promise). I could not resist this one. It is our very first red tomato. I will give it one more day. It is beautiful, big, and will be delicious! Too bad my husband is missing out (he is out of town).

Okay, enough with the garden and yard. Back to knitting...

I finished the shawl/vest. It came out nicely, but the front parts could have been a little wider. I was afraid that I would run out of yarn.

Now I just need some cold weather to be able to wear it. But that's gonna take a while :). Maybe I will take it to the office, where the A/C sometimes gets quite cold.

Oh, and I forgot that I also finished "Ellie Elephant." I don't like it quite as much as the baby monkey before, but it came out okay in the end, I guess. My daughter has not seen it yet, so she will be the ultimate judge.

And just in case "Ellie" will not pass her judgment, I quickly started another monkey. Hopefully, I will get it finished before my daughter comes back home.

As you can see, still monkey-ing around :)...

Too sore to knit!

Wow, the drainage ditch and the cactus gardens are done! Well almost... I still need to add some cacti. But all the digging and shoveling is done. All the drainage pipes and all the gravel are in place. And I even planted some Agave plants already.

It felt good to do all this manual labor! But both hubby and I are sore all over! Name a body part... it hurts! The pain will subside, though, and the lovely front yard will stay. Now if we could just get the neighbor cats to stop using is as a litter box :).

Due to nightly pain recovery sessions, knitting took a bit of a back seat.

"Ellie Elephant" is still a work in progress... My vest thingy is still a work in progress... The good news is that the buses I take to work have started running again (after a short summer break), so I have more time to knit again. Though neither of these two projects lend themselves for commute knitting at this point.

SOOOOO, I had to start a new project... I got a huge load of yarn from a very nice person on Freecycle.I just can't believe my luck! All kinds of designer yarns and different kinds of sock yarns! Must of been a few hundred dollars worth of yarn in that box I got! Here is just a very small excerpt:

Among my loot were 14 skeins of ON Line Trend Setters' LINIE 78 VEGA (it appears to be a line from 2002). Color is purple with a metallic thread woven into an inconsistently bulky wool. Very nice!

I saw this nice vest/shawl at Coldwater Creek and am trying to use the yarn to make something similar.

Stay tuned...

Brrrrr!!! Snow in Texas!

Finally a day off (thanks to dh!) after a crazy few weeks or month at work... So I have a few hours to dilly-dally away at the computer at home and post my latest projects.

Yes, we had snow in Texas!!


No, really!!!



So I was borrowing the leg warmers I had made for my daughter, since they apparently are not quite cool enough for her!

She modeled them for the blog, but has not worn them outside the house yet.

I have, though!



And they match the two hand muffs I made with left-over yarn stash:

They are really warm and have little pockets inside and outside to hold ipods, etc. You know, all the stuff you need while you are out and about.

It all started when I tried to make one of those snake draft thingies...

Those long whatshamacallits you put in front of the door or window to keep the cold drafts out:

I made one, and before I had a chance to stuff it, my daughter decided that it would make a really cute leg warmer. So I made her a pair of leg warmers (even if she is not wearing them in public).

It's fun to be creative with the color and yarn combinations of these little "left-over" projects. But since it requires being close to the stash box, they are not very "mobile" projects.

Which means that for my daily bus commute, I stick with socks for that. Here is my February pair:

I really love the colors of this Red Heart sock yarn: Heart and Sole with Aloe! It felt really nice knitting. Haven't worn them yet. But did I mention that I really like the colors? And the pattern. Can't wait to get more :).

I had a little attack this week, though, and ordered all kinds of yarn (and other knitting paraphernalia) from Knit Picks and from ebay! So, I better hold off for now. Less yarn buying and more knitting...

Super funky chunky VEST

First I made another one of those funky bags with leftover yarn:




I love how all those little pockets look, outside and inside (okay, so it just looks like a black hole, but really, there are two pockets on the inside!):




No pockets on the back. The overall color theme on this one is more green-brown tones, whereas the previous bag was brighter colors.



When I realized that these bags don't even make a dent in my leftover yarn stash, I tried to come up with a "bigger" project and decided to make a vest:



I really like all the weird color and texture combinations. It was a fun process, knitting and picking the next yarn or yarn combination.



However, the vest came out not just funky, but also really chunky :( and is not very flattering to wear. At least not for someone who "needs" flattering :). It's warm, though.

My husband really likes it and thinks I should add it to my "stash" and sell all that stuff at a booth next holiday season. He even wants to "man" the booth :).




It was great actually using up a lot of yarn. Oh, by the way, our foster dogs also helped with that. I woke up one morning to a huge yarn mess in the living room. They had had a ball over night. Fortunately for me, no work in progress was destroyed. Unfortunately for my daughter, she was not as lucky :( ...

Anyway, here is the "left over" leftover stash:


This does, of course, not include the stash of "new" yarns. Yarns are like books. It's hard to resist them in the store, but once you have them at home, they keep staring at you...

Anyway, next project: another pair of socks. Basic stand-by: toe-up. Yarn: Patons Stretch Socks, Mineral:



Three-stitch, two-row pattern:
Row 1: k, k, p
Row 2: k, p, k
repeat


I knit a lot during the bus commute to work. And socks are easy to take along...