FO: FLS

FINALLY!!!!!

I finally finished the February Lady Sweater that my knitting group started as a KAL on FEBRUARY FIRST! I know! Insane that it took me almost 9 entire months to get this thing done. Obviously I took a break from it for a while not to mention that I knit nearly the entire body twice. TWICE! Remember me talking about it here? Yup pretty frustrating. I basically got back to this same point as before and then put it away for ooohh five months. But about a week ago I decided to pick it back up and just finish knitting it.

So there are multiple factors as to why I decided now to pick this back up now.

1. I'm on a stash knit down diet and have decided that all skeins used in a WIP would count. So I figured BONOUS get 1.5 skeins for just a little more work!
2. I had a bad knitting experience that also has something to do with my last post and really wanted to be selfish and make something just for me and no one else. And as it seems I have a lot of people having babies around me I figured now was as good a time as any to finish up something for my self
3. I love pink and wanted to wear my pink sweater
4. It's getting chilly out (mid 80's! I know freezing!) and I can start wearing sweaters again! Woot woot!




Anyways I know you are tired of my rambling so here are the details!! (I'm so excited!)


Pattern: February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne
Yarn: 1.5 skeins of Twisted from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. This stuff goes forever. What a bargain... not to mention less ends to weave in. woot woot!
Needles: Size US 8's
Modifications:Well there weren't a whole lot of modifications needed. But the sleeves I did modify by shortening (I only did 6 lace repeats and 8 rows of garter stitch for the hem) and I also decreased the circumference of the sleeves by decreasing the extra stitches you pick up in the underarm over the next few rows.

Oh and the best thing of all is that the sweater fits beautifully! Totally worth the do-over or rather knit-over!

big fat :::sigh:::

Look I know I have been quiet here. I know that I haven't been posting as much as you are use to and I even know that I have addressed my absence a few time before this with my usual "oh things are busy but I'm a trooper" crap. The truth is life is hard. This has been the hardest thing for me to accept with becoming an adult. No longer can my mom call me in sick so that I can stay home and relax. No more can I be excused from assignments for various reasons. and No longer can I decided "I don't LIKE this anymore" and walk away. Nope I'm an adult. I'm an emancipated married adult who can not just walk away from responsibilities nor do I feel that that is a reasonable solution for me anymore. I take pride in what I accomplish whether it be my marriage (franking one of the most important and satisfying things I have ever done) my knitting, my work (or even school when that was still apart of what I did) and my friendships.

Unfortunately the past few weeks have tested my ability to gauge my successes in some of these areas. It seems I have taken blow after blow but instead of feeling like I can show people how I really feel about the situations I have been put in I somehow feel I have to suck it up and move on. Really all I feel like doing is screaming from the roof tops "THIS ISN'T FAIR!" but then I remind my self that life isn't fair and I eat oreos.

I keep reminding my self "hey you have all four limbs working and you don't even need glasses! be thankful!" but it's amazing how a few rough spots and really dominate over all the wonderful things in life.

But seriously why do we feel the need to keep hard times so quiet. Like we don't all have them? Seriously. We all have rough weeks at work or we find out a friendship isn't what we thought it was. We make a stupid mistake that seems to ruin our lives forever (not really but that's how it FEELS and that's what's important). We all hit that time where nothing is fun cause the negative dominates. But can we talk about it openly? No. We're suppose to be happy and grateful for all the good things. And I am! Don't get me wrong. I feel that I have some really amazing people in my life and I feel that I have been blessed with some amazing things in life. But still.

SO that's why I have been so quiet. I am having a giant pity party for my self and because of this pity party I am at a loss as to what to talk to you about. I had even lost my knitting mojo for a week there (a direct result from one of the recent events but it's not fair to go into it here) oh and I also gave up my ticket to F1, because I had to be a responsible adult, just so you know. Pity Party!

Whoa. Thanks for listening.

FO: Swallowtail Shawl

I DID IT! I fought the shawl and I WON!



I had a strict deadline as this was for one of my good friend who is getting married today! How exciting is that!

Being that purple is her very favorite color in the whole wide world I wasn't very surprised that she asked for the shawl to be made in purple as well...

I wanted to make sure that it matched her purple wedding dress perfectly so I dyed the yarn my self... you probably remember me talking about it here

Picking the pattern was easy too as I quickly realized that my friend loved any shawl pattern I showed her as long as it was purple. So I chose the Swallowtail for a few reasons
1. Let's be realistic it's a free pattern! I LOVE THAT!
2. Loads of people have knit this so I knew I could get plenty of help if I got stuck (cough*nupps*cough)
3. I love the budding lace pattern... simple and elegant.





Then I got to knitting... This being my first shawl it took a lot of patience and a lot of reworking but it was well worth it as it came out better than I hoped and the smile on my friend's face yesterday when I handed it over made all the work worth it.

I was pleasently surprised with how beautiful it looked even before I blocked it


But I couldn't pass up using my new lace blocking kit from KnitPicks!

So here are the details of my shawl
Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in Natural color that I then dyed in a lilac purple. This took slightly less that one skein... I swear this mally lace reproduces almost as fast as you can knit it!
Needles: Size US 4's
Mod: This shawl wasn't going to be big enough so I decided to do 19 budding lace repeats instead of 14 but I must say this wond not have gone very smoothly for me if it hadn't been for this blog post by Petterknit. Oh and those nupps? Not nearly as hard as everyone made it sound... just fiddly which was a huge relief cause they were quite intimidating to attempt but came out wonderfully

Honestly knitting this was a pleasure and has made lace knitting one of my new favorite types of project... good thing too as I have loads of lace yarn!

After the wedding is over I'm going to try to get some more proper pictures of the FO... I just didn't have time to take pictures of the Swallowtail in good light.

Now I'm revisiting the FLS! Can you believe it?!?!?! I'm almost done with the body! Woot woot!

to make you smile

Meet Tara the elephant and Bella the dog who are best friends at the elephant sanctuary in Tennessee... You have to see it to believe it.

ugh I know I have been a lazy bum and all... I'm sorry! Usually I'm much better about posting than I have been lately... I could give you tons of reasons but I'm not going to. I'm just going to tell you that i don't really have that much to write about right now. At least not anything I'm willing to write about yet. i just need some time to confirm everything before i go and put it on the internet for everyone and their mom to see. But don't worry you'll know all about everything in good time.

I did have some excitement a while ago that Charmaine blogged about here. The knitting group decided to throw Charmaine a surprise baby shower!!! It was so much fun!

And I was even able to get my piping bags dusted off to decorate this cake!
I really forgot how much I love cake decorating. Like knitting I find it quite cathartic to decorate a cake (and eat all the left over icing when I'm done)

Also we have had a couple more meetings since then... One was last week and all the ladies were so sweet and got me a birthday cake and sang to me!! They really made me feel special and I'm sure I got bright red.

That's right it was my birthday last week. What a great time I had this year. My husband truly surprised me which is hard to do and he made the day very memorable. This was also the first year, at my office, where my birthday wasn't during Ramadan so they got me a huge chocolate cake! It was so tasty! So between my family, my husband, my friends and my office I was very spoiled this year and I LOVED IT!