Confessions of Fidgety Fingers

So close, but so far. I only have my wife's present left to do, and everything is packaged up for gifting. I'm not sure if I will be able to do the pattern that I want for my wife's scarf. The pattern I'm using is called a berry stitch. I have pulled it out once because i had messed up on a stitch some place. I need to be a lot more carfeful in how I do the (K1, k1tbl, K1) into the same stitch and the P3tog, or else I'll have to find a new pattern. Luckily this time I was only on the 6th row. The reason that i couldn't fix it is because I couldn't tell where the mistake was (the yarn is a little fuzzy), and with all the increases and decreases, it is hard to tell exactly where the issue was. I have learned something from this pattern. I have learned that i should knit a bit looser, as putting 3 stiches in to one is a bit difficult at times. I have also learned that I have been knitting through the back loop this whole time. Unfortunately I forgot t...

Yea. I'm at my half-way point. I have just finished off my sister's scarf!. It looks great, and it should be long enough at almost 6 foot long. I have already started on my father-in-law's mittens and my mother-in-law's hat. I'm hoping to start an on-line photo account soon, so I can post pictures in the future.

Woohoo. I have finished my mother-in-law's scarf. I still need to block it as it is curling a bit, but that takes no time at all. My sister's scarf is about a third done now. It is coming a long quite nicely, and it looks like it won't need to be blocked. I'm trying to decide if I want to use the circle looms for my mother-in-law's hat, or if I want to find a pattern and knit it. I think part of that will be determined about the amount of time that I have. I'm going to start the mittens next, as I have not found a needle pattern for mittens that i like, yet.

My Christmas knitting is coming along well. I have my brother-in-law's hat complete and I am working on my mother-in-law's scarf. I have about a foot, eighteen inches complete. I didn't like how tight my sister's scarf, so I unraveled what I had done and restarted with bigger needles, and a different pattern. Originally it was a basic 3x3 ribbing. This is still a ribbing, but is a k3p1 with an extra knit at the end to offset the purls, which creates almost a furrow.

I have been busy as usual. I had a big weekend. I was the head waterbearer for a small war in my medival recreationist group. This basically means that I was reasponsible for making sure that all of the fighters and populace are well hydrated. It was alot of walking and driving around the site, but it was rewarding and satisfying. On a more fiber related note, my wife and I have figured out what we are making for Christmas presents. I'm making a scarf and hat set for my mother-in-law, a hat for my brother-in-law, mittens for my father-in-law, a scarf for my sister, and a special somethign for my wife. The hats won't be too bad, as they will be done on a circle loom, and I can normally make one in a couple hours. The mittens will also be done on circle looms. This is a pattern that I have never done before, so I have no idea how long it will actually take. It is the scarves that I'm worried about getting done on time. I'm doing the scarves on needles, and I...

Well I let this lapse, so I'm going to give this another try. I'm back to working on my wife's sweater jacket, when i make the time for it. I know that I will have to set it off to the side soon, as I need to start working on holiday presents. I'm thinking that they will include some scarves, but I'm not positive because my wife is looking for the list that we had started last year.

Well I got all of my swap mini-bags in and I should be getting my return mini-bags back soon. I can't wait. The swap coordinator says they are all great. When the swap comes back I'll post pics of both what I sent and what I received. This coming weekend is going to be quite fun. My wife and I are going to be walking in downtown Atlanta, GA to raise money for breast cancer research. the walk is just the beging of what looks to be a very busy fall. I have restarted my wife's sweater jacket. I'm having issues doing the make1 increase, but i know i just need to practice. I really need to start working on holiday presents too. My wife says we ahve a list of things that we are going to make, but she needs to find it. back to the needle My wife and I was honored this weekend. We were both awarded a Red Raven, which is an award given out for service in our local SCA group. While I do help out here or there, it is my wife that really deserves the award. She works har...

Wow. What a month. First there was the packing for vacation, then there was the two weeks of vacation, and then tehre is getting caught up at work from being away on vacation. My vacation consists of camping with many friends. This is not a small even as there was over 11,000 other people camping with me. I was able to take several classes. One of te things that I learned was how to spin with a drop spindle. This is something I tried to teach myself several times over the year, but never got the hang of until I took the class. My first pieces of yarn are a bit bumpy, but, it would pass as "novelity" yarn in the store, and as I get practice, I'll get better at it. I need to get back to the wine and meeds I have made. I believe that all of them are ready for bottles and aging. While they are quite drinkable right away, like chilis, soups and stews, the flavor does improve with age. I have had some cases where a brew was quite undrinkable initally, but after a year ...

Packing. I really don't like it, even when i tis packing for vacation. I'm really behind on what I should be doing, and I really can't plan on doing much this weekend as it looks like it is going to a busy one. My wife and I have plans for all day on Saturday, and then Sunday will be busy with packing, building and cutting grass. One of the things I have gotten done is some bottling of homebrew. I "owe" a person 2 bottles of homebrew every year that I go on vacation. I have some well aged mead, a honey wine, that I will give as my payment. As my second payment, I'm using a cranberry cordial that I "brewed" this year. Isn't it a beautiful color? I'm working on next years payments. I'm currently brewing a raspberry wine (carboy in the back), a mead made with honey gathered mostly from foxgloves (front carboy), and a maple syrup flavored mead (you can see the air lock sicking up behind the front carboy). Wow. I just realized I initi...

I got a kumihimo swap back on Friday. Kumihimo is a Japanese braiding technique. While this technique has been found in many areas across the world, it is mostly associated with medieval Japan. I got 7 fabulous braids, and I had kept one of my submissions. I also got a color photocopy of all of the submissions and copies of the instructions for the samples that weren't sent to me. This swap was organized through the Kumi2 Yahoo Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kumi2/).

Well the fund raising yard sale is over. While we did OK ($900), it is lower than our average. I think we would have done better, if it wasn't a holiday weekend here in the US, and the fact that it drizzled off and on most of the morning. We packed everything back up at the end of the day, and we'll have another yard sale in September or October. Now that the yard sale is over, it is time to start preparing for our vacation. We are going camping for 2 weeks with the SCA . This is one of the few events that I truely look forward to every year. It is two weeks of camping and relaxing and classes and friends. I guess I really need to start looking at the class list and figuring out what classes I want to take. Well I just signed up for a swap on one of my Yahoo groups. It is a mini bag/purse swap. I'm going to make 3 of them and I already have ideas of how I want to make the bags. Now I just need to get started on them so I can get them sent off by 8/22. Since they ...

Well I didn't get much done with crafting or reading today. We, my wife and I, spent most of the day preparing for my father-in-law coming in to town. We did go and get a load of furniture for our yard sale on Saturday. The yard sale is to raise money for breast cancer research. My wife, father-in-law and I walk in a local 30 mile walk where the minimum donation is US$1000 to participate and we have 3 yards sales during the year to raise money. The three of us also participate in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, where I work on the support crew while they walk. We did go an see some fireworks. This was the first time in 5 years that we have seen fireworks on the fourth. We watched from the top of a parking garage near my wife's work. We got an OK view of one, and then saw snippets from 3 others.