KnittingNutter

I made some progress at my third attempt at my own design socks. If I have the energy I will do it one more time, this time with an extra row in st st in beige before and after the multi-coloured pattern. But at least this last try is wearable:

And last night I started on the border (all 385 stitches) on the vest for my brother. It's coming together nicely and so far I'm making good time on all Spring birthday presents.

I made a yarn count blunder on the ivory sweater - I was out by 5 balls. I still can't work out how. So I've had to go back to knitpicks to ask them if they have the same lot number still available. Fingers crossed.

And as I was ordering more yarn, I also ordered some new yarn for my next project. A soft toy for my nephew - I'm going to knit him a turtle.

A slightly different blog today as I haven't got much further on my projects and I have a spare hour until my folks land - they're coming to visit for Easter.

I've been delving into the various tools you can use to organize your blogs and connect with your network of bloggers. There are tonnes of them, but I found a couple that I really like.

Delicious - or http://del.icio.us - I know, strange URL. In my own words, this is an organizer, in which you can bookmark your favourite blogs and have them in one list in one place on the web. I really like this because I move around quite a bit and am not always at my desktop when I feel the urge to read other blogs, so here they are neatly listed on the web.

You can also grab other people's delicious lists and add them to your delicious network of lists. I've found this a really great way of finding new knitting blogs.

Mybloglog.com - http://www.mybloglog.com. This site allows you to create your own forum of sorts - in my own words again (so apologies to the creators). Basically you sign yourself up under a an alphabetic listing - mine's KnittingNutter - and then other bloggers can add themselves to your networks. The thing I really like about this blog is that it has a message board, so you can leave messages with your network of blogger friends.

So here's my two cents worth. If you know of any other cool blogging tools, I'm interested to learn.

Happy Easter all you knitting bunnies out there. I hope you all stuffed yourselves as full of turkey as I have - just working on rounding out my bottom.

I found this great pattern for a pair of bunny slippers: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=63522

I made it over the last hurdle - sewing on the buttons - and the vest is finished. Phew! Completed in time for my brother's birthday later this month:

I'm really pleased with the buttons we found at a local button store. Yes, an entire store dedicated to selling buttons - thousands of them. We spent a good hour in the store, picking out the perfect ones:

I've come to a standstill on the ivory sweater, as I've now officially run out of yarn and hope the good ladies at knitpicks can find me the right lot number to match the yarn I have.

So, I've decided to tackle my sock pattern tonight. At last count I'd completed the Fair Isle pattern and continued some basket weave. I've now decided I've frogged it and need to start over with the Fair Isle - to insert a st st row of beige at the beginning and end of the Fair Isle pattern. I will get there. Sorry Jeanne Knits (http://jmknits.wordpress.com/), I will write out the pattern once finished and share it with you. It'll just take a little longer than I expected.

It's been a week of counting stitches, knitting, frogging, re-counting stitches, re-knitting, re-frogging and counting again. But I finally have something to show for my efforts. Go easy on me, it's my first attempt at designing any pattern and a sock pattern at that. It's not perfect, but few things in life are:

There were a few issues that I could solve, like the extra row of st st to take away from the ugly colour bands that appeared when you purl stitch in many colours and others that I have had to take some artistic license with. The biggest of which lies in the pattern repeats. The Fair Isle pattern repeats across 11 stitches, so it cuts short on the last repeat. And the basket weave pattern repeats across 8 stitches, so I've had to leave more stitches on for the foot than the patterns I have seen.

However, here's proof that the sock fits on nicely - perhaps I have a non-standard foot.

It's been one busy week. Between taking care of demanding media at an international IT conference hosted here in Vancouver and shouting at my televisions screen as the Canucks were very nearly beaten by the Dallas Stars (go Canucks go!), I've managed to get a little knitting done.

My intention was to have finished my first designed sock, but then the yarn I had ordered for my nephew's birthday present arrived on Friday. So I spent the weekend, knitting all the patchwork pieces for a turtle:

The pattern is from "World of Knitted Toys" by Kath Dalmeny. I haven't knitted many of the toys in this book, but there are lots of fun animals and dolls to knit. They did make one mistake in the pattern. The main blocks for the back is a diamond and the pattern reverses wrong at the top of the diamond shape. Otherwise the pattern was really easy to follow.

Here are some of the pieces being blocked:

The yarn is from KnitPicks, Merino Style - gorgeous yarn. Although I made the classic mistake of going by my computer monitor for colour and didn't look up the chart - so the pine is a bit too blueish-green and doesn't match the darker green as well as I'd hoped.

I'm so excited - we're throwing caution to the wind and getting in the car tomorrow for a weekend ROAD TRIP! This means fresh air, fun side trips, new yarn stores to explore and lots of hours in the car dedicated to knitting.

I've set myself the task of finishing the ivory sweater, my own design socks and at least start sewing together the pieces of the turtle. So, I hope, I'll have lots of FOs to show off next week.

Oh yeah! Where are we going? For those of you who don't already know, I live in Vancouver, BC. We're going to a lake called Logan Lake, south of Kamloops, BC. It's about 3.5 hours drive - give or take traffic jams in and around Greater Vancouver.

And, I don't have to cook for this glorious mini vacation. We're booked into a B&B, not a cabin, this time. I hear you - more time for knitting!