Curves

I officially joined Curves. I'm pretty excited about it and I'm going on my lunch break 3 times a week and then on Saturday. I have more energy now and I'm feeling great. I also noticed a little muscle in my arm.

For those of you not familiar with Curves, its a 30 minute workout for women. They have these hydraulic machines and cardio boards set up in a circle they call a circuit. Well you just get on at any point, get off after you did 2 rounds and then stretch. They calculated if you do this you will have exercised for 30 minutes. You do each machine and then board for 30 seconds. And hey, I can do anything for 30 seconds.

Friday was my weigh and measure day. We do this once a month to track progress. Well I lost 1.5 pounds and 5.5 inches. I'm really excited about this.

Noro's Next Move

Now that I'm at the armpits and have decreased 2K (76 sts) at each point, Elizabeth tells me the next thing to do is INCREASE at the same point until I have recovered my 76 sts. Release the cows! Send them back to greener pastures.

Elizabeth dear, I just decreased all those lovely stitches. It was starting to become managable not having to knit all 342 sts at once. And now I'm supposed to add them back? Anything you say Elizabeth, Anything you say!

Making A List, Checking it Twice

Anyone who is a knitter knows perfectly well that the Christmas season really starts in July/ August. Then the relatives remember that Christmas is coming around September/ October. And yes, you are expected to complete all 354 items requested.

My sister was the first to actually request something. All she wants is a "mother/ daughter hat set." Now mind you this is not just any mother/ daughter hat set. That would be too easy. She wants one that is cool that she can wear on the ski slopes, and "can it please not be neon green." (That was the color of our house growing up, but that is a story for another time) It also must be personally designed for her and Alana. This would ensure that it is a one of a kind. Please no pom poms on the top... and while I'm at it nothing too offensive....

So here I am thinking while she is talking about something....

mom/daughter hat. check.
no pom poms. check.

I'm thinking maybe some fair isle or intarsia... and then she mentions.... "Libby, no animals... I don't do animals."

no animals... check.

"no geometric shapes"

no shapes..check.

"maybe you could do snowflakes, but they have to be cool looking. Nothing dorky"

maybe snowflakes..

"no scratch the snowflakes, definately no snowflakes"

So now I'm just wanting to play with her a bit..


"Mary, maybe I could make you a neon green hat with some orange dots that resemble snowflakes. On the top I'm thinking of leaving off the pom poms but adding a flying saucer. It would be a one of a kind and the talk of the slopes! Alana would be just darling in it!"

Now she is hystrical... "Libby, are you kidding me..I thought we just covered this..no ...(yadda yadda yadda)"

OK Mary, mommy/ daughter hats it is... coming right up!

Tag, I'm It!

Four jobs I’ve had:
Mt Rushmore gift shop sales: I once had this kid convinced that the Indians invented ice cream and they kept it cold by keeping it in ground cellars. I'm sooooo going to hell.

McDonalds girl: "Would you like fries with that?" I'm proud to say that if I ever get fired from growing rust I still have options!

Paper girl: It paid the rent in college.

Telemarketer: I had to call people during dinner time trying to sell them an add so they can sell their car.


Four movies I can watch over and over:

The Little Mermaid
The Man from Snowy River
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Elmo's World~ Karolyn loves them.


Four places I have lived:

Post Falls, ID
Toledo, OH
Moscow, ID
St. Clair Shores, MI


Four television shows I love to watch:

House
Battlestar Galactica
Flip this House
A Baby Story


Four places I have been on vacation:

Mazatlan Mexico
Hawaii
Glacier National Park: See Picture
Niagra Falls


Four of my favorite dishes:

My mom's pierogi~ sauerkraut all the way!
Grandma's chocolate chip cookies~ yes this does actually count as a dish. If you had them you would completely understand.
Aunt Pat's Cranberry Pot Roast~ This stuff is to die for.
My husband's salmon~ that man can make a mean salmon. I'm spoiled!


Four websites I visit daily:

Elann.com
various blogs
ebay
cnn.com


Four places I would rather be right now:
In Germany with my sister
Salt Spring Island
In a log cabin sitting next to a roaring fire knitting. There would be no TV, phone, kids, husband...this is to ensure that there would be no interruption to the knitting. There would be servants.
Diving the Great Barrier Reef.

Kiri

After all of the sts associated with Noro I'm needing a break from that one. So I casted on Kiri. I'm using Acapella by Austermann. Its a mohair/ acrylic blend that I'm using US8's on. (I can't use the 7's cuz those are being used by Noro.) The fabric is light and airy just as I want. I currently have 3 repeats of chart 2. I'm thinking that I need about 7-9 more repeats. Its an easy knit and now that I have the pattern memorized its going quite fast.

Hat Questions Answered

Money Question
I still have some of it but the bulk was spent on some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. I got some blue and is it ever the most wonderful stuff. Cuddly soft, no itch factor. It passed the bra test ladies! Its a keeper. If it ever comes up again, I'm getting more. Lots More.

Technical Question
I tried the hat on me and while it is snug, its comfortable. You can make the hat out of another yarn that doesn't have elastic incorporated into the yarn but I would suggest to add more stitches. This hat was designed with a negative ease in it. Basically its smaller than what you would normally make a hat. I did this on purpose cuz the yarn is elastic and I'm counting on that to stretch when wearing. It worked out great!

To make it larger for use with a non-elastic yarn would be incredibly easy to do. The decreases are based off of multiples of 5. So increase the # of sts by a multiple of 5. (5, 10, 15, 20) However many YOU need to fit your noggin. Don't know how big your noggin is? Well you're gonna have to measure it then!

1) Find YOUR gauge with the yarn YOU are using.

2) Measure head and subtract about 1 inch. So if your head is 20 inches...you will be casting on 19 inches. This is so that when the yarn stretches the hat will still fit. Also you want the thing to be a bit snug don't you?

3) Determine number of stitches you need for the hat. If your gauge is 4.25 sts / in and you are gonna need 19 inches... just do 4.75 * 19 = 90.25. Because I have abolutly no idea how to knit a quarter of a stitch we are gonna call this 90. Is 90 devisible by 5? As it turns out it is! 90 / 5 = 18. Fantastic. We can now move on! What do you do if your # isnt devisible by 5? Well pick another #, usually going up or down a couple of sts will get you where you need to be. And dont be worrying about a couple of sts...its not that big a deal in the grand skein of things! Everything is OK, just settle down.

4) When making the strip, make it 19 inches long and then put your twist into it.

5) Pick up 90 sts around the Moebius strip band. (Remember we figured out this in step 3).

6) Knit in stockinette until the hat is about 2-3 inches from the top of YOUR hat. You will most likely need about 10 - 11 inches in total length. So when the hat is maybe 7-8 inches start the decrease.

7) Decrease.. We figured this out in step 3. This is where the divide by 5 business comes in. We want 5 swirl things on the top right? Well if you want more just make sure that the number of swirls divides by your sts evenly. No remainders...its important. Our magic swirl # was 18. (18 * 5 = 90) This means that we knit 16 sts, then knit 2 together, 5 times. (16 + K2tog = 18 sts). Next row is K15, K2tog. Decrease in this fashion until you have 5 sts remaining. Draw the loop through the remaining sts...weave in the ends.

Your Done!!!

Noro is playing with EZ!

Remember the Noro that I was going to make the EZ adult suprise jacket out of? I raided the stash a bit more to see if there was anything in there to match Noro. Nothing. Well I found some more of this color online. I'm taking that as a sign that this jacket was meant to be. Purchased it before anyone else could and started to read the instructions.

Elizabeth tells me to find gauge. Thats easy enough. I figured that I'm getting 4.75 sts/inch.

Next she says to figure out your body width, multiply it by my gauge and divide that by 3. Now here is where I actually have to sit down and figure out exactly what it is that I'm wanting. I know that I want a coat/jacket. I know that I want to line it and I'm still debating on buttons or a zipper. I'll figure that part out later. No need to concern my pretty little head about that just yet.

So I got my fave sweater (the Fair Isle I was raving about on my first post) and it is 50" around. Divide that by 2 and I get 25 for the body width. Unfortunatly that is not divisible by 3 neatly. 25 may not be but 24 sure is! I'm in luck.... So I'm deciding on 24 to be my lucky #.

My Key Number is 24 x 4.75 = 114. 114 / 3 = 38. 38 = K. I'm guessing that everything is based off of this lucky number. I sure as hell hope that I got that right and I'm wanting a 48 inch around jacket. I'm a bit nervous here but I've got Elizabeth on my side telling me to settle down!

Reading on she says to cast on 9 x K... ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? That is 342 sts.... Redo the math... Nope 342 it is..... Good Lord Baby Jesus....I'm gonna be casting on till the cows come home. They might not be coming home. EVER!

Next I'm supposed to mark 2K (76 sts) from each end and at this point do a double decrease on every other row. When I have 5K (190 sts) remaining I'm at the armpits.

The cows actually did come home and I made it to the armpits.

Now no offence to Elizabeth, but I have to say that I'm just blindly following along here. She has never lead me astray in the past and I'm counting on that now. I'm not really seeing where this knitted fabric is going but I'll just follow along. Extensive research has confirmed that there are other people that have done the very same thing that I'm doing and have been completely successful.

The worse that can happen is that I'll have to frog the thing right? OK that just sounds very very painful and we will not be speaking of that ever again. EVER!

I'm Published

A couple of months ago Elann had a contest. The rules were simple. Create a stylish chemo hat out of their Esprit yarn that covered the back of the neck.

I thought, and thought, and thought some more. By the time that I did all my thinking, there was about 2 weeks to finish figuring out what I was gonna knit, knit it, write the pattern and send it to Elann.com for judging. Well I knit, and knit and knit some more. Wrote up the pattern instructions, sent them in and won the contest!

I would have posted about this sooner. Don't you be looking at me like that cuz I would have... I was pretty excited about getting $100 in yarn money for a hat! Well when I finally sat down to blog about it the next day, the winning pic was taken down. So I decided to wait until today when it was offically published to tell you all about it.

You can find the pattern here. Enjoy!