Now Norma Knits

Terrier Tuesday -- Better Late Than Never Edition

Dear Readers,

I know Tuesday is almost over, but as you can probably imagine by my late missive, things have been busy around here. I've got some big terrier news to relate, but first off, I am told by She Who Owns This Blogspace that I must show you how she's doing on the sweater she's been working on, and tell you a little bit about it.

She says to tell you this is a pattern from a Classic Elite booklet called Noble Fibers (the pattern is called "Lush Shaped Cardigan"), and she's knitting it in sportweight Peace Fleece in some grey color -- "Father's Grey" maybe? Leftover yarn from David's sweater from last year.

Anyway, she was going gangbusters on this thing until she got a bit confuzzled by the neck cast-off directions. She thought she'd just put it down for the evening and re-read the directions after a good night's sleep and carry on from there. But then she ended up spending the next couple of days lying in bed on a heating pad and taking lots of drugs because her hips hurt so wicked bad from running and then going to yoga which, to her surprise, exacerbated the hip pain.

She said a lot of bad words for a lot of days in a row, I'll just tell you that. Cranky doesn't even BEGIN to describe it.

She finally got in to see her Wonder Therapist (not Cindy, but Cindy has hired someone else with the same training), and now she's doing pretty fine -- or at least much better than before. So, she says, hopefully she will get back to the sweater, but it turns out she is quite a bit more busy with work than she thought she would be for December. It's all good. More work for her means more toys and treats for me, plus it makes her happy.

She is pinching me right now and saying, "Tell them about the buttons!" The copper buttons from England arrived, and they are very pretty, interesting, and unique, even to a little Yorkshire pudding like me. You can't really tell from this picture how awesome they are, but hey, I'm doing the best I can.

But can we PUHLEEEEEZE talk about me now?!

As you know, I've been having quite a bit of up-close-and-personal time with wildlife of late, and this week was no exception. A couple of days ago, I just ran like a bat out of hell off the deck, like I do, to scare away any wildlife that has the gall to be in our backyard. Usually everything just scatters faster than even I can catch up to it. But I've been working out, dontchaknow, and this time I caught right up to a squirrel! I'm not kidding! I had him right in my grasp! The stupid dummy, he's supposed to RUN! I told him so. I was like, "What.the.heck.are.you.doing? You're supposed to just run up the tree or something!" 

To be honest, I was a little bit stunned, and truth be told, I kinda didn't like the feeling of his furry little neck in my mouth anyway. Actually......... I just didn't know what to do.

But I will deny that in a court of law.

So I barked and I barked, and I told that frickin' squirrel, "Get your fluffy-ass tail UP that tree, and don't you come back DOWN!"  And the squirrel was pretty stunned himself, and he eventually pulled himself together and ambled up the tree, where he heaved his breath and looked at me and he probably thought, "Oh my god, there IS a god."  

I taught him a thing or two, I'll just tell ya. Next time I might not be so forgiving, I'm just saying. 

I'm licking my lips just thinking about it.

So that was my week. How was yours?!

Love,

 

Mr. Jefferies

 

Small Business Saturday

Man. When I retweeted the "just shoot me" comment about Black Friday yesterday, little did I know that it might turn out to be true. 

Sigh. We are so fucked as a species. Don't even get me started about the idiots who are pissed off because President Obama didn't mention God in his Thanksgiving Address. Don't EVEN. Oh man, I have so much to say on that subject and so much to say about another religion-related incident that happened to me while I was in the hospital, but oh man.... just don't provoke me. Seriously. It won't be pretty. 

Speaking of pretty, let us make an abrupt cocktail-party-style change of subject right now. How about that?

Look at what is just flying off the needles!

And look at how nicely it's going to coordinate with the new jewelry!

My instincts were so right. I hope it turns out to be as nice as I hope it will, and since I'm sure it will be lovely, mostly I hope I'm knitting the right size. 

I'll take part in Small Business Saturday by eating at a local restaurant and maybe dipping into a couple other shops, but I'm still basically in anti-shop mode. Still, what shopping I do, as always I make every effort to keep it local. Exhibit A, the jewelry above, made of really local material and by a local jeweler. And Exhibit B, the yarn above, is from, well, a fairly local producer in Maine, and then again all the way across the world in Russia, since that is what Peace Fleece is all about.  

And I won't even try to shove my all-religions-are-creepy opinions deep down your throats at all. Nope, I won't say a word. 

 

Black Friday: Knitting and Soup, No Shopping

 

You might call this swatching. I've just cast on for something, and we'll see how it goes. I want a sweater to match my new jewelry, you see.

 

Oh, how I love seedstitch. 

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I have in mind a tweedy grey cardigan with copper-color buttons, and I just happened to have the yarn on hand -- Peace Fleece left over from the sweater I made for David last year, and I've ordered some buttons from an Etsy shop (don't know if you can see that link or not). They look like this:

I haven't completely forsaken the G'Day sweater. I finished the first sleeve. But the leftover grey Peace Fleece was calling my name. I couldn't resist it any longer, so I cast on last night. 

There is turkey soup stock simmering on the stove, and hopefully I'll see the inside of the gym later. 

All in all, a great Black Friday, and no mall or shopping or fighting traffic or crowds in sight. I'll repeat something I saw on Twitter this morning: "The day I stand in line for hours to go shopping at Wal-Mart (I'll substitute 'anyplace'), shoot me."

 

Progress Report

The sweater is growing.

I figured out where I left off and finished up the two fronts. Then I had to rip out the bind-off of the back and reknit the last little bit (It needed a deeper armhole.). I reshaped the shoulders, and bound it off again. And now I'm well under way on the first sleeve. 

Look at me. I knit!

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Pattern and yarn info:  The pattern is called G'Day, from Berrocco pattern booklet #276/Geode & Jasper. The yarn is Geode. My colorway is 3646, Tigers Eye, which as you can see, also coordinates quite nicely with a Yorkie's coloring. Unfortunately, the yarn has been discontinued. 

NOW What?

My work week has been sufficiently slow that last night I reached the threshold of boredom that it took to finally pull out my knitting WIP (that is work in progress for the non-knitting reader) to try to get a handle on where I left off. 

Oh, man. The back and most of the two front panels are done, which just leaves the two sleeves, the collar, and the front button band. Cool! because I remember that this was a fast knit, so it shouldn't be too hard to finish this baby so I can maybe wear her for Thanksgiving.

But wait. Not so fast. 

What are these raw, naked stitches doing just flopping in the wind? 

Looks like I have some reading, studying, and diagnosing to do before I even get started. 

*sigh*

This is why I should never drop a project midstream.

The best thing about pulling out this languishing project is that I found the pink Chibi that I thought I had lost.

If I blamed the cleaning ladies for this at some time in the past, I sincerely apologize. 

Another Good Reason To Own a Robust Stash

Remember the buttons I bought in Rhinebeck?

I'm just sayin'.

Now to settle on a pattern. Surprisingly, nothing in my Ravelry queue seems to be quite right. I am thinking a simple shawl-collared cardigan, but I am open-minded. Any ideas?

But first, I have to finish my G'Day, which has been sitting untouched, but not unloved, since last winter.

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Three posts in three days. This could be me back in the saddle again.

Sweet Little Striped Jacket With TARDIS Zipper Pull

I'm still waiting for the zipper in the right color to arrive, but is this going to be firkin adorable or WHAT?

Here's what I did: I used Mission Falls 1824 Wool yarn leftovers from the two baby sweaters I made previously. See them here and here. For those who don't know (and I have run into a few lately), Mission Falls 1824 is an aran-weight (heavy worsted) superwash wool yarn (it also comes in cotton) that is the favorite of many (me included) for baby items. The colors are fantastic, and it's a very soft, quite substantial, wool yarn.

Unfortunately, Mission Falls has gone out of business, and so the supply of this yarn is beginning to dwindle. I just bought a bunch more at Webs, to have on hand in the future. I bought basil, pistachio, cornflower, and stone. I might buy more. When it's gone, it's gone, and as I say, it's my favorite for baby items.

For the pattern for this jacket, I used Knitting Pure and Simple's Baby Pullover #214 (6 months size). I didn't like how the stripes in the round were coming out, so I knitted it back and forth, stopping in the front middle. When I was finished knitting, I used attached i-cord edging up each front edge. (You can find several videos and tutorials online for this technique if you are unfamiliar with it.)

The pattern includes the options of rolled neck and cuffs, or ribbed. As you can see, I went with ribbed for this one.

Those with eagle eyes will notice an unintended design element, as we like to say. When I took a photo of the sweater last week, with only one sleeve finished, I noticed that quite close to the cuff I had made a mistake and used three rows of blue for one of the stripes. So I copied that mistake on the other sleeve. It looks kind of cool, I think. 

I was loving this little sweater jacket as it was, but I started to think that it would be neat, and make it even more gift-worthy, if it had a really cool zipper pull. One thing led to another (I'm not sure what online rabbit hole led me to it), and before I even realized what I was doing, I had ordered a TARDIS* zipper pull on eBay from this seller. It arrived the day before yesterday, and it's really cute. I somehow expected it to be metal, but it's plastic. Doesn't matter. It looks adorable on this sweater.

Now it turns out that I have enough blue and raisin-brown yarn left over to make a matching hat, too.

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*I have never watched Dr. Who, but I think this has to occur in the near future, so I know what it's all about before I give this gift, don't you think? I've been in full Dexter immersion of late, but have run out of episodes to watch until Season 5 becomes available. 

 

Preview of Coming Attraction

A little stripey baby sweater action, using up the yarns left over from the raisin and the denim baby sweaters.

It's Cute In Blue Too

Iceling Cardigan, Size 6 Months

Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Wool, Color No. 21, Denim

Buttons: Natural Yew. I bought them here.

I think it's wicked adorable as is, but it would be over-the-top adorable with nautical buttons, to make this like a little peacoat. So I might change the buttons on this one.

And then make about 24 more.

These things are like potato chips. 

On The Button

The buttons from Way Up North came earlier this week. That was much faster than they predicted, and the buttons do not disappoint. The only problem is, they all look really good on the blue knitting.

Yew:

 

Fir:

 

White Antler (these might be my favorites):

 

Burnt Bone:

But I also like buttons from my stash on it, such as these wonderful carved bone owls and chickens I got at the Vermont Sheep & Wool Festival several years ago:

 

And these sort of moderne yellow ones:

 

And what if this sweater were for a little girl like Abigail, who likes everything sparkly? Perhaps these pink ones with glitter would be an interesting surprise. Awesome!

 

Or how about orange swirls?

 

And back to nature again with the beach stones. They look fab:

 

But so do the bright green ones, though these are too small:

 

And how about unmatched purple ones (if they were the right size, of course):

 

And of course there is always red:

 

It's going to be a tough decision which set of buttons to put on the little blue sweater.

I think it means only one thing: I have to buy more blue yarn.