Erica’s Blog

Lotus Knits is having a contest, so here goes:

This is the first thing I knit as an adult when I picked up my needles again in December of 2004 (regular readers are probably sick of hearing about this, but oh, well).

Next up that I haven’t cast on yet?  Hmmm….Perhaps this:

  If not, then it will be something out of my own brain.

 Ginger_Nut over at Pierre the Yarn Snob is having “Fight the Black Dog Fridays” in order to increase awareness of clinical depression.  If knitting has helped you battle depression, please shoot her an email with your story.  She would love to post it.  When I can get my act together, I’m planning to do so myself.

David, thanks for mentioning this on your podcast!

FINISHED OBJECTS:

• For a birthday party we attended on Saturday, I got an inexpensive white baseball cap and straw-type purse, then grabbed pink & purple cotton/silk blend yarn that Zib gave me last summer.  I made a bunch of flowers from Nicky Epstein’s Knitted Flowers, then sewed them on.  Very cute, and considering the yarn was free, quite inexpensive.  All in all, a good gift for a first-grader who’s got 87,000 relatives nearby and doesn’t really need anything.  I’m going to do the same thing for Thing Two’s buddy, Karizma, later this month.
• I’ll post a picture later of Hubby modeling it, but yesterday I cranked out a Halfdome for Sean as a thank-you gift for the sailing trip.  Alterations to the pattern went like this:
  • I used size 4’s and 5’s instead of 3’s and 5’s.
  • I only cast on 98 stitches b/c even the smallest number was ginormous, even on the 3’s.
  • I cut everything else down the appropriate amount considering the 98 stitches, except I knit about 4.75 inches before I started the decreases, and I actually could have done another 1/4 inch, too.

Halfdome was an easy, quick knit, and it looks cool, but it was a little rough, trying to knit Aran weight yarn on such small needles.  It will, however, prove to be a very sturdy hat, though.

ON THE NEEDLES:

• That of which we do not speak.
• A string bag for Dana out of some bright red King Tut.
• The never-ending Silver Thaw scarf (I made good progress on it at the movie theater on Sunday, though!).
• Robin’s baby blanket.  I think this will be my entry into the county fair this year.

STASH REDUCTION:

This is going about as well as the weight reduction - in other words, NOT well.

CURRENT MILEAGE:   19.365 miles

CURRENT WEIGHT:      35.538 pounds

…a new camera!  Hubby brought it home last night, just in time for our trip.  It was expensive, but with my track record, he wanted one that was shockproof, and with going sailing, he wanted one that was waterproof. 

Here are a few samples of our fiddling around with it last night:

See the swift there?

Bad pose makes my skinny minny look like she’s got an extra chin.  Ha!

Hubby did these two while playing with the settings.  For one of them, he grabbed my full-spectrum light.  I think it was for the first one.  The red thing the ducky’s sitting on is the string bag for Dana.