Month: October 2007

Borrowing my Husband’s Tie

Marie Haigh4 Comments
My husband came home from work yesterday and gave me the funniest look. I don’t know why. Don’t all women wear their husbands ties in the house when they’re not home?

No? Well, they ought to. Ties are great for inspiration. The one I wore yesterday helped me design the schematics for the Christmas Tree skirt. Here’s the proof.

What else did I do when I was supposed to be watching the Phillies playoff games? I was knitting more of the mohair stole, because watching the Phillies play the way they are is depressing. We can’t pitch to save our lives and our hitters are lost in la-la-land. Ung. But enough about that, I was telling you about my mohair stole. It is 40% completed!

Well, I am off to make a pot of chili. It’s still hot as heck here in Pennsylvania, but I’m doing my part to encourage the weather to get cooler. Stew = cold weather. Truly, it feels like we have been living in San Francisco these past 3 days. Every morning, we get a foggy, misty drizzle (I wouldn’t even call it rain) followed by 80+ degree F day. I guess it is better than no rain at all and if the heat would just go away – I’d be happy as a lark or a Jake. =)

Swatching for the Christmas Tree Skirt

Marie Haigh4 Comments
My white Wool from the Andes arrived on Friday from Knit Picks. It will be paired with the Christmas yarn to create a Christmas Tree Skirt.

I bought 11 skeins because I’ve learned that one can never have too much yarn. Just in the past year, I’ve run out of yarn twice. In the hopes that I never face that challenge again, I swung the pendulum to the opposite side and bought 300 more yards that I need. True, it’s a bit extreme, but the last yarn shortage is still fresh (and painful) in my mind.

Of course, the first thing I did with the yarn was knit up a swatch of plain stocking stitch. Sitting next to the Christmas yarn, it is perfect. It is plain and ordinary, letting the hand-dyed yarn take the spotlight.

Because I refuse to knit an entire garment in stocking stitch (I simply must sneak in some cables or yarn overs), I have been tinkering over the past few days with a pine tree cable. What do you think?

I took the pics at night, so they’re not the best.

Now starts the fun part: drawing the schematics and calculating the stitches. My goal is to cast on later this month.

I Couldn’t Knit on Sunday

Marie Haigh3 Comments

Who could knit during such an amazing game as that? I was terrified to pinch myself yesterday, thinking it could all be just a dream. But when I woke up this morning, the Phillies were still the sole National East division winners. WOO!

Rollins was amazing. He stole 2nd base and then 3rd base. Then, he came home on an RBI sac fly to start the game off right: 1-0. Later in the game, he got his 20th triple of the year, making him only 1 of 4 players to get the quad (20 stolen bases, 20 doubles, 20 triples, and 20 homeruns). Surely, he deserves the MVP title.

Of course the game didn’t last all day, but I still couldn’t find time to knit. I was too busy reorganizing my sewing room.

Before pic:


After pic:


Thanks to my cousin, I have a “real” desk now. My (grey) sewing table can be used strictly for sewing. Which means every time I want to sew, I don’t have to clear it off first. Oh, the simply joys of life.

What you don’t see is all the fabric and knitting UFOs that I organized. I finally got them all stashed into my 6-drawer storage bin. And a good thing too, they were starting to take over the room! Poor hubby, he gets less and less of our shared office/sewing room each year. Of course, the basement is all his, so I don’t feel that bad.