Time and my game plan has passed ...

No matter what kind of notes you make for yourself, if you don't touch a project for 4 months, you essentially have to start from the beginning to figure out where exactly you are .. and even then you might not figure it out :| // sigh

Just after the New Year, life got busy for myself and my friends; one bought a house and moved, another was involved in a belly dancing show and i had my own personal health issues that were taking over aspects of my life. So the fun stuff gets put away for a while.

fast forward 4 months ...

Knatter is back!!!! W00t w00t w00t .. I'm just beyond tickled, seems like forever since i've seen my friends (and i work with one) Needless to say, the first knatter all we did was graze and talk all nite - i think i pulled my knitting out the bag, but can't say for sure ..

The following week, I pulled out my knitting, took a look at where i was, and started to scratch my head .. i knew where i was, but what was i supposed to do now?? Figured it out, did a row or two yes it took me almost all nite to figure it out .. , then had the same issue the following week, and the one after that .. so pfft .. i give up .. start again ..

If you remember this pattern has been having me scratch my head from day one! They say this pattern is written in american english, but not sure what america they are talking about .. some of the terminology ...

so a painful decision was reached .. frog the side and start again .. this time i'll be doing both sides together so I can do the same thing immediately on each side .. I normally do that, but I was afraid I would start going backwards or the wrong way with the cabling pattern. Boy did that get me far LOL

Anywho .. this is now frogged, and at tonite's knatter, I'll be casting on again - but with two sides!

Winter Seafoam Flower

My previous post shared my adventures with recycled yarn - and this is the project that I'll be using it for .. this sweater is just soooo gorgeous and I've been drooling over it for the past few months waiting to be able to start this for Restitch 2010 (I've made a group on Ravelry for it that you are more than welcome to join - Ravelery members click here

Today I struggled with crochet, and I've not done any in 20 years since I made a blanket for my new born Godson ... then it was like 11 years before that that I crocheted .. oi vay! Talk about getting frustrated!! But I hit up the videos on Garn Studios and got the flower section on the back done in just a few hours .. I had a few back up and restarts (yes this means I frogged!!), I see a few spots where I'm like .. Hmmm??? .. but all in all, I'm very happy with it

The Drops Design patterns have always been a wee bit intimidating for me, but I'm biting the bullet and just forging ahead .. i'm a smart woman and I can figure this out ... taking my own advice of 'one line at a time' should be my mantra for this pattern.

I think once i get over the (**shudders) of charts and the not so simplistic language in the pattern, I'll be fine .. I made it thru the crochet flower back piece ..so the rest should be workable! It seems easier now than when I first started, so I can't see it getting any harder .. I know .. famous last words!! heh .... But if I have to frog - I frog .. only way to learn :)

Wish me luck!!

Recycling Yarn- continued :)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I would have pics and my adventure with recycling a thrift store sweater. Helpful tips n hints found here.

We left off with my yarn being BOTH DK and worsted weight and me trying this to see I could even the gauge out by using the above-mentioned tutorial. After unraveling the sweater I ended up with several balls of yarn ..

First thing I needed to do was get all this yarn into same size pieces .. using 2 chairs, that measure a yarn on one side, I wrapped it round the chairs 50 time to make up 100 yard hanks. Look like shrubs don't they? This was how they looked after I took them off the chairs. I ended up with 17 hanks of 100 yards each with a some left over that I hadn't frogged off the sweater.


So following the directions I did the soak for a bit with shampoo, then dried as best I could then do the fling about and hang .. one thing she neglected to mention that this flinging was an Olympic event .. ESH! .. I flung and flinged and flung and flinged for a good 15 - 20 mins and I didn't see any serious straightening out of my yarn .. so i gave up and just hung it up and weighted it down with soup cans..

Now I've a thought on why I didn't see any straightening .. in her tutorial she used a yarn that was 100% wool, I've not clue what the fibre content is in this yarn, but I'm betting it's acrylic 100%. So that could have a lot to do with why it didn't straighten out like hers did ..

BUT ever notice how there's always a BUT

It did go from super poodle curly, to just having a relaxed wave instead ... and I could live with that .. as my main goal for this experiment was to see if my yarn would go back to being worsted and it did!!!! So here I was with having worsted weight yarn, mildly wavey, but it was all worsted! It knitted up to gauge and I was able to start my sweater today .. got the crochet back done and have started the battle of the back and reading charts :D So far so good and only 3 frog sessions .. but that's okay .. it was only 4 rows over 28 stitches - heh

So here's 1 2oz ball of 100 yards of gorgeous worsted weight yarn. 11 more are still hanging in my shower waiting to totally dry so I can wind them up in my pull balls :D videos here for pull skein and more

Even tho they aren't straight, they are all worsted weight - I can certainly live with that! You can see in this picture here that all the strands are the same weight :D Mission Accomplished