Hey there, baby doll

doll face
Originally uploaded by TravelingAnn

I've never been into baby dolls. Not even when I was a kid. I much preferred expressionless stuffed animals to those fixed faced plastic humanoids. Stuffed animals could have much better adventures and a wider range of emotions.

Because of this, it totally surprised me when in June 2006 I became obsessed with the doll from the Rebecca Baby & Kids book 6. It looked fun to make and there were all these little outfits as well! Going for yarn that matched my skin tone, I settled on Alpaca & Silk from Blue Sky Alpacas. Maybe not the best choice looking back, a little on the soft side, but it's not like I'm giving it to a kid. If I was going to make the doll again, which I probably won't, I'd probably wait for a good color of Cascade 220 or even Zara.

Anyway. The pattern worked up quickly and was fun (she has waist shaping and cute little feet!) and I even sort of enjoyed attaching all her hair (the original is braided but I think I might leave mine loose). Then I hit the part where you are supposed to embroider on her face. Yeah, embroidery, not my strong point. So she had languished, faceless and nekked in the back of the dining room credenza for over a year. Poor thing.

Then on Monday I had to go to Micheal's Craft Store to pick up a picture mat we had cut. I spontaneously wandered through the doll isle (the aisle head said beads, another area I don't excel at) and found faces. Flat iron on faces and embroidered faces. Blue eyes, brown eyes, large and small. My poor doll had a chance! As you can see, I bought an embroidered set with brown eyes. I convinced my mom to attach them. Then I set her up for her Ravelry photo shoot....

And the dogs went nuts. They didn't know what to make of her. They circled the chair. They sniffed her. They snuck up from behind and sniffed her through the slats. They nudged her with their noses and then jumped back, afraid she might move. Baru (above) even started barking at her. It was all terribly amusing. I have to wonder if they could tell she had a human face and form and it was confusing them. I don't think I've seen them bark at stuffed animals (although Samson did murder a Pooh Bear Hubby gave me).

She's up on the dining room credenza now, welcomed into the light of day, sitting in the ice bucket from the champagne set we received as a wedding present. She is still quite nekked. I started a little dress for her in some lavender Zara I had in stash, but I haven't made much progress. You see, I'm working with this really nice sock yarn and it's taking precedence over everything else.

Oh, happy leap year!

Hope returns

The top down mitts are still in play!
The other publishing company I submitted them to sent me a postcard acknowledging receipt. The postcard says they will be contacting people "in the spring." It's not an acceptance, but it's not an outright rejection either. Leads a girl to think maybe I'll build an empire after all.

Green Eyed Monster

I knit and crochet for my own enjoyment. I knit and crochet for my own enjoyment.
At the beginning of the year I heard about a call for submission for a sock book using handpainted yarn. So I sent off two ideas. The deadline was Jan 31 and I haven't heard anything.
But last night I found out someone I know had a pattern accepted. While I haven't been officially rejected, I have to think it's a bad sign.
I knit and crochet for my own enjoyment.
I even had to run out and check the mail just to be sure (bunch of stupid bills). I haven't congratulated her, yet, as I don't think I could actually muster any sincerity. But I'm happy for her. Really.
I knit and crochet for my own enjoyment.
Still, I have to wonder...were my patterns not unique or interesting enough? Should I not have used Koigu for the swatches? Were my explanations not eloquent enough? I may never know.
Then I remind myself, technically I have stuff published all the time, just not patterns. Because, really, my ambition when I was younger was to be a writer--which I am--not a knit or crochet designer--which I apparently am not.
I knit and crochet for my own enjoyment.
Ah well, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities in the future. And there is that other Raveler who asked for the pattern for the Yankees Socks I made for Hubby. And a random person favored those on Flickr as well.
And Samson really enjoyed wrecking the Guinness I made him and the pups are still playing with the fabric (skin?).
I knit and crochet for my own enjoyment.
So I should get over myself already, I don't do this to build an empire.
Although it doesn't bode well for the top down mitts I submitted to a different book. That deadline was Feb 14. Is it too soon to worry?

Cat's Pajamas indeed

Lucy Neatby sent Knitting Central a sample skein of her new sock yarn Cat's Pajamas. It is 80% Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon and 100% delicious.
Cynthia, who thought it was just a new colorway rather than a new yarn, could not understand why I have been pestering her via email for weeks in a desperate attempt to get my hands on the stuff.
Fortunately, it somehow escaped the notice of everyone else as well, which is odd considering how attuned all our radars are to not only new sock yarn but cashmere as well.
After the store closed on Saturday, I finally had the chance to drop the skein into her hands and make her understand my obsession. She smiled and asked, "Do you want to take this yarn home to play with it?"
I replied in my best Eric Cartman voice, "Hell yes I want to take the yarn home."
Actually, I think I said "oh, yes, please" before I snatched it back, did a happy dance, and stuffed it in my knitting bag before she could change her mind. Well, I did make an attempt to use the ballwinder and swift, but there wasn't time.
Oh, woe, I had to spend all that extra time handling the yarn while I wound it manually at home. (Why, yes, I am being sarcastic.)
To the detriment of all other projects, I spent Saturday night swatching. First I used the 2.5mm Pony dpns Hubby brought me from Poland. I got 7.5 sts and 10 rows to the inch. I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me. Then I used my US1 Brittany dpns and got 8 sts and 11 rows. I think that was a much better fabric for socks and am going with the US1s.
The labels on Lucy Neatby's yarns say "Make your yarn happy--Knit it now!" I think it is time to follow that advice.

Snow Day!

Friday was a snow day. Hubby's school pulled the trigger Thursday night. We were laughing about it because the snow hadn't started by bed time. Mother Nature had the last laugh because the snow started during the night. We woke up to white, and the snow kept going until around 2 pm Friday afternoon. My company closed the office at 9 am Friday, which is a nice thing about working for a small company. I had been dragging my feet getting ready because the roads looked grim so I was still home when the email came in.
Since I'm on deadline for an article (actually I missed the deadline which is one of the nice things about being on staff), I spent an hour or two working on it. I had the best of intentions about going back to it after I hit a wall. You will not be surprised to hear I didn't.
Instead I started playing with my hand made socks and sock yarn stash.





Samson (above) is in training for the Iditarod. Baru (right), who doesn't like to be outside anyway, started complaining he was cold and wanted to come in. Really, they love the snow and run around like maniacs and dive into it.

Anyway. Sock yarn. As I said when I bought the Glazed Sock yarn last weekend, I was concerned about duplicating colors. So I took all the socks I've finished and all the yarn in stash and had a little photo shoot while the pups were outside. Then I loaded it all into Ravelry, figuring that as long as I can get to the internet I can check what I have.
Since I'm too clever for my own good, I also took pictures of everything with my cellphone, figuring it will be handy to have the information in that form as well since it is more portable.

Here are the finished I heart Husband socks. As you can see, to a knitter they don't match. But to him they are ok. I'm glad to have them off my plate.

I haven't been entering stash in Ravelry, although I do need to organize it, because I thought "who has the time?" However it was fun, in a weird way, and exciting to see it all there documented so nicely....well, I might have to spend some time in the attic tomorrow.

In addition to taking pictures of knitting, I finished the stealth knitting and passed that on. I also spent some time weaving in the ends on my Stars & Stripes Sweater. I'll get to wear it one of these days. There sure are a lot of ends to secure.
In other news I worked at Knitting Central today. A customer who is on Ravelry said she's been reading my blog. That makes five people! But still not my mom. Boy am I going to be in BIG trouble when I finally tell her about it. Knowing that people are actually reading the thing encourages me to make entries. It also gives me a greater admiration for those bloggers who do post every day.

A bag idea

Since I've become such a Ravelry addict, I thought it might be fun to make myself a little felted bag with the Ravelry logo and my ID.
Note my use of the word "little."
As I contemplated this idea, I thought to check the site and found that someone else had indeed already charted the logo. Phew, one less thing to worry about.
I dug some white and red Cascade 220 out of my stash from when I made mom a bouquet of Pick Up Sticks felted flowers. I bought green and black.
The plan was to make wide stripes green/white/green with the logo in the bottom third and my ID in the white section. Now the logo is 93 stitches wide and 65 stitches tall. Not wanting to resize, I just rolled with it. I also didn't bother to check gauge since I was just making it up rather than following a pattern.
I cast on 100 stitches, to give myself some space on either side, and thought I'd made the bands 60 rows long, so just about the entire logo would be on green. I'm going to work the ball in intarsia and the letters and ball details in duplicate stitch. (When I first hatched the scheme I'd thought of including "hello my name is" in the top band, but realized that would be too much duplicate stitch.)
30 rows of green later I thought, "huh that looks big" and decided to check gauge and reconsider my plans.
I'm getting 4.5 sts and 5 rows per inch on a size US 10. I quickly decided to drop to 30 rows of each color. As it is the prefelted dimensions are going to be around 24x24. A little bag indeed. I think I'm going to need more yarn.
The stealth knitting is progressing, but not quickly enough.
I bought some new sock yarn on Sunday. This lovely looking stuff called Glazed Sock from Madelinetosh. Knitting Central hasn't carried it before. There were oh, six skeins left when we closed Sunday. For all I know they are gone now. With all the sock knitters in that store, new sock yarn tends to evaporate.
There were a number of lovely colors. I tend to buy the bright colored sock yarn, and I'm drawn to blues. But I'm making an effort not to duplicate. Part of the problem is I've got a bit of a sock yarn stash built up and I don't remember those colors as well as I remember the colors of the socks I've finished. Must knit faster. The color I chose is called "Robin's Nest" and is light blue, tan and white. Thought it was a safe choice. Turns out I have a finished pair of socks in Regia Cotton that are similar, but the Regia ones are darker colors and have that whole jacquard thing going on, so I think I'll be fine.

The camera came home to be recharged. I pounced on it and took some pictures. Still no pictures of the fixed and finished sweaters. Hubby was busy doing work, and with it being night I didn't think they would come out good. I did take pictures of the finished I heart Husband socks and my new sock yarn. Samson totally made a play for the Madelinetosh. Right there in front of me. He isn't usually so bold. Then he went after the Cascade 220. Sassy thing.