Weight Loss and Knitting

I've been overweight far too long. If there are any excuses it's that I've had a thyroid problem. I know, that's what everyone says...But almost 5 years ago I had to have half my thyroid removed. Since then I've been on medication to regulate it. The dosage has changed several times since then. I had such hope of weight loss and more energy once I did get it worked out. However, that hasn't been the case. But the other reason is that I just plain like food!! This is not a weight loss blog, but it is about my life and my knitting so I will be talking some about my weight loss for the next several months. This time the talk of weight loss and knitting go together.
Since I started knitting almost 7 years ago, I've wanted to knit certain things for myself like cardigans and pullovers but I didn't want to waste the yarn on knitting for a fat body!! However, I've knit a cardigan for my Mom and a pullover for my niece and I'm about to start two Humpty Dumpty intarsia sweaters for my nephews. But now that I've started this weight loss I'm having thoughts of sweaters and other fitted items for myself!!! One of my favorites is http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall06/PATTviveka.html . Another of my favorites is Provence Women's Floral Cardigan by Celeste Pinheiro from the Classic Elite #9071 book. It's got huge floral designs on it, but it's not overpowering or bulky. And my new favorite is the Classic Coat by Deborah Newton in IK Fall 2009. I don't usually go in for hand knit coats or bulky yarn but there's something about this coat that just grabs me! Now, I'd probably do a completely different colorway for all of these, but the patterns are lovely!! I'll let y'all know how the weight loss is going and also the knitting!!!! I'm very excited about this!!

Now on to things I've knitted but haven't blogged about. In the last post I mention two UFO's that are waiting for me to finish this baby blanket. One of the UFO's is a pair of socks from Opal Harry Potter yarn that my parents gave me for Christmas. I mentioned that back in my January 1st post. I also mentioned the pattern - the Horcrux sock pattern. I completely finished the first sock and am down to the heel on the second. It won't take me very long to finish it. But here's a picture of the completed one:

This sock and it's mate will look much better on me when my leggs are thinner!!


I named him Winston. He's a precious little duck that my friend Alice sent to LSSK. He was fast fun and easy.

Well, I guess that's about all I have to say this time!

Knit On and more later,
Shama D

The Blahs, Ravelry, Excitement, and Inspiration

I touched on this last time but I thought I'd talk a little more about it now.
Every once in a while I feel a little out of sorts with my knitting. I will finish a project and if I can't seem to get the next one going in a timely manner or feel frustrated with what I'm working on, I get blah about knitting. It never lasts for very long but I hate that feeling.
Another thing that sucks the life out of my knitting is having too many projects going at once. For example, I am working a baby blanket right now, but I also have about 2/3's of a sock and an unfinished market bag still hanging over my head!! It's dragging me down!! As soon as I finish this blanket I must finish those other two projects so I can start my Christmas knitting with a clear head!! I know most knitters have multiple UFO's, some even have many UFO's, but it just doesn't work for me.
But something has now happened to my knitting life that I think will keep me inspired for the rest of my life!! It's called Ravelry!! In October I will have been on Ravelry for two years. Everyone goes on and on about how much they love it. To be honest, I've enjoyed it and played around on it a little but I haven't understood all the obsession. Howeverrrrrr, I've suddenly jumped on the Ravelry bandwagon!! I have a feeling I've just touched the tip of the iceberg, but I'm having fun!! I'm looking at patterns- either specific ones or searching for a type of pattern (i.e. shawls) I've joined several new groups and dropped a few I was in. I've never really participated in any of these groups, but I think I will now!!
Anything knitty makes me tingly!! I love knitting patterns (like Dumbledore), yarn, and knitting magazines, not to mention all the gadgets that go along with it... Along with Ravelry, these things keep me endlessly inspired.
Another thing that not only inspires me, but teaches, me is blogs. I don't read a ton of them but I have a few I love. The first one I started reading was Wendy Knits!! I've learned so much from her. She's amazing!! Right now I'm trying to catch up with Faith of Flash Bang Fibers/The Needle and the Damage Done and Jasmin of Better that Yarn blog and the Knitmore Girls podcast! When I read a blog I must start from the beginning. It took me more than a year or two to get completely caught up to Wendy. That's probably why I don't read more blogs...Yet...
What inspires you/brings you down?

Now, a project I knit earlier this summer. My husband's boss and his wife had their first baby back in April. Chuck had asked me to knit something for them. At the time I was working on the Harry Potter blanket and I couldn't take on anything else. But I finally got around to knitting her a little dress. The pattern is... http://fortheloveofyarn.com/Issues/07Summer/patterns/jumper.shtml
I knit it out of I Love This Cotton yarn from Hobby Lobby. I can't remember the colorway. You know how you knit a gift for someone and the response makes it all worthwhile? This was one of those!! They told Chuck how much they loved it!! How it was something they'd keep forever!! Then I got the sweetest Thank You note!! WOW!! It makes me want to knit for them again!!
Here's the dress:


Last fall I got an equally satisfactory response from two little jumpers I knit for my friend Kim's little girls. Here's a picture of them wearing their jumpers...


More later and Knit On,
Shama D

In a Funk, On a diet, and My First Pattern

I haven't blogged in a few weeks!! I didn't realize how long it had been!! It's been kinda crazy around here.
At the end of July we had a weekend at my parents where we got together with my Sister-in-law's family!! We have a great relationship with them and we get together a couple of times a year!!
Last week Logan got his first car!! My parents got it for him for his graduation present! He's such a good boy and he really deserves it!!

So that took up a couple of days last week.
But more than that I've kinda been in a funk. Kelby wanted me to knit him Poppy Pig from Knitted and Felted Toys. I hate this more than anything I've EVER knit!! I can't even bring myself to take a picture of it!! Did I mention that I hate it?? But I did knit something that I LOVED!!! A friend of mine (Hi, Alice!!) sent me a really cute pattern from Ravelry called Hamsterbeans. I kinda went nuts with them! I made 13 of them in just a few days!! The first two I made were for my nephews. We were trying to get my older nephew (who's 2 1/2) to say hamster. He got it right the first time. After that he called them "spinsters" and "banksters". We decided that banksters were bank robber mobsters!!
Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the Hamsterbeans:


They were so much fun to knit!! And so fast!! I'm sure there will be more in my future!




The last thing I started and finished was my own design. I actually designed this dishcloth 2 years ago. I didn't take a picture of the FO because it was a surprise. Since I knit the original one I gave it away to my aunt (along with some other dishcloths both knit and store bought and a prayer shawl) after the death of my cousin! I had planned to enter it into the design contest that LSSK has every summer! But a dear friend of mine designed on just after I designed mine. She had no idea about mine due to the secret nature of the project!



One of the things I love is flamingoes. I don't care for the color pink unless it is on a flamingo!! But they are my favorite bird, so without further ado:



Felicity, the Flamingo dishcloth:


Sugar and Cream in a carnation pink color

Size 7 needles
*Mistakes on rows 20, 26, 27, 28 - now corrected! Sorry for the errors...
Cast on 40 stitches
Note: At the beginning and end of each row are 4 seed stich border stitches - 4B - you should used any border you prefer.

Rows 1 - 4 - Seed stitch*
Row 5 - 4B, K32, 4B
Row 6 - 4B, P32, 4B
Row 7 - 4B, K32, 4B
Row 8 - 4B, P17, K3, P12, 4B
Row 9 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 10 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 11 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 12 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 13 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 14 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 15 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 16 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 17 - 4B, K13, P2, K17, 4B
Row 18 - 4B, P16, K2, P14, 4B
Row 19 - 4B, K13, P1, K1, P1, K16, 4B
Row 20 - 4B, P16, K2, P14, 4B
Row 21 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 22 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 23 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 24 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 25 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 26 - 4B, P17, K2, P13, 4B
Row 27 - 4B, K13, P2, K17, 4B
Row 28 - 4B, P16, K4, P12, 4B
Row 29 - 4B, K11, P6, K15 4B
Row 30 - 4B, P12, K10, P10, 4B
Row 31 - 4B, K9, P16, K7, 4B
Row 32 - 4B, P4, K19, P9 4B
Row 33 - 4B, K8, P19, K5, 4B
Row 34 - 4B, P6, K19, P7, 4B
Row 35 - 4B, K6,P18, K8, 4B
Row 36 - 4B, P9, K17, P6, 4B
Row 37 - 4B, K6,P3, K1, P12, K10, 4B
Row 38 - 4B, P12, K10, P2, K2, P6, 4B
Row 39 - 4B, K6, P2, K3, P8, K13, 4B
Row 40 - 4B, P17, K2, P4, K2, P7, 4B
Row 41 - 4B, K7, P3, K22, 4B
Row 42 - 4B, P21, K3, P8, 4B
Row 43 - 4B, K9, P3, K20, 4B
Row 44 - 4B, P19, K3, P10, 4B
Row 45 - 4B, K8, P1, K1, P3, K19, 4B
Row 46 - 4B, P19, K2, P2, K1, P8, 4B
Row 47 - 4B, K7, P2, K3, P2, K18, 4B
Row 48 - 4B, P17, K2, P4, K2, P7, 4B
Row 49 - 4B, K8, P2, K3, P2, K17, 4B
Row 50 - 4B, P17, K2, P2, K4, P7, 4B
Row 51 - 4B, K9, P6, K17, 4B
Row 52 - 4B, P17, K6, P9, 4B
Row 53 - 4B, K9, P5, K18, 4B
Row 54 - 4B, P19, K3, P10, 4B
Row 55 - 4B, K across, 4B
Row 56 - 4B, P across, 4B
Row 57 - 4B, K across, 4B
Row 58 - 61 - Seed Stitch
BO in pattern
*Seed Stitch - (K1, P1) across the row. Turn work. On the way back you need to knit the purl stitches and purl the knit stitches. This is a very good way to learn to read your knitting!! (If you don't know how already)

I've knit this twice so I think I've got the kinks worked out. However, if you find a problem please let me know. I'm also thinking seriously about trying this in intarsia in the next few weeks.

OK...About the diet. I won't drone on and on about it. I'm on the HCG diet. It's only 40 days at a time, then 6 weeks off, 40 days on, 8 weeks off, etc. I'm only on day 9. I'll get pictures of my progress probably more for my encouragement, but in case anyone is interested you can track my progress!!
More later and knit on,
Shama D

Summer Knitting Had Me a Blast...Summer Knitting Happened So Fa-a-ast...

Every summer we all hear about knitters that put their needles aside as soon as the days begin to grow longer and the temperature starts to rise. These people rarely, if ever, pick up their knitting until we begin to see the days shortening and the temperatures decline. I, however, am not one of those. I can totally understand doing whatever it takes to stay as cool as possible!! (I live in Texas!) But I cannot stand to have nothing in my hands to work on. And the thing that makes my hands the happiest is knitting!

So...What kinds of things do people knit in this kind of weather? I really knit pretty much anything. For example, last summer I finally finished a blanket I'd been working on for my younger son. I started that blanket in either 2004 or 2005. I finished it after my Italy trip, assembled all the blocks, and took a picture of the final project on August 1. I don't something this big out of the house to work on. So I can control the temperature!!

Here's Kelby's blanket.

Here's Kelby enjoying his blanket and faking sleep:


I knit it out of Knit Picks Crayon. A really nice boucle' cotton. Kelby had picked out red, blue, and purple. I did it some different than the pattern. I doubled the yarn and increased my needle size to make the squares the size they needed to be. It's got a lot of imperfections because I was a fairly new knitter when I started. I got much improved as I went along. But Kelby loves it ans uses it all the time at home and takes it whenever he's away from home.



This summer it seems like I've been working on smaller projects. I didn't do this intentionally, it's just worked out this way. For this particular blog I'm going to focus on the one small project that took me the longest. It's the Skull Isle hat from Son of SnB. I actually said something about this nearly a year ago. I had bought the yarn to knit it but got frustrated and gave up. It's a fair isle hat knit in fingering weight yarn. I used Knit Picks Pallette in red and black. Those are colors used in the book but they're also Logan's favorite colors, so...


It took me nearly a month to knit it. The problems I had were
1. Teeny yarn and on size 2 needles and over 200 stitches per round.
2. Too many stitches for my 4 needles. I finally had to add in another set of size 2s. I had both sets of Knit Picks DPNs (wood and metal) and I ended up using ALL of those needles!! it really made it so difficult. It kept rolling back on itself. However, it was worth all the work and problems because Logan likes it!!!

This weekend I'll talk about some of my other summer knitting!
Let me know what you've been working on...(If I have any readers!! LOL!!)

Knit On and more later!!
Shama D
Jessiesgrl on Ravelry

What in the World Happened??

I just looked at my last post and realized that for some reason or another, not all of it posted!! I don't have a clue what happened! So let me see if I can remember what I said...
I love casting on for a new project (except for knitting the first row). I love the feel of the yarn gliding through my fingers. I love watching the fabric grow as I make loops with the yarn and pul another loop through with a stick!! It's magical! I love challenging myself with new stitches and projects! I even like finishing - weaving in ends and seaming up!! I find seaming a challenge, but once I work it out, I have a completed project that I made!!

Right now I'm working on a hermit crab from the Amigurumi Knits book by Hansi Singh.
I love this book!! I always see the cutest little amigurumi animals and I want to make them but I don't crochet. When I found this book full of the cutest little knitted amigurumis I had to get it!! It's divided up into 5 sections:
Before the first official section she tells what amigurumi is and then a top 10 list of reasons why you will love knitting it!
1) Techniques: I haven't read this through because I always get too anxious to knit. But she gives you lots of hints, tips, and techniques.
2) Five Servings a Da: the Vegetable Basket - Six cute vegetables. I'd like to knit them and put them in a bowl on my table!
3) Get Your Barnacle On: Underwater Creatures - Six underwater creatures. I'm working on the hermit crab right now. It's quite a challenge but I'm loving it!! Hopefully pictures will be up later this week.
4) Garden Variety: Backyard Critters - Just creatures you'd see in your yard! But much cuter knitted up than in real life!!
5) Revenge of the Cryptids: Strange, Mythical, Cryptozoological Specimens - Three real or imagained creatures. My favorite is Nessie! I definitely plan to knit him in the not too distant future!
Hansi Singh is brilliant in her constrution of these knits! I highly recommend this book!!

Let me finish up with a project that I recently finished:
I decided to knit a shawl for my Mom for Mother's Day. I had wanted to knit her one for Christmas but for some reason I didn't get any knitting done then. Mother's Day was the weekend after Logan's graduation, so I knew I couldn't finish it in time. I started it about 3 days before. The day before Mother's Day I looked down at it and noticed a big hole in the lace edging!! I had apparently dropped a stitch that stayed in place for a couple of days before it let go!! So I had to frog the whole thing in front of my Mom. I just told her "Happy Mother's Day!" She laughed and said she was so glad it was for her because she loved it!! That spurred me on to turn right around and cast back on. It went pretty quickly and I got it to her a couple of weeks later! Here it is:





Knit On and more later,
Shama D

I Need to Blog again!!

I haven't blogged at all since January. At that time I promised to blog at least twice a week. My excuse??? I think it's a valid one. This was the last year for me to homeschool my older son. It seemed like I worked my butt off from January 'til the day we had the graduation reception. I barely had time to sleep, muchless blog! I could write for 2 weeks about all that I did during that time but I'll give you the abbreviated version. I painted the trim in the game room, painted my bedroom, painted the stairwell (a much harder job than I'd thought), and finally I pulled down wallpaper in the kitchen, dining room, and entry, textured the walls, and painted! Thankfully, Logan was there to help me, especially with taking down the wallpaper!!
Also during that time I started a big special project for Logan's graduation project. He loves Harry Potter so I decided to use all the dishcloth, scarf, and other patterns online to make squares for a Harry Potter blanket. I knit it in strips, like scarves, and attached each strip together. The night before graduation I think I slept about 3 hours trying to put the strips together. I got up and worked on it for several more hours. I got it all put together, but it didn't have a border. I have since put on a border, but it's still curling really badly! I will probably cut it off and try something different - eventually.
Here are a couple of pictures:


Here's Logan relaxing on the couch with his blanket and a Route 44 Vanilla Dr Pepper.

Recently a girl on my online knitting group asked if we were process or project knitters. It got me thinking about a few things. I honestly can't decide which I am. I love everything about it!! I love casting on for a new project

My Friend, Kim

About 4 or so years ago my brother and sister-in-law moved to Tyler, TX. They met and became friends with a couple they worshiped with. This couple had a little boy and had another on the way. Then a little over 2 years ago this same couple moved to Lufkin where my parents live. They began to worship where my parents worship. My parents pretty much took them in and began to babysit their boys from time to time. At some point Kim and I met and became friends. For me, it was an instant thing. She's so easy to like! There have been lots of times that we've been at my parents and we'd get together with Kim and the boys or Kim, Jesse (her husband) and the boys. During one of our earliest visits I was knitting (because I knit all the time) and for some reason it attracted Kim and she decided she wanted to start knitting. (She already knew how to crochet) She taught herself and learned amazingly fast!! From there she went to the last two WHIBSIBs and the Knit Out in Austin in between. (I'll discuss WHIBSIB in another post) She is an unbelievable knitter!! She knit a sweater for her younger sister last Christmas that was difficult and it turned out beautifully!!!! During the whole time I've known her they've been in the process of adopting a little girl from Vietnam. It was a long drawn-out process. While they were dealing with all that Kim found out she was pregnant. So, in September she had a baby girl and a few weeks later her husband and mother-in-law went together to Vietnam and finally came home with Maya!! So now they have their complete family - 2 boys and 2 girls!! Kim handles it all beautifully!!!
The reason for this post is that I got to spend a couple of hours with her this afternoon before we came back home. While I was sitting there talking and listening I realized that just being around her makes me a better person. She makes me feel like the future is going to be wonderful. She takes the stress of having four wonderful children 5 and under in stride. She laughs at things that are irritating. I'm about 13 years older than she is, but I consider her to be one of my best friends and she is such a wonderful influence over me! I feel so fortunate to have her in my life and I'm thankful that God has allowed our paths to cross!!
Thank you, Kim, for being who and what you are and for being my friend!! I love you!!

On to knitting related things...I was looking back at my last blog post and realized I made a mistake. I was talking about my Horcrux socks and said something about the lightning bolt scarf pattern. What I meant to say was the lightning bolt lace pattern in the sock. I've turned the heel on my first sock, picked up the stitches on the heel flap and I'm working on decreasing back down to my original number of stitches. Next time I'll post a picture.

Last night my Mom and I drove from Lufkin to Houston for my once a month sewing group. I started this with a group of women from church. Last night my Mom and two of my cousins were there, plus a woman from LSSK that lives in Austin. We had a really enjoyable time and I'm beginning to get to know some of the women from church that I hadn't previously known very well. Mom and I had a great adventure going back to Lufkin. I took my Austin friend back to her son's house and we were going to take an alternate route back to Lufkin. Somehow we missed our exit and ended up in Huntsville where Sam Houston State University is. It was dark and drizzly and as we were coming into Huntsville on I-45 I saw this HUGE white creepy thing that looked like it was in the middle of the road. I asked Mom what she thought. She had several ideas including smoke from a factory. However, the closer we got to this scary thing it turned out to be a gigantic statue of Sam Houston himself. I found out today that it is one of the largest statues in our country!!! Giant Statue of Sam Houston, Huntsville, Texas It is an amazing sight!! That would only happen in Texas!!! I LOVE this state!!

I'm sorry for the lack of pictures. Next time I promise there will be pics and more fun stuff!!

Knit On and More Later,
Shama D

Happy New Year and Some Resolutions

Happy New Year!!!!! Today is the start of 2009 - DUH!! It's official and I can't pretend anymore - Logan's going to graduate this year!! How did the last 17 years and 10 months go by so quickly?? I will say that I'm so thankful that I had the privelege of homeschooling both him and Kelby from beginning to end!! I taught them to read, write, and do math. We've all learned so much together and I'm thankful I didn't have to turn them over to someone else to get the joy of all those firsts!! Now comes the time to start getting ready for his graduation reception. We'll have a come and go reception from home. I need to scan ALL of our pictures and my brother and I are going to put together a slide show to music. Plus, Logan is going to play some guitar and maybe sing with a friend of his! It's going to be beautiful, but so sad!!

As far as school we're going to start back on January 19th. Kelby has 12 math lessons left in this book. Once we finish this book we're going to stop math for the year and concentrate on finishing up history. We had a mix-up in our histor curriculum order and are getting a late start. Math takes up a lot of our time every day.

As far as knitting goes my first big project for the year is a Harry Potter blanket for Logan's graduation!! I'm going to use the myriad dishcloth and other HP patterns on the internet. I've printed out many of them and I'm always getting new ones from my friend Always Alice!!! She is a master pattern finder. She's always sending them to our online knitting group Lone Star State Knitters. I save those emails and save them to the end of the day like a special chocolate treat.

This year I'd like to learn to spin. I'll start drop spindling, but I'm far more interested in a spinning wheel. And, as usual, my taste is far bigger than my budget. I found a beautiful handcarved oak wheel. I can't remember the website, but I saw it on the Let's Knit Together video podcast. I also plan to start dyeing yarn. I have the Knit Picks sock blank and several pots of their dye. I so love to knit socks now!!

Speaking of socks...My parents gave me a skein of Harry Potter sock yarn. It's the Harry and Ron colorway. They also gave me a set of Knit Picks Harmony dp sock needles. I love them!! I've started the socks using the Horcrux Sock pattern. I would link you to that pattern but the only way to get it is to join the Six Socks Knitalong yahoo group. I'm enjoying it so far. It's basically a knit 3 purl 2 rib. Then there's the lightning bolt scarf pattern. It's neat.

I got no knitting done for Christmas presents. I did, however, do some just for fun knitting. I knit two reindeer from Mochimochi Land. She has the cutest and strangest stuffed creatures!! I really want to knit nearly all of them!! Here are the 2 reindeer:


They were lots of fun to knit and I learned some new things!! I will probably make more of these!! I also knitted some turkey hats for my nephews for Thanksgiving. They were silly but really cute on them!!!

Then I knit a couple of things for me. A couple of years ago I knit Santa hats for my family of 4, my parents, and my brother and sister-in-law. Then they had their first one, Alton, and I knit his for Christmas 2007. Then this year I knit one for my other nephew, Kaden. However, my brother and sister-in-law forgot to bring their hats this year and we didn't get our usual family picture. I decided I wanted some matching arm warmers to go with mine because I wear my hat a lot between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I finished them on the 23rd but it warmed up and I only got to wear them for this picture:

The other thing thing I wanted to share today is this slouchy cabled hat I knit last week. It's from the cover of the new Knit.1 mag.

I knit this using Bernat Softee Chunky double stranded in the Blue Denim Heather (I think) colorway. The only change I made in the pattern was to do the ribbing on size 10's instead of 7's. You're supposed to cast on 50 stitches and do your ribbing. Then you change to size 11's and knit into the front and back of every stitch to get the slouch. Well, I must have a fat head because 50 stitches on size 7's squeezed the crap out of my head!! I'm very satisfied with this hat, but it hasn't been cold since I finished it, either!!

Well, I could go on and on. But one of my resolutions is to blog 2 or 3 times a week this year!! So I'll be back very soon to gab incessantly!! I need to scan in a pile of pictures and try to get some sleep!!

Knit On and more later!!
Shama D