Bad week.

I’m not talking to or about my body today. I haven’t weighed myself. I feel bloated. I’m beyond ridiculously tired. And last night, I ate a whole lot of cookies.

The comments are yours. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll see you next week.

My legwarmers are done!

But I guess that picture’s not exactly helpful.

I’m just trying to demonstrate that legwarmers can be worn without being obnoxious. A number of people, when I say I’m knitting legwarmers, raise their eyebrows and change the subject.

It’s not the 80s. They don’t have to be worn outside of pants. Come on.

If you, like me, want cozy legs this winter, and mod rectangles appeal to you, and you aren’t afraid of scorn and scoffing while knitting something called legwarmers…

then this is for you-

Size 4 needles.

Sport weight yarn. (I used 3 1/2 balls of Frog Tree Alpaca, though the alpaca doesn’t stay up well).

Cast on 64 stitches, join into the round.

1×1 ribbing for 8 rounds.

Mod stitch pattern-

rows 1-6, (P4, K2, P10) 4x. Place stitch markers between pattern repeats.
rows 7-8, Knit
rows 9-14, (K2, P14) 4x.
rows 15-32, (K2, P2, K2, P2, K6, P2) 4x.

repeat these 32 rows 5x, then work rows 1-14 again.

Knit 8 rows of 1×1 ribbing, and bind off in rib pattern, moderately loose.

And you can join with me in defying stereotypes. One warm and happy leg at a time.

Or in this case, it’s a daisy swatch-turned-little-wrap. I finally got a picture of it!

It’s so cute! And wearing it this weekend totally had me wanting to make the shawl I was swatching for in the first place, four or so years ago.

I’m thinking about it. I’d use a different yarn than the Skacel Merino the swatch was knit with. And I’d add some fancy schmancy inserts and edging, I think. But maybe not.

The swatch was knit using the daisy pattern and edging #2 from Barbara Abbey’s Lace Knitting book. I used a size 9 needle for the daisies, and I think a 6 for the edging. As I recall, it’s only two repeats wide.

My life is an exercise in patience.

I only worked out once this week. Clark has been sick, demanding most of my time, and he’s not sleeping well. (Shocker). I’ve been exhausted.

I’ve gained a few pounds since starting the exercise and no sugar thing 25 days ago.

My skin is different, and it’s weird.

I have good skin. I always have, enough that it gets noticed, which can be embarrassing. I take good care of it. But it’s different all of the sudden. It looks better. It’s clearer, but also smoother, firmer, like my small pores are even smaller. All over my body. I don’t know how to better describe it than that. Also, it’s oilier. It seems like the one should negate the possibility of the other, but I have clearer, oilier skin. When I rub my fingers across my forehead, or rub my nose, it feels oily.

IT’S SO DISGUSTING!

I’ve never had oily skin. It’s creeping me out.

So, I don’t really know what to do with that. My body feels the same, even though I’m trying really hard. My skin is changing, which I’m sure is a sign that other things in my body are changing. I just don’t know what they are.

I’m going to keep plugging along. But it’s getting really, really annoying to be working so hard and not seeing any positive changes.

How was your week?

This dumb tablecloth has been on my table for months, and I FINALLY hemmed it today. We don’t eat on it, it just protects the table when we set or do stuff on it. I serged the two fabrics together in June or something, and here we are in October. It needs to be washed, and I just couldn’t wash it and throw it back on the table without a hem.

I have either lost, or never actually bought the wooly nylon thread I was going to use to hem it with, but I was so desperate to get it done, I did the rolled hem with regular thread. It still looks good, and I can redo it later if I want to.

Ha. Don’t think so.

To be honest, I want to make more tablecloths and placemats, but haven’t found fabric that sings to me as much as these silly polka dots do.

The first legwarmer is done. It’s cute, quite warm, and although it fit snugly, it doesn’t stay up if I do a lot of walking. So the next ones are going to be wool instead of alpaca, so I can get some cling.

And Abby has talked me into knitting her a pair, but hers will be plain ribbing I think, with that tweedy yarn I spun for her in July.

Wanna hear something sad? Liv read my post on Monday, where I talked about her losing things. When she got to the part where I said that I didn’t want to make her sweater, she burst into tears and ran out of the room.

Bad, bad mom.

It took at least an hour to convince her that I DID in fact want to knit it for her, I was merely concerned about her losing it.

Then she ripped the rest of my heart out when she said that she knows she loses things, but didn’t want everyone reading my blog to know.

Ouch.

Poor, sweet thing.

Bad, bad mom.

Look at the life and depth I’m getting from this dark, skinny yarn.

This pattern rocks. They’re so soft. I love it.

I’m planning to write out the pattern, but for those of you who might be impatient, and since there has been some interest, I’ll tell you the basics.

The stitch pattern is in this book.

For the record, I think it’s an incredibly good book. There aren’t a lot of stitch patterns in it, compared to other stitch books out there, and some sections in their entirety don’t interest me much. What I like about it is that most everything in there is different. It’s not the same old stuff you see around everywhere. There are a number of unique, completely cool stitches. To me, that makes the book totally worthwhile.

So anyway, this book, page 16, top left. As I mentioned yesterday, I accidentally knit every patterned row twice, thinking that only the odd rows were charted. So instead of being 16 rows tall, my pattern is 32.

I’m using a 36 inch, size 4 bamboo needle so I can knit magic loop. I cast on 64 stitches with sportweight Frog Tree Alpaca, did 8 rows of 1×1 ribbing and started the stitch. I didn’t measure gauge, just held it up to my calf and decided how many repeats I thought would work, which turns out to be 4.

Since I like to use a good stitch when I find one, I’m thinking about seeing if I can’t make it into a hat, trying the 16 row version of the stitch. I’m interested in trying to do a 2 color hat, with the recessed purl stitches being one color and the raised stitches being another. Or perhaps all the purls one color and the knits another? I don’t know which would be better, which probably means I have a lot more swatching to do. And then there’s figuring out how to decrease while still keeping the pattern decent looking.

Yeah, lots of swatching. Which sucks. But man, I’m liking this stitch.

I’m not sure how long I’m going to make the legwarmers, but I’m going to keep knitting on them. I have 6 skeins, which is going to be more than enough yarn. So far, I’ve used up 1 skein and started the 2nd an inch or so ago.

So, I’m about 60 rows into my first legwarmer, and suddenly realize that I’ve been doubling the chart. It’s probably for the best, as I wanted a large stitch pattern so it’d show up in the dark, fuzzy yarn, but I feel like a moron because it wasn’t intentional.

The pattern is charted. Then underneath the chart, it says something like “knit the right side rows as charted, and the wrong side rows as they lay.”

I’ve knit a lot of patterns with charting for the right side only (odd rows only), and when I read those instructions, I assumed this was one of them. Otherwise, why would the book say that? It’s charted.

Well, the end result is that instead of getting mod looking squares, I’m getting mod looking rectangles.

Which aren’t as mod looking, but it’s still cool. And I still like it.

I just feel like an idiot.

If I were to do it again, I would knit them in a heavier yarn. This is sport weight alpaca that’s feeling a bit like fingering weight at the moment. (At least in this project it is, the blue faroese shawl knit with the same yarn felt heavier). So they’ll be nice to wear if I need a little warmth indoors, but they’re probably not going to be substantial enough for a serious chill.

Again, that’s fine. I have intentions to knit myself a wardrobe of legwarmers. They’re so cozy.

At the moment, I’m in a fantabulous mood. I’m not exactly sure why, but it could be related to the fact that for the first time in as long as I can remember, Clark slept through the night. I feel excited to face the day ahead, and hope to accomplish much.

After wearing my legwarmers to a conference and dinner Saturday night, and to church yesterday, I want more. So last night, I began again to swatch for my next pair, and I think I found a good stitch.

I’ve had a hard time with this yarn, mainly because it’s fluffy and very dark. Everything I’ve swatched so far has gotten lost and been really hard to see. So I went bigger.

You can’t really get the pattern from the seeing the swatch. I have 7 more rows before I even complete it, but I got far enough to know that I really like it. It’s a mod sort of pattern with squares. It’s cool. The swatch is 2 repeats wide, and 4 repeats will fit around my calf, so I’ve cast on 64 stitches and am doing some 1×1 rib before starting the stitch.

Liv has said that she wants them, but right now, I’m not even sure I want to knit her promised sweater anymore.

On Friday, the girls had outdoor ed, which is a day at a park, where they are divided into groups of about 10 students and switch around to 3 different classes out of 12. I was chaperoning Liv’s group. We did beach art, learned about marking hiking trails and basic survival skills, and the last class was an in-depth, hands on study of spiders. And even me, who likes spiders, got kind of creeped out.

Anyway, Liv had one of my hats, her sister’s scarf, and a fleece pullover with her. I came across her hat and scarf laying in fields and on trails myself. Additionally, they were found and recovered by other people. And this morning, when I was working morning traffic duty at school, one of her classmates came up and handed me her fleece pullover.

No one can lose stuff like Liv.

I’m not sure how I’m going to balance knitting her a fair share of knits so she’ll feel loved along with her sisters, and sensibly avoiding creating opportunities for me to want to, well, be unkind.

The heartbreaking part is that out of everyone, Liv is the one that wants the knits the most.

Nate re-dyed my hair last night, as it was nearly completely washed out. Since I know that it does wash out, I let him do a little in the front as well.

Sugar. It’s strange stuff.

I’m still off of it, though I did a little fudging (not actual fudge, though that would have been nice, just a little more sugar than I should. Like a few graham crackers. That sort of thing) yesterday and today. Then tonight, at a dinner with friends, I did eat an official dessert. So I’m going back on the wagon tomorrow. Yesterday was circumstantially necessary, and today was carryover. But I’m done with all that. I have all of October and most of November to go with the sugar purge.

Anyway, (and I know I’m totally rambling), I’ve learned a few things. I’ve started craving milk. So I’ve been drinking it, and while I did notice it tasted extremely sweet, it took a few days for me to read the label and realize that regular, 1% milkfat dairy milk has more grams of sugars in it than my sweetner added soymilk.

What?

Seriously?

My body obviously knew that “there be sugar there”, because I’ve been craving milk. My brain didn’t know though. That’s so lame. So I’m curbing but not eliminating my milk consumption. I’ll still have it occasionally, as I did previously, but I’m NOT going to artificially up my drinking of milk to make up for the lack of sugar. To feed the addicted beastie. Not going to do it.

We’re trying to KILL the addict. That’s the whole point. I’m glad I’m not an alcoholic. Sheesh. I feel pathetic.

I’ve managed to exercise 4 times a week for three weeks now. That’s 2x on weights and strengthening exercises for a total of 30 minutes on those days, and 2x on the treadmill, alternating between jogging and walking, for a total of 20 minutes and 30 minutes respectively. 50 minutes per treadmill day.

I WANT to be exercising 5-6 times a week, but I’m still happy with what I’ve done. I’ve been working hard. Still haven’t lost a single pound, or shrunk out of any clothes. When I’m sweating my guts out on the treadmill, I feel very empowered, and optimistic, because there’s NO FREAKING WAY that it isn’t affecting my body in a positive way.

But when I’m not immediately involved in the act of exercise, I tend to feel frustrated, and like a big, fat cow.

On the plus side, this makes exercising a pleasant experience, feeling strong and productive as opposed to my frequent gripe of “the same. Always the same…”

So there we are. I will. not. give. up.

Ooh, ooh, and my resting heart rate was 51 beats this morning! I think it would have been in the high 40’s to be honest, which sounds kind of creepy, but it always accelerates when I’m timing it.

How was your week? Are any of our “10 pounds by December’ers” having any success?