And we’ve got some stuff to talk about!!!

Amy Lu has joined the ranks. Welcome!

You’ve got to go and check out Carrie’s entry. Because it is quite hilarious. And we can all relate in some way. Give her love. She’s a newbie.

Also, if you enjoy the sentimental, or if Christmas stockings are one of the highlights of the season for you, as they are for me, you should check out Brandy’s post on the topic. She’s camera challenged at the moment, but does have a picture of the pattern she’s using, as well as some previously knit stockings to show.

Michelle has started. Yay!

Darra has finished her first! There should be an award. But I can’t think of one. So gloating rights are yours, baby. Well, hold on. There’s no pictures yet, and we’re greedy. If you get some pictures up, you’re the stocking queen!

Jenifer has a picture, and it sounds like she’s up there with me in terms of project re-thinking and renovation. She also sounds like she could use some pointers on colorwork technique, if any of you feel so inclined.

Harriet gives us a sneak peek of something green.

Ok, I think I got everybody. If not, forgive and remind, please. I’ve forgotten how long it takes to do a knitalong post. Mercy.

As for me….

Well that sucks. I have some fantastic pictures to show, but I can’t upload them. Don’t know why. But, it’s getting late, so I’m going to post this as-is and try to figure out what’s up with my site.

Oh, I just found out I can’t update the sidebar, either. Sorry Amy Lu.

Where’s LJ?

You didn’t leave an email address for me to respond to your questions. Secondly, I accidentally deleted your comment when poking around (even though I know better) to see if I could find an email address anyway. So, I’m lame. But to answer your questions…

When I knit my first stocking, I was very much a beginner knitter. In fact, it was my first “branch out” project. I had been knitting for 1 1/2 months and I knew how to knit, purl, decrease by knitting two together, and I had worked in the round with double pointed needles. The stocking was my first pattern.

So to answer your question, I absolutely think a new knitter can knit a Christmas stocking. I did not find it difficult, but I did go back to the yarn store several times to find out what some of the pattern lingo meant. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what K2tog was. It was the “tog” part mostly, as I thought it was a word that rhymed with frog, and not an abbreviation.

As far as patterns to suggest, I’d suggest going to a yarn store and having someone there show you a good, simple pattern. I’d choose one that mimics knitting a sock (I think most of them do), so that when you’re done, you’ll also know how to knit socks!

My first pattern was Michele Wyman’s Hugs & Kisses Holiday Stocking and Year Round Socks pattern. I didn’t do the color work in the pattern as the hugs and kisses didn’t appeal to me. My first one was light green, dark green, and a nice red. I used a 16 inch circular needle until I got to the heel and instep parts. Then I used the double pointed needles so I could follow the directions exactly and learn how to do it.

Here is a picture of the stockings I’ve made using that pattern

This one’s my favorite, and it was knit years later, when I was no longer a newbie knitter.

You can see the pattern is quite versatile. But there are a lot out there if this one doesn’t tickle your fancy.

Best wishes, and let me know if I can help.

In other news, WE’RE ON A NEW SERVER!!!! We love LJ. LJ is our hero. LJ is a stud. LJ rocks. If LJ reads this… thank you thank you thank you thank you. Seriously. You’re awesome.

This means I shouldn’t have any more bandwidth trouble. I think he and Nate are looking into getting me off of PMachine also, to help with the nasty and prolific comment spam I’m getting. When that occurs, we will once again All Hail LJ. And there may be some weird transitioning stuff again. But I don’t know when that’s going to happen.

I started my Health Group post on Saturday, but it never got finished and I scrapped it.

I’m tired. I don’t know what the problem is, but I’m really tired. Last week, I only ended up with one walk and one day of weights and physical therapy. And I didn’t eat as well as I’d hoped. This kind of surprises me, as I was so pumped up at the beginning of last week. For me, I think exercise is the key. I am much more disciplined in my eating, both quality and quantity, when I’m exercising. In a way, I don’t want to waste the effort I spent exercising by horfing. But when I don’t exercise, and I see something I want, well…. that’s that.

I’m feeling a bit under the weather. Just a smidge, but it’s contributing to my lack of energy. Today I hope to plan a bit. Plan out my food for the week. Re-talk myself up for exercising. Since I am tired today, I think I’ll do weights and PT instead of hitting the treadmill.

Anyone have anything to share?

I don’t know how long my site is going to be up today. As soon as it came up, I started getting spammed again.

What’cha got?

I ripped the stocking you saw earlier in the week.

and have reknit it, plus some, redoing the cuff.

It’s way better. I’ll modify it further on the next stocking, but I don’t need to frog this one again. I am still unsure as to what exactly I’m doing with this stocking. I’m having some pretty wild ideas, but they aren’t able to be explained, really. I’d need to show you, and I haven’t mapped it out yet.

When we were at Seaside, Oregon a bit over a month ago, we stepped into an art gallery that carries Greenwich artists. I had seen and admired Cassandra Christensen Barney‘s work in catalogues, but hadn’t seen it in person yet. This little gallery had quite a few of her canvases up on the wall and I really liked them. They’re so serene. Nate asked if I wanted one, but I said no because I knew our huge, expensive bathroom project was looming, and I didn’t just want one, I thought they looked best as a grouping. So we left.

Well, Monday night a very large box was left on the front porch and Nate, who had been popping out of his office a lot more that usual (he’d been watching the tracking number online), excitedly brought it in and started opening it. I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

Apparently, he had sneakily ducked back into the gallery while the girls and I were on the beach and bought them for me. The gallery was to hold them for her upcoming show down there so she could paint on them, and that didn’t happen for whatever reason. But they’re lovely, and I’m still a bit speechless.

Wow. He didn’t say a thing. I didn’t even know he was up to something, although in retrospect, it did take him an awfully long time to get those beach chairs and sand toys out of the car.

To continue with my “Health Group week”, I ate pretty well yesterday, but didn’t manage to do my physical therapy and weights. Today is a cardio day again, and it’s very dark and wet outside, so I’ll try for the treadmill, and to catch up on yesterday’s strengthening exercises.

I haven’t touched the Christmas stocking.

Oh, and one more thing. We’re having bandwidth trouble again. I’m guessing it has to do with the hundreds and hundreds of spam comments I’m getting. We’re looking into switching hosting companies, and possibly blog software as well, so if my site is up/down or otherwise, I’ll be back. I promise.

I need to talk about it to keep me going. But I’ll sneak some knitting in here, too.

Yesterday, after finishing my post, I went for a 50 minute walk. It was fantastic. I drank a strawberry and pecan shake (1 cup milk, 3 huge frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup strawberry yogurt, protein and vitamin powders, and a handful of pecans). I took a fish oil capsule with it. I drank a lot of water throughout the day. I munched on hummus and pita chips. We BBQ’d skinless chicken for dinner.

It felt good.

I’ve started what I think will be Veronica’s stocking. I didn’t really know what to do with the cuff. I had intended on knitting a plain, rolled top but as I thought about it more, it sounded a bit too rustic for what I wanted. Instead, I did 2×2 ribbing for awhile, then cast off 8 stitches. I cast them back on the next round, leaving a “button” hole of sorts,

continued 2×2 ribbing for a few more rounds, then put the cast on edge on another circular and “hemmed” it with my live stitches to make a casing for an i-cord or decorative ribbon to hang the stocking by. It’ll either be brilliant or disastrous. Don’t know yet. Has anyone else done or seen a stocking cuffed like that? If someone else has done it and worked the kinks out, I’d love to know about it.

In looking at the picture, it seems like it would look better to start the cuff out as flat knitting, and then hem the cast on edge to the live stitches at the bottom of the rib to make a vertical hole, as opposed to an awkward looking horizontal one. The more I look at it, the more I think I’m going to frog and start over.

I started it late one night/morning in the wee hours when I couldn’t sleep for an unfortunate combination of reasons. It’s too small to knit on a 16 inch circular, so I tried to figure out magic loop just guessing at what I was supposed to do. I hated it. Probably because I was using a bamboo needle with a rather stiff cord. I think it’d be easier on a steel needle. So I decided to try 2 circulars, also not knowing the technique, but taking my best guess.

I like it. I like it a lot. I’m ecstatically, enthusiastically, brilliantly happy.

The down side? If the stockings are too small to knit on a 16 inch needle, how is Olivia going to knit hers?

We’ve been so ridiculously busy. Saturday night, Nate took us to a concert at a club (I was going to link the club, but they have some not-so-nice sounding bands listed on their homepage, and I don’t want to give the wrong impression) to see the Ditty Bops. It was a lot of fun. The house was packed, and the girls (my girls, who were standing right in front of the stage) were invited up on stage to dance and sing the last part of Sister Kate. Abby was invited up again to talk about a boy at school she thinks is cute as an intro to one of their songs, Obsessive Crush. They had the time of their lives. It’s going to be hard to convince Olivia that you don’t usually get to go on stage and sing with the band at concerts. The crappy thing is….

I didn’t have a camera.

No camera, no video, no imagery to help remember the occasion. It sucks. Cameras aren’t usually allowed in concerts. At least not the concerts I used to go to, so I didn’t even think about it. Of course, my hands were full all night with Clark, and who would have guessed my children would end up being part of the show?

Sucks.

Health Group-

I got nuthin’. BUT, I’m starting today. I swear. I’m going to eat one of my homemade shakes for breakfast and lunch, and I’m going to take Clark on a walk as soon as I’m done typing this. Tomorrow, I’ll do my weights and PT.

I’m tired of being fat. I think I know what I need to do to change it. I just never seem to be able to do it long enough to make much of a difference. But I did lose inchage over the summer. A wee little bit. And I’m going for that again.

Plus, my resting heart rate drops 20 beats per minute when I’m exercising daily. And when I stop, it jumps right back up to 80. Which completely annoys me.

So that’s my post for the day. I have knitting to show, but it’ll be tomorrow. Today, I’m exercising, darnit.

It’s official. We’re starting our knitalong. Here’s the specs-

Commit to knitting a Christmas stocking. Any stocking, any pattern. Make sure I know you’re participating. Check in with me on the blog on Fridays. Fridays are knitalong days. You can either comment to Friday’s post with your update, or you can email me before Friday with pictures, links, progress…. whatever, and I’ll include it in my post. You’ll be listed in the sidebar.

Here’s your button. A big thanks to Nate who is very busy, but managed to pop one out for us.

And our list of participants so far-

Darra

Harriet

Michelle

Brandy

Danielle M

Jenifer, who’s knitting a stocking mitten.

Carrie (oops!)

Me- Laura

and I’ll add my little Olivia.

Did I miss anyone?

I didn’t cast on yesterday, but I did get a lot done in my garage! And I also spent a lot of time on stocking planning. I decided that instead of jumping right in, I’d plan out the color schemes for each stocking to make sure I adequately integrate all 8 colors so they all match, even though they aren’t going to match. Make sense?

This is a sock that I absolutely loved ’til it was threadbare. Now I keep it to serve as inspiration for future socks. It’s store bought, but I like the color divide in the background with the design over the top. I think I’m going to loosely base the kids’ stockings on it’s design.

As of right now, I’m thinking about doing the top a solid color, the bottom half of the leg, and the foot in stripes of the remaining colors set aside for that stocking, and duplicate stitch a design on top. Abigail wants a snowflake, Olivia wants an angel, and V is undecided. I’m hoping she’ll go for Christmas trees. Clark might get a Superman shield, since there is a nice red, yellow, and blue in our color palette. But I’m undecided. His will be knit last.

I’ve practiced duplicate stitch on my swatch, and I think my gauge is tight enough to get away with it. (I tried duplicate stitch on my last stockings, but my gauge was looser, and it was a big, old, ugly mess).

And I still want to do argyle for Nate and I, but I’ve lost my IK issue that has the argyle article in it. (Fall ’02). I’m totally bugged. I can find every other issue and book I’ve pulled for inspiration, but that one’s gone. I haven’t given up, I’m just pouting.

Plus, the more I look at it, the more I want to do ALL of them argyle. It’d be so cool. But I don’t think the girls would necessarily appreciate it.

but slowly. It’s pretty, although the pictures look a bit dingy, and I couldn’t get a good angle due to the tiler’s equipment all over the floor.

Still laying tile. No grout yet. The floor of the shower was laid with rocks a few days ago, and these are our shower cubbies.

He said he’ll be done this week, but I don’t see it happening. I have high hopes for next week.

Then we’ll need to wait another couple weeks for a shower door. But the toilet should at least be back in and working next week, and that will be good.

I was photographing Clark playing on my bed this morning when I caught a grin.

Yes, yes, he’s very cute. But just now as I was trying to type with him on my lap, (because he doesn’t like to be set down), he spit up and then immediately shoved my clean shirt in his mouth. So I was clean and showered for all of 20 minutes or so, and now I smell and look like a mom again.

As for today, I’m torn between spending every free moment I have organizing the garage, (which I started last night. It was glorious), and casting on for a stocking. I’m going to try to do both. Somehow.