Popping up for air!

October in NE Ohio means leaf color is starting. I love to walk the dog and shuffle through the leaves. The mornings are crisp and I get to start wearing my sweaters.

My Noro cardigan is growing square by square, but looks much as it did a week ago. I'm past the bottom of the armholes, but it's hard to see that.

The Mystery sock hit a snag, when I didn't read the directions properly. It's back on track now, and farther than the 2nd picture shows. That picture better shows the color. The deadline for this one is Oct. 31, so I might make it.

Luci's socks are making good progress, but I think I want to sell the pattern to a magazine, so it's turned into a stealth project.You see a finished sock and the toe of the 2nd sock. The black patterning doesn't show.

JB's birthday socks have most of a foot now, but here's the latest picture. Aall 3 pairs need to be finished by the end of the month!

I've also been sewing new dresses for people. The only one I have to show is for my little violinist to wear for performances that don't require a long formal dress. It's stretch velvet and taffeta.

I got ambitious and decorated the shop for Halloween. This banner was made a number of years ago, not my design, but I like it a lot. I may show more decorations later this month. .

I'm sewing, knitting and cooking - ABC along

In the past 2 weeks or so, I have filled my freezer with soups. I've made corn chowder, beef stew with barley, split pea soup, and hamburger soup with cabbage. I've also dusted off my bread maker and made 2 loaves. I know how to do it the old fashioned way, but the machine can cook while I'm at work!

Work has gotten much busier. I'm getting lots of dressmaking jobs. Luckily I can delegate much of the alterations work. This black dress is a homecoming dress. The top is knit fabric, actually I made a short knit dress and sewed the skirt and vest to it. The skirt is many layers of tulle, with one layer of knit with shiny dots in the sandwich. I'll try to get more pictures in the next week or so.

I have a lot of knitting on the needles right now, a lot for me that is! I finished one pair of Christmas gift socks. Yarn is Grundl Four seasons Cotton Stretch, and I used every inch.This is the 3rd pair of socks in the gift pile.

I'm working on socks for couple of birthdays this month. A granddaughter wants red and black. I'm using my new Japanese books for these. The red yarn is Regia 4 ply. There will be black on the cuffs. A daughter has a birthday this month also. I just stared socks for her. The pattern again is from a Japanese book. Yarn is Four Seasons sockenwolle.

Lastly, I'm knitting September Mystery Socks from a Ravelry group. I bought the yarn at the TKGA convention last month. The socks need to be orange for the challenge. I bought Yarn Place Chaussant, but the yardage is short. I used Oasis Yarns Aussi Sock for the toe. The picture shows the sock sole.

I also started a sweater that's been on my wish list since I bought the pattern about 5 years ago. This year I was able to buy the yarn. I bought 10 balls of Noro Silk Garden at Knitter's Fantasy in April, only to come home as find out that I needed 5 balls of a contrast color. August was the month for that purchase, and I started the sweater the end of September. The body is knit in one piece, show folded here. Each mitered square is knit separtely, picked up from the row below.

I also finally planted my mother's day rose bush. It came in a pot, so was relatively happy until I could figure out where to put it. I also planted some daffodils. I usually forget to plant bulbs in the fall.

S is for....my sock drawer. this drawer holds most of my hand knit socks. I seem to be addicted ot sock knitting and have some socks in another drawer. I really need 2 drawers in the summer when all the socks are clean at the same time.

I'm Back

The TKGA conference went well. I got to Portland Thursday night and spent the night with my sister. Friday we went to the conference market at the Oregon Convention Center. She had never been to one of these before. I blew my budget 5 minutes after I walked in the door. I found Japanese Knitting Stitch dictionaries. I now own 2000 new stitch patterns. Well some of them aren't new but I don't know which ones.

I don't read Japanese, but everything is charted, and the chart symbols are explained with illustrations.

I taught 4 classes and the students seemed happy. Saturday I taught Working with Color and Knit to Fit. Sunday I taught Simple crochet for Knitters and Fair Isle. My Sister joined me for lunch on Sunday. She took a class in the morning and was going back to the market with a friend in the afternoon. We have a picture.

I had dinner with her before going to the airport for the ride home. I did finish a couple of socks on the trip. The purple Trellis socks are finished. I still need to wash them and gift them. The yarn is Wildefoot Purple Passion. I have the pattern in her size, but need to check numbers for a larger foot.

Did I buy yarn? I did buy a little and then when I got home yarn was waiting for me! The green yarn is Panda Wool, a prize from the Tour de Socks. The others are bought or found in the conference goody bag. The red is Fortissima Socka bought for a gift project. The orange is for me. I realized that I didn't have orange socks . The brown is Red Heart Heart and Sole and the green is Red Heart cotton.

Other than that it's back to work. We did go to see a play This last Saturday at the Cleveland Play House. I had gifted the tickets to DH for his birthday. We saw The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

Grunt work time

News about the wedding in last post. All dresses were delivered on time. The three missing bridesmaids came in Tuesday for final fittings and hem pinnings. The necessary bust adjustments were done and hems sewn. All were picked up today. The wedding is tomorrow.

I finally have patterns for sale on Ravelry. I sold one pattern, but we seem to have a delivery problem. I have written to Casey, the head code geek for help. I offer a free sock pattern which has been downloaded about 30 times in the last week. I have a few more patterns to put up. For some of my patterns, I sold the rights with the pattern.

Scarf finished! I used an old Tried and True pattern for the last of the yarn from the brown sweater, Sally Melville's Shape It! scarf from her Knit Book. Easy knitting until I ran out of yarn. That was the plan, no left overs. The yarn is Lion Brand Incredible in two colors with 2 dye lots of one color. It worked better on the sweater!

Teacher grunt work.
I'm teaching 4 classes next week. I still have a lot of review work to do. The first class is Monday night at guild meeting. The subject is chart reading. Usually, I have the students knit swatches by following the chart, but we don't have time for that, so I knit up large versions of each chart. The second part of the class has students make their own charts from written instructions. I now have swatches for all charts and have charted the written parts. This way I'll be less likely to make mistakes while talking and writing on the chart paper on the easel. One chart was drawn twice in my notes and there still are mistakes. I wasn't talking, but sometimes I can't read or count. What's in my class notebook is good enough to work from. Btw, I have a notebook for each class I teach, where I keep the handout, swatches, and anything else I may need. Notes and other things may appear there for next teaching session.

The real grunt work, printing out 50 handouts for guild. I have to make sure we had enough paper. I went to Office Max and bought a box of paper. Due to an error, the bar code for the box was not in the register. When the cashier typed in the numbers, I got the whole box for the price of a ream of paper. No, I'm not going back to try to pay the difference! I didn't discover it until I got home. We have extra toner for the laser printer, but didn't run out yet. All 50 copies have been stapled. We still have lots of staples. Life is good! Tomorrow I'll look at another class. I still have to work most of the day, but tonight I get to knit for fun.

Other knitting
The trellis socks are progressing. I did a lot at the yarn store knit-in last night.
I'm working on redesigning a jacket for a yarn company. It was originally knit from a copyright pattern, and the yc owner wanted an original pattern. I have reverse engineered the body of the jacket and am changing the edges. Yarn and gauge are different. It's a mum project until I deliver the pattern and jacket to the yarn company. That's mum as in "Mum's the word".
I'm also knitting a camisole from bulky cotton tape, a design in a kit acquired last month at the guild yarn swap. It will also make a decent vest for colder weather.

R is for Ribbit

My DGD Ana has a birthday coming up in mid-September. Now that her feet have quit growing, the decision was made to knit her some socks. I have a tracing of her foot from a year or so ago, so figuring commenced. I checked books, I figured gauge, this was a problem. Ana is a short young woman with very small feet (size2) but what I was knitting just looked too small. There was another concern. She's turning 17, so she doesn't have childlike stick legs. Her legs have shape.

Last night, I caught up with her to have her try the sock on. It wouldn't go over her heel!! RIBBIT!! I measured her heel, her leg, and the ball of her foot. The foot length from the tracing is ok. I've redesigned the sock in my head. It will be bigger and better. I'm keeping the trellis and adding a rib edge that looks like a flower, followed by a yarnover braid from Folk Knitting in Estonia. The yarn is Brown Sheep Wildefoote in purple Splendor. Ana's favorite color is purple. The new pattern will be awesome! I wonder who I can sell it to.

Sewing Challenge
Today I spent most of the day enlarging a bridesmaid dress for a large young lady. She's at least 6 feet tall and her dress is now a size 28 plus 12 inches. The dress is long enough. The wedding is next Saurday. I need to see 3 of 4 bridesmaids Tuesday, so that I have time to hem their dresses and make whatever other alterations are still needed. Two dresses were made larger by adding a fabric strip on each side from underarm to hem. The other two dresses are another style and needed taking in. Never a dull moment.

Olympic ravthlete, sock patterns, P is for, Q is for.

Olympic Ravthlete

My socks qualified for a medal!!I misread the start time for the Ravelympics. They used Beijing time and I used US Eastern daylight time, also known as television time. It worked anyway. I'm putting the medals on my side bar.

I used pearl buttons on my sheep vest, but today when I was putting the left over yarn away, I found something. I have sheep buttons!!!

I finally have patterns for sale through Ravelry, hosted on my own website. I have 4 sock patterns listed, but one of them is not written yet. When it's written I'll put it up as a pdf. I've also learned how to edit my sewing business web site. It's always had a knitting page, which was blank. I'm hoping with a couple of extra days this weekend, I'll be able to make a pretty page and link to the other page.

P is for patterns

One of my first published patterns appears in XRX's Socks, Socks, Socks book on p. 15. I still have the socks. I bought the yarn at a house sale and made the socks to match my bowling shirt. There is ribbing under the mosaic cuff. The book was the result of too many good entries in a sock contest. The winners are in the book except there is no picture of the "Emperor's new socks".

Q is for quilts

I'm not the family quilter, but DD Julie is. Last fall she made a quilt as a Christmas gift for her sister Jan. She showed a picture of the design at a quilt wholesale show and sold the design to Quilter's Home. The issue with the quilt is now on sale. The quilt went off for photography and Jan got a picture for Christmas. We had a family party July 4th and Julie had the quilt, but needed it for a trunk show. Did I say that she lives in another state? Jan's afraid to use the quilt when she does get it. Julie's web site is Quilted pleasures.

I did it!!

The vest was finished Saturday night and the socks Sunday night! Mother of pearl buttons are from my button stash. I couldn't find any green buttons that I liked.

Socks were finally finished during closing ceremonies. The pattern is written. I'm going to try to put some patterns up on Ravelry.

The Ravelry Vest award is on my sidebar. I may not get one for the socks, since Ravelry was working on Beijing time and I was working on US eastern time.

I'm busy at work, so less knitting time there.Wednesday I judge needlework at the Geauga County Fair, the oldest county fair in Ohio.