Life got in the Way

A number of things happened since I last posted.

DH turned 70 and a party was held. Family friends, out of town relatives. it was great! The kids organized it and brought the cake, with 70 candles. He needed help to blow them out.

After that, he managed to get pneumonia and is now in the hospital. He also broke a wrist, which we thought was only sprained. Stubborn guy didn't want to go to get it checked out. The wrist happened a few days before his breathing got bad, so it was a week until someone declared it broken.


I've joined a gym! Our city has a fitness center with a track and Nautilus machines as well as the usual cardio machines. I am only working 4 days a week (M, W, F, Sat), so I can go to the gym the other 3 days. It's working out well and I feel more energetic.



I seem to have finished two pairs of socks that didn't make the blog. DGD Ana has very small feet and a September birthday.. Her socks are knit mainly form Patons Kroy. The contrast yarn isn't as contrasty as I would like. It's left over from the socks I knit for DD.

My Stealth Knitting has been gifted. DD the remodeler got socks. She loves socks. These are knit from Grundl Four Seasons yarn that I got on sale a few years ago. The pattern doesn't show up much, I'll reknit it in a better yarn before releasing to the public.



I finished another SKA challenge. This month it was chartreuse or one of the specified designers. I had no chartreuse yarn, so chose a designer, Janneke Maat. I've been looking at her Aragorn Socks for quite a while.I used some Sushi sock that I got from The Unique Sheep in a man's sock club. The color and yardage wouldn't work for DH, so now it's mine. I had knit the club pattern in another yarn.

A friend offered some chartreuse yarn to me. She had 3 different skeins in sock weight. I chose Dream in Color Smooshy in Spring Tickle. The Dream in Color website is being remodeled, so I hope this works. The SKA Mystery Sock is growing. The patter is called Watercress by Lise Brackbill. I'll finish the first sock today.

Breakfast time! I'm having trouble cooking for one right now. Lack of time contributes. DD will be here later to work on the remodeling. I'm making Roasted Tomato Soup that I found in a Cooking for Two cookbook.

Things are better now

The electrician finished his work and everything works as expected, finally. We have a new kitchen ceiling. It still needs priming and painting. Since this picture, it was textured and a new fan was installed over the stove. The texture picture shows the other end of the kitchen.

Worker damage
The man who did the texture work really seems to know what he is doing on ceilings. However, in other things, not so much. In helping install the fan, he stepped on the top of my stove bending the center and damaging the surface. Luckily our contractor could repair the bend. It took him a couple of hours to dis-assemble the stove top, straighten it, and put it together again, hours which were deducted from texture man's pay. It's not a new stove and chances of getting a new top were slim. We're relatively happy with the repair. At least everything still works.

DH and DD have been running tv cable through the walls of all rooms were we will want a tv. this, of course, has resulted in language I didn't want to hear, multiple trips to Radio Shack for supplies, new tools, and finally, success. We will have connections like this in 3 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and basement. We don't have that many tvs, but the thinking is to do it now, before insulating the house.

Ideally, all wires should be in place before we get insulation blown into the walls, making the house snug and cozy for winter. That is why the flurry of activity in electricity and tv cables. The electricity needed doing, the tv cable was more optional. Our neighbor insulated a couple of years ago, and cut his heating bill in half. We cut ours in half by installing new windows, now we'll cut it again. Next year we'll put siding on the house, and stop spending money like a drunken sailor. We expect it to pay for itself in about 5 years.

Knitting
I seem to have missed showing off the latest pairs of birthday socks. For my son-in-law with the large feet, I extended the yarn by adding color to the leg. I still need to write the pattern, but I have the charts for the leg done. The pattern will offer a number of options for the leg portion of the sock. This man really loves my socks, because they fit!

In addition, I knit a pair for DD the remodeler. I know I didn't show them there, because she reads the blog. Because of the yarn colors, I used a simple pattern. It still doesn't show up well in the photos. The "in progress" photo shows the pattern, k2, p2 ribbing offset every 6 rows. Unfortunately, this doesn't show well in the later photos.

This is the daughter who shrunk a couple of things earlier this year. The socks were not supposed to shrink, the wrist warmers were wool, but she forgot. I won't be using that yarn for socks again. All gift socks are now being knit with bullet proof yarn. The brown socks are Patons Kroy 4 ply with Regia contrast. The other socks are Grundl Four Seasons. I seem to need 25% nylon for gift socks. Even the careful people occasionally find socks coming out of their dryer. Maybe my sister will get some fancier yarn. I know she hangs sock to dry, and is a sock knitter.

The tree bark sweater is up to the "armholes" in back, there being no armholes, just a square piece. I slowed down on it because I realized that another birthday looms, and the recipient is back in town. She took off for parts unknown (kids!!) but is now back. The socks would be finished now, but I knit the first foot on leg needles, which were too large. Reknitting commences within minutes. Luckily these are the smallest adult feet in the family. Main color is Patons Kroy 4 ply, contrast is left from above socks. There was more dark color in the variegated yarn than I expected, so not the best contrast. I'll choose better colors and knit another pair before I release the pattern.

I will write patterns for both pairs of socks, but will delay release until I have samples that better show the stitch patterns. This may be the winter for reknitting patterns that have been on hold. I also have a number of them where the original socks were black, again not a good choice for photos.

I caved

On June 6, I finally started a sweater called Cables After Whiskey designed by Lucy Neatby. I had swatched previously, using a smaller needle that I thought was appropriate for the yarn. Knit, knit, knit. After about 7" I measured the width of the sweater. Not good. It was smaller than needed. This sweater has a lot of cables. Cables pull in. The swatch did not have so many cables. Rip, rip, rip.

Last week I recalculated how many stitches I needed for the desired width. I thought I had many more stitches than the pattern, but I had missed the drastic increase in stitch count after the ribbing. My ribbing is closer to the width of the body. Again, I knit about 7". I decided to check yarn quantity. I'm making my sweater a little smaller, since oversize is what I am, not what I want in a sweater. The pattern calls for 1000 gm of yarn, I have 750 gm! Rip, rip, rip.

Version #3 - I'm using the needle size recommended in the pattern. I'm liking the fabric I'm making. Size medium calls for 800 gm of yarn, but I'm shortening the sweater by 7". Again, I'm making a loose lower ribbing, casting on 1 stitch less than required for the body. This will make a nice seam in the ribbing. I added the last stitch just before the body. I should have a nice loose sport weight sweater in my size.

Remodeling
We have new lights in the kitchen! We need a new ceiling before the fan light goes up (where the hanging light is). We still have some knob and tube wiring, mostly in overhead lights. It will be carrying much less of a load now, and all the outlets are grounded except one. The contractor has been called for an estimate on the ceiling. This is not a job we want to do in house. A number of outlets on the first floor are not connected, but will be on the next electrician visit. We'll also get smoke detectors wired into our hallway. We'll need to put battery operated ones in the bedrooms. Too much work to wire them in.

We also got the basement stairs painted with the first coat of paint. Progress is being made!

Remodel week 2

We are still living with many rooms looking like this. Everything has been moved to the center of the room and all baseboards have been removed. Things are looking up, because there are new outlets on this floor and almost all outlets are grounded. The one that is not is in the center hall and the wires run between sets of stairs.

The old outlets come through the baseboards and the new ones are above them, but the wires run through the wall studs.

I made a Home Depot run this morning to return all the little things that were piling up unused, broken, not needed. $119.00 worth. I was able to get the last of the light bulbs needed for the kitchen and a couple of other things. When I got home, I had to go back and get some pieces needed to hang the can lights in the kitchen. We're now down to $71.00 on the card.

The kitchen looked like this at lunch time. Every flat surface is covered, to say nothing of debris on the floor, the ladder in front of the stove etc. Lunch came from Wendy's and was eaten on the back porch table.

I can't even wash clothes, because the washer is next to the breaker boxes and is being used as a table ( the top is flat when closed and has circuit breakers and tool on it). I still need to vacuum ceiling debris out of the tub, so I don't ruin the pump. It took a few days to find and recover DH's small shop vac for the job. That is now sitting next to the washer. There are some advantages to having a lot of clothes, but the underwear supply is running low. I'll vacuum when the electrician leaves.

Did I show you what I made last week? It's a harem outfit for a 1 yr old baby. Grandma paid for it. It must be a first grandchild to make all that fuss. They had a big party in their back yard. I could see the tent and some of the decorations on my morning dog walk.

Knitting is progressing, of course. One project is a birthday gift for someone who reads this blog, so no pictures of that one. I don't have a good picture yet anyway, so my Ravelry project page is blank. That doesn't happen very often. I'll be taking project and camera outside shortly.

My other project is a sweater for me. I haven't done a pullover in quite a while. The pattern is by Lucy Neatby, called Cables After Whiskey. It comes with 3 pages of random numbers. All cables are 4 x 4. For certain numbers, you cable to the front. For others, you cable to the back. Some numbers are ignored, and some mean to knit 4 stitches. I've found that it is important to keep the columns of 4 stitches lined up. Other than that, mistakes don't matter. I've started calling it my Tree Bark sweater.

August means count fairs. I judged knitting etc. at one fair Sunday. The other judging is at the end of the month, since the fair runs over Labor Day weekend.

Resurfacing from the mess

It's still going on, but temporarily, I have full computer access. We now have a wireless LAN, so i can use my laptop anywhere in the house, but my passwords are stored on the desktop. Ravelry doesn't work right on the laptop, through Internet Explorer. The desktop uses Firefox, so I've been frustrated with no desktop. I mainly use the laptop at work, where I don't need the internet, so that's a temporary problem.

We're getting our wiring updated, which required ceiling removal in the basement and the kitchen. Both ceilings were damaged already. Plumbing leaks etc.

The kitchen is a little dark with only 2 light bulbs, but we're coping.

The basement was well lighted, but will be less so for now. Hanging wires have disappeared, leaving 3 1st floor outlets unpowered. The main room has 5 new lights, including one at the base of the stairs. We missed that one when it went away for a couple of days. We also have new outlets on all the walls where there were none before.

The utility room had 2 small florescent fixtures and a couple of other bulbs. Now the laundry area is quite bright and the dark corners are lit. Part of the old lighting had to work around 2 large boilers original to the house. We now have one small one, so more empty space.

The electrician will be back next week to update the 1st and 2nd floors.

Meanwhile, I've been knitting. I've finished the truck sweater for WB, but the family is on vacation. I watched the Tour de France bicycle race for 3 weeks. Fascinating! At the end of the race, the sweater looked like this, body finished sleeves started, still in need of neck and front ribbing.

This is the finished back, with trucks going in both directions. On the front, they all go to the center. I lengthened the body because WB has a long torso, and lengthened the sleeves, because it adds to the wearing life. The pattern is one by Ann Norling.

I did finish the Milestone socks for his Dad in time for the party, a 50th birthday bash. They won't be worn until winter.

I'm working on socks for big foot now, with a delivery date of about 8/17 in Florida. He really appreciates the socks and wears them to death, so more are always welcome. This time I used colorwork to stretch the yarn to fit the feet. I have a couple of yards left from sock #1. Size 14 wide feet use more than 100 gm of sock yarn!

More destruction and rebuilding

While I was appreciating the carpet removal, the remodeling gods were planning new challenges.

The carpet was hardly picked up off the curb, when DD started removing pine paneling next to the basement stairs. She was so quick at wood removal that the contractor decided to take out the steps that day. End of the day, we had no access to the basement, where the computers are, as well as part of my rabbit pattern. DD wrote a blog post with photos. I was at work!

The next day was devoted to building a new set of stairs. I worked all morning, deadlines to meet on Friday. She has a blog post about this day too! "How to replace stairs in three easy steps." She now has a few new skills and has decided that her basement stairs don't need replacing right now. The new stairs are much more sturdy than the originals, which lasted 90 years.

This week's knitting challenge is the guild toy competition. Did I say that I'm knitting a rabbit?
I got to the point where I needed the pattern for the inner ears and the pattern was still out of reach. I had scheduled overalls knitting for Saturday and assembly for Sunday. The straps for the overalls were not finished until Sunday afternoon, but assembly went quickly. All I needed was a quick trip to work for the two buttons on the straps.

I won first prize in the guild competition in the completely knitted toy category. We also had categories for bought toy, knitted clothes and a new category for other charity knitting. Usually I end up with an honorable mention. This is the first time I have won.

Next deadline is Saturday of this week, when I need a pair of socks for someone turning 50. I hope DSIL likes black socks. That's the color for Solid socks this month. I've designed these, but kept the pattern simple, black is hard to work in pattern. At this point, one sock is finished and work progresses on the leg of the second.

DGS William is also celebrating his birthday this weekend, but there is no way I'll be able to get his gift done. Discussion with his Mom resulted in a two family get together after the sweater is done. I have a pattern for a cardigan with trucks on it. I've put together the yarn kit, and read and reread the pattern. I might start the ribbing tonight. We watch tv in the bedroom before bed, and the light is not as good up there for patterned sock knitting in black yarn.

Green Socks finished and gifted

I seem to have gotten myself into a period of deadline knitting this month. Lack of planning ahead, I guess. The green socks are finished and have been given. They were completed with 24 hrs to spare. The pattern is written and up on Ravelry. With an easy stitch pattern it went quickly. An unpatterned foot helps with speed also.

I named them Turtle toes, not terrible original, but the yarn color was Turtle multi. There is some interesting pooling going on in the one sock, but it will be inside a shoe, so the two feet don't have to match.

I've started the next challenge, another pair of man's socks to be given on July 16. Again, a simple pattern, but the black yarn complicates things a little. I had the yarn and black is one of the choices for the Ravelry Solid Socks group. This month' there are 3 choices, black, white, or gray. Next time I buy sock yarn, I need to remember that gift socks will be machine washed and dried. Better to avoid accidents in the manufacture.

The bunny has more parts, but no photo yet. I want to knit all the pieces before stuffing, so that I can weigh them and subtract that weight from my spreadsheet. I need the rabbit by the 11th for our guild meeting. All other knitting projects are on hold, except for these two.

On the remodeling front, DD continues to tear apart out house in the name of progress. An electrician should be coming in the next week to rewire the rest of our house. that's two floors and the basement. One outlet per room is really not enough these days, although when the house was built in 1921, I'm sure that it was plenty. Various workarounds have been used throughout the years, but this time a professional has been called and will bring us up to current code. This requires pulling the baseboards, so he can channel the new wires behind them. We have a stack of numbered baseboards, and the pile will get bigger as more rooms are involved.

Today she pulled up the last of the carpet on the second floor. We have hardwood floors underneath, although they need refinishing. That is not on our to do list for now. We moved furniture, disassembled the bed, made a mess, and got it cleaned up. Carpet was tossed off our upstairs back porch before being hauled to the curb for garbage pickup tomorrow morning. I continue to be surprised at the things we have saved over the years. Not that we saved them, but the fact that there is so much that we don't remember having. It gets easier and easier to purge.