Image Zone

Knitting conditions over the weekend were poor. It was hot again, I had a lot of chores to do, a little work to finish and dinner parties both Friday and Saturday night. I managed a few rows on the Phoenix tank but nothing to really show for now. However, look at the goodies I received from my secret pal, Jennifer, in the Gimme Some Needles exchange! Woo hoo, these are great, girl! The 40" size #1's will be used for trying out the Magic Loop on my next pair of socks. The Brittany DPNs in size #1 are perfect too, because I broke yet another one while finishing up the Broadripple. Last but not least, look at the sock yarn...it's Carolina Blue! Yay! So thank you, thank you Jennifer.

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Well, this is going to be a short one today. I am headed out to Arizona this afternoon for work and there's a sense of I forgot something hanging over me. I have no idea what, though, so I better find it.

BTW, there's a new blog in town...the Image Zone. It's my new photo blog and I plan to post regularly (still a lot of Germany pictures to include!) I chose the name "Image Zone" because those are the different scenes found on the dial mode of most automatic cameras - portrait, landscape, night scene, fast action and macro. I think that perfectly and simply sums up the content of the new blog. Browse around, tell me what you think.

Until the next day in the life....

Sweater Wizard

I was hoping to have a progress photo of OSW's matching tank top but it's not going to happen today. Because I've had such problems resizing commercial patterns, I decided to use the Sweater Wizard software for a more customized design. SW is quite handy but it's not perfect. My biggest beef is that there is no opportunity to enter your own measurements except bust size - the pattern directions are based almost solely on your gauge. On the other hand there's a lot of really good stuff about it: SW provides many options for the type of sweater, neck style and sleeve style. It also wants to know how much ease you prefer, if it's for a woman, child, man, baby, if you want to knit it top-down, bottom-up, circular, and the length (cropped, hip, tunic).

I've gotten around the lack of measurements by basically selecting the smallest everything in every category for a woman's sweater. For example, I always pick the tightest ease in the cropped length. I concluded this after taking the measurements of a favorite, similar sweater and comparing them to the measurements in the schematic that SW produces.

SW works very fast and in a few seconds you have your design complete with pattern directions and schematic. You can then export it to Microsoft Word. OK, here's the next big BUT. BUT, if you want any shaping you have to figure out the decreases and increased on your own. This is why it's taken me so long to cast on. I have had a devil of a time calculating the decreases and increases evenly. Why? Because I'm so short-waisted there's not much room to do the shaping in the first place. Plus I'm mathematically challenged.

So I lied because I did actually cast on and knit about 15 rows yesterday. However, my row gauge was off. Most of the time I don't worry about row gauge but in this case I felt it was very important. So I re-did the pattern and of course it meant re-calculating the shaping. I printed out what I hope is the final version this morning. Whew.

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In other knitting news, Caitlyn and I are planning to knit Grumperina's Tivoli T-Shirt together starting mid-August. This is such a popular pattern! Does anyone want to join us in this knitalong?

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Well, I'm in a penguin sort of mood today so I will end with these happy little guys.

Until the next day in the life....

Hiking, Knitting and Venus

That's the order I'll cover the weekend. Saturday began with a hike to Loch Leven Lakes. This trail begins just south of the Rainbow Lodge off I80 near Tahoe. There are three lakes and the middle loch, pictured above, was the largest and prettiest. We passed that one by in favor of the Upper Lake which was a perfect swimming hole. Big enough for several campers and families with loud children and barky dogs. Plus us, who were trying to fish even though we were told there wasn't any fish up there. The hike wasn't my best however. Some days are simply slower than others and this was one of them. If it weren't for those dang rocks and scree messing up the trail....


In knitting news, I finished the One Skein Wonder -wheeeee! Thought you might like to see it in progress - this is the front after I had picked up stitches and started the ribbing. As you can see, the ribbing is knit circularly.
The shrug is knit from the top down, increasing by knitting into the front and back of a few stitches. You pick up stitches for the seed stitch border on the sleeve cuff.Then you fold over the ends at the "seams" to make the sleeves. Once the ribbing is done you just have a few ends to weave and you are done.The finished result from the front - so I think I must have kind of wide shoulders for my size. The shoulder-to-shoulder measurement that I used was 16 inches. I was worried that the sleeves would be tight but they aren't at all. Initially I had planned to make a spaghetti strap tank with the same yarn.
However, after trying the shrug on with a couple of camisoles and a couple of wide-strap tank tops, it looks better with a simple sleeveless shell.


Last but not least, Karl and I went to a World Team Tennis match between the Sacramento Capitals and the Delaware Storm. Venus Williams was the marquee player. She is, well, amazing. The woman is like an amazon out there and she seemed truly likeable. No diva moves or temper tantrums, she played graciously and was a good sport. Her team didn't win (the Storm) but the Capitals are in the WTT finals next month. More pictures of the match are in the Flickr Badge on the sidebar (slideshow), check them out!

Until the next day in the life....