Some charity work and a nice thing.

I am slowly starting to back into the swing of things now that I am done with the serape.  I wanted to show everyone since it is pretty impressive.  But before that, a few other things.

I started this Multi-Directional scarf for a few reasons.  It was my "waiting for students at work" project, but it was also to try and see if I could do it.  I had made the same style of scarf, but with only one color, before.  I wanted to know what it would look like if each triangle was a different color, or if they had a different stitch pattern.  Since I didn't feel like thinking of a few stitch patterns, I did the color change.  The next one I do might have different stitches.

I started this hat as a sample for a class at work about...2 years ago.  Maybe a bit more.  I finally found it in a cabinet at work and finished it.  Not sure why I never finished it before, it only needed the decreasing on the top.

I can't find the real pattern for it, but it isn't hard. *k2, p2* ribbing until it is 5" and then plain until the whole thing is 9". Decrease by 8 every other round, and then have a hat.

Here is the nice thing.  It is made of 17.35 skeins of super chunky yarn in it, 16.79 black and only 0.56 of the blue.  In the picture my mom is modeling it.  I got some pictures of the recipient in it, but the lighting was too low for my phone to take good pictures.  I didn't get a chance to weigh it before I gave it away since we finished it and then rushed it over to where he worked so we could give it to him that day.  I weighted it close to being done and it was almost 4.5 lbs.

I'm very glad for it to be done and for him to be so happy to have it!  Now on to smaller things!

Look over there, something cool!

So I haven't really done anything blogable.  I've thought of ideas on things I will work on when I'm done with the serape, I've even put colorful yarn near me.  I've done a lot of knitting on the serape, I've put 14 whole skeins into it so far.  I even need to do another yarn run for it.
Those things are not things people want to see on a blog of any kind.  So to make-up for that, here is something cool.

One of my friends at Mon knit-night showed it to a bunch of us at one of our yarny-birthday parties a bit ago.  I wish I had thought of it!

Black Forest Cake

Yarn game time!

Here is a fun little yarn game we can play!  As you can see, there are three bits of yarn.  Are the yarn:
A) All the same weight
B) All different weights
C) The left and middle are the same weight
D) The right and middle are the same weight
E) The outer two are the same weight

Timing is everything!

I was asked to come in today to help a lady with her baby blanket.  She had been going along her merry way and had increases on the second to last green section.  Barbara S (not the Barbara I made squares for) tried to help her.  She refused to rip it back to the increase.  Barbara started cutting each row and pulled the crochet back to where it looked mostly even, and then wove the end in.  She only had a few minutes to help this lady, so the lady asked to come back.

Well, Barbara didn't want to continue helping this person if she could help it, so she asked me.  I told her I would, though I was very, very nervous about it.

I went in today hoping I would be able to pull this off.  It also helped that Barbara was working, so if I really needed to I could go running to her in a cold sweat.  I was getting both excited and disappointed as half an hr went by and the lady with the baby blanket didn't show-up.  I was about to go make sure Barbara told her 2pm when she finally got there.  Turns out she had a doctor's appointment that went long.

I looked at the blanket and had a mental freak-out.  The thing was in a shell stitch and I couldn't even really tell where I would have to stop pulling back on each row to make it even and not decrease.  I then causally asked her why she hadn't just ripped it back and re-done that part.  She asked if I thought that would look better.  I told her that it would since the other side was so well done and straight.  She agreed to rip it out!

I ripped out the bit of green section she had started.  I pulled out the multi-colored section.  Then there was only half of the green to go.  To make sure she didn't have any odd bits of yarn sitting around, I took it back to the first row that had been cut.  She thanked me for my help a million times.  She also asked what she owed me for my help.  I told her nothing, but when she didn't seem to think that was fair, I told her that she had to bring the finished baby blanket in for me to see.  She was happy with that.  She also tried to describe how to do the shell stitch she was doing.

The shell is a *2dc, c2, dc* in each chain section of the row below.  It is very cute and snugs together better than most other shell patterns I've seen.

I was talking to Barbara about it after the lady had left.  Barbara was glad that I managed to talk her into ripping and redoing, and she was also glad that when I looked at it, I had no idea how to fix it other than ripping.  I then found out that the lady might have changed her mind about the ripping because it is no longer for a grand-child, but is now going to be for a grand-niece.  Extended deadlines are always nice.

Another thing that happened was that after my internal freak out I thought that the pattern looked familiar.  Like someone in one of my classes had brought something like that in for me to help them figure out how to do the stitch pattern.  Then after we got back through the multi-section I realized that it didn't look similar, it looked the same.  It looked the same because it was the same blanket I helped her with before!  It was at least half a year ago!  It was nice to see it again.

I was going to finish this post of my holiday scarf near things again, and a picture of the color work part of the serape, but the card reader on the front of my computer doesn't seem to want to notice the card when I put it in. It worked before!

Looks like you will just have to imagine.

One thing on hold, another is a go!

The lovely Mr Jag is modeling the holiday scarf that was started last year.  I'm working on it again for two reasons.  I told myself that I wouldn't start the Jaywalker Socks until I was done with the serape.  That way I would have motivation.  The other reason is that I'm at a pause point on the serape.  I don't want to cut any yarn until I check to make sure he likes how it is so far.  That won't happen until Wed.

So to keep myself from going against the first reason is to knit on something else.

True I could just do some activities that aren't yarn related.  I could go Geocaching (but not after dark), I could go for walks (again, not after dark), I could clean something (hahahahaha).  I've done some of those things while I could, but it is a lot more fun to knit while at knit night, or a knitting party.

More like 32-62 Things to Write About...

I got another reply from the lovely Jane from Chronicle Books.  She had some good and bad news.  Bad news was that I could not preform a "Julie & Julia" style remake of the book 642 Things to Write About.  The good news was that she could let me use, free of charge 32-64 of the writing prompts.  While going from 642 to 32-64 is a bit of a bummer, it could also be more fun.  More of a challenge.  I can't just open up  to the next page and start there.  I have a limited number.  I have to go through and pick the best of the best!
Also, like I said before, I have other sources to get more prompts from if I find I really like this plan.

Nothing much new to report in the land of knitting.  I've gotten to where there is now a bit of dark blue along with the black on the serape.  During knit night tonight I worked on the Christmas colored triangle scarf that I started at some point last year.
I do, however, have some nice plans for knitting.  I am going to make a pair of Jaywalker Socks(pdf link) once I am done with the serape.

There are how many ways to cast on and bind off?!?!

My mom found a test knit in a Ravelry group that mentioned using this cast on.  It is really cool!

I really need to try and find this book now...

In other news: The frilly scarf and I went out to lunch with a friend.  I will be trying to teach him how to knit.  This time should go better, the last time we tried was my first time trying to teach someone.  It did not go well.

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Turns out it did go a bit better!  It seems there might be a refresher coarse needed, but I have no problems with that.  I also managed to finish the frilly scarf while we were having coffee.

In more other news: I got one reply back from the publisher.  I had asked if I could use the prompts from 642 Things to Write Journal. She was asking for clarification, so I still don't know if I have the all clear to start or not.  One fun thing was that she said that there are a lot of knitting fans down (over?) at Chronicle Books!  How fun is that?