Happy Halloween!!

My favorite holiday is here!

I'm almost done getting ready -- just taking a few minutes to chill out before my ride gets here. We worked very hard on our costumes this year, and I can't wait to see what people think.

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Three Days ...

It's crazy ... I slept 10 hours both Friday and Saturday nights, and I'm still exhausted! October is just a crazy month. We are almost done with our Halloween costumes for the big show. It's very exciting!

Yesterday I whipped up a simple scarf to go with my costume. I used one skein of Moda Dea Cheerio and just fishnet-stitched until I ran out of yarn. The idea was for it to look sort of uneven and distressed -- the yarn worked well. I'll post an "action shot" of it with my whole outfit after Halloween.

I think I need to make more "indoor" scarves. It's finally gotten a bit chilly here in Texas, and I find myself wearing openwork scarves in the office all day. Good, good stuff. I think I will use that lone skein of souvenier yarn from DC to that end.

The first Endpaper Mitt blocked beautifully. I will focus on the second one after Halloween.

Stranded

Last night while watching Freaks, I finished the main part of my first Endpaper mitt. This morning I wove in the ends and did the thumb ribbing. Right now it's soaking in a Eucalan bath; this is my first time using Eucalan, which is appropriate since this is a project of many firsts. Usually when I make a pair of something, I block them together, but I'm very anxious to see the finished product.

My tubular bind-off does not look so hot. But it's the first time I've ever done it, so I am cutting myself some slack. The tubular cast-on, on the other hand, is absolutely beautiful. The three should-be-gray-but-are-pink stitches are barely visible; I haven't decided if I will fix them or not.

I didn't have a ton of time to work on them this week, which is probably why it took so long to complete this first one. The color pattern makes sense to me now, though -- so the second one should go faster.

If I make a second pair, which is highly likely, I may shorten the palm a bit. These are a little longer than most of the armwarmers I've made, so I don't know if the extra fabric around the fingers will bother me or not. Usually at the office I wear my Fetching mitts. We'll see. I do like how narrow and flat they are, and the double-stranding makes them so very warm.

Tonight we are performing at the Goodwill Halloween ball. Should be fun and interesting.

We Interrupt This Cardigan ...

I ended up getting two skeins of Baby Ull for the Endpaper Mitts -- baby pink and a deep charcoal gray. I couldn't find anything that looked just right with the alpaca. I also got a wee single-use packet of lavender wool wash (I've wanted to try it) and some Brittany 3 mm needles.

I wasn't really planning to work on the Endpaper Mitts, not with the cardian hanging out on my desk, waiting. But I just wanted to try a little bit, to see how it went. So yeah ... now I'm done with the ribbing and two of the three straight section repeats on Mitt #1. I didn't bother with the Italian tubular cast-on; I just used the regular tubular cast-on instead. Wow! What a lovely result. My tension is a bit uneven in places, but a good blocking will help -- besides, it's my first stranded colorwork, I'm going to cut myself some slack. So far I've made two mistakes (pink stitches that should be gray). I figure that's where the miracle of duplicate stitch comes in, huh? :-)

There is lots of random junk to do today. I spent a good part of yesterday running around, so I am not crazy about doing it all again. Bah. But yesterday there was the yarn store and a veggie chili dog and an evening at the Cheerleader Mansion to work on Halloween stuff ... so it was a good day.

Good News!

I do not have lupus! My lab work came back normal except for a low white blood cell count, which sort of left me scratching my head. Anyway, if I get the butterfly rash again, I will get re-tested by a different doctor; other than that, I'm done with the lupus saga.

I made it to the bottom ribbing on my cardigan. I think I have about 30 rows left of ribbing, then the bottom detail. It's not nearly as fitted as the other items I've made from Fitted Knits, but I knew that going in -- I knit the 34" size as written without sizing it down. This was probably the best choice, as something very clingy in bulky yarn wouldn't have been so flattering. :-) I am going to see how it works to lengthen the sleeves, but may end up abandoning that plan.

Today is the grand opening of the Knitting Nest. It's actually been open for a few weeks, but the party is today. I am going to drop by and get a skein of fingering weight. I've had a skein of beautiful pink alpaca from Shannon in my stash, waiting for a special project. And after months of seeing them and going "meh," I've suddenly realized that I need to make Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts. I've done colorwork in swatches but never a full pattern. I also don't knit in such a tiny gauge very often, so it will be a good exercise.

Manic Monday

For whatever reason, I am just not paying attention to my knitting these days -- hence all the ripping back I've been doing. I realized today that I was doing decreases on every RS row for the cardigan waist, when it really should've just been on rows 2, 6, and 10. Whoops. At least it's not much to frog, just a few rows. It would've been more, except I ran out of yarn waiting at the doctor. (I used the time to weave in the ends.)

Today has been a wash so far. I got up, went to the doctor, saw him, and waited around for a looooooong time to get blood drawn. We should know more later this week; there's still a chance I have lupus, but if I do, it's mild. After that I ran to Costco to have them patch my tire (I ran over a nail or something). The estimate for the wait was almost two hours ... but, it needed to be done. So I spent a looooooooong time at Costco. Then it turned out they couldn't patch it, so I needed a whole new tire -- by then I was very crabby and exhausted and extremely sick of Costco. But they got the new tire done in 10 minutes, at least. And their service is always very friendly.

I got some pretty sweet buttons for the cardigan this afternoon -- which also gave me an excuse to play with the macro setting on my camera. The little banner part says "honor."

Alas, not much time for knitting tonight ... we have some guys from Ireland filming us for a documentary. Which means I need to go get pretty. Bah!

Zzzzz....

Thursday I went to the doctor because I am starting to get the same rash on my face that I had in DC. Apparently it is something called a butterfly rash, and it's one indication of lupus. I meet a few of the other diagnostic criteria, so I am going to a different doctor on Monday morning to get things checked out. It's probably nothing, but it seems like the sort of thing I should know for sure.

I keep making stupid knitting mistakes. Right now I am working on the short-sleeved cardigan with ribbing from Fitted Knits. What bothers me is that I can't figure out how to fix some weird bungle I made with an increase a few rows ago. I tried to rip back to before it, but the mistake seems to have magically remained. Gah. I may just frog it all the way back to the stupid collar and start over. At this rate, it's going to take me all month to make one simple big-gauge cardigan! I'll just blame that on the lupus that I probably don't have. ;-)

Edited to add: Screw it, I'm ripping it back and starting from the top with the increase rows. I will enjoy re-knitting it more than I will enjoy tinkering around with the bungled stitches.