Pressure.......

Can you feel it? C'mon, you know what I'm talking about......Christmas knitting pressure. Yep, mid-October, and I'm feeling it already. I know, I know, it's mainly self-imposed. After all, I'm the one who promised not one, but two sweaters for Christmas~~one for The Teen and one for CD. I'm also the one who told my mom to pick something she liked out of Victorian Lace Today thankfully, she is not a shawl kind of woman, so it's just a scarf, but again, self-imposed. Then there is (at right) the-forever-hanging-over-my-head Cambridge Jacket for my Dad. All I have left is the zipper facing, blocking, and installing the zipper (after I find one that matches). Problem is, I'm not thrilled with the sleeve caps~~the fabric seems to bunch a bit there, like there is too much of it (which is, btw, the same problem the original set in sleeves had on the first version I made. I'm thinking there is just too much sleeve called for in the pattern.) I'm hoping that it will block out nicely. I'm not sure that it will. If it doesn't block out, I may have to rip both sleeves out and try again with fewer stitches. Shudder. I hate to think about that, so I've dropped this one for the moment in favor of fresher projects.

As Mary Poppins would say, 'Well begun is half done,' and I'm pretty well begun on The Teen's hoodie, which is now past the armholes~~I just put the sleeves on scrap yarn and rejoined the body after knitting night last night. The yarn is Valley Yarns Berkshire and is oh so soft.....and thick. This will keep my always cold daughter toasty all winter.

I also started Mom's scarf from VLT and have almost finished the first wide border. The yarn is Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK which I scored at lys on sale, goodness, back in the spring, I guess. It's almost sinful how soft this yarn is. I'm already worried about whether the yarn will hold out for both these projects. Knitting needles (and crochet hooks, if you have them) crossed for luck, please.

I had started CD's Cobblestone, but stopped an inch into the thing because I just couldn't stand the yarn~~Bartlett yarn fisherman aran in dark heather. Too rough. No way could I knit an entire man's sweater in that yarn. Now I have 12 skeins of the stuff in the stash. Anyone interested? CD and I talked by AIM on Friday, and I got him to narrow his choices down to some Beaverslide and Wool of the Andes colors. I was pulling for the Beaverslide, which is what I will be using for my Cobblestone, but he went with WOA forest heather. Gave me a chance to pick up some other Knit Picks yarn I'd been wanting~~including some Telemark for Jared's Red Light Special hat (I'm planning this for CD in more sedate colors, but he still may not go for the fair isle, so we'll see who actually ends up with it.) Looks like Jared Flood has become my favorite designer now that I have 3 projects of his planned for the immediate future.

In the midst of all this gift knitting I do have some socks on the needles for myself, but rarely work on them these days. The other stuff is just more pressing, therefore I don't think I'll make the end of the month deadline for these for the Sock of the Month KAL or Sockdown on Ravelry. Sigh. Priorities........and pressure. Ain't Christmas knitting grand?

Such Great Stories.....

Thanks for all the stories about your first knitting projects; I had a great time reading them. We've all come a long way since that awkward beginning, haven't we?

So I made use of the random number generator at knitting night last night (Thanks Lindsey and MaryAnne!) and the winning numbers were 8 and 22.

The winner of Knitting Rules is Opal!









The winner of the Vesper Aquamelon is Chelsea!





Congratulations, ladies (please email me your pertinent info, so I can get your loot in the mail.) And again, my thanks to all who entered the contest, and most especially to all my regular readers, commenters, and lurkers! Onward into our third year!

A Contest

It's that time of year again......the leaves are starting to change......the air temp is a cool 95 degrees (I kid you not!) .......and Loves to Bike and Knit is rapidly approaching its second birthday. So in honor of the occasion I figured there would be no better way to celebrate than to give away some loot.

I had thought about just asking you to leave a short comment and then let the random number generator pull a winner, but while I still want you to leave a little comment, I'd also like to learn a bit more about my readers (and lurkers). In order to achieve that goal I'd like you to leave a comment with a link to your first completed knit project and tell me a little about its current status. If you don't have a link to a photo, just tell me what the project was, when it was completed, for whom it was made, and in what state it now exists~~if at all. Then I'll use the number generator to pick the two winners. That's it! Easey-peasey!

I'll get the ball rolling with my first completed project. Must have been back in the summer/fall of '98. I, for whatever reason, don't even remember now, decided I wanted to learn to knit. I searched through the library and found EZ's Knitting Workshop and the rest is history. My first project was a sweater for Mr Fix-it using EZ's percentage recipe from KW. The photo is a bit frightening due to an ice storm that left us without power for a week. This was taken on Christmas Day~~two days into the ordeal~~no heat, no hot water, no Christmas dinner. The cold apparently even did in the film in my camera. The percentage recipe worked, but I didn't do a gauge swatch~~signs of things to come. The yarn was a lovely New Zealand wool that I paid an arm and a leg for at my former lys (long since closed). Because I didn't do a swatch my gauge was way off (hadn't yet learned that I am an extremely loose knitter, and that I can't pay any attention to the needle suggested on the ball band of a skein of yarn) the sweater grew and grew every time he wore it (all two times). After that it resided on the shelf in his closet~~I didn't even pull it out to wear~~that's how awful it was. Finally, after I picked knitting up again in '05, I frogged the whole sweater (ah yes, the advantage of knitting in the round) and was able to salvage almost all of the yarn. So this project's current state is all this great yarn~~rolled into lovely cakes. Some was used for a scarf for my brother back in '05, but I may have enough to make a raglan for The Terror.

There you have it. If I have the nerve to put my horrendous first project out there for all to see, so can you. C'mon, fess up! There are prizes.

Yep, knew that would get your attention! First up, a copy of Harlot's Knitting Rules; and second, a skein of Vesper Aquamelon because I want to share my love for this yarn with one of you guys! Hurry and get your comments in. Entries will be accepted until 11:59 pm et on October 14, 2007 (the day of my second blogiversary.)

And thanks for two great years!