two cowls done!

I finished these two Canyon Cowls today for a friend of mine, who requested them for her granddaughters. I love the way these turned out - they're mostly stockinette stitch with a bit of crochet detail around the edge and where the buttons are.

Thankfully she requested them early enough - they're not due until November for their birthdays, but it gave me plenty of time to get these done. With a toddler in the house, I'm limited to when I can knit; plus, I would've gotten them done much earlier if I hadn't been sick all weekend.

Now... off to finish all those WIP's I've got hiding around the house...

send in the clowns...

A few years ago, DH and I started the adoption process through public adoption. We've taken in a handful of foster kids via foster relief (essentially, taking care of foster kids while foster parents were on vacation, so we had kids for a few days to a couple weeks at a time) in the meantime. Thankfully, though, after about 4 years of waiting, we took in a little boy last October. He was about a year old when he came to us, still as a foster child. He did become a crown ward back in January, but the birth family is appealing the decision, so we're still waiting for all that to finish (still) before we can start signing the adoption papers - which we hope to start this month.

He's an absolute joy to be around, and we're so happy to have him! The waiting to sign the papers, though, is tedious, but it'll start soon enough, so there's hope. 

That being said, I of course have been doing a fair amount of knitting for him. I've knit him a toy for a gift for last xmas, and a cabled cotton vest for spring/summer wear. I've started, yesterday, to knit Mr Fortywinks - a Jean Greenhowe pattern that I've had in my collection for a little while. I just have the legs started:

 My MiL found a few booklets of Jean Greenhowe toy patterns, which I've been meaning to start ages ago, but I've now gt a good excuse to start one. It should be a fairly big snuggley clown - and it'll eat up a lot of this Bernat Satin yarn that I've got stored in a big bag.

toe up socks for the guys...

Dad's socks, knit in Paton's Kroy FX
 in Camo Colours

I just realized that I haven't blogged in a long while, so I'm going to make a point to blog a bit more this month.

Just a knitting update: I'm in love with knitting toe up socks. I know this pattern may be a little vanilla for some people's tastes, but vanilla works for me. I still don't get the logic behind knitting lacey socks, but give me a good skein of self stripping yarn, and this pattern looks awesome.

Both pairs of socks I have here, I finished last month. My dad's socks were for his birthday (yesterday) and DH's socks were made just for fun. Honestly, I wasn't planning on making DH any socks, but when he saw my dad's completed pair, he changed his mind and wanted some!

DH's socks, knit in Paton's Kroy Stripes
in Country Jaquard

(Not a problem!) 

Both were an easy knit - and my dad's I finished in record time, 9 days! It really helps knitting both socks at the same time, I've never been able to knit a pair of anything separately. Sleeves, mittens, socks - all done both at the same time. 

The only tweek I made to the toe up pattern, as you may be able to tell from these two pairs, is I added a little bit of ribbing to where the arch of the food would be, to make the sock more of a snug fit.

I've already cast on a pair for my FiL, his birthday is in June so they'll be gifted then. The yarn I'm using is similar to what I've used for DH's socks, but in a different colour. Pictures to come soon!

halloween sheep cookies!

I made these sugar cookies last week - not until today did I get around to blogging about them. The icing on them is my first attempt at making homemade cookie icing, so all things concidered, they turned out pretty awesome!

In case it's hard to tell: the top 3 are just regular sheep with bloody bites missing, the two black ones are bloodthirsty sheep (there's blood coming from their mouths!), a jack o lantern sheep, a candy corn sheep, and the three on the right are zombie sheep! :D

The bites were simply made using the scalloped edges of the sheep cutter, and I bought the candy eyes from Bulk Barn.

useless

I'm all for knitting and crocheting both fun and/or functional items. Not all knitting needs to be functional, it can be weird or cute or silly.

But then, there's just madness.

Cozies for your fruit serve no purpose. Apples and bananas do not need a sweater.

A cozie for beer or coffee cups can be, in certain circles, a bit of a stretch. Beer bottle cozies help keep beer cooler longer, and don't get your hands cold. One might argue that the purpose of an ecological, reusable coffee cup cozie seems pointless when getting coffee in a paper cup that you're going to throw out anyway - but they can be cute nonetheless, and they do serve a purpose.

Apple cozies serve no actual, functional purpose. Unless, of course, your goal is to have your coworkers stare at you in the lunch room, wondering why your apple is wearing a sweater. Or, maybe, you've got a partial skein of yarn that's just burning a hole in your craft room and there is absolutely nothing else in the universe that is left for you to make a cozie for. Or, maybe, pharmaceuticals are involved, and while on them you become convinced that your apple is freezing and needs a sweater. Or, maybe, you're trying to be an etsy hipster and you've already got pictures of you posing with that Sharpie marker mustache you drew on your finger, and making an apple cozie is the next logical step in things to make and display online.

I'm usually the last one to comment on the utter uselessness or tackiness of something. Nevertheless, comment has been made. I've yet to be convinced of their purpose, and can guarantee that this will never be something that I'll make.

free patterns vs paid-for patterns

I've been debating for a while now, whether or not to write a post about this, since this is something that has affected not only myself, but several other designers out in the knitting and crochet community.

I've got quite a few patterns available for free, as you can see... but these are all for small projects (1 skein or less) - I haven't posted them for sale largely because I personally only would want to post larger patterns for sale, for items like shawls or sweaters. This perspective will vary from one designer to the next. The knitting community has, for the most part, greatly & graciously appreciated the quantity of free patterns out there, and whenever possible, supported designers who chose to charge for their patterns.

Designers should never have to feel guilty for charging for a pattern. Most people - whether they knit or not - can appreciate the quantity of work that goes into knitting a garment. There's as much work that goes into writing out that design, and making sure that it's as accurate as possible.

Now, it will happen, on occasion, that there'll be a pattern that will come up for sale online or in a book or magazine, and there'll be free patterns that are very similar to it that will pop up. Assuming that the authors of the free patterns aren't purposely and deviously trying to make a sale pattern available for free, but rather these free patterns are merely coincidentally similar, then whoever decides to make the pattern that's for sale shouldn't feel any sort of guilt from having to buy the pattern, despite the availability of the free similar ones.

In my case, what happened a couple years ago, was I designed a sweater similar to the one worn in the movie The Big Lebowski. My brother was a huge fan of the movie, he loved the sweater, he wanted one, and he had requested one from me. At the time, there were no patterns available. So, I had to somehow improvise one. I did, and as I knit mine, I wrote out my pattern the best that I could. I had never written a sweater pattern before, but I had already knit several sweaters, so I had a fairly good idea of how to go about creating one.

My brother's sweater was gifted in September, for his birthday. The pattern became available for sale soon afterwards in the etsy shop I had at the time. As it turns out, exactly a week after I had mine up for sale and linked to ravelry, another designer had come out with her own version of the Lebowski sweater, and had decided to share it for free.

I have to admit, at the time I prided myself in finally coming out with a sweater pattern that seemed to be in such high demand; people had been posting online for years, desperately wanting a Lebowski sweater pattern. And it did bother me a bit that someone else not only came out with a pattern pretty much exactly at the same time I did, but I felt a little undermined that it was available for free. But, our patterns were different enough, and at the end of the day, it was really coincidence that we both had a Lebowski sweater pattern that came out at the same time, so I really couldn't fault anyone for that.

The problem came, though, soon afterwards. And it largely came because there was a free pattern out there, which inevidably conflicts with a pattern for sale.

I had sold a few of my patterns, and as far as I knew, everything was fine. A year had passed, I had quite a few people buy my pattern and knit it, and I had received quite a few emails of people who had finished my design and they all seemed to turn out rather well. The issue, rather, came about on ravelry - I had a couple people buy my pattern, and within a couple months, wrote very mean messeges to me about how they believed I was trying to rip them off, SIMPLY BY HAVING A PATTERN FOR SALE when there was another one out there for free.

In my defense, I told them, that my pattern and the free one had come out within a week of each other, and a basic pattern search on ravelry would show both of these patterns. They chose to buy my pattern, I couldn't be held responsible for that.

It was only AFTER that, that I was told that my pattern was apperently riddled with mistakes, although those mistakes were noted absolutely nowhere. The couple who had complained about my pattern said they would ONLY let me know what these mistakes were on the condition that I paid them for it - which is unheard of, at least as far as I was concerned.

Sidenote: I've frequently come across mistakes in patterns, in both ones I've bought AND ones I've used for free. In EVERY case, I have not only contacted the designer with the mistakes I've found, but I've also made note of them in my notes on ravelry. If for nothing else, that there is SOME mention of erratta SOMEWHERE, and there's a chance that the next person who knits said design MIGHT come across my notes and can make the necessary adjustments. So far, in all of my years at least on ravelry, this has been what other knitters have also done with the patterns they've made. I've even posted, out of curiosity, in ravelry's forums, if a designer should pay their paying customers for pattern corrections, to which I've got an astounding 'no'.

Back on topic: I came to the conclusion that what these couple buyers had was buyer's remorse. I get it, it sucks to have to pay for something when you later discover you could've gotten something very similar for free. This was something that was reiterated a few times to me by these few people: I owed them because they believed I cheated them out of something. I even had one person wanting me to pay her back for the yarn she bought, because she used the colours I did in my original design, rather than using the origincal colours from the Lebowski sweater. Huh?!? And another knitter who, even though she bought the right yarn, knit much too tight and would up with a tighter tension (and therefore, a smaller sweater) so, according to her, I owed her for that as well.

Eesh... one has really nothing to do with another.

I want to note, only because I've been asked and this has been commented on, that I've absolutely not had a problem with the other (free) pattern, nor an issue with its designer. She's a wonderful designer and we've had a good chat about our sweater patterns when they were first released in the ravelry communtiy. The issues solely lied with the few knitters who have a) bought the pattern, and b) commented on their own issues of these seemingly conflicting designs.

On a personal note, it has hurt me quite a bit when my pattern came out that I was given as much grief as I had, simply because I decided to charge for my design, and I apparently had a very selfish audacity to offer a pattern for sale when was out there for free. I took it very personally then, and it still bothers me a bit to this day, to be attacked in such a way not only privately, but also blatently and publicly, online, simply for having a pattern for sale. I didn't steal the design, and yet I felt like I was being crucified simply for having a pattern for sale.

It had been, after a year of being available, taken down. I had completely removed it and was since very much discouraged for even considering sharing another pattern (for free OR for sale) because of those couple incidents.

I have, though, a number of times since, been asked to at the very least share my intarsia charts for the Lebowski sweater pattern I made, and I stood on the fence of whether or not I wanted to even share them privately, because of all that had gone on. So, I simply declined.

Now, 3 years to the month later, and after several more requests for at least the charts (and a few requests for my version of the pattern as well) I decided to post it up as only a ravelry download here - charts and all. I'm posting with a great amount of hesitation, but hopeful that maybe even part of my pattern is helpful to anyone who wants to knit a sweater, and that there's an effort for positive construction to move forward.

short post

Short post today: I know I missed posting for the last couple mondays, I just didn't have anything to write.

Progress on diet: I finally got past the 25lb mark - I've lost 25.2 lbs so far, despite a couple glitches. Better late than never.

Summer top progress: I'm making progress. I'm knitting this top-up, so I finished the torso and part of the sleeves, I've just joined everything and am finishing the yoke part of the top. Trying to figure out how I'm going to decrease everything to finish off the collar so it doesn't look half-assed. More on that later.

DH and I are doing a little relief work, taking in a foster child toddler for the next 10 days or so, so I may not be posting next monday. But I'll definately post the week after. Maybe I'll get around to downloading whatever I need to download for blogger so I can finally post pictures!

epic knitting fail

I'm still having trouble uploading pictures into my blog, and downloading the new blog format, so bear with me. I'll be including links to ravelry for my project.

The top that I bought way back in March, that I started nearly 3 months ago, was completed last night and it was an epic fail. For a number of reasons. I believe, truly, that it had more to do with the pattern than my knitting, but I'm not going to blame it entirely on the design. I'll comfortably divide the blame 80/20, the latter being my eye and knitting.

Ravelry link to my project: Vintage Love Summer Top

The top is knit top-down, and I think the designer's thinking is that you can make adjustments as needes while you work. Which means, especially if you're making the plus sizes (which I did) one would have to remove it from the needles, thread a yarn thru live stitches, try it on carefully, thread it back on to the circular needles, and keep on going. Very difficult and tedious and very easy to drop stitches.

As I was making this design, I noticed in the beginning there was one problem after another with the pattern itself. I was one of the first to buy the pattern when it came up for sale, and I couldn't work past either the extremely weird wording or the mistakes, and it took sometimes 2 weeks to get a reply from the designer. So, just to get through the top down to below the bust (sans sleeves) this all took at least 4 contacts to the designer to try to figure out the problem, and nearly 2 months. That was painfully annoying. In that time I could've completed the top entirely.

I also thought, as I was making it, that the arm holes seemed enourmous. But I thought, well, there's a lot of shaping that happens in arm holes, and that reflects in the sleeves. Had I been skilled enough to design my own arm holes and sleeves, I really wouldn't need to buy a pattern in the first place. This is where I lack as a designer, so I depend entirely on pattern instructions. Despite my skepticism, and a few unreplied messeges to the designer, I went ahead and finished the design anyway. There is an extra 10" of space from my armpit to the bottom of the sleeve hole. That is HUGE!

This means, if I were to wear this out in public, I'd have to do so without lifting my elbows, or I run the risk of a wardrobe malfunction, and trust me, no one wants to see that.

There is a lot of this pattern that I dislike, and it partially has to do with how it fits on me. It largely, though, has to do with the structure of the pattern. There is no diagram showing what the final measurements and proportions of each part of the top should be, as sweater patterns should have.

Anyway, at the end of the day, and this is also on more of a personal note, the attitude of the designer also turned me off quite a bit. No matter what I asked, despite my best efforts in trying to be polite in all my frustrations, the designer consistantly insisted that what I was doing was wrong, and there's no flaws with the pattern. The pattern support is awful, and the designer proved to be rather difficult to work with. Bad customer service does add insult to injury in this case. This whole endevour has turned me off entirely of retrying this project or any of her other designs.  

This project will be frogged, and in the 7 weeks remaining before my brother's wedding, I'll be making extra effort to reknit my blue top and hopefully find time to knit a black one as well to wear.

and... more progress!

Well, I'm now officially up to 23 lbs lost, which is awesome. And to be honest, I haven't really been tracking points as intently as I normally do, since there's been a lot of eating out. It's interesting how I can more or less guess what a quantity of something is just by eyeballing it, and it's obvious that I can't be too far off because I'm losing weight.

My big issue with weight is not so much that I don't eat healthy - because I generally do. My issue is with snacking. It's rare that I have take-out or pop in the house, we don't really eat chips that often. It's really just portions and snacking that throws me through a loop. I've also found myself making the same meals over and over again - meat with a side of rice every day for dinner. Which, in itself is healty, but it can be a lot. I know I've frequently had 2 pork chops instead of one. A cup of peas is half the points of a cup of rice, and a 1 point salad is not that hard to put together - which would be a quarter of the points of the rice again.

Or, a small glass of juice instead of a tall glass. Sweetener in my coffee instead of sugar, or milk instead of cream. A slice of cheese instead of an inch-thick cut of it. Weird little things like that will cut down the number of points (& calories and fat!) I consume.

Plus I've found myself eating things I don't normally eat. I'm eating a lot more fruit and veg for snacks instead of granola bars, even though the granola bars are quite healthy. Or cottage cheese makes great snacks too.

Small things do make a big difference!

lagging...

I just realized I forgot to blog last monday, as I usually do.

Well, fwiw, I passed the 20lb mark, I weighed myself monday and discovered I lost a total of 20.6lbs. There's still a ways to go, but it's really a good start.

I've also been slacking off a bit, I'm trying to figure out how to load Google Chrome... because blogger's not allowing me to post links or pictures without the update. I've a bunch of projects I've finished recently that I haven't been able to post because of this, but hopefully this is something I can tackle soon, so I can share my knitting and crochet projects!

Off topic: a weird yarn thing happened this past week. I discovered that Patons Shetland Chunky used to come in a different sized skein. I came about discovering this when I went thru ravelry, and bought someone's stash 2 weeks ago, and it arrived yesterday. I thought I was buying 7 skeins of 100 grams and 148 yards, but what I infact wound up with was 7 skeins at 50 grams each and 73 yards. Drastic difference, and this was something that was not shared before I purchased it.

In itself, it's not a big deal if what I intended to knit with it is hats and scarves and mittens, because it really wouldn't make a difference. What I wanted to make, though, with it, is a sweater for DH. Which requires 7 100 gram skeins. It's one of those colours that I can't just go to Michael's and buy the balance of what I need, because if I could, I would.

I did contact the person I bought it from, and she's adament that the old yardage was infact listed in ravelry when she sold it to me, and I insist that it wasn't, so it seems that we're both in a position where we each think we're right and the other person's wrong, so what can I do. This wasn't an issue of how much I spent on the yarn, because truthfully I did get a good deal on it, but more of an issue of expecting something and getting something entirely different and being stuck with it.

Without asking for a refund, I did get one though, with the condition from her end that the yarn would be used charitably, so that's what I'm going to do. If I can find a charity that can use this yarn, it'll go there, otherwise I'll gladly knit it into some garments and donate it to a charity that's looking for some warm clothes. So, in the end there's something proactive that comes out of this.

diet win!

Well, I set a new record: I lost 4.5lbs this week! I've no idea how... It was my birthday a few days ago, so I didn't really count points then, and the weekend before last (as I've blogged) I was at my SiL's shower and did a bit of birthday stuff then too... there was, in essence, only 4 days in the last 7 where I really counted my points. But I guess I can brush a lot of that to whatever surplus "water weight" I gained since the last time I weighed myself.

So, to date: 19.6 lbs lost. Awesome!

diet fail, and weirdness with the inlaws

I have to admit, the diet thing went out the window a bit this past week, again. Weekdays it's not a problem to follow it, but the weekend gets tricky. On Saturday was my DB's fiancee's first wedding shower, and I tried to eat as little as possible. This weekend we also celebrated my birthday, since it's coming up in a few days - so we celebrated it twice: Saturday night after the shower, at DB's place, and then again Sunday evening with the inlaws.

So, despite counting my points during the week and trying to bank a few here and there, I gained about 2.5lbs. :( But it's ok, I've got this week to undo some of the damage done from the last two weeks.

... I've also been debating whether or not to blog about this, I really try not to vent in my blog, but sometimes I just can't help it.

There's this game that we play with my inlaws, the rare times that DH and I host dinner. It's called Let's Not Try Anything That Sabrina Makes, Because No Matter What It Is, We're Going To Think It's Awful. It's an easy game to play: whatever food I prepare, regardless of how plain-jane it is, we just don't eat it. We don't even try it. The real challenge is coming up with a new excuse as to why we won't eat it. Like if dinner's at 7pm, we claim we're still full from the meal we ate 9 hours ago. Granted, I'll admit that what I grew up eating from my own family is different than what the inlaws are used to eating - I come from a southern European family, where as they're Irish, so they're used to meat and potatoes whereas I'm used to garlicy foods, cheesey things, stuff drizzled in olive oil, etc. Think anything Italian or southern French or Mediterranean, really.

There was once where I had them over for DH's birthday. I actually had the nerve of making homemade burgers and homemade cupcakes for dinner. And, mind you, cupcakes from an instant mix, not even really from scratch. We still insisted on not eating what was served but rather raid the fridge to eat from there instead. Am I the only one who thinks that's insanely rude?!? But I bite my tongue, because these are my inlaws.

So this time, the only thing I made were some hors d'oevres. Chips, store bought dip, store bought antipesto stuff, and the only thing I really made was bocchini cheese wrapped in proscuitto drizzled with a little olive oil. What's great about bocchini is that it really doesn't have a flavour at all, and proscuitto (I used the smoked kind) tastes like bacon. Well, we were picky about that. Thank goodness that the bbq was prepackaged stuff from the grocery store and the cake was not homemade, otherwise half of our guests wouldn't've eaten it.

Sometimes it feels like I can't win for trying.

Happy Long Weekend!

Today's Victoria Day in Canada, so DH has the day off work. This weekend we had a lot going on - DB & SiL moved in to their new place, they got their keys last Friday, and had just a short move from Markham to Stouffville. DH & I helped out on Friday, slept over and helped out some more on Saturday with painting and around-the-house repairs.

We also went grocery shopping yesterday, and I finally saw the tomato plants out for sale! So, I bought a bunch - and by a bunch, I mean probably around 20+ plants. My bad: I didn't realize that some of the containers had 5 plants in them. Nevertheless, we should be having a gazillion tomatoes this summer! Plus, this is my first time attempting to grow cucumbers, so that should be fun!

The only downside with helping with the move on Friday/Saturday is we wound up eating a lot of fast food. I was sort of hoping that with all the work we were doing, it'd balance out, but no dice. I did gain 1.6 or so lbs. :( Although I did stick to my minimum points yesterday, so that (I think) may have counterbalanced some of the damage I did.

Today is a start of a new week though, so with any luck I'll break the 20lbs-lost mark next monday!

way more progress! :)

Dietwise, I had a very good week this past week! I'm down another 3lbs, which brings my total weight lost to 19.2 lbs!

I was a bit worried, because again last week I went out to eat. Restaurant eating always weirds me out, since I really can't accurately measure what I'm eating to really measure my points, and the particular restaurant I went to didn't have the nutritional info posted online so I could figure it out when I got home. :(

So, that makes a total of 3 out of the last 4 weeks where I've lost 3 lbs a week, which I know is higher than usual - average weight lost in a week on a diet should be 1 to 2 pounds. I am sticking within my points, and using up some of my banked points once in a while. I must admit, though, I'm greatful that my points range is in the 30 points range at this point, because I am finding that I am using them. I guess that's one of the lessons you learn with Weight Watchers, you slowly decrease down, and learn to substitute healthier portions and more low-point foods into your diet.

At this rate, though, I should hit my next goal of 25 lbs lost in no time!

falling a little out of love ...

Well, this is my vintage love summer top so far. I've got the torso of it about 2/3's or 3/4's done, and the sleeves each about half done.

Quite frankly, I'm a little annoyed with this whole top - I've started this back in March, and was hoping to make both a blue one and a black one to wear at my brother's wedding in August.

My first issue is with the yarn - I ordered a bunch of Knit Picks Cotlin yarn, and it's already starting to pill on me. :(

Secondly, the actual structure of the pattern is so weirdly written that parts of it was difficult to decode and follow. I'm a bit torn in complaining about a pattern too much, because I know how much work goes in to designing and writing one out, plus I can see on ravelry that this has been test knit a few times. But, on the other hand, despite this being test knit, and the designer claiming to have been published in magazines, I've found mistakes that hadn't been corrected - small ones, mind you, but still - and there are glaring parts of the pattern that are very hard to understand because it's so awkwardly written, and am surprised that none of the test knitters had pointed these out to correct it.

Because of those confusing, weirdly written parts, I've had to put knitting the top on hold for as much as 2 weeks at a time to get replies from the designer to help me understand what I'm knitting. I must admit, that the designer has made an effort to help, but there were times that even the math in her helping was wrong, and it took a lot of back-and-forth to even decode some of what she explained. But she was nonetheless helpful.

I can honestly say that despite my intention of knitting 2 of this top (and I have bought the yarn with the intention of knitting this twice) I'm absolutely not going to bother making it again. I think, if I do ever get around to finishing this top - and at this point, I guess I may as well - the black yarn I bought will be used towards a different top. I'm not sure if it'll get done before the wedding, but I'll try. I think, had I not paid for the pattern or had the yarn start pilling on me mid-knitting, then I would've frogged the whole thing and started over with a completely different design.

Overall I do think it'll turn out alright, I'm just not in love with this pattern any more. But it will make a unique enough top to wear this summer, for sure.

itty bitty bit of progress

I only lost 0.8lb this past week... almost a whole pound, but not quite there. Which is still a loss, nonetheless, so I'm ok with that. :)

The top I'm knitting for my brother's wedding this summer is making a small amount of progress, mainly because (despite my best efforts) I find the pattern to be confusing. There are fragments of the pattern that are just so weirdly worded that I've wound up frogging and reknitting parts of it at least twice. It has often been put on hold also because I had to wait for a reply for help from the designer. Now that I think I've got it figured out enough to finish it, I'm hoping to post progress pictures with my next post!

50% of xmas knitting done!

Well, I got half of my xmas knitting done! I got a bunch of Lion Brand Amazing yarn a few months ago for 99 cents a ball (Isn't that great?! It's normally $9.99 each!) so I used part of it to make these scarves for the inlaws. The thinking is, all I have to do now is make scarves for my brother, SiL, parents and grandmother.

The colours I used (in order, left to right) are Olympia, Aurura, Olympia again, Rainforest and Vineland. They're each just ribbed scarves - either in a K1, P1 rib, or K2, P2 rib, or in the case of the two mobius scarves, a k3, p3 rib. Very easy, and I knit until the entire skein was used up.

another step closer... & finished socks!

I'm down another 3lbs this week - which tallys me up to approx 15.4 lbs lost since I started! (yay!)

I also finished these socks - knit from the toe up. I found two skeins of Patons Kroy Stripes in matching colourway, and knit almost an entire skein for each. Now I've got a pair of nice warm socks ready for Halloween!

yay!

I know that typically, on a diet one should comfortably lose 1-2lbs. That should be healthy and typical. But this past week, even though I followed my points - and even hit the max # of points on most days and went to the movies last tuesday & went a little crazy with movie snacks - I lost 3.4 lbs this week!!! So, after a total of 5 weeks dieting so far, I'm up to 12.4lbs lost! Awesome!

So, I've surpassed my initial immediate goal of losing 10 pounds. That is not only awesome, but encouraging. I'm in a new lower points range as of today, and my new goal is to get up to 25lbs lost, which shouldn't be a problem because I'm practically half way there!

knitting history

I love knitting geekery. Especially anything to do with history. This article details a bit of history on Latvian mittens.

I've admired Latvian mittens for a while now, I've been meaning to work up the courage to knit at least one pair for myself... the colour & pattern work on these are amazing - if only I can get past all the fair isle that needs to be done! But they do look fantastic nonetheless.

One day... hopefully this winter!