Gathering HUGe supplies

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HUGe supplies, containing "software".

I'm excited. I want to tell you why. But it's a secret, for now. However I can tell you that it has something to do with the upcoming HUGe swap. I have never participated in a HUGe swap before. It was started by T in the Elann chat room. She groups participants into groups of 10. Each person makes 10 items for the swap and sends them to T. She gathers everything and places one of each item into boxes and sends them back to the participants. So you make 10 items for the swap, and you'll receive a box back with 10 items other people in your group made. If you didn't follow that, then it's best to wait for T's post about HUGe, she can explain it better. ;-)

The little bag you see above contains some of the supplies I think I will use to make the items for the swap. I can't show you the contents. Sorry, no peeking!!!

HUGe supplies, "hardware" in Teavana bag, "software" in Lupicia bag.

Lupicia is one of my favorite tea shops. I had one not far from our old house in San Francisco and I was so thrilled to discover that they also opened one in San Jose, which is closer to our new house. So I can easily stop by and pick up more tea. I love the setup of their store, very sniff-friendly, and the staff is always very helpful. I mentioned the type of bags I like to use for my WIPs in an earlier post. This particular bag above is a bit on the larger side for my typical WIP. The Teavana bag is more like the size I usually use for carrying my WIPs around. To give you a size reference, the water bottle is 500 ML / 16 oz.

Thanks Theresa for the project idea!

Oh BTW, my HUGe project has nothing to do with tea...

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Miss M likes to ride her tricycle around the neighborhood. Her latest thing is to look for houses with wind chimes. They're fascinating to her. There is a house nearby that has at least half a dozen out front, some by the front porch, some by the rose bushes. I wonder if they ward off crows, cuz I'd put them up if they did! Well, I'd think about it, but probably wouldn't. DH doesn't like wind chimes so it's not likely we'll ever have one. :-(

On these rides/walks around the neighborhood we often run into some of our our little neighbors. One day we were challenged to find a safe way to cross without crushing any of the 4 snails that were trying to cross. Here's one of them:

While passing the same house on another day, we saw only one snail:

Miss M thought it was neat to watch these guys. Brave fellows, they don't know what kind of danger they're in while crossing the sidewalk!

There was one day when we spied this little guy:

Yeah, I know. Not very exciting photos. Until I pick up some photography skills, I will just blame it on my camera. You've gotta check out Michele's neighborhood squirrel. I could never take such a beautiful shot of this dexterous fellow. Isn't he cute?

We often hear owls in our neighborhood. Whoo, whoo, whoo. In the daytime. I thought they were nocturnal. They're out there somewhere. I've never seen one.

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Can't walk and chew gum

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This pattern is kicking my butt. I'm trying to knit this Patchwork Textured Vest for my Mom. It is my very first attempt at knitting a shaped garment and it is proving to be more of a challenge than I ever imagined it would be. I chose this vest for two reasons. The main reason is that it met all of Mom's criteria. The second reason is because it looked like a relatively easy pattern to follow. I must be extremely dense because I cannot even finish this simple pattern.

I had finished the Back and Left Front sections of the vest a little while back. I started the Right Front section and set it aside for a while, but managed to pick it up again during my trip to Monterey. I was moving right along and thought I was ready to bind off. Then I noticed the little note on the side where I wrote "22 sts". Ok, I clearly had more than that on my needles. I had 42 stitches! Ok, what happened here?!

Right Front section

The photo above shows the Right Front section where I was ready to bind off. I hadn't really looked at the piece last night, but after laying it out to take this photo I can clearly see that it lacks the shaping it should have. It is so obvious when you compare it to the photo of the Left Front section. This piece is too rectangular. What went wrong?

Close up of stitches on last row

The photo above shows the last row before bind off. Yup, definitely more than 22 stitches.

I know I cast on 47 stitches when I started this Right Front section. I somehow only managed to decrease 5 stitches in the shaping section. I clearly could not follow instructions. I think I was too focused on following the 4-row repeat of the block patterns, and forgot I needed to do some sort of decrease every 2 or 4 rows. I also noticed that I didn't even do the "bind off 7" that begins the shaping section. Sigh...

If I had to guess, I'd say I just knit the first 24 rows of the shaping section without any decreases, and only applied the 5 decreases in the last 20 rows.

Lifeline added to a row below where shaping begins

I took a slightly smaller 4.0 mm (US6) needle to work a lifeline through a row below where the shaping section begins. You can read about lifelines on Knitty. I will rip back to this point and start the shaping section again. Hopefully my forehead will have healed (from banging my head against the desk) by the time I hit my next snag...

Any bets on when I will actually finish this vest?

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Carmel

This is just a continuation of my previous Monterey/Carmel post with a few more photos from my recent trip. I think Miss M really enjoyed the road trip because she asked where we were going next, as in our next little road trip or vacation. We'll have to see whether DH can take some time off again, perhaps around July 4th. I wonder if she would get bored if we went up north and stayed at Sea Ranch.

We had a nice little stroll along the main strip in Carmel, viz. Ocean Avenue. There are lots of cute little shops and restaurants in this area. It is the main tourist attraction here. I should have taken photos of the shops on the street so you can see it. I've come here so many times in the past that I don't even think about doing that.

We sometimes stop in at Flaherty's restaurant when we visit Carmel. Decent food at reasonable prices, and the Oyster Bar side of the restaurant is casual and kid friendly. But then, I'd also be perfectly happy getting pizza from Mountain Mike's Pizza further down Hwy 1 near Carmel Valley Rd, lol.

There is a mall at the corner of Ocean Ave and Junipero Ave which mostly contains the same sort of stores you would find in Any Mall, USA. There used to be a Saks Fifth Avenue many years ago, it is gone now. Sharper Image also closed some years back. I find the landscaping part of the appeal here. It's just a nice pretty place to sit down and have a cup of coffee or tea.

Miss M gets a kick out of anything fountain-like than spits out water. This one looks like a dog's head.

After walking around the shopping area, we headed down to the beach at the end of Ocean Ave. We drove down there and found parking. We didn't think Miss M would have made it back up the steep incline if we had walked down there. She loved the sand here.

Pacific Ocean

Looking North-West

Looking South-West

This sure beats the sand we had in San Francisco!

We thought the drive back home would be a breeze since the holiday weekend had past. There was still a bit of traffic, and then we slowed to a crawl on Hwy 17 behind the CHP who stopped to pick up something off the road. It looked like a sledge hammer to me. Who would put such a thing on the highway?

I did knit a little more of Mom's vest during this trip, but then I had another major disaster with it. I'll tell you about it next time...


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A surprise in the mail

There was a little box propped up against our front door when we came back from our Monterey trip. Not having the Amazon signature arrow on the side of the box, I knew it couldn't have been the iPod Touch DH had gotten me for my birthday. So I wondered, what could it be? Was there something I ordered recently that I forgot about? No, I don't think so. Hmmm...

We usually enter the house through the garage. So I walked around to the front to pick up the box and the return address said "Alana" on it. Oh! I know what it is! This is the prize from Alana's Blogoversary contest! What a pleasant surprise. With all the prep for our short road trip to Monterey, I had totally forgot about this.

Look what I found inside after opening the box:

She went through the effort of gift wrapping everything. Gosh, it feels like Christmas!

She even included a few extra goodies besides the book and yarn. Would you believe that this is my very first "real" knitting book? Yes, that's right. I don't own any real knitting books. I only have 8 stitch dictionaries. Thank you, Alana, for starting my knitting library!!! :-) I thought it was interesting that the round mirror should be in an octagonal frame. It made me think of those Chinese octagonal mirrors that people use to reflect or ward off evil. If you look closely, near the top of the yellow flower on the book, you will see 4 stitch markers. I probably should have put them on the pad of paper so they'd be easier to see. There's also a nice pad of paper which will go to good use, you can never have too many of those. The yarn is Classic Elite Provence, it's such a pretty blue. I've never used this yarn before, what shall I make with it?

Thank you again, Alana, for a great contest!

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Birthday Present

Look at my new toy! It's DH's (belated) birthday gift to me. I knew that it would need charging when I open it and was I thinking this would take several hours. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it took under an hour. It's not as if I actually measured how long it took.

So what did I get?

A box:

This is what I found when I opened this little black box. Here are all the contents, with the exception of the dollar bill which I threw into the photo for sizing purposes:

There are 2 white Apple stickers. I remember when they had multicolored striped stickers. I might still have some some where, in a box. There is also documentation & quick start guide, although not really necessary since it's pretty self-explanatory with the exception of two plastic pieces which I have not yet discovered their purpose. That would be the transparent square piece at the upper right (above the earbuds) and the white rectangular-ish piece at the lower left. Any ideas what these are? The black thing on the right side is a cleaning cloth. The white cable to the left of the iPod is the USB cable that connects between iPod and computer; the iPod charges while it is connected to your computer.

It's still shiny. No fingerprints yet. Now I'm thinking about knitting a "sock" for my iPod Touch. I'm thinking of cables on the front side. Why? Because cables make a thicker fabric. I figure that this would offer slightly more "padded" protection for the screen. I do have some sock yarn which has been sitting around for years. And it's purple! My favorite color!

So I sat down, pushed some wool around some needles and out popped this:

Pattern: Four-Rib Braid iPod Touch Sock (pseudo-pattern below)
Yarn: Sock It To Me 4 Ply
Needles: 2.75 mm (US2)

I've had a post-it flag on BW2 pg 177 for quite some time now because I liked the Four-Rib Braid pattern. I'm really surprised that Miss M hasn't yet pulled this sticky out. She usually pulls out any post-its I have protruding from my books. I've gotten into sticking them on the page, without them protruding, which usually works out better until she happens to see them when I'm flipping through a book. Anyhow this one survived and I was reminded of the pattern as I turned to it. It is a cable panel (what else would it be?) that seemed about the right width using sock weight yarn. So I decided to use this for my iPod Touch sock and converted the row-by-row intsructions for knitting in the round cuz there is no way I am going to do any seaming if I can avoid it. I am excessively lazy when it comes to that. Oh, if this cable pattern looks familiar, it's because I had also used it in my 3rd Cable Bag. :-)

I did cast on 40 stitches for my iPod Touch sock, but then reduced it to 39 after working the K2P2 ribbing. This really isn't necessary, I just wanted my sock to be a wee bit snugger. Now you're probably wondering how I divided my stitches onto 2 needles before grafting. I just put 19 stitches in front (I slipped 1 purl stitch from Needle 3 onto Needle 1 and slipped 1 purl stitch from Needle 2 to Needle 1, so that the 17-stitch cable pattern would be centered) and 20 stitches in the back. And while grafting, I worked 2 stitches from the back needle as one.

Even though I made my iPod Touch sock snug, I can still slip the earbuds (on the backside, cuz I don't want to scratch up the front screen) inside the sock when not in use.

I do love how the iPod Touch connections are all located at one side (viz. the bottom) as this allows me to keep the iPod Touch inside the sock while I have the USB cable or ear buds connected. It would have been trickier to create a sock for my older 4th generation iPod where the earbuds connected at the top and the USB cable connected at the bottom.

This is a simple no-frills sock with a simple cable pattern slapped onto the front side. I thought about shaping the end before grafting and then decided it wouldn't make much difference to me.




Here's an outline of how I made this iPod Touch sock:

Four-Rib Braid iPod Touch Sock
© Designed by S.M. Kahn, May 2008
Smariek Knits -=<>=- http://smariek.blogspot.com

YARN, NEEDLE & GAUGE:

Sock-It-To-Me Essential 4-Ply

2.75 mm (US2) Double Point Needles
(or other needles of your choice for knitting in the round)

My gauge was in the neighborhood of 7.5 stitches per inch. However you can cast on more or less stitches to make size adjustments to fit your MP3 player.

NOTES:

K = Knit

P = Purl

CB4 = Slip 2 stitches onto CN and hold in back. K2. Then K2 from CN.

CF4 = Slip 2 stitches onto CN and hold in front. K2. Then K2 from CN.

BPC = Slip 1 stitch onto CN and hold in back. K2. P1 from CN.

FPC = Slip 2 stitches onto CN and hold in front. P1. K2 from CN.

TB5 = Slip 3 stitches onto CN and hold in back. K2. Slip the purl stitch from CN back to left-hand needle and purl it. Then K2 from CN.

TF5 = Slip 3 stitches onto CN and hold in front. K2. Slip the purl stitch from CN back to left-hand needle and purl it. Then K2 from CN.

This is how I made my iPod Touch Sock which fits my iPod Touch whose dimensions are 21 cm long (4 3/8 in) and 14 cm around (5.5 in). You can cast on more stitches to make a larger sock (such as 44 sts or 48 sts so that the K2P2 ribbing still applies).


PATTERN INSTRUCTIONS:

Cast on 40 stitches, divide stitches onto three needles, and join into round.

Work K2, P2 ribbing for 8 rounds.

Begin cable pattern:

Round 1, 3, 9, 11: (P2, K2) twice, P1, (K2, P2) twice, knit to end of round
Round 2: P2, K2, P2, TB5, P2, K2, P2, knit to end of round
Round 4, 12: P2, FPC, BPC, P1, FPC, BPC, P2, knit to end of round
Round 5, 7, 13, 15: P3, (K4, P3) twice, knit to end of round
Round 6, 14: P3, CB4, P3, CF4, P3, knit to end of round
Round 8, 16: P2, BPc, FPC, P1, BPC, PPC, P2, knit to end of round
Round 10: P2, K2, P2, TF5, P2, K2, P2

Work Rounds 1 to 16 of cable pattern, three times total.
(Or work Rounds 1 to 16 until sock reaches desired length)

Divide stitches onto 2 needles and graft them (kitchener or 3-needle bind off).
Note: You should divide stitches onto front & back needles in such a way that the cable pattern will be centered before you graft.

Weave in ends.

Stitches used in this scarf include:
Knit-Two Purl-Two Ribbing, BW1 pg 39
Four-Rib Braid, BW2 pg 177
Stockinette Stitch, BW1 pg 10


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