Get Your Mammograms!

Here I am back at the computer! I feel pretty good outside of a little soreness. Yup - I had to have a small lump removed. I had my yearly mammogram and here I am on the other side three weeks later. It was a very small lump and has not gone anywhere else, so I can look forward to many more projects! It's very surreal - I felt fine before and I feel just fine now - it's really brought home how important those yearly scans are. So if you need to make your appointment - PICK UP THE PHONE RIGHT NOW!

I'm catching up on all the podcasts that are cluttering up my daughter's IPOD ;-) and I have lots of time to knit!

My striped socks are coming along just fine. I finished the first one and have cast on for the second. It's perfect TV knitting - plain knitting round and round. The first one feels yummy on, so I have some real incentive to complete number 2!




I received an email from a former aupair who lives in Sweden. She is pregnant, so of course I had to cast on for a small jacket. I'm doing the Debbie Bliss pattern from the new Vogue. I'm using some nondescript washable yarn but adding a strand of cream Kidsilk Haze for a little elegance. I think I'm going to be using this trick quite a lot!

And I'm still working on the Jaywalker socks. This is usually my work project, but I brought it home for this three week duration. Heaven forbid someone should take this from my drawer! I'm not quite sure what a "muggle" would make of this!


I had some fun last Thursday morning - I had surgery on Wednesday, so was just sitting back watching the Today show when lo and behold, the camera scanned Guido and a woman holding a Harlot sign! The knitters made it to the Today show in force! I yelled at my husband to come take a look - he could not believe it! He just walked away shaking his head in disbelief - there's no stopping us now!

Thanks to the Rowing Cat for filling in for me! And thanks to all for your thoughts and good wishes! The weather is supposed to be dramatically improving this week, so I'm going to try to get some nice Saratoga pictures to post!

She's back!

Hey there, this is rowingcat! You may be wondering why my mother gave me the duty to blog today(or not...) Well, she's back from the hospital and doing fine! Chewing on ice and being watched over by my happy new cat, Tiggy, she is making a slow start to recovery. Hopefully she'll be back to blogging standards soon and get back to the needles!!
I like this picture!!!

What's This??

There have been lots of happenings here at the home of Saratoga Knitting. Our little Shadow got very sick over the weekend. After a trip to the vet which showed a very large tumor/bowel obstruction, we made the decision to have her put to sleep. But now we introduce Tiggy! She is a beautiful tiger cat with yellow eyes. She is 8 years old so she is pretty mellow. I'm sure she'll be running the household very soon!

In addition, I found out last week that I have to undergo major surgery this week. So I might be out of blogging commission for a short while. On the other hand, I have to take 3 weeks off from work, so perhaps I'll be blogging every day! I'll certainly be knitting as much as I can inbetween popping pain pills!

Here is the hat finally completed! It turned out great! It is a little big, so this afternoon I'm going to try some gentle hand felting. When it's exactly right, I just have to sew in the insulating lining and it will be good to go. It was really a fun project!


Here's a little something I threw on the needles this week. I have some HipKnits grey yarn that I used to make my Secret Pal a scarf. And since I have lots of grey and black left over from the hat . . . I thought I would try stripes since I have only remnants of single balls. I think there will be enough for two socks! I'm also combining the yarn with a strand of grey Kidsilk Haze, so they are very soft and elegant!

And here is the progress made by the Rowing Cat on her messenger bag! It is coming along nicely. She even had to bind off and pick up stitches and was able to do it completely on her own! What a kid!
So wish me luck this week and I'll be back as soon as I can!

Moving Right Along

Here's a shot of our kitty Shadow being cute under a pile of coats. I think the way the lights hits her eyes is really interesting. And of course, the pile of coats on the chair says nothing about the habits of my family members (closet? we have a closet?) ;-)

It's coming right along. I really think I'm going to revisit colorwork in the near future. It's very relaxing - easy enough to do watching television but still interesting because of having to count the stitches and watch the pattern. It will soon be at the point to try on - I may have to do one or two less pattern stripes - my gauge is a little larger than the original. He won't mind though.

And here is a view of the inside with the floats. I even like the pattern it makes on the wrong side!


I've run into a slight problem with my EZ sweater. I've started the yoke shaping decreases and the texture has changed. It looks thinner somehow - as if you'll be able to see through the sweater. I talked this over with a knitting friend and she suggested adding some additional yarn to create another texture. So I'm thinking about that this week. I'll post some pictures this weekend and see what you think!

We're all thinking WARM here where it's below zero again this morning!

And check out the Pointy Sticks podcast if you have a chance - Christine and Staci have another great conversation!

Progress and a Bag!

I am making progress! Now, I have to admit to a slight setback this week. And I did not take a picture of it. I made it all the way to where the pattern begins and the colorwork was going along just fine. Then I discovered that I HAD TWISTED THE STITCHES WHEN JOINING!!! How embarrasing. It's one of the first rules of knitting. And I just knit blithely along never thinking that I could do such a thing . . . So, I had to rip it out . . . I did not let my husband know this though - a knitter has to have some scruples ;-) I just started again and checked the join about a thousand times!

I'm doing the color work using the slip stitch method. I knit the stitches with the first color and slip the stitches destined for the second color. Then I knit the round again reversing the process. I find this works the best for me. I'm only working with one color at a time and the floats seem to be very even - none of the dreaded puckering. I just joined the hem last night, so the first floats are currently hidden. I'll post a picture of the inside after I get a few more rows knit. This is actually turning out to be a fun project. It's forced me back to some colorwork. I think I'd like to do some more of this!


Hey - I just realized that my ring matches the hat!

And I received a wonderful package from my International Tote Exchange Pal AmySue! She did a tremendous job on my bag - the Rowing Cat seems to keep trying to secret it away into her room - I'm going to have to watch her! AmySue also sent a beautiful ball of sock wool - again, not in the picture due to the sticky fingers of my daughter . . . and 2 balls of beautiful roving! When will my wheel ever arrive????


Notice the chocolate is almost half gone???


The house smells wonderful today - I'm making some tomato sauce and I just took a loaf of Faith's bread out of the oven! Heaven!