I Love Spring Break

My hubby and I went to Myrtle Beach this week for Spring Break, which has been a much needed rest for the two of us. My brother, CP, and his wife, LP, live nearby in McClellanville, which is about an hour or so south of MB, so we were able to visit them earlier in the week. This was the first time that DH and I have visited them on their own turf, so it was quite a treat. L's parents also live here and we also took some time to see her dad's new fishing boat and truck he bought. I'm telling you, both were something else. We got to go for a ride around the block in the truck. Let me just say that every guy that we passed who was driving a big truck did a double-take. L's dad says that he gets a lot of attention when he drives it around. I'm not surprised. Both vehicles are former military - the truck from the army (there was a receipt in the glovebox from Kuwait) and the boat from the navy (I think).



He's working on fixing the boat up to take it deep sea fishing. I hope that we get to go when he's finished!

McClellanville is this cute little fishing village but the bugs will almost literally carry you away. It's located right on the marshes and shrimping is huge there. But, as we were driving around we saw this just awesome, picturesque little church and we had to stop. They keep the doors open so we got to peek in and look around.



I mean, really, with the Spanish moss and all hanging around, it looked like something out of a movie. Absolutely beautiful. I'd post more pics, but I'm afraid I don't have the bandwidth.

Anyway, we stayed on the 12th floor of this pretty nice hotel with a great view:




It's been so nice to open the door while we're eating or just resting from a day out and hear the ocean.

One thing that I wanted to do while I was here was (obviously) get some knitting in. My original plan was to work on the sleeves of my CPH. I'm not sure why, but I've gotten in a bit of a lull working on it. I'm sure that the warm weather has probably been the main cause for this. Anyway, here's where I am at the moment. Not too impressive, huh?



I did, however, still have the knitting bug, so I decided to make some type of Clemson something, since I haven't ever actually made anything strictly with Clemson colors. I needed something mindless to do in the car so, I started another Ballband dishcloth.



I'm really liking the way it's turning out. I mean, how could it not, right?? Clemson, ballband, Cotton Ease... BTW, I LOVE Cotton Ease for dishcloths. If you haven't tried it yet... well, you really should. Nice and soft and drapey. Great absorbency and it doesn't fade as much as, say PNC or SNC (although I love the stripes and varigated yarns in each of these brands... just got a box of way too much PNC last week, as an aside. Man I spend way too much on yarn. My stash is getting out of control. Maybe more on that later...)

After a while, I began to get bored of the dishcloth and, because I feel like I must bring enough yarn for 20 projects when I go on trips, I decided to cast on some socks with some awesome yarn that I brought that I had been wanting to knit up. It is Zitron Lifestyle and it is really smooshy and stretchy. And I LOVE the colors! Also, I had been wanting to try my hand at toe up socks, so here's my attempt on two circulars. I’m using the tutorial from Silver’s sock class for the “One Toe-Up Socks on Two Circular Needles” at http://www.cometosilver.com/socks/2circsocks_start.htm.





I'm really thinking that this yarn is magical because the stitches look so fabulously even and consistent. Such yummy yarn.

Of course, while we've been here, I've tricked my DH to help me find a couple of LYS while we've been here. The first one that we visited was Knitting Up A Storm up in North Myrtle Beach. Really nice store with lots of different types of yarns available. She has a section of older magazines that she sells for $2.00 off the cover price - nice considering there were a couple that I had been wanting and was able to find! I saw a couple of KnitScenes that have the CPH pattern, so if you're wanting one of these, she's got them! And, what else did I find there?? More Zitron Lifestyle *grin.* Here's a pic of my purchase...



So pretty - I'm really loving the whole brown, blue color combination these days. Yeah, I love this yarn. The only thing that stinks is that I noticed, after we got back to the hotel, that I paid $2.00 more for this new yarn than the Zitron I was currently knitting with. Grumble... Oh, well.

The other store I wanted to find was a very new store called Knit N Purl. This was in a little shopping center off of Carolina Forest Blvd. Thankfully, we have a navigation system which helped us find both. 1-800-Free-411 was also a big help.

This was a cute, little store with a pretty small selection, but you could tell that it would soon grow to become a well-loved store. The owner's husband was manning the shop at the time and we had to call him a couple of times to find the place. When we showed up, he greeted us and gave me a little Boye needle sizer as a welcome gift for coming to their new store. So sweet :-) even though I know they will give them to everyone who comes in new. We chatted while I shopped and I ended up buying, oh yeah, more yarn. Again, more sock yarn. If I spent the amount of money on just plain old Wal-mart socks that I have spent on yarn for knitted socks, we would have a house full of socks. I gotta stop. Anyway, here's my takeaway:



2 Skeins of handpainted Wildfoote by Brown Sheep (in brown, blue, and white), 2 balls of Cascade Fixation in brown, and a ball of some Berocco Comfort Sock in grays, blues, browns, greens, etc. Again, I'm seeing a color pattern here. Come to think of it, the MB T shirt I bought today is brown with mainly a blue (and some yellow) design. I go through these color spells. Wonder what it'll be next?

So, if I'm able to go to the other shop, Island Knits, which is in Pawley's Island, I'll give an update later on.

ETA: tags, link to toe-up pattern

Blocking my CPH!!

Yay! I am blocking my CPH! Sort of, anyway. I haven't steamed it yet, just pinned it out. It appears that the sizing will be ok after all. It's so exciting to see how everything is coming together. I'm planning on starting the sleeves tomorrow.

Thinking about it and...

... I think that blocking may just fix my issue. Hoping so anyway. Since this is my first thing I've really tried where gauge is really an issue (other than my tiny and huge sweaters where I apparently could have cared less at the time), I'm not sure what to expect. First time with this yarn, too. I didn't wash and block my swatch because I'm slightly worried that I may run out of yarn and may need to frog it to get the extra yarn. I don't want to do something that might mess it up. Is it realistic to think that it's ok to stretch my pieces out 1.5 inches from the way they lay naturally when blocking? I'm sure other knitters who are way more experienced than me would know right away, but I'm just going to take it as a learning experience and not let it get to me. I've frogged big things before and can do it again, if needed.

Anyway, I've finished the left front and am starting the right front. We'll see if I can get them to match.

Getting nervous

So as I'm going along nice and swimmingly with knitting the left front of my CPH, I am noticing that it is rather narrow - it looks way too narrow to be the front of a cardigan. this seems strange to me because I think that the back is fine. How could the back be the correct width, using the same needles, and the front part be too narrow? I measured it just laying out as flat as I could get it b/c of the curling edges and it looks like it is about 1.5 inches too narrow. Is this something to be afraid of, I'm wondering? I keep thinking I have issues with my gauge and this is another confirmation of this - I may just be one of those very inconsistent knitters. Some days I knit tightly and some days I knit too loosley. If that's the case, then I'm going to be a very frustrated knitter. So I'm trying to decide whether I should rip it out and start again, or just keep plugging along and see what happens. I'm actually right at the end, so maybe I'll go ahead and knit the right front and see if I have the same issue.

First post

Well, here is my first non-work related blog - maybe it'll be updated more frequently! I realized that, after joining Ravelry, that I did not have a good place to give updates to my knitting and stitch marker projects. I could pics, but didn't have a good way to journal about them. So, now I have a blog. Here it is!

I am currently working on the "now cliche" Central Park Hoodie - although I totally see why everyone loves it so much...

I am using Alpaca with a Twist in a burnt orange color - and I must say that I think that it is turning out to be rather awesome! This will be my first completed sweater. My first attempt at a sweater was WAY to small (imagine a sweater for a 10 year old) and the second was the same sweater that was WAY too huge - linebacker huge. I never finished either because I got discouraged. I think I've learned a very important lesson on making sweaters based on gauge and using proper measurements... although I don't know yet if I trust even my swatch, so we'll see what happens when I'm getting closer to finishing my CPH.

Anyway, here is a picture of what I have done so far...




I haven't had much time to work on it lately, but I hope to finish it before it gets too warm. But I may be too late - it was in the 70's the other day.