Workin’ Girls

I love the girls I work with! They love watching what I’m knitting and whatnot.  One of them was just so cute today, she goes “Oh WOW can you knit me a sweater?”  I just chuckled and said “honey, I’m sorry, but those take MONTHS and months of knitting, and they can get very expensive!”  She seemed really impressed.  ^_^  Besides, I’ve already got two others wanting scarves! ^_^

To my Mother in Law

I hope you found my site alright, I know it can be a little tough to navigate the web sometimes.  I hope you enjoy seeing what I’m working on at the moment as well as what’s going on in our lives at the moment.  I didn’t want you to feel left out of the knitting world, so I wanted to explain some phrases I use now and then that are knitting related.

Frog, or Frogging= Ripping out knitting.  Often with me, this is to fix a careless mistake many rows back!

Needle size=  Basically, the bigger the number, the bigger the needle.  My new project is on size 17 needles, those are incredibly huge knitting needles.

Casting on, or Cast on = Beginning a new project.  Creating the very beginning “row” of stitches is called “casting on”.

Skein= Basically just a ball of yarn.  If I have 5 skeins, I have 5 “balls” sitting around somewhere.

Join=  The start of a new ball of yarn.  Where they’re “joined” together is called the “join”.

Felt, Felted, or Felting= Ever washed a wool sweater?  When you wash it, it becomes “felted”.  The fibers in the wool become tangled creating a solid fabric, and it shrinks.  The difference is, knitters do it on purpose. (Most of the time!)

Swatch = A test piece. We(‘re supposed to) knit a small piece of fabric in our yarn to test how it washes, and how it sizes up, etc.

Gauge= Can be a complicated concept to explain, but basically it’s a swatch that gets measured to tell you if your knitting will turn out correctly for the size you need.

Weight= Any time I say “bulky weight”, “worsted weight”, etc. I mean the thickness of the yarn.  There are many different weights going from the lightest (lace weight) to the heaviest, I’m not sure of the heaviest, but I think it’s like Super Chunky, or Polar weight, or something similar.   The Bulky yarn I’m using right now is quite thick.

Entrelac= To be honest, I don’t know what it means.  I think it’s French (?) for “Interlocked”.  If you look closely at my Danica scarf, it’s entrelac because the pieces look like they’re interlocked, or woven together.

KIP= I’ve met a lovely group of ladies in the Wichita area who get together to knit now and then.  KIP stands for “Knit In Public”, so I refer to them as the KIPers now and then. ^_^
Love you, hope you’re doing well, and enjoy the knits!

Great weekend!

What a weekend! On the 14th, we celebrated my *cough*24th*cough* birthday. We got a new video card for my computer (yay!), wandered around Wichita for a while, and went out to dinner at the lovely Uptown Bistro in Old Town.  It was a lovely day off from work, though I had to work the 15th, my first wedding anniversary! I didn’t mind too much since I get off at 2:30 anyway. When I got home, I had a wonderful suprise with a very nice anniversary balloon, a Schwarzwald torte (black forest cake-ish), a wonderful card with a coupon for unending love ^_^, and lots of hugs! We spent the evening tracking down a Thai place that was open, and finally settled on Promise Thai, a very good Thai restaurant that seemed iffy since it seemed like it pushed christianity.  I admit, it was strange to see church business cards on the tables, and Jesus fish on the sign.

I really wanted to post an updated picture of the danica scarf, but *gasp* I left my knitting at WORK!  Oh man! Now I have to watch T.V. with nothing to go through my fingers!  Well that’s ok, maybe it’s better off that I pay attention to my husband on our one year anniversary.