My Summer Tweed is here. I’m almost ready to begin Chamomile. I recently reconnected with an old online friend and she may be knitting with me on this project. I’m working out the details with her and she still has to get yarn. Now that I have my yarn, I’m ready to begin. But I’m going to be good and finish my other projects.
My yarn has arrived! This is color #55. Maybe I’ll begin working on my Booga Bag next week. I’m excited about this project. It seems so simple yet it will be my first foray into felting. I told you I’d have pictures soon. 
The more I look over the pattern for Chamomile, the more it gets confusing. I think I will need to sit down when I have some free time to just go through it row by row to figure out what is going on. My yarn should be here today or tomorrow, but I plan on studying the pattern a little to make sure I’m comfortable with what it is telling me to do. I may be posting some questions here for help. I’ve made several copies of the pattern so I can scribble all over it if I need to. It feels a little overwhelming, so it may be a little while before I actually start. And I think I may start with the simpler pieces…the sleeves.
I took a look at the one Alison pointed out to me and it looks fabulous. Makes me even more excited to start working on it. It just seems like such a comfortable sweater. I’ve been told many times I look good in red, so I chose to stick with the color the model is wearing (Sunset).
I know photos have been missing lately from my posts. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing anything. But since I’m a beginner, I’m not as quick as some of you, so my progress so far looks the same as it did in the last picture. Knitting in the round for 11 inches doesn’t change. It looks the same at 11 as it does at 2. I promise I will post pictures when I have something different to show, but for now there’s really nothing new. Maybe this week, I’ll share my new stash of yarn and sometime next week I’ll have some shaping progress to share. I’m working on it.
Today really feels like the beginning of Fall instead of the start of Spring. It is chilly and gray, slightly overcast. I keep forgetting that we are in April. At least the weekends, so far, have been spring-y. Warm, sunny, great weather. Of course with days like today, it’s hard to get into knitting my tank top. There really isn’t much to say that isn’t related to my knitting or crochet. I’ve been posting there more than here. I didn’t want to mix the two sites, because I figured my regular visitors wouldn’t want to read all about knitting. If so, they can visit my knitting blog. But other than knitting, I haven’t really been doing anything else exciting.
I’d like to get an easy to use photo album software that is simple…nothing complex like 4images or Gallery. Something plain. I want to set it up so I can keep a gallery of my finished knitting projects. Any ideas? Hmm, maybe I’ll have to borrow some ideas from http://photojenic.ca Or tweak my current gallery scripts to fit my needs. That’s something else I can start working on. Better do it now while I only have 2 finished projects.
I’ve also been reading, but not as fast as I’d like. Lately the books I’ve been trying to read just haven’t been interesting to me. I think I’ve gone through 3 or 4 books that I just put down or pass on, because I can’t get into them. But I’m reading Nora Roberts right now and it’s pretty good. I’ve got plenty of books to chose from, so hopefully the next one I read will grab me like this current one has.
I’ve been worried about my maple tree. Remember the one we planted last summer? It hasn’t bloomed yet and I was starting to worry that the “bleeding” it did last fall had done it in. But I’m noticing more and more buds and some are actually starting to lighten up, like maybe the green will start showing. That gives me hope that it is just maybe taking it’s sweet time to bloom. All of our other plants are doing fine. But I feel as if the maple is my baby, even though it is about 10 feet tall now. When we planted it, it was just over 6 feet, so I know it’s grown some. I will be jumping up and down and telling the whole world, the minute I see a leaf appear. LOL! Of course I’ll have to post a photo for everyone to see my little baby blooming. 
I’m so ashamed about my last post. I think my brain was out to lunch when I posted, because not 5 minutes after I hit save, I figured it out. I guess since this is my first big project, I was making it more complicated than it really was. So please disregard my idiocy. I’m so nervous about getting the shaping right, since it will be my first attempt that I’m expecting it to be more difficult. But after reading through the pattern again, (after lunch) my brain started working and I figured it all out. Yeah, you all are probably laughing at me, thinking, “God, she’s such an idiot!” But hey, we all have our moments of brain freeze and I guess mine was yesterday.
In other news, I just couldn’t resist tempation any longer. I ordered my Summer Tweed for Chamomile. I will hold off working on it as long as possible. I’d like to get my Booga Bag done first so I can use it for my other small projects. I’m also thinking about possibly doing Tasha. Depends on how it goes with my booga bag.
My afghan is going well. I went out last night and got a bigger hook. I had to get L since I was already using K. It works well, my gauge it right again. I just ran up to Hobby Lobby and the only ones they had in that size were Crystalite. I wasn’t sure how I’d like it, but amazingly I haven’t had many snags on the Homespun with the new hook. Not sure if it’s the hook, or if it’s just me getting even more familiar with the yarn, but I worked one square up last night with it and it was great. I think I caught fibers <10 times compared to like 30+ with the aluminum hook. So I’m happy now.
Sigma is going well. The afghan is almost 50% complete. Plus, I’ve got yarn on the way for 2 more projects.
I’m about 2 inches away from starting my armhole shaping on my tank and I have a question about the pattern. After doing my calculations and plugging them into the pattern I get to armhole shaping and it says:
[RS] Working on the 108 live stitches, BO at beg of row over the next 10 rows a total 30 stitches. 78 stitches remaining.
What exactly does this mean? I understand that I’m binding of a total of 30 stitches so that when done I’ll have 78 left on the needles, but I’m confused about the rest of it. Am I to do some more math to figure out how to get 30 stitches bound off over 10 rows? This is my first real major project so I want to make sure I get it right. p. I visited my LYS at lunch and got some advice on what I’m doing wrong with my joins that keeps giving me holes. So with the next join I will try again with what LYSO (lys owner) has suggested. I also picked up some needles for my booga bag. Still haven’t gotten the yarn so I’m just getting ready.
