Scarf in a Day

And not even a long day! I think this took me about 6 hours. (I posted about warping on facebook 9 hours ago, and took a yoga break, lunch break and a dinner break.)

A 10-in wide 6.5 ft scarf. It's not that soft though, so I might make it a table runner.

I used 1 skein of Red Heart "Soft" (yeah- I bought it to practice weaving, it was actually soft to the fingers- very splitty, which is WEIRD for weaving. I wouldn't knit with it) and Universal Yarns "Moods". Moods was on MAJOR sale at WEBS (yarn.com) and the color change from black to color and back again was very cool. (So that's why the "Soft" is black- I thought it would go well.

I'm very happy with the actual weaving, my selvedges are pretty even, warping only took an hour- and I used just about ever inch of both skeins. The scarf is slightly longer than I had hoped (was shooting for 6 ft) I can never calculate the shrinking/loom waste well. Oh well.

If I do wear this as a scarf it's designed to be the fold in half and slip loop through itself variety. Otherwise it pretty much eats me alive, since I'm small and it's big.

I love my Ashford Rigid Heddle. Now I need to get a reed for thinner yarns.

Now Presenting....

Daffodil Design!

It still needs to be blocked, but it will be awhile until I get to that. I hate blocking. The baptism is going to be around August, so I've got time.

I also finished my Tiger knee highs (love them- pictures soon) and one Glynis sock (hate it, not sure if I will make the other.)

Today I'm weaving.

Perhaps a better post later, I'm not sure.

Baby Legs part 2

I made legwarmers for my nephews a few weekends ago. Since they aren't my babies, I can't post pictures of them on the blog, but hopefully it's okay to post their legs to show off the warmers!

Even my 4-year old nephew loved them. He's wearing knee socks, the gray/black ones are the cuffs of two different women's socks, and the knit ones are about 8" long.

I found knee socks on sale at Target for $2, so when they are ready for longer ones, i'll be ready to make more.

Yoga!

I tried a class at a different hot yoga studio today. This time I went to Zenergi in Iowa City. Now, all my friends who live in actual cities are going to think I'm crazy, but the major downside to Zenergi is that it is like 15 minutes away. For this area- that is a really long drive, it's about as far away from my house as it can still be in and stay in the C/IC area.

Anyhow, that's the major downside. But the upsides- the studio is much less expensive than the one over near me, and even better they also give a discount for my workplace. The other nice thing- they have 60 minute classes that I can make. The studio near my house only does 60 minute classes during the workday. The normal 90 minute class is just too much for me right now, 60 minutes is perfect.

So I tried the 60 minute class and it was really nice. The heat was lower (or felt it...) and there was a lot less humidity, though still a good amount. Towards the very end of the class, I could feel the heat on my shoulders and I felt actually hot (usually I don't feel hot, just exhausted), but most of the class was just a comfortable with a lot of sweating.

So while the last class I took at the other studio I thought I was going to pass out midway through the standing poses, this class I made it through everything without any heat related problems (had some yoga related ones... I am not good at yoga). We didn't do any downward dog which always makes me feel lightheaded, so I was happy about that. At the end of the class the teacher sung the mantra (is that the right word?) and she had the most beautiful voice I've ever heard live. It was gorgeous.

I'm definetly going to give this studio a try again. They have a 60 minute class at 6:00 am, if I shower really fast I could still probably get to work at 7:30- work is just a few minutes away. It would be a tight stretch though...

For the most part, my knees didn't give me any problems. By the end when we got to camel pose I didn't do the 2nd set- sitting on my knees didn't hurt, but I can feel them getting tired and I didn't want to hurt them. My left hip is hurting pretty badly in the poses where I pull my knee to my chest (wind removing, laying spine twist), and I think I hurt my shoulders during reclining hero pose- so we'll see how that feels tomorrow...

But overall- this yoga class went very very well.

Knitting Round Up

Flat Stanley came to visit me. He picked some yarn out of the stash and made a scarf!

Pictures of projects I've talked about but never posted. Ravelry can be viewed by the public now! Hopefully these links work.

Spring Forward

Cauchy

Seascape Shawl (the Olympic project)

Where's Daffodil Design? Yeah... it's going to be awhile. The crochet edge is horribly hard. It might take me as long as the shawl did. I have to do 23 repeats of the crochet pattern, I did 2 yesterday and wanted to drive the #5 steel crochet hook through my skull. I'm going to try to do 2 more today.

Freebie

I'm in no way affiliated- but this seemed like a good deal.

Free Quench lotion:
http://www.olay.com/Club_Olay/march2010/images/Quench_Form_Club_Olay.pdf

Well, about 75 cents after tax and a stamp to mail in the rebate.

Aww spring!

Look what is growing in our yard now!


Special thanks to the previous owners for planting all this stuff!


Living room pictures coming soon. We are still missing transitions strips, but it's pretty much a room again :)

And as an added bonus: Adorable Dog Pictures!

On a side note, the adorable dog's barking interrupted the blog posting!

Yoga kicked my ass...

I'm taking a break from skating. I don't want to, but it's killing my knees and my hip. Last week I barely did anything during my lesson (no jumping, almost no spinning or footwork- just walking through my program) and my knees hurt for 3 days.

So this week, instead of my lesson, I took a hot yoga class. I tried hot yoga last year and really loved it. But it was expensive, so I only did one week and didn't go back. I found cheaper yoga alternatives, but the weren't as enjoyable to me.

Well, tonight's class totally kicked my ass. First off- it was on the schedule as a 75 min class but ended up being 90 min. Ninety minutes is a LONG time. (During that time my hair puffed out about 5 times it's normal size- hitting Jessi in middle school levels. The room is very humid). But things that are relatively simple postures were killing me. I didn't feel like it was too hot (one of the previous classes it felt like my skin was burning- it wasn't like that) but my heart would just begin racing with even the smallest movement.

I took breaks and tried my best to calm my heart with good breathing. The instructor was encouraging, would walk by and ask if I was still doing okay. At one point I almost left the room- I felt like I was about to die, but instead I just sat down then (the rest of the time I tried to stay close to the position of everyone else, while resting). But I stayed.

And I'm glad I did. The floor series at the end was fantastic- really good stretching, and these "poses" I'm very good at, so it was nice to end on the high note with the instructor not thinking I'm completely horrible and should go back to beginner classes.

I'll definitely go back- I feel way energized now, last year I remember feeling exhausted and tired. Only weird thing- the instructor taught in what is essentially a yoga speedo. That's weird. The other men in the class were in similar things, but maybe a little more coverage. Most women had on full length pants and typical yoga tops (I wore capris). How are these women not ridiculously hot? And the men are practically bare...

The one gross thing about this class is my clothes feel like I've been in a swimming pool afterwards. Still, as tough as it was, and as much as I only did 3/4 of the class, I really like hot yoga.

A momentus occasion

Tonight I finished the knitting on the Daffodil Design.

But it's still on the needles, because I have to crochet the border- this is going to be a huge hurdle.

But the knitting. The knitting is FINALLY done.

Weekend Warmies

Here are the handknit ones! Super quick- just a few hours today and most of yesterday.
(So to save $12, should I send an itemizd bill? Yarn $4, Knitting 10 hours @ $10 per hour- legwarmers $104?)

Want to make some too? Just knit a tube with ribbing on the other end :)
Need more direction than that? Here's what I did?
(I didn't measure the gauge but it will be between 8-9 st/in based on other use of that yarn with this size needle)

The yarn is Knitpicks Stroll Multi, (less than 1 ball, and a ball is 50 grams- this is a small project- but any sock yarn should do- check out the new Stroll Tonals WOW!) I used US size 1.5 and US size 2 DPNs. I knit with only 4 DPNs, but you could use 5, or a circular small-circumference knitting method.


With size US1.5 needles CO 44 stitches.

K1, P1 for 12 rows. (approx 1 in)

Switch to size US2 needles, knit 74 rows (approx 7 in)

Switch to size US1.5 needles, K1, P1, for 12 rows (approx 1 in)

C/O using JSSBO.

-These seem so small, but I could get them onto my arm, so they should work…

Want to knit it? You can add yours to Ravelry here. (Yeah, I know it's a silly pattern to offer- but it's my first ever!)