Horses, Geisha and Flat Feet

Its been busy around here over the last couple weeks, and I havent been getting as much knitting or stitching time as I had been. Bug started horseback riding lessons, and she does that every Friday evening. She LOVES it and I cant believe how quickly she has caught on. Its really fun to watch her. Here she is with her first go at trotting!

She looks so small on that horse, and its only a pony! I can see her wanting to continue lessons for a long time. Its English style riding and her big goal is to learn how to jump. My goal is not to have a heart attack.

Im working on stitching a tea towel with this geisha design from doe-c-doe and Im loving it. There are so many fantastic vintage patterns in this flickr group, and I have saved many of them. I just want to be more creative with what I embroider. Tea towels and pillow cases are great, but I really liked how the vital organs hoodie came out:

Thats my husband modeling there, but its actually a hoodie for me. It looks best zippered up, because when its open the front kind of flips out and you can see the underside of the embroidery a little, but I kept it neat so Im trying not to let that bother me. I think I might add a hypo needle on the sleeve or something as well.

As far as knitting goes, Im plugging away at my Flat Feet socks so I have an excuse to buy more of that fun yarn. I dont mind the kinkiness as I unravel the flat to knit, and I like all the neat patterns and colors they come in. Im using size two needles rather then the threes the yarn suggests, but I tend to knit a bit loose so the fabric is perfect - not too dense at all. I like how the colors arent pooling or striping, just sort of all over the place. So far they are pretty cool socks.

Ive been working on a few different things. My patterns came from Sublime Stitching and that was very exciting. I had gotten a couple of plain white shirts for the kiddo during the recent clearance sales at Old Navy and last night I tackled one. She really wanted a couple doxies stitched (my parents have dachshunds) on the chest, but the size of the pattern vs. the size of the shirt made it look akward, so we decided to place them down toward the hem. It came out nice, and she is already wearing it. I need more practice, but Im pleased with it and she is pleased with it and I already have another shirt prepped and ready to go. She had a bunch of plain french terry shorts that I could use as well. I think she would let me embroider her entire wardrobe if I wanted to.

As far as knitting goes, Ive been working on a pair of Flat Feet up. There is already a strong following for this yarn and it sells out really quickly.. I really like this yarn so far, and have been stalking it all over the interwebs figuring out my favorite colorways and design elements. Its really neat how different each flat knits Mine is striped as well as dotted and so far has almost a self-striping quality to it, but its not exact. Ill post my pics when I have more to share.

The chevron scarf is looking beautiful. Its bright and I love the way the stitches look close up. The feather and fan element is so pretty. I want it to be really long so I can wrap it around my neck multiple times in the cold. I like that its knit with sock yarn as well, a thats the most fun in my opinion. I cam se myself knitting many more of these in the future.Im trying to keep plugging away on these projects and not cast on anything else, but thats so hard sometimes. I need to finish the bug's socks before her feet grow and they wont even fit! Im going to buckle down on those this weekend. No more embroidery until I have finished the socks! Sometimes when I have more then a couple projects cast on I start to feel a little stressed by all the unfinished-ness. I dont want knitting to add to the stress in my life.

Warm and Fuzzy

Ive been working on some various socks. Mostly the STR in Pebble Beach. I have the first sock done, and it fits, now I have to talk myself in to casting on the second sock. I just got two more skeins of the lovely STR in the mail, and now of course Id much rather knit with one of the "new" colors. Bug wants some leg warmers. I thought about using STR in Sherbert (its way brighter in person) for them, but then decided I wanted something a bit more...fuzzy. I went stash diving and found some Rowan Tapestry in Rainbow (171) I got during a WEBS sale a while back, and I think it would make very nice, soft, cushy leg warmers for the bug. Now of course, I have seen all the other pretty colors it comes in, and kind of sorta want to get that 172 for myself. But would I wear leg warmers? I would wear arm warmers...Hmmm.

hawaii socks

Ive been working on socks quite a bit lately. They are small and portable and have that immediate gratification thing going for them. I am in love with Socks that Rock and have bought quite a few colorways in the last few months. Before we left for our trip to Hawaii in March I got the Thunder on the Mountain because it is super colorful and made me think hawaiian thoughts. I worked on these socks while on the airplane, the beach and then finished up the second one once back at home. I, sadly, cast on too few stitched for them to fit my massive feet, so they are going to my mom for Mother's Day. She loves them already, so they are going to a good home.


I cant get over the stitch definition with the STR mediumweight. I could sit here and look at these stitches all day. And the colors are so bright, and the yarn is so soft. I love it.

I did actually start on that shawl I posted about before, but tore it out because I was knitting it really tightly. Now Im going to put it on the back burner for a bit because my yarn for the Chevron Scarf came and I cant wait to dive into that. I have finished the first of the pair for Bug's orchid socks. Hopefully I will finish the second one within the next few days as she is anxious for them. Ive caught her more than once walking around with the one sock on...