How many stitches is that?

If I ever become a pattern designer my company will be called Lazy Gauge Patterns.
I hate gauge. I have been working on the Baby surplice jacket and have just found after 7 inches of garter stitch that my gauge is way off! 4 st/ridges per inch instead of 5.5
Now I sat back and did some math: directions -cast on 140 stitches (25 inches), knit 2 rows, yarn over design for buttons, knit 4 ridges, next row begin shaping decreasing 2 per row every other row Down To 100 Stitches.
In my language it should say cast on 25 inches in your gauge (109 stitches) blah blah blah
Decrease 32 stitches (2 every other row. This takes 16 rows). your piece should measure roughly 5 inches. ( 6 if you include the increases for back shaping and then decrease them out as well.)
You now have 3-4 inches left to do arms. See was that so hard? Tell me how big the piece is at the different stages. I'll worry about My gauge you worry about yours.
OIY!
So now I can rip or continue knitting and wash it for shrinkage. It is unmercerised cotton.

This Saturday I am looking at picking up another knitting Job. This one is a rush to be done before June 1. The Yarn came in for my other job and a friend at my Tuesday night knit club at Mangelsons has the Purl book I need and will let me borrow it.

Lastly the job thing- I went on the interview yesterday, it went fine. I have one Friday with another company where I'm interviewing for 2 positions.
Gotta go...

Large and in charge..of Chaos

Well as usual here we are, it's raining and I haven't posted for a bit so lets get the usual update out of the way.
Green cashmere sweater-need to call customer up and get a fit done.

Baby surplice Jacket-gauge is 5 stitches /4 ridges in garter stitch so I think this is gonna be bigger than I planned. Still not up to the sleeves yet but happily knitting away.

Baby jacket out of my head- needs 3 more inches of fabric across the chest. Will have to pick up the edges and knit out some more.

Spinning- yeah, haven't been on that yet.

Fiber show-driving me up a wall. I wonder if people realize I have spent 800.00 of my own money on this and will be spending another 300.00 when they want to do things like cancel on me and can't understand why I'm a little upset!

Job search- for that one who wants to know, Interview tomorrow at 4, headhunter agency has referred my resume to 5 different firms with 1 response. No call from Mutual but my inside friend told me not to worry, the government doesn't have the patent on SLOW! Applied for 2 Gov't Auditing positions this week.

All right now I had pictures but the camera and the computer are having a fight..Stop that! Put that USB cord down Right NOW! Sorry where was I? Oh yeah,
So today I am home taking care of some loose ends, bunnies, cleaning, guard stuff (did I tell you they put me in charge? What were they thinking?).

My 14 year old turned 15 this Friday, the whole family came over to celebrate..That girl earned the same in one day, that I do working. Yes that's a lot. Then she spent the next day with her mom and blew 1/2 of it clothes shopping at the mall. Go figure. Happy birthday kiddo! I got her flowers.

Quisha had her eye exam, looks like she will take after her father. She doesn't need glasses and probably won't. (One of the good things about that pairing)

The Munchkin is in and out of trouble at school. Typical end of the year stuff. Can't really blame her. Her birthday will be just after I come back from KS. I will get her something...

Oh I have another Knit Job. This one is out of Sally Melville's The Knitting Experience 2: Purl
Its called the Not Knit Round Scarf. If anyone has this book could I borrow it?
The yarn is cotton twist ordered from the Yarn Market. Looks like a simple job.

Well That's all. I gotta go finish the rest of those loose ends and lunch too.
Hey have you ever vacuumed UNDER your couch? Whoa!

Toodles!

Been a long time

Been a long time been a long time been a long lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely time.
Been a long time since I rock and rolled! Thank you Zeppelin...
Well here's where we are..(I swear I do there so I know where I am more than anything else.)

The cashmere seamless sweater has both sleeves done and joined to the body with 4 rounds done. Two more rounds and I can start the twists.

The out of my head baby sweater is all done except for buttons and weaving in one end, stitching the initials into the back, as well as possibly blocking. I was gonna put ribbon through the eyelets but decided not to.

I've cast on and knit some on the Baby Surplice Jacket. Otherwise a baby surprise kimono. 150 stitches.I'm using the growing option and am almost done with that row of yo's and decreases.

I have yet to call my other client to have her pick up her sweater. Next week after drill.

Drill this week, wish me luck. Pray for bad weather.

Easter was cool, no fights and we went out to eat.

Searching harder for a job, trying to figure out what I want on the Festival advertisements.
I have to remember to e mail podcasters. One has gone on break already. One is on again off again.
I've updated my google alerts to handspinning and got nothing for a few days so I added the word spindle and drop spindle so we'll see what we get.
One topic of interest would be the Friday Night Knitting club movie/book. Julia Roberts is the motivation machine behind the movie. I find it interesting...Steel Magnolias or Fried Green Tomatoes with knitting. Now I haven't actually read the book. I was jaded early by reading the Shop on Blossom Street books. I got them on I tunes and wasn't that impressed with the storyline. The knitting was cute but it was just a romance novel. Shout out in the comments if you have read the book.
I've cancelled my Amazon order, and decided when I get the money I will order them from school house press. it's faster even though it's more expensive because of shipping, other wise the costs of the books are the same. Maybe some wool too. Yeah, can we say Hole in the head?
Gotta run,
Toodles!

Google alerts

Have you tried this thing? it's pretty cool. I heard about it on Sticks and String Sunday. (Hi David!) Go to Google dot com and into the same place you found blogger. Alerts is there too. Just type in what you want it to look for and then where you want them to send it and Voila! So I set up two; one on knitting and one on spinning. The spinning one was a bust so I've had to change it to Handspinning. The knit one was cool. Articles about knitting for AIDS babies in Africa. (I just don't get the idea of sweaters for babies in Africa. I know it gets cold there and babies are so temp sensitive but it's just the initial impression.)
One article on men getting into knitting. Lots of other stuff. Give it a shot.

Another thing is I've joined Zimmermania, and ordered two EZ books from Amazon. This I will never do again. If you tell me you have the books in late March and then tell me you won't ship till mid April and I might get them in mid May, I'm not gonna be real pleased with that. So to make my wait a little shorter I picked up the spring issue of Vogue Knitting. There is an alterknit version of the BSJ in there from Meg. It makes a kimono instead of a jacket. I think that's way cool.

On the kid front spring break has begun. My little hellions are up with the grandparents. My house is quiet and I'm getting lots done. Laundry, dishes, general cleaning, spinning, knitting, the works.

I'm gonna be a little somber here but only for a short line. I'll explore the idea more later. How many of us are running a current relationship like a previous one ran us? You know, like treating your loved one like someone treated you in the past. You wonder why you do, and how to stop doing it? Me too. Nuf said.

I went out and picked some flowers for the raised bed in the back. Hostas, some red and white Astilbe . Now I need a crowning glory like tulips iris and daffodils for the center. See the reason I did all this was so I could have more than one tulip and daffodill in my yard with out having to fight the rabbits for them. So I figure if I surround them with other plants, they will have a chance to grow.
I'm still thinking heathers for the top row of my front tier, I can't find any full sun fast growing rhoddis (I may have to wait till Wal-mart brings them back) to replace the dead ones on the bottom tier. I lost my yellow rose from last year but will replace it with the red one I saved from drowning in lilly's