Close call

I just got back from Chicago last night and had to be at a birthday party for my mom and one of my nephews at 7:30. This party was also to be my unveiling/presentation of my Lil' Devil Pants. This would have been all fine and well except for the fact that, well, I didn't have them done. By the time we got to the hotel on our first night of driving, I just didn't feel like knitting and instead entertained myself by marvelling at how strange Criss Angel is. He's one weird dude. That's about all I can say about that. Then, when I finally got settled at our hotel in Chicago I came to the awful realization that I had much more to do on the pants than I had thought. I did end up getting it all knit, but then I didn't have the tools for finishing. This was remedied by my trip The Fold (drool), but that's a tale for another day. Let me just say that I spent far, far less than I thought I would. Shocking, I know. So now, with tools in hand, I had to sew the damn thing up. I found this so confounding that I decided to put it off until I got home, thinking that I'd have plenty of time to make a few little stitches before party time. Oh how stupid I can be sometimes. I got home absolutely exhausted, still had to go gift shopping for my nephew, and still didn't know how to sew for crap. After much bitching and whining, I prevailed.

My favorite detail.

I had to use my imagination to get the drawstring through, but it came out pretty well. Also,I amazed myself with the evenness of my seaming.

My mom suggested to me that I not seam the leg cuffs. I don't particularly care for it undone, but I was already like an hour late for the party so I said f-it.

Perhaps the untrained eye won't even notice that this obviously was supposed to be sewn up.

So, onto the specs.

Pattern: Lil' Devil Pants from Stitch n'Bitch Nation

Yarn: Patons Grace in Cherry Red, 4 skeins

Needles: Size 2 Circulars and size 3 DPN's

Started: late July '07

Finished: August 4 '07

I predominantly followed the pattern exactly. I think I must have an early and error ridden edition of the book because I had to leave a row off of the buttonhole shaping. Also, as stated, I didn't sew the leg cuffs. Everyone seemed to love them, so mission accomplished. Hooray for FO's an meeting deadlines!

Gift Knitting

****WARNING: IF YOU ARE PART OF MY FAMILY IN OHIO, GO LOOK AT SOMETHING ELSE ON THE INTERNET NOW, AND DON'T COME BACK HERE UNTIL AFTER YOUR VISIT HERE!!!!********

Sorry about that. I'm not clever enough to manipulate those little pop up links to help conceal photos of gift items. So I'm gift knitting. I don't exactly know what possessed me to do such a thing, but I started it and now I have to finish. Blah.

I guess it could be worse......a lot worse, if any of you remember the fiasco with that piece of crap blanket my niece was having me make for her. No offense, Nikki, if you should happen to read this. On the bright side, I came up with a fabulous plan to rework the blanket and make it wonderful. I hope. Anyhow, on to the project at hand. I decided to make the Lil' Devil Pants from Stitch n' Bitch Nation to gift to my nephew's daughter Grace. Nothing says loving like dressing an infant like Satan! I think the pattern is really cute, but I want to hunt down whoever decided to write a baby pattern for such small, small needles and teeny tiny yarn. I wouldn't mind so much except that it goes against my notion of baby knits being extraordinarily quick and I'm on a deadline. There were other factors involved, too, which somewhat hindered my knitting.

When this photo was taken, I don't know that I realized yet that the width of the leg was going to keep getting wider and wider, as opposed to thinning out as I had planned. That wasn't a fun moment of clarity, let me tell you. Harry Potter got finished, and soon enough I was able to devote a little more time to the pants of evil. Here's where I'm at now.

One leg down and the bitchy, lengthy, time consuming part to go on the other. I'm having to divey up my time a little now, because I've become completely enamoured with another project. I'm going to hold off on mentioning it for the moment because I'm not 100% certain that I can actually pull it off. Some of you may already know what it is. If I can do it, it will be a truly spectacular feat, at least for me. I'm also waiting on my Knitpicks order to come in with the fixings for my ginormous spider wen shawl. Someone needs to shoot me.

Okay, I'm off to plot and plan.