I know, I am SOOOOO behind the curve. This is my first pair of Jaywalkers (and I assume no one needs the link to the pattern). The yarn is Yarntini Cosmopolitan from Pure Knits.

I added the picot cuff and knit the small size on magic loop rather than dpns. Otherwise there were no modifications - well other than that one heel thing. I compensated for the slight variation by knitting the second sock just a bit shorter so the toes would be the same (we’re talking an 1/8 of an inch or so).

And I ended up with just a bit of yarn left over

I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out, and I’m really pleased to be able to say I finished a project. Finally.

If you’re dieting or don’t want to see pictures of food, just move along. Come back tomorrow for an update on a finished pair of Jaywalkers! For those of you still here I spent a lot of time this weekend baking. I needed to make bread - I’ve basically stopped buying bread at the store and have been making it instead. It just tastes so much better and I love the process - I find it very relaxing. This time I wanted to try the Farmhouse White recipe from A Year In Bread. The recipe is really easy, except I let it rise to long on the second rise (when it’s in the bread pans) and I got some weird bubbles on two of the loaves. I wasn’t sure what to do with them so I was going to leave them, but I popped one when I was putting them in the oven. The whole thing deflated like a souffle!

The one that still has the bubbles looks odd

And one loaf turned out great. Go figure.

The good news is the bread tastes good so I’ll definitely be making it again and hopefully I’ll work out the kinks next time.

We had a barbeque on Monday for Memorial Day, but I made a cake for my mom’s birthday. German Chocolate is her all time favorite. I looked in all of my cookbooks (and that’s a substantial amount) and couldn’t find a single German Chocolate Cake recipe. I ended up finding one online (you gotta love the internet!). The recipe wasn’t particularly difficult but I had a really hard time with it for some reason. The cakes baked funny and the frosting didn’t thicken like it was supposed to. I’ve decided cakes hate me. In the end (after about 7 hours from start to finish) it turned out well and tasted good, but only for my mom would I do it again.

My final contribution to the bbq (besides the burgers and dogs) was potato salad. This is the first time I’ve ever made potato salad - very un-American, I know. I made my friend Stacey’s recipe (not to be confused with my sister Stacy) and I think I called her about 4 times to ask questions. She was a good sport and the potato salad turned out well and seemed to be a hit. What a relief.

I grafted the toes together on my Jaywalkers last night, so I’ll have an update for you tomorrow. Hopefully things dry out a bit around here so I can get some outdoor photos - the rain and hail are screwing up my photo shoot plans.

Saturday was my mom’s birthday and sometime after Carole’s post on her felted bag I decided to try to line my mom’s Noni bag for her as a surprise birthday gift. She’s been talking a lot about how she wants to use it and since it was her very first knitted project, I thought it would be a nice surprise (plus I’d get to practice my lining skills on a much smaller bag - two birds and all that). The surprise was aided by the fact my mom was out of town. The bad news was I had to find the bag, the handles and hardware, and the fabric in her house on my own. It was kind of comical. I found the bag and the fabric together within the first 5 minutes of my search. The hardware was another matter. I ended up taking everything out of one of her closets (vacuum, sewing machine, winter boots - everything), everything out of the baskets in her craft room/library, and I finally found what I was looking for in a bag next to her couch upstairs in her tv room. By that time I was freaking out because I didn’t have a back-up birthday gift and I was sure I wasn’t going to be able to find the materials I needed. But in the end it worked out. Thank goodness.

Saturday morning I sat down with the fabric, my stash of timtex and interfacing, the purse, and the hardware to develop a plan. It took me a little while to figure out what I needed to do - measuring, figuring, panicking - the works. Eventually I worked up the nerve to cut the fabric and the interfacing.

After I got the lining pieced attached to the interfacing (I’d forgotten how much a pain sewing with timtex is - gawd that stuff is stiff), I sewed all the lining pieces together. Because of the shape of the bag, I ended up using two side pieces and a bottom rather than making end pieces and side pieced. The bag is pretty much a barrel shape, so I just put a seam on each end. After I got it together I put it into the felted bag to check the fit.

The sides of the bag go in slightly and I didn’t take that into account when I made the lining. I ended up just angling the sides - I took it in an inch at the top of both sides and angled the seam so it would meet the existing seams at the bottom. It ended up working just fine and that way I didn’t have to use the seam ripper (bonus!). The final step for the lining was to turn the top under and finish it.

In a traditional bag you would just put the right side of the lining together with the right side of the outside (with the handles in between the two pieces) and sew them together and then turn everything right side out. But, because of the thickness of the felt and the fact that I didn’t want to lose any of the felt to a seam, I finished the lining and then attached the finished lining to the felted bag.

The final step before putting everything together was to make the tabs for the handles and attach them to the lining.

I made the tabs as suggested by the Noni website and then measured and attached them to the lining. After that was all done all that was left was to sew the lining to the felted bag. I had planned to sew it on my machine, but the combination was too thick so it had to be done by hand. I was glad I had a movie to watch because it took me most of the movie to get the lining attached. All in all it took me about 7 hours to complete this project (and my mom is, of course, worth it). The good news is that the finished bag turned out really cute.

My mom was really surprised and she loved it. She went right home and put all her stuff in it and she says she’s gotten lots of compliments on it in the last couple of days. So, I would say it was a good birthday gift and now I can try to do my bag. In case you’re curious, the pattern she used is the same I used for my huge bag. Hers is the Smallish Carpet Baguette and mine is the Rather Huge Carpet Bag (both from the Fall 2005 Collection).

I had a post in my head last night and then this morning I got distracted. I was cutting into my last loaf of Oatmeal Bread and I realized that bread is probably my favorite food - overall. I love it plain, toasted, with jam or honey, or in a sandwich.

As much as I love the Oatmeal Bread, I think I’m going to try Farmgirl Susan’s Farmhouse White this weekend. Having a good white bread recipe seems like a good idea - so we’ll see how it is.

Yesterday Carole posted about her lovely felted bag and the lining she made for it. You long time readers probably know where this is going. Talk about easily distracted - I have a great Noni bag that is STILL waiting for a lining. It isn’t that I don’t want to use the bag and it isn’t that I don’t have time to sew the lining. I think the problem is that I’m scared I’ll screw it up. The bag needs some stiffness because of it’s size and that means Timtex is likely the best solution. I think if it didn’t need that I’d be less intimidated to try to line it. I’m really going to do my very best to get that done over the weekend (or maybe Monday since I don’t have to work).

Jaywalker has seen a little knitting time while I’ve been waiting for lunch or in line at the bank, but with the DUI class I haven’t had a lot of time to knit on Butterfly. Oh, the DWI class! I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell you. I learned a lot - cops really do have to know a lot of stuff. I learned how to administer a field sobriety test and then I learned about drug categories and how to tell if someone is impaired due to drugs in addition to or instead of alcohol. I learned what horizontal gaze nystagmus is - it’s when your eyes don’t tract smoothly when you follow the tip of a pen with your eyes. When you’re under the influence of depressants and a couple of other drug categories your eyes jerk when you follow the pen. A good indication of impairment - even if you ace the field sobriety maneuvers. Very cool stuff.

This morning I was surfing around a bit and stopped off at Hello my name is Heather. Now there’s another project that I want. Look at these cute pin cushions! And speaking of cute patterns, I know I’ve said this before, but it’s worth saying again. I covet this purse. I wish she’d hurry up and put out the pattern (I know - she’s busy, but I’m not a patient person).

When life is looking crappy because your knitting isn’t going anywhere, the best medicine is a sock. I believe the Yarn Harlot said something about socks for the soul (it was in one of those really funny books - Knitting Rules maybe. Well, she knows what she’s talking about. I worked at the yarn store Friday afternoon and Saturday and Butterfly didn’t seem like the best choice for in-store knitting, so Jaywalker got the call. It’s amazing how much you can get done on a sock when you dedicate 10 hours or so to it.

And what is it about turning the heel that makes you feel bullet proof? I just get giddy when I get to the heel flap. It’s like proof that all that knitting around and around is actually going somewhere. Oh, speaking of the heel - apparently I can’t count. The pattern calls for a 2 row repeat 16 times (for the small size) (one repeat and then you do it 15 more times) - that means you should have 16 chain stitches on the side of the heel flap (at least I think that’s what that means, but at this point I’m willing to admit that I don’t know anything about knitting in general or socks specifically). 32 rows has either shrunk dramatically between the first and second sock (it’s possible this is the case - black holes do that to your knitting) or I can’t count because the two heels are not the same length.

If I were a good and dedicated knitting I would rip one sock out to the heel flap and reknit it. I AM NOT. I don’t care if they’re self-striping and it’s obvious that they aren’t the same. I don’t care that one sock could potentially fit better than the other. In the face of the lack of progress on Butterfly, these socks are staying exactly like they are and to hell with anyone who feels the need to point out that they don’t match. So there.

Today and tomorrow I’m off to DWUI school. I get to learn how to do field sobriety tests (and I think maybe learn to recognize the affects of various drugs). I don’t think they’re going to provide me with free beer so I can see how well I’d do on the walk and turn test, but it should be fun anyway. Jaywalker is coming along in my purse, but I’m not sure how much knitting time I’ll have. At this point I’m just happy that I made some actual progress on something I’m knitting. God bless socks.