Plugging away

Again a long lapse in posts. I have been knitting away with the little free time I have. The onyx longies have about 3" of both legs done, usually the legs go a bit faster. I have finally totally perfected my short rows through the bum using a modified japanese short row technique, I am really happy with how they look. I plan to post some pictures tomorrow but I just wanted to do a quick update.

Pictures as promised

Here are the pictures I promised earlier today. First the finished cardinal longies



And what I have done on the Onyx longies

Phew!

Man I had not realized it has been so long since I last posted! How time flies when you are a bit stressed and busy. On the home front V had her surgery last Monday, getting ready for that drained me more than I was prepared for. It was for a cyst that had grown to about the size of a small lima bean on the tip of her nose -- originally the doctors were talking about leaving it alone for a little bit, but after going to a consult with a ped surgeon we suddenly got a call that a surgery was schedlued for her the next week (which still makes me nervous even after the surgery -- the last time a surgery was schedlued that fast it was because my mom had cancer). We all made it through and hopefully V will only have a very small hardly noticable scar to show -- although right now the incision goes down the center of almost her entire little nose.

And now on to the knitting - I have finished the cardinal twist longies and those are shipping today. I cast on the Onyx Heather longies last night and plan to work on them a lot this week hopefully the will not take as long as the cardinal longies. I do have pictures but I have to get both girls ready for a doctor apt for V so I will post this for now and come back and add pictures when we get back.

I am so glad..

...that I knit :) I am training 4:30 to midnight every night this week for a seasonal night job. The training involves computers and people who are not familiar with computers (but who believe they are and argue with the trainer--love that) it it wasn't for my knitting I would be crazy by now and it is only day 2! I just split for the legs and I plan to get much more done tonight.

I will put a picture up tomorrow :)

Still here!

I'm still here, I've just found the updating daily is difficult with my older computer. It takes me almost a half hour to get one picture uploaded, simply because it takes a long time for my computer to pull them off of my memory card. Hopefully soon we will be able to buy a new computer.

Anyway still working away on the cardinal longies. I am just about to join the second skein of yarn so I thought I would post a picture :) I just finished the short rows another few inches and I will start the gusset.

Camera is back!

Finally my camera is working again -- silly memory card.

Okay so here are the finished cascade longies -- they are drying now from being washed and lanolized :)


I also started the Cardinal Twist longies. Here is the waistband and the first row of the body. This yarn is a 4 ply twist, 2 plys are a beautiful red and the other 2 are a nice brownish gray -- my camera certainly does not do it justice!

Almost done :)

Fisrt I found this and was so excited. It says Leah Johnson but really she e-mailed it to the company those are longies I made out of 3ply purewool in the thunder colorway! So cool, even though it doesn't say my name but that is okay.

Okay the cascade longies are done and will be lanolized tomorrow. They came out great, but unfortunately I think my memory card is fried, it is totally empty but tells me it is full no matter what I do. I will buy another one tomorrow.

I also recieved yarn for two more customs today, can't wait to start those!

Rolling rolling rolling...

Well not rolling but going around and around :) The cascade longies are amost done just the cuff left. I would post a picture but for some reason my laptop won't let me download the movies that are on my digital memory card, and the card is presently full of movies. I am going to my parents this weekend and I know how to clean the card on their computer (it is much younger than my almost 7 year old ibook). As soon as I have the card fixed I will post a picture. They are looking great :)

Two legs are better than one

I am 1/3 done with the second leg and hopefully things will zip along now that everyone is over their colds. My oldest passed it back to my youngest so I've had another week of no sleep, but she seems much better tonight. I disinfected my house like a madwoman the last two days so I hope I have stopped the cycle, we'll see.

I will post a picture later tonight or tomorrow right now I am downloading all of the videos I have on it onto my computer.

I just wanted to leave a quick update so the mama didn't think I had dropped off the face of the earth :)

One leg down

One leg on the cascade longies is almost done I just have the rolled cuff to do and then I will start the other leg. Work has been slower than normal because now my oldest and my husband have the cold that my youngest and I had :) hopefully once they are well we are done with this cold!



On a side note the mama who ordered the XL peace fleece longies from me received them today and was very happy! I am so glad.

One leg breaking through...

Sorry no pictures tonight my digital camera is charging so it will be ready for an outing tomorrow :)

One leg is mostly done, I am going on a mystery quilting bus tour (no I don't quilt no matter how hard my mom tries to get me to) with my mom tomorrow so I will probably have plenty of time to knit and I should get the second leg mostly done. These are knitting up really nice. I imagine they will be done by Monday night and ready to ship on Thursday.

Following my dreams...

I really enjoy doing this longies, not only does it keep me from snacking at night while watching tv (busy hands) but I love all of the yarns, the mama's and the excitment of creating something for someone.

Here are the cascade longies I split for the legs tonight, I am trying a slightly new method for knitting the legs, I find that magic looping with the lighter weight worsted makes the legs look angular. I just ordered some 12" addi's for the legs -- hopefully I will get them soon. So forgive the tangle of circular needles the leg on the right is the one I am currently working on.

Sailing on an ocean blue...

This cascade color reminds me of the caribean ocean, I love it. It makes me want to go on vacation :)

My youngest has been suffering with her first cold (she is 5 months old) and I have it as well. She's been really clingy and not napping or sleeping well, so until last night I have had very little time to knit, nevermind post. She seems to be feeling better today and is down for a nice long nap so I have time to post my progress picture from last night and do a quick blog update.

I was actually down to the leg split at about midnight last night but as I split one of my short row rounds wasn't placed right so I ripped it back and will redo it tonight. Hopefully I will be ready to split again by the end of tonight.

Tonight's progress

The blue peace fleece longies are hanging to dry. Here is a picture (excuse the really ugly wallpaper in the background we just moved and I haven't had the energy to strip that room yet).


I also cast on the cascade longies and got a few rows in.

One done

The XL Peace fleece longies are done. I finished them last night but with my youngest either teething or getting her first cold this is the first chance I have had today to take a picture and post. These came out slightly different than my normal pattern because I goofed a bit on the legs, normally my longies have a wider leg to them.

I will get the drawstring done and wash, lanolize and block them tonight which means I should be able to ship them on Thursday.


Isn't that fall leaf that snuck in so pretty against the blue?

Tonight the cascade longies go on the needles, hopefully I will be able to post some pictures of that later tonight.

First PKat Pants almost done!

They are almost done, I have 5 inches left on the legs. Definitely tomorrow, today was a beautiful Autum day in New England so DH and I took the kids hiking and I neglected my knitting :)

Here are the peace fleece longies, almost done!



And a picture of my oldest DD and my DH enjoying our fall hike.

Finally!!

Wow who ever thought it would be so hard to keep your computer connected to the interent you pay good money for. After almost two days on the phone we finally have it figured out and barring any misshaps on Verizon's end it should stay that way.

Here is the progress pictures on the peace fleece longies for Wednesday.


And here they are tonight. If I can get a good day or night of work in these should be done tomorrow, if I can't than definately by Sunday. I have to say I love working with Peace Fleece, sure it isn't as soft as Purewool but there is something really earthy about it. As odd as it sounds I feel connected to the animals that produced the wool when I knit with it, probably because of the occasional bits of hay and sticks spun into the yarn. I am looking forward to picking up some more to make a nice night pair of longies for Vivian. I've included a front view and a back view so you can see the shaping through the bum.

The front
And the back

Quick update

We got our new wireless router and it is playing nice with my laptop -- look for some updates tonight!

Techinical problems

Bear with me our interent is still acting up. I am getting a new wireless DSL modem tomorrow so hopefully I will be back soon.

Quick updates - Peace fleece longies I have begun the legs, cascade longies gague swatch done as soon as peace fleece is done cascade goes on :)

Round and Round

I love knitting in the round there is something so zen about it. I just go around and around and soon there are longies on my needle.

I finished the short rows for the bum tonight on the peace fleece longies 2 more inches and I split for the legs. The legs should be started by tomorrow night. This color is so beautiful it is very rich, I may have to go order some more to make my DD a pair in this color! I tried to take a picture that shows the short rows, it looks a bit funky right now but once I split for the legs it will all make sense!


I also recieved yarn in the mail today for a pair of YYMN customs for starrymomma. This is Cascade in a really pretty color. The picture doesn't do it justice. I will probably knit my gauge swatch tonight for these hopefully that will show the color better!


Pre-posting edit - this was typed up without pictures last night but DD seems to be going through a growth spurt and she wanted to nurse before I had a chance to post this so up it goes this morning.

Today's progress

Peace Fleece customs - I began the short rows hopefully by tomorrow I will split for the legs!

How to measure for the right fit...

I get asked all the time how to measure little ones for longies so I thought it would be a good idea to do a picture tutorial, because trying to explain over an e-mail is hard to do :)

Materials needed:
1 baby of any size in need of longies
1 tape measure or a piece of string and a ruler
Some paper and a pencil to write down the measurements

First make sure you have your little one in a diaper that you want your longies to fit over (so if you want them to fit at night make sure you take measurements over a big ol' fluffly nighttime diaper) :)

Here we have my lovely model (but I could be biased as she is my daughter) sporting a nighttime diaper for some night longies, all ready to be measured.

You can measure these in any order, whatever you can get during your measuring wrestling match go for it :)

I will start with the waist. Measure the waist where your child's natural waist falls (generally around the belly button). This one is easy :)


We'll move on to rise, a little trickier but nothing overly complicated. Start at your child's belly button and bring the measuring tape down between his or her legs and up along their bum until the measuring tape is about parallel with your child's belly button.



This last picture is actually DD's back (see the sandies tag) she just wanted to see what mama was doing with the camera :)

Next we will move on to the thigh. Just wrap your tape measure around the largest part of your child's thigh.


And last is inseam, this is the length of your child's leg from where his/her legs meet to where you want the pants to end. My model was tired of being measured so these pictures aren't very good.


A few tips:
*If your dear child stops cooperating wait until the next diaper change
*Don't be afraid to recheck your measurements
*Always round up
*Err on the side of too big rather than too small
*Be sure to measure over the largest diaper you want the longies to fit over

And just cause she is too cute my daughter in a pair of night longies (made to fit her big fluffy bum). No I'm not that fast, these are actually getting too small so the measurements I took today will be used to make her new nighttime longies.


Enjoy mama's and measure away!

First official pair of PKat Pants!

Here they are the first official set of custom longies by PKat Customs.

This is an XL pair of peace fleece longies for luvmybabies. I began these Friday and progress has been slow this weekend due to a visit from my in-laws and a problem with our new interent provider, hopefully in the next day or two I should be down to the legs.

Welcome!

Here we are my new stay at home business blog. I have created this so my customers can see how their customs progress.

First a bit about me -- I taught 8th grade Science for 4 years and just recently left teaching to stay home with my 2 daughters, one age 3 and one 5 months old. When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter I taught myself to knit and took to it quickly, here we are 4 years later and I am trying to use my knitting skills to keep me home with my girls. I do longies, shorties, capris, sweaters, hats, scarves, mittens and other random knit items (which have included a knit mouse for my oldest DD and a sock monkey ipod holder for a friend). I have also recently invested in a serger and am working on perfecting a fleece pants and recycled longies pattern to expand what I can offer to customers.