A little nutty

This week was going to be crazy to begin with. I am going south to be in my dad's wedding on Saturday. Plus it's the last couple of days before the thanksgiving break, so much insanity exists at work.

Last night I got a call that Dad's ill. All should be well in due time, but it's kind of scary at the moment, in the hospital/antibiotics/IV fluids kind of way. I'm still going south, it's just all of a sudden I'm much more worried about what I'll find there.

My current coping mechanism is hat-knitting. The garter rib one I knit for my brother over the weekend is terribly happy, so I'm making a second (Jake wanted one, after all). It works okay, but I'm not getting as much done as I wanted to beyond the hat.

Now it's bedtime, so I'm going to take the hat with me. Class early tomorrow. Massive piles of grading to do. Night.

Timing is everything

Due to my late night last night and a paradoxically ridiculously productive day following, I was at knit night tonight and zooming along on my yummy handspun scarf. I had managed to forget the rest of the pink that's still displayed on my mantel (Yeah, pictures soon. Someday the sun will come out and I'll be home during daylight!), so I was about out of yarn for that, though, and all of a sudden my phone's ringing.

It's my kid brother. I'm going to see him in about a week - we're both going home for our Dad's wedding, and we took a few minutes to compare notes on how prepared we are for all this. I have two new dresses, and he's got a breaking car with 300,000 miles on it. So he'll be renting a car to get home next weekend. On top of that, he left his hat that I made him last year at friends' house overnight, and returned this morning to the news that the friends' dog had eaten the hat. So really, it turns out that this whole conversation was a way of asking for a new hat. Male, drab, I'm welcome to riff a little, doesn't have to be the same as the last time. Oh, and btw, his friend Jake would like a grey hat too.

And because I can't say no to the kid, I come home and cast on. For the kid. Jake with the wool-eating dog may or may not get a hat.

(I found a waffle rib hat pattern on ravelry, but I may make it garter rib. I've been wearing my blue fuzzy garter rib socks, and I'm feeling the love.)

busy but...

Spun up about 4oz of merino top from Creatively Dyed over the weekend. This week has been crazy, but I started a scarf...



Garter stitch on the bias, size 11 needles to deal with the thick-and-thin-ness of it. All shaping at the beginning of rows, so I don't forget it. It's simple, it's brainless, it's really fun and comforting right now.

Back to work with me. I'll eventually sleep tonight...

It's here!

So thursday afternoon, I got home to find this box in front of my garage:


I started opening it, but didn't stop for another picture till this:


I started with some old Romney that I'd been spindling - I got bored with it around here:


So I pulled out some merino from Creatively Dyed.


So far, so fun.

I love online package tracking.

My wheel is in Indianapolis. SQUEEE!!!

Well, huh

Yeah, you know how you can blow a bubble with a wand shaped like a square or a heart or a star or however you want, but the bubble is going to be round?

Yeah. This was knit as a dodecahedron, but you start stuffing something with non-rigid sides that is topologically equivalent to a sphere, and yeah, it's a ball. Oh well, it's still darn cute, and it's finished, so that's awesome.

I have a spinning wheel on its way to me. I broke through my decision paralysis with a great deal on a Kromski Sonata from Copper Moose in Vermont. I'm looking forward to it.

Socks!

These are yummy, warm, cushy and brightly colored, and I love them. Yarn is Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Seastone. The pattern is Mockery (I only cast on 60), and it's lovely in its subtlety. These socks would be pretty awesome with just the yarn's swirling stripeyness, but add a touch of undulating pattern to it, and they're really darn cool.

My friend Laura Jean commented to me the other day that "All those started socks cracked me up. It's like they expanded to use all the needles available plus one!" And Mandie had said something similar on Thursday, that I had so many socks going because I had too many sock needles. And so I'm going to inventory here - let's see just how many socks I could have going at once:

1. Size 0 - One set of Brittany birch needles, not in use.
2. Size 1 - Set of Brittany birch, which I put in Chris's black socks on Thursday night, before that they'd been on a set of Darn Pretty Needles, and there's a set of Clover bamboo needles that is down to four these days. The pink and pink entrelac socks belong on size 1's.
3. Size 1.5 - Arguably my favorite size, there's a set of HiyaHiya bamboo which have grey Monkey socks on them now, and another down-to-four set of Brittany birch, which have grey plain striped work socks. Jane's blue and grey socks also go on this size.
   
4. Size 2 - Favorite sock needles are the Lantern Moon rosewood set that the above socks were worked on, also a set of Brittanys, which were my first sock needles.
5. Size 2.5 - Knit Picks Harmony needles are currently not in use for socks, but for a cotton dodecahedron, there is also a set of Bryspun plastic needles, and I also have a pair of 16" circular needles that I have used for socks.
   
6. Size 3 - Clover bamboo 7" needles, never used for socks. But they could be. Mandie's consolation socks have been tempting me lately.
   

So yeah, I have enough needles to have 12 socks going at once, of different sizes and gauges. I think given these circumstances, having four three active pairs and two in a static partially-completed state is not unreasonable. (Yay for rationalization, eh?)

Anyway, I'm going to spend the day actually knitting some stuff, now that that accounting is done. I think I could probably finish that dodecahedron this weekend if I tried. There have been no pictures of it here because it's truly weird-looking so far. I think once it's finished and stuffed, it will be adorable. But it's really not right now.