WIP status report

Ech. I'm bored with all this. I need to start a sleeve on the blue sweater so that I have the strength to get the last few inches of body, shawl is still progressing slowly, and the orange bag thing and the golden rectangle blanket haven't been touched for weeks.



Three socks-in-progress. The grey and blue are second socks and therefore boring, the brown is coming out of my head and therefore needs to be transcribed as I knit so that I have a pair eventually, and man those knitpicks needles are pointy. Eh.



So last night I got home and swatched for the strikke-along. Good times.



I've been wearing the swatch as a wristband since last night. I'm kind of inordinately proud of my first 2-color knitting.

After the camera came home

Left to right, top row: Mom's birthday Monkeys, ratty old Hanes subbing for Mom's Breeze that I already gave her, Fawkes, Stripes.
Bottom row: Fuzzy, Kaylee, and Grey Giant.

So that's my summer of socks. Second socks for Kaylee and Grey Giant have been cast on. The first of a new pair I'm trying to design began on Friday, but I'm being a little anal about it and trying not to work on it when distracted or otherwise impaired. We'll see how that works out.

I know what I want for christmas

I washed and blocked socks today. It's the last day of SOS 2007, and I'm a toe away from having eleven socks done - I'll get it done this afternoon, surely.

I laid all my new summer socks out in a row in my sunporch, three pairs of handknit socks, two single socks, with a pair of my hanes footies taking the place of the pair of cabled footies I've already gifted and a space for the third single sock when I finish it in an hour or so.

And then I went looking for the camera. It was in Chris's car. At his workplace. So that pretty picture is going to have to wait.

I think I need my own camera, don't you?

In other news, I got my Knit Picks Harmony dpns, and I've had them next to me all day, stroking them, twirling them and drooling over their smooth shiny pointy Mardi Gras stripeyness.

I had been considering trying out some sock monogamy once SOS was over, but I think the socks these were ordered for (the ones I was swatchy about) will break through any impulses in that direction.

Nothing to see here - just thinking in type

Mid-foot on two socks. I'm hoping to finish them both in the next few days, so I have a full sock count for Summer of Socks. If they do both get done, it'll be four pairs and three single socks, for eleven total socks over the summer.

My right thumb is starting to be cranky with me, so I've been taking it easy some, and being aware of how I sleep.

Tuscany is getting a row or two a day done, which is fine. The fabric it's knitting into is pretty yummy, I kind of want to snuggle with it.

It's getting colder, and that's making me want to knit on my sweater. We'll see how that comes along as the fall happens. Meanwhile I love the idea of NaKniSweMo, it sounds like a marvy way to spend November. But I don't think I'd try it if I don't have my first sweater done before then.

Meanwhile, I'm considering knitting things for my in-laws for Christmas. A hat and scarf would work. I'm also considering doing something for the Grandmothers, but I'm not sure there, since that's three more projects. I'm in that dangerous time where I think the hat for my brother is done and socks for my parents are under control (except they're not, I've got most of a sock for dad, and yarn for mom and no pattern picked - anyone have something fabulous?) and I've got three months, so why not? This is how It happens. I see now.

Swatchy McSwatchalot

There are no pictures today. Nothing cast on looks any different than it did last week. Tuscany is a little bigger (but the picture would look the same, it'd just take up more of the windowsill), the blue sock is a little bigger, the grey sock is probably three rounds bigger.

I had been knitting away on Tuscany, happily ignoring my socks and working my way into that triangle shawl black hole. I checked out the second volume of Barbara Walker from the library, and was paging through it on Tuesday night and came across a cable pattern I liked. I liked it a lot. A "Oh my god I must have socks with this cable immediately" lot.

I pulled out dpns and my brown KnitPicks Gloss and my ivory Baby Ull and started swatching. I'm probably three or four swatches in, I have a clue but not a complete picture yet. I have a feeling these are going to be freaky bizarre complicated socks, but I really want them... So I'm giving it a try. Swatching everything so that when they're done, they'll be the way I see them in my head. So they won't be immediate. But they'll be mine.

I'll cast on soon. But tonight, I have the blue fuzz garter rib socks. And for something so simple, they make me very happy. Isn't it wonderful what good yarn can do?

Something frogged

The blue sock got pulled out yesterday. He was going to be too big. So we'll start again with fewer stitches. Frogged just fine, I guess that 25% mohair wasn't enough to make it supersticky.

I'm 6 of 11 repeats into Tuscany. I need to do the math and try and figure out roughly how much is actually done when I finish each repeat from here out. Because I'm a dork like that and need to know. Five and a half, that was a quarter of the shawl. That's the easy thing about a triangle. Midpoint dissection. Eleven being prime is going to annoy me though, and probably require a calculator.

Sports break: Stupid Auburn lost their stupid game last night. Honestly, we shouldn't have lost in OT, if South Florida hadn't made more mistakes than we did, or if their field goal kicker guy hadn't been vastly inferior to ours, we'd have lost much earlier. (Our kicker rocks my world and is going to be huge someday. Our quarterback, not so much, although he's probably suffering from my spending the other half of my football time watching Peyton Manning.) Long game meant knitting happened on Tuscany. It'll get more done today watching the Chicago IRL race - it's the season ender and there's championship drama. And for some reason, I really don't want Scott Dixon to win.

I'm getting that vague yarn-shopping yen again. That feeling that I need to go pet yarn and bring some new yarn home, even though I'm pretty much maxed out for projects and I don't have plans for everything I have already? Yeah. I should go pet my yarn closet. It's probably feeling discontent in the same way I am.

Something started

I caved. After about 3 days with no socks on the needles, I gave in to the pleas of my blue Bearfoot and cast on a sock. Plain stockinette, size 2 needles. It's taking a look out the window here:



What distracted me for those three days was this:



Tuscany from No Sheep For You, in pink Panda Cotton. Still sheepless, still pretty silky, but much more economical than Silken or SeaSilk. I'm really loving it.


Oh, and this came out of hiding and demanded its needles back:



He and his mate might be done for Christmas after all.

I think I might have a problem.

When I went to bed last night, it had been probably around 24 hours since I finished the first Kaylee socks. I woke up this morning and realized I had been dreaming of starting a new sock. Not the second Kaylee sock. Something newer than that. I'd been going through my stash and casting on in my sleep. I haven't given into the urge yet, but I might not make it through the day.

Hi, my name is Janet, and I'm a sock addict.

In other news, I'm also a joiner. Sometime soon the two knitalongs I have joined in the past month or so will have buttons in the sidebar, above my Knitting Scout badges.

I joined the Football-along because I foresee a long fall of watching football and knitting, as the two go together in my mind. (Actually, I've been knitting a lot while watching racing this summer, maybe an IRL-along next year?) The Kaylee sock got some comments as I was working on it at the Auburn viewing party Saturday - because that was seriously the most boring and depressing game ever until the last five minutes. Next week (against South Florida) should be boring, but in a different manner and hopefully less depressing.

I also joined Samurai Knitter's Strikke-along. I've been meaning to try some colorwork, so I'm going to give that a try next month, in EZ's Norwegian Mittens.

Somehow I just discovered how fabulous Cast On is. I'm working my way through the back episodes, and I really do love it. Those little badges down at the bottom of the sidebar are my Knitting Scout Badges. The top is the "Proselytize Knitting" badge. The bottom is the "Knitting Under the Influence" badge (see my first attempt at short-row heels if you think I don't deserve this one. And the middle is the "I will crush you with my Math Prowess" badge. I am claiming that my freakish affection for Latin Square related granny-square blankets earns me this one (none of the Colts blankets were Latin Squares, but you can bet if I do another PL blanket, it will be), but if you want to quibble about them being crocheted, I offer my golden rectangle in progress - which has the additional fun of being Fibonacci-related, since the badge itself contains the recursive function that generates the latter part of the Fibonacci sequence (F(0):=1, F(1):=1 being the first part). Did I mention I'm a mathematician?

Now I'm going to go and attempt to drown out the Bearfoot that's calling me from the sock stash basket. (It's yelling "It's my turn! MY TURN NOW! Slipped-stitch rib! You know you want to! Come on! Puhleeeeeze?" I know I won't sleep tonight till he's gotten his way.)

A little something done.

One down, one to go on this pair. I am flirting with Second Sock Syndrome, because with this guy I didn't immediately cast on the second - first pair of socks I haven't done that with. I have a goal of finishing the second by the end of SOS, which will put me at 4 pair over the summer. But remarkably, right now I have no socks on the needles. And I'm not really feeling the need. (That didn't stop me from buying sock yarn at the Stitches and Scones sale last week.)

So what have I been working on? Well, Friday and Saturday were all about the Colts blankets the Mad Knitters put together (We made three blankets in a week. How cool is that?). I worked on the sock a little at the Auburn viewing party Saturday night, and finished the ribbing while on a brewpub crawl with my friend Matt on Sunday. I swatched for the Tuscany shawl I'm going to start soon, and I'm getting close to finishing the great green scarf. I also went several rounds on my sweater, and I know that's getting closer to needing sleeves.

Anyway, that's the story with me. What's up with you?