Mostly for Mandie

My kid brother made us watch this movie twice over our four days in Birmingham. This is the good part. (I managed to sleep through major chunks of it both times.)

Pictures!

Camnesia again struck the hats from yesterday, but here is today:

The state of the socks as they were wrapped:


My kid brother and his blanket:


And the state of the socks this evening:

Taking a tie and calling it a victory. Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Yesterday, two boys under the age of ten played a mess of football in 70 degree weather wearing new striped wool hats. I win.

On Anne-trelac: Yesterday I woke up and had half a heel flap on the second sock and half of a foot still to knit on the first. This morning, I gave them to my mother with only a toe missing. By this afternoon, she had a complete (and awesome!) new pair of socks. They weren't done by Christmas morning, but they were done before Christmas dinner. I win.

(Again, project monogamy is amazing - why do I not do this more?)

In sad yarny news, something broke somewhere in my brother's afghan and there's a hole that I am now determined to patch before I leave town. Having left all the yarn for his blanket in Indiana (in retrospect, I vastly underestimated my ability to rise to the occasion of Christmas knitting and I will likely need more yarn before the week's out) I will need to hit Michaels tomorrow to fix it.

Merry Christmas to all.

Whoo hoo!

Yes, my friends, that is a complete, clean, and ready to wrap Christmas present for my kid brother - also known as my finished Ravelympics project. Major help from Mandie and Paige made the seaming happen. They are awesome and I am terribly indebted.

Blue-and-grey striped socks were received by my fabulous mother-in-law last night, who again showed that she totally deserves them, because my in-laws gave me a delicious and exciting assortment of fiber-related reading material. I wanted to cast new things on right away, but I'm still working on other gifts, so I'm going to get back to it.

Whew. Okay then.

Well, hmm. I keep meaning to post stuff, but more, I've been meaning to get some knitting done. I've had a pair of work socks all ready to wear but for weaving in a couple of ends since Thanksgiving. The great grey afghan seems (seams?) huger as Christmas looms nearer. I'm making good progress on a pair of plain socks that are a Christmas gift, but other than that, not much is happening. Except, y'know, work.

But as of tomorrow, I'm done with teaching new material in all five classes, and once I've got my Geometry/Trig final written, there's only grading left to do. Woohoo! (That's where we are in the semester. Grading gets a "woohoo!")

In that spirit, I updated my sidebar to cover my Christmas knitting goals. We'll see what happens there. Reality may well probably will come smack me around soon enough.

A note from Jake and other stuff

I got a cute facebook thank-you from Jake today:

"Thank you so much for my new favorite hat! As I am a baldie, this is not only a welcome fashion accessory, but an integral part of my survival. Thank you for saving my life and making me look cool."

My kid brother's friends are as smart and nice as he is. I only regret I didn't get pictures of the hats, because I really like them. I'm on a bit of a jag, two essentially identical hats done (and in charcoal and gray!) and I could still make more, and I may well do so.

The weekend with family was awesome and now I want to knit for everyone for Christmas. I feel like I have not been working ahead this year. Last year at this point I had socks for Dad and a hat for Kid Brother and had only a pair of socks left to knit. This year nothing is finished. I have four giant seams to sew in kid brother's afghan, a half a sock that could be for my mom, one sock for my mother-in-law, ideas for a hat for my father-in-law, and no clues for dad or my new step-people. (I think probably the fact that I want to knit for more people this year is really more of the trouble...)

The hats may be the answer. If I can keep up the pace I had, I can get four hats in two weeks, and we're still a touch more than four weeks out.

Stay tuned. Things might get interesting in the next month...

Weekend

Before I yammer about the knitting, everything came together as it should this weekend. Dad is out of the hospital and married, and I had a great weekend with family. I am now home and glad to be here and get to sleep in my own bed tonight, but I'm looking forward to returning for Christmas.

I took yarn for seven projects. Sweater, shawl, scarf, 3 socks, and a hat. I worked on one hat and one sock. I did show off the handspun, so the scarf wasn't a complete waste, but yeah, otherwise carried much more than was necessary. Kind of predictable, that.

Finished Jake's hat, and the second current work sock is well on its way to the toe. I will have new socks for work after Thanksgiving, so that's awesome.

I came home wanting to knit for everybody. I think I can be a bit controlled this Christmas, but next year may be insane.

Sigh...

Dad's doing better. Should be out of the hospital tomorrow and be able to attend his wedding on Saturday.

So somehow I made a packing list and didn't include my knitting. This is bad. Situation must be remedied ASAP. Need nighttime car knitting and probably "please don't let me kill anyone" knitting. Whether I have those kinds of projects at hand, I'm not sure...

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.

You know you're a knitter when

You excitedly click on the e-mail with "cashmere - 20% off!" in the subject line, only to be disappointed that it's an ad for sweaters that are already knit.

Out of control

Yeah, that's a half-dozen sock projects in some state of started-but-not-finished. Two different grey work socks for me, one black one that jumped onto my needles yesterday because I'm insane, the green-blue-yellow are my Socks that Rock Mockery socks, the hibernating Anne-trelac are the pink, and there's a single blue-and-gray striped sock that needs tried on before I start the second.

I have a problem.

Other Leafy and/or Green things

Leafy and Green: a sweater for a cousin's baby - since the sweater was begun, the intended child has revealed himself to be a boy, and his name will be Jonathan, after his dad.



Buttons are leaves, and I love them.

Leafy and Green: A stole - or at least the beginning of one.



I wasn't in love with it, so I blocked out the first few repeats. I think it'll be cool, but it's not as compelling as the first leafy green shawl. It's not as easy to memorize, either.

And just green: A cabled cardigan. Here's the sleeve.



I love it. I spent a lot of yesterday finishing the baby sweater, and started actually seaming the afghan, so there hasn't been much knitting on this since Friday. The cable pattern is already getting into my head, I am pleased.

So in Love

That I bring you crappy nighttime blocking photos.

Last night - finished knitting. Ends woven - this afternoon. Blocked - tonight.

Unblocked - resting on its nipply bits on my guest bed (where everything else is drying.)


Having had a bath - spread on the same bed, it goes from end to end. And displaces a few things.


Dear lord, this thing is ginormous. I can't wait for it to dry.

Leafy lace love.

So I start the Shetland triangle, and it's lovely. My favorite kind of lace, it's easy, it's beautiful, and it follows itself - yarnovers over yarnovers, double decreases stacked, when the pattern repeats it offsets, and it's so cool. Charming, lovely, so in love. I repeated the body chart 12 times and didn't get bored with it.

And then the edging started. And I may be even more in love. I've got about three and a half rows left. And then the bindoff and blocking. I can't wait. Maybe I'll finish today? Then what?

It's been a lovely day for knitting. Dreary and windy and rainy (hi, Ike!), with a day full of sports to watch on the sofa. (The Colts managed a W in the end, and Auburn won last night in perhaps the ugliest game EVER.)

Christmas is coming, as David Reidy reminded me the other day. I will have new family members to knit for before then, so the Xmas list is currently being reformulated. More on that later.

ETA: Finished casting off around 10pm tonight. Still need to deal with ends and block. Still love it.

Did I mention

that my new job is kind of kicking my butt?

Paige and I have the same sort of affliction: when life gets tough, the tough cast on. She starts sweaters, I start socks. Current sock count is three on the needles, one in hibernation, and one that I'm chomping at the bit to get at. I have pictures of none. My new year's resolution to only have two socks on the go at once is out the window. And I'm ok with that. I'm starting to think that four might be the perfect number - one in each office, one at home, and one in the purse. And I need more 2.5mm dpns, btw.

But like I said, no pictures of that. Here's the epic greyness report:



Six pieces are living in that bag, where I've managed to ignore them entirely. Impressive, I know. Not a single seam has cried out to me to be begun or even contemplated. It's like the bag doesn't exist. Amazing.

Meanwhile, I started a shawl and have a huge amount of that going:


It's Evelyn Clark's Shetland Triangle, which is simple and beautiful lace. I love the hillocks each repeat creates, and I will love them more when they block out into flat little leafy bits. I love it. The yarn is my beloved Dream in Color, it's Classy in Good Luck Jade, so this thing (I hope) will be a mite bit blanketish. It seems gargantuan already, and I'm just starting to feel the second ball of yarn lighten, and I have a third that I'm going to try and get through as well. Did I mention I love it?

I have two more green leafy shawls in my queue, so this may be a green leafy shawl winter. And I kind of love that idea.

Olympic Insanity, Day 21: All Over But the Seaming

I did not finish the crocheting at knit night tonight. I finished soon after coming home. There are five long seams left to sew, plus three strips' worth of ends to deal with.

I have been having balance issues the past couple of weeks, and I think this afghan is partly to blame. My fiber time has been less calming and more agitating than I like, and not loving my project and not loving my yarn has not helped. I gladly snatched up my languishing baby sweater and knit away on the Happy Forest goodness.

So here's what I now know:

• I need color. This grey monogamy has been bad for my mental health.
  
• I do not love crocheting the way that I love knitting. For me it is less meditative, less automatic, and less soothing.
  
• I made up a row-marker scheme that kept me from counting and recounting as I went, and it helped a lot. At a glance, I could tell how much work was left.
  
• I can talk a good game about the Olympics being about personal challenges and going higher than I thought possible, but when I don't make it, I do tend to get down on myself. Especially when things keep taking longer than I think they should. I am glad to be finished.
  
• I do love my kid brother, and I'm glad he's going to have this blanket. But I may just knit hats for the rest of the fam for Christmas.

Project specs in the FO post, including the pattern story, when I get it seamed and finished.

Olympic Insanity, Day 17: In Which We End

Sort of.



Here are five strips and the start of the sixth. This is status as of noon today, the "official" end of the Ravelympics. So yes, I did not "win." I lost, I failed, I fell short.

But seriously? I have most of an afghan. At an ordinary gauge. Faster than I've ever done an afghan before, because I fully expect this to be finished this week. And I really can't beat myself up about that.

This picture was supposed to be a portrait of failure. But I have most of an afghan taking up most of my living room, and I've done that remarkably quickly. And that's kind of awesome.

And I've learned a lot about myself, and the way I work, and what I like and what I want to do. But I'll post about that later.

Olympic Insanity, Day 14 : Totally Insane

New Job started this week. It's been exhilarating, frustrating, and exhausting. And I'm not sleeping as well (or as much) as I'd like.

Thus strip 4 was only just finished tonight. And so again, no new pictures, but just double the stuff in the last picture.

Not giving up yet. Still have a weekend coming, and strip 5 has almost 20 rows already. I bet I can get past 30 before bed. Go Team!

Olympic Insanity, Day 9

No pictures. Look at the one in the post below, and add another strip. That's the current picture. Which means that we've got something more than a week left and half to go.

I'm putting great expectations on spending the afternoon with the in-laws tomorrow, it's usually great knitting time, so hopefully that pattern will remain consistent and I'll have most of a fourth strip done. Because the third was finished last night and the fourth might get started in the next hour or so. Yeah, I'm slacking.

And I got my order from Blue Moon today (I think I ordered Tuesday? They're awesome!), and I may need very bright blue-green-yellow socks very very soon. Ideally, once I'm finished with the olympics, I should be working on some work socks, because work starts on Monday, but the thought of more greys and blacks really isn't working for me right now.

Olympic insanity, day 7

It'll be a full week tomorrow, and I may or may not have three strips done by then. I took a picture of the two finished ones, but seriously?



I can't tell the difference anymore. There are two there. A third is in the works. Hopefully finished today or tomorrow.

Grey grey grey. I'm distracting myself as best I can considering the same two women are playing beach volleyball every time I turn on the Olympics. I spent some time yesterday catching up on Project Runway, I'm almost current on Craftlit and Little Women, and since I'm crocheting for the Guild of Calamitous Intent, I stuck the Venture Bros in the dvd player yesterday for good measure. Having people to talk to tonight at knit night will help.

Meanwhile, anybody have any good ideas for my husband's birthday? It's Saturday and I'm clueless.

Olympic Insanity, day 2

Progress photos ahoy!

This was taken around 6:30pm today, August 9. First strip is finished lengthwise, and the border is more than halfway around the first round. Currently totally stymied by the second round, because it requires crocheting into a chain every third stitch, and it's kind of dark in my house, and it's essentially black yarn. I was hoping to get more done watching tonight's IndyCar race, but the dark plus the needing to see that tiny chain stitch was getting to me.



In case you're thinking I'm doing a mini-afghan, here's the length stretched on my sofa.



Yup, I'm making a half-dozen charcoal-on-grey scarves and sewing them together. I must really love my kid brother.

Looking forward to tomorrow's short crocheting day - a trip to the State Fair will be just the thing to rest my wrists and right elbow, which have recently started protesting their overuse.

Olympic insanity, day 1

Woke up and started crocheting this morning. SciFi is having a Doctor Who marathon today, which should mean I get a good start.

Finished the Mobius yesterday, it's warm and yummy and lovely.



A crochet-y couple of weeks are at hand, and I was panicking some last night at putting away the knitting. There's actually still a piece of baby sweater in my living room and a sock in my purse, so it's not a total swap of hook for needles, but I'm still quite out of my comfort zone.

I'm thinking we get chinese food tonight at my house.

Clearing the needles

Or not.

Pre-Olympic stuff:

I started a little plaything last night - Doddy, and I got a little math-geeky after I started, so there will need to be another, geekier one later. If this stops halfway till the Olympics are over, no big.

The knitting is finished but the finishing is not on the fantastic Quinn bag, and I would like to have that usable before the Olympics start.

I have a couple socks going, the Anne-trelac will (hopefully) get to the end of the entrelac part of the first and then go away for a little while (till I get Christmas crazy?), the plain purse socks will stay in the purse for emergency knitting.

I'm going to try and finish up the green baby sweater this week. And the mobius wrap.

There's also the Mooninites pillow that has been languishing in a half-crocheted state forever. I'd like to surprise the husband with that for his birthday this month, so that would need to be finished before the Olympics too.

Of course the main thing that needs to be finished this week is the term at hand. Final exams tomorrow. Grades due Tuesday.

Meanwhile, I'm watching the Colts play the first game of the preseason, and NBC keeps reminding me, "Five Days till the Opening Ceremonies!"

Small things

Finished: Work socks. I wove in ends yesterday morning and wore them to work. A vast improvement over the store-bought socks I usually wear. I'll have to do this again soon. (Considering I've been buying work-appropriate sock yarn since the spring, I don't think there will be a problem there...)



64-stitch cuff in a 3x1 rib, going down to a 60-stitch foot. I dig it.

Started: Anne-trelac socks. Pink and PINK, Lorna's Laces. They seemed kind of big, but I put them on waste yarn and tried them on, and they'll be fine. I'm amused by the construction. Learning to knit backward a bit.



They're going fast. Ish. I pick them up and want to finish a tier, so they'll be done soon. As long as I keep picking them up, that is. They may be a gift. Not sure how much I need them.

And here's a baby sweater:



Or at least its sleeves, which I started rather than swatching. Got gauge on sleeve one, so full steam ahead. This will probably be done soon, because it's yummy.

And here's a box-o-yarn. The Olympics are a very few weeks away, and I am prepared.



Whoo hoo. Epic plans. Need to crochet a strip of afghan approximately every two days, so that's going to be a doozy of a couple of weeks.

And before they wilt and fade, here is a small thing that makes me happy outside my door every day:



Hope you have a great day!

Plans, News, and Travels

Not in that order.

News: I got a job. Like a full-time, 5 days a week, reasonable-pay-plus-benefits job. Yaay!

Which means that a) I'll have more yarn and fiber money very soon, and b) I will have less yarn and fiber time very soon.

I am excited. I start August 18. Classes start August 25.

Plans: And the Olympics are over August 24. My summer classes are over on August 4, and the Olympics start on the 8th. I have yarn and a pattern and need to swatch for the afghan I'm crocheting as my Olympic project. I'm hoping to get the majority done the first week, but we'll see.

Nearly finished the neverending grey/black work socks. Started a cotton-blend pair for my mother-in-law, and they're more grey and less blue than I had hoped - the striping at least is amusing, though. I'm thinking they're not going to be long in the cuff.

Travels: Last Thursday I headed south for a weekend with friends and family. In my quest to hit every yarn shop along I-65 I caught two new-to-me ones, first Clementine's Dry Goods, which I had encountered at the Hoosier Hills fiber festival, but had not been to the shop proper. The shop is bright and inviting, the front is full of quilting fabrics, the back has sofas and comfy chairs, where I was invited to sit and knit before I'd even begun browsing. And the middle part is yarn. Lovely stuff, some basics and a few handpainted sock yarns that you don't often see in brick-and-mortar shops. I picked up a kit of variegated-plus-semisolid Yarn Love Elizabeth Bennet in Shipwreck. I seriously was stroking this yarn all the way to Birmingham. It will make some lovely luxurious socks for me! all mine! The group sitting knitting was friendly and inviting, I really didn't want to leave.

Next stop was Bowling Green, at Crafty Hands, where they stayed open a few minutes more so that I could browse, bless them. They are serious sock knitters there, and had a huge selection of European sock yarns. I very nearly bought another ball of Trekking in the colorway that my Stupid striped socks were made in, just because I love it so. And I have a Trekking weakness anyway. But then I wandered over to their needle selection. And they have Darn Pretty Needles. And all yarn thoughts went out the window and I have a new set of size 1 dpns. Not that I needed them, but oh, I did. So those fueled the rest of my trip home.

And the fact that I got passed by an IRL team truck on its way to the Nashville race.

My mom loves her new socks, so that's good. I met people who are important to my Dad, and that was fun. I met and worked some with old mathy friends, and that was pleasant. Knitting the mobius while working on math was good, and when old friends got me cranky in the way that new people just can't, I had the Quinn bag to keep me distracted and not killing people.

Anyway, that's the story of the past week. The camera needs recharged and flickr is being difficult, so pictures next time. I may have finished a sock or two by then!

Victory is mine!

Mother's Day socks are finished, only a couple months late. Well, the knitting is finished. There are still ends to deal with, but that can happen easily before Thursday's trip.



Probably the last time I work with Regia Bamboo. I know some people love it, but it's not something I enjoyed knitting.

I finally checked out Cat Bordhi's magical mobius book, and had to immediately start a mobius wrap. Wow, but this method is cool! Mine is the purl ridge variation, cast on 144 stitches, on my Denise set's longest few cords, and a size 13 needle. Oh, and it's chunky Malabrigo, so it's perhaps the coziest thing ever. I'm almost through one skein, I have two more, so we'll see how big it gets. If I don't feel the need to keep it for myself, it may become a Christmas gift.



Yum.

And here's a snapshot of my life: I've been watching enough Doctor Who lately that when we turned to CSPAN the other night to watch Question Time with the Prime Minister (which is fun, we should totally do that here), I kept waiting for the killer aliens to descend.

Much to do today, so I'm going to get to it.

Synchronicity

What I said Thursday: I have no babies to knit for! Boo!

What my cousin L called to say on Sunday: I'm pregnant! Yaay!

Yes, I'm totally judging this news based on my current yen to knit baby things. My summer of small things almost demands baby knitting, don't you think? Even though baby's not due till well into winter.

First up, EZ's February baby sweater, which I've started (I actually started on Friday), frogged back to the first increase because I forgot buttonholes, got back up to where the lace should start, but now I'm thinking I have gauge issues and this is far too tiny for any size human to actually wear, so it may be frogged and restarted again, either with larger needles or different yarn.

Tomorrow I need to clean the stash guest room, and I'm planning on taking the opportunity to see what exists in the stash closet that is baby-appropriate.

Meanwhile, I've got a deadline a little more than a week off for Mom's feather and fan socks, and I'm almost to a second heel flap. I've broken down the rest of the foot into daily-ish assignments, so that I can get it done without totally submerging myself in it and imbuing the sock with bitterness. Time to take care of that for the night. (While watching History Channel's "All About Dung." Good times.)

Bag love

Yeah, I totally didn't go to the store all this week because my grocery bag wasn't finished yet. Sat down and sewed on handles today, and so tonight I picked up a few staples. I'm totally in love. Wanna see?



That's what it looks like with a basket full of groceries. Here's what it looks like otherwise.



How cool is that?

Being able to carry my groceries over my shoulder made leaving the store so much better, I had no idea. Fumbling for keys is much easier without both hands full. Plus I had that feel-good thing when they asked "paper or plastic?" and I handed over my cool green bag. Yay happy!

Festival of Finishing

Many thanks to Mandie for having me over for end-weaving and chinese food Sunday night. This post is brought to you by her hospitality.

Newest stuff first: another Mason-Dixon dishcloth. The first in another trio of dishcloths, the second has been started, the third will happen someday.


Next to the grass, the sage green looks kind of grey, but I think it'll look nice in a pink kitchen.

The trio of cloths for the Kid Brother:


They're fun.

And then the happy hempwol Knucks.


So amused. They're totally not useful at this moment in time, but I will enjoy them in the fall.

Ends got woven on the green string bag too, but it doesn't have handles yet, so it's not technically finished. I have the handles, I just haven't attached them. So that's another post soon. Working on getting other things done. Quinn got picked up again over the weekend, a heel was turned on the grey work socks, and Mom was asking about her Mother's Day socks yesterday, so I'm a little shamed there. Ravelry says I only have four projects going now, and a couple of those are pretty close to finished, so that's something. (Of course, the new dishcloth hasn't made it in, and neither has my crocheted pillow stuff, but never mind, things are getting done here.)

Okay. Should probably work on Real Job and Real Life stuff now. Food may or may not exist in my kitchen, so that's something to remedy.

Finishing. Or not.

Have been on a Tour of Local Craft Stores lately to try and find notions to finish the green bagstopper. (Cast off Wednesday morning before school. When I get obsessive, I get obsessive, really.) And in doing so, I wandered up to Hobby Lobby today, at which I saw the new sock yarns from Lion Brand and Red Heart in the wild. They are both pretty and about $10 for a pair of socks. I vaguely preferred the colors in the Heart and Sole to the Sock-Ease, but both look good.

There was an orange/rust/brown/navy shaded one in the Red Heart that I totally would have taken home today if there had been two - Lion is doing 100g balls, Red Heart is doing 50g ones. Each company had apparently sent a sampling of single balls to Hobby Lobby, that they then put on the shelf. Kind of amusing, but frustrating today, because I totally would have knit the orange and blue during football season. War Eagle.

Turned the heel on the second neverending work sock today. I also wore my red sweater. Finished knitting the knucks and the last Kid Brother dishrag at knit night last night. Am considering a festival of end-weaving this weekend. Or knocking out a few other small things. We'll see. I have tv on dvd to watch, so things are good.

Well, that didn't work

So, remember last Friday, when I dragged all my WIPs out of my knitting bag and posted them here in the hopes of finishing some of them?

Nope, didn't work.

So here's two new things! A third dishcloth:


I love this stitch pattern, I totally ganked it from Mandie, (ravelry link) who made it up one night at knit night. It's totally fun and awesome. The yarn was a random "need yarn" ball that I grabbed during a chance trip to wal-mart, and the orange in it goes with the other two orange dishcloths, so I think the three are going to go together out to Kid Brother soonish. Of course they'll all need ends woven soon enough. :)

And then! I was rooting through the cotton stash bag and came across a bunch of lime green cotton - bought in the same way as the multicolor above - but long enough ago that I didn't knit yet. There's more yellow in the green than is showing in this picture, the yarn is Lily Elite Cotton in Spearmint. I think I tried to crochet it into something once and then quit. But anyway, here's what's happened to it since Saturday:



The pattern is the ubiquitous Everlasting Bagstopper, and once I got through the bottom, it's love. Super-easy mesh pattern, it grows pretty fast, (although I'm getting to the "I need a marker to move up" black hole part) and somehow it's a comforting knit. I want to use it soon.

It's like a clown car in there.

Despite today's grayness, I have been meaning to photograph and blog some stuff for a while (note last post), and just hadn't gotten there. The blocking growth pictures of the pink shawl are locked away in the husband's pc, so I'll get a new picture of that, and then there's the finished sweater and that's it, right? No more "but there's no sun!" excuses. Photos today!

Pink Wrap:

Still in love. Need to dispatch it. Don't want to let it go.

Red Sweater:

This turned out well. It's my new favorite thing.

Of course then there's the rest of the stuff in The Bag. The Quinn Bag hasn't changed much since the last photo and the two socks in progress are second socks, so they're boring. But hey, there's knucks:


Yummy yummy hempwol.

There's dishcloths:

Mason-Dixon dishcloth and one from Designer One-Skein Wonders.

There's the helmetliner I started last week at the State Museum:

I'll probably mostly just work on it when I volunteer there, but it's a nifty little balaclava pattern, I dig it.

And that's just the everyday knitting bag. There's a lace scarf that sits by my chair and thus totally didn't get inventoried by the camera, and the crocheted pillow that has a back barely begun - living in a different bag with all the colors of acrylic in which I am knitting it.

Have I shown my handspun? Paige lent me her lovely Kromski Symphony a few weeks back while she went traveling. My results are below:

From left to right in order of spinning. The peachy stuff is my favorite, it was an insanely fine single that I chain-plied. I will be getting a wheel. The question is when.

And while I'm not usually a "flash my stash" kind of girl, but I went a little nuts at the Hoosier Hills Fiber Fair on Saturday, and so here is my haul. There's a good assortment of fiber types, some dyed, some not, and a lone skein of sock yarn that (in my defense) will make an awesome pair of work socks.


The beautiful greeny-blue and pink are from Creatively Dyed, as I'd been coveting her stuff since the Fiber Event in April. The sock yarn is Lotus Yarns Nirvana in "I Wanna Be Sedated" (that song gets into my head every time I look at the skein. I'm hoping the socks have the same quality.). The light blue in the plastic bag is a mill-end merino-silk mix that I totally fell for while trying out a Kromski Sonata. (I'm leaning toward a Kromski, can you tell?) I'm trying to return to my spindling for a few weeks/months/however long it takes for me to figure out what's best as far as wheel-buying goes. I should still have plenty when the wheel does come.

That's all for now. Summer is here-ish, we've had all kinds of stormy weather, and I'm leaning toward getting things finished and working mostly on smallish projects for the foreseeable future. (As in, till August. The Olympics are coming, I'm going to crochet an afghan for them, and that, my friends, will be epic.)

Things that haven't made it to picture phase yet

Finished and blocked pink wrap. It needs to also make it to the intended recipient, but meanwhile I keep reaching for it when I feel a tad chilly. LOVE it, and I probably need one just for me in a more me color. Although the bubblegum pink grew on me. (Seriously, I need to go get myself some wool for my own wrap, or that one's never getting mailed.)

Knucks out of Hempwol that I picked up in Nashville. Yummy blue yarn, happy blue gloves. Need to bind off the second, the first still needs ribbing.

Orange dishcloth for kid brother. First in a series, he may get a small collection of various patterned cloths from the same yarn. Another friend needs green dishcloths by mid-July. Dishcloths are not my favorite, but I'm feeling the itch lately.

Red sweater is a cuff and a mess of i-cord from being done. Whoo hoo.

Started a lace scarf of my own design for the grandmother I have yet to knit for. I'm thinking this may be a long-term thing, since it's pretty mindless yet still a tad fiddly.

Stalled: Quinn bag, plain dark socks, feather and fan socks.

I have new sock yarn that's begging to be cast on (Nashville is a yarny happy place - did I mention?), but I'm trying to finish my two second socks first. Summer of Socks, needless to say, isn't such a thing for me this year. Am I changing my sock-whore ways? We shall see. I think the one-piece sweater is not something to knit during the summer. Good thing mine is almost finished.

I have plans to replicate the afghan that my grandmother made my mom ages ago (and with which the Kid Brother and I grew up) in non-seventies colors. The pattern is a classic Red Heart crochet one that I came across a long time ago. I've been trying to find the appropriate palette since. I'm thinking it's going to be Christmas for the Kid Brother. (Never mind that the appropriate palette is still in the works - a Hobby Lobby trip may be in order.)

That's all I can think of, and I'm about out of evening. Need to clean the kitchen and maybe finish this dishcloth before bed.

Yeah, I'm seeing a theme to my knitting lately.



Shades of pink and red are dominating. Happens with other stuff too.



Once I finished the periwinkley stuff Paige got me started with, I pulled red coopworth (I think) out of the stash and started on it. That red bobbin is half of it. I did a second bobbin of singles and then plied them. (This is what kept me from leaving till about two hours after my original intentional departure time this morning - spinning makes time go away in a crazy way. I feel the treadling once I stand up.)

That thing you haven't seen before in the first pic? That's the Quinn cabled bag. I got the top band finished a few weeks ago and tried to graft it about half a dozen times till I finally got over it and did a three-needle bindoff. Bags are allowed seams. I'm almost over it. It's super pretty and I think I'll like it once it's done. It's definitely the beta brainwave pattern I've been looking for.



Yay. Yum.

Casting off

Ergh. Last night I got through the body of the red sweater. There was some "Long enough? No - yes - no!" drama, but eventually I got it decided and cast off however many bajillion stitches exist at the lower hem of a wrap sweater. And then I picked up near two hundred stitches for the neck band, where I'm two and a half of four rows in, and then those get bound off too. At a medium tension - as opposed to the loose one from the hem. Ergh.

I'm definitely of the opinion that casting on is better than casting off. This may be part of my top-down sock preference. I'm probably developing a bottom-up sweater preference as well.

In knitting milestones, I broke my first dpn tonight. Stepped on my sock-in-progress and snapped a 2.5mm Brittany needle. Currently thinking I'll sand the ends of the pieces and make cable needles - not that I use cable needles much lately, but it might be worthwhile nevertheless. Considering I've been knitting socks on wooden dpns for a year now, it's about time I did something dumb like that.

progress pics

Right. Those. Red Sweater:


Pink Shawl - need to update the progress bars too. Doh.