Sunday, November 29, 2009

Vacation and an evil sock

Howdy everyone. Heh, who am I kidding. I'm fully aware that there's very little reading going on around here, and it's all my fault. I don't update nearly as often as I should.

We're currently on vacation, visiting family for the Thanksgiving holiday, and it's absolutely gorgeous here. Chilly, but beautiful, for sure. Yesterday J, Granny, and I took a hike through the woods. J found a snail shell to add to his nature collection, and we had a great time rolling, running, and sliding down the levy and watching the sunset through the bare trees.

I'd share some pictures with you, but I don't have the cord to my camera, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Before leaving for vacation, I cast on several knitting projects, so as not to find myself stranded in a strange place with nothing to knit. Imagine the horror! One of the projects that I cast on for was the Nutkin sock pattern. It's lovely, easy, and zips right along, which is why I'm convinced that my knitting is out to do me in. I cast this sock on three different times before finding (what I thought) was the right needle size. Then I merrily knit away on it during the flight to Nashville. After arriving here, and preparing to start the heel, I realized that the cuff was impossibly small-- like so small that I couldn't get it over my ankle. I tried it on J-man in desperation. It fit him, but he deemed it too girly for him. So I ripped it all out and started over. After working the heel completely, I realized I'd made an error that I couldn't live with, so it was ripsville again. Ugh! I'm proud to report that I seem to have conquered the sock this time, and I'm well on my way to the toe. Let's hope that the second sock doesn't prove itself to be so much of a troublemaker!

Pictures will follow, once we return to Florida on Tuesday. For now, I think we'll go out and enjoy our last days on the farm.

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The story of a sock

There were once these socks I had the idea to knit. Socks. Pshhh... they're fast. I'll whip these up in a few week's time and give them to my step-mom for her birthday. That's what I thought back in April of this year. I had a yummy yarn to use-- Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett in the colorway Landscape Earth. I chose Ann Budd's undulating ribs for the pattern. Enough depth to give these socks some life, but not busy enough to be obscured by the color changes in the yarn.

They were lovely but just wouldn't ever seem to grow. I'd knit and knit, and they'd just stay the same size. Anyone who knits knows what I'm talking about. It's the same reason that I have a hard and fast rule about sweaters. When I think it's long enough I make myself add about 5 more rounds, or another repeat, whichever is the greater of the two.

I finished the first one sometime around July, I think, cast on, and did the cuff of the second. Then came my sordid affair with crochet, which ate up all of my time, and made it easy to cast aside my eternal sock companion. You see, somehow, when I separated the stitches for the heel, I separated in a different spot in the patterning than I did on the first, and when I started working down the foot of the second, I decided to try and fix it the lazy way-- by a series of stitches cast on on one side and cast off on the other. Should have just ripped, but I'll be damned if I'm going to rip out a heel that took me nearly 4 months to get around to doing! It was much easier, and a lot less painful to ignore them. Finally, a few weeks ago-- after finishing Delia's blankie and finding myself captive in the car loop with nothing else to knit, the socks and I had a heart to heart. I agreed to finish them, as they were, if they'd promise to behave for the rest of their time on the needles.

And, now I present to you my eternal undulating ribs!




In other news, my car, Gertrude (yes, her name is Gertrude, and it's much cuter when you hear Wil say it with his accent!), and I shared a tender moment:


I feel like I should treat her to an oil change or something. I'm truly surprised that she's continued to lurch along this far. I'm hoping for about another 20,000 more.

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

When it rains

My car is cursed. Seriously. It has a mind of it's own, and works on it's own schedule. Usually, when it's feeling snarky is exactly when I need it to be on it's best behavior-- much like my son.

For months now, intermittently, it's left me stranded somewhere. You get in, turn the key, and nothing. It's not the battery because I can still roll the windows up and down and the dome light works, as well as the radio. Twice, I've pulled it into the auto parts store to have the alternator checked, and it's passed with flying colors, too.

Yesterday, while out running errands in the too-hot-to-breathe afternoon heat, it decided to play it's tricks on me. Every time I give in and call someone to come 'rescue' me, it starts right up when they get there. And true to form, once Wil arrived, driving 20 miles out of his way, in his company van, it did the exact same thing.

Fortunately, I have a pretty cool mechanic, who graciously allowed me to bring it straight over. He thinks it's the starter. That's a simple fix, I suppose. The bad news is he'll need to keep the car for a couple of days while the starter gets rebuilt. Apparently, that's the cheaper way to go, and I'm all for that. The problem with him keeping the car is that I NEED my car. It's the only car that's really safe enough to put J in. I suppose the chances of having an accident in Wil's car in the two days or so that I'd have to depend on it are fairly slim, but still... who wants to strap their kid into a car with back doors that stick, has no a/c, and sounds like armageddon when it runs?

Yeah, it's only a temporary thing, but still... I'm going to have to suck it up. Right now I'm on pins and needles every time I start it up, not sure when it's going to decide it's done for good.

As a bonus, this means that I won't be going to Stitch N Pitch this weekend, which I really wanted to do. J would have loved the game, and how often do I get a chance to hang out with a bunch of knitters?

*sigh*

In good news, I got my new-to-me computer this weekend, thanks to Michele. Soon I'll have pictures to share and I can get back on track with all things net related.

And speaking of Michele, it seems we manage to find some excuse to get together almost every weekend for a little knitting time, and yet my FO count doesn't seem to go anywhere. Funny how that happens. I did finish up my puke monkeys this weekend. Pictures soon, I promise. Let me say this: I adore the monkey pattern! It was a great and quick knit, and the result would be fabulous in a different yarn. I can totally understand why Knit Picks discontinued the Dancing line. I love the elasticity of it, but the color? Total Fug. Still waffling on whether to overdye these, or just leave them as is. I don't know if I know anyone who's got a loud enough personality to pull off wearing them as is.

I cast on a new pair almost immediately. That says a lot for the pattern. I've never once had a desire to knit the same thing twice. There are just too many good patterns out there that I want to do. But Monkeys are great lunch hour, car ride, tv watching socks. Unfortunately, I didn't like the way this yarn looked in the pattern, either, and they were turning out huge, even after starting them three different times, on three different needles. So they got frogged. I contemplated Jaywalkers, but with instructions to cast on 72 stitches for the smallest size, I feared disastrous results, and so frogged those too. I think this yarn just wants to be plain old stockinette socks. Oddly, I've never done plain socks before. I'll keep these in my purse for mindless knitting, and maybe go stash diving for something more mentally stimulating.

Anyway, long post, no pictures. I'm sure you're yawning.

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Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Work in Progress

Finally! Some knitting content!

But first, kudos to Amanda for being the first to correctly guess the mystery object. I guess it wasn't as hard as I thought. I've never seen a tire shred so much before, so I was amazed and a little shocked when hubby hauled that out of his trunk after telling me "I had a flat on the way to work today." I think that's the first contender for the understatement of the year award.

Ok, so now onto the knitting. I'm still working on the tidal wave socks, and loving them completely. The pattern calls for 5 repeats on the leg, and then a plain stockinette foot. I'm seriously considering continuing the pattern down the top of the foot, but I'm not sure what it'll do to the striping. I guess the best way to find out is to give it a try, huh? What do you think: follow the pattern, or experiment. I mean, it's the foot afterall, and no one is really going to see it. Is it worth the extra effort to do the pattern down the foot? I'm not worried about it feeling bulky in the shoe. This yarn is incredibly thin. I really enjoy the pattern, though, and it wouldn't be that much more work, and might actually speed things up since it holds more interest than boring stockinette.

Jeez, I'm indecisive!

Here's what my desk looks like this morning:


And a closeup of the pattern, just because I love it so much.



And that's all I've got for this morning. :)

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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Pictures, mostly

So, here are the socks that I finished up. Nothing spectacular about them, but they're done, and it's been forever since I've had anything come off the needles.


Other things going on around here:


J got his new bed(s) a few weeks ago. After holding out for the really cute pirate bed for a week or so, we finally ended up going with the bunks. It just so happened that my sister had a set hanging around in her garage not being used, and since they're what J's been really wanting all this time, we decided to go ahead. They'll give him something to grow into for several years to come, and so far he hasn't gone tumbling down from the top. Of course, he's still not sleeping the entire night in them, waking several times and running across the house in a panic to find us, but we'll get there eventually. The bad thing about them is their size. They take up half his room! Case closed! We need a bigger house. Oh, and the cats like them, too.

And finally, some pictures from this weekend. We're all set for Halloween.



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Sunday, October 28, 2007

A blessing and a curse

This weekend Michele and I found ourselves in a rare position of both having a few free hours on Saturday. Now, what knitter in her right mind would turn down a couple of good hours of knitting time, kid and husband free?

Now, refer to the title of the post-- the blessing here is that we've managed to find each other, and strike up quite a friendship in a state where knitting seems to be the most uncommon hobby ever. The curse is that we've managed to find one another, and yet there are just enough miles separating us to make any impromptu get-togethers nearly impossible.

We've talked a lot about getting together for regular knit nights, whether it be once a week, or every other week, or whatever, but so far the stars have not managed to align themselves properly. But Saturday, those few stolen hours were golden. Oh, and I think we may have found a mutually agreeable half-way point that also boasts decent coffee, a wi-fi connection, and sinful pastries. What could be better?

There's been a whole lot of nothing being knit around here. I don't know if it has more to do with just not having the time to do so, or a lack of enthusiasm for the stuff dangling from the needles, but it's been a boring several months in knit-land for me.

Imagine my surprise when Michele reached into her cute little knitting bag and pulled out the beginnings of a sock in the exact same yarn and color as the one that has been travelling around in my purse since August. Neat! To further the geeky knitter concidence-- we're both knitting the exact same yarn in the exact same plain-jane rib pattern. It was just enough to get my knitterly mojo flowing again. Oh yeah, and the kid-free time helped, too.

So, we sat and knitted our twin socks for a few hours, she doing a bang-up job of learning magic loop. Let me tell ya- that girl is tenacious! She doesn't give up, even when I was useless to help her figure out a delimma. She's a true problem solver, that's for sure.

We also sat oogling yarn online and putting the final touches on our joint order from knitpicks. We're so good at enabling each other. :) Our original plan was to order together so that we could get the free shipping, but by the time we were done, I think we could just about have qualified for the free shipping individually. It's the most yarn I've ever ordered at once, and it gave me little tingles of excitement, laced with pangs of guilt for spending that much. But I justified them away by tellimg myself that I would have spent at least that much on two sweaters (which is the amount of yarn I'm ordering) even at a bargain store.

All the excitement over our order sort of had us giddy, and also feeling a bit sheepish (pardon the crappy pun). I know people who can spend more than we did on just one skein of yarn. That's all fine and good if you can afford it, and I applaud you. But see, we have these pesky things like bills getting in the way of our addictions, and apparently neither of us are that far over the edge yet, so we knit with what we can afford, and not what we'd really love to. This, my friends, is how "The Broke-Ass Knitter's Club" ws conceived. Seriously, look for it on Ravelry, just as soon as I get around to actually setting it up. We can all get together and discuss the merits of cheaper yarn, and why it doesn't all have to suck. Maybe we can share our reviews of yarns we've substituted for the more expensive stuff, etc. Whatever-- we'll see where it leads.

BTW Michele-- you better get moving on those socks, girlfriend. The Orlando Needleworks Show is only a few weeks away! I kitchenered my last toe this morning.

And today, to celebrate, hubby took me to the mall (yes, that evil and suffocating beast of consumerism) and I bought myself a pair of adorable little mary-janes in which to show off my, as J-man calls them, "yarnsocks".

More about today tomorrow. This has been long enough... and there's not even a picture to break up the monotony. Bad blogger!

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Sunday, February 18, 2007

Picture heavy

I finally finished one of the lace scarves I've been working on since November/December. Jonas seems to have a phobia about modeling anything knit, and so Squishy Man fills the role here. It still needs to have it's ends woven in, and a fair amount of blocking, but I haven't found a surface big enough in my house yet.


Here is a detailed look at the pattern. I'd really love to give credit to it's creator, but I honestly can't remember where I found it now. It's called Falling Water. If it's yours, please let me know and I'll provide the proper link.


And this one is just plain cute. Jonas tells me last night "Mama! I working in office!" I turn around and find him standing at the end table with my coffee mug and his laptop open. He'd type a little, then stop, pretend to gulp down some coffee, and then go back to work. He's got his Mama pegged. :)


After one too many frustrations with the frilly little hat pattern, I decided that the yarn just didn't WANT to be a hat at all, and so I frogged it, for the second time, and decided that what it really wanted to be was a pair of socks. Yeah, it's sport weight, so they'll be pretty thick, but my feet are always cold, so I think they'll be great for me. If you don't recognize the pattern, it's this one from Magknits. This is my first attempt at a toe-up sock, and even though I'm only just finishing the toe and starting the foot, I like the fact that I'm able to try it on as I go. I've got a fairly big foot, but I'm afraid that with this thicker yarn, I'm going to have to make some adjustments in order for it to fit well. And yes, this is where I admit that I didn't swatch at all. Bad knitter! But I was so frustrated with the hat thing that I just needed something to be excited about immediately.


And, as promised earlier in the week, a couple of pictures of our yarn dying project. Jonas chose the colors, and loved "cooking" the yarn. We did it on top of the stove just to keep the spills from turning the cabinets multicolored.

And here's the end product, out of the dye, rinsed and set, and ready to get hung up to dry. I'm not a big fan of this yarn at all. First of all, I'm not big on neon. Second, while it looks quite vibrant here all jumbled up, it actually dried to a dull and less exciting color. I did take the time to wind it into balls, and now it looks even uglier. But it was a fun little project with the boy, and I think I'll probably knit it and felt it into a little carrying bag for his beloved hotwheels. He likes to take them everywhere with him, and those little things slip through his fingers as if they were live fish.


You remember the calorimetry that I knit a few weeks ago, right? Yeah, the one in the yarn that I wasn't at all crazy about. Well, it seems to be the yarn that never ends, and so I also knit a pair of Fetching to go with it. Yes, it was a waste of a cabled pattern to use such a busy yarn, but it was a quick knit, anyway. I will probably make another pair of these in a solid color to make up for these hideous things. The only thing I'm not crazy about with these is the picot bind-off. I mean, it's cute when it's not trying to roll to the outside. Am I the only one that has that problem? I've never done it before and I'm thinking maybe I did something wrong? And what's that abomination on needles there on the right? Since it truly is the yarn that never ends, I decided to use up the rest of it by knitting a pair of worsted weight socks. So, if ever a blizzard should strike Florida, I'll have some toasty extremities. The pattern for these comes thanks to Amanda, who took the time not only host, but to create a blog of all the socks knit in the Mystery Sock KAL. I'd have never even thought to try this pattern, or to knit socks in worsted weight yarn!



Anyway, that's all the knitting news for now. I've got lots of stuff planned to start soon, but first I need to find a replacement pattern for the cute little hat that I've abandoned, and also something quick and cute for a friend's baby boy that will be arriving Tuesday, if not sooner. At this point, I'm thinking washcloths may be the way to go, unless anyone out there has a magic pattern that I can finish in just a couple of day's time.

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