Now joined together

Until now, I've been knitting my hat-heel socks separately. I was going to knit them together starting at the ankles, but I needed to experiment a little. Now that I've settled on a pattern, and knit both legs to the same spot, I've joined the two socks on the same needle.


I have planned four pairs of socks that need to be knitted in the next two months. This means I absolutely need to have these socks finished by the end of the month. I'm hoping for completion by the end of the weekend. We'll see!

Booties!

I am studiously studying leg patterns. Because I have a complete sets of footsies!

Stupid Question

What do you do when you get a new pattern and new yarn all in the same day?

You cast on, of course!


This is the new hat-heel sock from Knitty. I've mused with the idea of starting around the heel before, but never ever from this angle. I tried making the woman's size, but it seemed really tight, so I ripped it out and upgraded to man's. On that needle size, I always do 60-ish stitches around, and the man's size is 64 stitches.


The drawback to this pattern is that there is a lot of picking up stitches. I am not a fan of picking up stitches.


I do rather like knitting the foot first and then the leg. I'm still pondering the leg pattern. I utilised my recent favourite reinforcement techniques on the ball-of-foot and toe area.


I do have a confession. I had my doubts about this Dream in Color Stardust. When I saw the colour variation, I had my suspicions that it might pool. Oh, me of little faith! I should have trusted Dream in Color, because check that out! Splashes of colour, no pools in sight! I love love love it! This is what I always want out of variegated yarn. YES!

State Fair

This is the third year I've entered handwork into the State Fair. I had plans to enter a variety of things, but I wound up just making two entries.


My first entry, the black and grey mittens, took a blue ribbon! I'm not very pleased with how they're being displayed, because they turned the top inside-out to show the convertible finger part. It's hard to see just what's going on. But that's okay! I squealed and jumped up and down.


I also entered a Knitted Babe. I found it more difficult to enter her. I think it might be because she has a face--I have more severe fear of rejection for her, although that is totally silly. She got a red ribbon! I hope she enjoys her stay at the State Fair.

Further acquisitions

I think I have favourite yarns. Yes, I think I do. It's official: my favourites are Gothsocks and Dream in Colour. While I'm doing pretty good, well, sorta, about not acquiring yarns heltersketer, I do wind up acquiring my favourites whenever the opportunity arises.

Discontinued Name Brand Yarns has been selling Stardust. It's a cousin to Starry, an experiment that didn't make it to the regular product line. But it's delicious. Everything I love in Dream in Colour, plus a little sparkle. And lovely colours. Slightly discounted. SQUEEEEEE.

Aquisitions--Gimmee gimmee Goth!

Yes, yes, I've muttered many times about how hard it is to buy Gothsocks anymore. Etsy-stalking is involved. It goes like this:

• Update is scheduled for 10am
• In the hours before, ponder what you really want. Make decisions in advance.
  
• At 9:55, load all applicable pages in firefox. Log in to Etsy.
• At 9:59, start hitting F5, watch for the pages to fill with yarn.
• When you see a yarn you want, don't stop to think. Grab whatever it is you see that you know you want. Only one skein.
• Checkout at top speed. Commit to buy the yarn.
• If you're lucky, hooray!
• If your yarn vanished from you, remove it from the cart.
• Try other yarns, other pages. Do the same until the yarn is all gone.
• By now it's probably 10:01. Go to the Gothsocks group on Ravelry and gloat about what you got, or whine about what you missed.
  

I managed to score 2 skeins a couple weeks ago. Evil Laugh was the top of my list, and I got it! Then I also managed Business Time. I am a fan of the Shades of Grey theme.


Stephanie, the yarn artiste, is kind enough to combine shipping costs, even when you purchase separately, or refund what you overpaid. The yarn arrived really fast, and it's as lovely as ever. I don't really spend my evenings petting this yarn. No, really.

*pet*pet*

Knitty!

Congratulations, Kathleen, on your Knitty pattern!

Emergency Tailoring

At the end of last school year, my middle schooler was preparing for high school, and my lower schooler was preparing for middle school. My son pulled all middle school uniform shirts from his room and set them out for his little sister. She went through them and determined which ones she would wear and which she wouldn't. I was satisfied that she had a good set of nice, unstained, quality uniform shirts to wear. And, because I'm a nice mom and understand that a new shirt now and then is nice, I even bought her two brand new uniform shirts in girl colours.

Fast forward to the start of the school year. It's the second day of school, and the girl is wearing the same shirt as she wore the first day of school. I question this, pointing out that it's Uncool to wear the same shirt two days in a row, and why doesn't she wear another shirt? She says there's only one other shirt she'll wear, and she's saving that for Friday.

So! Whereas I thought we had over a week's worth of shirts, she's thinking she's going to complete her entire school year in only two shirts. Further questioning reveals that the rest of the shirts are all BOY SHIRTS, and she'll only wear girl shirts. This is definitely a generational thing. To me, they're all t-shirts!

Well, I'm not the kind of mom that's going to dish out a hundred plus dollars to buy the girl a new middle school wardrobe when she has perfectly fine slightly-used shirts to wear. On the other hand, I do understand that middle school is a strange and delicate time, and sometimes it's incredibly important to fit in. So while I will not buy her new shirts, there is something I can do. I can tailor those boy shirts into girl shirts.

So 7am on the second day of school found me in the sewing room, basting a t-shirt for her to try on. Then I even had to thread the serger, because apparently I had walked away in disgust when it became unthreaded, last time I was sewing. I still managed to cut the shirt down and we all got to school/work on time by 7:30. (Although I didn't manage to make myself a lunch that day. That's what work cafeterias are for.)

What's the difference between a boy's t-shirt and a girl's t-shirt? About an inch on each side, all the way down from the hem of the sleeve to the hem of the shirt.

Lunch Stuff

I have a deep dark secret. I privately long to be a lunch-time chef and artiste extraordinaire. Reality is much less entertaining. Reality is more like the kids slapping together a pb&j, while #1Man cuts up apples for them. But while reality is dim, I still peruse lunchtime cookbooks and purchase cute bento items. I have recently been exploring Jennifer McCann's books and blog.

Yesterday I made a batch of flautas. While I got the recipe from her book, it's actually available on her blog here. I cooked flautas until I ran out of refried beans. Surprisingly, that was only enough for three of us to try one each last night, and then the same three of us to take three for lunch. Poor #1Man didn't even get to try one.



Lunch was packaged with a generous container of salsa, a little cucumber-tomato salad, and some leftover white rice. After dipping the flautas in the delicious salsa, I mixed what salsa was left with the leftover rice, which was even more yumminess. Yay lunch!

Weekend knitting report

Well! I've been knitting! But not much blogging. The last two weekends have involved travelling, and this weekend involved some day trips.

I have completed, and even blocked, my Monochrome mittens. I'd like to get some nice photos of them, all finished, to blog their final monochromosity.

I have a bad habit of starting projects, and then abandoning them. Surely I'm unique in this! The ones that get abandoned often don't even make it to the blog or to ravelry, they're that neglected. Maybe I'm just not sure enough about them. One such project was a hat that was slated to use up the yarn leftover from the Strawberry Kiwi mittens. I looked up an i-cord cast on, and got to work. My enthusiasm faded somewhere around 90 stitches. That cast on has been sitting in my bedroom for over six months. This week, I picked it up, and progressed on it. It's nearly done, just needs some finishing touches.

I've also started another Knit First, Dye Later pair of longies. It's been done before. But I want to do it again.

Baby socks!

They're just like another pair I made.



They are made from the last of the Dusky Aurora Dream in Color yarn, using the Sky Sock pattern from New Pathways.

I started them last March, when the baby's grandparents were visiting me. I didn't quite manage to finish them before the folks left, and the socks languished. I pulled them out and finished them up last week, before going to a family wedding.

I asked to hold the baby they were made for, my grand-nephew, who is now 7 months old. I wandered off, and tried the socks on him in secret. They did indeed fit, with just a little room to spare, so I went ahead and gifted them to the parents.

Dream in Color Classy is wonderful. I want an endless collection of it.

Airplane knitting

My last order from The Loopy Ewe came with a cute little red sock kit. Paired with my plastic double points, it seemed like the perfect airplane knitting.



It was a fairly short flight, only 1 hour 35 minutes in the air. The weekend was a busy one, with many family wedding activities. I only had a wee bit of knitting time. I finished the red sock. That was the sum total of the entire weekend's knitting. But it's cute!

Little odds and ends

Today I picked my first butternut squash. I've been waiting for it to get as big as the squashes I buy at the store, but today I just went ahead and picked it. I cut it up, and noticed right away it didn't look like I expected inside. I rationalised that it must be really not big enough, and tossed it in the oven.

A few minutes later, I thought some more. That really didn't look right. I went back outside and checked the tags on my plants. No wonder it didn't look like a squash inside. It's a golden zucchini! The other squash plant, the one that hasn't had a single fruit yet, is the butternut squash. I hurried and took the pan back out of the oven, and cut it up and roasted it with olive oil and garlic. I won't let the others get so big, now that I know they're zucchinis.



I don't pay much attention to Twitter, but I do have the Yarn Harlot's twits on my blog reader. They're fairly interesting/educational/entertaining. In a Twitter sort of way. Today she twitted:

I wish I could magic a dress for this wedding. I hate all my clothes.

It was like she stole it, right from my brain. I only have tonight and tomorrow night before I depart for a well-anticipated family wedding. This is enough time to be sure the laundry is done before I leave, but not enough to create or discover anything new and wedding-appropriate. If I'd had any sewing time in the last month, I might have actually magicked myself a new skirt, but all I've done is launder the fabric.

I do have my airplane knitting all picked out.

Monochrome Uno, rambling with pictures

Long long ago, when I first became a dedicated knitter, I knit some mittens without a pattern. They were top-down, and very cute.

First mittens, 2004

Second mittens, 2004*

More recently, with many pairs of mittens under my belt, I have attempted to do a top-down mitten, and have been unhappy with the results. This hasn't stopped me from perservering. This monochromatic pair I started last winter/spring was definitely going to be top-down. And to prepare, I started out by knitting the various parts that needed to be added--the thumb and the insert--before knitting the main mitten, so they could all be assembled as I knit along.

Then I had troubles getting the exact mitten I was happy with. I only pulled it back out last week, and finally got a pattern that worked for me. But it turns out that the mitten that worked not only had the wrong number of stitches to match up to the insert, but with its 2-colour work, the mitten was way smaller than the insert. This troubled me dearly.

The solution was suggested when my knitting coworker offered the idea of knitting the insert on a smaller needle. That's when I realised I didn't even need to use the exact yarn. And based on my own previous post, I realised I had the perfect yarn. So I pulled out the monochrome sock yarn and knit a new insert. I'm sure the relative sizes don't show well in the following picture, but the lower insert, made from the same yarn, is way too big, and the upper insert is perfect.

Then, since I had changed my pattern, the thumb I had knit wasn't right. So I used the old thumb as my ball of yarn to knit a new thumb.


Last night I finished the ribbings, and today I wove in the last of the ends. One monochrome mitten, complete! (the following picture is three shots of the same mitten, all shtuck together)

*Little story about these rainbow mittens. I was knitting them five years ago at a school event. A little girl in kindergarten came to see what I was doing. She was very enchanted with the rainbow mittens unfolding on my needles, and went to ask her mom to make her some. When her mom said no, she couldn't make rainbow mittens, the little girl sobbed like her heart was broken. That little girl is now ten, studying ballet with my daughter, and would be mortified if I told that story to her.

Monochromatic works in progress

I have finished one St. Peter Port Stripe sock, though I made the toe rounder than the instructions recommended. The fit is a little awkward. Yet I knit on. Well, I did. But last night I decided I had to progress on a pair of mittens I started months ago--I have no clue when. I ripped them out yet again and finally got a pattern I liked. Just today I probably ripped them out 6 times, although not every time was all the way back to the beginning. Hopefully my notes will be sufficient for mitten #2.


These projects are so lacking in colour! The balls of yarn amuse me, such a monochromatic heap.


While I knit in shades of grey, my Dream in Colour is calling my name. (Mom? Dad? If you've infiltrated this blog, stop reading now. okay?) Amy asked what I'm knitting with it. I have two balls of Smooshy earmarked for parental Christmas socks, pattern as yet undetermined. Then there are 2 balls of Classy, a worsted weight, because I love having Classy sitting around to play with. I'm thinking mittens. Or a hat. Or baby socks, mittens, and hat. Or.....

Loopy Acquisitions

Friday 12:28pm: submit order for Dream in Color at The Loopy Ewe.
Friday 1:22pm: The Loopy Ewe ships my Dream in Color.
Monday mail delivery: My yarn arrives! squeeeeee!

What I have here is Christmas knitting. Maybe I'll get started on it before December.

MissUnderstood

Last June, on I-90 west of Coeur D'Alene, I finished my Pirate Longies and started a pair of fingerless gloves. When I started knitting, I discovered that I had grabbed the wrong black contrast yarn, and I had a DK weight yarn instead of a fingering weight. Being on the road, there was no accessing the right yarn, so I just proceeded.


Unfortunately, the wrong yarn bugged me, yet I knitted on. Turns out that the fingerless gloves I thought I was knitting, and the fingerless gloves my daughter thought I was knitting were not the same pair. Once she had convinced me to really knit her the pair she wanted, not the pair I wanted to knit, it became obvious that the cuffs I'd knit just weren't appropriate. Plus, there was that DK-weight thing still bugging me. So I finished knitting the gloves, then went back and removed the old cuffs and added new cuffs.


I had hoped to use up the ball of DitsyGoth Gothsocks, but for what she wanted, it only used up half. I still have 25 grams left, enough to make one more identical pair of gloves, if I were so inclined. But I'm not.


Lucky grrl, she got my only recent Finished Objects, and both from delicious yarn from Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs.

When is a boy not a boy?

...when the pet store says he's a boy.

In June, my daughter bought a boy dwarf hamster. Ten days later, the boy had a litter of 7 babies.

That's what I get for following instructions

This morning I woke up and started knitting. I carefully measured the sock in progress against finished socks, and on my feet, and determined that I was exactly 2.5 inches away from the end of the foot, and that it was time, according to the instructions, to start the toe decreases. I had a leisurely morning of knitting, shaping the toe, and paused, ready to kitchener, to try it on. TOO SMALL. The toe measures exactly 2 inches from the point I started decreasing, and my toes have to curl up miserably to fit into the sock.

SIGH. Time to rip out, do one more colour repeat, and decrease again. I was so mentally DONE with this sock, too.

A finished object!

In the middle of the summer,

when the temperatures daily reach 105F/40C.

the resident ballerina now has warm and toasty leg warmers, to keep her warm and toasty.

And the cat always shows up for pictures.