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!