Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue...

It was going to be so clever with pictures and everything. But even though I have my camera and took pictures, I have no idea where the cable is to connect camera to computer and upload said pics. Crap. So allow me to try the thousand word version since the picture deal isn't going to happen...

Something old:

I finished the Austerman Step socks for my sister-in-law. The were pair 5 of 6 (for those of you keeping score at home) of the holiday sock-o-rama. This weekend I had an overwhelming urge to finish some stuff. The socks were top of the list. I'm sure that this need to finish was really inspired by my house which is still in a state of total chaos, but whatever, I finished the socks!

Something new:

I started new socks. These are for me and are in Trekking XXL color #131. Very bright and springy, don't you wish I had a picture? Me too! So far I've got a little over an inch of 2x2 ribbing, but it's the beginning of happy socks all for me! Also in the new category we have a spinning wheel! I am now the proud owner of a Lendrum folding wheel and I love it. I have signed up for a spinning class starting the 27th, but have already made yarn. I have also knit said yarn into little wrist cuff things. They aren't much since I only had a little over 50 yards of yarn, but they are all mine!

Something borrowed:

I went to the library and checked out Wendy Knits and EZ'a Knitter's Almanac. So far I've mostly flipped through to look at pictures, but I'm sure I'll enjoy reading them as well.

Something blue:

I am really enjoying working on my Trekking sweater. I'd love to show you the pictures, but alas, I'm lame. Take 8 balls of trekking sock yarn in shades of blue, pair them up and switch color pairs every 10 rows. I'm loving the look and can't wait to have more than 6 inches to look at.

As for the inspiration for the title, we will be celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary this weekend and I'm totally looking forward to a couple days away with the hubby. I'll even bring his socks (6 of 6) to work on while we're gone. :-)

The comforts of home

I have had cause to think quite a bit about house and home and comfort. I recently went on a bit of a binge with the online shopping. I couldn't figure out why I suddenly felt compelled to buy all that stuff. When I really thought about it, it was a comfort thing. My house is still all topsy-turvy trying to recover from "the incident". Not a single room in the house was really usable for a couple of weeks. In short, my home was not providing me with the comfort I needed. Naturally I turned to my knitting for the comfort I was lacking. No such luck. I was sick of socks. I didn't have the concentration required to knit lace. I had swatched for the sweater I was really excited about, but until I washed the swatch to make sure the gauge was in fact good, I couldn't work the sweater. Unfortunately we don't have working laundry at the house right now and I kept forgetting to take the stupid swatch to the laundromat. Without home and knitting comfort, I turned to shopping. I finally ordered some Rockin' sock yarn. I ordered three books from Knit Picks. And I subscribed to IK at long last. Several times I was able to back down from the ledge and finally asked myself, "what are you doing?" The answer was looking for comfort. Once I realized what the issue was I was able to take other steps to make things better. I moved a bunch of stuff that had been stacked up in our bedroom up to the spare bedroom that won't require any construction. My personal sanctuary was restored to some semblance of order and the compulsion to comfort shop has relaxed. Whew!

Last Saturday I ventured down to Tacoma to check out the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival. It was lovely and next year I may actually attend classes. I got my book signed by Stephanie! Then I went to the market. It was lovely wandering around the booths looking at all the wonderful fibery goodness and being wrapped in the loving comfort and wool fumes. Several things happened at the market. I was fondling some fiber when a woman behind me started explaining the properties of some yarn. I knew that voice, I just couldn't remember from where. I moved around so I could see her face and she was really familiar, but I still couldn't put my finger on it. She looked at me and said, "welcome back!" That startled me because I hadn't been there before. Eventually the epiphany hit. This was the woman who taught my mom and me to spin! What a wonderful small world. Next I met Teyani, and had a nice conversation about spinning.

It was a really great day that ended up like this... I joined Knitters Anonymous. I bought a new spindle and some fiber. I have been spinning a little bit each evening when I get home, and I am in love! Hopefully this dose of comfort shopping will hold me over until my house is back in order. If not I have set my sights on a spinning wheel asap, so perhaps that motivation will keep me from getting out of control in the internet...

We'll see!

Let's recap...

So 2007 hasn't started out the way I had envisioned. Our year end trip to California was great. We spent 5 action packed days at Disneyland and California Adventure. Then a couple days in the Pasadena area including the Rose Parade. The down side is that with the long hours and lack of sleep, the dry climate and the air quality, we all came home with a cough and sniffle. We got home late Monday night to find one of the trees in our yard laying over into our neighbor's driveway. Luckily nothing was damaged when it fell. We had 2 evenings to do our laundry and clean up the disaster we left when we rushed out of town before my parents arrived to stay for a week. It was great to see them and my mom very generously shared her cold with me. So back in bed I went over the weekend feeling like total snot-headed crap. I even missed the rescheduled Christmas gathering with the in-laws due to my yuckiness.

Monday things got really interesting. A load of laundry was started before everyone left the house for the day (not an unusual occurance). Upon arriving home we discovered that the washer had malfunctioned and pumped large quantities of water into my entire house. The laundry room is upstairs in our house and directly over the garage. The hallway was soaked and the water was making it's way into the other three rooms up there. It was practically raining in the garage and the furnace was completely filled with water. Water made it's way down the stairs to the hardwood in the diningroom and through the walls/floor/ceiling to the family room below and rained onto the leather sofa below (missing a large stash of sock yarn by inches!) What a mess!

We have spent the last week in a hotel while our house was full of drying equipment. I just got word that the new furnace is in and the blowers and dehumidifiers have been removed. The carpets are getting cleaned tomorrow and the insurance adjuster is coming Thurday. I'm sure it will be a long process of putting everything back together, but I'm so excited to sleep in my own bed tonight!

What about the knitting, you ask? I worked on hubby's socks on the plane to and from California, but since I've not felt well and the light in the hotel room sucked, I've done very little. I did buy a sweater kit and did a little swatching for that, but I'm not jumping in on that quite yet. In my cold medicated state while my mom was here I managed to somehow end up with the wrong number of heel stitches on the other pair of gift socks I was madly trying to finish, so that didn't happen. I will finish them and they will get to the intended recipient, but I just didn't have it in me last week. I am very ready to get back to the normal routines of our life. We haven't really had that since before Thanksgiving.

Think happy thoughts for us, and I hope 2007 gets better very soon!

Down to the wire

At 5:00 last night I finished grafting the toes on a pair of socks that were to be delivered at dinner at 6:30. Both pairs were very well received last night and I have it on good authority that one pair at least was worn to work today. That right there is the joy of giving hand made gifts.

So now I have one more pair that needs finishing (I'm working on the heel flap) before Monday and I'm home free. The hubby already knows he's getting socks in January and I'll work in them on the plane to California.

Since I'm not entirely sure where my camera is at this moment, I have no pictures today. I'm madly trying to get everything done at work so I can leave for a week and not have a disaster when I return.

Wish me luck, I'll let you know in January how things turned out...

18 days until vacation!

That's right in 18 days, we leave for Disneyland! That also means in 18 days I will have not only finished but washed, blocked, wrapped and delivered all the socks. I tried to take a bunch of pictures yesterday so I could show you all the progress, but alas the afternoon light was fading and they are pretty much crap. Today I spent the few moments I had between phone calls and assorted whatnot knitting on said socks instead of photographing them.

I've decided to wait until they are all done to graft the toes so I don't have to relearn how to do that 6 times. I'm sure by the time I'm done I'll have it down, but it's not something I've used often enough to just do it. I now have 2 pair waiting for closure, and I'm doing the toe decreases on another. I have started the heel flap on the next pair, am about an inch shy of the heel flap starting on one more. That's five for those of you keeping score at home. The sixth pair is for my hubby, and I've already told him that he may not get his socks until we get back from vacation. That will give me something to take on the plane, now that I think about it...

Socks are afoot

My holiday knitting is well underway. I think I have now picked out yarn I like and that is machine washable for all those I plan to gift with hand knit socks this year. This was more challenging than you might think. It started with just a couple people and I went and bought sock yard to get started. Before I'd even started those I decided that I really wasn't feeling the love for the colors I'd purchased. Back to the drawing board, and the yarn store. I found new yarn I liked and jumped in. After knitting a good distace on both pair I realized that one wasn't superwash. I'm not going to give hand wash only socks to someone as a gift unless I know that caring for hand wash items is totally cool with them. The second pair got frogged when I realized I had misjudged the size of the foot in question. Oops! Do-over part 2.

I now believe that I have picked yarn for all my recipients (now up to 6) that I like and have accurate shoe size information on all of them. That brings us to the progress!


Here we have my various stages of progress. The pair waiting for toe grafting is Trekking XXL color 135. The pair just past the heel is Sockotta color 5618. The pair just started is Lorna's Laces Shephard Sock color 50 amish. The socks to be started later is Austermann Step color 6. All using the basic Harlot recipe and size 0 (2mm) addis. I have the rest of the sock yarn at home, this is just what I have in my bag at the moment.

I started the Lorna's socks last night. For the first time ever I knit in the car! Dramamine rocks, I just wish I had thought to try that years ago.

Catching up.

It's been a week! Here's the highlights...

Friday night the hubby and I bought a new car. His van had started having issues precisely when the warranty expired. Now we are the proud owners of a 2007 Prius with all the goodies except leather seats. He had the pleasure this morning of filling the tank for $20 with over 400 miles on the tank. Brilliant!

Saturday afternoon we went to a holiday open house where I purchased more candles. That evening was a Halloween gathering with friends. Very low key this year, not many costumes and not as many people as last year. Good times were had.

Sunday was big geek day. Characters were created, background stories were invented, dice were rolled and in the end much turkey was consumed. Mmmm autumn feasting!

Monday night the hubby and I had a meeting with a Real Estate investor to learn more about what she does and how we can get into that as well. I'm excited about things taking off in that direction.

Tuesday evening I spent in Ritual for Samhain. It was a lovely time spent in communion with the ancestors. I honored my aunt who passed in the spring and wore my Diamond Shawl for the occasion. Standing there swinging my arms back and forth I felt like I had wings. A friend commented that the way it moved, the shape and the color reminded her of a Luna Moth.

Wednesday I took the day off from work to attend the Women's Financial Conference. I snoozed and snuggled in bed longer than I should have and didn't hit the road quite as early as I had planned. Traffic wasn't too bad getting into Seattle and I made it there before things got started. There were some great speakers and much information. I will certainly attend again next time they are in town.

That brings us back to today. You may have noticed that I didn't mention much knitting in the last week. There wasn't much. I had a pair of socks to work on yesterday, but found that the speakers were so engaging that I took notes more than I knit. The countdown is on for all the holiday knitting I thought would be great fun and no problem last month before the van crapped out and life got crazy busy. We'll see if I can get it all done!

FO: Irish Diamond Shawl

Here it is in all it's glory!


This is the last picture I took of it before the final product, here it's just past the 650 stitch per row mark. I had every intention of taking pictures of it before and during the blocking process, but evidently my brain fell out between here and there, so then there's this...


I didn't swatch this and when blocked out it came to more like 60" square than the 52" mentioned in the book. It's a good thing I'm tall! ;-)


Irish Diamond Shawl from Folk Shawls. US 7 addi turbos, Zephyr yarn in the Blueberry color. I used about 1 1/2 of the 2 4oz balls I started with which would be about 1900 yards-ish.

Accomplishment!

The Diamond shawl has been cast off! I finished the knitting last night while my hubby went for a walk without me and I sat on the couch determined to finish. Unfortunately the only place big enough to block it is our king size bed, so that didn't happen last night, and won't happen tonight either. Satuday I plan to soak it and pin it out as soon as the bed is no longer required for sleeping. Pictures to follow.

I have a new outfit to go with the shawl, I'm totally jazzed. I'll be the best dressed Witch at the party! I'm sure pictures of that will be posted as well.

I've started one pair of holiday socks and am really loving them. I'll start another pair soon and perhaps get pics up as well. Hard to say since they are gifts and the intended recipients may actually stop by here occasionally.

Chugging along

There hasn't been much news to report, I guess. I'm trying to get the Diamond shawl finished. I'm down to the last 37 rows, but since I'm up over 650 stitches per row now, it just takes time. I haven't really worked on much else in the last couple weeks because I feel like I'm so close to the end of this one that I just keep at it.

I did do a little work on some socks I'm planning as holiday gifts. So far though, I'm just not feeling the love with the socks. In fact, I even frogged the socks I was making for myself with the sock yarn I got as a birthday gift. Perhaps once I get the Diamond done I'll be able to get into socks. For now it's really all about getting through purling 650+ stitches.