Sockapalooza Socks Finished!

I hope my sock pal likes these, I sure do! It's a good thing that my pal's feet are smaller than mine, or I'd be tempted to keep these.



Specs: Monkey socks, no mods. Fleece Artist yarn in the Sangria colorway. US 1/2.5mm addi lace needles (magic loop).

I loved knitting these so much that as soon as they were finished I cast on a pair for myself! Also Fleece Artist but in the Renaissance colorway. This stuff is like crack, must... get... more...

And then it was June...

Wow, it's been a month since my last post. Let's see... My birthday was great. It was nice to see friends and family and celebrate another year. I didn't do much on my day but sit around and spin and knit. Quite frankly that was just what I needed. It was nice. Thanks to those who sent birthday wishes, much appreciated.

June has been just as busy as the last couple months have been. Some friends got married, it was a lovely event. The Hubby had his wisdom teeth out and was doing a really good bruised chipmonk impression for a couple days. His advice is to do that when you are young. You just don't heal as quickly at 42. Father's Day was nice, much hanging out with the Dads occured. All good things.


This last weekend was the highlight for me. I went to
Black Sheep! My mom and I met in Eugene and had a great time wandering through all the vendors and seeing the animals. I'd love to show you the pictorial of all we did, but the truth is that my camera never left my bag. I had plans, lots of plans to take a ton of pictures, but it just never happened. All I have is a couple crappy shots I took with my camera phone. Alas, I am a bad blogger.

There is still hope for me though. I do have some loot! And if I can get my you-know-what together I'll post pics of my stash enhancement. It was fun shopping with mom. We each had a set amount of cash to spend. We made our first pass through and saw everything that was there. Then we went and had lunch and pondered what really called out to us. After lunch we hunted down the things that we couldn't pass up. We didn't realize until we got back to the hotel that mom had purchased all fiber and I had got the all yarn direction.


We spent Saturday night watching the Mariner's game in the hotel and each of us bouncing from project to project with a bad case of crafty ADD. The whole experience was a little overwhelming. There was so much to see there's just no way to take it all in. I got a little knitting and a little spinning done, but not much. I had a great time and am looking forward to going again next year. I'll be sure to get my registration in super early next year!

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, my actual birthday isn't until the 31st, but I usually have the birthday bash on Memorial Day weekend. This year has been pretty low key. There will be karaoke on Saturday night and a BBQ on Monday, but I have been too busy and tired to put much effort into big plans this year. I don't even know what I'm going to do as my special treat for myself on Thursday. Perhaps a pedicure, I've been wanting one for a while now and haven't found the time. Last year I did the whole spa package and it was nice, but again with the meh this year.

The knitting has been pretty slow. I haven't found a gauge I'm happy with for the Jayne hats so they've been put on hold. I think I'll need to go back to bigger needles and try doubling the yarn. The sockapalooza socks haven't seen much action because I haven't memorized the pattern and haven't had much uninterrupted knitting time with the brain cells to work on them. Hopefully this weekend will provide some time for those. The pattern for the cotton wrap store sample is totally easy and now memorized, so that's been getting the most consistant work. The yarn is still splitty, the pattern is almost boring at this point and I'm just about to join the second of 5 skeins, so you can predict the boredom factor kicking in there...

It's my birthday and I feel a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Lame. At least the lawn is mowed.

Time keeps on slippin'...

Well I see it's been over a month since I posted anything here. Where does the time go? Partly it's been a matter of work life being really busy. Since I mostly get my blogging done at work, there just hasn't been time for that. I have knit (some) I have finished a thing or two, but I have no pictures.

The biggest news is that I finally (yesterday evening) finished pair #6 of what should have been holiday socks. The pair that became "your effing socks" when discussing them with the hubby. There's a long story that I don't really feel like telling just now, and probably don't have the time anyway. Bottom line? They are done, they fit beautifully, he wore them around the house last night, then I said "give them back, I have to take them to guild tomorrow to prove I finished them and didn't just stick them in the closet of doom." He was bummed, but said he's wear them tomorrow and that was ok. He's a good one!

What next? I'm working on a store sample for Ben Franklin so I need to keep that moving. I'm also trying to pick up and finish some things that have sat too long on the needles. I do have to start one pair of socks for my Sockapalooza 4 pal and I have to make 3 Jayne hats before we go to GenCon in August. But I think that will be all the new stuff this summer. Mostly I want to finish things right now. I'd like to clear the slate a little so I can turn my attention to some spinning projects I've been waiting on until I had more time... heh!

Happy Little Hats

Here are the happy little hats I finished last weekend. This weekend I have another finished hat and have started a fifth one. I've got plenty of yarn left, we'll see how long the happy little hats keep coming.

If you are interested in making happy little hats for Dulaan, (or anyone else) here is what I am doing.

Using US 8 needles and LB Homespun yarn, cast on 80 stitches. Join without twisting, knit and knit and knit until you have about 7 inches. For me that's about from wrist to fingertips, so it's an easy measurement. Decrease 8 stitches per round - K8 K2tog around, then K7 K2tog... you know how that goes. Thread the tail through those last 8 stitches, pull it tight and weave in the ends. Badaboom, happy little hat.

With 80 stitches on size 8 and my knitting, these hats fit me. I, however, have kind of a pin head for a grown up, so I'm hoping that they'll work for a variety of noggin sizes. The roll of the brim also allows for some variability in the size. I'm completely content to knit these for a while, though I hear the call of socks and lace in the distance, so we'll see how long this lasts, eh? At least I will have my 5 for sure.

I am a Dorkfish.

I think that I'll blame it all on pms. It was a weird weekend for me. Friday before I left work my boss and I were having a conversation in which I cried. Not that he's a bad guy, he's not. In fact I like him quite a bit. But we were talking about the state of the office and what we'd both like to see happen in the upcoming months and I brought up some stuff that had been frustrating for me... tears. Saturday the Hubby and I ran some errands because he couldn't sit in the house all day. I totally could have, but I went with him anyway. My contact lens was funky and hurt my eye all day. Sunday I did not leave the house, nor did I leave my jammies. Sunday evening I cried again. Actually, while sitting on the couch knitting and watching episode after episode of Clean Sweep and What Not to Wear, I had several tearful moments. At that point I decided I must be hormonal. Today, as if all that weren't clue enough, I have the dropsies. Does anyone else get this? I spilled my lunch on my sweater and my pants. Classy! Then I knocked a full cup of tea off my desk onto the floor. Sweet! I didn't really want that tea anyway... I took pictures of the 3 hats for Dulaan I made over the weekend, but I can't get my camera to talk to the computer and be able to use the mouse or the keyboard work at the same time. I was planning to work on our taxes tonight, but perhaps it's better I don't touch anything.

Sock Randomness for Wednesday

Two posts in the same week? Weird. I turned in the store model socks without pics. Perhaps I'll stalk them with the camera once they are on dispay.

The "Hubby socks that would not end" have met an unfortunate fate. I did not have enough yarn to get all the way to the toe, and toe-less socks are right out. So last night with a heavy sigh they got frogged. Back to square one. A do-over with bigger needles is coming, but I just couldn't get them started last night.


Another pair may be destined for the frog pond. Here are my Rockin' Sock Club socks so far. As lovely as they look, they are a bit on the roomy size for my feet. I did the toes on US 1 and the foot on US 0 needles, I may have to go smaller. I'm going to continue for another inch or two so I can get a better feel for the fit over the ball of my foot.

Monday night I went to the Eastside Knitter's Guild meeting. I enjoyed it, I joined. Ryan was there talking about Dulaan. It gave me ideas about what to do with some yarn I recently cleaned out of the garage and was planning to donate somewhere. I'll be perusing the suggested patterns section to find some inspiration. Maybe since I'm having sock trauma, some quick and easy charity hat knitting is just the thing.

Monday Monday!

I finished something! Ok, it's the model socks for the store and they seem to have gone MIA before I could get a picture. I thought I put them in my bag so I could drop them off on my way home from work, but clearly they escaped. Perhaps tomorrow I'll capture them and get a mug shot for you.

Spring cleaning mode has hit me hard. My house of chaos is probably the biggest reason. This experience has really brought home the fact that we have entirely too much crap. Trying to get things organized and back to a working order is exhausting. There has been a lot of sorting and culling and parting with things. Not just of things that were damaged, but of all the rest of the stuff too. It feels good to let go of stuff that hasn't seen the light of day in years and has just been getting in the way. The major accomplishments of the weekend were moving my knitting stuff up to the dresser in the spare room so I can get to my dresser, and hubby parked his car in the garage for the first time ever! I have a big basket of clothes I'll never wear again to take to the donation station, the garbage and recycling cans are ready for pick up day!

Happy spring!

Eureka!

Yes, I finally found the USB cable for my camera! And we have a bathroom upstairs again! I am loving the new tile... ain't it pretty? At this point I think the contractor is all done with our house. Tomorrow the people come to run a gas line into the laundry area for the new dryer, and the new washer and dryer will be delivered on the 10th. I'm not sure we have enough clean clothes to get us all the way to the 10th, so I may have to do one more laundry run to my friend's house this weekend. Normalcy is returning at long last.

This is for Carole. This is what the cherry tree in my front yard looked like this morning. It really illustrates what March is to me. The last gasp of winter doing battle with the first blush of spring. I apologize for the quality, I don't have a steady hand when trying to take a picture over my head. :-)

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. :-)