MOVED!!!

I think I may have actually gotten my sh*t together and successfully moved my blog over to my new home. For those of you who know me, you know how utterly AMAZING this is. So....I can now be found at http://www.jumbleofwonderful.com/blog. Go there and be amazed at my most awesome birthday gift!

Coming soon to a website near you!!!

Exciting things have been going on around here! If you've been wondering where I've been, this is not just another one of those times where I've grown exceedingly lazy and dropped off the face of Earth! No, no. I'm getting ready for a great big internet move. My super-friend went all high tech for my birthday and made me not just a blog, but a whole website all for myself. I'm still trying to mentally figure out how I'm going to work it all. I have a lot of moving to do, organization at the "new place", and.....I also have to deal with some of that coming to terms with worlds colliding.
All in all, I'm here, stuffs happening, knitting's getting done and soon everything will be safe in a new home. The website should be going live soon and I'll post the new info then.

The Nameless Monkey

Monkey doesn't have a real name right now, but he will one day. Today he left his home in the giant martini glass on top of my fridge and went to do what Monkeys like to do. Climb trees.

Monkey's a little too hardcore for nature.

All the booze from the martini glass caught up with him after his tree climb causing him to wreak havoc behind this poor rock.

I really, really like my monkey. He's a badass as far as Monkeys go. However, I must say that properly piercings his eyebrows and ear was SUCH a pain in the ass though. He's made from STR Heavyweight in Mr. Green Jeans and Lemongrass.

Yay, September!

I've been knitting a good bit lately but really don't have too much to show on account of the crapfest of weather we've been having. I had to give up on the hope of any usable natural lighting coming my way when the September installment of RSC came in. I tried. I waited. But screw it. My new Knitpicks needles came in and I want to cast this sucker on! If you're in the sock club and for some reason haven't gotten the yarn yet, go away now.

Woot! This color is soooo badass I can't even be near it without getting a minor twitch. The colorway is called Tide Pooling and the pattern, as I suppose you can read for yourself in the picture, is called Cloning Anemone Rib. Truly as rockin' as the club name might suggest.

Here's the yarn alone.

Lovin' it!!

I'm going to cast on for them tonight and attempt to do them 2 at a time, magic loop style. I've been working on a pair of plain vanilla toe-up's with my Potomac colorway doing the 2 at a time and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. My Second Sock Syndrome has reached such proportions that there's really no other option at this point. I'm kind of not thrilled with knitting socks toe-up anyway, but they really do seem to fit me a lot better in the end. I also don't actually have instructions for knitting toe-up socks 2 at a time via magic loop so those might take some figuring out. Perhaps some further planning would have been better. These socks though.....they're top down, for which I have a whole book of instructions. I'm hoping that 1) my wrists will hold out for awhile tonight so I can actually work and 2) that switching to my new super pointy and long Knitpicks Options will make it easier on said wrists. I'll let you all know how it works out.

Busy, busy

When I last wrote, I believe I may have said something about how I had a goal of finishing up all the previous kits from RSC. Well.....yeah, that's pretty much not gonna happen. I have made some progress, though.

This one gives a little more details.

They're arranged in chronological order. Serendipity in Dragon Dance, Leafling in Lucky, Cleopatra's Stockings in Incredible Shrinking Violet, and Gumdrop Socks in Goody Goody. The only one to have a mate is the Leafling, but damned if I know where that thing ran off to. The next installment is shipping out on Tuesday so I've essentially abandoned all hope of reaching my goal.

I may have actually met my socky goal if the new issue of Knitty hadn't been published with this in it.

The pattern is such that it looks kind of funky until it's all blocked out and nice. I was really iffy on my color choices, but now that it's getting bigger it's growing on me more and more. I'm buying this maroon fall jacket and I think this'll go perfectly with it. The golden color is Oregon Red Clover Honey (STR lightweight) and the multi is mediumweight Carbon Dating.

I also found this thing languishing on a shelf in my hallway.

My Montego Bay scarf. In my crazy head I thought that it was almost done and decided to just finish it up. Not so much on that "almost done" part. It is a quick knit, but it's one of those where you have to just keep at it. I want it to be very long as my initial plan was to make it almost wrappish. I think I still have about 2ft left to go. Oh, and that yarn is BMFA Luscious Single Silk in Gypsum.

I've gotta work in the am so I'm going to try and make it an early night. I need to work a little on some Christmas research knitting before I hit the sack. I don't know how much about that I can post, but I'm relatively sure that no one involved reads this so I'll probably show my results pretty soon.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend kickoff!

Silence and Socks

There's been little on which to update lately, hence the lack of posts. I've just been really, really busy these past two weeks and knitting has been far down on the list of things that need to be done.
One thing I HAVE been working on though, albeit slowly, is trying to complete all the socks from RSC. Though I swore up and down that I was going to stay on top of the kits, I've completed a woeful single pair. From the first kit I got one sock knitted down to just the toe. It got put on the back burner because it was packed away while I went to visit a sick friend and never unpacked. Once I got it out of my suitcase, I realized that perhaps I had made a mistake knitting the sole on a smaller needle. That discovery pushed it further to the back of the back burner. About a month ago I took it out again and put it on my foot, then decided that I could deal with it. I tried it on again last night though and have to accept that it just too tight in the ankle region. So frogged it was at about 4am. I've been working on it today and am now back to the heel turn. Hopefully, if I can steal some time out of my life, I can have the pair finished by weeks end.

The next pair is the one I finished.

The May kit is lovely, but I didn't start on it until last week. I bound off the first sock today (using EZ's sewn bind off which is AWESOME) and wow, did that thing take a LOT of knitting time. The patterns not hard to follow, but the little cables and knitting 2 together thru the backloops was hard to manage with the relatively dull pointed needles I was working with. I hope that the second one will go faster.

The July kit is also has one sock knit down to the toe and the only reason I haven't finished it, or the second sock, is just pure laziness and lack of attention span.

I guesstimate that I should have the September kit in about 2 weeks so it's going to be tough. Even if I don't get them all finished, I'll still be a lot closer to goal than I am now.

In other news, a lot of deer have come out of hiding around here because of all the tree-ripping they're doing here for the ICC. I saw 10 deer tonight while driving the 1 mile to my grandpa's house, 2 of which live in my neighborhood. Unfortunately for me, the deer in my neighborhood are two GINORMOUS bucks with great big-ass antlers and one of them wants to destroy me. Everyone keeps telling me that the deer isn't going to attack me, but I feel differently. This dude has absolutely no fear of me at all, watches me while shifting his legs like he's a race horse waiting for the gates to open, and has total disregard for the dangers associated with my car. He doesn't freeze but just keeps walking while keeping an "I'm going to tear you apart" look in his eyes. Two nights ago he even bent down and bucked his giant antlers at me while I tried to creep by. I have no doubt that he will, in fact, beat the crap out of me by the end of the season. I'd like to sneak out there and get a picture of him to show you, but that would mean my stepping into his world and getting trampled and antlered to death. Then people would just use the picture from my dropped and probably bloody camera to put up as a display at my funeral.

I need to go move Riley from my knitting chair now as he's ripping apart paper robbed from the trash all over it. I would take the trash out to the curb as it's trash night, but again....risk of brutal death. It'll have to be out off til morning.

Ahhhhh, the fabulosity that is BMFA

I've kind of been holding off on the posting of new yarn acquisitions....mainly because I seem to have been "holding off" on posting FO's/WIP's/Anything that would give the general impression that I do anything with yarn other than hoard it. Since I've had a few FO's to show of late, and because this last yarn purchase is just kickass--

I'm in love. I had family over today who got to witness the freakish radiation of joy that came to me when I walked in and saw my special BMFA box. One would have thought I had just been shipped a large package of 100 dollar bills.

Now, although I'm exhausted and have pulled inner thigh muscles, I'm heading for the gym. Those of you interested in what colorways are up there can poke around my Ravelry stuff or take the less time consuming (but less adventurous) option of just asking me:)

Nothern Wisconsin Hat

I'm just churning out the bog posts this week! I guess that happens when one actually has something to show for themself.

I finished up this hat yesterday while at work. I enjoy knitting hats. They're quick, fun, and full of purpose. It would have been helpful if I had worn something that even remotely matched this to work yesterday because it worked great with my nasty, unstyled rainy weather hair. Mmmm. Sexy.

Here's a slightly more detailed view of the lace-

...and the back

And to better represent the color, a freakishly ugly picture of me-

Just ignore the human element in that shot. I've been cleaning all day, have no makeup on and am just all around grubby. Also, that blur doesn't do anything justice. Mental note-find someone who has a reasonably good handle on photography so I don't end up with all these odd angle crap shots.

Pattern: Northern Wisconsin Hat by this chicky

Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Wisteria

Needles: US size 2 and 8.

Mods: I didn't use the needles called for in the pattern (0's and 7's) because I couldn't find them. I also did the ribbing magic loop style because the needles I *did* find were something like 32'' long. This all worked to my advantage though because my head may be slightly larger than average....because of my massive brain, I'm sure, and most hat patterns just don't fit me right. This fits me pretty spot on. If I make this hat again I might bump up the stitch count and make it a little longer so it would be more slouchy.

In other news, my brother in law called me yesterday while I was at work and mentioned that he was going to get some portrait work done on his back tattoo. He asked if I wanted to go with him but I had to work until 6 and his appointment was at 5. Since the work he was getting done was going to take a hell of a long time (supposedly), I went up to the Baltimore Tattoo Museum after I closed up and met him. Because of the craptacular weather, it took me longer than anticipated to get there and he was almost done. Still, I was able to squeeze in a little tattoo-istic artistry for myself done by this guy.

I was really happy with the work. I'm piecing together kind of a star collage on my collarbone/shoulder area and even though these are extremely simplistic tats, he did an excellent job. We had to do quite a bit of work with the placing and such, but I'm thrilled with how it came out. I started this a few months back with a tat from some hillbilly place in Tennessee. I don't want to come down to hard on them because they were clean and nice, but it was still kind of country. Also, the ink has already started to fade big time and looks kind of splotchy.

Now I'll be going back to cleaning. For a house with two adults and two dogs, I really don't understand why I have to ALWAYS be cleaning. Well, I do know why....but I don't understand why it's always me that has to do the cleaning....of messes that aren't of my making. sigh. Additionally, after trying to take a picture of myself in the hat, I'm going to be doing quite a bit of research on diminishing under eye darkness.

A proud Mother

Not knitting related, but I'm so happy about this that I want to share it with those who exist outside my MySapce account.


I am simply overcome with pride over Dylan. As many of you know, Satan lives in his heart. He's been blacklisted by almost all the groomers in the area, my family fears him, and the vet won't even stay in the same room with him if he's not sedated. Except for that one time where Dr. T decided to be all manly and try to demonstrate how it couldn't possibly be as difficult as I claimed to administer ear drops twice daily. That episode ended with a destroyed vets office and poo on the table. Luckily, it was Dylans poo though I suspect some dirty underwear may have been concealed.
So today I had to take Dylan in to have a possible tick examined, as well as a nubby hard spot that appeared near his ribs. Naturally, as soon as Dr. T appeared, Dylan began his usual growling and such. HOWEVER, I put him up on the table and all he did was continue the growling and try to climb up on my shoulders. Dr. T approached him and Dylan bristled, but I was able to hold his face looking at me while the doctor examined him WITHOUT SEDATION. This, my friends, is abso-fuckin'-lutely AMAZING. I took a big chance and risked jinxing myself by gloating to Dr.T that this was the first time we were able to ixnay the drugs, but my luck didn't break. Dr.T didn't even charge me for the visit. Dylan does have to go in for minor surgery next Thursday to have the mole and lump removed, though I think it's mainly cosmetic. I was assured that it's nothing to be concerned about. Plus, I get the huge added bonus of his teeth getting cleaned so it's possible that I won't be greeted with the stench of rotting corpses everytime he breathes near me. That's always a plus in my book. Naturally though, Thursday is the only day I have "off" next week so I'm going to have to sacrifice the dream of sleep and have him there by 8am. I've been told that he should be ready to come home around 4 so I should be able to squeeze in a nap btwn drop off and pick up.
In my extreme state of jubilation I bought him some Greenie treats. Foolishly, I removed the $6 that were in my purse. Dear God, those things are expensive! He was very happy with them though and has since consumed 5 of them. That's acceptable because he's also lost 4 lbs since his last doctors visit when I found out what a fat pig he really is. I have since demanded that my mother cease her constant food sharing activities and it has paid off. I still catch her, on occasion, dropping a cookie on the floor or something...usually in a defiant effort to thwart my plans. I say this because such incidences seem to occur directly succeeding my requests to NOT feed him. He has also attacked Riley at least twice since we've been home, but from the sounds of the fights they seem to have been very short attacks. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Riley incited the throwdowns, either.

And here he is pretending to be dead in waiting to attack Riley.

I'd like to say that they usually don't look that scuzzy....but really they often do. They'll come back from the groomers looking all fluffy, white and soft and it'll last for about 30 minutes. In all fairness, due to their wet stringy hair , I suspect that they just came in from playing in either the snow, rain or mud before that last picture was taken.

God help me, I finished them! A tale of sock horror.

Yet another FO. These socks both pissed me off to the extreme and made me happy that I've clearly learned more patience in my knitting.

And a little closer...

And closer, still....

Pattern: Spring Thaw Socks by Cat Bordhi, found in the current Knitters mag

Yarn: BMFA STR lightweight in Amber

Needles: US 2, worked magic loop

Mg's of Xanax taken: 50

Don't get me wrong, I love these socks. As soon as I saw the pattern I HAD to make them. Seeing as how I 1) have giant feet and 2) am not exactly a pro at knitting socks from the toe up, I had some trepidation about doing these. They're 56 or 58 stitches and I'm used to doing more like 64-80 depending on yarn and needles. After trying on the toe several times I deemed the width sufficient as the twisted rib has incredible stretch. Seriously, unstretched these socks are about as wide as my three middle fingers. So obstacle one solved. Then came that goddamn gusset increase. I don't know why, but I NEVER trust the directions when it comes to where I should start doing them on toe up socks. This pattern has a very concise formula, as do most Cat Bordhi patterns with the "new" architectures, but I was confused. Seeing as how these socks were to be stretched to amazing proportions, I didn't know if I should be measuring my gauge for such calculations while it was just laying there or on my foot. I think the first go at these, I took my stretched measurement and then totally overshot my foot length. You have to do a certain number of rows in pattern to get to the heel and when I was at row 17 of 44 the foot was already working it's way up my ankle. Frog #1. I carefully ripped it back and started again....and apparently ripped exactly back to where my measurement mistake had taken place and did the exact thing over again. Frog #2. I carefully ripped it back and made sure to actually go back further on the foot. Still too big. Frog #3, though this one occurred at about row 30 in the pattern. It then occurred to me to redo my measurements. I used the unstretched rpi and remeasured my foot, finding it to be about half an inch shorter than before. So I started again. Then something else happened...which I've obviously blocked from my memory because of the trauma and I had to frog it AGAIN.

So...I finally got my first sock finished, though I ran into mild issues with the heel. Due to lack of attention span, I did something that got my stitches all over the place rather than on there designated needles. I muddled thru. When it came time to bind off I painstakingly searched the internet and found a good tutorial on the tubular bind off. I went to work all set to complete my sock and quickly found that I had left the friggin' 16 page tutorial at home AND the internet at the store wasn't working. Considering that my sock was my only knitting for the day, I was peeved. Luckily I had the foresight to look in the magazine index and there were instructions. I then found that I loathe doing a tubular bind off, but I got thru it. Apparently, though, where it says in the instructions to pull certain stitches "snug", it's a vicious lie. I then sat there and picked thru my stitches to loosen them and in the process ended up with some jacked up bind off that looks like armless person did it with their mouth and feet. So happy was I to have the sock done that I just said fuck it.

After all this it, I handled the remaining yarn and found that it felt disappointingly light. I scoured the store for the scale and couldn't find it. Putting my faith in sheer luck, I cast on for the 2nd sock. When I got home I broke out the scale and lo and behold, sock #1 weighed 2.10 oz and ball remains weighed 1.9 oz. "Fuck!!" I thought...and said...a lot. Since I already had some of the toe done I weighed it, too. It was something like .5 oz but had a needle stuck thru it. I decided to go ahead. It shortly became apparent that there was no way in hell that I was going to have enough yarn....you know, because I couldn't have figured that from the missing oz's on the scale. I decided to suck it up and order more yarn only to find that Amber was one of the colorways that BMFA pulled just days before I needed it. So I checked on Ravelry to see if anyone had some up for sale. No. I decided that I could get a good ways up the leg and even though ,because these are toe up socks, any mismatched color would be the showing part, I could substitute a similar colored yarn at the top. And then I knit as tight as I could.

Somehow, and this is beyond me, I was able to finish the socks with the one ball of yarn. I even had a tiny bit leftover. AND my second sock is a little longer than my first even though I knit as tight as tight can be. And Voila! My socks are complete and I am nervous breakdown free!

Last night I cast on for some Mittens Interrupted by Eunny Jang with some StormMoonKnits Celestial Bulky for which I've been hoarding until the perfect project came along.

My hand really doesn't look like a brightly colored cow hoof....at least I hope not. I'm super happy with these and they're such a joy to make after the hell of the Spring Thaw socks. I was planning on finishing them at the hospital today while my grandpa saw the doctor but I, ever the tard, left all the finishing tools at home so I just sat there in the waiting area holding them. I may even have them finished tonight if I don't royally screw up the thumb. I have a way of doing that. I think they're completely awesome and thank StormMoonKnits for creating such a yarny masterpiece with which I can work. The thought of making these probably is what kept the Xanax at 50mg's rather than 150-ish.

Not Dead!!

Wow, for someone who was going to make a effort to really stay on top of the blogging this year, I suck BIG TIME. Life has been particularly busy lately and while I've had ample time to knit, I haven't been able to squeeze in the logging of artsy activities. Sorry.

My progress in the 52 Pair Plunge is going at approximately the rate of a turtle stuck in molasses while trying to move up a steep cliff. I've knit some single socks...but they don't really count. I do, however, have this to show.

Pattern: Spring Forward by Linda Welch, available in the current Knitty.

Yarn: BMFA STR Mediumweight in the Lunasea colorway.

Needles: US 2's, done magic loop

I did 3 full repeats on the cuff. These socks took an extraordinary amount of time to complete despite the fact that the pattern is quite easy and structured in such a way that the sections roll by. The delay was due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to a shitty needle that was way too short for magic looping, loss of pattern while my computer was out of action, sweltering Italian heat that kept me from knitting like I planned to, and general distraction. The 4th installment of my Rockin' Sock Club came in right after I got back from my trip so that kind of stole my attention. Sadly, and typically, I have yet to complete that pair.

What else, what else....I went back to work at the yarn shop. That's going well and I have to say that while having to wake up in the morning isn't exactly my cup of tea at the moment, I very much enjoy being back. In fact, I kind of like working the morning shift as it's generally easier on my day. It's just a little tough at the start since the decision of when I go to sleep at night seems to no longer be my own. Gotta love the old folks.

The next thing on my knitting agenda is completing Cat Bordhi's Spring Thaw socks from the newest Knitters magazine. I've been having some "issues" with that which I'll go into more detail on when I have the FO to show. Also, as the weathers been getting a bit chillier at night I'd like to get my newest Clapotis done. I think it's going to be absolutely ass kicking when it's done. I just get easily bored with the Clap pattern. Still, the project is sitting here by my knitting chair taunting me with it's glowing green and yellow beauty.

Oh, oh!! I don't know if I mentioned this previously because I haven't posted in an eon but I've been gifted the basement as my craft and exercise room. That'll be mega sweet but I have a LOT of work to do down there before I can get moved in. I'm going to have to do some major stash reorganization which I'm not exactly looking forward to.

I think that about covers it. Till next time....which hopefully won't be such a long time off.

Uhhhhhh...good thing I'm "organized", huh?

Ok, no photos or anything of interest. Just a small plea for help. Does anyone have any idea what the hell I bought 15 skeins of Noro Silk Garden No. 211 for??? I know it was a garment, and I know I was super excited about it. I also put a lot of thought into the color choice. I had come across the yarn while I was picking up for my trip and all memory of it's purpose was sucked straight from my brain. I've looked through my Ravelry queue to no avail, then checked my stash to see if I had earmarked the yarn for anything. Typically, since it's knowledge that I actually need, I didn't even enter the yarn into my stash. I then perused the blogs I frequent to because I felt I had probably seen the project there. No....but that *is* where I finally decided on my colorway. I have since scoured all my Noro books and the projects on Ravelry and still have nothing. Nothing even strikes recognition in my head. I fear this is going to drive me insane.

And She's Back!

WARNING: POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

I got home from Italy about a week ago. The trip was fabulous, as always, and I'm already looking forward to going back. I'll be uploading the relatively few pictures I took as soon as I feel non-lazy enough to do so.

On to the important stuff. So how much of my knitting list do you think I got through?? Ummm...how bout NONE. Seriously, how pathetic is that? Lack of progress was due to an assortment of things, namely hurting my finger the second day I got there and then just not particularly feeling like it. I swear, it as so. friggin'. HOT there. Truly, the few times I did attempt to knit my yarn would become so water logged that it seemed to be felting in my sweaty little hands. I've made a little progress since I've been back, but none to speak of. I'll stick up some WIP pics later.

And now, on to the VERY important stuff. One of the benefits of going away when I did was that I hardly had to wait at all for the July installment of RSC. Awesome. And we got not one, but two patterns this time around! Exciting!

The kit (minus the Sweetarts that I already ate)

The yarn: STR lightweight in Goody Goody

Pattern #1: Gumdrop Socks by JC Briar

Pattern #2 Sweet Tart Anklets by Marilyn Kaleikilo

Sorry about the semi craptacular lighting. The sun long gone but I want to cast on so I had to make due with what I had. I'm trying to decide what size/needle combo I want to use. The sizes are a little small for my gigantor feet but I can easily remedy that by going up a needle size like I usually do. If I choose the largest size and knit with the called for needles, there's no way in hell I'd have enough yarn. I think I'm going to try out the medium size on a 2. The fit should be fine, but I always risk getting some kind of super fug pooling when I fiddle with stuff like that.

Speaking of fug......I was on the Lion Brand website today as I've been looking to try out their newish sock yarn. While there, I browsed the patterns and picked up a few for afghans and a bag that I've been eying. Some of the other ones.....Ughhhhh. Had to have been some of the most hellashiously shiteous things I've seen. You should go take a look if you're into the horror genre.

Off to play with my yarn!

Bon Voyage!!

I suppose that's not something one really says to themself....or regarding themself, but oh well. I never was very good at going with the pack. I'll be leaving here in just a few hours. I have to somehow run a few errands in the early morning before I fly out, so that'll be interesting. I have no Xanax for my many, many hour flight so I'm hoping I can catch the doc super early and get a quick prescription written out. Then I have to go find some brown pants and make a deposit at the bank.
On the knitting front, I have these projects lined up for my travels-
1) Finish my Spring Forward socks that I'm making with STR Lunasea
2) Finish my "Gaywalkers" in STR Pride
3) RPM's in a semi vile color of Noro Kureyon sock. I'm excited about these.
4) Marble Arches in STR Calico
and 5) Finish last years Italian knitting, my Embossed Leaves in STR Lemongrass.

We'll what kind of dent I make in that list. Last year I knit 2 socks. Well, almost 3 b/c I had my Alina Monkeys just cast on when I left. Anywho....I'm bringing my computer with me so perhaps I'll be able to update while on vaca. I'm off to make a last ditch effort to minimize the pores on my nose so as not to scare off any hot Italian suitors. Because my puffy, no-sleep-induced-black-circle eyes will make no difference at all.
Till next time, Ciao!

Finally!! FO's

I FINALLY got the baby blanket not only finished, but photographed and sent too! And the baby's only 4 weeks old. Amazing! The blanket I knit for his 4 or 5 year old sister is still folded up in my bedroom. I possibly should have sent that along, too, but I've not exactly sure how late in childhood a blanket is an appropriate gift. Anyhow, on to the good stuff.



And a really blurry shot that sucks, but at least it shows the blanket in its entirety.



Frankly I'm too lazy to type out all the yarn information, and actually I don't even know the colors offhand. The ball bands are long gone. If you're really curious you can check it out on my Ravelry project page. Here are just the basics-

Yarn: Dark Horse Fantasy in various shades of blue with a bit of black and tan
Needles: Size 7 circ's
Pattern: baby size Modern Log Cabin Blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting
Mods: Instead of using the 4 colors the pattern called for, I used something like 8 and just put them in where I saw fit.

I can't tell you how thankful I am to finally have that monkey off my back! It shipped out today and should arrive on Friday morning.

Next order of business: Zombie Socks!



It was really hard to even *try* to get the pattern details or an accurate color, but here's my attempt.



Pattern: Zombie Socks by Emm1e on Ravelry
Yarn: BMFA STR lightweight in Rook-y from the Raven series
Needles: Size 2 circ, worked Magic Loop
Mods: I did 5 pattern repeats on the leg instead of 3 and had to add a few repeats onto the heel.

These socks are also my first pair for the 52 Pair Plunge....which I joined with some crack-pipe aspirations in my head. I am SO far behind, but I'm not too pressed about it. I'd rather enjoy what I'm knitting than feel like I'm knitting with a gun pressed to my temple. Tonight I plan on finishing the first of my second pair, the Spring Forward socks from the summer Knitty. Pictures of that to follow.

In non-knitting news, guess what I'm doing right now?!?! Oh yeah....I'm just sitting here watching DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER!!!!!!! Evidently A&E has decided that while Dog may be a bit of a "character" he may not be so much of a racist and have put his show back on the air. You know what this means!! My obsession can continue! I knew the new season was starting in July, but you can imagine my surprise when I heard that familiar riff and the voice of Ozzy as the show came on tonight. I totally spazzed out. Big time.

Alright, off to work on my sock!

Because Everyone Else is Doing it.....

This has been going around the blogs so I figured I'd have a go at it. It was very interesting to see what turned up in my photo searches.
It goes a little something like this:
Search flickr for these things-
1) your name
2) favorite food
3) High school you attended
4) favorite color
5) Celebrity crush
6) favorite drink
7) dream vacation
8) favorite dessert
9) what you want to be when you grow up
10) what you love the most
11) single word to describe yourself
12) your flickr name

Cut and paste the URLs to fd's mosaic maker and voila!

Mwahahahaha....I WIN!!

My few year long obsession with STR has paid off!! For those of you not in the sock club this year, Tina just had a contest in which we had to guess the two colorways that made up a pair of socks she got for her birthday. I got it on the first guess. Woot! The winners were announced today and as a prize I get some Rare Gems. Gotta love the Rare Gems.

I've been doing a good deal of knitting lately but haven't had a chance to take pictures with the off and on weather. I'll try to do that tomorrow.

Overwhelmed

The remainder of my time before leaving on my trip is going to be spent truly cleaning my living areas. None of this shifty around of items to make one room look better while another room suffers. I mean down to the knitty-gritty, multiple cleaning supply using, probably changing the colors of the walls and floors from them not having been really, really scrubbed down in ages type of cleaning. Objective/necessity numero uno is getting the rouge yarn under control. I contemplated taking a picture of the anarchy that's ensued in my office but I think it would probably give me a panic attack. I should probably take a picture and just not look at it, then post some before and after pictures later....if I make it. It's just SO. BAD. I don't know what to do. I sit there and try to untangle, think I'm making some minor progress and then pull a strand that leads me to another clot of yarn-hell across the room. And it's not even shitty yarn that I'd be willing to sacrifice to the scissors and trashcan. It's Jojoland Melody, hard to come by Regia, assorted Berroco.....ughhh. And the main cause? The boys. I love them to death but it's driving me crazy. Riley especially. He likes to take his toys, climb into my yarn and burrow. Dylan's tactic of choice is to grab things out of the trash can and bury it in my yarn. It just gets worse and worse and worse. The thing that really gets my goat is that just days ago I saw my one ball of Jojoland had fallen out of it's bin and thought, " I need to get that.", but I didn't. So now I have like 300 yards of giant tangle to deal with.
That's all for now. I need to do some more of this while I'm feeling motivated. I foresee the rest of the night going something like this: Untangle about 3 yrds of various yarn, panic attack, untangle 3 more yards, panic attack....etc.

May Rockin' Sock Club!

**********SPOILER***********

I got my package pretty late so it's unlikely that this would actually spoil anything anyway. Better safe than sorry, though. I love it!

The colorway is called The Incredible Shrinking Violet. I didn't take a pic of the pattern because they never come out good but it's designed by Yarnissima and called Cleopatra's Stockings. Very chic. There's been a lot of grumbling about how so far we've gotten all semi-monochromatic colors this year in sock club. Personally I don't mind at all. Tina wrote in the dyer's notes that this will probably be the last of her color study so the rest of the shipments should be more multi colored. Still, even though all the colorways thus far have been shades of the same color (reds, greens, and now purples) I don't consider them shaded solids at all. March's "Lucky" was the closest, I'd say, but there was still a huge difference in the colors.

In other knitting news, I'm almost done with the baby blanket. I have about 20-some rows left of the blanket body and then the border, which I'm going to have to go pick up more yarn for. Then I have the fun task of weaving in all he ends. Ick. A new motivating factor arrived today by way of a box from Webs. That Kureyon I ordered to make my Curilque Coverlet came in and I must say, if you all don't already have No. 196 in your stash, go get some NOW. Even if you don't love knitting with Kureyon, this one is a must.

Didn't beat the timer

Blasts! The baby came out! Audra had a the baby sometime this evening. It weighed over nine lbs, so I'm glad this blanket is going to be on the large side.

I yanked this pic from Audra's Myspace.

Yarny Weekend

I had to deliver my mother to UM today so she could judge the MSMTA Solo Festival competition. Since I was (relatively) in the neighborhood, I decided to stop by A Tangled Skein to pick up some Conjoined Creations Flat Feet. I had seen it before but had become entranced by the sheets/units/whatever the proper term is for them that have popped up on Ravelry. I also scored some great pattern booklets from Sublime Yarn. Uh, and some Opal Rainforest collection and some Stitch Diva patterns I've been wanting. Also, I found the Oat Couture pattern for the Curlique Coverlet that I've been hunting for. That may win as the Item of the Day because I've been all over the place trying to find it. After some deliberation, I ordered some Kureyon from Webs with which to make it. I'll post some pictures of my haul once I figure out why Flickr has decided that my photos should be posted sideways, regardless of what editing tactics I employ.

This weekend should be pretty low key. I've been working in my office, sporadically at least, over the past few days and I've hatched a plan to assist with yarn/book storage. Now I just have to get off my bum and build the shelving units I picked up. My plan is to put one of those Target 4x2 units sideways under the long stretch of my desk and a little 2 story table unit under the shorter leg. Hopefully the printer to my laptop will fit there because it's been a real pain in the ass to have to run all over the place just to get a sock pattern....or whatever else I want a hardcopy of. But yeah, it's mainly just sock patterns. It may have been useful for me to have measured or something before I went out and bought the furniture, but if it doesn't fit where I want it I'll just find a place where it will.

I don't know if I mentioned it or not but I joined this years round of the 52 Pair Plunge. I don't know that either my willpower or my wrists will hold up to knitting a pair of socks each week, but I think it'll definitely help me downgrade the tremendous sock stash. I have a feeling that Fiesta Boomerang will be one of my best friends since it's so thick and sproingy. I haven't actually tested this, but I bet i can whip a pair out in a very timely manner with it. That starts June 1st, so if I appear to have vanished it'll be a safe bet that I'm just holed up obsessively knitting footwear.

Now I'm off to build!

ETA: The shelving unit TOTALLY doesn't fit! Dammit all!

Clapotis the Fourth

Alright.The sun came out and I happened to not be out running my ass off. I've been working on this semi-obsessively and not doing any of the other projects I'm "supposed" to be doing, but I'm really liking it.

And a little close up of the dropped stitch part.

And my awesome stitch markers! I got these and some pistols from an Etsy shop.

I wish I could remember the name of the store. If I recall it, I'll let you know. She had quite a lot of interesting stitch markers and I'd like to go back for more. Knowing where I was going would help.

I'm about halfway thru my second ball of yarn now and it's become clear that I'm going to need a little more. Luckily, I know Lindsay at Storm Moon Knits and was able to put in a word for some. It may be a little while, but that may give me a chance to subside my clap obsession and work on the baby blanket.

You know you need another cup of coffee when....

I'm currently knitting yet another clapotis. I'm completely infatuated with this one, as it kicks major ass. I'm using Storm Moon Knits worsted yarn in The Time I Was RadioActive. I promise I'll post pictures as soon as one of these random sunny days corresponds to my free time. I don't want to do it the injustice of photographing it in the dark cave-ishness of my house.

So these past few days I've been running around more than usual on less than usual sleep. This was evidenced tonight as I sat here working on my clap and proclaimed, "Oh shit! I dropped a stitch!".

In other knitting news, I'm still going at it with the baby blanket. I'm not sufficiently at the point of time crunch madness that'll push me into crazy knitting on it. That day is on the horizon, however, so I can expect that it will soon become my current *must do* WIP.

More Monkeys!!

IMG_2249
Originally uploaded by knitglit

I joined a KAL on Ravelry and actually did the knitting!! I think I was just really excited to use this yarn, and who can turn down a Monkey sock? I have the first one completed....obviously, I guess, and am about to do the heel flap on the second. The colorway is KawKaw and was the sock camp colorway at this years Camp Crow's Feet. I wasn't able to go, but Cindy was kind enough to nab a skein for me. If anyone's interested in the colorway, Tina just put it up on the BMFA website today.

Leafling

I believe I mentioned that I had finished my Leafling socks the other day. Voila!

In trying to take a picture of these, I had the realization that I am apparently rather retarded in the area of putting on socks straight. Oh well. We can't all be good at everything. I also found that it's very difficult to get a decent photo of your own feet/lower legs while trying to simultaneously bend over, keep you long pant legs from dropping down, elude shadows, and keep a balanced hand. Here are some of the pics from the first finished sock, but we'll just pretend that I planned to use them here as detail shots rather than their real intent/origin, which was just me being hyperactively excited about having a single sock and thus taking approximately 1000 photos of my single foot. Yeah...."detail shots"....that's it.

I hope this is a better shot of the design.

Semi decent shot of the heel detail.

These socks were a pretty fun knit. They used a heel from Cat Bordhi's new(ish) book New Pathway's for Sock Knitters: Book One. Instead of doing a heel flap, stitches were added along the sides of the pattern panel so by the time the heel turn was worked, half the foot was already knit. Pretty sweet. The ribbing on the heel continues down to about mid sole, too, which is a new one to me. I think it looks pretty snazzy.

On to the specs!

Origin: RSC March '08

Pattern: Leafling by JC Briar

Yarn: STR Mediumweight, Lucky colorway

Needles: size 2 circular

Mods: none

I guess I should also add that this is the first pair of socks I've completed using the magic loop method. I began using the one needle out of necessity and just stuck with it. I found it to be pretty intuitive in practice so I didn't check to see if I was doing anything "right". It all worked out though, so yay! Considering that I often lose needles if they're not practically sewn onto my hand, magic loop is my friend.

Hope everyone is having a fun day, and for those not in my immediate area I hope you're having better weather. It sucks here and has for a number of days. However, the rain and general grossness outside makes for good cozy knitting inside.

Freak of Nature!!!

The baby shower at which my blanket is supposed to make it's debut is next Saturday. How did I miss this?? I'll refrain from posting a new picture because it would be depressing. If you're really interested in the progress, scroll down a few entries and look at the last picture of it. The only difference between then and now is that the blanket is currently balled up in an ice bucket that it was thrown in as we were bringing things in from the van. Shit. I'm off to knit.

Woot!

I got in my shipment from BMFA a few days ago. Rarely have I ever gotten such a thrill from a yarn shipment. Almost everything I took out of the box became my new favorite thing. And the Single Silk?? O.M.G! It is sooooooo nice. I don't have the patience to post a picture of each of the items received, but more detailed info can be found either on my Ravelry account, or on Flickr. In fact, I think that the individual photos should be rotating thru that little Flickr badge off to the left right about now.
In knitting news, I FINALLY finished my Leafling socks from the March RSC. More details on that to follow.....once this shitty weather goes away and I can take decent pictures. Today I think I'm going to cast on for a pair of Crosswalker socks with one of my new yarns. I love them all so much that it's going to be hard for me to decide which. No new progress on the baby blanket, because I suck and am very, very selfish.

The Power of Sunshine

I took advantage of the nice weather the other day and photographed a good deal of my newer stash (i.e, sock yarn).

I plan on doing some more of this advantage taking today. Not so much with the photographs, but with the leisurely outdoor knitting. I FINALLY finished a sock from the RSC last night and I'm eager to get into the 2nd as I'm semi afraid I'm going to run out of yarn. Size 11's and sock yarn yardage don't always get along so well. Especially when you're a super-tardo like me and decide to knit an 8 inch cuff while all the while sitting there thinking, "hmmm, I hope I have enough yarn!". Oh well. We soon shall see.

Also (keeping fingers crossed here) I might be getting in a mega packed order from BMFA today. They put up the new/returning colorways awhile ago but I was trying to hold out for the the Inside Out sock pattern to be posted before I ordered. Tina had told me that it would be up a few weekends ago, but no such luck. I decided to just go ahead and order. I'm VERY eager to do the Inside Out socks though, and now that I'll have the yarn it's going to eat away at my poor brain. I'll get it eventually though. Not like I don't already have enough to keep my hands busy.

Off to lounge in the sun!

Je pense que je suis "jinxed"

Last week at Stitch n' Bitch I was asked if my Log Cabin baby blanket wasn't terribly boring to work on considering that it's all garter stitch. I said no, and at the time that was the truth. Since that night, however, progress seems to have come to a screeching halt. Up to that point I had been completing about a section a night. Currently I'm about half a section away from where I was a week ago. This is not 100% due to it being a boring project. I really don't even find it boring at all since I usually work on it while I'm catching up on my days DVR recordings. Something happened though......that's for sure. Here's where I'm at now.

You may notice that there's VERY little difference between this picture and those of my previous entry. Really though, it'll be done after not too long. After this top section that I'm working on now there are only 2 more to go. They involve a little intarsia action so the monotony of working on the really big sections will be broken up. I'm thinking it's not going to be quite as big as I had thought.

And here's one of those random FO's I promised.

Pattern: Noro Hat by Saartji de Bruijn

Yarn: Noro Kureyon No. 185

Needles: US 8 circ's

I don't think I modified this hat in any way. I started and finished it back in January so my memory on it's production is a bit questionable though. I do recall that I thought it was coming out HUGE but in the end it all worked out. Oh, and something is fishy with my camera so please excuse the amount of fierce blur in some of these pictures.

In non-knitting news, I signed up for an Italian class through the Italian Cultural Society of Washington. The Monday night class I wanted to be in got cancelled because of lack of space so I had to take Wednesday nights. That means no more Stitch n' Bitch for me for the next 10 weeks. My class started tonight, but after driving around for 2 HOURS I still couldn't find the building so I ended up coming home and missing it. WTF???

Oh! I also went to see the Yarn Harlot on Monday night. Typically, I left my camera at home. It was much fun, though. I started a new project while I was waiting there.....because we all know that's exactly what I need to be doing. I'll have more info on that later on.

I'm Baaaack

Yes, yes. I know it's been forever and a day since I last posted. Sorry. All I can say is that I'm one of those people for whom the more time there is to do stuff, the less stuff gets done. Conversely, if I'm super crazy busy, I go into frantic mode and manage to get absolutely everything I need done and then some. I'm still adjusting to not having such huge deadlines always looming over me and when given the spare time, I just kind of flit around trying to decide what it is that I'm really supposed to be doing. Anyhow, that kind of explains it.

Sooooooo.....I have lots and lots to share. My game plan to get myself back into the swing of blog maintenance is to post a little spread over a few days. Seeing as how I'm so all over the place, some of the stuff may be (severely) out of chronological order, but oh well. To start, I'll begin with the present.

Most of my sock club subscriptions have expired, which is a little sad. I had some massive issues with Paypal that kept me from being able to renew anything. Maybe that's for the best seeing as how my sock yarn stash has grown to legendary proportions. I think we all know where my heart really lies, and *that* sock club is still in full swing. Yes, I am referring to the 2008 Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin' Sock club. I don't really remember if I ever even posted my first shipment....I'll have to investigate that....but here's the second.

and a semi fugly close up of the yarn

The colors really don't show well at ALL in these pictures. My house s so dark and with the schedule I was keeping, sunlight and I were distant strangers. I really like the color, and am liking the pattern too. I wasn't sure about it when I first looked at it, but once I really saw the details of it I'm digging it a lot more. I'd really like to say that these socks were completed, but a little touch of masochism got in the way. It looks a little like this.....

It's a Modern Log Cabin Blanket! Excitement.

I recalled that my impregnator nephew and his fiancees baby is due quite soon. So, in my brilliance, I decided to make a large, multi-colored, smaller gauged blanket for them. Smart! It's actually coming along quite nicely......attractive, more complex looking than it really is, and yet still on the easy knit/semi-speedy side. The only issue I'm really having with it is that some of the joints are a little......icky.

I'm hoping that when I wash it and all that good finishing stuff, I can kind of conceal some of the messiness. If not, eh, it's really not all that noticeable unless you're really looking at it.

Well, that's about it for now. I have my camera charged and ready to go so hopefully I'll be spitting out some FO shots soon. Not that I'll actually be spitting out FO's. That's one of the joys of not blogging for a long time. I have a lot done already:)