Monday, April 28, 2008

Leafling

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

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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.
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I hope this is a better shot of the design.
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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.

Friday, April 25, 2008

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.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Woot!

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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.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

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).

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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!

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

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.

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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.
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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.

Friday, April 04, 2008

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.

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and a semi fugly close up of the yarn
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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.....
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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.
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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:)