knit twisted

many things

2007-10-19T15:19:00.000-05:00

here are my socks at the fair. :-D

Monday.. I think it was monday, it might have been tuesday.. I think it was tuesday, actually.. I went over to lexington and checked out a new-to-me yarn shop, The Needler. they cater to the needlepoint/cross stitch crowd as well, and don't have a vast selection of yarn, but there were a lot of things I'd never seen in person. I came home with this:

zitron life style. it's 100% merino superwash and sport weight, I guess. I got two balls, they will turn in to socks, I expect.. although it's possible they'll turn into a baby surprise jacket instead. I also got two balls of yarn for my knitty charlie brown, but I can't show you those, they're secret. :)

tuesday the mailman brought me some yarny goodness too.. this

from fancy image , sport weight merino superwash in the oregon ducks colorway. 2 skeins, it's going to be socks for my soon-to-be brother in law, who is an oregon duck, and perhaps a pair for my sister as well, oregon duck colors are, conveniently also william and mary colors so maybe I'll make the newlyweds matching socks. Or maybe the other skein will be a hat and socks for his new grandson. :)

yesterday the mailman brought me two packages of yarny goodness. this

mountain colors bearfoot from the knitter, ruby river colorway. this was an emergency order because I determined I was not going to have enough yarn to finish the anniversary socks (and the anniversary is tomorrow).. and this

yarn pirate merino/tencel in butternut color. I've been hearing about yarn pirate for yonks, never seen any in person and I do love me some merino/tencel, but it's hard to find at a price I'll pay, too.. so when I found a gal on ravelry destashing this, for a reasonable price that included shipping, I said yes please, send that to me. and she did. the last (first) time I got my hands on some merino/tencel, it did not become socks for *me*. I am hoping this batch will. :)

today I finished the anniversary socks.

they are finished. they are not dry. :) they are "earl grey" pattern from the yarn harlot, in mountain colors bearfoot, wilderness color. at least.. in wilderness color until I ran out (not quite) of wilderness color, when they became ruby river color. Thank you again, judy at the knitter! (if you visit judy, tell her anno sent you. :)). ted's been wanting me to make him christmas socks since I started knitting socks, and it's hard to find christmassy yarn a man will wear to work with a tie.. I decided this would do the job, and.. I think it does.. some day I'll make him some seriously christmassy ones, but.. these will do for the time being and they'll work year round and match.. or at least go with.. pretty much anything he happens to put on. :) tomorrow is our (28th.. wow :) ) anniversary, and.. I hope he likes 'em. :)

I saved the funnest part for last, and I'm going to start with a short ramble..

for months and months now, since I first saw them, I have been seriously lusting after a momma monkey sock bag. more than anything, really. love those bags. I look at 'em at least once a week. over the weekend I signed up for this halloweenie great pumpkin swap and monday while I was rummaging around to see what I had suitable to put in the box for my charlie brown, I came across this thing..

came in the giant sack of useless stuff I ordered from archie mcphee last year.. great source of stocking stuffers for the teens and 20somethings.. this particular thing was too cool for any of them, so I kept it.. and apparently hid it from myself too. it's so cool.. can you tell that it's made of that defraction stuff (firefox tells me defraction is not a word.. anyone know what word it is that I'm looking for?) that makes it so those gals actually hula and those trees wave in the breeze. it is.. seriously cool.. and it occurred to me that it was the perfect size for a sock bag.. so, my lust for a momma monkey sock bag has been assuaged a bit.

for the longest time, another thing I keep looking at and craving and never buying for myself is good-n-plenty colored sock yarn. I admire it every time I visit a yarn dyer and see they have some of this sort of pink/black/white colorway. never buy it (it's never on sale!), always admire it.. always want it.

today my halloweenie box came in the mail, and it came from momma monkey. :-D and I thought oh wow, wouldn't karma be laughing at me if there was a sock bag in there.. but I was sorta excited too, because it's not like I *ever* only have one sock goin', so of course I might even *need* two sock bags. :)

so, I opened that box up.. and really, karma is havin' a laugh at me anyway.. lookie!

is that not a wonderful suprise to get in the mail? there's a giant box of chocolate covered macadamias (I think I'm gonna give those to ted tomorrow with his socks.. he loves macadamias), and a smaller chocolate covered macadamia toffee (that's mine. sorry, ted..) and 2 packs of halloween treat rice cracker snacks.. too cute. you're not going to find those in south carolina.. and 3 tea bags.. passion fruit tea.. sounds tasty! and a halloween pencil and stickers treat, and a halloween cup, and 4 halloween erasers, and a cute hawaii flip flop keychain *and*..

look closer..

There's a momma monkey needle case! I did not have a needle case. I had not gotten around to lusting after a needle case yet, because I hadn't been browsing since I assuaged my sock bag lust, but I can promise you it was going to be next on my list. :) It's so cool.. I've already stuffed some needles in it.. I had to unstuff it, to take it's picture.. then I stuffed it back. :) *and*..

hahaha.. now I've gone from never seeing/petting much less having any yarn pirate yarn to having 2 skeins in 2 days.. merino this time.. in "pretty pirate" colorway but if I had named this yarn, I woulda named it good-n-plenty.

this is just the coolest box! I'm so excited. this yarn is definitely going to be socks for *me*. I can't wait til I get another big chunk of the christmas knitting done so I can reward myself with a pair of *for me* socks. :)

tomorrow while my pal carrie is braving the crowds to go to the football game and then go to the fair to visit my socks :-D, I think I'm going to go over to lexington for a knit-in, if I can psych myself up for inserting myself into a group of strangers that know each other.. I'm workin' on it, I'm pretty sure I'll have fun.

oh.. aidan's sweater..

nearly done. it's been sitting there like that for days now.. there's something just a smidge wonky on the back side where I grafted the bits together and I don't want to undo and fix, but at the same time I can't make myself finish it until I do so it's just sitting there.. the anniversary socks took priority.. I'll have to deal with it soon.

*edited to add: oh. hehe.. I did not mean to imply that aidan's sweater has been sitting out on the front steps for days. it is safely in the house, sitting. over there. in case anyone was concerned. :)

oh..

2007-10-14T23:48:00.000-05:00

did I mention that my socks got a first place?!? :-D

we went to visit them today.. picked up the kids on the way so it was extra fun. they took pictures, maybe I'll get one eventually. :)

a few things

2007-10-06T18:19:00.000-05:00

I took my socks downtown and dropped them off at the fair, tuesday. :) I hope they have a happy trip, it'd be a good self-esteem boost. never done anything like that before, submitted my stuff for public scrutiny. well.. except for once when I was in high school, I put a print in an art show. not really of my own volition, more a coerced into it thing. it got 2nd place though. 10 bucks. :) it musta been 1972. maybe it was time to do it again. :)

I don't know how likely it is that they'll be successful, I think they're probably my best socks ever, which is sort of sad really, because I've thought that since they were finished in.. march or april, and they've been sitting around unworn since then, because when I finished them I said "these are my fair socks!" and never wavered from that certainty. they had to be entered in the "any other knitting not listed" category, which is kinda broad.. but perhaps because it is kinda broad there'll be lots of ribbons. :) no sock category for knitting at the SC state fair. 8 categories for knitted afghans.. go figure. I've been afraid to see how many categories there are for crocheted ones.

still, I'm glad the socks went to fair because I will definitely go visit them.. I've missed fair the last 2 years, it's more fun if you go with more people than just the two of us and last year we intended to go, but the nights ted didn't have to work too late were rainy. I don't remember why we didn't go the year before. I was hoping my sister was coming down for fair this year, she did once before but it doesn't look like that's going to work out. I expect if I put some effort into it I can convince erin and alfred to go with us.. see.. it's funner if people go because then there's someone to ride the tilt-a-whirl with me. ted swears he'll ride it with me but he *hates* the tilt-a-whirl and you'd think by now.. we're celebrating our 28th anniversary this month.. he'd understand that while I appreciate the sacrifice he's willing to make, there's no fun in riding the funnest ride in the world with someone who is miserable! erin and mary sue both love it as much as me, so.. I prefer to go with one or the other of 'em. I'm not a huge carnival ride kinda gal but I do seriously have a life-long love affair goin' with the tilt-a-whirl.

going to visit my socks and getting some of the best fried mushrooms in the world will be enough to get me there this year, one way or another, even if I have to go by myself. :) I love fair.. but it was definitely more fun when we had little kids to go with us.

ok.. so I went to the fairgrounds, circumnavigated them 3 times before I figured out where to go to drop off my socks. dropped off my socks. then I went to visit the new-to-me yarn shop downtownish. had a bit of a driving adventure locating it too, but did eventually, and had a nice visit... bought a skein of sock yarn and another ball of the knit one crochet too ty-dy, figuring 2 balls was more useful than 1 (I had bought the one at half-price closeout a while back.. today I found something to do with them and believe I need 2 more balls so.. I have an excuse to go back again! unless I can stalk the yarn on sale somewhere else before the end of fair.. I really liked half price better..).

then I went to earth fare and got a few can't get out this way groceries, including a sack of.. pea chips. actually, pea-doodles is probably more accurate. pea snacks.. shaped like pea pods, crunchy like snacks. very tasty, I need to go back there sometime and get more of those too.

then I got completely lost on my way home, I still don't know how I managed to totally miss the main drag through downtown, but eventually I came to somewhere I knew how to get home from, so.. home I came, on a whole different interstate highway than I had intended.

that was the most exciting part of my week outside the house.

inside the house, I believe I am going to finish aidan's sweater tomorrow.. I've started the shoulders so.. all that's left is finishing them and doing the neck and grafting the armpits. the sweater has been consuming almost all of my knitting time for the last week and a couple, and I will be glad to get it finished.. excited to get it finished! my first adult sweater! and get back to the socks for a bit.. I'm going to force myself to finish at least one pair before I start bryce's tomten.

that 6 skeins of peace fleece I swapped some sock yarn for, to make bryce (he'll be 3 in january) a tomten jacket? If I don't get aidan's hybrid finished with 3 of those skeins, I'll only be yards short.. once I finish the tomten, I'm going to be lookin' for something to use up another 700 yards or so of this stuff. :)

thai peanut stuff

2007-09-28T17:37:00.000-05:00

that's what's for dinner tonight. I was going to make pad thai, but I went to the grocery store yesterday knowing I needed to go but having no idea what I was going to buy, so all I remembered for sure that pad thai wanted was green onions and cilantro and bean sprouts. kroger didn't have any bean sprouts. so there will be mushrooms and carrots and snow peas in the thai peanut stuff tonight. since I'm not feeding any thais, probably I won't get in too much trouble for this. :)

here's a less sad looking picture of roza's socks. fair is coming, and I have to deliver my fair socks on tuesday or wednesday and I decided they would probably have a happier trip to fair if they were blocked, so I finally broke down and bought some sock blockers. snazzy red ones, from the loopy ewe. they only have small and extra large in stock at this moment but last week they had large (which is what I need, all the women I knit for wear between 8 and 10 shoes, so the small ones may be a little over-blocked.. next time I have money to spare I'll buy a pair of mediums), so I got those, and a pair of xl ones for man socks too. I've been having a lot of fun blocking the christmas socks that are completed, so they look better for gifting.

I got some yarn too, a huge splurge, full-priced yarn, I don't know when I've ever done that before!

this superwash BFL from gypsy knits, it's called "merry go round",

and this wool/bamboo blend from zen strings, it's called "sedona". it doesn't make much sense to me that it's called sedona, in my memory, sedona is more redorange and green.. but that's what it's called anyway.

I ordered yarn because I always choose to pay for stuff rather than shipping.. and because I just couldn't resist. :)

I ordered a lot more yarn actually.. but not sock yarn this time! are you amazed?! I swapped some sock yarn for 6 balls of peace fleece on the knittyboards a few weeks ago.. I started a swapping conversation with a gal who had a bunch of yarn she wanted to swap for a skein of sock yarn, and she mentioned cherry tree hill as being one of the things she would like.. and I'm wanting to make a tomten jacket for my nephew's stepson, so I thought maybe this yarn would do the job, and I have.. well, not as much now as I did before, but a lot of CTH hill ends.. and I usually don't buy one that's less than 9oz and it rarely takes 3oz to make a pair of socks so I had some to spare, so I asked if she'd be interested in that, and showed her a couple to pick from, and she asked if I'd like to swap them both. and this was 10 balls of yarn we were talkin', that was more than reasonable so I considered it.. and I considered the yarn, and decided that the yarn wasn't actually suitable for that jacket anyway and suggested she'd probably rather take a different offer. but she liked that yarn, and asked if there was anything else I'd like to swap for it, and I said I'd like something tweedy and wooly to make a tomten jacket for a 3yo, and she said she had 6 skeins of peace fleece, how would that do? and I said OK. even though she was happy with that trade, I felt guilty so I added in a 3rd batch of CTH and then wound off an ounce of solid to go with, in case one or other of 'em didn't actually make a whole pair of socks.. I'm sure the first two will but the second.. not quite as sure.. so I made sure there was yarn for the heels/toes just in case. and I still know I got the better end of that swap, but..

anyway, the yarn arrived, good lord what a lot of yarn, it's DK peace fleece, so 2100 yards in the 6 skeins (color is a little off in the photo.. but it's gorgeous :)), would make sweaters for an army of toddlers so I decided to make a sweater for my son, and I expect I'm going to have enough left to make that tomten too. I'm making aidan the seamless hybrid from elizabeth zimmermann, following the lead of brooklyn tweed so I had to order another skein for the hem facings, in a contrasting color. :) then I swatched the yarn, and washed the swatch a couple times, and fell so in love with it I decided I needed yarn for more sweaters, so I sent off for wholesale info and placed a wholesale order and a week later 24 more skeins of the stuff arrived at my house. rofl.. I am insane, I don't even know if I can make a sweater!

but I'm tryin'. :) so far it's just a tube with a hem, so.. not too challenging (although it took me 3 tries to be happy with the hem..). we'll see what happens when it gets to the sleeves..

september

2007-09-15T08:44:00.000-05:00

so far, just sockdown socks.

the sockdown categories this month are toe up, or grumperina designs. since I just did my first ever toe up socks and.. while those turned out great, am still resistant to the whole concept, I'm knitting grumperina.

first, roza's socks from the spring issue of interweave knits.

lorna's laces shepherd sock, purple iris colorway, 2.5mm needles. these are for my mother in law for christmas. :)

and for my second trick,

I'm giving jaywalkers a try again. it's been almost a year and a half since my first dismal attempt, and this time, it's working. 84 stitch version, 2.5mm needles and considerable more experience in the sock department has produced a sock that does actually go over a human ankle, so I'm very happy with this.

I bought this yarn in germany in january and it's been chilling in my stash since, waiting for me to be in the mood to knit it and find a pattern that suits it. I think this pattern does suit it, dandily. :)

in other news, I swapped some sock yarn for some dk weight peace fleece, and am pondering a sweater. I need to order a skein for contrast, for the facings and I need to either finish my curtain (problematic, since the yarn I got to finish it doesn't *match*) to reclaim that needle, or obtain another size 6 circ.. I need to swatch and wash and measure.. I need to *read* knitting workshop.. twice maybe.. and then I'll be ready to go. :) I'm going to attempt a hybrid sweater. unless I change my mind and decide to do the cobblestone sweater from this issue of IK, instead..

have not worked up the enthusiasm to do the heel on the I love gansey sock yet, and the second regia galaxy.. jupiter.. whichever.. something spacey.. sock is languishing just before the heel on the second sock too, but it'll get done before too long.

oh! ordered up some of those new harmony dpn's last saturday from knitpicks and they arrived yesterday (along with more sock yarn), one set hopped straight into that jaywalker, you can see 'em peeking out. I *love* them! not bendy! nice and smooth! good points! I can't decide if I'm relieved or disappointed that they are not so garrishly colored as they appeared on the website. a little of both, I think. :)

here we go...

2007-09-04T16:39:00.000-05:00

the finished campanula for the cure socks.
knitpicks risata, burgundy color.. none of the photos look anything like the color the yarn actually is.. at least not on my screen. 2.5mm needles.

I really enjoyed knitting this yarn pretty much, and I like how it feels on my feet. I like that it's a fair bit cotton, that's a boon in this climate.. at least for this part of the year. I wish it came in more colors. girlier colors. :) I believe, based on the quantity of the leftovers from these socks, that I will require 3 balls if I'm going to knit mansocks. there are leftovers, but man socks will need more stitches in addition to more rows, and I don't believe they would be sufficient to get the job done. I did find a knot in each ball, which was a surprise.. each time.. not hugely inconvenient I guess but I would have preferred to not have to deal with that.

still.. I like the yarn. :) I'll order a couple more balls next time I'm tossing some money at knitpicks.

you can tell which one has been finished a while and tried on a bunch, and which one just came off the needles, 'eh?

shameless

2007-09-03T19:13:00.000-05:00

I didn't finish any knitting to show you.. maybe tomorrow. :)

I did find a shirt you all need though! georgia from threadless.com. it's a sheep all dressed in balls of yarn for fleece. very cute. on sale for 10.00 until 9am tomorrow, too. and if you click that link and buy it, I'll get a 3.00 credit. :) but please don't feel obligated to use my link.. it's just really cute and I know you'll want one as much as I do. :)

progress :)

2007-08-26T15:41:00.000-05:00

the campanula is coming along. :)

this sock is really not very relaxing. I cannot memorize this lace, so I have to look at the instructions very frequently, especially throughout the even numbered rows but it's so lovely, and so thoroughly written that I have produced, on my very first ever attempt, a toe up sock (ok, half a toe up sock) that fits me (and my size 10.5 feet, following the included directions for those with longer feet!) perfectly. I'm just amazed. :)

campanula

2007-08-25T13:44:00.000-05:00

I started this last night. it's going kind of slowly so far.

first off, I've never done a toe-up sock before. it is kind of a kick to be able to stick my foot in it already but.. it seems so.. alien.

secondly.. I couldn't make heads or tails out of the provisional cast-on movie at knittinghelp.com so I sorta winged that and it's a little wonky. maybe I'll do a better job on the second sock. :)

third.. I gotta tell you I'm not much of a fan of the K3tog(tbl) process.. whoa. what a almost unpossible thing to do!

fourth.. isn't it pretty?! I have to keep stopping and admiring it.

I'm using knitpicks new cotton blend sock yarn, risata.. my first experience with this.. or with any knitpicks sock yarn, actually, although I have some essential and a ball of that other new striped one.. well.. 2 balls.. stashed. I like this yarn. I'll have to get more.

fourth again.. isn't it pretty? scroll down a bit and read my campanula post again.. you know you all want this pattern. :)

there's a GIANT spider..

2007-08-24T15:49:00.000-05:00

outside.. webbifying the door to the deck.. huge! spider so today's sock portrait was taken on the front steps instead of the deck!

man socks of fleece artist nova sock, mahogany color. these are definitely fraternal socks.. so much so they look sort of like half-siblings, only one parent in common. the yarn is not colorishly consistent from one end of the skein to the other. I offered to yank 'em out and knit from both ends of the ball at once, once I was sure there was enough yarn to do that but he says they're fine the way they are. *whew*. :) I'm pretty tired of this yarn.. the first sock has had 3 different heels and was finished when I decided the second heel was also not acceptable so.. I'm glad I don't need to keep knitting it.

there was enough yarn to finish both socks, though.. so I'll stress less about that when I get around to knitting the other skeins. :)

surprise!!

2007-08-21T22:44:00.000-05:00

toddler size.

such a fun pattern, I wish I knew more babies. this one of knitonecrochettoo ty-dy in verandah color, I got it half price from.. a shop with a similar name.. maybe that was the name of the shop and the yarn is from a place with a similar name, I.. have a ball band and know I'm right now. :) cotton stuff. is for the sister of the baby the baby one is for, so.. if the baby one fits the baby, this one oughta fit her.. :)

I look forward to these sweaters being tried on actual children so I can gain a clue far as what size actual children are...

it's really not my fault I don't know this. My children are 20 and 23 so it's been a good while since I had little children around.. and they were both weird children far as sizes go. the first one was tiny.. she wasn't incredibly tiny, 5#8, which is the official first baby size in both our families.. I was 5#8, my husband was 5#8, my niece was 5#8, my daughter was 5#8.. my sister's first was 4#11 but he was really early.. none of the rest of 'em were.. and that's all the first babies we have in several generations so.. it's kinda the pattern. she was small and she stayed small for a while so she fit premie stuff and 3 month stuff for a good 4-5 months.

the second one was huge.. biggest baby ever born on either side of our family at 6#11 :-P. he lived up to the huge standard though, in the beginning and wore 18 month clothes from the time he was 4 months old until he was 2 and a half.. he actually wore out 18 month clothes. he was born, he grew round, and then for a couple years he stayed the same circumference and got progressively taller. when he was 2.5, he finally started getting too tall for those 18 month clothes. today he's the tallest slenderest person in the family.. but of absolutely no help in figuring out whether these sweaters are going to fit small children.

the mother of baby Paxton who will be born next month says she is sure he weighs 42 pounds and is 3 feet tall already. she is also no help.

so.. cross your fingers. I like knitting these. It'd be nice if they actually fit little children.

wowza!

2007-08-16T11:37:00.000-05:00

look at me, I'm back again. and.. I may not be done yet.

I was sewing the buttons on my baby surprise jacket.. *finally* when the doorbell rang and startled the sweater out of my lap.. was the postman and he brought me TWO packages.

One, a swap from the knitty swap board, two balls of STR fairgrounds.. I'll take their picture later, the camera batteries gave out on me..

and the other, my rut-busting swap package, all the way from australia! such an exciting package.. look!

a magazine! I can't wait to sit down and enjoy it. :) a magnetic notepad. Someone's been peeking in my kitchen and saw the terrible state my grocery list is in.. I actually *needed* this. :). a skein of striped sock yarn in brown, gray and cream.. I have tons of plain cream to fill in heels toes cuffs/whatever to go with this! 2 balls.. one red, one cream, of alpaca.. wow.. so soft! I'm going to swatch a small bit of this in stripes and see if it comes out of the sink still looking like waldo, or if it comes out lookin' like strawberry shortcake :) doesn't matter either way I don't think, but nice to know from the get-go. :) alpaca socks? or maybe mittens. :) and a big ball of washable wool in gorgeous fern colorway.. all greens and tans and spring-like, from celia's basket. AND.. gummy dinosaurs... AND!!! loads! of cherry ripe (which is now having a nice relaxing cool-down in the fridge!). heaven must be sorta like this. :)

SO fun.. my first knitting-related secret pal swap ever.. won't be my last! wow. :)

Ok.. I'm back..

here's the lovely yarn I got today from diane at knitty, in exchange for some of my own that I could spare. socks that rock light weight, in fairgrounds colorway. perhaps not a color I'd have chosen from the full range but! a chance to try out the light weight and see what I think of it. I have a christmas wishlist to prepare, don't ya know.. some STR may want to be on it. then again, it may not. we'll find out. :)

and this..

is the baby surprise jacket, all done with it's buttons on. I think it's cute. I sure hope it actually fits a baby.

anyone know how big a baby is? I've long since forgotten..

Campanula for the Cure

2007-08-16T10:15:00.000-05:00

I met this gal, MezzoDiva, on the knittyboards a few weeks ago. She's participating in the weekend to end breast cancer events and has designed a lovely sock, Campanula for the cure, to help with her fund-raising. The pattern is available free of charge, as a thank you for sponsoring her in this event. *and*, there's a knitalong! it even looks like there are prizes! It's a beautiful pattern, a wonderful cause, and I'd like to invite all of you to support this worthy cause and join in on the fun.

Honestly, I do not have this pattern yet. I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of MezzoDiva on the knittyboards and congratulated her on her lovely pattern and wished her the best success with her worthy undertaking, and all my non-financial support along the way, but unfortunately all my financial support, at least this quarter, is going to my nephew who is running in the chicago marathon in october, to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Fighting these blood cancers is a strong goal for our family, we lost my sister's husband, my nephew's father to an especially nasty one 2 years ago.

MezzoDiva kindly offered to share her pattern with me at the time and.. I couldn't ethically allow myself to accept her generous offer since I am not able to offer my financial support to her cause at this time. At least I don't think I accepted, I don't find the pattern in my email! This morning I awoke to an invitation to join the KAL though.. so now I can actually do something to help. I can tell all y'all to go check it out. :)

Please. Go check it out.

the sheep shed

2007-08-15T09:36:00.001-05:00

I need to respond to a comment on an earlier post and can't see a way to do so!

Becky, who is from SC but lives in Virginia (which makes her kind of the opposite of me.. born in virginia, living in SC) wanted to know about the sheep shed. the sheep shed.. or sheep shed studio.. is this nice online business that sells all kinds of fleecy fibery things and a lot of brown sheep closeouts/seconds at *really great* prices! really great. :) I'm obviously most interested in sock yarns so I've purchased wildfoote, wildfoote handpaints and cotton fine (which makes a nice summer sock :)) but there's lots of other good stuff to choose from too. Color selections are limited but I never have any trouble finding stuff I want/need.

anyway, that's what I'm using to knit the gansey sock, the mistletoe wildfoote from the sheep shed. the color of this as it appears on my monitor is not very similar to the color the yarn appears at my house, but I can't say for sure that there aren't some skeins that do look that color.. I'm really fond of the color I have here, and may well order another couple. :) on the other hand, there's a few colors available now that weren't when I last ordered so maybe I'll get them, instead.

swapping goodness

2007-08-14T22:19:00.000-05:00

I forgot to say how excited I am about finally managing to make some good swaps at knitty. I mailed out today one swap of a 4oz CTH mill end in a color I just don't really care for and 2 skeins of seconds/closeouts cotton fine I got for cheap, in exchange for a skein of light weigh socks that rock.. in a color that I wouldn't have chosen, but someone will like the socks, I may even like them myself once they're made, but it gives me a chance to try the light weight.. I haven't been overwhelmed with lust for more after my experiences with the medium weight, partly because I really dislike dramatic pooling and partly because the yarn is just too heavy to be very practical in south carolina!.. it sure is fun to knit though.. wish I knew more people who lived in cold places and liked dramatically pooling socks.. :-P. but it really was yummy to knit regardless of what it looks like so I'm excited to have a chance to knit the finer weight and see what I think of it, without having to actually buy it. I will probably replace that cotton fine because I was kinda fond of that color..

and I also mailed out a skein of CTH life's a beach that I got as a christmas gift.. that particular colorway just didn't speak to me at all.. I couldn't get excited about wearing socks of it myself and couldn't convince myself any of the people on my socks gift list would love it either, I've been trying to swap it for a while and finally did, for a skein of fleece artist merino sock in a colorway I'll have to see to decide if I/anyone will be crazy about it but it's a new yarn for me and I'll be excited to knit it... I think I'll like it fine if it doesn't scream "someone else!".. it's so hard to tell with fleece artist, my limited experience indicates that even if you look at pictures and know what the color looks like, the yarn that comes may be completely different.. but all my limited experience is with nova sock so I'm excited to try the other flavor, regardless of what it looks like. :)

really excited. hopping up and down can't wait excited. :) on both counts! very very pleased with my trades.. I hope the people that are receiving my stuff in return feel the same way.

also I'm looking forward with great anticipation to my knitty rut-busting swap exchange.. I'm really looking more forward to my gal I sent stuff to getting her package.. I sure hope she likes.. at least something.. I think it was a good package... I bought the same stuff for me and *I* like it.. :) than I am to getting my own package but!... I am some kind of looking forward to getting my own package.. so much fun, getting suprises in the mail. :) so much fun. I hope it comes soon. I hope my package gets received soon too.. it should more than have arrived, I.. I'm guessing the gal I sent it to must be out of town. she better be out of town havin' a good time. :)

I think I'll go wander over to the sheep shed and see what kind of stash-replenishment I can ponder there...

more socks :)

2007-08-14T17:18:00.000-05:00

I finished the lacy scallops socks last night. :) Cherry tree hill Sockittome mill end.. I bought 9 ounces and finished these socks for my size 10.5ish feet with less than 1/3 of the lot, so.. I guess I'll be making some more stuff of this color. :)

I finished the first of the plain man socks, except for kitchenering the toe closed.. I figured not doing that until the second sock is finished will insure I don't run out of yarn. :) this is regia galaxy in the wald colorway. second one is started, but since it's a nice mindless plain stockinette sock, I generally save it for working on late at night so it may take a while to get done.

I started the I love Gansey sock, the current project of the six_sox_knitalong yahoo group. this one is a pretty serious reach for me, not as much because of all the cable stuff.. although I have next to no experience with cables.. as because there's just so much going on to keep track of.. the big cable bit = a 20 row repeat, the heart bit = a 15 row repeat, and the little cables.. one row going // and the other row going \\ on each half, twisting every 4th row. this is seriously taxing my already fairly scattered brain. this is probably the sharpest clearest photo I've ever taken of a sock too, and yet it's horrible far as showing what's actually going on with the sock (perhaps you can see that so far I have one section of the skinny cables twisting after 3 rows, and another section further along twisting after 5.. I figured nobody would ever really know but me and I don't believe it bothers me. these socks are of.. will be of wildfoote seconds/closeouts I bought from the sheep shed. the dye job on these skeins is somewhat inconsistent so I reckon that accounts for the second thing. I find it really appealing though, and perfectly suited for this sock. :)

what's doin' and what's done

2007-08-10T13:14:00.000-05:00

boy, it's hot out there.

what I'm doin':

a plain stockinette man sock, of regia galaxy. for some reason that one didn't make it outside for a portrait.

sockbug's lacy scallops sock, for the ravelry sockalong. this is a cherry tree hill sockittome mill end that just happens to be close enough to burgundy and orange that I'm proclaiming it so, and calling these my hokie socks. :)

a ribbed man sock of fleece artist nova sock in "mahogany". I'm not sure there's enough yarn to finish man socks, so this sock has had a 4ply regia heel.. too thin for the rest of the sock.. and a 6ply regia heel.. too thick, really, but I probably would have lived with it.. except it was also too pointy, so out it came. I'm about ready to cross my fingers and just finish the thing.. once I get it back on the right number of needles.. and hope for the best. I worry about running out of yarn a lot but it's only happened once.. maybe there's enough. it's just.. skimpy yardage.. nervous about it.

bubbly curtain, from mason-dixon knitting, for the powder room window. euroflax originals in champagne. I bought 2 skeins when we were in illinois and.. it's not going to be quite enough, so I need to get around to getting one more, I reckon.

what is done:

gray mansocks, of wildfoote. I worried about running out of yarn on these and came mighty close to doing it.. but there's probably 2 yards left. :)

stripey mansocks, of regia brasil.

stripey summer socks for me.. the bit towards the toe that's in the sun is closer to actual color, at least on my screen. plain ol' ribbed socks, regia surf.

a pair of horcrux's.. fortissima 100% cotton sock. I really like this yarn, actually.. too bad it seems to have been discontinued. if you've got some in your stash and don't want to use it, feel free to send it to me. :)

actually, a pair of pairs of horcrux's.. this pair of socks that rock medium weight in "henpecked". shelley sent me this yarn. :) if any of you happen to have any of this stuff layin' around unloved, I'd be happy to adopt it too. haha.. as if. :) there's only one shelley. :) these socks worked up to have distinctly hokie-colored stripes in too.. this pair may wind up being for my new niece-in-law for christmas. maybe. there's more of that mill end the lacy scallops are being knit of, so she may get those. or something of some of the rest of it. definitely, she's getting hokie socks for christmas one way or another. :)

and continuing the harry potter theme, a pair of "fawkes".. a socktopia pattern. these are of a cherry tree hill supersock mill end, and are for my sister in law for christmas. it's not very phoenix-colored yarn, but she used to live in phoenix.. that makes it work, right? :)

there ya go. what I'm doin' and what I've done.

yackin'..

2007-07-26T17:35:00.000-05:00

don't have any pictures to show yet, but I have been kind of busy..

I finished a pair of plain ribbed socks of a regia cotton blend.. the first sock got done in may, the second took some getting around to.

I knit a pair of horcrux of socks that rock medium weight. I don't know if this ball is actually not quite so thick as the other one or if all the difference was in the pattern, but this pair doesn't seem anywhere near as bulky as the first pair does. there's also a bit more yarn left over, I'm sure I can get a pair of baby socks out of these leftovers. :)

I knit most of a man sock of a ball of fleece artist nova sock.. I'm not sure there's enough yarn here for a pair of man socks, so I did the heel first in regia 4ply.. decided that was too flimsy. ripped it out, did it again in regia 6ply.. that's plenty substantial :). I'm just as glad to do the heels in a blend with nylon, they'll wear better. anyway, I got about to the toe, shoved my foot in and decided the heel (short row) was a row or two too deep even for my heel so I ripped it all out again, back to where the heel needs to be.. and then I let it sit. I'll get around to it again eventually.

I knit a pair of socks... the socktopia fawkes socks, of a cherry tree hill mill end that looks nothing like a phoenix, but they're pretty anyway. I had a 10oz mill end that unwound into 3 pieces, 3 balls and I used the smallest ball so I was again unsure there was enough yarn.. so I knit this pair 2 socks at a time on DPN's.. which was a pretty unwieldy and pointy experience, but in the end I did make it all the way through the socks with a bit of yarn to spare, despite going an extra repeat in the leg because I thought they were too short.

my knitty secret pal hooked me up yesterday with a pattern for wavy socks, so I cast on one of those yesterday in royale hare sock yarn and that's pretty fun, I'm working on the first heel now, or was when I put it down a bit ago.

we're heading out on a 4 day road trip to illinois tomorrow. my husband's uncle.. my father in law's older brother is celebrating his 90th birthday.. the oldest male in the family.. my son is the youngest male in the family and the only male in his generation and they've never met. heck, I've never met the man.. my husband hasn't seen him since 1968 or so.. so we got the invitation and figured illinois is far, too bad we can't go and then a few days back we decided we really couldn't *not* go so we're driving.. google says 12 hours and 40 minutes each way, to spend 2 days in the homeland and then drive back. I have found a yarn store to visit, and a store that sells cat's meow custom pieces of the city so I can add a small replica of some piece of the homeland to one of my doorsills, I found a train store for my husband to visit and I'm still trying to find a white castle en route, because that's what my son most wants to do.. eat at white castle. go figure. :)

so.. I have printed out the wavy sock pattern because I don't think I can remember this one, and I printed the tumbling blocks sock pattern too, and packed another pair of needles, the second ball of royale hare, two balls of panda cotton and I may toss in a ball of trekking because I may decide I just want to knit stockinette in the car... but maybe I won't.. it'd be a good opportunity to make some progress towards the new harry potter.. I'm doing a re-read before the new one, my son's done with it so it's available and I still haven't finished book 5. :(

anyway.. when we return.. I'll get around to taking some pictures for the entertainment of my phantom readers. :)

surprise!!

2007-07-14T16:34:00.000-05:00

It *did* turn into a jacket!

maybe the most surprising part is that I only changed yarn once..

elizabeth zimmermann's baby surprise jacket, done of a 100% merino cherry tree hill mill end (two of 'em, actually) that I purchased as supersock.. but it's about a third thicker than that, and somewhat skimpier in yardage to make up for it. EZ said I needed 3oz of yarn to make this sweater and I'm guessing I used closer to 6.. 5.5 maybe. it's a little bigger than it's supposed to be too, I was supposed to get 6 stitches/inch and I've wound up with not quite that, closer to 5 actually. so.. we'll call this a toddler surprise jacket, I guess. It's pretty cute though, huh?

is a good thing I got to the end of the instructions when I did though.. that weird yarn was going to transition from the light green/cream/pinkybeige there at the end to light green/pinkybeige/RED, in another row or two and I'm really not sure that would have enhanced the look of the finished thing. it's going to make pretty ok christmas baby socks though. :)

it was really fun to knit.. I was so excited when it finally got to the point I could see how it was going to "work" in the end.. and then it made me do another thing that didn't make sense and then came the point that did too.. way fun. the only hitch is the buttons. I found buttons I think will do nicely but I cannot find a needle that will do the job.. a needle with an eye big enough for the yarn I want to use to attach them, and at the same time skinny enough to go through the holes. it's not an impossible thing, I just.. don't seem to have one. so.. I reckon I'll be goin' shopping monday.

tomorrow we're loading the car up with 20somethings and heading to chucktown to see harry potter 3D at the imax.. which should be plenty fun enough to make the waiting to get the jacket 100% finished bearable. :)

the long and winding...

2007-07-09T17:45:00.000-05:00

road... ok.. that's a bit too cliche even for me. .

I've spent a large part of this day winding yarn. I have wound.. 26 ounces of sock yarn.. somewhere in excess of 2600 yards. If you're thinkin' what's she whining about, that's a piece of cake, you either have fancy tools I don't have or are much younger and more flexible. :) geez.. I don't so much enjoy winding yarn. I.. enjoy it more in the winter, but.. not much more. but.. I keep acquiring more and more yarn that needs winding and I keep knitting the yarns that came in a form from which I can knit them without doing anything to them and the balance has tilted.. I now have far more yarn in need of winding than I have in a form from which I can just choose it and commence to knit.. and the yarn in need of winding is mostly much more appealing, or tempting, except for that pesky winding thing.. than what is.. in a form from which I can just pick it up and knit. with some exceptions.

oddly perhaps.. the yarns I wound today are not the most tempting of the ones waiting winding, either. I have 8 skeins of lorna's laces on hand and I wound the 2 that are my least favorite. I have 4 skeins of fleece artist and I wound the one that.. is my least favorite (but also the one that's most likely to make man-socks). I also wound 2 skeins of royale hare in a range of dark blues, a 4oz cherry tree hill mill end in solid turquoise and a 10oz cherry tree hill mill end that is a bunch of colors. it wound into 3 balls, none quite like another but close to the same size.. I think I can get a pair of socks each out of 2 of them and the third.. maybe not quite.. which is why I also wound the turquoise, I was thinking it might be willing to donate heels and toes to at least one pair.. now I'm thinking maybe I should have chosen the purple so I may do it next.

but not today. it's tiring. pieces of me hurt.

I wound ones that are not my personal favorites.. that were purchased with other people in mind because I have knit more pairs for myself than for other people lately and I need to get a few more pairs into the christmas knitting so it's not crazy like it was last year. so.. next.. after I finish the sock on needles (a plain summer sock.. for me..) and.. maybe the mate to the one I finished yesterday (a socks that rock horcrux that.. may be for someone else.. but.. may not :) ).. definitely next is going to have to be a gift pair. definitely.

sarah asked about the friend of the towel yesterday.. he's a black cat candy jar that lives on the kitchen table.. he came from the dollar spot at target after halloween when the dollar spot was 75% off. I collect black cat stuff, and for a quarter, could not leave him there. :) he is kinda cute, 'eh?

a title.. aha.. ok, "now that's done.."

2007-07-08T10:48:00.001-05:00

sheesh.. that was surprisingly difficult, making a title happen.. hahaha..

here's the cotlin towel. I just cannot photograph anything inside..

as you can probably tell, 2 balls of the cotlin was insufficient to finish the towel.. however.. I had a bit of the natural color left over from erin's sweater and that did prove to be sufficient (for a little bit I was afraid I was going to run out of it *too* and (while I do have a few more balls of that color and could have broken one out.. I didn't want to) was afraid I was going to have to finish it up with 2 or 3 rows of the green. once I reconciled myself to the watermelonish look that would result from that, the natural magically stretched to finish the job. :)

since I still haven't seen the specified euroflax in person, I can't speak to how reasonable a substitute this is, but I do think it made a nice towel and I actually kind of like the odd colored end, so.. pending actually using and laundering this one, I expect I will make some more and use up the rest of this yarn.. I have 2 more balls of the natural, another ball and a bit of the green, and 2 balls each of the turquoise and dark blue.. I think I'll try a feather and fan of the green and turquoise and then moss grid ones with the rest, as far and randomly colored as that takes me. :) but.. one of these days, I *am* going to try the right yarn.. might as well knit up this substitute stuff first though, in case the right stuff ruins it for me.

today, I remain very happy with this towel.
really.. I do like it.. perhaps better, even, with the odd colored end!

technical question: I like the bind off end better than the cast-on end. I used.. what in my head work out to be sort of similar things.. I did the knitting on cast on.. where you start with a loop and knit a stitch of it and slip it to the left needle then knit another stitch and slip it to the left needle and.. on like that? don't know it's name.. and I bound off with the one where you knit a stitch and slip it back and knit two together and slip it back and knit two together and slip it back and.. like that, til you run out.. don't know the name of that either.. but I like how it looks on the end of this towel. is there a way I can put the stitches on in the beginning that would more nearly match that, in appearance?

it's convenient that I'm fonder of the two color end and the bind-off end both, since.. hanging over the towel rod, both my favorite bits present themselves to the public view. :)

knitting a sock today.. a horcrux in medium weight STR henpecked, which arrived the other day from the nice gal that I mentioned the other day.. and whether the smaller stitch count or the smaller needles (this batch really doesn't seem quite as thick as the harlotty for whatever reason, I'm knitting it on 2.5mm needles) or just.. different colorway, this one is behaving in a more appealing way than the harlotty did. I like it better in a less textured pattern too, I think. anyway.. I'm enjoying the sock.. I'll give you a peek when it's a pair. :)

if anybody's keeping track,

2007-06-29T17:04:00.001-05:00

I made it through the 5th repeat and a couple rows into the 6th with the first ball of cotlin, yesterday. I'd probably be content with 11 repeats instead of 12.. but don't believe I'm going to get there, either. I believe this towel is going to be.. coral colored, with one natural end. :)

the kids got home last night from their trip to boston. they hated being in boston, it was a really hot week. they didn't hate boston in general though. still no firm decision whether the move will take place. they stayed for dinner and some yacking and then headed home, taking daphne with them. we'll sort of miss daphne, and she'll sort of miss being here, there's more to keep her busy. harpo won't get around to missing her until tomorrow, though.. he's got a week of sleep to catch up on. :) he was so worn out he put himself straight to bed once she left last night. one of the reasons we'll miss daphne most is that she keeps harpo so busy keepin' an eye on what she's up to that he forgets to come wake us up at 5freakinthirty, looking for his breakfast. she was not here long enough to break him of that impulse.

made soup for dinner since it's the easiest thing to make when you don't know what time dinner is going to be and I've made dinner enough times lately that nobody showed up to eat that I'm kinda touchy about that. :) is good soup..

turkey and black bean..

you need 1lb of turkey italian sausage.. the kind from walmart comes in a nice plastic log so you don't have to squeeze it out of the skin link by link.. and 3 cans of black beans, and about a cup each of chopped celery, carrots, and onions.. more onions is always good.. a can of petite diced tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, a bit of cumin, some chopped garlic, 1/3 cup or so fresh cilantro, chopped, a box of chicken broth (or a couple cans), and... some lime juice. you brown the sausage and garlic a bit then add the onions and carrots and celery and cook that some, then the tomato paste (measure the rest of the can out in 1 tablespoon blobs on some waxed paper and pop 'em in the freezer for a bit, put 'em in a ziplock when they're solid and next time you can just grab two blobs from the freezer to toss in the soup :) ) and tomatoes and chicken broth and cumin ('bout a teaspoon) oh.. and some red pepper flakes.. (I usually add a few packets of red pepper flakes to my papa john's order.. don't want it on my pizza but it's free and handily pre-measured for soup :)) and 2 cans of black beans and the cilantro and cook it a while.. pour the other can of beans in a bowl and mash them and add them in a bit later to thicken it some.. you can add the lime juice then, about a tablespoon.. cook it a bit more and taste it, it might want a little more lime juice, or maybe some salt. for serving, you can garnish it with some crumbled tortilla chips, a sprinkle of cheese, a blob of sour cream, some chopped avocado and/or green onions and/or tomato.. or all of 'em, if you really want a feast in a bowl. :)

more words

2007-06-28T08:41:00.000-05:00

all those words I used yesterday and still didn't say all the things I meant to or should have..

the yarn! I like the yarn a lot, sort of. I like how it feels, I enjoyed knitting with it..

I'm not a big fan of such dramatic pooling. I know some people really do like that, someone on the knittyboard told me that the gal that dyes this yarn really likes it, which makes sense! but me, I like something just a little more.. orderly, or homogenous, or completely scattered.. really I prefer most any other behavior.

I really enjoyed knitting this medium weight but it's not a very practical weight for south carolina so I don't know that I'll do it again. unless I have plenty money to spend on yarn, it'd make a great toddler cardigan. and.. I do have some family in utah, and my daughter and her boyfriend are fixing to move to boston (I think.. she has to decide by next week, they're due back from their recon trip tomorrow.. guess we'll know for sure soon) so they'll probably need nice thick socks.. so.. yeah, maybe...

but, I believe I'll try the lightweight next, in one of the nearly solids, to be on the safe side. :)

I really did enjoy knitting that weight, though.. I knitted it on my #2 bamboo needles which are my favorite of my bamboos, the smaller ones I'm not as fond of, the flex makes me nervous or something.. so it was enjoyable to get to use them.. not much wants to be knitted on 2's.

Do you think 8oz of this weight yarn would be enough to knit a baby sweater?

Ok.. and the baby socks..

a nice gal in my email has been letting me think at her all day and I was about convinced to rip out the part sock, rip the whole one back past the heel and take one repeat out of the leg, and go forward from there but thinking about it further.. that'd give me enough yarn for.. 2 repeats more.. the sock is 1.5 repeats and a whole toe short of finished so.. that's still not going to be enough yarn.

SO.. I've decided the finished sock is a christmas ornament. Mary Sue and Win got the yarn for me when they went to oregon to introduce her to his parents. they're getting married at thanksgiving. the yarn has green and gold in it, which are the school colors of both of their alma maters.. william and mary, in her case, oregon (the one with the ducks) in his.. so the colors are right.. so making the leftovers into an ornament for their first tree together.. that's cool.. that's significant.. and symbolic enough to be worthy of the remains of this special ball of yarn.. and the little bit that's left.. maybe it'll turn into a catnip ball for the cats. :)

when I ran out of yarn last night I also ran out of projects on needles. not projects.. I have 2 socks waiting for mates but one of them is a really fiddley schaefer anne sock I can't get real excited about starting because.. it's tedious and I won't be able to wear the socks until november, and the other.. is a plain mindless regia cotton that I could wear if it was finished.. nothin' stressful about it at all.. nothing exciting either.. I'll do it next, I swear. I wanted to start a whole new sock but felt guilty doing it, oh.. geez.. actually.. there's another sock waiting a mate too.. I'm disgusted with it because it was supposed to be for me but doesn't really fit me.. the sock I knit on the flights to/from europe in january.. I really wanted it to fit me, it was full of anticipation and memories.. it does fit Erin and she likes it OK so I should suck it up and do the other one before she moves, at least, 'eh? ok.. I'll get to that. eventually. :-P

but I decided last night to start another towel. I keep trying to find something that's good enough to knit those towels out of, that I'll stop spending so much of my spare time trying to find a killer deal on the euroflax! so this one I'm trying out in knitpicks cotlin. It's a better choice than what I used for the last ones (patons grace.. made pretty towels, but I'm sorta afraid they're gonna repel water..), and I believe it's cheaper too.. *if* 2 balls will make a towel. that's what I have, 2 balls. I'm almost sure this first ball will get me to the end of the 5th repeat but it's going to take a miracle for it to get me to the end of the 6th one and.. the towel wants 12. 10 will be.. kinda short. but.. I can get enough more yarn to finish it for 2.49 if I'm patient enough to wait for it to finally be back in stock.. so this is not a big deal. heck, this is a test towel.. I can stop it at 10 repeats and keep it for myself if I'm inclined to.. or I can finish the thing in a whole different color.. I'm sure I have plenty bright green.. rofl. that'd be pretty horrid looking.. anyway, this doesn't stress me at all, I'll deal with it one way or another.. I have.. 2 balls of 3 more colors and a ball and a bit of the green so if I like this one when it's done, I'll switch to the chevron towel pattern for a bit maybe... mainly I want to finish this towel and toss it in the wash a few times to see what happens, to see if this is good yarn for it.. so.. if it's unperfect in appearance but winds up being a wonderfully functional towel, I've won big. :)

I like the cotlin yarn, I used it to make the tank top for erin a while back, which I didn't do that great a job on but.. hey.. it's a finished garment and she says it fits! (she better show me it fits sometime, if she wants any more clothes..). I think it'll make good towels...

the linen of course will make the best ones.. I tracked down euroflax at 75.00/bag of 5 the other day, and 5 is enough to make 2 towels and the curtain for my powder room and 75.00 is a good price for those finished products but I can't seem to find a color that'll make a good curtain for my powder room *and* make 2 nice towels for my sister for her wedding! course.. we've been here 16 years living with the wallpaper that came with the powder room so I guess it wouldn't be too horrible to make a curtain the color I *wish* would go with it, and eventually change the walls to match the curtain.. right? probably I'll go with natural..

I've been dieing to knit that curtain.. and knit that linen... and my baby sister's wedding, what better excuse..

we went to virginia this past weekend for the wedding of her older son.

my kids were the official photographers so hopefully there will be some great photos eventually.. cross your fingers. :) it was a lovely wedding, and a great party after.. we all missed steve (my sister's husband passed away 2 years ago after a nasty battle with an aggressive blood cancer) but 2 of his brothers and their families were there to celebrate this milestone along with us and.. you go on, right? you go on. So.. we all congregated to wish Nathan and Mandy..

and Bryce! (Mandy comes with a 2yo perpetual motion machine!) all the best for a long and happy and steady life together. :)

ok.. I think I'm done. sure I'll change my mind once I click the done button, though..

harlotty

2007-06-27T18:06:00.000-05:00

nearly as long as I've been knitting socks, I've been shopping for sock yarn. I shop for a lot more sock yarn than I actually buy and really, I actually buy it faster than I can actually knit it but I spend a lot of time.. window shopping. and a lot of time hangin' out via e-lists, message boards and blogs, with other people who knit socks. since that time.. comin' up on a year and a half, I've been seeing people rave about the wonder that is socks that rock. I look at it often, thanks to the internet, I lust after it often, but my LYS doesn't carry it and it comes with a price tag that I tend to rule out. I might not rule it out if it was available somewhere where there were other sock yarns that more fit into my budget that could share the shipping cost, and I may not always rule it out, but so far it has remained beyond my means.

a few months ago there as a thread on one of the sock knitting lists about.. the cost of sock yarn, justifying that 18.00/skein price and I spoke my piece about how that price exceeded what my budget would justify for a pair of socks but with some good shopping around, it was quite possible to knit luxury socks on a knitpicks budget. (gonna have to try a few balls of that new yarn). I rambled on about how it was possible if you looked hard enough, to knit socks of nice european balled yarn for 6.50/7.50 a pair, how you can get mill ends of luxury merino sock yarn on ebay and come in around 10.00/pair.. I didn't mention how it's even possible to order lorna's laces from an actual store for less than 5.00 a skein if you happen upon the right sale because that hadn't happened yet but I still maintain that it is, quite possible, to knit socks of quite a variety of nice yarns without having to spend 18.00 plus postage on a skein of yarn... and I did then.. and allowed as how one day I would like to try some of these other nice things, the small batch handpaints from the various raved about sellers, the socks that rock, etc.. and I was confident that some day my budget would allow me to do so but until then, with diligent shopping, I was not feeling all that deprived, and was able to make nice socks for everybody I thought would enjoy them. :)

a gal on the list emailed me a few days later and said she wanted to send me some yarn. she mentioned socks that rock, and claudia, specifically and I allowed as how she didn't need to do that, I was not deprived but she insisted she wanted to so I sent her my address and we went back and forth a few times over a lot of weeks, her saying she was mailing that yarn asap and me assuring her if she'd changed her mind that was perfectly OK and her reaffirming her intention to do so but it never happened, I didn't figure it would.. it was nice of her to want to and nice of her to feel the impulse to make that gesture and I perfectly understand how mailing off her expensive yarns was not a high priority for her, after the initial impulse. :)

but around that time, my sister showed up for a visit, and she brought me a cake of yarn that she had purchased on a trip to oregon with her fiance. guess what? socks that rock. :-D I emailed the yarn-offering gal and told her I had some now so she didn't need to worry about sending me hers anymore. :)

so.. my sister brought me a nice cake.. yes, cake.. I didn't even have to wind it.. of STR medium weight in the harlotty colorway (mine doesn't look much like that one). it was particularly cool because she came the weekend of sock camp when I was reading everyone's blogs about how much fun they were having and wishing I was there.. really cool. :)

I had some other things to do first.. it's not really weather for medium-weight socks.. I put off knitting the yarn for as long as I could and finally I couldn't any longer so then I had to think what to do with it. the harlot for which it was named did a nice feather and fan sock that I figured was lovely enough to attempt to duplicate, however.. my attempt in no way resembled and I didn't find it attractive at all.. with the pattern I found on the internet and the yarn I had, I produced the initial portion of a sock that was going to be too big even for me, and was going to be vertically striped. pooling isn't my favorite attribute of yarn anyway but if it's going to pool I'd prefer it to at least... meander a bit..

so I thought about it some more. and I decided that since I had made my sister a pair of monkey socks of some yarn I purchased in germany when we were traveling together this winter, it would be fitting if I made a pair for myself, of the yarn she purchased for me on her trip with her fiance.

and so I did. still not happy with the way that yarn pooled, but.. it did meander a bit, at least..

they remind me sorta of owls in the trees.

anyway, I finished the socks and there was some yarn left over, so I thought.. I should make a pair for the baby! my sister's fiance's daughter is going to produce a second child.. this one a son, in september and what better thing to do with the yarn they purchased while visiting oregon (and the child's great grandparents!), than make some socks for the baby. :)

so.. I did! it's so cute! I found an adaptation of the monkey pattern for a baby version and.. it's too cute!

so.. I made another!

sorta. :(
and that's where the story ends.. about 5 yards or 600ish stitches shy of a second baby sock.

if you happen to run into anyone with a few yards leftover of this color/weight.. please aim them my direction.. please?

wedding towels

2007-06-21T20:29:00.000-05:00

here are the towels I knit for my nephew for his wedding. this is a not great picture of them because the color is wrong and the definition is not great.. there's a picture on my flickr that shows the pattern great! (in small size..) but the colors are TOTALLY horrid.. rofl.. so.. I picked this one. they are one blue and one green.. just not quite the blue and green they look.

these are the towels from mason dixon book, but I knit them in cotton instead of linen because I cheaped out.. I don't think they're really going to care about the towels (I bought them some stuff off their registry too) so.. I cheaped out on the towels. they're kinda pretty though.. wish you could see them in person. :) and one of these days I'ma knit some of linen but before I get around to that, I'm gonna try one in knitpicks cotlin.. soonish..

with any luck, I should come back from the wedding with a finished pair of monkey harlot socks.. and the horcrux ones came out of the wash today, not quite sparkley.. last time I wore 'em I wore 'em with sandals and walked all over williamsburg so they may never recover from that but.. it was worth it and I'll take their picture when I take the picture of the not yet finished ones. :)

a little sock catch up..

2007-06-16T16:45:00.000-05:00

I keep putting off taking photos of the socks that are done because it's nice weather now, and I keep meaning to take them outside and take nice pictures.. and then when I'm inspired to do it lately, it's been raining. we really need the rain so I'm not complaining.. but the other day I wanted to talk about one of these pairs of socks, and it was pouring rain, so.. we have more socks posing on the bed. I know that's getting boring..

this is a pair of fairly plain loud summer socks, of regia surf.. wool cotton nylon blend. I think I'm fixing to run out of this yarn finally.. I bought 6ish balls last spring and.. hmm.. ok, I guess I've only used 3.. and a 4th is in my backpack, one sock done.. oh! erin has one pair.. ok, yeah.. I've used 4.5 balls of it now, and I'm sure there's one ball left.. maybe.. 2.. but that's getting kinda low, stash-wise, on the mass-produced cotton blend yarn so.. I guess I should keep my eyes open for a sale, to replenish. :) in south carolina, really, cotton blend is more practical than the wools.. but.. the wools are so pretty. :) I like the yarn, I find it shrinks a bit and isn't stretchy so it's really more suited to ribbed patterns than it is to lace, and it's better to use a few more stitches than you normally would to boot.. although I don't believe I did that with this pair. I did use 2.5mm needles though. :) so far this is my favorite pair of the socks I've made of this yarn to wear, despite the fact it goes with *nothing* I own in the way of clothing, really and it's probably the least favorite.. ok, second least favorite.. to look at.. that eagles flight pair I made last spring are just wonky socks all around so that's my least favorite.. the lacy ones I finished on the bus to paris are my favorite to look at.. and I like wearing them.. but they do take some work to get on, what with that not being stretchy thing.

anyway.. this is a pair of fairly plain stockinette socks with a 4x2 rib cuff broken up with a couple purl rows after a bit, then a little more rib.. then plain sock.. I gave 'em the heel flap that has you slip every other stitch going and coming.. I think that's my favorite heel flap when it's finished but I haven't used that one since. :)

and then there's this pair..

these ones are of brown sheep cotton fine, 80% cotton 20% wool.. seconds. I wasn't sure I was going to like this yarn for socks so this was an experiment but I do.. I like it very much, actually. I will buy more.

I really like these socks, although they aren't perfect.. I'm not 100% on that garterstitch cuff.. I probably shoulda gone with a picot edge instead.. but otherwise I think I'm very pleased with them and I made them up myself. :) my first finished pair of socks that aren't no-brainer plain that I "invented" all my own self. hehe. :)

earlier in the week I finished a pair of plain gray wildfoote socks in a garter rib pattern that I'll photograph sometime.. they've gone into the gift pile for now, and this afternoon I finished the first of a pair of monkey socks in harlotty colorway of medium weight socks that rock.. it's pretty ridiculously funky looking and a really impractical thickness for south carolina but I'm liking it a great lot, the second one is already commencing (although barely, it's got 3 rows of rib so far :) ).

really need to stop doing that and finish a towel though.. is meant to be a wedding gift and the wedding is saturday!

I didn't really..

2007-05-27T17:50:00.001-05:00

vanish off the face of the earth.. or stop knitting. I've been kind of lousy about photographing what I've been knitting, though.

this is a top I knitted for my daughter.. my first sweater where fit was important and I just winged it.. haven't yet heard if it fits her or is lookin' for a new home!

it's called v-neck tank from the spring/summer 2007 issue of knitsimple and I used knitpicks cotlin, 2 balls of the khaki and 1 ball of the green to make the medium size on #4 us clover circular needle. it was knit as a front and a back and then the straps were knit.. horizontal.. casting on some stitches then picking up some stitches then casting on some more stitches, and sewn to the back. I learned mattress stitch! that's almost as magic as kitchener.

it's not perfect.. there's something a tad wonky about the left front.. if I get my hands on it again I think I'll see if I can't fix that little bobble there with a sewing needle..

I've knit a towel and a half, 2 pairs of socks and 3 singles and half a mate to one of those as well, one of those finished pairs a pair I "designed" myself, I'm so proud.. one of these days I'll photograph them. :)

we all went to virginia last weekend to watch my younger nephew graduate (magna cum laude) from william and mary. my sister and her late husband both graduated from W&M in.. 1980, their older sonin 2004 and now this one is going to do it twice, he starts classes this week for his masters in education and should graduate again next august. :) we had a good time and a good crowd and while we all felt the hole that Steve should have been filling, I think we all managed to know he was lookin' on and enjoying watching us have a good time.

we are virginia tech

2007-04-20T09:09:00.001-05:00

class of '77, representin'

oh!

2007-03-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

I'll be back with more to say eventually.. I reached the "damnit" stage on both my WIP's over the weekend.. you know that place.. where you have to go backwards 8-12 rows to fix something rather than go forward which is what you want to do... but they're both going forward again now, thank goodness. :)

BUT! you people.. if there are any of you.. that read this.. do me a favor!

go here and watch this movie and (if you don't hate it) give it a thumbs up! lots of my people (and both my kids) were involved one way or another in making this film. :) you do have to register/log in to vote but I don't think I've ever gotten any sort of email from youtube so it won't spamify you..

in other interesting news, ted and I went down to participate in the record-breaking yo-yo event yesterday.. haha.. it was funner and less a zoo than I expected it to be so I'm glad we went, got to see aidan for a minute, and melanie and daniel and emily and.. most importantly added a fancy WUSC limited edition commerative yo-yo to my collection. :)

y'all didn't know I collected yo-yo's, didja? well.. now you do. what startling secret will I reveal next? :P

cedar creek

2007-03-08T17:35:00.000-05:00

finally got these finished last night. they weren't all that difficult once they got going but they were fiddly all the way through so I took a fairly good break between the first one and the second one. it's cherry tree hill yarn, in an actual named colorway this time :), something about green mountains, I think. I photographed them several ways and got them to appear 2 different general colors, neither of which really looks much like the color they look in person so.. we'll just go with this one, it's more or less in focus, at least. :) 2.5mm needles. I didn't think they were going to fit me, they look skinny but that ribbing is pretty stretchy, they fit great. :)

was my first time doing a picot top, that wasn't as difficult as I had been afraid it would be. I won't avoid it next time I come across it.

several fiddly socks in a row though, so I've moved on to a pair of plain loud-colored cotton blend summer socks, for a bit of a vacation.

monkey see monkey do :)

2007-03-06T11:40:00.000-05:00

here they are, my finished monkey socks. they should be in the mail today but they're not.. tomorrow I hope. :)

I changed the heel.. I don't know what the name of this heel is, but it works like.. you do the normal sl1 k1 on the right side, then you turn it around and do sl1 p1 on the flip side, and keep doing that back and forth. it takes more rows to get long enough but feels so nice.. and looks nice, I think.

they're going to be for my sister for her birthday, the yarn is regia nordic in some colorway that's blue, and I bought it at that yarn shop in heidelberg while we were traveling in january, so it seemed destined to be her socks. hope she likes them. I wish I'd bought more of that yarn..

mercury and I aren't getting along?

2007-02-27T23:54:00.000-05:00

I didn't make a lot of progress on my monkey sock today. I got to time to do the toe last night and tried it on and decided I really disliked the heel.. I didn't think I liked it in the first place but putting the sock on confirmed that so I put it down and whined about it then slept on it and got up this morning and frogged back to the ankle and gave it a different heel.

I hate to pull the needles out of something because getting the stitches back on the needles is incredibly stressful to me and not the reason I knit! I am not a stress seeker! this is why my AIM name is pollyanno.. well.. the real reason it's pollyanno is because it wouldn't let me be anno, which is who I prefer to be in.. virtualworld.. or.. whatever but anyway, the reason my aim name is pollyanno is because if the job wasn't taken, pollyanna would so be me.. I can la la la my way out of any situation if the people around me will let me (heh) because I.. know, I guess, that everything is just now, and next, it'll be different, and if now is bad, then different is usually better so let's just survive the bad bits and the good bits will come, they always do, really.. long as you let 'em.

but.. pulling the needles out of your knitting is inviting the bad bits to visit! I just have a real hard time doing that.. a philosophical issue even, maybe..

but I yanked the needles out of my sock this morning and ripped it back a long way (ripping back to the ankle is kinda nice because it lets you divide the stressful getting the stitches back on the needles into two parts.. so you survive the first part, get to breathe and rip and wind for a bit and gather new strength to corral the next wave of free-range stitches. and i got 'em all, every last one of 'em, not a single one escaped.

then I gave the sock a new heel flap.. I used the 1: *sl1 k1 2: *sl1 p1 repeat until the flap is as tall as it is wide recipe which gave me a narrower flap than the stockinette one, but much cooshier and shorter, actually, but long enough, and picked up 21 stitches on the sides rather than the 14 I got with the stocknette flap after knitting it until it was way too tall to suit me, so I think the sock is going to fit me better than the first try did and I think it'll last longer because it has a nice heel, but I didn't get far enough to try it on again because..

tonight was dinner and a show night. we have season tickets to the broadway series that comes to town each year and tonight was mama mia, so we went to dinner and mercury tripped me on the way out of the restaurant and gravity did it's usual thing and I became one with the pavement, with various of my pointy bendy bits, resulting in various swellings and bruisings and eventual scabbings but! my salad did not leave it's carryout box and when I regained my feet, all my bits did their jobs and both supported me and relocated me so eventually we got to the play, in the very last nick of time, which is a rant for another day because while I can play the glad game about almost everything else there's not much I hate more than being late! and.. 10 minutes before curtain is late to me.. this was a excuse me excuse me pardon me excuse me so sorry across 45 or so people to get to our seats situation as the music started and the lights dimmed, this was seriously late and *so* not my fault.. but! hopefully alla those people forgave us, we did get our butts in our seats before it got dark and it was *excellent*.. great show. really enjoyable. I didn't even get miserable and I *always* get miserable when we go to these shows because this place is toxic to me somehow, I swear.. miserable... lovely place, makes me sick every time but not tonight when by all rights I shoulda been miserable from the getgo. go figure. it was excellent. :)

but now I'm dodging sleep because I can't figure out how to lay down because my skinless bits are not scabby yet and my bruised bits are not going to want me to lay on them and I can't figure out how to get horizontal without some bit of me screaming..

catching up..

2007-02-26T19:11:00.000-05:00

and apparantly migrating to the new blogger in the process so.. let's see how this works. :)

I took some photos of socks I'd been needing to photograph today.. for some reason (and the reason was.. these socks came out of the dryer and went out on the deck to take some air, and nothing that wasn't wet went out or got photographed!) not the ones I finished yesterday, go figure.. but these had been waiting for their chance to be talked about for a good while.. well.. some of them had, anyway..

this pair is ted's anniversary socks from back in october, they're just plain stockinette socks of a really nice for a man cherry tree hill mill end, they're his fanciest socks to date (well.. maybe the argyle ones are fancier.. ok, they were his fanciest socks to date) and the ones he wears most often so he must like them. they look like they picked up a little fuzz in the washer and I really should have groomed them before I took their portrait but.. then I probably wouldn't have gotten the photo taken so.. there ya go. :)

this is his next pair of socks which are also fairly plain but ribbed this time, and so goofy.. they were supposed to be for my brother in law for christmas but for some reason I ran out of yarn before I got to the end of the second sock so it got a white toe.. and then I picked out and ripped back the toe of the first one and gave it a white toe too and ted assured me they were still gift-worthy and about the time I came to accept that.. I noticed I'd 1x1 ribbed the first cuff and 2x2 ribbed the second one.. there was no way in... er.. the world, I was going to fix *that* so.. he didn't get those (the brother in law), and ted got a bonus pair. :)

this pair is a little bit out of order because I just made them since I got back from my trip but it's the same yarn.. I bought a lot of it cheap.. and the same boring 3x1 rib, only shorter because these are mine, so I'm sticking them in here and saving the better for later..

the color isn't good on this pair, so I guess not on any of them, the pink is pinker, the light green is greener.. I got this ball of yarn in heidelberg because it was cheap.. it's a sport weight yarn so I knit it up fast on #2's and 56 stitches, as a break between more complicated stuff.. the yellow scales sock and.. one you haven't seen yet and ted's argyle ones, I was tired of counting and wanted fast and mindless. I bought the yarn because in the ball it looked watermelonish but in the sock it looks like 50's upholstery... which is ok too..

and this pair, the fancy one in this batch..

really belongs in the middle, I started it sometime around new years, the last pair I needed to finish in order to have 11 pairs for my trip and I got the first sock done and the second started and then it was time to leave, so I had to finish the second one in order to have clean socks to wear home! and I did.. haha. it's the lacy trellis pattern by gail dennis the sockamaniac, of a regia cotton/wool blend.

maybe in a few days I'll take some more photos.. I have a few more finished pairs waiting to be photographed..

at the moment I'm knitting a monkey sock from knitty, I started it last night and should finish it tonight.. well.. maybe in the morning depending, I think one more repeat of the pattern before the toe but I may decide it needs a bit more once I get that other repeat done.. I'm surprised how fast this sock is knitting up, it looks so fancy but you'll have to wait a bit to see it, I expect.. I really must do that second cedar creek sock next.. or at least be working on it at the same time as whatever I do next..

big doin's..

2007-02-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

my sister called this afternoon to announce her engagement. :)

this is kinda exciting and a little weird at the same time, she was married before, lost her first husband a couple weeks after their 25th wedding anniversary, last july. july '05, and she met this man a little over a year ago and says she's spent a year tryin' to find something wrong with him and hasn't managed to do it so this seems like the right thing to so. :) I'm happy for her. I don't know the man well, only met him at thanksgiving but he seems nice enough, he's got the most adorable granddaughter :) and he managed to withstand the stress of thanksgiving.. which was plenty stressful.. and stay in good humor so.. I need to spend more time with him but she likes him and that's good enough for me.

going to be a busy year though, her younger son is graduating college in may, her older one is getting married in june, her future husband is going to be a grandfather again in september and sometime after that they're gonna get married..

it's that baby I just snuck in there that has me writing about this here though.. a baby! to knit for!!

what should I knit for this baby? a blanket maybe? I might be good enough at knitting now that I could knit a blanket that had almost straight edges.. socks? maybe a hat? bibs.. I think I saw some really cute bibs somewhere.. a blanket, maybe? what? suggestions please.. something cool.. I don't want to knit a traditional yellow or mint green layette, pram jacket bonnet and booties thing.. something jazzy/funky/genderless.. whatever happened to knitpicks simple stripes yarn? I never saw that one go on sale.. how'd I miss that?? shoot. self-patterning sock yarn would make a nice sturdy holds up in the wash warm jazzy baby sweater.. and the price of that was right..

what should I knit for this baby? I've tried knitting for babies before.. in 1981 I attempted to knit a hat and sweater set for my first nephew.. he got the hat. I finished the sweater.. which was supposed to be a checkerboard thing but wound up stripes because I couldn't do checkerboard.. for the second nephew in 1984. I started knitting a blanket for a baby that's going to be 13 in june, but never finished that.. (I did crochet that first nephew a blanket though..and finished it on time. :)). I think I'm determined enough and addicted enough and adept enough to make something for this baby, though..

what should I make? :-D

valentines

2007-02-15T09:04:00.000-05:00

ted's socks, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

we were having a conversation on the sockknitters list about our dream yarns.. one gal had a gift certificate to spend and was surveying the community as to what we would spend it on, what we wanted to try and one of the things on my short list was the merino/tencel blend I'd seen around (along with shaeffer anne.. my sister gave me a hank of that for christmas, it's in line for.. soon.. and one of the bamboo blends and I forget whatall else I was lusting after at the time). This amazing gal on the list said she had a skein of the merino/tencel that wasn't the color she had hoped it would be and she'd be happy to send it to me if I'd like and of course I liked!

originally intended for her husband's socks, its destiny stayed similar and it became socks for my husband.. after the christmas knitting was done, and the socks for my trip were done (I did manage to make that trip with nothing but handknit socks, but I had to finish one along the way in order to pull that off!). here's a bad picture of the socks.. some day maybe I'll get a better one but you can at least see the pattern in this one.

I used the "almost argyle" pattern from knitpicks, with a bit extra length.. the pattern calls for the heel halfway through the second argyle pattern and I did it after the pattern was complete. I knit them on #2 needles hoping to wind up with a man-sized sock, because figuring out how to up the pattern from 64 stitches to the 72 I usually use for his socks was a challenge I didn't feel up to tackling at the time. I may do it yet. I wrote susan lawrence, the gal who designed the pattern, to see if by chance she had charted a 72 stitch version but she said she had not.. so.. now that I've done one pair and they're not a surprise anymore, perhaps I'll give recharting it bigger a go, and if it turns out beyond me, I can enlist ted's help. that sounds sorta architectural, doesn't it? so maybe he'd be good at it. :)

I *really* enjoyed knitting this yarn, and after I rinsed the socks out to block 'em they came so soft.. and light.. I think these will be able to be year-round socks for him, and a good choice for the arizona relatives for next christmas too. very yummy.

and speaking of yummy..

the valentines day cake. :) it's a bailey's irish cream cake only really it's a dooley's cake because I didn't have any bailey's.. it's white cake (I used a mix.. shhhh..) with bavarian cream in the middle (instant pudding, milk, cream, baileys, and.. maybe some butter.. something the first day wanted butter.. but maybe it was the cake..), and then coffee buttercream (lotsa butter, box of 10x sugar, and some really strong instant coffee) on the outside and fudge (cream, sugar, corn syrup, butter, semi-sweet chocolate) on top. mmmmmm. :) we owe thanks to my pal jan for the recipe.

epic journey

2007-02-12T20:21:00.000-05:00

I'm going to stick the story.. or a version of the story.. of my trip last month in here, for.. posterity. please feel free to ignore it. :)

On January 4, 2007 I boarded a plane in columbia at.. 5ish pm and flew away. arriving in philadelphia around 6:30ish, I schlepped myself and my overburdened backpack from the far end of terminal F to the far end of terminal A. fortunately, there was a shuttle so I skipped E thru B. :) terminal F was pretty boring but there was some interesting stuff to see in terminal A, a store selling liberty bell stuff, a giant artwork made of hair, an astronaut.. the appropriate gate at terminal A was crowded and mary sue found me before I finished playing where's waldo and located her. :) I had dinner.. a cold chicken and pasta creation that was quite tasty, actually, at the airport. the plane was crowded but it was OK. it departed around 8:20. at some point they fed us "lunch".. lunch was another pasta dish (there was a beef and mashed potatoes option but.. didn't appeal), and a sack of carrots and a tub of ranch dip and a cute package of 2 little slices of bread and a cute package of a slab of cheese and a pack of crackers and a tub of butter? and a big tub of vanilla yogurt mousse pudding.. something. I think that's all. they gave us beverages a few times and towards morning they gave us a cuppa coffee and a rectangular donut-like thing. I watched the devil wears prada, part of another movie.. the departed.. is that a movie? I didn't understand that.. so I quit it, and most of mulan, and knitted.. mostly in the dark. mixed results with that. :) what I didn't do was sleep.

we arrived in london, went through immigration, collected our luggage, schlepped it a bit and found a guy holding up a globus sign who took over the transportation of my suitcase and mary sue's suitcase, the boys were on their own.. and we stood around a bit until he escorted us to a train, which took us to london. perhaps we were already in london.. it was maybe half hour train ride. we were met at the train and escorted to a bus where a very very chatty man drove us to the hotel. we checked into the hotel and were told our rooms would not be ready until.. 2, or perhaps before, we should check back. I really have no idea what time that was, maybe 11? 10:30? so we checked our bags in to the baggage checking place, and then went to talk to the globus lady who left us sit while she went to try and bully us up some rooms. it took her a half hour or so but she was successful so we reclaimed our backpacks and went to our rooms and our luggage arrived and we showered and napped, for a short bit.

after our naps we headed out of the hotel after a bit of a stop at the concierge, and got day passes for the transit system, and headed for the tower of london.

that was interesting. we saw the crown jewels and a buncha armor and some old fake horses and stuff. after that we went back to the subway and went to where some theaters are, to find the cut-rate ticket place. but we were very hungry, because despite having many meals between thursday morning and friday morning, we had not had any meals between very early friday morning and then.. which was.. sometime past 6, so we found a pub and got some food. and beers for the boys and wine for us. I had a sammich that was beef in a yorkshire pudding wrap, which was an odd thing but quite tasty. :) after we ate we wandered around til we selected a place to purchase tickets (there were many places selling them.. if there was one specific designated place like TKTS in NYC, we didn't find that but we did obtain tickets to "we will rock you", which is a made up story with queen music, for the following night. then we navigated the subway system back to our hotel, watched a bit of tv and were asleep for the night by 9:30. :)

saturday morning we got up and went downstairs to breakfast (breakfast every morning was included in the package). this was billed as a full english breakfast, and appeared to be one of the more deluxe of the breakfasts we would have.. and it lived up to that expectation.. what a crazy buffet! it had your cereals and yogurts and fruits, including oatmeal and for some inexplicable reason there was a bottle of scotch.. which appeared to be intended for the oatmeal?. there was an array of cold meats and cheeses and salad-like vegetables. there were eggs, scrambled, sunny side up, they might have been making omelets.. there were waffles and pancakes, potato cakes, oat cakes, sausages of several types, bacon, blood pudding, haggis, some fishes, both cold ones and hot ones. there were cooked mushrooms and tomatoes and beans and toast and croissants and pastries and rolls and.. really, if you couldn't find something you really wanted for breakfast that day, you were pretty hopeless.

then we met up with our group for the first time and were whisked off by our guide for the morning, Mick.. and our driver, Ted.

we went on a coach tour of london, with hopping off stops at st. paul's cathedral.. actually, is that a cathedral? big church.. westminster abbey? yes.. cathedral, and we got out and walked around the buckingham palace neighborhood a few blocks.. we would have seen the changing of the guard but they didn't change that day because they don't do so in the rain. nobody asked if they just casually rather than ceremoniously changed on rainy days, or if the guys that were supposed to get off were stuck on til the next sunny change day. mick was a hoot, full of anecdotes and information.. he seemed most impressed by money and ww2 so we heard a lot about rich people and where they live and how much real estate costs and where they shop, and lots of ww2 stories at st. paul's, and other stories too. there is a small restaurant in the cathedral.. that seemed kinda weird to me.. and a nice gift shop.. that seemed less weird.. I bought a christmas ornament there, my only real purchase in england.

it was pretty much lunch time when we got back to the hotel but we figured to go on to our next activity.. we'd decided to go to the british museum.. and find lunch once we got there, so we consulted the concierge as to which tube stop was best for the museum and he told us, then asked why we weren't taking the bus? so.. we took the bus.. but first to the tube station to get new day passes.. then on the bus.. which was very foggy,, er, the windows were all fogged up and while we knew where to get off (right in front of the museum!) we weren't sure how we were going to know when that was, since we couldn't really see out the windows.. but we found our way easily when a bit later we were discussing how we needed to find the theater at some point, so we'd know where to go / how to get there that night and the man sittin' to my left said it's just around the corner here, then we turned the corner and he said "see, there's our fred.." and by golly, there he was, gigantic golden likeness of freddy, standin' on the marquee. next stop, british museum! but first, some lunch so we found another pub, with the slowest service in the world and had a bite to eat, I had a chili and cheese jacket potato. was tasty. :) then the museum.. which was HUGE and had the most miserable stairs I've encountered in a while.

oh! the pub the night before had the coolest stairs, it was a circular staircase that forked, about 2/3 of the way up.. first time I ever saw such a thing. the lady's room was up there and there was quite a drama taking place in there, for our entertainment, perhaps.. some girl having some sort of crisis.. then when I came back down some large man had parked himself right in the path to our table and some smaller man was changing clothes in the middle of the alternate route, leaving me in a bit of a quandry as to which was the best way to proceed.. eventually I decided to steer the widest possible path around the half nekkid man rather than ask the blocking the floor man to move but mary sue, following a bit behind, chose to move the man and didn't even notice the stripper.. actually, really, he was de-stripping by then so we met at the table and giggled a bit about the drama and I allowed as how the man changing clothes was more off-putting and she was like.. there's a man changing clothes? and I was like yeah, right over there and he was finishing up by then and not very remarkable so I added.. eh.. he's got pants on now, and she was like he didn't have PANTS?! and we cracked up.. because truely, he didn't,, he was standin' there in the pub in his tighty whiteys when I was tryin' to get by him. we saw a lot of mens underwear in england, it was kinda odd..

anyway, the british museum.. cool stuff in there, wicked stairs though and only bathrooms in the basement.. at one point mary sue and I hiked down all those stairs to the restroom and while we were washing up after this man came barrelling in to the ladies room and blew right past the line of women waiting for stalls and walked right into one as a woman exited and we cracked up again.

after we finished the museum we hiked to the tube station and went to picadilly circus because when we'd gone by there on the bus tour in the morning we'd noticed that fortnum and mason had their windows all done up for the holidays in alice and wonderland scenes and aidan LOVES alice in wonderland so photos had to be taken.. mary sue took those photos though.. then we grabbed a snack at a cafe.. latte and a chocolate chip cookie for me.. then we went back to the subway and back to the theater and went to the show, which was excellent but they want 3.5 lbs for a playbill in london and we had no pounds so we didn't get one.. then we negotiated the subway back to the hotel after, with some difficulty because it was the weekend and repairs were in progress and that disrupted the routes and so it was a bit of a challenge but at least it was in english, 'eh? back at the hotel, I showered, we read a bit, and crashed but that latte and my knees argued against sleep for a good while.

the subways and the museum did my knees in and they yelled at me for the rest of the trip. wasn't a huge ordeal, walking was always fine, speed was sometimes a challenge but walking was fine.. sitting down and standing up and staying sitting for long times and sleeping.. those were the hard bits. still are, actually.

Ok.. so.. sunday we woke up at some impossibly early hour and got dressed and got our suitcases out in the hall to be collected and they delivered breakfast to us that morning as we were due to depart at 6:30, which was when the restaurant opened. they delivered quite a fancy breakfast though, fried eggs, sausages and bacons and potato cakes and mushrooms and tomatoes and a roll and butter and jelly? and juice and hot water and corn flakes and milk and yogurt and a banana. I toted the roll and the banana with me for a while, tossed the banana eventually.. the roll is still with me, growing mold in a ziplock bag, now that I look at it.. I'll toss that.

we convened in the lobby cafe area and met our long-term guide, sandrine, and loaded on to a bus with.. our ted again? I forget.. but onto a bus and off to waterloo station to pass through british and french immigration both and then wait around for a bit.. we purchased sandwiches for the journey there and I abandoned a sweatshirt :( but eventually we got on the eurostar train and sped off through the chunnel to brussels. in brussels we got off the train and on the bus and proceeded on our way to amsterdam, with a stop at a rest area/restaurant area to eat those sammiches we got in london.

was an interesting drive, there were windmills and sturdy small horses and plenty of sheep and a flock of pigs.. herd of pigs.. whichever but none of the cows the netherlands are supposedly famous for. we learned that there is a language of windmills but I forget what they can say. actually.. they can say they're resting, they're having a long rest, they're happy, and they're sad.. what I forget is how to tell what it is they're saying.. depends on how they're parked. there were also way cool big power generating windmills.. we should have some of those, they're fun to look at and benificial to boot and I think they should have one of those art competitions/events things like with the cows in chicago and the palmetto trees in columbia and whatever they paint wherever else they paint things, with the giant windmills.. roadside energy-generating art.. right? good idea? there were a few inexplicable sights to see too.. which.. I can't explain any better than that.. otherwise they'd be explicable.

we arrived in amsterdam in the rain and approaching dark.. but it was still cool.. bicycles are the obviously the preferred mode of transportation there.. which is not to say there weren't plenty of motorized vehicles and traffic congestion but there were bicycles everywhere! there was a three story bicycle parking garage.. amazing thing to see. we got off our bus and onto a canal boat and went on a bit of a tour, then we got back on the bus and went to our hotel. our luggage was already in our rooms, some of it in the right rooms and some of it in the wrong rooms.. which was the pattern all through the trip but not that difficult to take care of. :) mary sue and I headed right back out in search of a bit of shopping and an ATM to get some euros.. our hotel was right beside the flower market and it was still open, even after dark on sunday so we poked in there a bit, bought some dutch chocolate at a shop alongside, headed over to a shopping district and poked in here and there, I got the kids some gummy things in a department store, I think that was the bulk of our shopping there.. then we went back to the hotel and met up with our group and headed off for an "authentic dutch dinner and walking tour". this was an optional (extra cost) event so not all of us went, but most of us did and it was the best dinner we had as a group.. mainly because there were choices, and there was alcohol. :) I think between the 4 of us we had all the choices.. maybe not all the starters.. there was a fish sampler plate that most of them got and there was a pea soup that I got and there was a meat and melon thing that I don't think any of us got but.. someone did, and I don't remember if there was a 4th choices there.. for main course there was a fish and a beef and a pork and a chicken.. I had the chicken, nathan had the pork, collin had the beef, mary sue had the fish so we tried them all. :) there were desert choices too.. whatever it was I chose was tasty. and wine or beer with. then we left there and met up with a local guide who took us on a walking tour of "the city" which turned out to be a stop in the square for a bit of a talk and then a brisk tour of the red light district which was interesting and educational and somewhat entertaining. I don't believe I'd choose to go there except in an escorted group but it was interesting. we passed a condom store that had all sorts of interesting wares including a statue of liberty condom that I am still confused by.. and a santa one that had dress up clothes.. I didn't understand that either. it was sorta like a barbie with a wardrobe, 'cept it was a condom. ::shrug:: the rest of 'em were entertaining but not confusing.. condoms with arms and/or clothing.. ?? probably it's best I don't understand it.

so then we went back to the hotel and in the morning I snagged a few minutes on the internet and emailed home, we had adequate breakfast, and then we got back on our bus and headed to heidelberg. we stopped at a fancy rest stop at the border and I bought some dutch magnets, we must have stopped at another one and had lunch.. I don't remember lunch that day, but I'm sure I ate.. that's odd, I think that's going to be the only meal I can't remember.. we stopped somewhere and went on another boat ride, this time on the rhine river and took lots of photos,

then we went on to heidelberg.. where we walked around a bit and took some photos and did some shopping, I bought ted a christmas ornament that is a mantle with stockings and a train on top, rather like ours at home :) and then one of our gals found me and said she'd found a yarn shop a few blocks down so I hightailed it there and got 5 balls of yarn and a set of needles for less than 3 balls woulda cost me at home so I was happy.. we met back up in front of this ancient hotel and got on our bus and went to our hotel where we thought we were having dinner but turned out dinner was at the hotel we'd met up in front of so sandrine called the bus back and we went back.. and had dinner, which was a "typical german dinner" and totally unremarkable.. beef broth with a couple thin noodles, a sorta hamburger/meatloaf thing with gravy and mushrooms, steamed carrots, some tiny potatoes and dessert.. the highlight of the meal, whatever it was. then back to the hotel where we had another adventure with the internet.. this one was a real adventure.. the keyboard was german.. which mostly meant the y was where the z should be and the z was where the y should be and when you're trying to share 30 minutes of internet 3 ways and your name is zanders, that's a problem so I spent a good portion of my share of the minutes getting my "who's" right and then told 'em the kezboard was crayz and they should swap the y's and z's and then I just typed so the new word for celebration is zaz!! and.. then we went to our room and read a bit and slept.

the next morning we got back on our bus and headed for switzerland.. we stopped at the cuckoo clock place, which was fun to shop at, the old man was entertaining and plied us with thimbles of cherry wine, we shopped some.. I got a cat figurine, we shared some black forest cake, it was tasty enough but I won't mind if I don't taste it again, took some photos..

back on the bus then we stopped again at rhine falls, had lunch there at a snack bar place, I had.. schweinschnitzel or somethin' like that which turned out to be a chickenfried pork patty.. rofl. well.. I was hungry, and I've had worse food but I don't need that again either.. mary sue and the boys had some kinda albino sausage that didn't look like I woulda enjoyed it more..

then we got back on the bus and went to lucerne. we checked into our hotel there, which was being remodeled and our rooms were in a you can't get there from here place.. you could get there from here but it took a little work.. but it was nice enough once we got there.. the hotel in.. heidelberg? had this horrible tub with no shower curtain and just a tiny glass wall and I tell ya, it's hard to wash alla this hair and alla this me in a shower with just a tiny glass wall without making an ocean in the bathroom.. so lucerne was much better. we met up again and went on another walking tour, into a church, across a bridge, through the old parts and shopping places, back to the hotel for another included dinner..

this time it was fish.. I don't eat fish but I ate that one. every bit of it. my piece was nice and flat.. lisa the gal sitting next to me had a much thicker fish, I don't know that I would have eaten hers so I was glad I got mine. fish and broccoli? and rice w/veggies in and apple strudel for dessert. and really good bread, before. maybe a salad? before, too. I.. don't think we went back out after dinner.. no.. we went back to the room and I showered and we tried to find something on tv to watch.. earlier we had watched a bit of some dating show that made adequate sense even though we didn't understand more than 3 words but nothing was good after dinner so we settled on radio and read.. and then mary sue started laughin' huge and I looked at her and cracked up without really knowing why til I realized we were listening to polka and we cracked up more and she got her camera and made a movie of the floor and the polka music and we laughed more and we continued to laugh about that occasionally for the rest of the trip. :)

the next morning we got up and had breakfast which was not a bad breakfast but not the best, and then we got on our bus and went to mt. rigi.. or to whatever the town at the bottom is, and rode the cogwheel train to the top, and it was SO pretty.. favorite excursion. :)

then we went back to lucerne and had the rest of the day on our own.. we wandered around, shopped, had lunch at this brew pub place where mary sue and I had pretzel sammiches and the boys wished they did :-P and they had beers they enjoyed, and we went to this picasso museum where there were more photographs of picasso than artworks, but there was an adequate supply of those too, and shopped some more, mostly chocolate, and I got aidan a cd of swiss rock and roll.. that was an adventure too, the record store guys were like.. you want swiss rock? swiss.. is yodeling! haha.. they were cool though.. and found me a compilation.. and shopped some more and had fondue for dinner and I was glad I had a bottle of water with me because a glass of water at that place cost more than a pitcher of beer! was amazing.. the rest of 'em had beer. :) on the way back I had a few swiss francs I'd gotten in change I needed to get rid of so we went to the news stand outside the hotel and spent 'em on 3 chocolate bars with marzipan in the middle and 3 post cards. I bought 2 stamps at the hotel desk because I forgot to take addresses with me so aidan got a post card and mom and dad got one and I still have one. then we went to bed, after wandering the tv and winding up with radio and reading for a bit first.

the next day we got back on the bus for a real long day on the bus, to paris.. we stopped at a number of rest areas and ate lunch at one, which was pretty fancy.. they had a salad bar so I had salad. weird salad and a really good piece of bread and a bottle of lemon water. we got to paris and it was a REALLY nice hotel.. mary sue and I stayed local and wandered the pedestrian shopping area nearby, shopped some, had dinner at a crepe restaurant where all the other patrons were local people, that was cool and tasty :).. the boys went in to the main part of the city and wandered around and we were all back at the hotel by quarter past 9. eventually we went to sleep and a smidge past 12 the fire alarm went off causing a bit of drama but not really as much as it should have.. it was pretty much over by the time we woke up enough to react..

good breakfast at that hotel.. then we got on our bus and did a driving tour of the city.. went up the eiffel tower.. drove some more then we went to the louvre, had lunch there, did the museum a bit, shopped a bit, went back to the hotel.. got back on the bus and went to montmartre.. the train thing to the top was closed! so we had to walk up the steps to the top.. it was a lot of steps and my knees were already dead but walk up 'em we did.. I don't know how many steps.. I counted steps per segment on the way down, was 25 but I didn't count the number of segments ever.. was at least 7, maybe 8.. lot of steps. my already dead knees were doomed but again.. the walking isn't the problem.. it's the sitting and standing after that's the problem so it was good. took some pictures, walked around, had dinner with a lot of the group, onion soup for me. :), mary sue and I haggled with an artist for a painting for my birthday, walked back, down the stairs.. one of our group had a bit of drama with a street thug.. back to the hotel, had a couple drinks in the bar area with some of the group, went up, packed up, slept... breakfast and shuttled to the airport and I shopped enough to spend my last euros and chilled.. got on the plane, I watched.. talledaga nights.. I'm sure I spelled that wrong.. and an italian movie.. the wedding director.. and flyboys.. and an episode of 2 and a half men and.. an episode of boston legal and they fed me several times and beveraged me a few more, had an empty seat beside me so was more roomy.. got through immigration, claimed my luggage, got through customs, went through.. something.. and then back out, to find a bathroom to dump my french water, went back through whatever that was, rechecked my luggage, wandered through the terminal, found the shuttle, rode a bus, wandered through another terminal, refilled my bottle with american water, collapsed in the waiting area, chatted with lucy.. haha.. I knew I'd see someone in some airport I knew, I always do.. didn't occur to me it might be lucy.. got on the plane.. to detroit.. glad I figured out I was on the wrong plane before the plane left.. got off the plane.. snagged my backpack back outta the pile to be checked onto the plane to detroit.. had a giggle with the people at the right gate.. they had been looking for me.. dumped my backpack in the pile waiting on the way to the right plane.. got on.. obsessed that my backpack was going to detroit.. watched it get on the plane.. flew to columbia...

ted was there to meet me, and erin and alfred and aidan too. :) came home, had dinner, visited, crashed...

there ya go. that's the story.

junk food and cowboy junk

2007-02-11T10:33:00.000-05:00

junk food, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

2 more sets of funky stitch markers today.. cute, huh? :) they photograph better outside in the sun than they do in the kitchen at night but it's kind of chilly out there for short sleeves, so I still didn't do a very good job. maybe I'll try again later..

fun fun fun. :)

hullo.. :)

2007-02-09T18:40:00.000-05:00

sunny day scales sock, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

oh. flickr says I'm oldfashioned. do I need "the new blogger"?

anyway, here's a picture of my scaley sock. this sock is the august pattern of the six socks KAL yahoogroup, and the name is something about scales. the yarn is regia nordic.. I picked it up at a yarn store in heidelberg. :) I knit it on some 2.5mm needles I got there too. it was great fun.. I liked the yarn but I really liked how it worked with the pattern.. as you can see by the sole, it's a pretty but fairly ordinary hunk of yarn knit in plain stockinette but it worked so well with this fairly simple k2 yo k2 pyoo pattern. I just love how they turned out, all sunshine and blue skies and sorta.. bubbly, somehow.

if it worked, that's the pair of socks I made next.. they're of a cherry tree hill mill end that was a decidedly odd ball of yarn and in order to make 1 pair of socks that looked like it came from the same ball of yarn I had to knit them both at the same time.. or.. in shifts, rather.. a bit on one, cut the yarn, a bit on the other, cut the yarn.. (because if I knit them straight through, the first sock would have been the 2 colors of the legs, and the second sock would have been the 2 colors of the feet and much as I like odd socks, I do prefer them to obviously be a pair..) and despite the yarn sold representing itself as being 100ish yards/ounce which should have given me plenty left over, I ran out of yarn on this 60 stitch 6" leg sock just about the time I needed to do the toes, so the toes are from yet another ball of this odd yarn. odd as it is.. and odd looking as the socks are, they are very very comfy.. and just a smidge big. so next time (because I have more of this yarn.. not the same odd assortment of colors in one hunk.. different odd colors in one hunk :)) I'll try 56 stitches.. that might give me enough to get to the end.. and I think next time I wind a hunk of this yarn into a ball, I'll wind it into several balls, snipping it where the color changes.. that'll let me make planned color changes which *might* produce a more.. normal? looking sock. :) oh! these socks.. you can't tell, but they are a little fancier than they look, I used the beaded rib stitch of the thuja sock.. I really like that stitch..

ok, let me see if that picture worked now.. before I continue.. yes. OK.. one more..

that's what I made today. well.. I finished the first of an almost "almost argyle" sock for my husband.. almost because I added half a pattern repeat of length in the leg but otherwise I think it's exactly to the pattern.. in a merino/tencel blend that I'm hoping there's enough left of to finish the second sock but then I made these things, a set of chinese takeout stitch markers..

it's a lousy picture, I'm not good at close-ups especially indoors at night so maybe I can do better some other time, or one of the kids might be willing to shoot them for me, they both have way better cameras and much steadier hands than I do :) there's a red lantern, a pair of chopsticks, a fortune cookie, a takeout box, a fish, and a tea pot.

anyway.. are those cute? do you think someone might buy them? I have a few more sets of the charms.. so I could make a few more sets.. maybe I could swap them, for sock yarn? I thought they would be way cool someone might like them for a swap, you could put a set of needles in a paper chopsticks sleeve, and pack a ball of yarn in a takeout box.. I think I can make tiny takeout boxes with paperclip handles to package them in even, although that might be overkill.. add a couple fortune cookies and a few tea bags and what a cute package, huh? :)

I have a few sets of fast food charms too that would make a cute swap package packed in a happy meal bag or a pizza box, and a few sets of cowboy ones that would be really cute with a small tote made out of a bandana..

you think? should I make more, people might buy them or swap me for them?

the christmas socks

2006-12-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

the christmas socks, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

here they are, all 9 pairs. :) finished the last one in the wee hours of this morning.

the socks for ted's brother and sister-in-law, matching ones of lion magic stripes

the socks for my FIL (the ones of the same yarn the other day are for my dad), plain stockinette socks, cherry tree hill mill end.

the socks for ted's sister.. another cherry tree hill mill end, some waffle-ish pattern from sensational knitted socks, I forget which one now. I wish this pair was mine.. but there's more of the yarn so.. it still can be, I guess. :)

her husband's socks.. a regia, 3x1 rib.. started and finished in plain cream regia to be sure the yarn lasted to the end and the stripes matched. :)

my MIL's socks, of an english yarn (curious yarns? I think? gothic colorway) I swapped koolaid for with katie-daisy. :) plain stockinette, short row heel.

my sister's socks.. a different colorway of that same regia as the BIL's, plain stockinette sock, short row heel.

mom's socks.. still another cherry tree hill mill end, these are bluebell rib from sensational knitted socks. I wish this pair was mine too but like the other, there's more of the yarn, it can be, if I want to knit it again.

and here they are all bundled up and ready to be wrapped, packed, and mailed off tomorrow.

next up.. socks for my trip! and some felted mice for the cats stockings and maybe an ear-warmer or two..

harpo and the president napping

2006-12-05T11:23:00.000-05:00

harpo and the president napping, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

for your entertainment today :-P

harpo and george w. having a bit of a snooze underneath WJFII.

fa la la la la..

not so swift..

2006-12-04T14:12:00.000-05:00

walnut jefferson franklin II, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

We went to Virginia for thanksgiving, the four of us and erin's boyfriend and the girl next door arrived in the star city of the south in the wee hours of thursday morning, dividing once we got there, 2 at my sister's house, 4 at my parents. We had a mostly fun generally enjoyable visit, met my sister's man-friend and his family and my nephew's fiance and her son for the first time, went to the star, had cheesy westerns at the texas tavern, wandered the market, voted on our favorite christmas tree in the contest at the hotel, enjoyed good company and headed home around noon on saturday. I haven't lived in roanoke since.. 1979, so when we were leaving the star on the mountain and heading for the texas tavern, I asked directions of my sister and she said go down the mountain on walnut, turn on jefferson, left on franklin, right on second to the church lot. To keep that in my head, I chanted Walnut Jefferson Franklin the Second at random intervals along the way. sounds like a name, right? well whatever.. it worked, we got there. :)

We detoured off the windy back way out of roanoke, to chop down a christmas tree.. a totally new experience for the 2 extras we had along so.. that was fun. We got the tree at Clark's christmas tree farm and last year (the first we'd brought a virginia tree back to south carolina), I named the tree Clark. :) This year I decided to name it Cornelius, because it had cones but the kids seemed to think I had already named a tree cornelius in the past so we were debating other names, and Harry was it's name for about half a minute til one of them tossed out Walnut Jefferson Franklin II.. which settled that, really that had to be it's name. and there he is, in all his glory.. the group all came together again last night, we had plenty of party foods and christmas carols, decorated WJFII, watched muppet christmas carol and then everybody went home. :)

WJFII is currently residing in the corner of the family room that usually is home to the rocking chair that serves as my "swift". The chair is still accessible but no longer in the room with the television and since I don't find winding yarn into balls to be the most entertaining task on my to do list, I had a sort of conversation with the sockknitters over the weekend, to come up with a good idea for a substitute. then.. I came up with my own solution. :)

so there, part of my cat collection and a candy jar nicely holding my yarn so I can wind it onto my orange-scented airfreshener can nostepinde while I watch bad movies on TV. :)

and as a downpayment on those promised sock photos..

a pair of brownish 3x1 rib mansocks, in yarn from the same cherry tree hill mill end you can see me winding more of, above. I have the first sock of a similar but plain stockinette pair done, and the ball I switched to after the heel on that one is sorta different colorwise than the first ball (which did these two socks), so I wound the rest, hoping it will be more similar to the first ball than the second.

and I think that's all you're going to get, today. :)

hmm..

2006-12-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

anyone know what I need to do to get the sidestuff tacked back up to the top where it belongs? that's gonna annoy me for til it's fixed and I'm too scattered today to have hope of figuring it out on my own.

socks status: 6 pairs gift socks, 3 single socks, 1 2nd sock on it's way to the toe.. one of those singles might be a me sock.. time (or lack of it, perhaps) will tell..

photos.. eventually. maybe they'll pose with the christmas tree tomorrow.. tree trimming today. :)

2006-10-26T18:43:00.000-05:00

long time no speak. :) finally finished those mata parrot socks today!! photos tomorrow maybe. meanwhile, I did the companion socks to the last man socks for one sister in law, red hat socks for another sister in law, anniversary socks for my husband, and..

the stupid socks. these socks were supposed to be for my brother in law (husband of the red hat socks :) ) and they are of same yarn as the boring gray man socks, only a different color. boring brown man socks. and I made them exactly the same, same yarn, same needles, only an inch shorter and 4 stitches fewer around. and I ran out of yarn before I got to the toe of the second one. explain that. so I gave it a white toe, because it sorta matched and happened to be same brand/fiber content as the sock. then I cut off the end of the first sock and ripped back and gave it a white toe too so they would match. then I got them finished.. ends worked in, tails snipped, right side out and sat back to admire them, not what I'd intended yet attractive anyway :). giftable still. then I realized I'd done the cuff of the first one in 1x1 rib and the cuff of the second one in 2x2 rib. *sigh*. so, ted has more new socks than I'd intended, but.. he's happy. :)

onwards.. doin' a pair of double moss stitch socks in another cherry tree hill yarn for.. some man. didn't decide which man yet..

my feet are very happy in their new parrot socks which do not match all that well because so much time went by between the first one and the second one I forgot what I had done, but they don't match anyway and are so crazy I don't figure that matters any. :) I.. think one is shorter than the other too.. haha.. I think I'm going to try to limit myself to 2 socks goin' at a time for a while..

maple leaves and ferns

2006-07-08T10:17:00.000-05:00

maple leaves and ferns, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

they're finished. :)

it seems to be impossible to take a photo that shows what color this yarn really is.. I think if you could combine the orange with the watermelon with this one with the ferns, you might be about right but this one is probably closer, by itself.

they were pretty fun to knit. I love this yarn. I wish I had nice short dainty feet.. once the heel is done it feels like the sock should be all but done but no.. to fit my big feet, there's still at least as much to go as is done already! course.. the man socks seem even more eternal because they want the legs as long as the feet.

ok, so I'm never happy.. rofl. :)

I am happy with my new maple leaf socks, though!

one down..

2006-07-04T08:02:00.000-05:00

maple leaves1, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

one to go. :)

here's the first canada day sock, finished for 4th of july. :)

today is the day!!

2006-06-30T16:24:00.000-05:00

maple leaf yarn hank, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

well.. at midnight it will be the day we start the maple leaf sock KAL! I can't wait. there are more than 160 of us going to be knitting this sock! this is the yarn I'm going to be using.. it's cherry tree hill supersock in an unofficial colorway, but it looks like maple leaves to me. :) I'm showing it to you in it's hank because I'm too embarrassed to show you what a horrible job I did of winding the other hank of it into balls.

this is the yarn that started the whole KAL thing.. I bought this pretty goofy lookin' hunk of yarn on ebay back towards the end of april..

it was a 1lb mill end hunk of the cherry tree hill sock yarn and yeah, it's goofy lookin' but I can't afford that yarn under normal circumstances and I was feelin' left out of the fancy yarn experience and the price was right so I figured what the heck, I'll just knit a lot of really goofy lookin' socks, 'eh? but when it unwound, it unwound into the yarn that made those 6 dubloons socks back in the earlier entries, and this yarn, and a batch of nearly solid deep teal that's also really pretty.. and when I saw this yarn the first thing I thought was that's gonna be jeanie's maple leaves. :) so.. that started that. :)

oh.. ok..

there they are. the ugly yarnballs. yes.. they. it came out of the hank in two pieces. not complainin'. :) pathetic, huh? I've gotten better at the winding the ball thing since I switched random household items to use as a nostepinde. :)but.. I figure these'll knit just as well ugly as they would pretty. I'll wind the rest when I run out of this.

meanwhile..

this is how I'm occupying my time waiting for it to be midnight. :)

happy canada day, alla y'all. :-D

parrots

2006-06-28T11:10:00.000-05:00

I attempted to start a sock from the knitting zone sock challenge recipe book yesterday.. the may sock, if you want to look.. with that opal parrot.

it's a fairly simple looking pattern, some knit rows, some p3 k3 rows, and one real pattern row that wants you to yo, slip 1, k2together, psso, k3, and repeat around. easy enough but.. that's one increase and 2 decreases..

if all the other rows are straight knitting or knitting/purling 1 stitch per stitch.. isn't that going to ultimately make a cone, rather than a sock? or am I just.. pattern-reading-stupid?

so.. what else can I do that's not too complicated and might be interesting with my parrot, that can continue forward on my 80 stitches of ribbing? :) this one wanted me to decrease 2 stitches after the ribbing to make 78 stitches so I can do that too.. right now it's going forward in plain stockinette but it hasn't gone far and I have a lifeline at the end of the rib so.. I can change to something else if I find something else interesting..

I'm thinking the mata hari ones might be ideal.. so.. maybe that's what I'll do. first I'm going to attempt to replace the belt on my vaccuum.. the floor is a disaster.

it's tuesday..

2006-06-27T15:32:00.000-05:00

blue surf socks 5, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

and they're finished. :)

see? 8 stitches/inch isn't bad. I actually like this yarn, now.. where I hated it, before I changed needles.. so.. happy happy (because there's at least 3 more balls of the stuff.. 4, I think.. but at least 3..).

so my needles are empty, I have no socks in the works. :( what should I do next?

I have a ball of opal parrot, I think I'll blogstalk some photos and see if I find any inspiration there. :)

speedy

2006-06-25T18:42:00.000-05:00

LC said I was speedy. :)

It's not really true.. it's easy to appear speedy when you're knitting with fat yarn and fat needles and not doing a great lot else but knitting. :)

that magic stripes yarn is kinda fat. those socks don't feel very comfy right now, but I know they will once they're washed. I've knit 2 other pairs of socks from that yarn.. the first one I never photographed because they're kinda ugly in pretty much every respect.. the yarn is one of those conglomerations of colors that look appealing enough in a ball but really are fairly ugly, once they stripe up, and it was the first pair I made that lived, I think.. I knit one of 'em twisted and the other one untwisted and they just look ridiculous. :)

that's the second pair. I love those socks. they were my favorites of the ones I kept myself, til I did the dubloon ones. I like the looks of other yarns more, I like the feel of other yarns more when I'm knitting them, but I enjoy knitting magic stripes in a plain stockinette sock because it's just.. relaxing. not at all stressful (unless you try to mess with what works!). it makes nice comfy socks (these don't feel very nice right now, I'll launder them before I gift them). and it's cheap. :) I wish AC Moore had a better selection of colors, when I was there the other day they only had 4 colors to pick from and I can tell just by lookin' at one of 'em that I hate it already. who knows.. the whole family may wind up with gray and blue and brown stiped socks by the time it's christmas.

I like the looks of all the fancy socks I see everywhere. I've collected a gazillion patterns but I really enjoy knitting plainer ones more, I think. I finished the first blue sock this afternoon, and it's wonderful. ok, it's not wonderful but it's a nice sock, it fits well, I'm glad I switched to the #2 needles and I may try those on the more wooly regia next time. I'll take picture of these blue socks once I finish the second one.. maybe tuesday. :)

I think I need to find a bunch of people to knit with in person, sometime.. so I can compare and get a better handle on this whole.. knitting loose knitting tight firm fabric stretchy fabric thing. I like these socks on the #2's. I did another pair of this same yarn on #1's and yep, that's a nice firm fabric but I like this stretchier fabric better!

and.. am I then only person who knits tighter feet than legs? I dunno what's up with that but that first pair of socks of this regia surf stuff.. lemme find it's picture too..

that was when there was just one sock and before it was washed.. that sock is so short because I *hated* knitting that pattern.. rofl. anyway.. if it was as firm in the leg as it is in the foot.. you could use that thing as a pressure bandage. ankle wrap. that's one snug, firm sock. personally.. I think I prefer a bit of stretch in my socks.. and that's not the only pair that's worked out that way.. they all seem to tighten up some once I get to the foot. maybe that's normal..

so.. if you're reading this and have stuck with me this long, pipe up and tell me what needles you'd knit regular regia sock yarn on, and what SPI you get, with those needles.. and perhaps if I collect enough responses, I can gain some understanding.. figure out whether I knit loose or tight. become able to imagine what people mean by firm fabric. make better decisions regarding number of stitches/needle size I start with. and hopefully wind up frogging fewer socks. :)

finished 'em

2006-06-24T16:21:00.000-05:00

mansock6, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

those easy mansocks that frustrated me the other day.. they worked up pretty qickly on the re-do, and then defied all my efforts to photograph them for several days.

making them mansized took more yarn than I had, I ran out early in the second toe decreasing but.. it's inexpensive and readily available yarn so I trotted down to AC Moore and got another ball. that made the decision as to who these socks are intended for easier, they will be for my brother in law, and the remaining yarn will make a pair of shorter legged and shorter footed but otherwise similar socks for his wife.. because they will get a kick out of having matching socks. :)

they, however, are going to have to wait. once done, I frogged the blue sock back to nothing and started again. 3 times, so far! I'm just past the heel now so no confirmation that it fits but it appears plenty stretchy. I settled on a bit of 1x1 rib to start and then 4x2 rib for leg and instep with garter stitch heel and toe.. on 66 stitches and #2 needles.

#2 needles.

that sounds big, doesn't it? people talk about knitting socks on 0's and smaller.. I don't know how they do it! or why, for that matter. these seem a little loose right now but I know they'll work that out in the wash, I'm getting 8spi on the 2's and they're summer socks. I am convinced 2's was the right decision for this yarn. and me. :)

although.. I still want to find myself a set of 1.5's before I tackle another ball of this yarn..

got the house to myself for most of the night, ted's up in NC at a train show, aidan's off downtown for dinner and a concert so it's just me and the cats and my knitting. :) sounds perfect. well.. it'd be perfect if there was a mexican joint that delivered.. I sure could go for some mexican. haha.. in more ways than one, I guess.. sure.. I could go get some mexican.. but I don't want it that bad. :)

ahchooo!

2006-06-20T19:45:00.000-05:00

PICT0103a, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

this is a sorta old picture of my babycat, harpo. he's a yankee doodle dandy.. born on the 4th of july.

well.. that's his arbitrary birthday, we don't know when his real birthday is. I got him (for myself!) for *my* birthday, last year.. the day after my birthday, so harpo day is january 22nd. and he was.. around 6 months old at the time so.. he needed a july birthday and I picked 4th of july because it's easy to remember. :) so.. his birthday is comin' up, he'll be 2. he's probably around 9 months in this picture.

harpo is such a fun goofball but he's *really* fuzzy. more fuzzy than that shows. last year he didn't really shed much because he was not full grown coming in to warm weather so.. I guess he wasn't fully furred. this year he emulates the ripe dandelion. if you look at him sideways, clouds of fluff spring off him and travel through the breeze.

I am *so* allergic to this fun cat. or.. maybe I'm allergic to persimmon, the cranky old cat. whatever.. I am a sneezin' snifflin' runny itchy-eyed gal and I know it's their fault. and I don't care. I gladly pad the profit line of.. whoever makes my tissues and I really don't mind sneezin, it's.. a form of exercise, after all.. and for the most part I just be allergic.. although my bottle of antihistamine eye drops might very well be my best friend.

this is relevant. :)

to compliment my allergic runny bleary eyes, I'm alternating between 2yo bifocals to function (read walk drive) and doublestrength sams cheaters to knit.. and it's all working pretty well!

'cept for tiny fiddly close stuff. which is why I still haven't decided what to do about this blue sock. I'm sure it will make a sock that will fit someone if I frog it back to the ankle and give it a flap heel. but.. it's a 72 stitch sock that is too small.. it's almost 10 stitches/inch and the chore of frogging and picking up those tiny stitches is daunting enough that I think it really wouldn't take much longer to just start over. and I haven't convinced myself I like the leg part enough to go through that ordeal!

I think I'm going to buy myself a pair of that size between 1 and 2 needles. 2.5mm, is that it? I think there is no real reason this yarn needs to be knitted at nearly 10 stitches per inch and if that's what it's knitting to on these needles no wonder I can't make socks that fit outta this stuff.. surely something between 8 and 9 would make a perfectly nice pair of socks that would fit someone! I can't seem to lay my hands on an adequate number of 2's to try that.. so maybe I'll get another set of them too. and another set of 1's. :)

LC says.. if ya gotta frog you gotta frog. well.. of course I know that.. I'll close the toe of the do-over sock from yesterday before today is finished. :) it's just frustrating when it seems like everything you start is doomed to fail. when I get a full pair out of one of these pairs in progress, I'll do another pair of six dubloons I think.. same yarn same needles same size sock oughta work..

seems to be a trend..

2006-06-19T19:00:00.000-05:00

nothin' is working out. :(

while I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do about that blue sock, I started an easy mindless sock.. lion magic stripes, #3 needles. :) it's a proven formula. but.. I decided this was going to be a man sock so I messed with the formula, and cast on 64 stitches. and knit the sock to an 8" leg, garter-short row heel, decided it was definitely too big, decreased after the heel to 56 stitches.. I figured.. sloppy legs you can live with, sloppy feet are house socks.. got to within minutes of the toe decreases and accepted the fact that if I continued as I was.. continuing, these were going to be my socks.

which wouldn't be a bad thing, I *like* my magic stripes socks, they're my 2nd favorite pair of all, I think.. plain perfect fitting socks.. but these were not going to be those socks, being 8 stitches sloppier in the legs and taller than I prefer.. and this is nice man colored yarn, the grandpas would wear these socks if they fit..so, frogged it all the way back to a ball of yarn.

the men I'm related to aren't significantly larger than I am.. some of them are not larger than me at all. some of them are significantly smaller than me. really, they don't even all have bigger feet than me.. so.. biggering the sock that much was silly. started again with 56 stitches. It'll be much nicer. It will fit me, so it will fit the grandpas.. I'll make it a quarter inch too long and that'll do the job.. and.. an even faster mindless knit. I'll probably give it a flap heel this time too.

and then I'll figure out what to do about the blue sock.

ill-fated blue sock

2006-06-18T11:41:00.000-05:00

ill-fated blue sock, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

it started well enough. I was using sockbug's lava flow pattern and called it "glacier flow" because it.. doesn't look at all like lava. it's going pretty well, I executed my first ever non-garterstitch short row heel adequately if not exceptionally and I'm cruisin' on down the foot, not bad progress at all.

but it doesn't fit.

erin is coming out this afternoon so I'll get her to try it on before I do anything drastic.. if it fits her then I'll keep going and they'll just be.. for her or mary sue or one of the grandma's.. that'd work. if they don't fit her then.. some frogging will commence.. maybe just back to the ankle, I'm pretty sure they'll fit.. someone, anyway :) with a flap heel..

or.. I may just start over all together.

kinda frustrating.

lost in space

2006-06-16T18:36:00.000-05:00

I have a hard time finding where to go to actually post to this thing.. it's easiest when I have a picture and can tell flickr to "blog this". :)

I figured I could order my needles, somewhere, but I don't want to just order a set or two of #1 dpns so I keep trying to make knitpicks or elann have what I want and they keep.. not having it so today I got the bright idea to check webs.. yarn.com and they have what I want *and* they have that yummy looking gedifra sock yarn I've been lusting after on closeout too.. so that may be the solution to my problem. :)

got some new cherry tree hill yarn in the mail yesterday.. thought it was gonna be greens and grays, that's what it said, that's how it looked in the picture but in my house it looks more greens and purples which is really quite attractive and appealing to me so I can't say I'm disappointed! .. however I don't think it's going to make the man socks I was hoping it would.. I was actually trying to buy *nice* yarn that did NOT appeal to me.. I have such a hard time parting with socks! at least it's enough for more than one pair so I can part with at least one. :) so now I must find more man yarn. my brothers in law might go for this green/purple stuff, we'll have to see how it knits but it is definitely not the stuff grandpa socks or dress socks are made of..

2-3 weekends ago my husband spent them both trapping squirrels and relocating them to a friend's farm in the country. he caught 2 the first weekend (memorial day.. was that 3 weekends ago? I'm sure he took last weekend off) and the following weekend, 5. he dislikes squirrels. when he was finished, 2 weekends ago, we had 1 squirrel left. :) the next day we had 2 squirrels. now we have 6 squirrels. I mean.. I don't know how many squirrels we have but I looked out the window this afternoon and admired this one squirrel spread out on the deck railing like a taxidermist had nailed him there, warmin' his belly and without movin' my head saw 5 more so.. there's at least 6 squirrels :). so I guess he's going to spend the weekend trapping and transporting squirrels again. now that I know that squirrels regenerate so quickly, I don't guess I mind and it seems to make him happy..

I started a new sock last night.. I'm not sure this one is for me, but I'm not sure who it is for instead either so.. hopefully I'll figure that out before I get to the toe!

boring gray man socks are DONE!

2006-06-15T18:55:00.000-05:00

gray man sock 6, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

yay!

these are ted's new socks. boring and gray and long. I was afraid I was going to run out of yarn before I ran out of sock but there's a little left.. most of a dark gray stripe and the thin white stripe after, that I cut off to start the second sock, and the rest of the dark gray stripe from the end of the second toe and that's IT.

on the one hand they weren't a lot of fun to knit because gray is boring.. at least there were stripes.. but on the other hand they were sorta fun to knit because ted is so excited to be getting his own socks! that's pretty cool.

next I'm going to do a pair of regia surf socks, I think I'm going to do sockbug's lava flow socks, even though my yarn doesn't look anything like lava. haven't decided who they're going to be for yet, but since I just finished socks for someone else and don't have any other socks in progress, odds are they're going to be mine. :) but maybe not.. I really need to get started stockpiling socks for christmas! got some yarn today that's going to make at least one pair of christmas socks (and at least one pair of *me* socks) but I have a lot of this regia stashed, 4 balls of the surf? maybe 5.. 4 more balls of the patch antik so I'm forcing myself to knit one of them and then something else and since I started the six dubloons socks after I started the boring gray socks, technically speaking, it's time for another of these regias so.. I think that's what I'll do next.

how did I do that.. oh.. I had the boring man sock on the bendy bamboos to start with..

I *really* need another pair of #1 needles. aidan and I trekked out to the yarn store today.. is only open thursday friday saturday 11-3 and today is thursday, right? wasn't open. :( so we went to the used book store and got 7 books for 10 bucks.. 1 book for him (6 bucks), 6 books for me (3/1.99) then we went to manifest.. the local non-chain record store (they actually have some records so I can call it that) because there were 2 things on my shopping list for fathers day (carolyn aiken cd and the station agent movie) so we went to best buy yesterday and they didn't have either.. so I got band of brothers instead for the movie but was still trying for the CD. after a complete and comprehensive tour of the store I finally did find a little plastic divider thing for carolyn aiken (all I had was a name.. I had to tour all the genres..) but no CD. I did, however, find these odd guns that shoot odd things.. one of them shoots plastic ninjas, and the other one shoots plastic pigs. they also had ones that shot cows, cats, brides and grooms, rubber chickens, and frightened nuns) so I got ted 2 guns instead of a CD. that probably sounds weird *but*.. I believe those ninjas and pigs are close enough to the right size to call 'em S gauge.. I didn't buy 'em for the guns, I bought 'em for his train layout. every railroad town needs ninjas.. right? :) so.. socks, movies and ninja/pig guns.. sounds like fathers day to me. :)

oh.. then we went to this new chinese buffet joint we got a flyer for in the mail yesterday.. turns out it just opened.. yesterday or today.. so they were havin' a 10% off sale on the 6.99 lunch buffet and the brochure looked pretty fancy so we went to case the joint in case ted might like to go to chinese buffet for fathers day dinner instead of me havin' to cook it (anno's dont' cook on sunday unless it's fathers day) and it was pretty nice, they had a lot of food and something for everyone but not the fancy dinner stuff like crablegs and peking duck and they weren't actively grilling, although I reckon they mighta if we'd asked 'em to.. what'd I have.. zucchini and peppers, and green beans, and fried rice, and general tso's chicken and coconut chicken and black pepper chicken (the best of the lot) and garlic shrimp and cheese wonton and a steamed dumpling and a.. sesame-seed encrusted orb that was filled with a dab of.. plum paste? I dunno what the heck that was, but it was.. interesting..

I'ma lobby to go back. :) I really don't much want to cook.

ok.. I think I'm done. :)

learning curve

2006-06-10T19:44:00.000-05:00

sixthsense3, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

so.. today I finally laundered the most recently finished socks.. the six dubloons ones and the sixth sense ones, pictured here.

they were both knit on #1 needles and 64 stitches.. the sixth sense ones are actually 66 stitches, I think.

the sixth sense ones are of lorna's laces shepherd sock and the six dubloons ones are of cherry tree hill supersock.

the sixth sense/lorna's laces ones were kinda small off the needles.. they fit, they're just kinda snug. the six dubloons cherry tree hill ones are like the most perfect socks.. ok.. tied for the most perfect fitting socks I've ever knit.. tied with a pair of lionbrand magic stripes socks on #3 needles with 56 stitches. those fit great too.

so I washed the 2 today and the lorna's laces ones didn't grow any.. I think next time I knit socks of it, I will either use more stitches, or.. and I'm pretty sure this would completely solve the fit issue.. fewer instep/more heel stitches on that short row heel. the six dubloons socks are even more wonderful out of the dryer than they were before they were washed and while they have.. fatter yarn, granted.. fewer stitches, I did put more of the stitches to the heel so it was deeper and that made the ankle bit more generous and.. I think that might be the key.

so.. that's what I've learned, or think I've learned and will continue to test, from my more recent knitting adventures. :)

sigh

2006-06-09T16:53:00.000-05:00

I need to reformat my hard drive. both of 'em, actually.. that'd be best. I've never done that before. I got my first computer in.. 1990, I reckon.. right around the time aidan turned 3.. but my usual tactic is to replace the thing when it gets to the point it needs to be wiped clean because it's just too much work to clean it up any other way. :)

I think this is the first one I've kept more than 3 years.. it's about 4, some minute real soon.. but so far this time I haven't felt like it needs replacing. it probably needs vacuuming.. but otherwise, it isn't struggling to do anything I ask it to do yet so.. why replace it.. can't see the point.

so.. I need to reformat these hard drives. one at a time. so I moved everything remotely important to the F: drive... I think.. and once I make sure it's booting from the C: drive, I should.. do that reformat thing.. but.. I'm chicken! *sigh*.

found my cd's though.. that's a step in the right direction..

maybe I should move some music and photos to cd first just in case..

not lookin' forward to this.. sounds scary.

*angst*

six dubloons

2006-06-08T15:27:00.000-05:00

six dubloons, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

I have new socks!! I call them "six dubloons in the bay" because they're part sixth sense (I love that garter stitch heel and toe.. so comfy..) and part dublin bay and because pirates are hot. :) they are made of cherry tree hill yarn, but no particular color.

that means I have no choice but to move on to the second boring gray man sock :( but! my feet are happy in new socks!

hey harlot!

2006-06-06T22:52:00.000-05:00

I've spent the beginning of the week caught up in a whirlwind of impulsiveness.. one random impulsive comment on one of my e-lists has turned something bigger than I would have dreamed if I'd thought it through in the first place. it's pretty cool. tonight I added another random impulse into the soup and sent an email to the yarn harlot. :) what the heck. here it is. :

hey harlot!

you don't know me but hi, I'm anno. :) if you ever come to the middle of south carolina and I notice, my sock and I will come say hey in person and then you will know me but for now we'll just have to settle for not.

I had to laugh at that too big sweater today because the one time I tried to make a babygift sweater I chose 9mo size and my kids (at that point aged 2 and not quite conceived yet) wore that sweater for the next 5 years and I went out and bought a baby gift. that was the last time I tried to make a baby sweater (the not quite conceived yet one is 19 now), but I imagine I will try again when someone promises me a grandbaby.

anyway, the reason I'm writing is to offer you an opportunity to do some easier knitting in a semi-public sort of way and make a couple hundred lifelong fans. :)

it's a kinda funny story.

see.. I belong to this yahoogroup called..
ok, so I don't actually know what it's called. the heading on the yahoo groups page says :"
TownsendSocksKnitALong · T- Knit A Long" so.. it must be called one or the other of those things! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TownsendSocksKnitALong/ is the url. so.. we must infer that the name is TownsendSocksKnitALong. :)

anyway, it's a nice sock knitting yahoogroup where we don't actually knit anything along, but there's a bunch of nice people and a bunch of nice patterns there in the file section that the list mom, jeanie townsend, invents and lets us knit. and at least once a week, someone new joins.. I mean I'm sure someone new joins way more than at least once a week but at least once a week one of those new people asks.. what are we knitting?

and the answer is always we're knitting whatever we want and talkin' about whatever we're knitting or.. whatever we want to talk about but there's some cool patterns in the file section! pick one and knit it!

so the other day, someone came and asked that and there's a sock (maple leaf sock) I've been wanting to knit and I thought.. what the heck.. so I told everybody I didn't figure there was any reason we *couldn't* knit something along, and I was planning to knit those maple leaves commencing on july 1 and anyone who wanted to knit 'em with me was welcome to do it and what is this, tuesday? already there's 100some people planning to knit this sock with me commencing on july 1.. there was a karma god of some sort sittin' on my shoulder when I proposed this because.. hey, I'm a somewhat self-absorbed easily distracted quasi-menopausal south carolina gal.. I'm not sure I even knew on some really deep subliminal level that july 1 IS canada day.. I picked 7/1 because I figured I could force myself to finish the second boring husband sock I haven't started yet by then and knitting delicious mapleleafs could be the carrot that got me there! I picked maple leaves because.. it's a cool pattern and I have yarn I accidentally bought on ebay that is just screaming to be.. maple leaf socks! great smiling karma gods.

anyway, I was thinkin' maybe you'd like to knit maple leaf socks commencing on canada day, along with us. :) it'd be fun. probably more fun for us than for you but still.. fun. :) heck.. if you're doing any more book traveling in july the maple leaf sock might get to travel and meet some of it's knittingalong siblings. :)

anno

front steps

2006-06-03T15:33:00.000-05:00

front steps
Originally uploaded by alsoanno.

another adventure.. lets see if this works. :)

that's the view from the front door. notice the absence of lawn. one of these days maybe we'll find a grass that hates sun but loves hot, dry and muggy. currently, it fills in fairly well with moss, if we have a good long soggy period..

ok..

2006-06-03T15:00:00.000-05:00

it seems on.

so.. I was wondering.. yesterday, I was talking to melanie and she was at work, taking apart folders of expired patients, and I allowed as how expired meant dead and she said yes, they were deceased.

deceased.

what a weird word. why does deceased mean dead? ceased means.. stopped. unceasing means.. not stopping. deceased oughta mean.. unstopped.
deloused means removing the lice.. un loused..
defrocked means removing the frock... un-frocked.

unstopped sounds kinda the complete opposite of dead.. doesn't it?

thank you for your time. :)

oh. while I'm here I'll store my bit of knitting wisdom for posterity.

the other night.. not last night, the one before that, I was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth standing there in front of the mirror and I had an epiphany of ease. all of a sudden it made sense. conveniently, yesterday on the sock knitting list, someone was tryin' to understand ease so I shared my new insight with her. people laughed. :) so.. I will share it with you, the nobody who reads this. :)

ease - defined by anno

I finally got this all sorted out in my head last night and don't reckon I'll forget it again.

it's like.. your skin fits you, exactly. that's exactly plain. your favorite comfy (baggy) tshirt fits.. because it's bigger than your skin. that's ease. a whoppin' great lot of ease, in the case of my favorite tshirt.. :) your sports bra fits.. because it's too small. :-P. because it squishes the bits that it's.. supposed to squish and keeps 'em where you want 'em to be instead of where they'd be left on their own, exactly plain. that's negative ease. :)

so.. ease and negative ease is pretty much knitting-speak for just right because it's not *quite* too big (ease) and just right because it's not *quite* too small (negative ease).

there ya go.

I took a picture of outside my front door the other day, to show off like fiddy but I moved it from the camera to the computer and can't for the life of me figure out where it went. if I ever do, I'll show it to you. :)

tap tap tap

2006-05-30T23:44:00.000-05:00

testing.. 123.. is this thing on?

knit twisted

many things

oh..

a few things

thai peanut stuff

september

here we go...

shameless

progress :)

campanula

there's a GIANT spider..

surprise!!

wowza!

Campanula for the Cure

the sheep shed

swapping goodness

more socks :)

what's doin' and what's done

yackin'..

surprise!!

the long and winding...

a title.. aha.. ok, "now that's done.."

if anybody's keeping track,

more words

harlotty

wedding towels

a little sock catch up..

I didn't really..

we are virginia tech

oh!

cedar creek

monkey see monkey do :)

mercury and I aren't getting along?

catching up..

big doin's..

valentines

epic journey

junk food and cowboy junk

hullo.. :)

the christmas socks

harpo and the president napping

not so swift..

hmm..

maple leaves and ferns

one down..

today is the day!!

parrots

it's tuesday..

speedy

finished 'em

*ahchooo!*

seems to be a trend..

ill-fated blue sock

lost in space

boring gray man socks are DONE!

learning curve

*sigh*

six dubloons

hey harlot!

front steps

ok..

tap tap tap

ahchooo!

sigh