New start

So I have been contemplating the vastness of my mostly finished objects and it leaves me wondering why the hell I stop when I am about 90% done....and I deal with my wonderment by starting a new project. My new goal is to at least document the specs so when I try tho finish this up I will at least have a reference point for when I quit. So in the interest of documentation...this is knitty sunday swing sock pattern done in knit picks stroll tonal in Queen Anne's lace.

Lenore sock part 3

So I decided to go through and finish some ufos and had success with one pair of reggia socks for my son. Less progress with the lenore sock (last posted on november 3, 2007). I can't find the freaking pattern and I don't think I can bring myself to rebuy it. Grrr..maybe I can fake it?

Done

Ends woven in, soaked and blocking. Now the big question is what to knit next. I have many baby gifts to make and a fair number of unfinished objects but there are also some newthings I am interested in. maybe I need to sleep on it. Some of the wonkieness seems to have blocked out but will see how it looks on.

Frustrated much?

Oh well turns out cutting the steeks was the easy part. Picking up the stitches and doing the ribbing has been a colossal pain in the butt. Adding to my already deficient counting skills, the color changes plus the screaming children have made today a virtual tink fest. And this baby better have some magic in the blocking cause there are some seriously wonky bits.

Can we make this easy

Well its been a long time. Work, family and live interfered with knitting among blogging but now I can do this from my phone! Pretty cool. So I will try to catch up by posting pictures of recent knitting from my sd card. Starting with current project which is the ivy league vest done in knit picks pallette yarn.

no writing does not equal no knitting

I want to try to keep this going so, here some stuff I knit when I wasn't writing. Those are baby socks from yarn I dyed with easter egg tabs. And the blanket is sort of made up log cabin foolishness with an endless icord border. Its lorna's laces vera colorway, don't recall the contrasting color name. The colors were gorgeous but the yarn was a royal pain, with several knots per skein & a complete gauge change from worsted to sock! More stuff soon, I hope!

Cue the cricket sounds

Don't equate the lack of writing with the lack of knitting. Since my last post I have knit one full pair of socks and two single socks, one of which I subsequently frogged. I made a pair of socks for DH in knit picks felici, which he wore endlessly untill I begged him to take them off so they could be washed. I started a pair of noro socks, got up to the leg and was teased by my SnB friends because it looked odd. It did fit but I had concerns about the guage and feel of the fabric. I frogged the sock and am considering washing the yarn before I knit it. And now I am making a pair of baudelaire socks from knit picks essential tweed. Pics to follow.

finished objects

This is the baby surprise jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman done in Lion Branc wool. The first picture is before it got sewn up.This picture is after sewing and felting.

And lastly, the finished mittens with added Icord so I don't lose them.

Happy Hanukah

In honor of hanukah, I hand grated 5 pounds of potatoes and fried them in oil. The only casualty was the pepper grinder that fell into the boiling oil, splashing oil everywhere and ruining the pepper grinder (but not the latkes). Luckily I was wearing an apron, so I was not injured. And of course the whole thing would not have happened without the assistance of my DH who thought it would be good to reach over the stove to get whatever... and kaboom!

I have been knitting and even finishing stuff, I will post pics soon. I have some serious starteritis, there are at least three single socks in my house, some have nearly finished mates.

world's lamest UFO

So I started these mittens a hundred years ago (okay at least three years ago). I put them down with everything but one thumb done, and there they sat and sat. I don't know why. So I dragged them out and decided it was time for mittens. I knitted a huge icord string to keep them together and am now slogging through the last thumb. I mean I wish I knew what I was thinking or if thinking was involved.

Today is my little guy's fourth birthday. I can't believe it! Also today, one of the kids I work with needed some help in his class with a craft project so I was helping him. At some point he touched my hand and he said "Your hand doesn't match your hair. Your hair is old and your skin is young". You have to love a kid with PDD for a backhanded compliment!

Lenore

Well, after several failed attempts and untold use of inappropriate words, I have kicked Lenore's ass. The color is pretty accurate, but the pattern looks a little flat here. The center line is a yo, sl 1, k2tog, psso, yo and it has a lot to texture that my photo does not show.

I also washed and blocked the carolis socks I made for a sockapalooza person who never received their socks. They will get mailed tomorrow. I loved the color but I don't think I am a fan of Lorna'a Laces Shepard sock. I have really enjoyed other LL yarns, but I think I prefer a sock yarn with more twist.

Other than that life is chugging along. My 11 year old daughter's 6th grade teacher resigned without much explanation and the school managed to screw it up even more. They told the kids on Halloween before communicating with the families. Then they had the school psychologist "process" with the kids as a group and in some cases individually, again without parental input. As a school social worker and as a mom, I am appalled. At the least, I would have not let her ride the bus all sad - I would have picked her up if I had any notice. There is a special place in hell for the teacher, who though she was young really should have known better and done better. She came from three generations of women who taught for more than twenty years each so I think she should have known whether or not this was right for her. Also, since I work in the school world I really think that the 10 month commitment is pretty sacred, and even the worst fit in a job can be tolerated for 44 weeks, especially since 10 weeks were done already. I think the kids can't help but feel bad, they liked her and they had no chance to say goodbye.

sooo frustrated

I got the new sock club package from Blue Moon and it is great! Its a semi solid, black over red. The Pattern is called Lenore, and was written by the Yarn Harlot. I was so excited that I dumped what I was doing and cast on. I got to the third row and had a problem (with the count and the tension), so I started over. Then I cast on again, got to the fifth row and my count was off. I tried to tink but it got to be a mess so I ripped it back. And then I cast on again and it seemed okay but I had to rip again.

I posted my problem on sock knitters, and I hope that someone can help me. This is giving me bad memories of the black aran sweater I tried in college that put me off knitting for several years. The dark color makes it really hard to read the stitches. I have been working in good light, but its hard!

To Rhinebeck or Not

For me Rhinebeck is turning into a logistical mess. My husband is sick, and therefore not reliable for child care. I am not sure that I want to do more driving with kids. I could live without spending money on yarn. If I DON'T spend money on yarn, I won't feel guilty about rejoining STR Club. I am edging into the don't go column. Now I heard that the weather may suck. Its really hard to live so close and not go. I will have to think on it.The picture is from last year, with the medium and small kids. The large kid stayed home and was sorry. We did have fun.

Still knitting the Carolis socks for my sock savee (I guess that's the word for the recipient of your savior socks). Hope she will like them, it really takes some getting used to - since the pattern is really different than your standard sock.

The Sanctity of Marriage

Well, Plastic Pam has married some ridiculous turd of a man whose claim to fame is being in the Paris Hilton sex tape. This is her third. Makes me so glad that the conservatives are fighting to honor this most holy of unions. I mean really how can any one expect gays and lesbians to keep this institution as fresh and clean as the straight people have. I give it six months.

Busy Day

I spent about an hour setting up some stuff on ravelry. It was suprisingly easy. I set up my flikr account, and was able to add some projects to my note book. I started adding yarn to my stash, but that will be a big project. There's a lot of yarn in my stash, and I want to take photos. My ravelry name in Lindapt2. I am very pleased that I was able to save a photo for my profile there, since I have never been able to do it on blogger despite several attempts.

I had a real muggle moment today. I was trying to explain ravelry to my mom. This is difficult because she doesn't understand the computer or the internet and she actually hates knit socks. SO you may wonder why I felt the need to explain a cool web site that is letting me catalog my sock yarn and sock projects. I wonder that two. I love my mom but I must say that our dynamic has often been my continuing to return to the empty well for a drink of water. So she was not impressed that I am spending time online doing stuff that relates to knit socks. She has other fine qualities!

Happy Dance

My sockapalooza pal can finally do a happy dance. The third sock made it through the hell that is the Canadian Postal service safely. Now I learned several things

1. The cheaper postage works better and saves money!



2. The reason smart knitters write down what they do for each project is so they know if they need to replicate it. Duh!



3. It feels good to get the task complete even when it takes extra effort.

And I have the satisfaction of knowing that a new friend in the North doesn't have an odd sock hanging out. Those odd socks make me crazy. I can't bring myself to throw them away because when I do the mate always shows up.

I finally got my ravelry invite, but haven't had the time to set up my account or explore the site. I hear there is much socky goodness there, so I can't wait.

The picture is of my friendly neighborhood bear. I discovered that after his attack on my trash can, there were huge claw marks on the can. Spooky!

In knitting I am working on a sock savior pair using the carolis pattern. It will be my first full pair using Cat's book. I made a cute baby carolis just for practise!

where do the days go?

Well, I haven't been writing but I have done some knitting. I would show you but I am having blogger issues. I made two of the practise socks from the new Cat Bordi book, a pair of sidewinder peds for my niece at Penn state, the replacement sock for my sockapalooza pal (thank you Canadian Customs!), and a square for a group project. You can't see them (thanks, Blogger). I also had some excitement in the form a bear that came up to my front door, knocked over the garbage and threw it all over my yard. The local wildlife people said they only come out if its a nuisance, clearly we do not share the same definition of the word nuisance. DH is out of state for two weeks, which leaves me with no plan B for childcare. My next knitting is going to be a pair of socks for someone whose sockapalooza pal crapped out on her, so they are rescue socks. I am think about yarn and choices. I really wanted to do a pair from the new cat bordi book, but this gal lives in California and a lot of those socks are pretty thick for a Cali girl! I would use fixation but I am kind of tired of it sine I just made a third fixation sock. Hmmnn. I may have to go shopping in my yarn closet!

On a lighter note, one of the kids at the school I work at have a real yarn obsession and he likes to play with lengths of yarn (to the distraction of his peers and the detriment of his work). He is on the autism spectrum. Today he was talking about how mad he was that I hadn't let him play with yarn during group therapy, and I told his teacher that I thought he might like me if he knew how much yarn was at my house! I understand the love of yarn but I always want to knit with it.

Cat Bordhi's book

Lets just get this over with. Clearly Cat is a genius. Her mind is capable of innovation and understanding things in unique ways. But I am scratching my head. I just bought her new sock book. It is gorgeous, the samples are gorgeous, the yarns are gorgeous. Some of the socks are not my taste, but all are gorgeous. The book is huge! I don't love the binding because I know that I will wear it out or break the spine. I may have it spiral bound. But that lady must have the world's coldest feet. Some of those socks are super thick, some are double stranded. I don't think I could fit them in shoes. My goal for this book is to knit the sample baby sized socks and see what I can use or adapt from the methods. I have to say that there are some seriously cool toes to try!

In other socks, I have about 27 grams of the cascade fixation left to re knit the lost broad ripple sock. Sucks that I need 33! DH realized that the job in California was turning into a choice between his career and his family. He chose family but not without putting me through the ringer. He is sulking. Poor man lacks a sympathetic audience for the sulking show!

The mystery of the missing sock

Well, some how between the geniuses at the United States Postal Service and their brethren to the north, the Canadian Postal service my sock pal received her socks a little worse for the wear. The package I sent priority fro $17 (promised in 6-10 days) arrived at her home on September 2nd. The box was smashed, and the contents were disturber, very disturbed. She received 1.5 pairs of hand knit sock, yes that's right three socks. Two Baudelaire and one broad ripple. Socks are less effective when not in pairs. So she is trying to track the missing sock, I am looking for my left overs from the yarn to see if it is enough for another sock. Sigh. Check out her account of the mystery.

OTN- the second sidewinder ankle sock for my niece.

much tsuris

That's yiddish for angst. I spent most of the week twisting my psyche in knots, but finally realized that for very many reasons - there was no way I believed this opportunity was right for my family. I hope DH would get there but he remained 100% positve about all this. I finally had to say no so we (by this I mean him) are in a deep stage of simmering in bitter resentment. I hope that he comes around, but in the end I felt like I could not make that CA situation work for the family. Gulp!