Sockin' Away

Hey peeps,

It's been a minute since I last posted. I thought I would pop in before the next term of classes start today. This past term was really hectic and I didn't exactly enjoy my instructor. The class is now over, which is good and I finished all of my deliverables for the class and passed with an A, so I suppose it's all good? Hmm, well, whatever, now it's time to study Employment Law, something which is really interesting to me.

I've been knitting socks like a fiend lately. It might have a little something to do with Socktoberfest, which is once again hosted by the lovely Lolly. There is also a Mystery Sock KAL hosted by Kirsten of Through the Loops over on the Ravelry group. Of course, I started a new pair of socks, to now have 3 pairs of socks on the needles. That number is a bit much, even for me! However, I'm working to complete at least one pair of socks this month.

Clockwise (from L to R): Artemis socks in Red Rocks Fiber Works in Drink Me colorway, M2's candycorn sock in Red Rocks Fiber Works in Jeni's Choice colorway and the Mystery Socks in Claudia's Hand Painted in Caribbean Blue colorway.

Here's a closeup of the Artemis socks. After my last blog post, I determined that I jacked up the lace and had to rip back to the ribbing. Now I'm at the heel flap of the sock, so this one is moving along very well.

Last up in the current sock trifecta are the Mystery Socks KAL hosted by Kirsten Kapur of Through The Loops. I really like how the socks are turning out. This mystery is more of my speed than lace.

I'll be back soon with tales of yarn acquisition. Bye for now.

Not in a Blogging State of Mind

Whew, it feels like September just flew by. I know I said it in my last post that I was busy. I'm sure everyone else has been busy too. I just didn't think I'd be away from the blog this long. I have been missing the blog and feeling the need to reconnect with my peeps. I just never seemed to have enough time to get everything done.

Even though the blogging has been scarce, there's been knitting aplenty! I've really been hitting the squares (for the Barn Raising Quilt). I think it's time to slow down on the squares and finish up some sweaters. I still don't have a finished object to show and that is starting to wear me down, because I'm close, but not yet done with anything yet.

Flutter Sleeve Cardi is still going. I'm finished with the body knitting; however, the cardigan band stitches are held off to the side while you knit the front(s). Afterwards, you knit the stitches that were on hold up to the length of the cardigan. Dude, this part is so boring. It takes all of my energy to keep knitting it. I'm just wondering why the heckfire I didn't just knit it with the front altogether, instead of as an additional step. I have a feeling that I will not be knitting the additional flip of the cap sleeves to allow it to be turned up and tack on a button in the center of it. I think I will just do the seed stitch border on both sleeves. I'm getting to the point where this sweater needs to be finished soon.

Hey Teach is moving slowly, but I'm close to being finished with the first front. When I cast on for this cardigan, I read many others' comments of making the sweater a bit longer, as it is a bit short for my taste. I added more length (than was necessary for my short stature and even shorter torso) and now the sweater is a bit too long, but oh well. I guess it will have to be ok, because I'm way too lazy to go back and rip the back. If that happens, this sweater may never be finished.

Although my sock knitting mojo hasn't up and left me, I feel like I'm barely making progress on my socks. Probably because all of my knitting with tiny needles has been on the barn squares. Hmm, things to ponder. Anyhow, the Apollo and Artemis socks by Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loops are moving along. I initially started out knitting the Artemis sock. While the idea of fraternal socks is cute, I'm more of a pair girl. But (and there's always a but), I did not take into consideration while I was knitting the second sock that I did not pay attention to the directions. The directions start off with Artemis and then there is a spot for the Apollo socks. I knit the first sock following the Artemis sock pattern. The second sock, I read the pattern, but I didn't pay attention to which one I was knitting, until I knit a repeat and thought how different the sock looked. It turns out I was doing the second pattern and not the first. Hence, I am now knitting fraternal twin socks. I thought about ripping them out to begin again, but really it might be sort of fun to go against my nature, every now and again. Besides, I actually really like the look of it.

The second pair of socks are for M2 in Red Rocks Fiber Works colorway, Jeni's choice. I have taken to calling them candycorn socks. These socks are knitted in stockinette. They are moving a bit slowly, but there is no deadline for these socks, so they'll be done when I get them done.

For Socktoberfest, Kirsten (of Through the Loops) is hosting a Mystery Sock KAL on Ravelry. I've signed up. Because really, what's one more pair of socks?! Ha!

Well, that's it for me today, but I will be back soon.

The One Without a Title

I've been away for a little while, not physically, but mentally, I took a bit of a blog break. I kept thinking about blogging, but the physical act of actually blogging wasn't really happening. As a quick catch-up, since last we conversed, I've become a year older, visited with a blogger friend in town (Deborah) who was here for the DNC, had unexpected visitors in town for the DNC, watched Obama give his acceptance speech at Invesco Field, started a new school term and M2 is now a sophomore.

So yes, life is quite busy, but the knitting, the knitting is easy. Heh, well, maybe not all of the knitting being quite so easy.

I finally picked up the Flutter Sleeve Cardigan again, in an attempt to actually finish something soon. I am now on the second front, about halfway through it, although I am currently screwing up the short tows. Once I get that resolved, I hope to to get this sweater squared away. I would like to finish this before fall is over.

During the Ravelympics, I cast on for a new project. I was never an official participant of Ravelympics, but I had high hopes for finishing Hey Teach. Hmm, that wasn't possible. While I do love the look of this pattern, I prefer for the designer to spell things out. I know this is a manner of personal preference. However, I am not one of those knitters who can look at my lace pattern and not follow the pattern. I don't love charts, I like it written out. When it comes time for armhole shaping, the pattern requires you to figure it out on your own. When I am forced to actually graph out the lace pattern, let me just tell you, I was not a happy camper. The graphing made it easier to see the decreases, but my poor, addled brain did not appreciate having to do it.

I'm currently on the first front. The piece pictured is the back and it was the longest. This one is not as simple as the Flutter Sleeve Cardi, which actually has the sleeves built into the fronts, which eliminates the need to knit sleeves separately.

I have still been working on Barn Raising squares, albeit a bit more slowly than the frenetic pace I maintained during the summer road trip.

Socks are on the needles too. I finally kitchenered in the toe on the first Artemis sock and have started a pair of socks for M2. Both socks are knit out of  Mary Kay's yarn. Hopefully I will have some pictures toshare with you next time of the socks.

Now, I go back to the crazy life of a midterm and assignments to prepare for and a college friend in town that I haven't seen in over15 years. Back to go stick my head in the sand for a little while.

Bring on the cuteness!

So I don't have a whole lot of pictures of my nephew, but I did get this video of my nephew dancing. Too cute, so I had to share.

Squares Squared

I was knitting like a madwoman on vacation. Mostly in the car. Although I did help drive, M did the most of the driving and I got to get a lot of car knitting done. In the car, I worked on squares. Whee fun, but it is easy portable knitting. I did finish the first Artemis sock too, but that was the only sock knitting I did on the trip and I didn't have that much to do on it.

For Stacey's squares project, I knit 3:

For the squares exchange, the rest of the squares I knit out of one skein of Colinette Jitterbug, for a total of 5 squares (2 were already exchange):

So far, my stack of squares is small, but this is just the beginning of my squares:

I'm still knitting on squares, but the obsessive knitting on the squares is taking a backseat to a new project, to be discussed soon.

Have a great weekend all.

Where I've Been

Whew, it's been a minute since I last posted. I got back in town last Sunday night and then right on in to work the next day. I thought I would get back here sometime last week, but it definitely did not happen.

The road trip was awesome. We stopped along the way and visited with one of M's cousins in Tulsa,OK. Our first destination was Atlanta. The family reunion was great and we all had a wonderful time there.  While in Atlanta, we visited The World of Coca-Cola, took a tour of the CNN Center, went to the King Center and went to the top of Stone Mountain, stopped by Knitch and took in a Braves baseball game for M's birthday.
 

A pic of all the family at the World of Coke

At each family reunion, they typically occur over a long weekend. On Fridays, we have a bbq or picnic. We spent Saturday at Stone Mountain, had a sack lunch there and then attended a banquet. Amazingly enough, I even managed to get a picture of my mom, sister, nephew, bil, M and M2.
 

After Atlanta, we headed on towards Greensboro, NC to spend a few days with two of M's sisters that live there. Then we spent a lot of time here

on the road on the way home.

We stopped along the way, the first night's stop was in Memphis, TN. A trip to Beale Street was in order, since we were so close and all. We stopped by the Riverfront the next morning before we left.

En route to Tulsa again for another visit with M's cousin, we stopped in Little Rock, AR at the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and also visited with one of my former college friends there.

 I think the success of this trip was that we took our time driving and didn't try to do too much driving in one day. When we arrived home, we weren't terribly tired. Since then, we've just been getting back into the swing of things. There has been some knititng happening and I'll cover that in a subsequent post.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Two weeks ago, I had you all spoiled with pre-blogging. I love blogging in advance. But this past week, I was barely able to keep my head above water. Work picked up the past couple of weeks, as it is audit season and I had many class obligations. The least of which is finishing up a paper as we're driving to Atlanta today in just a few hours and will be gone for ten, eleven days.

I can't wait to see my nephew Chason, and visit with my mom and sister. We're having a family reunion in Atlanta, so it will be lots of fun. And then we'll head on to Greensboro, NC to visit two of M's sisters. Good times with family, I can't wait! I think I need a vacation. I'm even excited by the road trip.

With all of that said, a good friend of mine is getting married in August and I had a bridal shower to attend. Because the groom and bride had been living together, as well as having established households prior, they were not registering anywhere. However, the theme for the bridal shower was wine. The bride and groom both have Italian heritage and they wanted a wine collection. I had no problem giving a nice bottle of wine and we put a tag on it for the deemed special occasion we signed up for. This is a friend that I knit baby socks and a hat about 3.5 years ago for. I know she likes it when I knit something for her, so I went searching for a wine bottle cozy pattern! Later I thought this might be bizarre, but once I started I was committed to finishing it. The bridal shower was on a Sunday afternoon and I started it on Saturday morning, worked on the ribbing for a few hours. Went home did some other chores and then worked on the cozy for the rest of the night into the early morning.

The wine cozy was really simple. It was just working a tube or the cuff of a sock down for 8-10 inches and doing a bind-off. Just lovely and fun and it was worsted weight yarn knit on size 5s. I opted to do stripes, as a way of using some scrap yarn, of which I have tons. It was super simple. I also decided to knit it in the round. Because I was knitting this with tight time restrictions, I didn't want to worry about having to seam it up and weave in a million ends because I striped the cozy.




I used a Knitty pattern, which as I stated before, is just real simple.

The bride was quite surprised and happy and loved it. That's all that counted in my opinion. My gift was one of the first to be opened and during the rest of the gift opening ceremony, everyone kept commenting that theirs wasn't a knitted winebag, but . . .It was pretty funny.

Lastly, I was the recipient of a lovely gift from Senorita RosiG just for commenting. She makes some of the best soap and sent me a bar of her handmade soap, which I was sad to use all up because it smelled so good. M wants to buy more, but sadly Miss RosiG makes it for her consumption and not for sale anymore. I just feel privileged to have had a bar. I also received some handmade balm and a skein of Morehouse Merino laceweight. That was a lovely mail day, as I hadn't expected anything, so it was nice to receive it. Thanks again Rosi!





Well, peeps, I'm outta here. Need to get some shuteye before the big drive. I'll be sure to take some pics from the ATL.

Summer of Socks

I thought I signed up for Summer of Socks this year and it turned out I didn't. Oh, well, no big loss there really because it's not like I would win the contest for the most socks knit during the 2 month time frame. I'll just consider myself a member in spirit.

I don't know if you all hadn't noticed, but I was missing my sock mojo for a few months. It might have possibly been related to knitting the boring black/grey socks for M forever, or so it seems. I'm so happy they are done. I think I am saving these for his birthday (at the end of the month) or I may give them to him sooner, just not sure. He even asked me the other day who the socks were for and I told him they were for me. He mentioned that he liked those socks and they were close enough to black that he would wear them. I wonder if he's been reading the blog again, hmmph.


They may end up being a surprise or not, either way, they are done and now I'm happy to knit something fun again.



Project Specs:
Pattern: Men's Sock, using basic sock pattern, upped stitch count to 68 sts for M's foot
Yarn: Trekking XXL
Project start date: February 2008
End date: June 2008
Modifications:
Considering this is a basic pattern I've been using for years, no real mods, just changed stitch count from my usual 64 to 68 for M's larger feet. I still love using Trekking, although it's not as soft as other merino sock yarns, but it blooms wonderfully after washing and is a good workhorse sock yarn for socks that will get a lot of wear. And trust me, M is hard on socks.




Now, next up are a pair of socks that I am just loving! I am using a pattern, Apollo & Artemis by Kirsten of Through the Loops, which gives you two sock patterns for the price of one. I'm using some of Mary Kay's Red Rocks Fiber Works sock yarn in the Drink Me colorway and I am in love. The pattern is simple, but has a pretty lace insert on the sides. I'm knitting the Artemis sock pattern and the yarn and pattern are a perfect match.

Boy Colors?

So M2, the now 15yo, has selected sock yarn from my stash, no less, for the two(?) pairs of socks that he is requesting. I used to be able to get by with quick socks for him. A little ribbing, barely any cuff, turn a heel flap and get on down to the business of knitting a foot and you were done. The socks were done before you barely knew you got started. Now, his feet are growing (aargh!now we're up to a men's size 10) and wants a pair of shorty socks and a tall pair, read long and tall like his father's socks.



To be fair, I really don't care what color socks the boy wants to wear. If he wants to wear the crazy colors, then it's all on him. I will wear them, so I guess why wouldn't a boy wear them? I dunno. It just strikes me as odd, that he chooses the colors that I've picked out and love and really are for me, as opposed to the more sedate colors that I would assume a boy would prefer, and that M, his father, prefers.

M2 even selected my CampWannaKnitKnit colorway and I told him that I just couldn't bear to part with that one, so he has chosen two other Mary-Kay colorways. I do have to say that the boy has good taste. And the black and blue socks will be shorties, so perhaps there will be enough for me to get some anklets out of them? ;-)