Progress, such as it is...

Done.

Ugly, but done. (It is soft, but I'm afraid its ugliness will send it on its way to Good Will.)

And one of an only slightly less ugly pair is almost done.

These I will keep (and wear), even if the colorway's not quite doing what I expected. (The striping, yes. The blotching--not so much...)

Details in ravelry.

Now... Where Was I?

Well, Yosemite, for one. Happy Eye Candy Friday, a little early (even though I'm not actually part of the Flickr group at this point).

Hmm... Long time, no post. There's been a lot going on, but I have no real excuse for not posting. Actually, to be completely truthful, I spent a big chunk of time not even reading most of my "regular" blogs. I'm still not caught up, and I don't think I will be. And I'm pretty sure I'm okay with that.

No long, drawn-out explanation in this post (and maybe not in the future--not sure it matters), but essentially, there have been a lot of changes--mostly, but not all, for the better--going on over here, and as you know, I'm easily distracted...

Changes for the good include a promotion at work, not long after I started my own home-based business. The two aren't really related, but I was miserable in my old job, and actively seeking to improve my life in that area. Both opportunities presented themselves after I made a conscious decision and took steps towards doing something about it. Hard to explain, but life's funny sometimes.

Not-so-great distractions at the moment include hospital visits to two of the nicest people I know, so if you've got positive thoughts to spare, please send some their way.

So, where was I...? Ah yes, the summer of socks, which has long since past. And the ducks from the last post are only a faded memory now. I've been away, both literally and figuratively. Literally included a trip to Yosemite and a trip to Ireland (the latter, sans camera, if you can believe it... argh!)

All in all, I guess I've just been distracted by life.

I'm rethinking the blog, but haven't come to any definite conclusions just yet.

And in the mean time, I haven't been doing much knitting to blog about. I did finish a lovely Tudora from the latest Knitty, but you'll have to take my word for it. The very nice lady I knit it for landed in the hospital unexpectedly, so it was quickly finished and delivered as a slightly early Christmas gift. It just seemed better than waiting until I got back from my holiday rounds.

I did NOT finish the Buddy Bag for my niece. The knitting was done quite some time ago. As so frequently happens, it was the finishing that did me in. I still haven't sewn the bottom up or done the lining (although, the fabric in the background will *eventually* be used for the lining.

I am almost done with a pair of thrummed mittens, though. Perhaps I should go work on those for a bit. I'm in the mood to finish up languishing projects--and I have quite a few of them...

Catching Up. Maybe...

Well, I don't think I'll ever be totally caught up on anything, and I certainly won't catch up on the Mystery Stole, but my first SOS07 sock is just about done, and I finished the latest Harry Potter, so it's safe to go back to the Internet. Of course, I cheated. I listened to the CDs, which really helped reduce commute stress: "that's okay, go ahead and cut me off--just gives me more time to listen."

Lots of stuff going on, and lots I want to write about here, but I never seem to have enough time any more.

Anyway, here's some not-so-great eye candy Friday of some surprise visitors I encountered in the grassy area between buildings at work. I only had my camera phone, so they're not the best pix I've ever taken, but they make me smile, and I hope they do the same for you.

Happy Friday!

Still in Progress

Sock

Mystery Stole, completed chart A.

Nothing To Report

Sorry--no eye candy Friday today, and no progress pix.


The sock is now just over 5" long--about 2 more to go before I start the heel.


I'm on row 32 of the Mystery Stole, now putting lifelines in every 10 rows because, like the sock, there has been much frogging. I may be too slow to even be considered a slow bee, but Bonne Marie Burns made this nice little button for many of us lagging behind. The third clue comes out today and I still haven't finished the first chart on the first clue. Between the Summer of Socks and the Mystery Stole, I may well have overextended myself. Too bad I have to work...



There's too much going on in other parts of my life right now to spend much time knitting or blogging, so things may be a bit quiet here for a bit. I'll try to do better about eye candy Friday, and if I make any progress worth photographing, I'll try to post pix.

Have a great weekend!

Lots of Movement--Not Much Progress

First, let's start with some eye candy, since it's Friday, shall we?

And now, we'll move on to knitting news. This is where I'd show you a modeled shot of the Boyfriend Socks and tell you all about them, but since I didn't get a modeled shot yesterday, I'll show you a quick "laying there looking like handknit socks" shot to prove that they really are done,
















and go on to the Summer of Socks update, such as it is, pitiful little progress and all.

Here's my sock-in-progress.

Not much done in the last two weeks, is there? Yeah. Hmm. Let me explain--no, there is too much. Let me sum up*: Poor planning.

It was perfect, or so I thought. (You knew I was going to explain anyway, right?) I signed up for a sock club during the months of June, July, and August, so somebody else would decide on one pair of socks for me to make each month during the summer of socks. Each kit should arrive on or around the 15th, so it seemed like a shoe-in (so to speak...) for the first pair of SOS socks. What could go wrong? Me. That's what.

Apparently, I've forgotten that I'm not so good at having other people pick things out for me. I got the kit the day before the -along started, and although the yarn is a nice Tofutsies, and the pattern looks interesting, the colorway is really not me. Don't get me wrong--I will knit these socks, and the whole concept of knitting a pattern you might not have chosen in yarn you wouldn't have chosen is part of the appeal of a sock club. They just weren't right for the first pair. And I determined this the day before the -along. With no back-up plan.

So, I had a "brilliant" idea for my first pair of "Summer of Socks" socks. Managed to find the yarn I needed, and started playing with charts. I still want to do those socks, but it was going to take too long to get it all figured out, and I needed to cast on IMMEDIATELY. It just so happens that in procuring the yarn for the more ambitious project, I also bought (ahem, among a couple of other items) some Panda Cotton in the most gorgeous "Misty Greens". This stuff is beautiful, and it's bamboo, cotton, and elastic nylon. It feels very nice--especially knit up, and it just seemed so darned summery that I needed to cast on immediately. Without knowing what I was knitting.

I wasn't sure how much sock I could get out of the 170 yard ball, and one of my goals was to do a toe-up sock. I had just seen Ann Budd's article about toe-up socks in the Summer '07 IK, so I cast on. But it was too loose. So I tried again. And again... Finally leading up to:

Discovery #1: For me, it is best to do the Eastern cast-on on needles about two sizes smaller than the needles I'm knitting with. I'm using 2s for the socks, so a cast-on using 0s worked well for me.

I moved on to the foot. (We're ignoring the whole "toe incident" where I skipped a section of instructions twice, saying to myself "if I were creating this pattern, I'd have decreased every round at first so the toe wasn't so dang pointed, but Ann Budd knows more about knitting than I do, so... oh look--Ann Budd says decrease every round at first. $#@!" ...and I frogged. Again.) So, ignoring toe incident, we move onto the foot. I thought a lacy rib would look nice, so I got out the stitch dictionary, found a stitch I almost liked, modified it and tried it. And hated it. And frogged again, leading to:

Discovery #2: I cannot just "design on the fly"--without swatching. There's actually no proof that I can design "off the fly", with copious swatching, but I digress.

-and-

Discovery #3: The knitting gods aren't crazy about my starting a new sock when I haven't quite finished the last bit from a pair that have been on my needles for almost a year. I had to finish the Boyfriend Socks to appease the knitting gods before moving on to my SOS socks.

As soon as the Boyfriend Socks were done, I picked this baby up again. Since the yarn got more and more unravelled every time I frogged (and, truth be known, so did I), I used my fall-back, tried and true, 2x2 rib.

So, not much progress, but a whole lot of frogging and restarting. Also, I may have been a little distracted by Ravelry. And the whole Mystery Stole 3 thing.

Oh yeah--there's also that pesky little "work" thing.

A note of caution to anyone considering the Panda Cotton. I love this yarn--truly love it--BUT it is very splitty. And it becomes increasingly so with each frogging. (I got to the point where I was just knitting with the plies held together.) Just something to think about.


Have a great weekend!

*Anybody out there get the reference? No prize, but I'm curious to know if I'm the only one who gets me...

They're Done!

Boyfriend Sock 2 of 2 is done, which means the pair is done! Photos tomorrow. I'm off to celebrate my independence of this project by going to bed!

Still Here...

Just a quick post to let you know I'm still around, even though I missed eye candy Friday last week, and haven't posted in a week and a half. I'm hoping to post tomorrow, but I've been saying that for quite a while now, so I figured I better do a quickie now.

Boyfriend sock #2 is *almost* finished. Really. I swear. I'm on the toe decreases (this one's leg-down), to 44 stitches (started with 84). Dang work gets in the way.

And as soon as that's done, I can get back to my very first toe-up sock, which is also my debut in the Summer of Socks. (See link to the right--I'll put links in later. Must post this and go to work. Again--pesky work!) That poor sock has been ripped out multiple times. I finally decided the knitting gods weren't going to let me create a new sock until the boyfriend sock was done, so...

Pics when I get the camera back. (I know--it's been forever...)

And since it's possible I won't get around to posting tomorrow, happy fourth to the American crowd! (Well, happy fourth to everyone. You know what I mean.)

What I've Been Up To

As it relates to knitting and such.

A post of (not so great) pictures. Mostly. (Both to expedite the posting of this entry, and to distract you from the lack of project progress.)

1. I knit a dishrag. Or two.




2. I worked on The Second Sock. (First Sock shown so you don't think I'm just recycling the old pics.)



3. I joined "Summer of Socks". Yes, it was a while ago. Yes, I'm only now getting around to posting about it. I'll put the button in the side bar--you know--when I get around to organizing this place...



4. I joined Full Thread Ahead's "Full Toes Ahead" Sock Club.


5. I did a bit of spinning on my drop spindles. There are sections that almost look like yarn. Almost.

Back in Action

Okay--maybe just slow motion, but I thought I should let you know that, although the computer is still flaky, it's been backed up. And then I went on vacation. Which explains, to some extent, why things have been so quiet over here.

More on vacation, socks, and dishrags in my next post. Which should be reasonably soon. There will probably even be pictures in that one!

BSOD and Sock Progress

BSOD
Okay, so you haven't heard from me since Friday (which is more normal than I like to admit), but this time it's due in large part to having received the "Blue Screen of Death" while working on the computer last weekend. And while I've seen plenty of blue screens in my life, this was unlike any other I've ever seen before. It simply said something in plain English about a hardware failure. That can't be good.

This particular post comes to you from the work computer (technically a no-no--shhh... don't tell), just so I could let you know what's going on (the mad backing up of files and trying to make the computer work for a little longer, 'cause I don't really want to be spending the bucks on a new computer right now).

So, anyone who's sent me e-mail in the last week or so, please accept my apologies for not yet responding. I'm hoping to have something close to normal access restored this weekend, if Mother's Day doesn't take over. (Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there.) And Susan, I'm sorry I haven't been able to send you a thank you note, but if you're reading, thanks for the shout out on your blog.

I'll try to post eye candy tomorrow, but no guarantees, since it will have to be another stealth operation...

Sock progress
So, the second sock looks something like this:

Yes, this is a photo of the first sock, taken from a post in November, but given my current technical difficulties--and the fact that the second sock looks remarkably like the first, I'm posting this one again. Yes, I've been working on these socks forever.

I'm hoping to have both new content and the technical tools to do a more interesting post next week--hopefully, a bit more fun than my standard-issue post, but you'll have to be the judge. Cross your fingers that the computer cooperates!

Almost There

Hey! Look what's blocking! In the time it takes most knitters to knit an entire sweater (or two), I am finally blocking my lace tam.

Sometimes life just isn't conducive to knitting. Or blocking. It's not always a bad thing, mind you; for instance, I had a fabulous, but jam-packed weekend. But that's for another post--perhaps eye-candy Friday.

The tam was a fun and relaxing knit (when I was paying attention). Ordinarily, I would imagine a reasonable knitter* could finish this in a weekend. The pattern, by Susan Rainey of The Rainey Sisters, was clearly written and easy to follow. I highly recommend it. (The blog is great, too.)

More pictures when it's off the plate, but for now, here are a couple more shots.

*reasonable knitter = knitter who is not me**

**me = quite possibly the slowest and/or most absent-minded knitter on the planet

What Conference Calls Are Good For

I had a conference call at 6:30 this morning. Ugh. Fortunately, I got to call in from home (which means I'm now running late...), so unlike many conference calls, I actually got something accomplished on this one. I finished knitting my lace tam.

I still need to weave in the ends and block it, but I'm done with the knitting. Woohoo!

Tink, Tink

Sigh.

Just a quick note to let you know there hasn't been much knitting here lately (although there is some unknitting going on...), but I expect to remedy that, at least a bit, over the weekend.

Basically, I've been distracted by other frustrations in life. Other frustrations that have distracted me to the point of making stupid mistakes in my knitting, which has resulted in my need to tink back three rows on the tam. I can't believe I've made another bonehead mistake on this wonderful tam. It really is an easy--and fun--pattern to follow. Just pay a little attention to what you're doing. However, I don't recommend knitting it while ticked off. (The Harlot Poncho, on the other hand, was great for that!)

At least some good may be coming of all the frustration. I finally reached my tipping point, and am actively working to find an alternative to the situation. I am now a woman on a mission! Everything, including the tam, will be sorted out in short order.

Progress

Susan Rainey's Lace Tam--sans twist this time!

Boyfriend sock number two--slowly but surely.

Boyfriend sock number one fits!

Boyfriend Sock, One of Two

Done! Finally!

(Sorry--the recipient and foot model was not available for a photo shoot, and I was too excited to wait to post.) In order to avoid (or at least reduce) the effects of Second Sock Syndrome, it's important to cast on the second sock right away, right?

I decided I wanted to use the magic loop method, but I couldn't find a 2.25mm 32-40" circular anywhere, so, I tried this:

The two circ method does seem to go a bit faster than using DPNs, but I don't much care for it. Very "fiddly". And it may be the cheap needles (which Cat Bordhi warns against), but I really don't like all of the pulling the join of the needle through the knitting. Still, I'd have carried on, except that it seems my gauge using this technique on these needles is noticeably larger than it is on the DPNs. So, the second sock currently looks like this:

No new technique to keep me motivated, but I do have the one completed sock, staring at me and looking lonely. That'll have to do.

Another motivational tactic would be not to start anything else until I finish this. But that's just not me. Besides, I just got this in the mail:

It's the yarn (and the pattern--not pictured) for Susan Rainey's Lace Tam that I won in the Rainey Sisters' bloggiversary drawing. (The pattern also includes a matching lace scarf.) This yarn feels SO nice--I had to start the tam.

See that twist? The instructions specifically state, "join without twisting". Darned knitting karma. Yeah, yeah--I'm going back to the sock. For now.

Size Matters

Okay. Remember that sock that is taking me FOREVER to knit? Well, I decided to renew my interest in this by learning how to knit a sock on one or two circulars. I may not be able to start on the sock in progress, for fear of totally messing up the gauge, but I figured I'll at least be motivated to cast on the second sock.

I have the books. I have the yarn. I have the pattern. (More or less.) So what's stopping me? I don't have the needles. Even after ordering (what I thought were) the needles. (My LYS doesn't normally carry circular needles that small--just DPNs.)

The current sock is being knit on U.S. size 1 bamboo Takumi DPNs from Clover. The new needles are U.S. size 1 nickel-plated circulars from Knit Picks. So far, so good, yes? Not so much. The DPNs are 2.25mm, while the new circulars are 2.5mm. Can someone please explain to me WHY the U.S. sizing doesn't seem to be consistent? In the mean time, I'll be checking the yarn stores near me for 2.25mm circulars.

Done, Done, Starting, Won!

<- Done!

Done! ->

The Malabrigo mistake rib scarf is done! It's about 80 inches, but I haven't washed it yet, so the final number isn't in yet. I love it!

And as an added bonus, I started--and finished--this dishrag ("Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth") on Saturday. I cannot tell you why--I don't understand it myself--but although I have never made a dishcloth in my life (and have never really been interested, to tell you the truth), I suddenly felt a compelling need to make one IMMEDIATELY. Of course, I had no cotton in the house, so I fell off the "Knit from your stash" wagon, and bought some cotton.

I'm re-evaluating the "knit from your stash" thing. I'll let you know what I decide.

So, now what? I'll give you a hint: it's been on this blog before (although, not in this yarn), but got frogged. Want another hint? How about this:

It's just a swatch--a big swatch, but a swatch. The plan is a "compare and contrast" type of thing. More on that when I have another swatch to show you.

And the coolest thing of the day? The Rainey Sisters had a "bloggiversary" contest, and I won Susan Rainey's lace tam and scarf pattern, AND two skeins of Rowan Silk Wool (enough to make the tam). Looks like it'll be a lot of horseshoe lace around here for a while! I'm so excited!

So, how's that for knitting content, eh? When it rains, it pours.

Losing more than time

Happy Friday!

The dbf and I went to San Francisco last Saturday to visit the botanical gardens and the zoo. Both were wonderful, and both confirmed for us our need for a better digital camera. Anyway, today's eye candy is from the gardens.

We had also wanted to go to the Presidio to see "Remembered Light", but we ran out of time, so we'll have to try again soon, while the exhibit is still there.

We stopped at the Moss Beach Distillery for a light dinner on the patio on our way home, and I'm kicking myself because I didn't take any pictures. Bad blogger!

We didn't see the ghost, but we came for the view, the crab quesadilla (for the dbf), and the steamers (for me)--and we weren't disappointed! Very tasty! (The beer was good, too.)

And lest you think I've abandonned knitting completely, here's what I was working on while we were in the car:

Yep. The Malabrigo scarf. I'm hoping that I'll finish it this weekend. And that I'll get a better picture of it. Of course, that was my hope last weekend, too. I know my progress on this (and my other two WIPs) is painfully slow (and I have a theory about that--perhaps in my next post), but I really do love this simple scarf. The colors make me happy, the stitch pattern is basic but pleasant, and it is indescribably soft. Actually, it's plenty long enough to be a scarf now, but I love it so much, I feel like it deserves to be extra long. Is that strange?

And now, changing the topic entirely...

My last blog entry talked about lost time (and lost money). This week, I thought I'd mention lost weight. I joined Weight Watchers last Tuesday (one year to the day since last time...). I want to lose twenty pounds, and am off to a good start - 4.1 pounds! I know that's just because it's my first week, and that my weight loss will slow down considerably, but that's okay. This seems to me to be the safest, sanest way to lose weight. And, with any luck (and committment on my part, which has proven to be the tougher part in the past), it can become a healthy and thinner life style. That's the theory. I'll let you know how it goes.

Spring is Springing

The new Knitty is up, with some great spring patterns I'd like to knit; the spring/summer VK preview is up ; and even Knit Simple has a pattern or two I'm considering (very unusual--I haven't been very impressed with this magazine so far.) Of course, the spring IK has been out for a while.

It may not be official yet, but in the knitting world, spring is springing, so happy spring and happy Eye Candy Friday!