Is it Monday yet?

Cable guy didn't come till Saturday. You all knew that would happen - I was just deludin' myself, sitting there, ears perked till way after 6PM - anyway look what I got accomplished:
One stretchy super-skinny sock!* Am now nearly at the heel of #2.

After I finally abandoned all hope of Cable Guy I stopped off at AAY en route to daycare:

Yep, more sock yarn, pretty...and replacement Brittanys :) There was only one ball of the Maizy (which I have used before and really love), not enough for one pair of socks tho, so I got the Panda Silk (also used before) as an accent colour.

But I knew that wouldn't work. Saturday morning I went off gallivantin' again, (hairdresser**/handbag shopping) and ended up at another LYS:

Some Pace yarn for heel/toe/cuff accents, Collinette Jitterbug, and size 1 needles.

I also got a hold of Cat Bordhi's book on new ways to knit socks: New Pathways for Sock Knitters.***

Pretty time to be in Maryland. Obligatory cherry blossom pictures coming soon - here's some springtime shots of the neighbourhood...

And my next project...
Spent Sunday afternoon prepping the garden for seed planting.**** Here's my co-gardener. She got a wee bit dirty in the process.

What are you all at this week?

*I do look like I've serious cankles though...
**She's taking knitting lessons!
***I need to go on a serious yarn/book diet
****Guilted into it by Michael Pollan, I've decided to grow some produce...

Waiting, waiting...

Yesterday I had to take time off work for a dentist visit and a doctor visit, requiring much time spent in those cheeriest of places: waiting rooms. It occurred to me as I flicked through the magazines (Will Ross and Rachel ever get together? Aren't Angelina and Billy Bob a striking pair...) that I should donate some of my own mag stash to them. Usually I avoid magazines at such places as they are invariably old and grubby and germ-laden, having been thumbed by sick people. But I forgot to bring anything to knit and was too antsy and bored to just sit there.

And here I am today, waiting at home. For the Cable Guy. Bit the bullet and decided to go for Verizon FIOS. Hopefully it'll be better behaved than Comcast, which surely is responsible for a wrinkle or two of mine. Anyhoo I took today off work for no reason other than I'm starting a new job Monday (with attendant GS increase, woohoo) and I was planning to have a day to myself, probably involving time spent in bookstores/yarn stores without much-loved family members asking things like "don't you already have enough books/yarn?"

Instead I am waiting for the frickin Cable Guy who is now 29 minutes past the 8-12 window. Grr.

I have, of course, spent the time knitting. Look how far I got on my super skinny sock! I keep shoving my arm up it, muttering, yeah it'll fit, sure it will.

And I finished listening to "No Country for Old Men". I think I'll listen to something lighter next time - back to "A Short History of Nearly Everything" maybe?

So what's keeping you busy this weekend?

sock progress

All about the socks lately:

Here's the flutter-by socks, finished, blocked and mailed away earlier this week. Can't say enough about how lovely this yarn is to knit with.

Started cable rib socks , another Interweave Knits pattern, using the Schaefer Anne I got in a yarn swap. Took me an hour to wind this using the swift and ballwinder God gave me (i.e. my hands and knees).

I am using size zero needles, thankfully it's a stretchy pattern...

And then yesterday, I picked up another ball of sock yarn that has been glaring at me from the stash - this lovely Opal Tucan yarn. Haven't decided on a pattern yet - something visible would be nice though...Cast on on the Metro last night and this is how far I got. Calamity struck en route, as you can see...

Guess I'll have to hit All About Yarn this weekend to replace my beloved size 2 Brittany's...

Happy Easter!

An under-celebrated holiday

March 20th is National Sweater Day!

A very Good Friday

Good Friday was a big deal when I was a child in Ireland. I went to Catholic school all the way through (otherwise known as "school" - secular schools very much the exception). By the time I was coming through the ranks the numbers of nuns was dwindling but there were enough of them around to have a pretty heavy influence on the favour of our education. "Holy Week" - of which Good Friday is pretty much the climax - was a very prayer/mass-heavy occasion. Also it's about the 38th day of Lent, so by now every cell in your body would be crying out for chocolate/biscuits/crisps/sugar in your tea. Most significant of all (as I got older anyway) this is the one day of the year that all bars close in Ireland. We'd always host/attend a big house party instead (not to be denied the ~25% of our nutrition that came from alcohol back then), but still.

But not here. It's a regular work day, something that I always find odd, even after 9 years in the US.

The Internets is acting up something terrible. I keep having to reconnect to the wireless connection, and about half the time I get the message to "contact the person who manages your network". You mean, me? Grr. Add to that my work e-mail connection is down and so today, working from home, I have to catch up on reading...not talking about the latest Marian Keyes here, you understand, but 30-page somnolents on industrial sanitizers and the like...

To answer Knitty McKnitknit - I can't knit at work, not exactly, but I can knit on the metro to and from, and while on conference calls if I'm doing something straightforward. I am very lucky.

I've been having fun the last couple of days putting together 2 swap packages and 2 birthday presents. The HSS3 sock swap is about ready to go out, once the blocked socks dry. I made 4 stitch markers last night, (and while I had the beads out I made myself an Eastertime necklace.)The sock swap also required a Harry Potter-related knitted pattern to be sent. Hmm. Couldn't decide what to do here as there are so many free patterns out there that my swapee could download herself. Then at the end of February this little guy popped up on the pattern-a-day calendar: So I decided to make a Hedwig kit, and sent my copy of this pattern, with a cover sheet about Hedwig and all the yarn needed.

How good is your Friday?

hi YAHH

(Insert Miss Piggy karate kick sound here)
Looing good eh. One flutter-by sock down, one to go.

Don't know what's up with this last picture, I hope it's the camera angle and that I haven't actually knit a size 15 sock...

Again, unfaithful to purple cardi

I'm about 4 inches up the second side of the purple cardi, but was enticed away by Sheila's yarn. My Ravelry queue shows me that the Flutter-by socks have been there more than 4 months, and the pattern recommended variegated yarn. I had cast on 64 as the usual sock cuff ribbing, so added in 6 to have multiples of 10 for the butterflies.
This shot gives you an idea of how vibrant the yarn is. Wow.

For the day that's in it...

Getting down to it

Hogwarts swap socks done! Done done done, yay... Not blocked yet, but still pretty good :)

Back to purple cardi. Been a few weeks now - I had a couple of rows done on the second front (the one with the cable) before I realized I forgot to leave selvedge stiches on the side. Rip & do over. I still like this - but I'm noticing that the colour of this yarn is different depending on the lighting...

Sheila & Staceys' yarn party

Saturday dawned windy and bright - the perfect day to think about knitting socks had anyone asked me. After a false start the night of the ice-storm, Stacey rescheduled Sheila Rovelstad’s Hand-Dyed Sock Yarn party for 1PM Saturday.

Here's Sheila, with her pretty stitch markers, magnets and sock pattern:

And here...pretty pettable yarn...

the swift doing its thing...our wonderful hostess...
I got 2 skeins of sock yarn, one in a teal green and the other in various hues of purple. Matching stitch markers and a sock pattern were included. And if all that wasn't enough -
Yummy snacks too.

I made a start on the cuff of the teal coloured sock while I hung out eating strawberries and chatting, after my yarn was swifted into a cute little cake. Not sure how I'll proceed - I want to find a lacey pattern to show it off. But first, the Hogwarts socks beckon...

That Friday feeling

Well - not yet. Still got a few hours till quittin' time (though it is 5 o'clock somewhere...)

Sip n Knit was fun as ever on Wednesday. Lynn spoiled us again by bringing us lovely yarn samples from a wonderful etsy seller who generously donated them:

The Christmassy one (called Kwanzaa, actually) I saved for Twiceknit at Lyn's suggestion - to persuade her to make another cute Christmas garland this year. (Ravelry link). It's never too early.

The other, a lovely fingering wt. yarn, is called Parrot. I may just have to go to etsy to buy loads more...

I spent my time at Sip n Knit working on the Hogwart's socks.

I will be so glad to see the back of these...my purple cardi hasn't had a look-in for nearly 2 weeks :(

Distractions

I am currently reading three books.
Killing Floor by Lee Childs (read till past midnight on this last night). Well past my bedtime.

Silver Swan by Benjamin Black. This is actually an audiobook, read by Timothy Dalton. He has the most wonderful, expressive, sonorous voice...

Shakespeare: the world as stage by Bill Bryson. Bill (can I call you Bill? Thanks) is so adept at explaining commonplace, potentially very dull topics in such a way that has me adding up and truly interpreting things for the first time. A short history of nearly everything is my go-to audiobook. I actually have 3 copies of it, and have bought it for a few people too.

Who else reads more than one book at a time?

Four hour's knitting yields...

In my hotel room in WV, with no distractions apart from an audiobook (Prision Diaries, by Jeffrey Archer) I got almost to the heel of the second sock:This time the spiral pattern faces the other way. Hope to make a final push at Border's Sip n Knit tonight.

I did make the time to go for a walk, in the lovely long evening. It's so pretty out here...

The glass is half full!

One sock down. You can't see my v exciting and imaginative pattern too clearly, but I think it's turned out well. Am trying to cast a critical eye over it, and decide if I'd be happy to receive it from a stranger. I think I would. I mean, who wouldn't like to open a mystery package full of yarn-related stuff?

It occurs to me that the colour of the wall is probably closer to the bronze I should have paired with blue for Ravenclaw house colours. Oh well...

Socking along

Almost to the toe of the first Hogwarts sock. It's going to be blue and yellow, only. The Ravenclaw colours are blue and bronze but this is as close as I could get, and have already invested quite a bit (of time, effort and $$) in these socks. After faffing about with different patterns last week I finally settled on the simplest possible pattern that is not just stockinette: the body of the sock is k3 p1 around, with the purl stitch moving one ahead each row to have sort of a spiral effect. You'll just have to imagine how lovely it as, as my camera is all out of batteries.

Went to see "Miss Pettigrew lives for a day" at the weekend, on a rare date night with DH. It was very sweet, set in 1938/39 before all hell broke loose in London.

Off to West Virginia again, to do some training. This probably means there will be some sort of weather emergency in the next two days in the Washington DC metro area. You have been warned...

It's not looking good...

I've knit and ripped the Hogwarts sock three times now. I just can't decide on a pattern. The multi-coloured diamonds - forget it - far too many strings to keep a hold of.

Then I decided to do a lace pattern a la purple cardi. Nope - too fiddly on dpns and also too mistake-prone.

Here's where I was at 11 PM last night -

Back to just the cuff. Oh dear.

Yesterday wasn't all bad. I had an hout to kill in the morning so I stopped at Panera for a coffee and some ultimately-ripped knitting. I asked about the Irish soda bread advertised on the door. Not for sale, I was told, but as they were test baking they could give me some. Oh, OK then. I expected a little slice but got...a whole loaf! I couldn't tuck into it there and then, so I bought it to work. Here it is 20 minutes later. My co-workers helped! It was wonderful, sweet but slightly salty. Usually eaten with butter (not I-can't-believe-it's-not-butter, not Flora, BUTTER). But this didn't even need it.

So that's one of the great thing about St. Patrick's day. Yummy baked goods.

What's not so good about St. Patrick's Day -

Apparently St. Patrick was the Patron Saint of cheesy green crap for alcoholics...

And for the Jamie fans:

Another Monday

Purple cardi officially half done!
OK well the pieces are half done - still have both sleeves and one front to go. And the button band, blocking, and sewing... Once I finished the first front I put the purple aside and started on the Hogwarts Socks. I got some knitting graph paper and graphed out a simple diamond-within-diamond pattern, using my 3-shades-of-brown=bronze idea.
Silky tan colour for the cuff - CO 64, 24 rows. Started on size 2 dpns and transferred when enough rows were done so that it was stretchy enough. Then I introduced the other colours to the mix. This is when things got tricky.

I guess I'll try this a little longer, at least see if I can get one diamond done and then reassess - what you can't see is the approx. 30 strands of yarn tucked into my wee sockling there. And these 4-5 coloured rows took longer than the preceding ribbed 24....let's see how it progresses tonight.

On writing news - for the Knitting Poetry competition I have so far managed one fairly lame haiku. It's so difficult when you are restricted to just their words - the word to isn't even there...

And I'm not one of the Amazon.com breakthrough novel award winners :( I guess that would have been a lot to ask. But hey - it's an honour just to be nominated right?!?

Ravenclaw socks

OK - need to get cracking on these socks. Other Hogwarts swap folks have their boxes ready to send - eek. I went to the yarn store yesterday (they now know my name - probably a sign I've been there too much lately). Here's what I've got to work with:I think I'll make the main colour blue, with some kind of pattern - yet to be created - made out of the other colours, collectively imparting a bronze pattern - maybe some 3-d effect cubes? Hmm must go dig out some graphing paper...any good pattern suggestions are welcome!