Remember me?

I apologize for the lack of posting these days. I'm in the midst of writing a 5 year grant proposal and enjoying life as a single mom for a bit, so in the evenings my free time is taken up by knitting to Buffy Season 4 and not so much by the computer. But it will soon be over.

I actually have two mostly-FOs to blog about: I finished Devil's skirt, but need to get some ribbon for the drawstring and finish the finishing (my favorite part!). I've also finished the top-down interpretation of the Summertime Tunic, but that piece also requires finishing (darning in all those damned ends!) and, surprisingly enough, some ribbon for the straps. My excursions to anything that might be vaguely called a sewing store in Houston have been pretty much limited to Michael's and JoAnne's, neither of which have great ribbon selections. Does anyone have any good ribbon sources in Houston?

In order to distract you from the lack of posting and FOs, I'd like to introduce you to my new long-term (reeeeeeeally long-term) project: The Sock Yarn Blanket.

This absolutely crazy lady (and I mean that in the best possible way) looked at her pile of sock yarn scraps and decided to knit a mitered square blanket with them. Seems like a good way to use up that pesky few grams of sock yarn that always seem to be hanging around after you finish a pair of socks, right? Right I thought. So off I went.

And that's when I realized that, while I have a bunch of sock yarn scraps, I don't really have that many. So this project is going to take me a really really long time to complete. I'm not doing a full sized blanket (I am not that nucking futs yet) - mine is going to be a kid's blanket, probably for Scud*, and will end up being approximately 28 x 40 inches. Here's the schematic:

Instead of doing garter stitch squares, I'm doing mine in stockinette, so I'm planning a garter stitch border around the edge to keep the thing from curling too much. Plus some kind of soft fleecy backing so I don't have to weave in all those ends (per E's suggestion at my Wednesday knitting group).

Here's my somewhat slow progress to date:

Is there any chance I'll finish this before Boo leaves for college? Anyone have any leftover sock yarns lying around that they'd like to donate? I'll send you good chocolate...

* I've decided this is Boo's new nickname following a trip to the zoo on Mother's Day. She wants to walk everywhere now instead of being held, but her attention wanders quite a bit so she weaves all over the place. And more often then not, misses her target. Truly entertaining unless you're in a crowd and she starts bouncing off people's legs!

Odds and ends

Yesterday was a red-letter day as far as my kids are concerned:

1) Devil headed happily off to daycare yesterday morning wearing...panties. The whole potty-training thing has been ongoing for a while now, but we've shifted in to high gear since she needs to be fully trained before she moves up to her next class (in May). She did great.

2) Boo, after deciding at 8:15 pm "Hell no Mama, I'm not going to sleep" (normal bedtime ~7:30) stayed up for another hour, entertaining her parents with her new party trick: walking. She would shakily stand up, totter across the rug for eight or ten steps, sit down with a Whump!, giggle and get back up again. But she still wasn't interested in going to sleep...

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The Fire element of Project Spectrum is over, and I didn't complete either of the pairs of socks I started. Not because I wasn't working on them, but because I started one pair before the other was finished. So they continue along, one sock of each pair done, and one sock of each pair at the heel/gusset. I'm curious as to how long it takes me to knit a pair, so I'm keeping track on one pair (Firestarter), and just muddling along on the Spiral boot socks when I get a moment. Here's some shots of both, just to keep you somewhat entertained:

Four days/6.5 hrs worth of sock knitting

Handspun knee-high goodness

I've got big plans for the Earth segment of PS: resurrecting the Basalt tank and redoing it with waist shaping in time for summer, and finishing off the Verdant laceweight I've been working on. I finished the singles last night, and hope to ply over the weekend once they've had a chance to rest for a bit, so that should be done soon. If I can, I'd also like to knit it up into a lace leafy shawl type of thing - it's been a while since I did any lace.

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March progress report:

Finished:
Rainbow sock leftovers for Devil

And that's it. Harumph.

In progress:
Summertime tunic
Firestarters
Spiral boot socks
Verdant laceweight

Snoozing:
Duck blanket - I can truthfully say that I hate intarsia. We're going to try to get Devil's big girl bed put together this weekend, so hopefully I can finish this off soon, but I'm not optimistic.

Hopefully I'll have some FO posts in the next week or so - it's been a long dry spell around here!

To Boo, on the occasion of her first birthday

Hey baby girl. Here you are. Amazing, isn't it? A mere three hundred and sixty five days ago you arrived,


and now all of a sudden I turn around and you're doing this?

I think perhaps I should be a bit worried.

The night before you arrived I went in to your sister's room where she was sleeping in her crib, and stood there for a moment before heading off to the hospital. I was sort of sad. It wasn't that I wasn't excited about your joining our family, but it was the last time I was just going to be Devil's Mama.

What I didn't know at the time was how much fun it was going to be to be your Mama too. You are smiley and cuddly and give the best hugs. You eat approximately 12 times as much as your sister, and we know you're done when you sweep your hands across the tray and gleefully push everything on to the floor.

You climb up on every single thing you can - a few weeks ago your Daddy was in the kitchen while you were playing on the floor. He turned around and discovered that you had climbed up on the front of the stove, holding on to the door handle and planting your feet on the lower drawer handle.

You adore opening and closing doors. You crawl into the back hall or your room without us and close the door for fun (and then get pissed off and yell when you can't open it again).


You love the water and splashing around in it as much as possible. You are definitely my water baby, and I have grandiose plans for your Olympic freestyle career.

You chase your sister around the house, doggedly crawling around in circles while she happily laps you repeatedly. But it's not going to be long before you're giving her a run for her money I know.

Happy Birthday baby!

Love, Mama

Please pass the crack pipe

So about a week ago I got a burst of inspiration for a pair of socks, and spent that evening trolling the internet searching for the perfect colorways for my vision. Lo and behold, I found the seemingly perfect handdyed yarns, at Blue Moon Fiber Arts, home of Socks that Rock.

Now, as some of you may know, I tend to approach things that have rabid fan followings with some degree of trepidation. Plus I seem to have some aversion to joining in with said rabid throng. So I have spent the last few years reading the odes to Socks that Rock in the blogosphere with a fair bit of salt. Not to mention dismay that people can get so worked up over some sock yarn. I read the stories of Blue Moon selling out of yarn at fiber festivals across the country, and people getting into fist fights over hanks of StR and thought "How could they be so silly?"

Well, I still think it's a pretty silly thing to get so het up over, but I have more sympathy now that my own shipment of StR has arrived. Two skeins for my secret design project, in Blue Moonstone and In the Navy (the perfect colorways I had imagined, just perfect), and one skein in Korppi, since I'd read/heard so much about the Raven colorways, just to try it out.

The colors of Korppi are more or less impossible to photograph, but it's black with beautiful green and purple overdyed sections. The other two skeins look pretty much like the above pictures. Now if you don't mind, I've got to wind some center pull balls and get swatching.

Boo can't decide which she likes best

Christmas FOs, Part II

It's long past time for me to post the second half of the Christmas FOs, although I don't have finished pictures for all of them.

1) Zeebee for my brother

Pattern: Zeebee by Schmeebot
Yarn: 2-ply handspun Colonial heather top from Woodland Woolworks, 4 oz, approximately110 yds, bulky weight (more details here)
Needles: ummm...10.5 maybe? No idea
Gauge: I know I had to measure this to get the right numbers for the pattern, but I have no idea what it was. Something like 3.5 sts/inch I think
Comments/mods: I love the construction of this hat, but the numbers I got from the pattern generator would have made a hat that came down past my earlobes (too long as far as I'm concerned). And I would have run out of yarn with one quarter of the hat left to knit. So instead of casting on 38 stitches, I cast on 30 and used the directions for the short rows that came with the 38 stitch version from the website. I was impressed that the handspun held up as well as it did, what with repeated frogging to get the right size. The yarn made for a squishy, warm hat that my brother loved.

2) Trekking stockinette socks

Now finished...

Pattern: my own, standard stockinette sock with one by one ribbing, short-row heel
Yarn: Trekking XXL, colorway 120(?), and Knit Picks Essential in ash for toes and heels
Needles: Knit Picks options dpns, size 1 (2.50 mm)
Gauge: about 32 stitches/28 rows per 4 inches
Comments: Size 11.5 socks are really big! But even so, I had enough left over to make a mini-pair of socks for Boo:

3) Felted clogs

Ready for the washer

Pattern: Fiber Trends felted clogs (Rav link) for the in-laws
Yarn: maroon pair: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride and Knit Picks Wool of the Andes held doubled
blue/green/red pair: WotA held doubled
Needles: 10.5
Gauge: no idea
Comments/mods: I didn't make any modifications from the pattern, since this was the first time I've made them. Since, however, I have found a mod where you can knit the soles to eliminate almost all the sewing up - I'll definitely do this on the next pair I make. Pretty quick to knit, and the pattern is pretty straightforward, although it took me at least a pair to wrap my brain around it completely. These were gifted in the unfelted state, with one clog in each pair left to knit, but I finished them up before we left the in-laws, so technically they weren't late, right? Plus I could custom felt them to size, which was a good thing for the fit. But boy, had I forgotten how much Lamb's Pride sheds when felted! Talk about big red goobers in the washing machine...

Two other gifts have previously had their day in the sun, so I won't repeat their stats. That covers the Christmas knits I think. If I get more pictures of the gifted objects, I'll post them.