FO: Thar she blows!

Pattern: Fluke by Laurie Lee
Yarn: Trekking XXL, colorway 115, maybe 2/3 of a ball
Needles: US 1.5/2.5 mm
Comments/mods: my first lace sock, and my first top-down pair in quite a while! This pattern was quick and easy, and the lace gave it just enough focus to keep from lagging. It was great fun to knit, Don't think I did any mods at all actually. I like the tweedy yarn with the lace - gives it some interest but doesn't obscure the pattern with a lot of color variation.

In retrospect, I think I screwed up the heel flaps, because they are pretty darn short. The toes too. Next time (?) I'll make sure I make both a bit bigger. This pattern didn't use much of the yarn (more for the blanket!) - hooray for lace! I thoroughly enjoyed these, and I think there will be more lace socks in my future.

Yesterday, after a very good swim (finally!), I discovered that tomorrow is, once again, Silly Sock Day at the girl's daycare. And this time, as opposed to maintaining some semblance of a grip on my sanity as I did last year, I decided to knit Devil some quick anklets for Silly Sock Day. It's a tossup as to whether she'll actually wear them or not, but at least she'll have the option. Plus they kept my hands busy during Jon and Stephen.

No wonder no one want to sit next to me on the bus - those DPNs look lethal!

Ouch

That is what your wrist says after spending most of an entire day in front of the spinning wheel. I did stop while the AC guys was here (you would not believe what was growing in our drain line!), and to go for a run and to the store, but other then that, I was glued to the Lendrum. I managed to spin up a little more then half of the 5 oz of fiber I had by early evening, and plied while watching the Celtics-Lakers game (grumble, grumble). Tonight I'll finish (hot/cold/hot/cold/thwack, thwack, thwack) and maybe be able to start some mittens by Friday. And there's still a couple of ounces left to spin...

But, given that my right wrist is somewhat unhappy with me, yet again, I think tonight is for some swatching. For some reason, June in Houston is making me think I need to knit a sweater. A nice wooly sweater. It must be the heat index driving me nuts, because this is totally stupid. Given the insanity of the idea, I have fixated on the Gathered Pullover (Rav link) from Interweave Knits Winter 2007. The question now is: which yarn?

Some lovely, bluey-purple Silky Wool,

Oh how blurry. And not really accurate as to color...

Or some nice red stuff recycled from a Goodwill find?

Color accurate. Mostly.

Any thoughts? I just did bluey-purple, so I'm leaning towards the red, but I have no idea if the recycled stuff will work well (and there are plenty of examples of Silky Wool Gathered Pullovers on Ravelry). Hmmm...

A Very Harlot Tuesday

Today I am lounging at home slaving away on my laptop as I wait for the AC guys to come check out our system. It's funny, when I was growing up, the big annual home maintenance chore was getting your furnace checked out (if you were lucky enough to actually live in a real house, instead of living a deprived existence in a condo apartment) (just kidding Mom!). Well down here, nobody worries much about furnaces, but the air conditioner is a different thing. Woe betide those who do not do the annual maintenance on their AC, dooming themselves to a sudden failure at 10:30 pm on a Saturday night in August. With no repair available until Monday. Shudder. We got our compressor replaced in 2004, and haven't had it serviced since. So...

Anyway, the AC guys are coming over this morning to crawl around in my attic roasting themselves to death, and given that it's 20+ miles to work, and I wouldn't get down there until after lunch, and have you seen the price of gas these days?, I decided to take a mental health day. I've got a hot date with this

and this

and I'm not stopping until I have some nice stripey chain plied yarn to knit the lined mittens from the new Spin Off for Devil and Boo for the winter. Cause, you know, they need mittens in Houston. Of course, I may take a break when the AC guys arrive because really, do they need to think I'm any odder then they already will? Cheers!

New inspiration

Now that I've finished up a couple of long standing projects, I'm free to obsess over what to start next. Of course, in order for true procrastination, I've had to do a bit of stash enhancement to get the creative juices flowing. Just a bit. And since it's all arrived this week, I have to share.

The first installment was a new sock book (link to Amazon, but I think you can order direct from the publisher too). After seeing the Rivendell socks in various places, I went to the website and preorder the book. That was about a month and a half ago, and I'd basically forgotten about it until it arrived on Monday. And for the first time, I think I want to knit every pattern. Every single one. That never happens. The layout is great, the photos are exquisite, and there's enough variety between lace, texture, colorwork, toe-up, toe-down, and sideways constructions that any sock knitter should find something to their taste. Its just wonderful. I took it to knit night last night and had to be extra careful that it came home with me.

All the way from Oregon: two skeins of StR lightweight. The first is for a knitting friend of mine who is going to be test knitting a pattern for me. She got to choose the colorway, and decided on

Pirate's Booty. I have to admit that I looked at the picture on their website, and wasn't too excited by this colorway, but in person it is so beautiful. It looks just like a parrot - rich, vibrant, glowing colors. I'm excited to see how this knits up - the pattern was originally done with a semi-solid, so it will be interesting to see how it works with a more dramatic colorway.

Since I was already placing an order, I figured I might as well get something for me to use. And before I knew it, this had fallen into my cart:

Atomic #6. But it should really be called "Mallard" or "Drake". Gorgeous teals and maroon. This might even be manly enough for some boy socks. We'll see. Suffice to say that it is taking every ounce of willpower not to bust open this skein and cast on immediately. I'll already have socks on the needles - starting another pair will totally derail the socks-in-progress. Must. Resist. StR.

Ok, I think the yarn fumes are starting to clear out a bit in here. But (unfortunately) there's more. In fact, I think the fiber fumes are getting pretty thick...

In preparation for my first spinning lesson last week (giving a spinning lesson that is), I started trolling around looking at spindles. I had the idea that maybe spinning laceweight would work better on a hand spindle, so I ended up with this: a new Bosworth mini from Carolina Homespun, along with some gorgeous superwash merino/alpaca that Morgaine included as packing material. Purpleheart, 0.7 oz, and patiently waiting until I finish the other handspindle project and my socks before I try for some really really fine laceweight stuff.

So I think my project needs are satisfied for the next little while. I hope they are!

*********************************************************
Progress report for May:

Finished:
Turkish Walrus socks
Devil's sock yarn skirt (as yet unblogged as an FO because I have yet to get her to put it on and stand still long enough for me to get some pictures)

That's it. Methinks the grant writing was more of a time suck then I originally thought. I did have a couple of big projects going on though, which will show up on June's report.

For the grandparents, another progress report:

Flashbacks

I've been thinking back to eigth grade over the last few days, when I was young and nerdy, and my best friend was a basketball-obsessed Japanese girl. I can still remember the starting line up for the Celtics in those days*, and I remember watching them play the Lakers in the Finals. It was the first time I'd ever really watched basketball, given that my mom was not in to televised sports, and my dad leaned towards that Brahmin standard, tennis, rather then this new-fangled basketball thing.

But it was amazing, the whole rivalry. And tonight it starts up again. For the first time in 21 years. It won't be the same as those 80s matchups (no Magic, no Larry), but it's a nice example of history repeating.

For those of you playing along at home, here's another flashback, thankfully not 21 years old.

Pattern: Basalt Tank from Knitting Nature, Norah Gaughan
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Top, color 005, 5 skeins (960 yds)
Needles: US 6/4.0 mm
Mods/comments: I had some "issues" with the first version of this, and the size medium I knit bore a striking resemblance to a circus tent. So this is a size small (hahaha!), with modifications to the side hexagons and waist shaping as pioneered by Kelly.

Waist shaping detail

Those of you familiar with the pattern may notice something odd about the first picture - it does not look like the pictures of the finished garment in the book. This angle may help:

Ironman told me to "Do something interesting...like flex!"

When I put this thing on with the correct side facing front, it was obscene. As in, its a good thing I'm not better endowed up front because I would have been flashing the world like a German beer wench. Plus it gaped in the back, and there was no hiding that.

So I put it in the washing machine to try and shrink it a bit. No dice. Then I had a brain flash (I think the little grey cells are coming back already) and turned it around. Ta da! Problem solved. The only thing I don't like is that the seam for the bottom edging is now right in the front. Only time will tell if that bugs me enough to rip it out and redo it. For now, the Basalt tank is off the needles and wearable. Thank goodness!

* Larry Bird, DJ (Dennis Johnson), Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Danny Ainge