Dull

I've been plugging along, working on the Kaz grad items for Mereke.  This year I'm making all the knitted items for one grad rather than doing random items for different grads.  His colors are white, black, and bright blue.  I made his hoodie last spring, so now I'm doing all the other things.

You saw his hat a couple of days ago, right before it got frogged and started over.  I think it's done this time, but am waiting until I block it to know for sure.

Here's his scarf, being made out of Patons Classic wool.  The pattern is Diagonal Mistake Rib Scarf, which is going very nicely, although I can't seem to memorize the pattern.  The edge stitches, I mean.  The middle is all K2, P2, which I can do...  :)

However, it's kinda boring, being mostly k2, p2 the whole way, plus it's in black.  Uggh.  Lovely to wear, horrible to knit.

It's also not a knit that I can take to the Bball games and such, so I cast on for Mereke's socks.  These are plain vanilla with 72 sts on size 1s using Lang Jawoll Aktion sock yarn.  The yarn fits into the color scheme pretty well (and was picked out by my DS as being something he would wear.  Manly and all.)  However, it's also boring.  And... I'm not sure there will be enough yarn.  Mereke has 11.5" feet so these have to be really long and I did a really long cuff as well.  They're in a mini-timeout while I hunt for contrasting yarn for the toes, just in case.

I needed something different to work on, so I started this hat.  It's not any more colorful, but at least it has interesting texture, being skeins of wool that I spun from a mystery bag of roving.   This has no purpose, other than to give me something interesting to make.  When done, I'll save it for when I need it, as a gift or something...

However, it's not very colorful.

So...

Yesterday I cast on for this:

Yep, this is colorful enough.

I had 1/2 hour at a car service center and 2 basketball games to sit through yesterday so I got a lot accomplished.   At the service center, I had a nice talk with a couple of ladies, one of whom does lots of knitting and crocheting and had a daughter who spins.  I'm not sure if I've ever randomly run into another knitter before.  She was eyeing my yarn quite enviously, too, as she had forgotten hers and was stuck there an hour longer than she thought.

At the end of yesterday, I had the bright beginning of sock and a new key for my car (I had only one before, which would periodically set off waves of anxiety that I would lose it.  Or that DD#2, aka the new driver, would lose it.  But mostly me...)  Also, both basketball games were won.  (DS#2's season is done, but DD#2 still has playoffs.) 

Today, I don't have anywhere to go.  (Imagine that!)  Plenty of time for knitting, both dull and COLORFUL!

A Keeper

My Husband.

He's a keeper.

Spin, spin, spun

Remember how much I loved January?  Well, it's continuing into February.  These days of not doing very much have been a lot of fun.  Not only have I been knitting, but I've also been spinning.

I've had singles on my bobbins since June, waiting to be plied.  Finally, I got around to it and plied it together.  Purty, huh?  The Roving was from Pucker Brush farm that I got from MDSW. 

Since I had the spinning wheel out and everything (and what a hard job that was.   Moving the wheel from the corner of the room to the middle.  AND putting a sheet underneath.  PHEW!  I'm exhausted.), I decide to spin up some more.

This is again from MDSW, but from 2010. 

I spun this tighter, and plied it looser, with the idea that it would give me a balanced yarn.  It worked for the blue roving, but this one turned out not-so-good for some reason.    Anyway, it was fun and I'm sure I can make a funky looking hat out of it.

Playing with the collage feature on Picasa.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Did you ever?

Did you ever start supper, realize you needed sofrito from the downstairs freezer, stay downstairs to blog for the next 20 minutes, go back upstairs to continue with supper, only to go back downstairs to get the sofrito that you needed in the first place?  And then think that you can continue to blog by setting your timer for every 5 minutes, just so that you would remember to go stir the rice and not let it burn into a solid black mass?

Me neither.

(Excuse me, I hear the timer.)

Basketball season

Some of you might just call this season, "winter", but around here it's basketball season.  Our youngest two are both playing, and when they play, one is away and one is home.  So, we took the easy way out and are just going to the home games. 

Here I am, in my usual "school colors" sweater, knitting on a sock.  (This was also supposed to show off my new haircut, but since one side is sticking out for some odd reason, I'll try to get a better picture later and won't mention it now.)

This is my view.  I'd draw an arrow pointing out my daughter, but since I'm photo-challenged, let's just say that she's the one closest to the ref.

I wore my new socks to the game.  In my hurry, I forgot to take a good pic, so here they are on my feet.  (You can believe me that I did Kitchner the toes and hide the ends before I wore them.  I'm not in that much of a hurry.)

Basketball season is drawing to an end, with the last regular season games scheduled for Friday.  DS#2 will then be done, but DD#2 will still have playoffs.

But never fear, track/baseball season is just around the corner.

First yarn purchase of 2012

Here's my first yarn purchase of 2012. Considering we're a month into the new year, I've restrained myself pretty well, don't you think?

Simply Sock Yarn Company had a sale and....well....I had to take a little look.
I added a couple of skeins into my cart.... cotton blends for summer socks....

plus some wool, 'cause it was such a good deal...

Then I went to checkout, and it needed the payment info before it calculated the shipping... and I like to get as much yarn as possible for a shipping charge, but since the shipping was only $4.95, I just hit the ORDER button, and before I knew it, the yarn was all on it's way.

Not really a planned event, but still...

I got some good yarn and it makes me smile...

What can be better than that?

Progress: Forward and Back

Since there have been a gazillion basketball games to attend, I've been working on plain vanilla socks.  They're the most portable and the easiest to knit while watching the action.

These socks are for me.  The yarn is from Ellen's 1/2 Pint Farm that I bought a couple of years ago at MDSW.  Bright and cheerful and getting close to done!

For stay-at-home knitting, I've been working on couple of other things.  One is this hat:

It looks done, but alas!  It has been frogged, ready to start again.  See the stitches below?  They are so uneven and BIG and little and BIG and little!  I did the whole hat, and even stretched and washed and blocked it, but the stitches were not even-ing up.  Not no way, not no how.

I was trying to knit with one yarn in my left hand and one in my right, and trapping the floats rather than twisting. I know I've used two handed knitting before, with a finished product at the end, but I guess that plus the long floats was too difficult for me to master. Plus, I never got comfortable doing it. Blech.

Now it's been ripped out and ready to do following my regular method of drop-this-yarn-and-pick-up-that-one. It might actually be more work, but not when I consider having to do it over again.