While felting a rug

I'm blogging right now while waiting for a rug to felt. It wasn't knitted by me, but since a friend has a front loader she asked me to do the felting.

Let me tell you, I'm a little bit nervous.

It's a double stranded tube that will be cut apart to make a flat rug, but is now just a tube. It's a lot of knitting and I'm afraid it won't turn out.

All the added pressure of it being someone else's work..... Plus, felting is a bit scary at the best of times. If it turns out wrong, there is no fixing of it.

Time to check.... Not done yet...

On to the weather report. I'm happy to report that we had no rain today. And no ball game. And, so far, no knitting. However, I did have a short nap (which always makes me happy).

Checking again.... Almost there...

This is the biggest felted project that I've ever done. When I pull it out of the water it's surprisingly heavy with all the wool and the water. Why it's surprising, I don't know. If it's the biggest project that I've done, all soaked with water, it makes sense that it's heavy. Sigh. Sometimes my brain doesn't think very far ahead.

Time to check...

Done! Now, I'm spinning it dry.

I'll post a photo when it's drying, but for now I have to lay it out. And cook supper. :)

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Here's the rug. Isn't it pretty? It's in a tube that my friend will then cut apart and finish the edges.



The ends seemed a bit ruffled, but she seemed good with it.

Hmmm..... I wonder if I should make one?

Not Groundhog's Day anymore

I've snapped out of the movie "Groundhog Day". Today, instead of the ball game getting canceled due to a late afternoon thunderstorm, we got to sit there in the rain while the kids played for almost 2 hours.

In. the. rain.

I didn't knit since I was too busy holding an umbrella.

At the end of the game, I gave my son the opposite advice than normal. "See that puddle over there? Walk through it please. Okay, now stomp your feet... Look, another puddle."

We had a slight discussion over what he should do about his muddy pants. His brother suggested that he should just take them off which lead to a discussion on what pair of underwear he had on.
Since some of that mud was a direct result from diving back to first on a pick off where he ended up safe, we decided not to embarrass him and wrapped a blanket around him for the trip home. (Where is that blanket, anyway? Is it in the house? Should I wash it or wait until the last game is over?)

Since there was no knitting done, I have nothing to show.

However, you might like to see a picture of our guest. She'll be living with us for the summer while her mommy (aka DD#1) is working in Ocean City for the summer.

This is a dog that thinks she's a cat.



Who likes to sleep on top of the sofa.



Lucy's adjusting pretty well to her summer family. The next thing on the list: a summer haircut.

Groundhog Day

You know that movie, "Groundhog Day", with Bill Murray? The one where he relives his day over and over and over again? Well, that's been my life, or at least my evenings, lately.

Every day I've zooming home from work, doing some misc. things, cramming down supper, and rushing off to DS#2's baseball game. His team is trying to makeup some games that were canceled due to rain.

All those games were canceled well ahead of time as we got rain the whole day.

Twice in the last week, though, we've arrived at the field only to have it canceled in the beginning as we raced for our cars. (Yesterday we didn't even get started.)

At each game, I've been knitting socks. First, the yellow and brown ones and now the blue Maui ones. Let me just say, I'm getting bored of socks.

However, these blue ones were started last Weds. night, just one week ago, and I'm already on the heel of the second sock. That's moving along pretty fast.



In an effort to alleviate the boredom, this Everlasting Bagstopper bag was started for DD#1.



It's maybe half done. (Almost half the yarn is finished, so I hope it's half done.)

Tonight? There's no baseball. Maybe I'll start a new project. But no socks.

May roundup

I was looking at May to make my list and thought, "wow--I've been productive". Then, I looked at April and thought, "Oh, I finished several things in April and just didn't take pictures until May".

1. Baby brown and green Soc-a-Mocs that I forgot to take a picture of.

2. Summer socks from a blue variegated Paton's stretch sock yarn.

3. Brown and yellow socks for the Mittens_for_Akkol group.

4. Bag--picture coming.

That's it, I guess. Lots of sock knitting. It might be time for something else.

Green and blue

Why green shoes?





Because they went with the green necklace:





That completed the outfit that DD#2 wore to her 8th grade dance last night.



She's in the midst of winding up 8th grade activities. High school is looming around the corner!

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While I planned to knit on these socks during Thursday night's baseball game, a rainstorm came down and once the rivers of water (aka puddles) had reached flood levels, the game was canceled.



So, it turned into knitting time at home, and I still got a lot done between that and a trip to the mall yesterday (no, I wasn't driving.)

Pattern: Basic vanilla, 64 sts on sz 1 dpns
Yarn: Wisedom Yarns Marathon Socks Maui Color 266.

The heel has been turned and the gusset was finished. Now, onto the foot!

Socks and running out of red

A week ago we bit the bullet and subscribed to a faster internet service. If we had more options we would've done it a long time ago. But, since we're out in "Never-neverland", the options are limited.

Since then, there's a lot of re-learning to do. The biggest is a change of my email address which in turns changes the vast majority of my logins, including the one for blogger. So, I just spent the last 5 minutes trying to remember what was my login/password. I tried several different combinations several times (....maybe I just typed it in wrong...). Finally the lightbulb went on and I looked at the paper that's sitting directly in front of me. Sigh.

Okay, moving on to knitterly things....

The socks are done. Here's a picture that shows the scale (that is, if you know how big my feet are.)



This picture proves that I finished both of them, including weaving in the ends.



Pattern: Basketweave Ribbing Socks Pattern
Yarn: Opal handpainted, brown/yellow with a bit of tan.
Needles: dpns size 1.
80 rows from heel to start of toe. (Why did I count? I guess I use counting as a my method to make sure the socks end up the same length.)
10" foot, 6.5" cuff.

Around the time of MDSW, not only was I pouting, but I also got the urge to get out my spinning wheel. I need to finish the yarn for my Cobblestone sweater so then I can finish knitting it, so then I can wear it. (That's right. I plan to finish knitting it before I wear it.)(I'm nothing if not logical.)

I've been dragging my heels for several reasons, one being this. I think I'm going to run out of red. So, I decided to spin up all the red and ply it with the purple. The body of the sweater is knit up to the armpits (or almost, I still have to try it on.) I'm going to start knitting the sleeves and see how far it takes me. If needed, I'll make a solid purple for the yoke. (I might do that anyway--I'm liking the idea more and more as I think of it.)

So, I spun the yarn, plied it, washed it, and....here's where I lost my mind for a short while....I spun it in the washer.

For knitted garments, this works well. For a hank of yarn, it creates a big ball of crazy.



For 4 hanks of yarn, it's even crazier.



What was I thinking? I know better. As awful as this looked to me, I was actually able to wind balls that DD#2 then wound into cakes.

Now, maybe I can get up the nerve to start knitting again. I seem to remember something about the gauge and stitch count was different and I'd have to figure out the sleeves when I got to them. That's right. I've been working on this project for two years and I haven't figured out all the steps yet. Maybe some more procrastination is in order.

Sock Obsession

Sock knitting has become a little bit of an obsession. First, it was just to have a couple of pairs of warm socks. Then, it became my goal to have enough socks to be able to wear a different pair every day of the week. After that, the goal was to have socks that match my shirts.

Now, it seems that I need socks to match the local high school colors.

DD#2 will be a freshman there next year, with DS#2 following in two years. That will end up being 6 years of one of my kids attending that school. (Just like it was with the older two, but I wasn't knitting socks at that time.) Between the two of them, they are bound to be on a sports team or two.

Hence, I needed socks in the team colors.

This presented a slight problem. It was hard to find any red and black sock yarn. That is, without any grey or pink. I had friends look for me at MDSW (while I pouted at home), but they didn't find any skeins that fit my needs.

However, all was not lost. I contacted Ray from Knitivity and he thought it could be done. (It's same place where I got the You Nork Mets yarn so I knew it was good yarn).

It came in the mail this week, and I cannot tell you how pleased I am!



The colors are just right with no shades of grey or pink. I splurged and got a double hank. I now have enough for gloves, also. I may have to do those first!

It's been a busy week, but I've managed to finish the first basketweave sock and have started the second.



I probably should've picked a more solid color for this pattern, but it's fun to do even if it doesn't show up as well.



By the way, I found the ball band and it's Opal handpainted. I knew I liked the feel of this yarn!

Yarn!

If you happened to notice that I didn't blog about this year's MD Sheep and Wool Festival, it's because I didn't go. Things just didn't work out right for the weekend so I stayed at home and pouted for a couple of days.

Part of the reason was that I don't really need any more yarn.

I didn't keep that thought in my head for very long, though, as I've since made a couple of purchases.

First, some Sugar'n Cream in the Summer Prints colorway. Just because.



Also, The Mittens for Akkol yahoo group got an excellent deal on wool, both sock yarn and otherwise. It's finally here and is beautiful.

Here's the chunky weight:


10 skeins of a green that is almost grey and will be enough for a sweater.

Here's the sock yarn:


10 skeins of sock yarn will make 10 warm pairs of feet. (I'm eyeballing the purple/orange skein and might need to swap it out with one from my stash. I figure as long as I use 10 skeins to make socks then it should be even.)

Just that same morning I had cast on for a new pair of socks, so I'll finish these first.



I had cast on on Friday and am this far by tonight.



It's an easy pattern that works up quickly.

Pattern: Basketweave Ribbing Socks Pattern
Yarn: brown/yellow with a bit of tan. Unknown maker that I got on ebay.
Needles: dpns size 1.

Show and Tell

It's time to show off a few FOs.

First, this is the newborn jacket that was knit for my newborn niece. It was never mailed (delay, delay, find buttons, sew on buttons, delay, delay, too small).



It's another Baby Surprise Jacket in You Nork Mets sock yarn. Even though it was for a girl, the dad is a diehard Mets fan so it would've worked. Now, I'll save it for child #2.

This is what I ended up sending:


Sorry for the crazily brilliant picture. It sounded like a good idea at the time, and I mailed it about 10 minutes after it was taken, so no photo redos.

Pattern: Knitting Pure and Simple Easy baby Cardigan
Needles: size 7's
Yarn: Laines Du Nord Maxi
Colorway: PINK!
Size: 6-9 months, where there is a good chance it's still too big for her. I was aiming for fall and I think it'll be good.

Now that it's finally stopped raining, at least for today, here are a couple of more pictures of the Lucy bag.


It has a long strap and a short strap and are threaded together for the closure.


Pattern: The Lucy Bag from http://www.twooldbagspatterns.com/
Needles: size 8 circs and dpns
Yarn: Patons Classic Merino 1 skein grey and 1.5 skeins pink.
Notes: This is the taller bag size using a Fibonacci sequence with the stripes. Bottom is grey, then the rows are:
5G, 1P, 13G, 2P, 8G, 3P, 5G, 5P, 3G, 8P, 2G, 13P, 1G, 13P.

A couple of days after I finished it, I noticed a person walking through my store (not that I own it, but I work at it) with a bag made from the same pattern.

"Hey, I just made the exact same bag!"

She was looking for a skein of pink wool for her mom to make another one, and we didn't have any.

"Er, um, that's because it was on clearance and I bought it all. But I have extra, would you like it?" And she did, and met me another day, and was most grateful. (Not exactly common business practice, but still fun.)

Haven't brought myself to use it yet (it might get wet, it's been raining a lot, you know), but I love it!

Also, I have a new pair of summer socks.


They are made with Paton's stretch sock yarn, using just a little more than one skein. 64 sts, size 2 dpns. Plain vanilla sock pattern.


(Don't look too closely, I didn't shave my legs and there's only so much cropping that I could do.)

Booties

Last week I made a cute pair of Soc-a-moc (or is it Moc-a-soc?) booties. Alas, there's no picture for this post. I gave them away too quickly. Just thought I'd let ya'll know that I'm still knitting!

April Roundup

Where did April go? Wow, that was fast.

Let's see what I knit in April:

1. I "fimished" 3 pairs of charity socks. (That typo is what I get for not wearing reading glasses when I proofread.) The red/white/blue pair have been blocked and are now approximately the same size. Next time I'll try to grab all needles of the same size.

2. A somewhat secret project for my new niece. A picture should be coming soon. (It's ready for the mail, so as soon as I think it got there then I can post.)

3. Spring Thaw socks for me. As beautiful as they are, they made me not want to do twisted ribbing for a very long time.

4. Walking in the Maize short socks. For me, again. The real test will be if they can stay on my feet properly when I'm at work. I'll test them out this week.

5. The Lucy bag. It's been felted and dried. Look at the size difference:



I tried to get more pictures, but I guess I need to wait for daytime. I can't tell you how much this design tickles me.

This must've been a "for me" month. That's okay. But I'm ready to do some "for others" next month.

Off work

Today I'm off work. Meaning, my real job, but also I'm not doing a lot at home. The work I've been doing at home consists of laundry and catching up on emails.

For those of you with kids that do sports, you know how challenging it is to have a clean uniform. (Well, that's true for my job too. I guess the statement should read: keeping up with my laundry is a challenge.) This season, DS#2 is playing baseball and soccer, and DD#2 is playing softball. Not only do I have to get the uniform clean, but also the socks. And, the biggest challenge is finding the socks. I need to wash a red PAIR, a green PAIR, and a black PAIR.

I should point out here that DS and DD do help at times, but when it's game day (3 hours countdown), I can't wait for them to get home from school to start the laundry.

In between the laundry, I've been trying to freecycle a bunkbed. Freecycling a great tool to get rid of stuff, especially stuff that's bigger than you want to haul yourself. I'm having trouble today, though, connecting with people who want it and can come when I'm home. I've been contacting them and then hovering around the computer waiting for a reply. It's like waiting for water to boil: it never seems to happpen soon enough.

In between laundry loads (since the washing machine has a shorter cycle than the dryer I could sneak this in), I felted my Lucy bag. It's now drying, but here a picture as the way it was pre-felting.



There is a long strap and a short strap and the long strap is 40" long. I felt (haha) like I was making a whole scarf just to do the one strap.

Then, I thought you'd like to see DS#1's recent craft.



I needed to borrow his car (round robin car problems at our house. Good thing DS is home with an extra car and only allowed to do local driving.) I went to bed before he got home, so he actually made this pompom as a keychain and hung it over his doorknob for me to find the next morning.

Really. He made the pompom just so I could find his key. (He wanted to prove he was paying attention when I showed him how when I made his ski hat pompom a few months ago.)

Well, better get back to my laundry. I have to focus on finishing two loads as a lonely red sock didn't make it into the first one.

At long last

At long last I have a knitting post.

Such as it is.

Here are the socks that I finished in Cincinnati. I had most of one sock done last year before it went into time out. It took maybe 4 days to finish them. (Maybe 3 since I wore them one day before coming home.)

Specifics:
Walking in the Maize pattern
size 1 dpns
Brown Sheep Cotton Fine yarn. (One skein would've just barely done it. Or not. I don't know since I wanted the two toned effect anyway. All I know is that it would've been close.)

I'm not sure I'm going to like them. First, I have to handwash them (which I don't do for hardly any of my other socks.) The result is wrinkly since I can't be bothered to block them nicely.



Second, the cuff doesn't cling to my foot. I've worn them for a day in my Mary Janes and they didn't cause any problems. The test will really be to wear them inside my sneakers at work all day. If they still don't fall down then they should be fine.



However, I have a shirt to match, so I might wear them either way.

Just last night I finished my leaf socks. They're actually called Spring Thaw Socks by Cat Bordhi from Knitter's Magazine Summer 2008. I used size 2 dpns and 2 skeins of KnitPicks Essential Grasshopper Kettle Hand-Dyed sock yarn. I didn't really change any directions. (How could I? The pattern is way too complicated for me to do that.)



I take that back. I was supposed to do another leaf repeat for both sides. (These have mirroring leaves, but the other side has two leaves each.) They were plenty long enough.

Twisted ribbing for the whole pair of socks about killed me, though. And either the yarn was splitty or the ribbing made it extra hard but it was a test in endurance for me.



By the end, I had the leaf pattern memorized and I've gotten comfortable enough with the sewn bindoff that I did that at DS#2's baseball game. (Where he pitched for the first time. One really good inning and one bad. But then he hit an over-the-fence homerun to tie the game and the next kid hit a double and reached home on errors so we won. And he came home with a good feeling.)

This is a toe up sock where the gusset increases are done underneath leading up to the heel.



I haven't wore them yet, but they seem very comfortable (but maybe not in 90 degree weather.)

Having a slight reaction to all that twisted ribbing, I cast on for a quick project on Thursday night.

It looks like a blob, but it will be a felted bag. (A soccer mom asked me what I was going to use it for. I said "because it's cute" which totally doesn't answer the question from her point of view, but totally did from mine (even though it's not grammatically correct). I can find a use for it later--who doesn't need an extra bag--but for now it's just cute.)



I'm using the Lucy bag pattern with Paton's classic wool in grey and pink that I got on clearance. So far only 2 skeins of yarn have been used but I will need a third for the straps.

It's been nice to have some mindless knitting, and nice to have some new socks!

The annual flower show

Here's my annual flowers post. This is the sum of the flowers that grow in my yard. So, Janice, don't be jealous, but enjoy them. They'll only last for a week and then my yard will be back to the drab nothingness.

Pictures are by DD#2, as is becoming a tradition. They've been downsized, but otherwise completely unretouched. She's just that good as a photographer. (Now if only she was that good at cleaning her room!)

The azalea bush has about one more day before it's at its peak. I never trimmed it last year so it's big and bushy.



(We almost got a picture of a big black snake that was in it today. It was shoed from the back yard and it slithered around to the front and climbed into the bush. Good thing DH was home to deal with it, or I might've had to call on my snake-killer neighbor!)





The lilac bush peaked a couple of days ago.










And a little violet was found.

Finished

I'm back from the Ohio adventure. DS was a good patient and is recovering well. I spent way too much time eating and watching TV. However, I didn't seem to knit more than normal which doesn't make sense.

I do have two finished items, though. A pair of socks (that will be shown later after I've had a chance to wash them), and a baby thing.

Here's a bit of a picture of the finished item that I made my new niece. I'll post a better picture after I've mailed it, in case I spoil the surprise. (Hopefully I can mail this one before it gets too small.)


The other thing we brought home is DS's new elbow. Check it out in his new "RoboCop" brace. (Everything's fair game for a blog--but I promised to cut out his head.)



One week down, three more weeks to go and then it comes off. It'll be a year of recovery, but so far, so good.

One lost needle

While I spent yesterday switching back and forth between 3 projects, today was spent with only one. They're the UFO socks that are very short, cotton summer socks. I spent most of the day knitting them at the surgery center where DS had his Tommy John surgery. The surgery went very well and I actually watched it live on a monitor. He has a DVD of it so when he's well enough he can see exactly what was done. It was very weird in an interesting way. OR Very interesting in a weird sort of way. I wasn't sure I wanted to see anything about it, but I guess I'm glad I did. However, I won't be cooking roast beef anytime in the near future. 'Nuf said.

I was shuffled back and forth between the different waiting rooms and at one point I realized I had lost a knitting needle. (A new Knitpicks shiny metal dpn needle.) I asked the nurse if she could go back and look at the last place I'd been.

Excuse me, I know you're taking care of people who've just had operations on their elbow/knee/shoulder and are doing really important work right now, but....could you look for my knitting needle for me?

It was found down the side of the couch. (That would hurt if sat on. I'm glad I didn't just let it go as I was tempted.)

Son doing well, knitting needle found, and lots of knitting time for me. A good day.

Good knitting week

This week should be a good knitting week. I'm away on a trip for 5 days with not much to do but sit around. However, I only brought 3 knitting projects. I'm a bit worried. Will that be enough?

I'm away on a trip with DS#1 for his elbow surgery. (edited to note: I had originally wrote DH#1 which is totally wrong. I only have one Husband while I have 2 Sons. And it's the son with the surgery.) We shared a suitcase since I'll have to manage it by myself on the way back. We were going to use a smaller suitcase, but I really needed to bring a second pair of shoes. You know, the ones that show off my socks. I could've gotten by with just tennis shoes, but that's just not as much fun. (I also needed to fit in a couple of boxes of Pop Tarts and some pumpkin bread. Plus the knitting projects that took the most time to decide on. Also, sharing the suitcase means giving him a small spot for his stuff.)

The main project that I need to finish is for my new niece. It's actually the second project that I've made since the first one got too small while I procrastinated on mailing it. It was really cute, too. But I'll save it and instead make something that might actually be big enough.

The other two projects are both socks. I'm still working on the second sock of the leaf socks and have reached the first leaf. This is my project when I need something to do besides st st.

I also brought a pair of UFO socks that I started last spring.

All three projects have been worked on today. It's a good way to keep the boredom from striking. (For me, not for you. I realize that this is a boring post. Somehow the lack of pictures is throwing me off. That, and the fact that I'm using a laptop with the built-in mouse. It's the minor things that get to me. So, sorry.)

So, we'll see how much I can get done this week.

Nuttin' but socks

Lately, I've been knitting nuttin' but socks.

First, I fimished this pair, which is almost big enough for me.


Red worsted and variegated sock yarn held together, size 7 (or 6?) needles, 36 sts, 36 rows.


Then this pair.



Three colors of worsted knitted using a spiral stripe. Size 4 dpns, 28 sts. (At one point of time, or maybe the whole way through, I mixed in a size 5 needle. See how much bigger the right sock is than the left one? I'm hoping that blocking will fix that problem....)

I then made this pair as I continued to use up my stash. (Though this pair is pushing the edge of acceptable almost into the "just-too-ugly" realm. )



Again, several colors of worsted weight, size 4 dpns (all four of them), 28 sts, 28 rows.)

I stopped with the charity socks and moved on to mine.

My first leaf sock, which is not the real name but I'm still too lazy to look it up, is now complete and the second one is started.



See the leaves spiraliing around the sock? I had to pay enough attention to the knitting that I didn't have to do a massive frogging. Let's see if that'll be true for the second one.