The exact moment

To my children, so that in future generations you can pinpoint the exact moment that I went crazy, this is it.

Stark raving mad. Crazy.

"Grandma went mad while knitting a sock for the 20 millioneth time and just went right over the edge. We found her twitching and muttering in the corner. Something about stitches and needles and mixing up 2 different patterns in a bad way. That's why all skinny pointed objects have been removed from the house, along with anything closely resembling yarn. Package string, phone cords, cooked spaghetti--these must all be used at your own risk."




It was going so well. I had worked the kinks out of the first sock, and was power knitting through the second sock in an ambitious attempt to get them in the mail tomorrow before the rates go up.

20 rows left to do. 18 rows left to do.

6 rows to do and then the ribbing. How did I do the ribbing, anyway?



Let me look at the last sock.

Arrgggh! The last sock has 66 sts around, while this one HAS ONLY 60!

Stark raving mad--the exact moment.

Finished projects

My guest photographer took these photos also, which I'm just getting around to posting. (Thank you, thank you!)

Here's some finished items:

First, a CIC vest. This was done with one strand WW natural yarn, and 2 strands of sock yarn. (Note to self: this took less than 200 yds. of sock yarn of each color for the smallest size.)



Next, a pair of CIC socks in the chain link pattern from 6SoxKAL. This makes 2 of 28.



Next, a couple of hats for the new CIC challenge to knit for the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota.



This was the favorite. (I don't even remember what I did now. It was 1x1 ribbing in the "hey I ran out of yarn" pattern....maybe 80 sts? Enough to fit on a circ.)



The bruise? It's a lovely shade of plum with hints of green. No photo forthcoming.

The hazards of knitting

Today I was at DS#2's baseball game working on my "knit it, rip it, knit it, rip it" sock project. I was in between the rip it and knit it stages where I was picking up stitches. I had sunglasses on, so I didn't want to put on my reading glasses, so I had to pay extra close attention when

WHACK!

I got hit by a foul ball.

I felt just like a player when asked if I was okay:

"Yep, fine." Although, not really....this really hurts!

By the way, where were all the "heads up" calls when the ball comes into the crowd??? Usually that's heard loud and often. This makes me wonder.... do they only say that when kids are close by? Do they consider a lady sitting by herself will be paying attention to the game and not to her knitting?

I now have a nice red, round bruise on my thigh. (There's sometimes advantages to not having a camera----no picture today!)

Next time, if you're at the game....give me a "Heads up"!

Proof we were there

Here's proof that we were at MDSW. (Like all my loot isn't proof enough?)

This is a picture taken by Trish's friend Steve that's on Trish's blog (and that I might have "borrowed". I hope you don't mind, Trish. Check out her blog for more pictures of the day.

Several of us from the KnitTalk group met together to put a face with our names. I missed several other KnitTalkers that were there, but did meet Barbara.

This is Lori from Nova Scotia, her niece, Trish, me, and DD#2. (That's us two all matchy-matchy. The only time it's acceptable is at a sheep festival.)

MDSW Loot

My guest photographer came over today and took some pictures for me. Thanks for keeping my posts from getting too boring. There's truth in the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" especially if I'm trying to describe a color.

Here's what I bought at MDSW yesterday.

First, this is inexpensive 100% wool yarn (read: long line) that will mostly be used for CIC knitting. I bought some of the white 2 years ago and found it to be the most versitile. It can be used as is, or dyed all sorts of different colors.



It's hard to see from the picture, but the other skeins of yarn all coordinate together--interesting variegated shades.

I bought a felted ball that will become a pincushion since my tomato pincushion is in sad shape. (I may have to cut it open--I know there are several needles hiding in the middle.)

Here's my two skeins of sock yarn. Expensive (read: this is for me), but I consider it worthwhile. The top skein is "Socks That Rock" in the Tonalite colorway. Black, grey, white. I've never tried STR before, so this will be fun.



The bottom skein is from Ellen's 1/2 Pint Farm. I had gotten a purple skein last year and loved my socks so much that I wanted another pair.

As a reward for DD#2 surviving the day (she has a cold/allergies so I gave her a Benedryl which made her sleepy) I bought her some earrings.



Little handmade glass frogs. Just the thing to buy from a sheep festival!

MDSW 2007

Today DD#2 and I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.



It's only one hour and 45 min. from my house. I'm always quite amazed at the people who come from all over.

Got to meet several people from the KnitTalk group: Trish, Barbara, and Lori from Nova Scotia. It was nice to put faces to the names.

I bought some yarn (duh--do ya think?), saw some sheep and a Border Collie demo, ate some ribbon chips (thought they'd be like shaved french fries and they'd be warm, but they were like potato chips and got cold too quickly.) We got out of there before the rain (if there was any rain--there was plenty down here.)

It was packed, as always. Hard to even get to the yarn, let alone take time to decide.

I got everything on my "must have" list, though, so it was a very successful day.

No pictures because....well, you know why. (Not that I'm bitter--stupid robber!) Hoping to have a guest photographer do a photo shoot soon.

Until then, just imagine what I bought!

Hats

The loss of my camera has really slowed down my blogging. It doesn't seem interesting to just write and not show the progress I've been making.

But, since it's Friday night and I'm baseball knitting, I thought I'd blog a bit.

This week it's been all about hats. The CIC challenge for May/June is knitting for the kids (all ages, up to 18) on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. There's a special call for hats and mittens and there's no restrictions on fiber content.

I've been making the Helix Striped Cap from the 2007 Knitting calendar, from Jan. 9. It uses 3 colors and creates a striped hat without the color change jog. I'm loving to use up my leftovers to create a nice warm hat.

(My dog just pawed my knitting bag to make it fall over. Think he wants some attention?)

The hats are also distracting me while a sock is in time out. I've reknit pieces of it 3 or 4 times, and it's still not right. It's a toe up sock, and I keep getting the size wrong. One of the fascinations of toe up knitting is that you can try it on as you go. I'm not getting the concept, though. A regular top down sock can be tried on, and if it doesn't fit, just the toe needs to be ripped out. A toe up sock needs the heel ripped out and redone--much harder in my opinion. And in the case of my last effort, The bind off is too tight, AND the sock is too big.

Do I rip out half a sock AGAIN? Or rip out the part from the toe down and do a toe down toe? Will it match the other sock? Can I face doing it one more time? Or do I need to knit another hat?

Organized and planned well

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have low extroversion. You are quiet and reserved in most social situations. A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you. You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people. Conscientiousness: You have high conscientiousness. Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life. Most things in your life are organized and planned well. But you borderline on being a total perfectionist. Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness. You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly. Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt and don't mind giving someone a second chance. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is low. You're a pretty conservative person, and you favor what's socially acceptable. You think that change for novelty's sake is a very bad idea. While some may see this as boring, many see you as dependable and wise.

The Five Factor Personality Test

That was an interesting test to take. I like the results of most of it, even if I'm not quite there yet. One statement, however, makes me laugh:

"Most things in your life are organized and planned well."

So that means when I lost DS#2's baseball snack list, then found it late last night only to discover that today was our snack day, that that was organized and planned well? And that when I bought a box of 50 bags of chips for a team of 14, that that's planning well? (Actually, it is. More for me.)(Shhhh...the kids think it's for their lunches.)

Or......applying this to knitting.....that when I continuously run out of yarn, that that's well planning?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

Magic 28

I decided to join the Magic 28 ring.

It's using worsted weight yarn and 28 stitches, 28 rows, 28 socks....maybe even 28 pair? to knit warm socks for those in need.

I'm going to do 28 pair, but also count any that use more than 28 sts, as long as they go to someone in need. (This will be primarily for CIC.)

There's no time limit, no stress, so I'm going to interpret that to mean no start date. I'm going to include the orange socks I made last weekend as my first pair.(32 sts, 32 rows, sz. 4 needles, hand-dyed Fisherman's wool yarn).

Pink and Lilac

Webs had a sale on Cascade 220 (in fact, it's still going on--check it out here. Here's some more stock photos of the colors I got:




Aster and magenta




black and red. (really. Black. I suppose if it showed up really black that it would be hard to photograph, wouldn't it?)

After taking photos (sigh) of my project spectrum yarns, I felt a need for more pink in my stash.


Update on robbery: The robbers have been found. Two kids. The cameras have not been found. (big sigh)


No cameras, but the lilac bush is in full bloom. Here's some more of DD#2's pictures from last year. You'll have to trust me that it looks the same this year, even with the butterflies.

Cameras

You know how much I was struggling over dyeing the correct color of maroon yarn? How I never got the right color but decided it was close enough?

Well, while I was working on the vest at the game, a long-lost memory came sneaking into my mind.

"I think I might have a skein of maroon in my stash......"

Sure enough, I did. (If I had remembered that a couple of days earlier, it would've saved me time and effort. But where would be the adventure?)



Why didn't I take my own picture, you ask?

It's because my camera got stolen.

That's right. Our house got broken into on Monday and several items got stolen.

First, I was missing my camera. Since my house is a mess, and I'm rather forgetful, I thought I'd just misplaced it. I spent a couple of hours looking for it before figuring it would show up when I least expected it.

Then DH asked me why I moved his insulin (which I hadn't). That's when the truth dawned on us. We also found a missing ipod and DVD player. (Stupid robber--how can you get high on insulin? And why would you think of looking into the refrigerator anyway?) Made the police report, felt violated and unsafe, called the insurance company, all the usual stuff.

DH consoled me over my camera. "You can use mine whenever you want" which is really only when I blog. He gets to take any other pictures that we have. My camera was old, but I liked it and it worked for me.

So, the next day I resigned myself to learning how to use a fancy camera. That night we were preparing for DS#2's baseball game.

"Where's my camera bag?" says DH.

OH, NOOOOOOOO....... it's gone.

The robber apparently didn't like my camera, so came back THE NEXT DAY to take DH's. He took the whole bag, which also included the DVD camera. Who would think that we'd be robbed two days in a row!!!

Now we're getting a little freaked out. Made another police report--feeling very stupid.

Yesterday, the police came by to show us evidence that they've recovered. It was empty insulin bottles. (Stupid robber. Threw them in the burn pile when he realized it didn't have the same effect as smoking crack.) So....no cameras have been recovered yet, but at least they think they've found the robber.

Lots of things left to do, but at least we're feeling safer now. And our air conditioning got fixed, just in time for a cold snap. AND..the part was still under warrenty.

Things are looking up, and I know you'll patiently wait for pictures until we either recover our old cameras or get a new one.

Back from VT

We went to Virginia Tech this weekend to see my son's UM baseball team play. The VT coach wanted to keep the games for the weekend. It gave the community something to do and something different to focus on rather than the recent tragic events. I had a friend come sit with me for the game. She goes to VT and had 3 friends die. It was good to see her and hang out with her.

We took time to view the memorials at the drill field.



The only sounds were some whispering and lots of sniffling. This was not on Friday, but still there were maroon and orange where-ever we looked. I can't come up with words to explain it, but I know you're feeling it too. It was heartbreaking, and made us want to hug our kids. Or give them a call.

I believe this is an exerpt from a speech that was given during the memorial service on Tuesday.



To view more pictures that we took, click here.

----------------

The games were more subdued than normal. It was almost eerily quiet for the first few innings. Later it became livelier, especially as the game became close for the last few innings. The umpire was boo-ed several times. Back to normal.

I worked on my CIC vest. Even though it was hot, I was glad I picked those colors. (In case you're wondering.....I redyed my maroon yarn, then fell asleep with it in the crockpot. Woke up in the middle of the night and pulled it out. Still not maroon, but closer. In the morning I rinsed it, spun it in the washer, then dried it in the dryer on low heat on the drying rack. It was wound in the car. Think I was cutting it a bit close?)

My dad came for the game. (He wasn't tempted to knit, though.)



Since there were two games, I finished the vest in the second game, second inning.



Since I don't want to break a trend, I ran out of yarn. Surprised? I had a skein of black with me, so decided to use that when the maroon ran out. Not too sober for a child, but still meaningful to me.

In the second game, ninth inning, I finished the second CIC sock.



DD#2 took pictures of the baseball game, so if you're interested, click here. DS won his game, pitched seven innings and striking out seven. (He's #31....and the pitcher in most of the pictures.)

Maroon and orange

Today is Hokie Hope Day where we were encouraged to wear orange and maroon in memory of the Virginia Tech victims. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read here. )

I had an orange shirt on, but own nothing that's maroon. At work, people were looking for ribbons and flowers in the Hokie colors. I have come to the conclusion that we all have a slightly different idea of what maroon is.

We quickly sold out of the regular maroon ribbon. That left us to improvise.

One customer kept picking up the red. "Is this close enough?"

No, it's red. See, it says "red".

Or, I would pick up a maroon, and another customer would say "no, too purple" to every maroon (it really was!) ribbon I picked up.

One person had sight problems with color, so she just took my word for it.


DS#1's baseball team have 3 games still scheduled this weekend with Virginia Tech, so we decided to go. I need to support Miami's team, but I can still support VA Tech's community. Therefore, I decided to knit a CIC vest at the game with orange and maroon yarns.

The only problem is that I don't have any maroon yarn.

I've had problems dyeing shades of maroon (and the whole red family) before, but it was time to try again.

What do you think?


Yep, kinda pink-y.

A sane person would just use it anyway, considering the game is tomorrow.

I, however, am not sane. It's not maroon enough for me, so it's back in the crockpot with some more dye. It can dry overnight and I can wind it in the car tomorrow. It'll be ready for the game....right?

The vest is done

The CIC vest is done. Here's the yarn that I have left:



And here's the vest:



It's a bit odd, but still...somehow I like it.

These vests are incredibly addicting to do. I'm going to force myself to stop for awhile and concentrate on something else. (There are baseball games next weekend, so I might just quit for the week.)

I'm working on my Horcrux socks from Six Socks KAL. Trekking XXL, size 2 dpns, 60 sts, following the pattern as written. Again, the lace "lightning bolts" part looks stretched out, but it fits well on my foot.

Let-the-dog-out kind of day

Here's my day:

In the morning I took DS#2 to a math competition. He did very well, but 3 hours of competing as a 4th grader (or anyone, for that matter), made him a bit tired. (Can I just say how proud I am of him, and how thrilled I am that he's interested in knowing what the cubed root of 1728 is? We do problems like that in the car when he's bored.)

Besides that, I basically let the dog out, let the dog in,

let the dog out,



let the dog in.


In between that important job, I did laundry--basically washing every single item of clothing that we own in the house. I'm not done yet, but I'm seeing the end.

I also watched DS#1's game on the net. (Live score updates, but no live video.)

Every time I sat down on the computer was a time to let the dog out. And in. Then stop the dryer to get out the jeans before they shrunk, check the game, knit a couple of rows, then it all started over again.

The game was on TV at 4 on a taped delay, so then I watched it again. (It's easier for me to watch the game if I already know the outcome. DS pitched a complete game getting the win and a season high 12 strikeouts.)

More up and down for me (gotta love that pause button), as I continued the laundry and tried to cook supper. (The smoke alarm didn't go off, so supper was a success.)

My favorite item to knit during DS's games is a CIC vest.

I've made two go-with-anything vests, so it was time for a using-up-the-leftovers vest.

I'm going to combine a neutral:


with a color:


and hopefully come up with something not too ugly.

Here's my start so far:


That's the end of my post. I gotta go let the dog out.

Exhausted

I have just finished the second of two little CIC vests, sized 2, I believe. Both were made using up misc. yarns. They are dense and are sure to keep two kids warm.



The blue and white one was finished at the same time as Miami lost to NC State in the bottom of the 13th. (DS wasn't pitching, so I wasn't super nervous--just normal fan nervous.) I'm exhausted, though. Can't imagine if I was a player.

I have lots of scraps left, so I'm thinking of making a "coat of many colors". That is, if I can figure out how the colors can go together.

Right now, I'm exhausted.

Project Spectrum yarn

For Project Spectrum, Lolly asked us to photograph our stash of green, yellow, and pink yarns.

No problem, I thought.

I could find plenty of green yarn, and this is skipping all the teal shades, of which I have many.



(What better way to display yarn than in a huge cup and saucer? It's actually a planter, but it may never make it outside. Looks pretty good with this kind of green, right?)



Looking for yellow and pink is where I ran into problems.

Here's a partially used skein of yellow Cascade 220. No other skeins were to be found. A couple of variegated ones, but no more yellow ones.



Pink was not much better. A few variegated skeins.



And three skeins that I'm not even sure are pink--they lean quite heavily to the reds.



After stash diving I have reach this conclusion:

I need to go yarn shopping.

Catching up

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever, but I guess it's only been a couple of days.

First, my car is now fixed. It was a problem with the battery and the connections, and not the alternator. I'm grateful for the quick (and not as costly as I expected) fix to the problem.

Second, a very happy birthday to DD#2! She turned 12 on Friday. We squeezed her birthday in between my work and going to church at night. (A birthday party is planned for the end of the month, so there's more time to celebrate.)

Didn't get a picture with her cake ("Wow, mom, trick candles, I never would've expected them!").

However, here's a picture of her feet on her new DDR toy. She's already mastered a lot of dance moves. When I get a chance, I'm going to do it too. Good exercise, huh?




On Saturday morning, I woke up to this:


It's April--go figure! There a bit of snow left in the shady spots, but most of it melted by noon.

Not much knitting has been happening around here, but I did find time to start a CIC vest.


I got the brilliant idea to try adding a dishcloth pattern on the front. This is in a different color, and I already have a mistake. Hopefully I can fix it tonight and move onwards. (My ever present worry: will I run out of yarn? and then what will I do?)

Happy Easter! He is risen indeed!

Spin, mom!

The kids are on spring break. We've entertained ourselves pretty well for the week. (I include me since I took off three days this week. I'm making up for it by going in extra early tomorrow and Saturday.)

Today was supposed to be haircut day (for me) and go-out-to-lunch (for us three).

However, last night my car's battery died. Completely.

There was no sign of impending doom. One moment it started fine, the next....nothing.

I'm thankful for:
1. DH who was with me and got to be the in-charge person. (Although if he had been at home he could've rescued me. Either way was a win-win situation for me.)
2. A friend who came, bought jumper cables for us, and started our car. (Thinking the problem was solved he went on his way. I turned on the lights and the car stalled.)
3. A teenager who gave us a jump with our brand-new jumper cables. He followed us to the stop sign (where I turned on the lights and it died. Again.) and tried jumping again.
4. A man who joined in to push my car out of the way until today.
5. Our nice friend who patiently watched our kids for an extra hour until we could get them, and then drove us all the way home.
6. The thought that I could've called several other people and they would do the same thing for us.

The car has been towed, and hopefully is being fixed right now (thinking it's the alternator, but maybe just a bad battery terminal.)

I've been missing my car, and my haircut, but am glad I'm rich in friends.

Since we were stuck at home today, we decided to play Life. (I'm on strike from cleaning my house. It's been that way for months.)

I like to knit while playing games. Card games make me antsy since I haven't mastered the whole knitting-while-holding-a-hand-of-cards thing. But Life is fine.



The problem I had today, though, is that I wasn't knitting, I was tinking. The whole time. Finally, I ripped out the Horcrux part of the sock, and started again. I could've saved myself a lot of time (or paid attention to the game) if I had done that in the first place.

I think this is why I don't really knit lace. I can't back it up if I make a mistake. (I know that I do things with yo's and k2togs, but I don't really knit lace. Not a whole garment, anyway.)

The kids are used to my knitting, and will remind me occasionally to "Spin, mom!"

The police officer raked it in today. There were lots of screaming, "SPEEDING! SPEEDING! SPEEDING! SPEEDING! SPEEDING! SPEEDING! SPEEDING! SPEEDING! SPEEDING! " when we spun a 10. Which we did often.



The police officer won the game, and I frogged my sock.

Game over.

Horcrux WW

On Friday I decided to start these Worsted weight socks for myself, and by tonight I have finished!

Pattern: Horcrux socks, knitting as written with 40 sts on size 5 needles. Yarn: Paton's Classic Merino--the skein I just bought

It was a fast knit--especially since I did the foot on the first one twice. (Thinking I didn't need to follow the pattern at the heel, which I found out I did when the foot ribbing stitches weren't centered.)

They look goofy by themselves and unblocked.




But look much better when on.



If you look carefully, you can see the Horcrux(scar).



Do you recognize the green from my purple/green striped sleeves that were not to be? I love my green toes, and just in time for Project Spectrum!