Here Comes October...

...and that means SOCKTOBERFEST! Who doesn't want to knit a nice cozy pair of socks as we head into autumn? To join, just start knittin'. There is a Flickr group here. for anyone who wants to post pictures of their socks, discuss others' projects, etc. "We're Not Wooorthy" bows must go to Lolly of LollyKnitting Around; she started this shindig up and this will be year 3!

For anyone who doesn't know her blog, you MUST check out her posting on photography, especially useful if you want to make beautiful pictures of projects or yarn stash. It's a seminar-in-a-blog and I will be reading, and re-reading, in an attempt to get some better pictures than I have in the past.

That's all. Off to steam my stuffy head and possibly even clean a room or two. Or something.

For My Darling Husband....

A bouquet (image available here):













and an apology performed in interpretive dance (use your imaginations here):


I was wrong. I was soo wroooong. I'm beginning to think I may not have been entirely correct, even.

You were not completely crazy to sign up for Facebook. In fact, you were quite clever. Perhaps even brilliant. Or am I getting carried away?

I got invited in this morning, and have spent much of the day off and on sending invites to friends and locating other friends on Facebook. If you know me, and would like to be my Facebook buddy, shoot me a line!

I'm also loading more patterns into Ravelry, as well as reading some of the group forums, although that REALLY can take up a whole day in itself.

Feeling low and lonely, and it's nice to reach out and contact friends, even when they're pretty darn far away.

It's a good thing I can act in puppet shows, make out-of-season Easter crowns, and supervise glitterglue painting while on the laptop, though, or Lily would be mighty bored today.

Saturday Slow; Whiny Bloggin'

Shaping up to be a very quiet weekend here. We had planned to have a family weekend in London, but Wednesday evening when Lily's sniffles translated into a rotten head cold for me, that plan shifted a bit.

So, early this morning, the boys took their overnight backpack and headed to the City to see Madame Tussaud's and who knows what all... Lily and I are staying home to be sickly in comfort, instead of suffering loudly in London.

Right now I am drinking delicious hot beverages and contemplating my first sinus/headache meds of the day. Lily is painting masterpieces with glue and glitter across from me. My idea of sleeping until 10:00 was soundly rejected at 7:00. Oh, well.

My head is a ball of stuffedness, and now it's traveling down to my chest for a cough. Doped up, I feel OK and function quite well, but without meds I'm a misery. And I don't want to be doped up all day and all night because I believe a cough needs to come out. Lily, on the other hand, got nothing more than a teeny sniffle, a teeny cough for a few hours, and seems to be perfectly healthy now. Good for her :)

On the bright side, David has offered me the chance to go to London next weekend, solo! After the Tae Kwon Do grading, I can go down on the train while he and the kiddies hang out at home. Yarn shops in the great metropolis, time to actually LOOK in the shops in Covent Garden, and maybe a show? Bliss if I feel better by then.

Today's plan for me? A quick library trip to return some (overdue) videos and (not yet overdue) books, and maybe some knitting. Laundry. Whoo hoo. A nap? A girl can dream...

Clapotis

Here it is - the quickest knit I've done in a loooong time. Apologies for the zombie-like coloring but it's a night-time, flash picture of a tired lady...what can I say? In reality, both I and the yarn have a warmer tone.

Details: one skein of sportweight microfiber from Germany, size 5 US needles. Finished dimensions - approximately 12 by 80 inches. I used all but 15 grams of a 180-gram skein. The stitches seemed to fly off my needles, because the pattern is so easy to memorize. Three evenings of mindless TV and some knitting this morning was all it took. I think I'll be making this again, in the wider version. You can see the sheen of the yarn in the close-up shot.

Prize Day

So, a couple of weeks ago, I participated in a little blog contest over at Knitting in a Happy Camper - guess Vyvyan's middle name and win some fun swag. (Her swag picture there is better than mine, so check it out!) I fixated on the cute cute cute devil duckie point protectors, guessed Lorraine, and went along about my business. Lo and behold, I was the winner.

This whole "I often think I'm losing my mind because my memory is so bad" business has its good points - expecting the cute duckies, I was shocked to the socks to see all this:

Aren't I lucky? Yes, I am! The kids have laid dibs on the candy, and report that the fizzy ones are excellent. I'm tickled to death at all the fun stuff. That yarn cutting pendant at bottom right is an awesome teal on the back, by the way. I shall be wearing it as jewelry as soon as I put a cord on. Thanks, Vyvyan - you made my day so much brighter!

Updatey Goodness

Things have been sort of quiet here. Thursday was a wash - I woke up and threw my back out. Reaching for the toothpaste or something arduous like that. It took several Aleve to make it through the day. Friday morning I woke up, and the Magic Chiropractic Fairy must have visited because everything was once more in alignment. Thank you, Magic Chiropractic Fairy.

I took advantage of the lack of pain to take a nice hike through the woods at Sandringham Park, heading off the big paths for some small, hillier ones. Beautiful pines and chestnut, ferns everywhere, and lovely, lovely blackberry brambles. Nothing is better than a blackberry plucked from the brambles, if you ask me.

Had a nice coffee afterward at the cafe, and then headed home where I worked on my Lemming Scarf new Clapotis. I am using some German microfiber sportweight in a natural variegated tone, making it about 2/3 size and probably a bit shorter, depending on when the yarn runs out...

Nice feel to the yarn, two knots so far (grrrrr), and not suited to socks as I had originally planned. Lost the ball band somewhere or I would add it in my Ravelry stash. This is a VERY quick knit. I used the Raveler-suggested modification of making the "k" between the "kbl" stitches into a purl. Doing this allows you to leave off the stitch markers.


Did I mention how much I am enchanted by the Ravelry revelry? It's ever so much fun adding in stash and WIPs, etc. Let's not even mention how groovy the groups are and how much time can be wasted reading the message traffic in one's groups. Not that I would know...

I didn't mention the ultrafabulous knitting bag I bought myself last week - the fabric is so pretty! It's actually a travel toiletry bag/set, with vinyl-covered fabric, but it is just right for a small project or two. The big bag unzips to reveal two huge zippable side pockets, and all those cute little baglets for various and sundry bits. It's extremely fetching. Too bad it doesn't match any of my jackets...

How gorgeous is THIS?

I bought the wool for this pattern (Sirdar pattern 8955) today at my local-ish yarn shop, Laina Crafts. Mine is a cranberry shade. The model sweater hanging in the window had me from hello. I just hope the massive collar will work for me and my rawther massive front. The model looks like Billie Piper from Doctor Who, dontcha think?

I also got some AWESOME purple Inca Cloud alpaca on clearance. She had some other shades, naturals and a chestnut, that I managed to resist, I know not how. Beautiful wool, perfect for lacy scarves.

Remember NaBloPoMo?

You may recall last November, when I posted every day (well....technically not every day...) because of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I don't know if this event is happening again for 2007 but I plan to do it myself either way. It was a great way to get psyched up for posting each day.



To go along with NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), here's NaKniSweMo (National Knit a Sweater in a Month). How groovy is that? The new Knitty is out and there are a caboodle of good sweater patterns in there, not to mention the fab socks, and the to-die-for lace stole on the cover.

Aaaanyway, lots of sweaters to be made out there in the big wide world, and perhaps one of them will be mine.

In a completely different vein, this post about "back to school" by Fussy made me snort out loud with laughter. She is SO on.

I'm feeling OK - no knitting today yet, but I am about to sit down with it now...and that's a Good Thing.

Monday, Monday

A new day, a new week. A little bit of knitting for your viewing pleasure...

[OK, looks like Blogger is having a photo issue, so I will link to the pictures in my Flickr queue instead. The first is 2.5 repeats of the basketweave part of the Hanami stole. For Hanami Progress, click here. The second is my driving/waiting for school pick-up/TV project, the Syrian lace shawl from Victorian Lace Today. This pattern is oh-so-simple so far, and shows off the kid mohair colors really well. For Syrian Lace, click here. ]

No walking today, but I did do some laundry and I spent a hour in the knitting house. And the house is clean. Except for the guest room, aka The Dumping Grounds. I really need to go in there and dedicate myself to putting things away. Not today, I think...

Instead, I am off to the grocery store in a minute to shop for this week's dinners. I'm using my Saving Dinner menus all week, and I hope they'll be a relative success with the kids (as in no tears). We're prepared to listen to/ignore the "this looks yucky" drama if necessary, however.

It was a good weekend around here - we wandered the High Street in Lynn on Saturday, had Pizza Express for dinner (I still love me some Pizza Express!), saw a shooting star in the evening. All good stuff. I had Knitting Time yesterday, and Ravelry Exploration Time here and there all weekend. I like the groups feature, and have had some good fun entering projects and books from my library. Haven't seen anyone I know on the site, but I don't know how I would "see" them anyway. There is so much to explore, you could stay busy for months. I look forward to entering stash and needles information. That alone will keep me busy for months :)

Updating Here and There...

Sooo....the kids are back at school. See here for a cute picture and my rant about the cost of wide footwear.

I've cast on the Hanami stole (gorgeous pattern available here). Check out this post at the Hanami KAL blog for my progress pictures. It's looking very nice, I think.

I got my Ravelry invitation. SWEEET! Didn't the kids used-to say that? Heh. I'm Susieknits over there, but have only set up a profile. Will explore the site in greater detail next week, when the kids are in school.

My MS3 stole, the pattern of which has been revealed now, is still holding at Clue 4. I thought I'd dive in to finish when the kids headed to school, but I was distracted by my Hanami start-up. I may alternate days working on them, or I may finish it up after Hanami. I love the MS3 stole so far, had a bit of angst about the big change in style it takes midway through the pattern, and have decided (based on looking at others' blogs) that I will knit it as written. However, I'm feeling the Hanami love right now, so that's what I want to knit.

This seems to be the Year of Lace for me - Snowdrop, Falling Leaves, Argosy, MS3, Hanami... Remember my Argosy scarf? Argosy is sort of geometric lace. I bought some amazing hand-dyed, handspun Blue-faced Leicester wool at the Sandringham Craft Show in May, and it was telling me it wanted to be an Argosy. I cast on last month, I think, and it is knitting up beautifully. So beautifully, in fact, that I am going to rip the first version, and use it for something else. Check out the contrast between versions. The handspun is wider and a bit more vivid. I like it a lot. I also figured out that my decreases had been slanting incorrectly (I am a sort of backwards knitter), so I've corrected that in Version 2.

On the Sock-knitting Front, when last we posted, I had finished the stripey socks and the blue Horcrux socks. I had cast on another Horcrux for small D, but realized I would run short of the yarn I was using, so that's getting ripped out. Love that pattern, though. So quick and so fun!

I also cast on a basic sock in a tan variegated microfiber I got in Germany this spring, but I'm not loving it, and there's enough yarn there to do a small scarf/shawlette, so goodbye to that sock as well.

On the Non-knit Front, I'm doing better every day. I'm sad, but there are good times each day. David and the kids make me happy, a lot. I fell off the Eating-Sensibly wagon, to the tune of 10 pounds, and have pretty much climbed back on. I found a crafting group that meets Tuesdays on the base, and am hoping to make some like-minded friends there. I'll be walking for exercise, which should help my state of mind, too. Knitting is therapeutic as well, as it always is.

A Wonderful Thing...

This week, I found out how you send hugs by mail several thousand miles. Take one amazing, loving friend. Add hours upon hours of painstaking hard work and creativity. Personalize to make this just exactly right. Assemble into the softest blanket ever - add notes and encouragement. Mail box from Nebraska all the way to England, and sit back and wait for the recipient to open package and be bowled over with love and comfort. Here are SusieJ's hugs, sitting on a bench in the garden my mom loved so well.





Y'all, I cannot express how wonderful SusieJ is - we've been friends for over 5 years now and it feels like I have known her so much longer. I'm lucky to know her in the best of times, and even more so now. She knew exactly how to touch my heart, and how to make me feel better in a dark, dark time.






This blanket is the opposite of darkness - beautiful soft yarn in colors of lilacs and lavender and all my favorite flowers. The embroidered squares are the best part - one is my mom's name and the dates she lived, and the other is this verse. Just perfect...

I love this picture of the crocheted squares in detail. Can you feel how soft it is? I've wrapped this blanket around me every evening since it came, and I feel better every time I do. Thank you, Susie. Thanks for being my friend.

Answer to a Great Question

Everwhelming Liz left such an intriguing question in the comments that I must answer it in a post!

Q: Nice socks. I have a little question for ya. If you were actually going to make a pair of socks into a horcrux, which pair would you choose? Ignoring for a moment the really evil nature of horcruxes, of course.

A: Of the socks I've already made? The Vanilla Blue socks were my first "wing-it without an exact pattern" pair, so those might be a good choice. Otherwise, maybe something really tough and lacey, or perhaps a sock-within-a-sock project. Did one of those aeons ago when the KnitList was young, in the early 1990s, but my gauge was so off I ended up with two Christmas stockings, pretty much...


(Complete aside - you must go see Liz's veil right now. There's going to be a spectacularly beautiful wedding with such amazing handiwork gracing the bride...)

Socks and Updates

So....here's how the socks came out. Not bad, and the Horcrux socks (blue pair) are adorning my feet as I type this. As always, the hardest part of making socks is the grafting at the toe., but even that went well enough.

In other news, MS3 theme has been revealed, and it's a nifty one. I won't say here, in case a few of the MS3 knitter/readers are trying to wait until they reach Clue 5. I have put aside my charcoal grey stole for the nonce - it really is almost impossible to see the yarn to knit for me right now. I am working my way into Clue 4 of the natural wool one, and have decided to do the shortening option as my knitting's always bigger and the haphazardly stretched stole through Clue 3 seems really large.

I spent a couple of quality hours in the knitting house with it yesterday - I had been knitting on it in the house, with people around, but my concentration just wasn't there. Being all by my lonesome with some mellow jazz on the radio is a much better system. I decided my house-knitting had best be socks. Cast on another sock in a German microfiber yarn in variegated neutrals. My own recipe, all ribbing ankle-length, which I am writing down as I go, the better to replicate. I'm not thrilled with the heel, but the rest looks pretty good. Picture will follow when they're done.

Check out the Family blog (link at left) for a couple of cute summer kiddo pics, as well.

Mood Art

Yep, that actually reflects today's mood pretty accurately. Thanks to Wannietta's blog for that link - I just found her site through the MS3 board, and she's really interesting. Lots of yummy yarn pictures lately.
Click here to create your own painting.

Project monogamy is a difficult thing...

I want to be knitting on the MS3. Honestly, I do. It's just that the dark version isn't quite through Clue 2, and it's murder on my eyes. The sensible thing would be to drop it for a while, and go back to work on Clue 4 of the natural wool version. Do I do the sensible thing? Noooooo. I start a pair of socks instead.

I must be crazy. They're awfully nice socks, though. I am using the Broadripple socks pattern from Knitty, because I love the garter ripple tops. However, I am not using the the ripple lace throughout, just regular stockinette. Made these last summer and they were lovely; I gave them to mom, and I have them in my drawer now.

I'm using Hot Socks German sock yarn for this pair, and size 1 US needles. Here's what I did today. I'll keep working on them tonight, since DH has Blazing Saddles on and I don't think that's conducive to complex knitting. Tomorrow, I rededicate to MS3, although I think it'll have to be the lighter-colored one.

Since I have no knitting to show off...

Check out David's post here for some really keen knit-creativity.

I did finish the Horcruxes and could not stop myself from casting on another one in sport weight for small D. Faced withe a shortage of that yarn, however, I found another complementary ball to use for the feet.

But I think I'm putting that pair on hold to get back to the MS3 knitting. David brought down the tilting laptop desk, so I can display the pattern better. Looking forward to knitting on it, and snuggling up with my sweetie, in a very few minutes once the kids are off to bed.

Harry Potter - party, knitting, book, film, and no spoilers

Hello, everybodeee! We've had a total Harry weekend here.


Friday evening we went down to the base for the big ole party at the bookstore. Lily's "His-mione" costume was first place for her age group, and David's Stan Shunpike won him first place for his as well! Lily had an advantage as she was the ONLY 0-6 year-old in costume. As you can see from the pictures, late night parties aren't really her thing, although she did appreciate the highly frosted cupcakes.













David enjoyed everything from the cupcakes to butterbeer punch to wandmaking, rune reading, crystal ball fortunes, and tarot card readers. He was quite the showman, wandering around saying "Tickets, please" and showing off his moakskin farebox (moakskin contracts and only the owner can open a bag made from it, for all you Muggles out there...). The bookstore went all out, and they did a super job putting together a fun event.




The kids' prizes were free copies of the book. As we didn't need two copies, we decided to give one away to a deserving person. The girl who was wandering around playing Harry's theme on her recorder was our choice - I had a nice chat with her mom, who had been planning to buy three copies of the book to accommodate all the HP fans in their house. So, our extra free copy went to a good home. Besides, Lily thought her little bag of sweets WAS her prize. No harm, no foul...



Friday afternoon I started the Horcrux socks to keep me busy while DH got first dibs on the book. Finished sock number 1 before the party even started. Started sock 2 after we picked up the book, knit on during the waiting/previews at the movie next day, and I finished sock 2 as DH finished the book - perfect timing! Loved, loved this pattern.. Easy, interesting, and fast. Thank you to Susan Pierce Lawrence, who wrote it up. Here's my sweetie with the book, and sock, in hand at 12:30 that night.


Saturday, while he was reading away, I took David to see Order of the Phoenix. We both enjoyed it very much; as the movies go, it's right up there with the best. However, we hope that nothing they left out for time constraints will be too difficult to explain away in the last two movies. I'm just saying...

Am I the only one wondering whether the movie actors have all grabbed a copy of the Deathly Hallows to read, to find out their characters' fates?

David, David and I have now finished the book; small D. wrote a fan letter to Ms. Rowling already. Now, it's back to normal life, including all the laundry I ignored, a little vacuuming, a little grocery shopping...and the MS3 of course!!

Whooo. Barely made it.

Wow. Just in time for the release of Clue 4, I've finished Clue 3 on the first MS3. I decided to finish Clue 1 on my "can't stand the waiting" second MS3 before starting Clue 3 on the first one, so that took a little time. Actually, I must admit that I took more time to re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

So. Here we have Stole 1 through Clue 3. Not stretched out at all, and very ramen-esque. I'm still loving it, despite its untidy look right now.















And here's a shot of Stole 2 through Clue 1. If you click on this one, the sparkle of the yarn shows quite a bit better than it did the other day.














Now, to get in the mood for the book release party tomorrow evening. There seem to be no in-store parties where we are in the UK, just queue parties where you are entertained in the street waiting for a midnight opening. Therefore, we are going to the in-store party down at the base where David works. Small David decided last week that he wanted to dress as Stan Shunpike (the Knight Bus conductor). I rounded up some various items, and his costume is going to knock 'em dead! My mom would be proud. Lily wants to be "His-mione" as she calls Hermione, so we've got school skirt, her Gryffindor sweater, and the black velvet cloak Mom made for David when he was 4. He won a costume contest as young one in that one.

Stay tuned for pictures of the costumed ones after tomorrow's festivities.

In honor of Mr. Potter and the final chapter in the tale, I plan to work on some Horcrux socks. I fell in love with these when I saw a striped version on
Tabitha Knits' blog. She can knit an awesome sock, that lady!

Crazy-tastic Waiting Fun

Waiting for MS3 clue number 3. Still waiting.....Must. Keep. Knitting. MS3.

I know - so many people seem to be making two stoles...why not cast on a darker version? Call me crazy but I'm flowing with it. Stash-diving produced a charcoal grey fingering weight yarn in the right amounts. This is a Mystery Yarn itself, from a charity shop. All acrylic, charcoal grey with silvery flash in it that the camera does not capture. The actual color is somewhere between the two shots below, and the shimmer is very groovy. Needles - US size 4 (3.5 mm). I'm knitting this one with no beads because they'd be lost in the shine of the yarn, unless I used fluorescent yellow or something. I think not.

I think I am becoming Lace Literate because Chart A (first 50 rows of the stole) took me only 1.5 hours. I am using several of the tricks I have seen on the message boards, including covering the rows above where I am in the chart and "reading" the knitting. With the bigger 2-part charts, I have found that it goes faster if I look at each chart alone, without taping them together. In other words, I knit the right half chart, then pick up the left chart and do that. My eyes don't boggle quite as much this way.

Noodles, Anyone?

Someone on the MS3 message board on Yahoo referred to unblocked lace as looking like ramen noodles. Sure does look like ramen to me. Fuzzy, beaded ramen, but ramen no less for all that.

Pleased to have finished Clue 2 before the release of Clue 3 tomorrow. It's keeping my brain occupied, which is always a good thing.