Maybe not

It seems that the yarn I ordered is the kind that comes out all nubbly looking after it's dyed. That isn't what I wanted. Of course, this is just based on some description in emails between me and Patti. I haven't actually received the yarn yet. (By the way, check out Patti's yummy handpaint yarns. SO pretty - I love Tropical Cool.) Oh well, I'll have a whole lot of snuggly cotton socks for the summertime. I'm still on the lookout for some smooth cotton/lycra fingering weight yarns.
In the meantime, I'm about to turn the heel on the sockpal sock. A few more rows of stockinette and I'll be starting the short row heel. Is it just me, or is the heel the exact same thing as the toe?

Mostly because I'm insane

I decided that it was important for me to get into the sock yarn business. I found a site that sold what seems to be sock weight cotton/lycra yarn. I say "seems to be" because the designation of the weight of the cotton is contradictory, based on what I read on the internet. If the cotton count is correct, it's 1848 ypp, which is just what I want. If the site's weight is correct, it'll be 2400ypp - a little thin, in my estimation. Anyway, I have ordered 1.5 pounds. Depending on what weight you believe, that's either 2772 yards - 1.5 miles - or 4788 yards - 2.75 miles. Of YARN. Sweet cracker sandwich, I hope this is the stuff I wanted.
Now I have to learn all there is to know about dyeing, figure out what I want, wind the gazillion feet of yarn into something other than a giant knot something a little more manageable, not destroy my kitchen or dye my baby son in the process, and then do something with the gazillion feet. Maybe I'll send some to Grumperina.

sock it to me

Let's try this whole photo uploading thing again, shall we?
On-the-foot shot:


Whole foot shot, showing how misleading the first pic is regarding progress:


Snazzy up-close shot of stitches, showing lovely definition and color:


Mebbe I should have picked another section of the photo to blow up, as I can see a few single-stitch mistakes in this picture. Oh well, I'm still a beginner sock knitter, so it's understood that these will be less than perfect. I so love this yarn.

Sockpal progress

So, I was all set to post a pic of my sockpal progress. I even titled my post that way, see? And now I am being thwarted by blogger, and can't upload any pictures. I will try again right now.
Will it come up? Your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, I had neat pictures, including a close-up of the stitches so you could see all the colors in the yarn, and now, you'll just have to go back a few days and see the progress I posted before I frogged it. It isn't quite that long, but it's a little more snug.
>sigh<

She got me.

Franklin drew this lovely. And then she got me. Last night I finished the frilly part of Frill. The unravelling stitches did so in a beautiful way, and I loved it. And then I got cocky and started on the body. I did the prep row and I think I messed up a stitch, and then started the body and messed up a few more. By the time I was half way through the third row, there was a swatch of unravelled stitches about 10 stitches wide. I had to frog the whole blasted thing. All the way back to the cast-on edge. All the way down to the beads. I could cry. It was so pretty.

Since it's for Sis's birthday, I'm going to have to redo the blasted thing. I'm so bothered by this I'm going to have to start Cooper's scarf instead. After the sockpal socks. I can't think about this anymore.

Ugh.

Is it just me, or does everyone seem to be in a crappy mood the last couple of days? There seems to be a black cloud over everyone I talk to or read about. Even The Bug has fallen victim to the melancholy, and had a shrieking fit this morning, for a reason I couldn't fathom. This is extremely out of character for him. I can remember the last time it happened. He was 26 hours old. He just Does. Not. Cry. Anyway, people are crabby and cranky and fight and piss and moan and everyone generally feels worse. I dunno what the deal is.
Maybe he will be in a better mood this afternoon - he always brightens my attitude with that huge grin when he first sees me. >sigh< Babies rock.
Especially Santa Baby:

'Cuz bubbles are clearly for eating.
Anyway, I made progress on Frill during two conference calls and a weight-watchers meeting today. I am almost ready to drop the stitches and start on the body. I think it will go right speedy once that happens, although finally, after about 34 rows, I have the dratted pattern for the frill part memorized. I think I was so bothered by knitting the lace at the onset that I developed a mental block about it.
Maybe this weekend I will attempt to photograph it. I'll definitely need a before-unravelling and after-unravelling shot. Just because, you know, I'm easily entertained by such things.
Good gravy, I hope tomorrow is a better day. If it's not, I'm cutting out of work early and hiding out in a bar somewhere.

sock pal progress

Well, you saw what it looked like a couple of days ago. This is the current progress:

Yup, frogged. It was just too big. I want it snugger, and besides, I couldn't live with the bulging toe. It will be redone with a smaller needle, and I'll take another 4 stitches out of the pattern to shrink it a tad, like 1/2 an inch. Anyway, I'll be casting on again during my 11am conference call, so all is not lost. I'd really like to have this puppy close to done by the end of this weekend, since the other deadline projects are piling up!

Cold Sunday

It was rainy and nasty here today, so I sat by the fire all day and knitted. Here is my sockpal sock:

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these colors. I have been trying it on to make sure it's looking right, and I'm so jealous of the sock pal! LOL

I am going to try some good wool sock yarn soon to see if my feetsies can tolerate wool. If not, I'm going forward with my plan to learn to dye my own cotton/lycra sock yarn.

It was a crazy cold day - it started out clear and reasonably warm, and got rainy and dark as the day progressed. At one point, we had so much hail (in about two whole minutes) that the whole back yard was covered.

I don't know if you can see that clearly, but the whole yard is covered with pea-sized hail. It almost looks snowy. :-)

And for Sandy, here's the sky before the sun set completely - you can kinda see the rain falling.

A FO for you

Well, not really for you, and not technically a FO. I still have to graft the toe and weave in one end, but for the most part, it's done, and will be an official FO about 10 minutes after I finish this post. For now, let's just pretend:

I have only shown the finished one, so you'll just have to take my word for it that there is a second sock that only needs a toe and a weave-in.

And on other news, The Bug is 6 months old. And he can sit up fairly well, as evidenced by his 6-month-photo-shoot pictures:

No matter what I do, I cannot get that child to smile for the camera.

Anyway, I am off to graft that toe and start my sockpal socks.

By the way, Knitpicks now has Shine in worsted weight. Oooooohhh yummy.

My kingdom for a title

Not much knitting knews today. Yesterday I knitted enough on the foot of the baby sock that I ran out of yarn, and have to join some on. This is 100% acrylic (the good stuff, a whole dollar a ball) so I will try something Eunny posted on her blog a while ago about joining non-wool yarns for lace. This is not lace, and for regular socks it might be too weak a join, but since these socks are for a baby who does not yet walk (or even crawl), I don't expect it to be much of a problem. I should finish it up this weekend and get crackin' on Frill. I just realized that I should have Frill and an as-yet unstarted scarf and hat done by the beginning of April if I'm going to get it to its destination in time for the birthdays. I don't think it's going to happen. Maybe by the next birthday in May, or the later one in July...
Today it's cloudy and overcast and a little cooler than it has been. I feel like a big slug. I want to nap all day and not think about anything. I don't even think I want to knit right now, although if my choice was between work and knitting, I'd definitely pick the knitting. Maybe I need a vitamin or something. (Maybe that chocolate bar in my desk drawer would pick me up.)

Getting smarter every day

So, here's me. I'm brilliant. It took me two blasted weeks to figure out how to add a bloody title to these posts. >sigh<

How weird is it that I love my SnB group after three measly weeks? I went last night and stayed out way too late. (Partying? No, knitting. I am so hip.) I knitted all night long and chatted with such neat ladies. Some have PhDs in crazy stuff like biomedical something I can't remember, some are barely into high school, some are grandmothers, some are mothers, some are happily not. I have spent, all told, maybe ten hours in the presence of most of these women, and I look forward to seeing them again all week long.

I knitted all night and finished exactly three inches of baby sock. I am one slow knitter. I turned the heel and picked up the gusset stitches last night, and frogged all that today when I realized that I was a little too tired for that. I'm not sure any of that matters, since I have actually never gotten that process right on the first try. I'm definitely getting a lot of practice. I need to finish the sock right quick, lest he outgrow them before they're complete. I only started them on Friday (has it been that long?) but those of you who've ever spent time in the presence of babies know that they grow whole inches overnight, and gain a pound while you blink.

I'd like to know if Gerber makes a Large Breed formula.

I don't have much knitting to post about. Last night instead of working on my WIPs, I started a new one. Big surprise. But this won't take long - I'm making baby socks out of the leftovers from MY socks. I would probably have finished one already, except that the baby for whom the socks are being made wanted to be snuggled all day. (I'm certainly not complaining.)
Anyway, for Sandy, some sky photos:
To the south, from my front yard.










To the west.










To the east. Think mebbe we're gonna have a storm?









And for some gratuitous cuteness, just because I can:


From the window in the conference room near my office.

Good evening!
The other day, I realized that my first-thing-at-work ritual had gotten a little out of hand. I had been coming in, reading a few comics, checking my mail, and diving into a project. Took maybe 15 minutes, tops. The other day it occurred to me that, with all the knitting blogs I've taken to reading, my morning ritual had grown into a 2-3 hour affair. Since my employer generally doesn't pay me to surf the net, I did something drastic. I deleted all the links to my favorite blogs from my computer at work. It's been two days now, and I haven't had time to read them in the evenings either, so I am having withdrawals.
However, on knitting news, not only did I finish my first socks, I wore them on Tuesday, to work and then to the knit-and-complain. (Can't even call it the SnB group anymore. Ugh.) I even managed to get it together and find the camera while still wearing the socks. They're stretchy, as I'd worn them all day, and I think they're a little big on me, but here they are in all their glory.

Well, I can't tell if that picture uploaded. Anyway, if it did, it was a picture of my cool socks being worn with cool sandals, which we all know is the ultimate expression of coolness.





Here's a picture of the picot trim at the top:











And if that one came up, here's a pic of what seems to be the standard hand-knitted sock pose:

Yes, that is a little hole on the left one. I didn't pick up an extra stitch while picking up the gusset stitches. Actually, to be more accurate, I thought I did, but apparently, um, NO.





Okay, now that those are done, or not, as the case may be, I am going to go work on my Frill. The longer it gets, the easier the knitting is. I dunno if I'll ever do another project like this with such tiny lace, but it seems like it's gonna be pretty. I hope my sis likes it.
Oh yeah, and I started to swatch my sockpal socks. I'm going to do a basic toe-up, probably a short row heel. I can't decide if I want to work some pattern in, or let the colors speak for themselves. That stuff is gorgeous. Go see twoloops to get some of your own, cuz I'm not sharing.

Hi there.
This is a new format for me. I have been using a different blog-hosting service, but I couldn't figure out some of the things I wanted to do, and was getting ZERO help from the support line. I am setting this up as a test, and I hope I'm not wasting anybody's time!
Anyway, I know I haven't run this particular blog for a whole month, as required by the netrings, but I hope that my previous blog, which I left specifically because none of the formats allowed ring code anywhere!