Gifties, socks, and a public service announcement

First, the public service announcement:

"To whom it may concern: If you cannot pick up your feet when you walk, you MAY NOT wear mules, slides, or clogs of any kind. If I can hear each step as you walk across the floor two hundred feet and several walls away, this applies to you. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter."

I think my dad gave me that particular pet peeve. As a kid I must have scuffed an awful lot, because I remember being told on more than one occasion to PICK UP YOUR FEET. I have taken this to heart, and do on occasion scold my youngest stepdaughter (goodnaturedly). She has taken it to heart as well, and before I can say anything, she looks at me, grins, and scuffs harder. Aaaah, teenagers. (Incidentally, the person who inspired the PSA is an adult woman who works in my building as a temp, and I truly can hear her from across a floor that holds two hundred cubicles. I can only guess what it sounds like from the floor below.)

Here are my sockpal socks.



Do you love them? Because I'm not sure I do. I think the yarn is neat, and I think the pattern is neat, but I don't know if I feel the love for the two together. However, my pal asked me to surprise her, and I think these do the trick. I also admit to a clear prejudice for solid or semisolid yarns on patterned socks, but since many many knitters enjoy patterns with variegated yarns, I shall persevere and hope she enjoys them.

And finally, gifts for me! First, the haul. Jen clearly spent many hours thoughtfully wrapping up this package. Check out the little book she made with snippets from the first book! Check out the little treasure chest with socks, needles and stitch markers! Check out the coordinated Ravenclaw wrapping! I am not worthy (but I'm keeping it all anyway!)



Here are the goodies. YAY FOR ME!



Socks, stitch markers, Lantern Moon Sox Stix, a vanilla scented candle, chocolate, Persuasion by Jane Austen (YAY), a handmade Hogwarts book, Ravenclaw colors of Peruvian Highland Wool, a pretty little chest, and a Fairy Catching kit.

Here are the socks. YAY FOR SOCKS!



They are so soft and snuggly, I love them! Now I REALLY need to get some clogs or birks to show off my socks. Jen, what's the pattern? It looks familiar but it's not coming to mind right now.

I actually received this package on Saturday, but kept it for today because I knew I wouldn't have time to savor the experience. THANKS LOADS, Jen! I love it all.

The Bug thinks he's going to sneak in and get some chocolate...

I know, right?

The above phrase is said often by my oldest stepdaughter. It drives me absolutely batshit. She has achieved the ultimate in domination over the stepmother* though: she got me saying it.
And that has nothing to do with anything.
I have a FO, yo.
Hogwarts socks, to be specific, to be express-mailed to my pal since I wasted every freakin' available minute to work on these socks. I hope she likes the package, and I hope she gets the durn thing before Saturday. (C'mon, post office people!)



Do please ignore the jogged jogless stripes and the laddering. I 'spect that both will even up after a good machine washing, but as I am a giant chicken and do not have the time to knit my pal another pair of socks, she'll have to be the guinea pig.

Annoying thing #17: my office is so quiet and the cubes so small I can hear my three nearest neighbors chewing. One likes espresso beans, one eats popcorn frequently, and MDC (most despised coworker) eats carrot sticks ALL AFTERNOON. I think she knows it's loud or something, because she'll [crunch], wait a minute, [crunch] again, another minute, more [crunch], and finally she reaches the tolerance level for crunch noise, and chews regularly. I swear I was not kidding when I said I could hear them eating. (I myself must sound like a doritos commercial or something...)

Happy thing #59: I got my package from MY Hogwarts swap pal! I haven't opened it yet - I am saving it until I know my pal's package is on the way. I will report back on that, but given the work she put into the BOX, I think I'm in for a treat!



I opened it this morning and found a whole box of presents wrapped in Ravenclaw-blue tissue paper. Hee! Today looks to be a crazy day too, so I might have to wait until tomorrow to give this package the time it deserves...

Mature thing #1 (those don't happen as often): I immediately cast on for my sockapalooza socks. Knit! Knit like the wind!

Adorable thing # 947892109.3
Daddy made mud this weekend, and the Bug took full advantage. It took two hosings and a shower to get the leaves and mud out of all the crevices.


Mid-air.


Having a drink. I've tried to stop him. It doesn't work.


Mud rules.

*I went to California Adventures and took a quiz, and I am most like Cinderella's evil stepmother. Heh. I put it in quotes, though, because I'm closer in age to oldest SD than to her dad, so I'm more just the annoying younger chick he married...

The heat is on

Geh.
The weekend was not as it was intended to be - we missed a dinner and the cleaning lady we hired for my dad's house had vehicle problems, so Dad's place is still The Place Where Dust Goes To Retire. I believe that house hasn't had a complete and thorough cleaning since my mom died in 1995. It will be cleaned someday, but we will have to deal with the filth for a while longer.
That being said, I have FOs. These are the only pictures I have, and they were taken quickly whilst The Bug slept in the car (with the AC on, I'm not nuts, but still) so I make no guarantees about their quality.
As always, click to embiggen.

Swallowtail:


Apparently I suck at the Harlot's Knitwear In Foliage photography.


The funky dark blob is the comforter underneath. I think it's a lion.

One Hogwarts sock. If this picture sucks, we can blame my photography skills, because I had plenty of time with this one.



The second sock has been cast on, and I hope to churn this puppy out THIS WEEK. I am running out of time since they should be in the mail this weekend, and I have to knit the Sockapalooza socks to be sent shortly thereafter. I do believe I will opt out of future knitting swaps. I should have had plenty of time with the Hogwarts socks (and by extension, the palooza socks) but I stressed out so deeply about the perfect pattern and yarn that I piddled all my time away, and now I'm feeling the pressure. Sigh. Spinning and all projects for me are on hold until these lovelies are finished and mailed. Alas, because here is some temptation.


Luxury Sock Batts from Franquemont Fibers. I call this colorway Intimidation. (She calls it Heartbreaker.)

This weekend, after his bath, the Bug found a way to keep cool.


The coating of soap and the last bit of water soaked into the diaper necessitated another showering off, which I think was his plan all along.

Tuesday is the cruelest day.

On Monday, you're still a little fresh from the weekend (or at least, your exhaustion is countered by all the fun you had). Wednesday is the tipping point of the week, heading into the weekend. Tuesday just sucks.

However! Mondays are for spinning, and spin I did. Do I have pictures? Why, yes I do! Did I upload them this morning before leaving for work? Why, no I didn't!
The spinning isn't terribly great anyway. It's been (yikes, really?) almost a month since I had a chance to spin on the wheel, and it shows. I got out the greens I dyed to ply with the easter egg stuff and spun away. Somewhere I got it into my head that I would finish the whole bobbin last night and still have time to ply. Uh huh, yeah. Not so much. I tried to rush it, and broke the singles a zillion times, and made a mess. I know I can do better if I just slow down. Maybe when I do the second half of the bobbin I will remember that.

I did knit yesterday, too - it was a fibery kind of day. Over the weekend I knit the new possible Hogwarts colorway and decided I wasn't happy with it. The colors of Judy's Ball and Skein (maple leaf colorway) are so vibrant and rich, and have such depth, that it made the Lorna's look positively dull. So, I went back to the cursed yarn. I decided that a week in a ziploc baggie was enough to drive out the demons, or at least shame the yarn into submission. I cajoled it with the promise of a newly-learned jogless join courtesy of TechKnitter (who is that woman? She's brilliant!) I promised that they'd be the first to try out the little sockie stitch markers from Blogless Lynn. I promised they'd be first on the blog today. The Lorna's and the Addis were placated and decided they would work with me.


Hogwarts Mad Cows.

Do please compliment them, so their good behavior will be rewarded. (Not for me, no no no - it's all for the yarn and the needles. It's all about them.)

I got a little more work done on my Swallowtail. I probably could have finished two repeats yesterday, except I took up the time needed to knit one repeat trying to figure out what drugs I'd been on when I knit the last row yesterday morning. Whatever they were, they musta been powerful. Anyway, fixes are fixed and all is well again.


Sweet little baby shawl.

Over the weekend, DH finished the drywall on the ceiling of my dad's patio. Bug wants you to know how much he helped Daddy.


Mixing the mud.


Daddy says, if you're working, you're gonna get dirty.

Back in the saddle

Ahhhh, nothing like a new project to help you recover from the Curse of the Unknittable Socks.
My sea silk decided it did not want to be a design I came up with - it wanted to be a Swallowtail Shawl.

Smooth and crunchy. All good things.

I love it even though I am apparently honor-bound to forget one YO per row.

More lovelies to assuage my pain.


Mmmmm, soft and lacey.

Elann Peruvian Baby Lace Merino in Irish Moss for the Mystery Stole 3. Now I just need to find the beads.

Sadly, I believe my Gryffindor socks are still cursed. I decided to switch to the Ball and Skein maple leaves, with toes and heels in Lorna's cranberry, but I just don't think the dratted yarns work together. (I am not so secretly okay with this because I covet the Ball and Skein socks for myself.)


Close enough? You tell me.

I will probably knit the toe and part of a foot with the two yarns to see if they work better knitted up. I'm kinda running out of options AND time, and y'all, it's pissing me off.


Standing on the corner, watching all the Disney go by.

I. GIVE. UP.

My Hogwarts sock is cursed. CURSED, I TELL YOU!
Some proof: I started argyles. Fancy schmancy, I was smug, I thought my socks would be the best ever and my pal would want to be my lackey forever, because I was that good. (Humble? Yes thanks.)
I found mistakes. And more, and more and more and more. I ripped. I tinked. I cursed.
I finally gave up:

Big ridiculous mess.

I thought I'd do a cute little checkerboard pattern at the cuff. I knitted a turned-hem cuff. Hated it. Ripped. No picture.
I knitted ribbing, added a cute little checkerboard pattern. Loved it. Wouldn't fit over my foot. Hated that. Ripped. No picture.

I decided to knit some Gryffindor Mad Cows. Yeah, it's stripes, so what. I was giving up on the stranding and the intarsia because it's getting close to the deadline and I didn't want to let my pal down. Stripes is better than late socks.

I went to SnB. I knitted one row of gold before it occurred to me that I didn't look up the instructions for jogless-stripes-in-the-round. I sighed. I unknotted someone else's yarn for her (that should have given me good knitting karma, but NO.)
I picked up my sock to try to figure it out.

I discovered:


Bad, dark cell phone picture.

The effing Velcro on my effing Teva ate my effing yarn.

I hereby give up on that yarn. It is clearly cursed. It hates me. I have another skein of cranberry Lorna's (though it's suspect - it's from the same lot number) and some Ball and Skein in maple leaves, and by FSM, I will not touch that cursed yarn again. I'm considering burning it all, Addi included.

(I wonder if I would be permitted by whoever cursed that yarn to knit socks for my dad - it's in ASU colors [shudder] and maybe it just wants to be ASU socks. For the record, ASU sucks rocks, but I would knit socks for my dad to wear to their baseball games, because I am a good daughter and don't wanna waste my yarn, either, curse or no.)

Hogwarts update

Gimme some house points for Ravenclaw!
Sadly, my pal's socks still look like this:


Socks don't grow in timeout.

I will be travelling this weekend - I hope they will grow some while I'm out and about, but I have to redraw my chart.

ETA: Yarns are Lorna's Laces in Cranberry and Sunshine, pattern is my own argyle, using Julia's instructions from Moth Heaven.

Public Service Announcement

If you're knitting happily along on your argyles and you notice, say, that there is a misalignment a few rows back and your points aren't lining up, you might be tempted to frog back a few rows. Don't do it. Just. Don't. Tink, baby. I don't care if you have to tink ten rows - you will never get all the strands back on the needles at the same row, and you'll end up having to tink anyway.
Not that I would know first-hand, or anything. No. Not me.
Oh yeah, and if you're interested in Frank's Buns, he posted a link to the recipe in the comments.

Unholy messier

Here it is again, only bigger.


Unholy crap


Mebbe not so bad from the front?

Yes, it's an argyle sock. For the preppy Gryffindor in your life.


A chip off the ol' block.

Unofficial eye candy

Look what I got.


O. M. G.

3 hanks of Great Big Sea Silk in Periwinkle, from here, for this.

All the colors I'd hoped for, the shimmery depth, the softness... Scuse me while I roll around in it nekkid.

And now, a shot of my latest project unholy mess.


Again, I say: O. M. G.

My husband is the awesomest of all, and other things

See what he built me?


Favorite coffee and knitting spot

See what I get to put on it, when we find some planter boxes to hang from that new happy railing?


Random assortment of purdy flowas.

See the gate that latches (with a lock) so the Bug can't get to the pool?


Foiled again!

It's okay to be jealous.

Kristen asked how the tie-dye roving is spinning up. Well, besides slowly and unevenly, this is how it looks.


Suddenly I crave chocolate bunnies.

I LURVE it. I think I want to ply it with navy blue. Anyone know how to make navy with koolaid?

Here is my mad weave sock, in Jessie's brilliant hand-dyed yarn. Go there. Buy some. Ask her to dye some in your favorite colors. Tell her you covet her yarns. (And her farm, and dye studio, and talent, too.)


Yarn + Pattern = True love

Last but not least, I have cast on for my Hogwarts sock swap pal. I can't tell you how entertained I am by the fact that this ribbing is knitting up at 11 stitches to the inch. I feel like I'm making doll clothes. I'm easy sometimes, I guess.


Tiny ribbings, oh how we miss you Don Ho.

And now, for the requisite Bug photo:


Oh how I love my green blankie.

Short and pathetic

That's how this post will be. I am feeling MUCH better - I could probably use another adjustment from the chiropractor, but I'll wait for my bone bruises to go away first! As for the rest of it, I've slipped into that spring ennui, that feeling that everything is so beautiful, all I want to do is lay around and look at it. So, my startitis was short lived and now I have a ton of WIPs that have no P.
I got my Hogwarts yarn in the mail though. Gryffindor yarn (actually Lorna's in cranberry and sunshine, from emtnestr), atop the unfinished deck railing.


MMmmmm, cakes.

I can't wait to start these. I've picked a pattern that's a little ambitious for me, but I think I can do it. Fingers crossed it won't take too much time, because Sockapalooza 4 is gearing up to start! YAY!

Hogwarts Sock Swap

I am a socking fiend. Ever since the first round of Sock Madness, when I discovered that I can indeed knit socks very quickly, I want socks socks all the time. I saw this new sock swap at Sandy's and decided to play. Cuz I am mostly a geek, and that is how I roll.

If you are not interested in the answers to my questionnaire (and really, why would you be?) feel free to stop reading at this time.

Hogwarts Sock Swap Questionnaire

1. What Hogwarts house have you been sorted into? Ravenclaw

2. Shoe size? US10

3. Foot Length? ~9.5 inches

4. Foot Circumference? ~9.25 inches (but I usually knit my socks to be about 8 inches around, I like 'em snug)

5. List your three favorite double-point needle brands, including size and length.
a. Susan Bates? I almost never use double points. (Magic loop, baby! Addi Turbos, size 1, 40")
b.
c.
6. Would you like to try a new brand needle? If so, which brand? Size? Length?
I would like to try a nice wood, maybe something short for glove fingers or something, but I live for my circs most of the time.
7. If you are a RAVENCLAW, do you prefer the colors in the film or the book? Do you have a strong preference? Either. I would pick book colors for more "authenticity", but I like silver better than brown, so I'm good either way.

8. Are you willing to have an international Hogwarts Sock Pal? Yes, that would be excellent.