white stuff

Can you believe it snowed this morning? It didn't stick around for long but still... Snow at the end of Feb? I thought I was living on the 'wet' coast.

Luckily, I finished my second neck warmer yesterday (the indigo one on the right). I made it narrower and longer than the first one. The yarn's the same too - Malabrigo. I wore it out today and I needed it. Brrrrr! And did you notice that it's one of the items on my UFO list? That's one thing I can cross off the list.

And I've turned the heel on my CDM sock. I'll have plenty of yarn to finish the foot. I don't know why I was so concerned.

I didn't get any knitting done today. I had to work (for fabric).

guilty as charged

Recently, I bought some stacking bins to help organize my yarn a little. It does not hold all my yarn but keeps it from taking over all available horizontal surfaces (i.e. the couch, ottoman, floor, etc.). While I was collecting all the bits and stuffing them into the bins, I also organized all my UFOs. I duly bagged and tagged everything and put them in the top bin where I would see them and maybe be inspired to finish them. It was a nice thought but for the most part, it hasn't really worked. In an effort to guilt myself into finishing at least one UFO in the near future, I thought full disclosure might help.

From left to right, top to bottom:
Bonita Shirt from IK Summer 2006 - stalled when the weather got too cold; also requires a lot of math because 43" is too small and 48.25" is too big; I'm making it 46"
neck warmer - stalled when the weather got too warm
Wyvern sock - dunno why it's stalled; oh yeah, I'm busy with the CDM sock
Irish Hiking Scarf - not my colour and didn't need it as a 2006 Christmas present after all
Odessa hat by Grumperina - was inspired by Caroline's and then decided it wouldn't look good on me; should be frogged
feather and fan shawl - out of some handspun that I picked up at the thrift store
spiral tube sox - discovered short row heels so never finished the second sock; should be frogged
russian booties - despite casting on way more stitches than the pattern instructions, it still ended up too small. I've only got the one skein and I've used exactly half for the first bootie. These fit my Mom so I'll eventually make the second one.
modified Birch shawl - I am really close to being done. I guess I fell out of love with it
Icarus shawl from IK Summer 2006 - love the shawl, love the yarn, dunno what happened
garter stitch scarf - again, didn't need it as a 2006 Christmas present

Not shown: afghan (too big to photograph), Arwen (too lazy to dig it out for the photograph), and Canal Du Midi sock (see picture below).

I think the project that I want to finish first is the Bonita shirt. I am up to the armholes which is about halfway mark. It would be nice to get it finished and wearable by summer. My only concern is running out of yarn. It's vintage stuff from the thrift store so I can't get anymore of it. I did all the calculations and I should have enough but one is never sure. If I don't think I'll make it, I'll skip the sleeves and convert it to a sleeveless top by working i-cord around the entire armhole.

Or maybe I should finish Arwen before it gets too warm...

Or I could ignore the guilt and work on my CDM sock. Notice how it's still twisting to the left?



PS. The sock is 12g and it's 5" long.

feelin' Irish

I'm making good progress on the Canal Du Midi sock. Doesn't the greeny goodness remind you of the Irish? I might get these done in time to wear on St. Patrick's Day.

I've caught hubby's cold so my butt was parked on the couch all day (I also plugged all 3 Matrix movies into the DVD player). This picture was taken earlier today so the sock's much longer now. Do you see anything unusual about the sock? Like how it's twisting to the left? It is much more pronounced now that the sock is longer. I don't know why it's twisting - this has never happened to me before. I just hope it all blocks out.

I had a slight panic yesterday night. I realized after starting the sock that the pattern calls for 2 - 100g balls of yarn. I only have 2 - 50g skeins. And when I weighed them, they're actually only 42g each because there's a small skein of reinforcing yarn inside. Double ack! I signed up for the KOTR KAL to see if I could find past messages regarding yardage. I found a few but I didn't find the answer I was looking for. Instead of starting the stockinette at 4.5", I started it at 3.5". The leg is 4" long now and I've used about 10g of yarn. If I make sure the leg doesn't use more than 18g of yarn, then I'll have enough for the foot. My digital scale's going to get a good workout.

And for future reference, this sock can be knit from the toe up. Just follow the chart as is, use your favourite heel, and do increases in the leg after turning the heel. It's a good way to go so that you don't have to worry about running out of yarn.

oh yeah

Mmmmm... Fibrefest! I've had the date marked on my calendar since last Fibrefest. I notice that it's a few weeks later than usual.

Yes, it's definitely worth the drive. There's lots of good stuff. Last year's haul included some Cascade 220, Iona silk & wool laceweight from the Singing Weaver, a bag of red yarn from Sun Bench Fibres, and sock yarn from Birkeland Bros. I'm sure I got other stuff, too. This year, I'm saving up to buy myself some bamboo.

I went with my Mom and we had lots of fun. We spent the whole day there - watching the fashion show (doesn't look like there's one scheduled this year), petting the alpaca and llama samples. My Mom really liked watching the alpaca shearing demonstration.

The show stays open late on Fri - could you go after work? Or maybe first thing Sat morning? Tell Tony it's only once a year and there's nothing else like it locally. One of the exhibitor's last year was selling Rogue and Eris kits. Is that tempting enough?

No knitting today. I spent the day working on my Night Weave quilt. I got lots of fabric cut and some of it sewn together. I really really really hate pressing seams open. It just sloooows me right down. But at least I'm making progress.

Fibrefest

Hey Dott, didn't you go to Fibrefest at the Tradex convention centre last year? Was it worth the long drive?

Probably yes — I seem to remember you showing me some swag that you'd bought there.

It's on Tony's birthday, so I'm not sure if I'll get out there or not, and I'm just wondering how much fun I'm missing.

Finally, a FO

I finally finished the second Tofutsies sock (my 15th pair of sox ever and my 5th pair for 2007). Yay! I really like the colours and they feel nice & cool on my feet. I can't wait to wear them.

As a reward for finishing my test knitting, I went out for a little retail therapy today. There is this store called Dressew. It's close enough to downtown that it's a pain to find parking plus it's in a very questionable neighbourhood so I don't visit that often. But they have hard to find crafty/sewing things (they have the best selection of fake fur fabrics) at very reasonable prices so it's worth the trip. I was going mostly to see if they had the magnetic clasps that I was looking for (they didn't) but I did find those snap bag closures that I wanted to try out. They're having a huge yarn sale. Lots of novelty/acrylic but all of it was only $1.99 per ball which is great if you're making hats or scarves. I didn't want any novelty stuff but I did find something that I could use. I bought 8 balls of JP Coats Speed-Cro-Sheen (for a total of 2400 yds). It's 100% mercerized cotton and reminds me of Super 10 cotton. I currently plan to use it for the Lace Nightie from IK's website. Woo woo! And if I have some leftover, I might make the thong, too.

I started the Canal Du Midi socks this afternoon. Nothing to show other than a little bit of ribbing. The cast-on instructions threw me for a loop. I was trying it out when it dawned on me that it was my usual cast-on but with 2 strands of yarn. Nancy Bush calls it a variation of the long tail cast-on but I think of it as my normal long tail cast-on. So much for learning a new cast-on. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes me to knit this sock. I bet the lace pattern will slow me down but I'm not sure how much once I've got it memorized. I don't care - I'll be glad to have a pair of lacy socks on my feet.

stick a fork in me

I'm done with my test knitting!!! It looks so pretty but I still don't have permission to blog about it so you'll just have to wait for pictures. I am pretty pleased with the whole thing. There are a few boo boos that are entirely my fault (sometimes, I just can't count to 3). I also learned a few new things. Overall, I had fun.

So back to our regularly scheduled knitting... What to work on next? Here are a few UFO's off the top of my head:
- second tofutsies sock
- second wyvern sock
- Arwen
- second Malabrigo neck thingy
- Night Weave quilt top
- mystery quilt (top is done, just needs basting, quilting & finishing)

I might do some quilting to give my hands a break from all that knitting.

And on Wed, I got my copy of the IK spring issue in the mail so I've been ooooing and ahhhhing over the things that I want to make. Luckily, the magazine didn't arrive earlier. Otherwise, it would've taken all my will power to finish the test knitting before I started anything else.

I have also been dreaming about my sock year resolution. I grabbed some post-it notes and on each post-it, I wrote down a sock yarn that's in the stash. I went through all the KOTR sock patterns that I want to knit and put a single post-it note on each pattern. I used up all the post-it notes with a few to spare. That means, I have enough sock yarn to knit the socks I want to knit without buying any more. This is kinda shocking.

And in case you're curious, here's my plan:
Canal Du Midi - vintage sock yarn that I dyed green with Kool-Aid
Conwy - Cherry Tree Hill in Moody Blues
Dalarna - SweetGeorgia in Blue Steel
Denmark - Indigo Moon in sage
Friday Harbor - Indigo Moon in purple
New England - Regia in white
Spey Valley - KPPPM in dark purple
Traveler's Stockings - SweetGeorgia in Cassis
Unst - KPPPM in dark purple
Whitby - Indigo Moon in gold

My yarn choices may change depending on whether or not I can get my hands on some more SweetGeorgia yarn. I would also like to try Lorna's Laces but I'm not going to buy any until I know for sure that there's no hope of getting any more SweetGeorgia yarn. For some of these socks, I will probably switch from the flap heel/gusset to a short row heel. It depends on the diameter of the leg. I was thinking about converting the patterns so that they're toe-up but that's just too much work.

The cats have been behaving - no more hairballs or house wrecking. They've been keeping hubby company. Hubby has the sniffoos and was home sick on Wed. When I went to check on him, he was propped up in bed watching a movie. He had a quilt tucked under his chin. Ricky was under the quilt and snoozing between hubby's knees. Phoebe was lying on a thigh. They looked so cute together. Awwwwww!