So many hobbies!

New Socks!

Somehow I've gotten it into my head that I always need to have a pair of socks on the needles.  My last two socks-in-progress are finally finished so it's time to cast on for another pair.  The yarn is Superwash Merino from The Sanguine Gryphon and I'm in love with the colors.  As usual, I'm knitting two socks at once from the toe up using size 1.5 needles.

My sister's house in Pennsylvania flooded a few months ago.  In the overenthusiastic effort to clean the mud out of the basement, quite a few things were inadvertently thrown out.  Several of those things were the handmade Christmas stockings my sister had made.  We have to have stockings for Christmas and my sister doesn't have the time, so I'll be heading off to Joann tomorrow or Thursday for some fabric to make four quick and dirty temporary stockings.  Nothing fancy, just stockings to tide my sister over until she can replace the ones that were lost.  I've been given instructions to make the stockings BIG so lots can be fit inside.  Gotcha!  Four big stockings coming up.

Two weeks and counting

My presents are wrapped.  With the exception of some baking next Saturday, I am done with my Christmas preparations.  I haven't been ready this early for Christmas in years.  I have to say, it feels pretty good.  I even had time to do some sewing.  I made myself another pair of pillowcases:

They have a Christmas feel to them but not so much that I can't use them the rest of the year, too.  I'm tweaking the pattern as I go.  The piping I'm reducing to an inch and a half as opposed to the 2" piping you see above.  The smaller accent looks better.  I use Kona Muslin for the body of the case but I'm having a hard time finding it.  Joann no longer carries it and it's a little too expensive to buy it online and without a coupon.  I'm thinking buying a single flat sheet and then cutting it into the right size for the pillowcases would work better.   Now I just have to find a good source for flat sheets.

I also finally finished my house socks.  Cormo/silk handspun knitted on size 3 needles.  These will be nice and warm for the winter and my cold floors.  (Crap!  I just realized I didn't cast on for a new pair of socks.  I take the socks to work with me and knit during breaks and lunch.  The sock doesn't grow very quickly but it does grow.)

Does anyone know where I can find yellow Miso paste?  I don't know if Whole Foods was out or they just don't carry it but I'm craving Miso soup and I need yellow Miso for that.  Kroger doesn't carry it nor does Trader Joe's, as far as I can tell.  Mmm, Miso soup!  Oh, geez,I almost forgot, there's an Asian market just down the road.  They should carry it.  I hope.

Finally, some knitting

Finally, the socks of many colors are finished!

It's been so long since I started these, I can't remember exactly when that was.  I'm pretty sure the yarn is Merino/silk.  Or was it Merino/bamboo?  Can't remember that, either.  Anyway, I took two colorways, spun them up and then plied them together.  The pattern is my generic sock pattern with a short-row heel.  I used Judy's Magic Cast-on for the toes and both were knitted at the same time.

I just love the colors. 

On another note, apparently, fingerling potatoes make great cat toys.  That's the only conclusion I can come to when Tyr steals them off the kitchen counter and then bats them around the floor.  I think there's two of them under the bookcase.  She is the funniest cat.

Now that the socks are finished, I can start on Andrea's Shawl.  Woot!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US.  Have a great holiday and good luck shopping on Black Friday.

Nibbled by a goat

 

The Handmaiden Casbah socks are done.  Finally.  I started them October 2nd and finally finished them this past Saturday.  Well, I wove in the ends Saturday.  The fabric is tight and thick and will be very cozy on my feet.

 

I cast on for these in the airport on my way down to Florida.  I've made pretty good headway.  The kittens, on occasion, give me a bit of knitting peace so between the week in Florida and the past week, I'm about an inch and a half from starting the heels.  They're going much faster than I expected them to.

 

A little more shell art.  This is a Sunray Venus my parents found on the beach.  I pretty good find.  I'm partial to anything sun-like so once I find a place, this guy will hang on the wall.

 

My spinning guild meeting was this past Saturday.  One of my fellow guild members often brings in orphaned baby goats or sheep.  This little girl is a three day old angora goat.  For some reason, she nibbled everyone's chins and necks (she wasn't hungry, we tried that).  Little, tiny nips with her teeth, but not enough to hurt.  It tickled instead.  (The picture was taken by my friend Amy with her iPhone and a special photo app.)

Good thing I brought extra projects

Because all I worked on last week were these:

 

Knitted from this yarn:

 

which looks much better in person.  Anyway, I think they're beautiful.  It's a pity they're just going to get shoved into a pair of shoes.

Now that I think about it, I did work on this:

 

When we're on Sanibel Island, the third best shelling in the world, we inevitably turn to shell art.  The local shell stores have different sized mirrors and wooden boxes to cover with shells and my mom always brings her HOT glue gun down with her.   You should see the mirror my sister was working on.  It's not finished so I don't have any pictures.

It was great to get away but by the end of the week, I was ready to go home and eager to get back to my kittens, although not ready to go back to work.  I'm now eagerly awaiting my sister's help clean sweeping my condo.  I have WAY too much stuff and not enough room to put anything.  After the end of March, though, I'll have much less stuff and much more storage thanks to IKEA.  Until then, I just have to wait.  Bummer.

I still knit

 

It's just a lot harder than is used to be.  You see, I have these two "helpers" who make a night of nice, calm knitting virtually impossible.  I've taken to knitting at work, waiting at the doctor's office and car repair shops, etc.  I'll be on vacation the first week of February so I anticipate lots of peaceful knitting and spinning (I'm bringing a drop spindle).  Drop spindling at home has the same problems knitting does.

A whole lotta yardage!

 

590 yards!  Out of 8 ounces of fiber.  That's the best I've ever done.  And it took flippin' forever to ply it all.  I had to do it in 5 or 6 sittings.  Forget socks, I could make a shawl out of this!

Following the Yarn Harlot's lead, I've created my own Sock of the Every-Other-Month Club.  My club doesn't have quite as catchy a name as some of the other clubs but since I'll be following a pattern that requires concentration, it's going to take me at least two months to complete each one.  So far, the patterns are the Socks of Kindness, the Eyelet & Flame Socks, Diamante, the Spring Forward socks, cabled socks from Sensational Socks (the 3x3 cable w/ moss stitch pg. 68).   My sock club is going to interfere with Only Handspun in 2011; I haven't decided how to deal with that one.

I wish I had tomorrow off.  I didn't get nearly enough done this weekend.  Sadly, I ran out of weekend before I ran out of jobs.  I didn't manage to put my garden to bed for the winter.  This is probably the last decent weekend of the year.  At least, the last one where I'll want to be outside not bundled up like an Eskimo.  Next year, I'll be planting only tomatoes and fingerling potatoes.  I enjoyed those two the most of everything I've planted so far.  Is it weird that I'm already psyched about next year's garden?

Hand knit socks

 

I took a peek in my sock drawer today and was amazed to see I've knitted 8 pairs of socks.  That may not seem like a lot to some of my more prolific knitting friends, but I'm thoroughly impressed.  I also noticed that I really need to get more yarn that doesn't have pink in it.  Every pair, except one, has pink in it.  Going to have to work on that.  Fortunately, my current project qualifies:

 

Love!  I'm very fond of blue and green together.  And I love how it's knitting up, although I find it curious how the right side is lighter than the left side.

I think I can do them in my sleep

 

Yup, another pair of socks.  This time using Handmaiden's Casbah in the "Nova Scotia" colorway.  This yarn has cashmere...  <pause to think lustful thoughts about cashmere>  ...it is so very soft and I can't wait to slide my feet into these.  I finished the purple socks on Saturday and cast on for these the same day.  I don't know why it never occurred to me before but, if you knit your socks toe up, you don't need to do a gauge swatch.  By the time you've increased to the point you need to start on the foot, you can measure to get your gauge and you'll know how many stitches you'll need.  I'm still increasing on these but I already know I'm getting 9 stitches to the inch which means I'll need to increase to 72 stitches.  This is a very good thing because I hate doing gauge swatches.  Knit your socks toe up and you won't have to.

I treated myself to a fun Halloween mug today:

 

And the front:

 

I'm not that into Halloween anymore since I don't have kids but sometimes I just can't resist the fun Halloween stuff.  This definitely qualifies.  What are your Halloween plans?

Warm and purple

 

I chugged along on the feet and stalled on the legs.  I guess the 2x2 rib was more boring than I was expecting, although I don't know why.  I'll have to mix it up on the next one. 

I can't tell you how much I love these socks.  The yarn is so very yummy. 

The quilt I dropped off in July to be quilted is done.  Yaaayy!  Now I have to sew on the binding and frankly, hand sewing a binding on a quilt is really boring.  I'll have to rent a lot of movies to get me through it.  The deadline for finishing is the beginning of November.  On November 5th, I'm flying to Houston to spend time with my cousins and to visit the Houston International Quilt Show.  I love hanging out with family so I'm pretty excited about this trip.  The cousins I'll be visiting are three generations:  1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins.  We haven't spent much time together since I live in Michigan and they live in Texas but the first time we met, we clicked.  It was pretty cool.