So many hobbies!

Gold!

 

I finished weaving in the ends at about 3:30pm Eastern time!  I have never knitting a pair of socks so fast.  Woot!  Now, if I can figure out how, I can add a gold medal to my sidebar.  (Typepad's directions on how to do so are very vague.)  Throughout the knitting, I whipped out my ruler regularly to check my gauge - Mom's already getting one pair of socks for Christmas, I want this pair!  I used 2.5mm needles to knit the toes and heels and 2.75mm needles to knit the rest of the socks.  They're not as tall as I like my socks but I ran out of yarn.  Wow!  I won gold!

 

I would have gotten the socks done sooner but I was working on these.  I love the gingko fabric.  There are two more still in progress.  I should have finished them this weekend but I was finishing up the socks. 

 

We've gotten ALOT of snow this month - all told, about 2 feet spread out in 3 or 4 snowfalls.  And hey, we got some sun this weekend.  For a little while anyway.  This picture was taken from my livingroom window. 

Progress report

 

We're about half way through the Olympics and I'm more than half way done with my socks.  I turned both heels this weekend.  I've been checking my gauge regularly this time, and trying them on, and they fit just fine.  If anything, they might be a touch big, not that I'm complaining.  I'd rather have them a bit big than way too small.

I've been despairing of the lack of sales in my Etsy store in the past six or so months.  Then this weekend, someone made a purchase that cleaned me out of spindle boxes and made a dent in my handspun and roving.  I haven't had a lot of good things going on lately so when something good happens, I want to share it.  I spent a good part of today cutting out box parts and starting to put more boxes together.  I'll be spending most of my nights this week sewing.  Yippee!

It's a common gardening illness

It's the dead of winter, you're going through your seed catalogs and in your excitement for the coming spring planting, you end up ordering far more seeds than you can possibly plant in your garden.  I'm pretty sure I've done that.  I've ordered French cornichons for pickles, the coolest round carrots, a striped Roma tomato, a mini melon and Yukon Gold seed potatoes.  ALOT of seed potatoes.  Far more seed potatoes than my little plot and planters can possibly grow.  I'll probably be giving seed potatoes to everyone I know who has a garden.  If my seeds from last year and the year before are still viable, I'll be planting a zucchini, a couple of peppers, string beans and a slicing tomato.  If I have time tonight, I'll do a germination test to see if the old seeds are still good.  I'm so excited for spring to get here I can hardly stand it.  Next month I'll start the tomato and pepper seeds indoors.  The rest of the seeds will be direct sown in the garden around the middle to end of May (the last estimated frost date).  I can hardly wait!

 

This is my progress in the Ravelympics so far.  I love this sock yarn! 

Yarn change

 

The Fiesta yarn was knitting up more like fingering weight so I switched my Ravelympics yarn to this one.  It's from Tiwsted Fiber Art, a superwash Merino sport weight yarn in the "Netherfield" colorway.  I went stash diving for this one.  It's one of the first sock yarns I bought 2 or 3 years ago.

 

Not much knitting happened.  I spent more time on the quilt squares this weekend than I did on the socks.  I got a second set finished, three more sets cut out and I screwed up another.  Bad words were spoken.  I've run out of fabric so I'm not sure how I'm going to fix them.  It'll involve a lot of ripping out.  I really dislike ripping.

I woke up early this morning with the thought that I really wanted Coco Puffs.  I get to the grocery store this afternoon and THEY WERE ON SALE!  I think my mojo is coming back!

I was deceived!

I was told you can't plant veggies in lead contaminated soil because the growing plants will then become contaminated.  Not so!  It can be a problem with leafy things, like lettuce, and root crops, but tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, apples, etc., don't generally contain lead.  Oh, man, I am growing way more veggies this summer!  Now I have to get rid of the tree the condo association planted so I'll have more sun.  Do you think they'll notice if I whack it down in the middle of the night?

Crazy Nine Patch

This post called to me and I started my own crazy nine-patch lattice quilt yesterday.  I'm between knitting projects, until tomorrow when the Ravelympics start, so it seemed like a good time for a small-ish project.  These are the first set of squares.  The next two sets will be identical.  I'm still deciding if I want to expand the quilt from a crib quilt to something I can use myself.   

I love my socks

I just wish they fit.  Here's a note of caution:  try your knitting on regularly.  I was under a fair amount of stress before I left on vacation and my knitting got ALOT tighter as a result.  They're now much too tight.  I'm more than a little disappointed that after dyeing, spinning and knitting these darn things, I can't wear them and show them off.

 

Mom's going to love them, though!

 

While I was knitting the Icy Hand of Death cowl, I got very tired of my balls of yarn bouncing all over the couch so I treated myself to a yarn bowl:

 

I've loved the pottery of Maid of Clay but this is the first time I've ordered something.   She makes beautiful pottery and has very prompt shipping.  The bowl was shipped on Thursday and arrived on Friday... from California.  Isn't he cute?  I can't wait until I use my next ball of yarn.

The knitting was the best part

We only had two good days of sun.  The rest of the time it was cloudy, rainy and chilly.  On the bright side, I got lots of knitting done.  I bound off today but the socks are still drying.  Pictures later.

 

Every year, there's a guy who visits the week before I do and he makes the most amazing sandcastles.  Each year he's learned more and that year's castle is better than the year before.  I don't know what he does, but the castle looked like this the entire week I was there.  Except for a couple of the sand balls that had already disintegrated by the taking of this picture, it looked just like this the whole time.

 

I'm partial to suns.   

 

On one of the decent mornings, I followed these guys down the beach.  They poke their beaks around in the sand looking for breakfast.  I think they're cute.

   

This guy was on the sidewalk when we came back from dinner one night.  He was about 10 inches long and really quite beautiful.  I wanted to pick him up but, unlike Michigan, Florida has poisonous snakes so I let him be.  I'm not positive but I think it's a Red Rat snake.  They're non-venemous and the small ones, like this one, eat frogs and lizards.  Darn, that means I could have picked him up.  He really was beautiful.  The evening was chilly; he probably would have liked my warm hands.