While I haven't been posting, I have been knitting...

My migraines and work have kept me away from taking pictures of all of the knitting I have been doing and but I hope to remedy that soon. I just felt so guilty posting without beautiful pictures to enhance my post. Oh well, this post will have to be boring.

On Sunday I finished the first Sockapaloza sock and I am glad to take a brief break from it. I really was starting to hate the chart of that pattern.

Sunday I also started socks for my coworker who is moving back to Italy in three weeks. I decided to do basic stockinette socks, 2 at the same time on 2 circulars. They are going a little slower then I expected but not too terrible. Using my official office measuring tape, they are 2 and 3/4 inches long. I have been doing them mostly on the train or when ever I get a free moment. I hope to do a bit of knitting on them tonight.

I also have been working on the gauge swatch for Mystery Stole 3. My first attempt on size 5 needles didn't look right, my second attempt on size 4s ended up with a mistake and a knot and got thrown across the room. Last night I thought light and airy thoughts and ended up with a completed swatch which is blocking at home now. I feel moderately ready for the first clue to come out tomorrow.

Other then all of that, there hasn't been a lot of knitting time. I have had one migraine this week and a lot of smaller headaches. Add to that fact that it is 90 + degrees here and thus I am showering before bed to rinse the sweat off of me and it really cuts into my knitting time.

Sorry for the Silence....

DSCN2709
Originally uploaded by idealthursday

I have been having a ton of migraines lately. Not a lot of knitting or much of anything at all. This morning the sock and I sat down for some tea and to gather our spirits for the day. I think today we will make a lot of progress of that I can start Giulia's socks soon.

Yarn Pron and hiding places

This is my lovely Lorna's Laces that I just got yesterday. My first Lorna's Laces purchase and I simply adore it. I can't wait to work with it!



This is River.


This is Lakeview.

Sorry about the pictures being so big. I am switching over to flickr from Photobucket and I still don't understand on how it all works. You can however click on the pictures to see a larger version. Pretty cool.

Knitting is still slow. I knit a few rows on the heel of my pal's sock this morning on the T and then rewarded myself with a row on the Clessidra sock. I really need to finish one of my pal's sock's this weekend so that I can work really fast on socks for a coworker who is going back to Italy in less then a month.

I thought I would also continue with my theme of showing off Zacky's hiding places. He likes to sit on the window sill next to the stove and look out onto the fire escape. Sometimes a squirrel comes up to the window to tease him.



I think he knew I was taking pictures. His ears don't look thrilled at all.


Sometimes however he gets on the stove. This is not encouraged and then he finds himself on the ground. He still tries however.

Second attempt at a heel

So my goal last weekend was to finish the first sock for my pal. Saturday night I began the heel as written in the pattern and finished it. Sunday I spend most of my knitting time ripping it out.

First, the pattern is for a basic short-row heel that involves a lot of yarn overs and knitting three together. It was more then a little confusing and came out funny and very hard to follow. Also I tried the sock on, having feet of a similar size to my pal's and found that it was very short and that the heel was no where near where it should be. I started reknitting the heel on Sunday night and I am still at that point today. The pattern on the top came out much nicer then I expected.

This is the total length of the sock right now, before I finish the modified short-row heel.

And this is Zack watching me taking the pictures from his new hiding spot under the tv . He curls up around the DVDs and will sit there happily all day, only preferring a brown paper bag to this spot. He loves lying on his brown paper bags.

Uber Picture Post

So as promised here are the tons of pictures I promised. (With captions underneath)

Zack annoyed at how long I waited to post these pictures.

The finished baby blanket. Finished... umm a long time ago. Baby is now loving it and mother is happy since it is the only blue thing she owns for her baby boy (who has an older sister).

Yes, that is my Serta Sheep guarding the finished blanket.

I really like the holes the crocheting left of the corners. I think it makes it look fancy.

One finished Jaywalker. Will I finish the other one? One day.

The side of the Jaywalker. I am so proud of the heel. I was so sure it was going to come out huge but then like magic it fit.

Harlot Day: I am holding her sock and she is holding mine. If I wasn't so whited out, you could see that I am wearing the white tank top I knitted.

Auntie Em holding the Harlot sock.

Sock pal's sock. As of today, if I were to put it on my hand it covers all the way to my thumb.

Clessidra sock. It has moved along significantly since this point. Plus this sock has been to a Wedding and to meet the Yarn Harlot. This sock really gets around.

My hoard from WEBS. Mostly sock yarn. Why?

This is the socks I am currently wearing. I need more socks, STAT!

Who is this? She is currently the nameless kitten my sister just got. Anyone think of a name for her?

Zack is not thrilled with the idea of a kitten. Oh well, he only has to visit her.

throughly chastised

I was, in fact, chastised by more then one person about how I haven't been writing very much in my blog. I have a number of excuses. The first one, which most of you may accept is:

1. I have been busy. That leads into 2. i took pictures but haven't had time to take them off the camera and it felt silly to post another blog entry mentioned that at a later date there will be pictures but not right now so I just didn't post. 3. I wasn't home the last few weekend to even think about uploading pictures.

So I have decided that today's post will be picture free unless you can show up at my office with a cord for my camera which happens to be in my bag. (I also had a hard time finding the spare battery for it which was also in my bag making it that not too many pictures were taken last night)
Tomorrow's post, or this evening's post will contain pictures and hopefully I will get into a better rhythm of taking and posting pictures. (We can always hope)

Knitting was slow for the last week. Last weekend I went to visit a friend at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center and didn't even think of knitting for a minute. I did however dance and sing under the stars, hike, move a bunch of chairs, read, sleep a lot, attend a very spiritual wedding in which I knew no one, and meet a lot of wonderful people. It was truly a wonderful and relaxing weekend. I spent Memorial Day recovering.

Tuesday evening Auntie Em met up to draft an attack plan for Wednesday (aka Harlot Day). We plotted out food, necessary items, delivered my clothes for Thursday and my sleeping bag to her house and figured out exact times for everything including when we needed to leave the house by and when we needed to be on the train by. We thought we were ready *dramatic music*

Wednesday we were out of the building 2 minutes early, on the T 5 minutes early and at Riverside 30 minutes early. So we did what any normal person would do, sat down and knit. Next thing we know a 15 person van with Yarn Safari on the windows pulls up, a man wearing a suit gets out and opens the door for our wonderful guide for the evening, Peta. We met up with everyone else, and we were on our way. Peta handed out water and these wonderful tote bags perfect for carrying tons of yarn in. In mine was a gift certificate for $25 off another Yarn Safari trip. I am so excited to look forward to using it.

We pull up at the Calvin theatre right before 6 and are escorted in. The WEBS staff knew we were from Yarn Safari and we got handed a signing time of 7:45 so we would have enough time before we had to leave. We found seats at the back of the theater and then our guest of the evening showed up. WOW. If you haven't heard her talk, I would recommend it.

Afterwards, we walked right out of the theater and into the van where we were whisked to WEBS before we knew it. We got into line before the line even went into the warehouse and met local celebs like Melissa from www.getstitchy.com and Amy of the Giant Glove. Auntie Em told Stephanie about her pattern and how she figured it out finally with the help of some friendly translators from the knitty boards. I showed her my sock and got a sock picture with hers. YAY! Then I went for my first shopping trip in WEBS.

I can't say I remember much of it. I remember finding a box of sale sock yarn, and wandering aimlessly in the back room yelling "100% Merino DK weight, anyone found some?" Next thing I knew I was staring at $46 a hank sock yarn and remembering I should check out before I lose it entirely. Um, I still have no idea about how so much sock yarn decided to come home with me but it was very welcome.

MMMM very welcome.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon...

when I sat down at the computer to type this blog entry. In fact, the sky over the Navy Yard is as dark as if it were late at night. Now, a pop quiz question: which book begins with the now-infamous line "It was a dark and stormy night." Bonus points if you can name BOTH books, the one that started the contest and the one that I reminded my dad about when we had this argument back in November. Dad, any memory there?

In fact, this morning I received an email from my father requesting that this be posted on the blog. Umm I don't know how I feel about that except that it is a lot of knitting.

The sock is about 5 and a half inches long, with me adding a half an inch this morning on the T and while waiting for the shuttle. I hope to add about that much on my ride home and maybe more once I am home. I am starting to wonder if I have enough yarn for the sister sock since now that it is all wound up it looks like a lot less yarn. If I had a scale I could know for sure, but a scale I don't yet have and its not yet on the "Need to buy it list" like my dream ice cream scoop. (I am refusing to buy any scoop that isn't my dream one making it that we have been without a scoop for almost a year. Beth, my roomy, chooses to say nothing when the topic comes up which is wise of her. We do, however, have a large number of casserole dishes in various sizes and we were happy last weekend to discover and use our muffin tins.)

No package has arrived at my door yet, so poor Auntie Em will have to wait another day for her new needle sizer. My poor mother, however, has to deal with us calling every day to ask if it has arrived. (Packages sent to my apartment can sometimes be claimed by the Post Office and take a day or more to then receive once they notify you. Or they can be left randomly. Hard to tell which will happen when, so now anything important goes to bother my mother first. I think she secretly likes to see us all rush home to get the package.)

Has anyone heard the weather report for Saturday? Showers with a high of 60 degrees. Cold for a wedding to which I will be wearing a sleeveless dress (thankfully or not so thankfully depending on my mood not a bridesmaid dress. Here's hoping that they are truly ugly. I am imagining orange poof or pink poof or something truly poofy and that they would never ever wear again. ) My mother asked me not to knit at the ceremony, which lead to a discussion about how one day in the future I hope to make my wedding knit welcome. Yarn Harlot did with hers....

The Harlot of Yarn is used as a measurement around here between me and Auntie Em. When I read this blog entry, I knew I was in trouble. There, knit up on one of the most popular knitting blogs around is the scarf that I hate and Auntie Em adores. In fact Auntie Em had bought the pattern and the ribbon to do it a month or so before and just had to do it now that Yarn Harlot had. Well, in my mind, it is still as hideous as the day I first saw it. But I am happy that Auntie Em did it. And I accept that every I hate she loves. Makes her real easy to shop for.