A visit to the frog pond

The Drunken Bees met with a frog along the way and took a trip to the frog pond..... Can we have a moment of silence for the Drunken Bees? Don't worry, I plan on doing this pattern with another yarn, one more solid.

The pretty yarn got turned into some Crooked Cable socks and having knit a bunch today I am now past the ripping part of the yarn. YAY progress!



However knitting the day away (ok with working at a library and a trip to a yarn store and another library in there) made me kinda silly and Izzy just happened to be sitting next to me.



Yeah, she doesn't look thrilled either. She actually sat pretty still and only tried to attack the needles, not the yarn. If Zack is left alone with yarn he will bite through it in a second.

Does the colors look different in each of the pictures. Yeah, the first one wasn't true to the yarn colors, this one is a little more accurate but now it makes my stitch markers look all washed out.



I am really happy with the yarn and this pattern. I have been doing the cables without a cable needle and even though it is a little difficult I am finally getting the hang of it. Now I no longer need to try to tie my cable needle to myself to avoid losing it. I hear the Clessidra socks calling to me to come cable on them next. They might have to fight the rest of the socks and WIP in line. Now that is a scary thought: all of my works-in-progress fighting it out.

Finally - a note for a occasional reader: The chinchillas are wandering towards you. Keep an eye out for the trouble makers, they will try to hide from you, as they hid from me for a while. Trouble makers.

Knitpicks = evil master plan?

Knitpicks always draws me in with something really exciting. Today is yummy wooden knitting needles (Blogger got rid of my handy link thing so I have to remember the html for adding a link to a word. I miss my handy link). Then they had the Vogue Knitting Sock Book there (which I have been waiting for) and finally I got the yarn for the Tilted Duster .

I got the needles in a Real size 2 (not a 2.5) so I can knit some more socks. I like the colored laminated wood. I have wonderful hairsticks in pretty colors that are so strong and wonderful. I don't like that you can't choose the needle wood very but I can't wait to try it. I think they should still be grabby and hold the yarn nicely but still very sharp.

I had a bad migraine for two days so the knitting has been really slow. The yarn for the drunken bee socks is very fun but it doesn't show the pattern very well. I can't decide if I should keep going and then redo the pattern in solid colors (make two pairs of socks) or frog this whole thing and save the yarn for something else. What do you think?

30 years and promised pictures

Happy 30th Anniversary to my parents! At my dad's request I have included two pictures:



A close up of Stella



Leo being a out doors dog. I think my dad thought this blog was not pet filled enough as it was.
And now for the knitting:



The First Birthday Coriolis Sock!



Its hard to photograph the spiral. And even harder to photograph my progress on the Drunken Bees socks.



Large unclear colored blob anyone?

Are you talking to your yarn?

Last night, later then it should have been, I was rummaging around under my bed. I was searching for yarn. As I neared the end of the first Birthday Master Coriolis sock, I felt the urge to cast on for something new. (This is also my new way to avoid the hatred of the second sock. Knit one of another sock pair and come back to the first pair later. This worked with the Sockapalooza sock since I found I liked it much better when I returned to it.) My search for the proper pattern had lead me in a hunt all day. I needed something (ok, another sock) that used US # 1/1.5 needles (my 2s and 3s are filled with something else). It couldn't be too difficult so I would fight with it, like another sock that is currently still in time out. I would prefer it not to have crazy cables like another sock in the works (Clessidra - who I love and adore but it takes forever to do a row on her) so I could finish it before I feel the call of another sock too badly. Oh, and it had to be made with yarn already wound up or in a ball since I wasn't about to be near a ball winder over the next few hours.
I finally decided on Drunken Bees Socks which I watched grow slowly and I loved the pattern then. The comment by the designer was that the pattern would look better with semi-solid or solid yarn, which explains what I was doing in my under the bed bins. New Beth, the new addition to the apartment just happened to walk by when I was talking to the yarn. She however didn't look as scared as she possibly could have been and actually stayed to help make a decision between 3 balls so she has potential.

My plan is to later today post again with pictures. My camera took a small vacation and now that we are rejoined, you can see all the knitting I have been up too. The only question is can I manage to make it home? The potential train lines I could take home all have had issues today: The B line is filled with new college students for the first day of classes (Plus I have to ride that one forever), The C line had an accident earlier and the D line is still under construction and/or potentially busing.

Photos

Here are some photos that I mentioned in the last post:



Happy Birthday to me!



Pomatomus socks and I visited Mt. Holyoke to drop off my sister.



This is my mom hugging her goodbye. Sarah doesn't look thrilled to be hugged. I think she inherited the family trait of not wanting to be hugged.



Check out the beautiful sky at the beach in Rhode Island.
This is also a perfect time to show some pictures in honor of Zack. Last year at this time he was in the hospital and just had surgery.



This is him about a month after we got him. Notice how less fuzzy he is? I always said he puffed out after we got him and when we originally saw him he didn't look like a Maine Coon cat at all.



Here he is in the hospital after the surgery. His leg is wrapped up so he doesn't take the IV out and we don't need to give him fluids every day.



We took this picture for our vet and the wonderful vet techs to show them all that he was still alive after the surgery and doing better. They still have this picture hanging in the back and when I brought him in for his yearly checkup one of the Vet Techs brought the picture out to show me. I should take them a new picture to show how fluffy he is.

Finally, I leave you all with a picture of my mom's cat Stella. Auntie Em pointed out she is the only animal not yet shown on this blog so I found this picture of her sitting on top of the trash can. She is a grumpy bundle of trouble. She doesn't like me or Zack much and hisses when we come near her. She hates to be petted by anyone by my mom or sister and complains all the time. My dad calls her the Queen of the House. She also can unzip bags and open cabinets and drawers. After we got her we had to put the childproof locks back on the cabinets. She will regularly stalk my dad's breakfast, hiding out under his newspaper and then causing it to explode upwards as she leaps out. Sarah and I wanted to call her Trouble when we first got her as a tiny kitten but my mom said that would give her a complex so we decided on a name we can yell loudly. She and the kitten (izzy) ignore each other most of the time but when Zack comes to visit Izzy and him run around the house and chase each other.

Update for those who have been complaining...

Sorry this blog has been so quiet for a while. I had a busy pre-vacation week where I prepped for being out of the office with no email contact for a week. (The folks at work were shocked by this idea. NO EMAIL. I didn't tell them that I could have sat on the floor of the front porch of the house in Rhode Island to check my email... but I didn't tell them or check it. I did look up the proper way to do Yarn Overs and found out I was doing them wrong half of the time and not realizing it.) I was away on vacation for a week. And then, it was my birthday. This year my birthday coincided with moving my sister back to college. So we spend the morning moving her in and then grabbed lunch at the campus center. After that we heading into town, and my parents dropped me off at WEBS. (They left pretty quickly. Even though I had warned them about how large WEBS is they were a little shocked and overwhelmed.)I got a bunch of yarn (mostly sock yarn) and New Pathways for Sock Knitters (Book 1) by Cat Bordhi there. (Pictures tomorrow or soon). We then drove back home (having said good bye to my sister) and had a yummy take in dinner from Vinny T's. Cake followed. I then started a sock from New Pathways at about 10 pm since I couldn't resist it any longer.

On vacation I did some knitting on my sweater and on the Mystery Stole but both of those after moving a little slowly and I worry that they won't have a lot of time over the next few months with all the rush of the patients coming in a work and me studying for the GREs and applying to grad school in the evenings.

More Pictures

I finally finished my Sockapalooza Socks for my pal. (I finished them Friday but they took all of Friday night and Saturday to dry after being washed.) They are now on their way to my pal.



Here is what I am working on now: