Swap Socks Done!!

The napping gods have smiled upon me today, and while PumpkinBoy slumbers, I was able to complete these:


silly feet

Project Specs:
Pattern: Fluted Bannister by Laura Gallagher for the Six Sock Knitalong
Yarn: Lornas Laces Shepherd Sock, color Purple Iris
Needles: #1 dpns
Notes: buy more Lorna's Laces for stash, tubular cast on is a wonder.

These are the socks for my lovely Townsend-Sock-Knitalong sock swap partner, Diane. I am modeling them on impeccably clean feet, and they need to be washed and blocked still, so I hope you don't mind too much my dear partner.

These were a dream to knit - my first time with Lorna's Laces and most definitely not my last - yummy. Also my first time with the tubular cast on - I tried to take a good photo of it, but I can't quite get one that does justice to this amazing technique. I used this page some page I can't find a link to right now as my guide, and although at first read it sounds daunting, its not so bad, and man does it give a perfectly finished edge.

Well, I'm off to finish laundry, house tidying and packing while I have some time to myself. I wish you all a good week ahead, and I'll be back with some (hopefully) good vacation knitting photos.

We Have a Winner

A hale and hearty congrats to Denise who was randomly selected (can't get much more random than giving a handful of little folded slips of paper to a 2 year old and asking him to pick one - no, just one, honey, wait, no! Don't put those in your mouth!) as the "Show me your T" winner. See her 4 favorite shirts in this entry (they are good ones!)

Here are links to all the awesome entries - thanks for playing everyone, I wish I could give everybody prizes! Everyone else, go check out the cools shirts:

Lolly
Laura
Isela
Miftik
Helen

I still hope to have one more post today - my Townsend-Socks-Swap-Socks, (I have only a dozen+ toe decrease rows to go, and grafting) but I am crazy-woman preparing for vacation today, so who knows. If not, I'll be back to posting on or around 10/10. Take care everyone.

Contest Extended through tonight

I know there are a couple of outstanding entires in the T Shirt contest, so I'm extending the deadline to midnight tonight. So, snap your favrorite T, post about it and let me know about it and I'll draw a random winner tomorrow morning. As a reminder, winner gets to pick one of these:




I also hope to have a sock FO post tomorrow, and then like a little bird, I'm flitting away for a week, sans blog access, for a family fall vacation and a wedding. See you tomorrow.

I just bought 8oz of this from Copper Moose. Must....wait....for....wheel.... 

Come on now, kids

So, none of you want to play my game, I guess. I was hoping to see some fun shirts, but so far, Helen is the only one who's humored me. Do go check out her shirt - its a good one, and knitting related too! At this rate, you've got a 50-50 shot at winning some yarn if you post your shirt. If you missed the details, scroll down to the Sept. 23rd entry.

Spinning Plans are Afoot: I've been in touch with Adrian over at helloyarn and a spinning lesson and wheel rental are in the works. We're both busy over the next several weekends, so it'll be towards the end of October, but I am very excited. If any of you readers are spinners as well, I am looking for advice on good first-fibers, and advice in general.

Knitting is still happening: Sock-swap socks are so close to being done, I hope to have an FO report on them by the end of the week, and the FBS is into repeat #9, I've got enough yarn to go to at least 14 repeats, and I am really really liking this knit, so I think I'll just keep going until I run out of yarn or make a bedspread. Butterfly is being ignored, but I'm away on vacation all next week, and it will be brought with me.

No knitting photos for you, as I'm being naughty and posting from work, but here's a black-eyed susan photo I took last fall and found on my hard drive here at work to share with you (I hate photo-less posts)


fall flower

Surprise knitting-related weekend

So Husband, PumpkinBoy and I were scheduled for a quick visit to Maine this weekend to see my father in law. When we arrived Sat. late morning, he said, how about we go to the Common Ground Fair? I was thinking we'd see some yarn-y type things and I was not disappointed:


wheels

That was a group called the Wednesday Spinners. (For a much better report on other fibery things at Common Ground, see this entry over at the "A Sheep in Wools Clothing" blog) PumpkinBoy was fascinated (like his mama was) and kept asking "I do it? I do it?" - to which one kindly spinner replied, "There is a demo wheel at the end of the line if you'd like to try". I made it back to the tent later without the PumpkinBoy and got to spin for the first time ever. As you gaze upon my first "yarn" below, please keep in mind that I am not known for my hand-eye coordination.

sad little blob

However - despite what you see above, I was just barely beginning to get the hang of it as my little demo wad of roving was running out. More importantly, I LOVED DOING THIS, which really really surprised me. As I suck at the hand-eye thing, I tend to get easily frustrated at things that require it, and kind of get too grumpy to perservere. I am itching to have a chance to try again, and just need to figure out the best way to accomplish that. I'm thinking of making a call over here, and renting her wheel and taking a quick lesson.

Contest: Show me your Ts!

I don't have much interesting knitting commentary today, so I was going to show you my favorite T-shirt. I picked this baby up at a craft fair a few weeks ago, and I just adore it. It is supposed to stand for "Protest Outrageous Oil Prices", but I really just got it because it says Poop. How can you not giggle when you see a shirt that says Poop. I come from a long line of people genetically programmed to enjoy potty humor, what can I say?



Then I though it would be fun to see what other people's favorite T-shirts are. So, here's the guidelines for the contest:
-take a photo of you in your favorite T
-post it on your blog and share with us why its your favorite (if you're blogless, email me a photo and I'll post it here on your behalf)
-leave a comment here, or email me (see sidebar) and point me to your entry.
-everyone who posts will be entered into a drawing, I will randomly pick one winner from all entries, that winner can choose one of the below and knit her(or him) self a nice pair `o sockies.
-Deadline for submissions is Wed. 9/28 11:59pm
-I'll post the winner either Thurs. or Fri. next week.


Winner chooses one

Back in the Groove

After banishing the stress from my knitting life, I was able to have quite a wonderful weekend of knitting. I managed to make progress on each of my three major projects.

Butterfly is complete through the 1st repeat of the body chart (4 total til armhole steeks begin). And yes, that is a bottle of tequila to the left being used as an anchor, thank you. I think this photo is a bit flashed out, but you get the idea.

so purty

I also am 4 repeats into the FBS with the handspun silk, and almost to the heel on my 2nd swap sock. I am using Lorna's Laces for that (my first time) and it is just such a pleasure to knit with. Cheers to a stress-free knitting weekend.

Shawly

I've been stressing this week - it was a bad week personally, and I have a tendancy when under stress to let that leak into the parts of my life that aren't stressful, so I was even stressing about my knitting. Until, just in the nick of time, Stephanie reminded me: "Knitting isn't supposed to be stressful, ya know." THANK YOU. I did need to hear that, badly. Knitting is my "me" time, my time to unwind (good name for a blog, no?) and here I was freaking about deadlines and getting something knit for a wedding, and blah, blah, blah. This is supposed to be fun, so lets let it be fun again shall we?

FBS begun

I've begun the Flower Basket Shawl as of today, because I want to. I'm using the lovely hand spun silk from Claudia that I won back in July. I don't care if I have it done in time for a wedding, and I already have my 2nd sock-swap sock on the needles, and I am comfortable with sharing my knitting time between these and still not leaving Diane waiting for her socks.

So, you'll pardon me for a moment, while I say "fuck-off stress, get away from my knitting". Thanks Stephanie.

Move along now.....

Sorry guys and gals, I've got no knitting content today. Very busy weekend traveling to my cousin's wedding. Were this a different blog, that weekend could have merited a bajillion stories in and of itself. All I can say is, that this particular wing of my extended family has some issues, and we were all wondering if they would surface and cause some interesting events. No need to worry at all, as the bride's family managed to make our family's issues look completly benign and took center stage in a rather jaw-dropping manner on more than one occasion. Good times, good times..... We've got another one next month(the newly married cousin's sister this time) , which I'm guessing will be quite placid.

I leave you with a shot of my PumpkinBoy and two of his cousins, at the lovely on-the-beach wedding ceremony, all three of them too young to have "issues" yet.


No knitting here....

The First Step....

..is admitting you have a problem. My current problem is that I cannot expand time. 2 out of 3 of my WIPs have "deadlines". I have a pair of socks "due" at the end of the month for a sock-swap running on the Townsend Socks Knitalong group. I don't want to post about them, as the swap identities are not secret, and my partner is a reader (Hi Diane!) and I want them to be a surprise. I also have on the needles a Fiery Bolero from the summer IK (my mystery WIP from last post). I had hoped to crank this out in time for the wedding we are attending next weekend. I suppose I still could, had I not taken off my rose-colored glasses last night, and realized that this thing is just not going to fit the way I had hoped. A combo of slightly-off row gauge and picking the wrong size in the first place (both of which had been tiny nagging voices in the back of my head) have conspired to finally shout in my face "this will not work!" so its off to the frog-pond. I still have fantasies about getting a shawl done by the October wedding, but seeing as I have yet to cast on, I'm dubious.

Butterfly continues making incremental progress - it is a slow knit, and I have no pressing "due date" so I am happy to make 1 or 2 rows of head way every couple days. This is a fun enough knit for me that I am happy to know I will have its company for some time to come. I'll post a photo when it looks even remotely different from my 1.5 inches of stitches posted last time.