A New Week!

The kids are out the door to school, even DD, who is really enjoying making DS carry her backpack. She's feeling pretty good and is off all pain meds, so it's back to the grind. It will be quiet around here, for sure.

This weekend was the yarn shop hop, and I headed up the road to Newton to The Beadery. DD went with me since she is the bead queen of the family. We were both happy with the treasures we found. I picked up some of this,

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Socks in Mixed Berry

and some of this

Tweedy Cascade 220 for a felting project

I should have snapped a picture of DD's beads, too. : )

Downtown Newton provides a fun place to shop. I wasn't planning on it, but I did a little Christmas shopping while there. We enjoyed wandering in and out of several shops. We'll have to go back. There was a wonderful, fun kitchen store, Ten Thousand Villages, fudge sampling,a book store, and of course the yarn and beads, and we didn't even cross the street to check out the other side. ::sigh:: yep, next time! 

On the needles: I have started the 2nd sock of the JaWoll Silk. I modified a pattern for this and DH really likes this. Pictures will follow as soon as I can get the other sock made.

I have got to slow down my stash enhancements! However, I am thinking in terms of gift knitting and have been asking sneaky questions of the recipients or their children to get the details I need. We all do this, don't we?

As Winnie the Pooh would say, it's a blustery day here, and quite cold. I'm really enjoying my coffee!  Time to go make my to-do list for the day, definitely to include knitting time!

Can somebody tell me why the pictures are running off the side of the page? I don't think I am doing anything different????

Soap Opera

When I was in college, I faithfully watched All My Children. Back in those days, there were no VCRs or DVRs or TIVOs, so you had to be faithful or you could miss something! Little did I know that fast forwarding 20+ years would bring me into my own soap opera of All My Children. (When they killed off Jenny, I quit watching the show.)

We took off Saturday for AR to close the deal on the sale of our old house. We enjoyed 3 lovely Indian Summer days down there. I took this shot outside Argenta Beads - the last gasp of summer. It always amazes me that the summer flowers look so great in the fall, and then the first frost comes and, well, they get sad in a hurry!

The 2 youngest kids went with me and they had a grand time visiting old friends and their old school. I took care of the business end, did a little shopping (more on that another day, see hint above), visited with my old friends, finished the socks that made me grumpy, and started a new project. These are the "Grumpy Socks", all done and being modeled by my ever patient DH. : )

When we were only 1.5 hrs from home, DD got sick, really sick. She went from being perfectly fine to agony in an instant. So 24 hours later I was one totally sleep deprived Momma and she is appendix-free. I was even too tired to knit (or post to this blog, obviously!). Today's a new day, third day post-op, and hopefully this will be the day the soreness noticeably subsides. The laundry is caught up (finally), and I am hoping to fall back into a normal routine. I worked a little on the JaWoll socks, finished reading a pattern, and I have another pattern that I am working on. I even escaped to Twist last night for some knitting visiting. Thursday nights at Twist are more about the visiting and stash enhancement than actually getting any knitting done. 

So, it's been a topsy-turvy week, to say the least. I guess it could also be called an As the World Turns week. 

This weekend is the Central Kansas Yarn Shop Hop, and I am hoping to get my "passport" and wander off to find a couple shops that aren't too far away. I hope you all enjoy a wonderful fall weekend with no unplanned chaos and plenty of time for knitting!

Catching Up

Happy Friday! I am a little frustrated with my knitting projects lately. I am stuck on the socks I was working on for DH. I broke down and ordered more yarn to complete the toes. And then I wrote a nice note to the book publisher and let them know that the yarn amounts were not accurate, nor were the listed measurements for the Heel Flap. Really, I was following the pattern, not tech editing!

 

I have a sweater pattern in mind that I can't wait to start. I have been playing around with swatches and graph paper, and I bought the yarn for it last night at SnB. I had been saving my Twist 1st anniversary 20% off coupon, and I finally used it for this! I need more beads for what I want to do, so I am holding off starting this until I get to Argenta Beads when I am there this weekend. The yarn is Mirasol Miski in colorway 104. It's 100% baby llama and so-o-o-o soft. Twist got this in after I bought the baby llama by Elsebeth Lavold in MO for DD's cardigan. I am now a sucker for baby llama, I guess.

I also bought some sock yarn for another pair of socks for DH, or maybe my Dad.... I did a little bit of ribbing last night. This yarn is Lang Ja Woll Silk in colorway 0098, totally MAN colors. It works up at 7.5 sts/in, so it will be a quicker pair than the UFOs (they're 9.5 sts/in). 

So, yes, I indulged with the yarn purchases last night. This ought to keep me busy for a while. Perhaps it's so I feel more in solidarity with the lucky folks who are attending Rhinebeck in NY this weekend. I would love to be there both for the yarn and to see the fall colors. Maybe next year (or the year after....)

DS just called via the internet from Qatar... he made it there, but his luggage didn't... yet. He's exhausted, but very cheerful and upbeat, and I'm relieved to have heard from him. : )

Happy fall knitting to all, and I'll check back in Tues or Weds next week.

What's On the Needles?

Here we are, some of the Saturday morning KIP knitters making sure that Panera stays in business! 

The WIPs include socks (mine), mittens, a Clapotis scarf, an Irish walking scarf, a Harry Potter scarf that is destined to become part of a Halloween costume, moebius', and an adorable clown fish for a nephew turning 2 (that's Nemo in the middle of the table). 

I think maybe one knitter was working on a garment. I am working on a garment in my head, if that counts.

This will be a busy week for me. DS#1 is heading to Qatar on Weds for at least a year as a government contractor. There have been lots of details to deal with at this end to make sure the transition goes smoothly. He's been visiting for a couple of weeks and has been such fun to have around. We are all going to miss him. Then, at the end of the week, I will be heading south to close the deal on the sale of our old house (holding my breath, but wanting to let out 3 cheers).

Happy knitting!

Like an Old Friend

I don't know why I needed comfort food this week, but I have been thinking about making Lemon Bars for several weeks, and I finally made them yesterday. Looking at them made me think of my Grandmother, yet I don't recall her ever making these for us. I guess in my mind, these seem like a cookie she would really like. I always associate roast beef and yorkshire pudding with her, and ice cream for dessert. I shared some of the lemon bars with our neighbor's mother who lives with them. She's 95 and l-o-v-e-s her sweets, and of course she doesn't need to worry about calories! I'm jealous!

My offspring prefer chocolate anything to lemon bars... maybe I will oblige them over the weekend. I did make "taco chips" for them to snack on. It's one of those slow bake recipes with lots of butter and taco seasoning poured over cheese crackers. The disappear in no time at all!

I haven't spent all my time in the kitchen. I am plugging away on the socks, but it's been slow going. I am almost to the end of the first sock and I am afraid that I will not have enough yarn. Do I order another skein of the yarn (I know it won't be the same dye lot), or do I make the toe a different color? I'll probably opt for the latter.

Maybe by Monday I will have one sock done! I hope you all have a wonderful fall weekend. The pictures of the leaves changing in New England make me want to take a quick vacation.

Finishing Off and Starting New

Yea!! An FO to report! I finished up this while waiting for DS' soccer game to start Saturday morning. It still needs a blast from the steamer, then I can wrap it up for my friend.

I needed to start a new, not-too-intense project to occupy me while a group of HS kids played a very competitive game of Rock Band in our basement Saturday night. (I knew it would be noisy, but it's happy, safe noise. Plus they all have to abide by the midnight city curfew for minors. I like that curfew - a rule imposed by people with more power than parents!!) So, I settled on a pair of socks for DH. 

This is my first time to do the magic loop method and it's working really well for me, no laddering to be seen. The pattern is The Classic Sock from 2-at-a-time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes, except that I decided to do each sock separately. There really are some purl sts in there, you just can't see them in my sock. So far, I think I knit faster using dpns. It seems to take me a long time to feed the long cable through when I shift from one side of the sock to the second. Maybe I am still getting used to it? 

I have a long list of Monday mundane things to do around here. I hope to get back to those socks before nightfall!

What's on your needles? 

Another Frantic Friday

I don't have much knitting progress to report. I have knit and ripped on the moebius scarf more times than I care to admit. Since I went to my leftover stash for the yarn, I have a limited amount of each color to work with. I tried adding pink and ripped it, so now I am back to the white, which I am running out of.... I think I can make it work, but it will be a narrower stripe on the outer edge. I changed the gauge from the original pattern, but I am almost to the finished width, so the narrower stripe plays right into my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants plan!

I found this yarn in my stash and I think it would be fun to work with. It's Festival by Neveda, made in Holland, and probably 15-20 yrs old. What would you make with this? It's very lightweight with thick and thin slubs, so I am leaning toward something simple with no pattern. A scarf? I have 4 full balls and when I googled for yardage information, I found another colorway of this listed on ebay at 130m/142 yds each (hardly an authoritative source), but nothing for it on ravelry. I think I originally got it to carry along with a plain yarn. Suggestions are welcome!

It's going to be another busy soccer weekend, so if I finish the moebius today, I will have to come up with another mobile knitting project.

Happy weekend!

Weds. Knits

Late post today, but I am happy to say I HAVE been doing some knitting. I exercised my woman's prerogative to change my mind. Instead of using the new Jasper, I dove into my stash and came up with some old (as in probably 20 years old) Melodia by Nomotta, and I modified the Scottish Wave Scarf (Moebius) from Cat Bordhi's Treasury of Magical Knitting to make as a gift. I am well on my way on this one. It's an easy pattern and great for carrying places (which I have done). The Jasper is destined to become a ski hat someday.

I taught myself something today! I have never committed the sequence of grafting or kitchener stitch to memory. In order to finish the secret red project, I had to figure out grafting in garter stitch. I pulled out my Knitter's Companion and all I had to do was reverse the order of entering the sts on the back needle. Normally, you would slip the yarn needle through the first st as if to purl, drop it off the needle, then go into the 2nd stitch as if to knit and leave it on the needle. For garter, on the back needle, go into the first st as if to knit, drop off, then go into the 2nd stitch as if to purl and leave it on the needle. Easy! It gave me just the ridge I was looking for! So, other than steaming, the mystery red piece is done!