Spring Break Knits

First, thank you for all the well-wishes - we are very excited here.

We did manage to finish quite a few projects over spring break, and I'll lead with what you really care about - the knitwear.



Pattern: Zombie Socks from Sock Madness
Yarn: Socks that Rock Lightweight in Lenore
Needles: Chiagoo DPNs 2.75mm
Dates: Thursday March 13-Thursday March 20
Mods: none
Thoughts: very stretchy sock. Even though my gauge was perfect, these are a little big. But they turned out fine besides that, and I'll still wear them. The yarn bled all over my needles and my fingers, so I'll be careful washing them.


Pattern: Log Cabin Blanket
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in 5 colors
Needles: Sz 8 Susan Bates Circulars
Dates: Um, August 2006-March 2008. Yikes
Mods: none
Thoughts: This didn't turn out as big as I had originally envisioned, but I just needed it to be done. It was gifted to The Girl for her 10th birthday on Friday, and she seems to really like it, so that's good.


Pattern: Devon from Magknits
Yarn: Rowan Cotton Glace - 1.5 balls in white, purple and green and just over 2.5 balls in brown
Needles: Sz 3 Susan Bates Circulars
Dates: September? 2007-March 2008
Thoughts: This has been mostly done since the end of January - I ran out of brown and kept forgetting to buy another ball, and then I had to spend 3 hours weaving in ends. Ugh. But it fits great, and I really like the colors, so overall a winner.

I did get a bit of other knitting progress made, but I'll save that fodder for another day!

Anniversary Socks

By some miracle, I managed to finish these up before bed on our anniversary Tuesday. Whew!



Pattern: Generic stockinette sock - top down, over 80 stitches.
Yarn: Trekking XXL
Needles: Chiagoo DPNs sz 2.25 mm
Dates: June-October 2007
Mods: n/a
Thoughts: Again, much love for the Trekking. But hubbo's socks seem to tak so much longer than mine! He's worth it though.

I did have to start another pair right away (couldn't leave those needles empty for long!), but I don't have a picture yet. Hopefully soon.

That's one pair down for socktoberfest. Way too many more to go.

Socktoberfest!

Just a quick peek at what's on the needles sock-wise. I've got two single socks, and about 5 pairs of half done single socks. There are also two pairs in hiding somewhere I'm going to try to dig up. My goal for the month is three finished pairs. I think this is doable.

First up - finishing those grey socks for Hubbo's anniversary present!

Fall yarns are yummy!

One of my favorite things about fall is the new fall yarns. Especially the sock yarns (aren't y'all surprised?). I may have had to buy some, and hubbo may have picked some out.



For me - new Lana Grossa.



For hubbo - new Classic Elite Alpaca Sox. Aren't you shocked at the originality of his color choice? Totally different from the grey pair I'm currently knitting him.


I haven't cast on for these yet, but they are both calling to me.


In other sock news, it seems that Socktoberfest is nearly upon us. Last year I had a great time, and ended up with two new pairs of socks finished. This year my plan is "single sock-toberfest." I've got plenty of pairs of socks that have one sock finished or nearly finished. Plus, I'm hoping that by knitting wool socks I can will fall to arrive. Think it'll work? What are your plans for Socktoberfest?

Rags to Dishes

When Emily came up with "Dish Rag Tag" earlier this summer, I knew this was one swap I had to do this year. The concept is great - get a box with a finished dishcloth and two balls of dishcloth cotton, knit a dishcloth with one ball, keep the other and the dishcloth that was in the box, repack the box with your dishcloth and two new balls of dishcloth cotton, and tag your next teammate. Too.much.fun.


My goodies.


I was tagged on Friday (I'm a team captain! Woot!), and even though I had a date with Jason Bourne Friday night, I managed to get my dishcloth knit and in the mail on Saturday.



Here it is posing with the bathroom sink at the yarn shop, and in all it's finished glory.

Pattern: Round Dishcloth
Yarn: Peaches and Cream Peppermint
Needles: Sz US 8 Susan Bates
Dates: Friday August 3-Saturday August 4.
For: ?????
Mods: none.
Thoughts: this is a really lovely pattern - quick, easy and very interesting. The girls at the shop were quite taken with it, and I have plans for many more of these!

It winged it's way off on Saturday (although I was worried for a minute that our substitute mailman wouldn't take it - he really inspected the click 'n ship form before he left the shop), and it has arrived at it's destination. Fingers crossed for a speedy trip to the next stop!

Go team Rags to Dishes!

Dreams.......

Are a many splendid thing....




Sadly, my Mystery Stole and I can only dream of the polka-dot jersey, as we fell far short of any goals I had set. I'm four rows away from finishing Clue 1, and Clue 5 comes out Friday. Yikes. I've been a bit too stressed to concentrate on lace, and this has been to the Stole's detriment. C'est la vie. There's always next year.

No doping here

Which is a shame really, 'cause it would really help at this point. I'm woefully behind on my Mystery Stole - the combination of Harry Potter, kitchen sloweness and starteritis have not helped either. I'm hoping to make some progress on it tomorrow.

Fingers crossed that I'm not the next to drop out of the tour!


I have to get it finished, because this came in the mail last Friday. I need to feel the bee love soon!

If everybody else is doing it, why shouldn't I?

I'm a follower. Tell me something is cool, and I want it. Tell me only a few people can do it, and I want to do it. Tell me I'll be more beautiful if I knit it, and I'm there. Wait....haven't found that last one yet.

I was on the fence about the Mystery Shawl. Do I really want to invest all that time into knitting something I have no idea if I'll even like when I'm finished?

Apparently, yes I do.


End of Chart 1, Clue 1.

I'm a bit behind. But I'm motivated, since I also joined the Tour de France KAL. Hubbo and I have joked for the past few years that I should do some sort of KAL for the Tour, since we watch it every year (go Robbie and George!). Debby and Meg were sweet enough to let me in a teeny bit late, due to memory lapse. The mess in my house might have had something to do with my forgetfulness.


I'm racing for the polka-dot jersey - my favorite. I think this means I'm a glutton for punishment.

Anybody else starting something supercool I need to join? Forget that I have 30 million other things to do - I want to do what you're doing!

And I'm out

The new Madness pattern was posted sometime yesterday afternoon, and hubbo was kind enough to send it to me at work, so I got started at knitting last night. Perhaps not the best locale to start a knitting competition, but my lack of progress was worth the joy of the evening. (I'm much further than the picture shows now.)

Sadly, my competition (who may be the first finisher in our bracket) apparently doesn't work on Fridays or is the fastest knitter alive. 'Cause she finished in about 24 hours. That's OK. I'm really in it for the patterns, right? :)
I am loving the pattern, and Scout's yarn is gorgeous, and smells good, and is soft and I love it. Thank you Scout!

Mad Cows

Finally, a proper FO post!



Pattern: Mad Cows, exclusive pattern for Sock Madness
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Chocolate and Devon, purchased from The Loopy Ewe.
Needles: Sz 2.25 mm ChiaoGoo DPNs
Dates: Saturday March 10-Tuesday March 13
Mods: I added repeats to the leg - the pattern called for 4 or 5 repeats, and I didn't want a short sock, so I lengthened it.
Thoughts: Nice, easy starter pattern for the competition, but if I wanted my socks to stripe, I'd probably use self striping yarn. There is a bulge where I carried the yarn up the back of the leg of the sock and on the foot.
I love the Lorna's - for all the stash I have of this (four more pairs worth), this is the first time it's made it into finished socks (one sock was frogged in December '05 when it turned out to be too big). I can't wait to get to the rest of it! I especially like the Chocolate - a very nice, subtle varigation of browns.

The announced our next yarn - sport weight varigated - I'm so excited to use Scout's yarn! We tip off on Thursday afternoon, so until then I'll be trying to get some more things off the needles - stay tuned for the results of the vacation knitting!

One down

For the Madness

Also, the Knitted Toys blog is up! Feel free to join!

P.S. I am so frickin' sick of blogger not letting me upload pictures. Is anyone else having this problem?

Eye Candy Friday

I don't regularly participate in the Eye Candy Fridays, but today I have lovely eye candy - new sock yarn!

From Scout - special, one-of-a-kind, just for me and my indecision, sport weight in "Sageilicious." Our exchange went like this:
Me: I can't find any sport weight sock yarn that's varigated, a good price, and with enough yardage.
Scout: Well, take a look at the gallery.
Me: I can't decide - too many pretty colors!
Scout: I've been wanting to do something in peaches or sage.
Me: Oooooh, sage!
Scout: Done!

It really is pretty, and I'm so excited to use it. The Girl saw it this morning, and was telling me how pretty it was. It was fun (in my dorky way) to ask her if she remembered our stop in ABQ this summer, and to tell her that Scout had dyed the yarn special, for me, special!*



This lovely goodness comes from Yarn Love, a site I stumbled across last week (I honestly can't remember if someone recommended this, or if I found it), and it is lovely! All of the yarn is named after famous women (mostly literary characters), and it is gorgeous. They were super friendly, and gave me the option to ship first class mail, for only $1.75, which is so much nicer than the $4.05 of priority mail. Best of all, this particular line (Juliet) comes paired with one varigated and one solid - very easy for bad decision-makers like me!



And finally, from everyone's favorite crack yarn dealer, The Loopy Ewe, via the crazy Monday update, Apple Laine in Pretty in Pink (which is way more pink than my camera can show you), and one hank of Lorna's in Chocolate, and one in Devon (one of the new colors, which I like so much instead of the crazy color combos you get sometimes). I got the Apple Laine just for stash enhancement purposes ('cause it sells out fast), but the Lorna's is for the Madness.

Ahhhh, the Madness. Tipoff around 7 am CST, so even though Spring Break has started, I'll be getting up early one more day. Totally worth it though.

There is a ton of interest in the toy KAL - Sometime this weekend (after the first socks for the Madness are complete) I'll make up a blogger blog so we can all post to it. If you want an invite, please email me at knittoys AT gmail DOT com with your email address, and I'll send you the blogger invite. Look for more info here when it's up!

Off to have a lovely "it's Spring Break" dinner and drinks with hubbo - have a great weekend!

*Bonus points to anyone who can name this movie!

Under the wire

I finished up these with an hour of February to spare - just in time to get my "F" for the Sock-a-Month 3 KAL, and Socktopia.

Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in the Bright Charcoal colorway
Needles: ChiaGoo Bamboo DPN's - size 2.75 mm
Pattern: Simple stockinette sock over 60 stitches
Dates: Saturday February 3-February 28
Mods: n/a
Thoughts: This yarn is a delight - very soft and squishy, with a lovely stretch. That said, I'm not crazy about most of the colors. I'm hoping they expand the line. These will go with many of my outfits, as I tend to wear a lot of black and grey in the winter. I knit them on the 2.75 needles, as the yarn seemed thick in the skein. If I knit another pair, I'd probably go down to 2.5 or 2.25. I was nervous about my yardage (only 280 meters in a skein), so I knit a 6 inch cuff instead of my usual 7-8 inches. I had plenty of yarn left over.
More knitting excitement tomorrow!

Madness

Sometime in my fuzzy haze of sickness and stress, I signed up for Sock Madness. The dork in me is unreasonably excited about this (I have an unhealthy love for brackets - it's one of my favorite things about the NCAA playoffs), while the knitter in me is too well acquainted with my KAL failure rate to have very high hopes of success. I do think I can make it through the first round, as the pattern will be released on the first day of Spring Break (only 6 more teaching days!), and I have a very long car ride to Colorado to look forward to (with no driving! Woot!) and knit my little fingers off.
However, I am frustrated by the yarn requirements.

One of the socks requires sport weight yarn - preferably variegated.

Two pairs of socks require one skein each of solid and variegated fingering weight. One of them will be greatly enhanced if the yarns you choose have a high degree of contrast.

Two pairs of socks require variegated fingering weight yarn. Find something that makes you happy.

The remaining 2 pairs of socks use fingering yarn and they’ll probably look best if you use a solid.

I've got the varigated and solid fingerings well within the stash. It's the sport weight and the one skein of solid and one of varigated that has me frustrated (and that I have to have 2 sets of these - but I can't just pull yarns from the stash, 'cause then I'll have two pairs of matching socks). The yarns I posted about for the Fiesta socks? Those took me weeks to decide on. I don't have weeks. I have days. 10 of 'em. I've pulled every color combo from my LYS, so it looks like it's ordering time. But what to order? And how can I tell if they really match from crappy computer pictures? And not many places sell the 50g skeins these days - all the lovely indie dyers sell 100g skeins (except Sweet Georgia, but she's no longer dyeing). I don't really want a half a skein of leftovers (I'm trying to use up the stash here folks!)

Also, I have no sport weight, as I don't usually need super warm/thick socks. I've already discussed my desire not to use Claudia's sport weight as it is a bit cost-prohibitive. As is Toasty Toes, which pretty much leaves me with Lorna's Shepherd Sport.

So, I need your advice. What colors would you put together? What yarn suggestions do you have? Sport weight yarn? What is your favorite online sock source? Help!!!!

Oh, and for the curious - here are the socks currently on the needles - and three socks are missing from this photo. Must get a pair of size 2 needles free for the madness!

ETA: Blogger isn't letting folks leave comments - feel free to email me at knitnlitATgmailDOTcom. Thanks!

Knitting for ourselves

Amy has been busy knitting up some accessories - a pair of Fetching mitts for herself and a Calorimetry.

Morgan is thisclose to finishing her third sweater of the year - wow!

Lauren has some yummy Koigu and a yummy scarf in progress.

Sarah Janet has finished the body of Rogue - looks great!

Mamma is working on a brand new red shawl in some delightful Misti Alpaca - one of my favorite yarns.

Send healing thoughts to Bronwyn - she was in a car accident this week.

Missy is working on her Poppy - can't wait to see it with the Silk Garden!

Rahime finished her socks - love the colors!

Elizabeth finished up some colorful Thujas and is binding off her Icarus shawl - can't wait to see it all finished!

LaVerna is hosting a "crash your stash" swap - check out her blog for more details!

Smug Sheep is motoring along on her Wicked.

Karla finished her Chain Link socks - they look great!

Julia posted pictures of her Cashmere Neckwarmer - looks delightful!

Katherine finished up her lovely red scarf and some great purple TCU socks!

Minty finished up a pair of Fetching Mitts and a great pair of green socks - she's a FO machine!

Debby is working on a pink tank and some lovely lace pillowcase edgings. She and her hubby are also raising money for Crohn's disease - go visit her blog to check it out!

All you others - go knit for yourselves this weekend!

Chock full of knittin' goodness

A jam-packed update this week - set aside some time and take a gander at some of these lovely projects!

The Smug Sheep finished a gorgeous Booga Bag - love the colors!

Tara has been swatching for a lovely blue cabled sweater.

Zanti Miss Knit has been working on some lacy socks and finished a felted bag - busy girl!

Sarah Janet has a rogue cable problem on her Rogue and has a yummy green sock started. She also started the Mountain Peaks Shawl in some lovely silk.

Prairie Girl finished her Irish Hiking scarf, a felted bag for her camera, and one sock - lovely projects!

Emilee finished her Snowflake socks and is testing out a heart lace pattern for her February Socktopia socks.

Bronwyn has been busy finishing up knits for others, and swatching for a new project. I hope this one's for you!

Doborah finished two pairs of stripy socks - so good to have warm feet.

Nessa finished up a stripey Jaywalker from Lorna's Laces and received an abundance of Socks that Rock - soooo jealous!

Leisel has been busy crocheting up a snowman, making sock toes, swatching and knitting up a red scarf.

Theresa has started Rowena in a lovely pink color - love the ruffle!

Karen knit up a super pair of oh-so-warm mittens.

Debby finished up her Lacy Serpentine Shawl - it's so pretty in a slightly varigated yarn!

Carrie has gotten her supplies for the Wobbly Tote ready - yummy colors!

Mamma has another Starsky crisis - I hope there's no bad juju attached to this sweater! She has come out just fine from the previous problems, so I have all confidence that it'll all work out this time too. Good luck!

Liz is doing some fair isle swatching.

Ozknitter started some new blue Project Spectrum socks.

Scout finished a pair of matching Calorimetrys for her and Supergirl - super cute!

Abigail has found Mr. sock mojo and already has a finished pair of socks! Love the colors!

Rachel finished up a cute pair of mittens that match her hat!

Morgan has finished up a lovely new cardigan.

Minty has posted a new pattern for an awfully cute scarf. Go check it out!

BeccaU finished up a great pair of monkey socks - mmmmmmmm, green..............

Juls knit up a yummy cashmere treat!

Karla is oh-so-close to finishing up her Chain Link socks.

Lauren finished her first pair of socks! They look great!

Rahime finished up a pair of socks all for her!

Yvonne has finished one fancy fingerless glove.

Amy completed a lovely Bejewled scarf.

Chrispy finished up a pretty pair of fingerless gloves and is one sleeve away from a finished Wicked.

Missy finished up her bejewled scarf and a pair of fingerless gloves.

Whew! I really hope I got in everyone who completed something for themselves (and a few that are still WIPs!). Please leave a comment or email me if I somehow missed you and I'll make sure you're in next week's update!

Only a few more weeks to "officially" knit for ourselves - get those needles busy!