skittermagoo!

check it out . . .

The new Magknits is up!

Argh.

Frustrated . . . I was about halfway through with that weird sweater sampler thing in the Sweater Workshop book*, and I messed up the wrap on one end of the short rows (first time and all). So, I attempted to frog just back to the round before the mistake. I failed. And ended up having to frog the whole dang thing. I hate that!!

I guess I'll go and re-start it now. Anything to avoid working on Big Boring Brown!!

*If you order this book from amazon, do so at your own risk . . . they had it backordered on me for months, and finally told me that they couldn't get it.

Drats!

I just got a chance to sit down and look at the photos Hub and I took on our little "whirlwind weekend" . . . and there just aren't any I want to show you! All the pics we took are of places that have some significance to us, and nobody else. Grrr. Of course, Hub has worked on a couple that might be interesting, but I just don't have the photoshop skills yet.

So, in lieu of pictures of Jefferson, TX, here are a couple photos of the cats:

Abby, looking sweet and not as if she's about to beg to be fed. Again. For the seventh time today.

And Cloey, playing with a ballpoint pen (one of her favorite toys) . . .

Incidentallly, we have few pens in the house that don't sport many little fangmarks!

Ah, knitting. Well, the Olympics are still kicking my ass -- we just can't seem to catch up!

So, Discosock Deux is moving right along . . . I've turned the heel and am working on the gusset decreases. I would be done with DD if I didn't have to hit the buttons on the TiVo remote so often to skip through beach volleyball and table tennis and such. I'm almost glad the swimming is done (in my world, anyway, which is a few days behind reality), because that means that I'm making headway with all this sport!

Big Boring Brown, on the other hand, is not going anywhere right now -- except marinating in the bottom of my knitting bag. I think I'm just in the zone with that sock, so as soon as it's done, BBB will come back out to play.

I'm back!

Back from a very short but very fun and relaxing anniversary trip . . . hope to have a few pictures for you tomorrow! The Hub and I went to our favorite little (and I do mean little) town in East Texas for two days and one overnight. We stayed at the second-oldest hotel in Texas, visited a house that is reportedly haunted, shopped at antique shops, went on a horse-drawn history/ghost tour, and rode a steam train through the deep and uninhabited woods next to the bayou in the pitch black of night. It was a blast! As always, as soon as I come home I want to go back.

For now, though, I am going to watch some more TiVoed Olympics, knit on Discosock Deux, and try and catch up on all the blog action I missed over the weekend!

See y'all tomorrow . . .

Yay Friday!

Sitting here watching yet more olympics . . . what else is new? I figured I would multitask a bit and watch/blog/surf while I zip through. I'm sooo far behind -- I just watched Paul Hamm come from 12th place to winning the gold in the men's all around gymnastics (which I think actually happened either Tuesday or Wednesday). How cool was that?!

I'm on the heel flap of Discosock Deux -- should finish it this weekend, hopefully! Big Boring Brown is still boring.

On second thought, I might not . . . I probably won't have much knitting time this weekend, because the Hub and I are going on a very quick out-of-towner for our anniversary! Leaving early tomorrow morning, and coming back home on Sunday afternoon/evening.

Have a great weekend, y'all! Watch some olympics for me . . .

TiVo + Olympics + yarn = bliss

Wow, what a great weekend!! I only wish it could have been longer . . .

I found the absolute best way to watch the Olympic Games: with knitting on lap and TiVo! I armed Hub with the remote, and we watched only our favorite events, and sped through the rest at top speed, while I worked on Big Boring Brown. At one point, we "watched" 7 hours worth of Olympics coverage in about 48 minutes! I got to see Michael Phelps win the gold in swimming (400m medley), but got to zip through all but the last 10 minutes of volleyball. In an ideal world, I would watch every televised event in its entirety (I lurrrrve the Olympics), but there just aren't enough hours in the day or in my TiVo's memory. I've been pointedly avoiding news sources all day so that today's viewing isn't ruined by knowing in advance who has won what.

To backtrack a bit, Saturday was Crafturday! It was a ton of fun with snacks and duct tape. I'm not sure I can do the day justice, but Nancy has a great synopsis on her site today, as well as an explanation of what Crafturday actually is.

Crafturday included some fun stash enhancement; I don't have pictures ready to post, but I promise I will soon!

Oh, and I cast on for Discosock Deux, and got much further than I thought I would . . . for some reason, the second sock in a pair goes really fast to me (I would think it would be the opposite!)

Go see!

Hey, y'all! Kerrie had her baby!

my not-so-great photo skills

Hahahaha! I just noticed that on my monitor at work, BBB is pretty much impossible to see in the picture from last night. That is so fitting, as it is extremely boring. I think when I tweaked the photo a bit in photoshop, I had to obscure some of the BBB details in order to get the colors of the sock to show up. Anyway, it looks like a big dark-brown blob from here, which is exactly what it is. Heh.

Two for one!

Ahhhh, the satisfied feeling of having finished a sock . . . especially a sock that felt like it would just never end:

I think it turned out pretty good . . . and as a bonus, it fits! Actually, in the picture it is a bit stretched-out, because this yarn doesn't seem to have a lot of "spring" to it -- it stretches, sure, but it doesn't really bounce back that well. This attribute also resulted in a bit of laddering where I switched needles (it gave when I gave it a little tug, but didn't really tighten up all the way), which is a new one for me -- I've knit on dpns before, with no laddering whatsoever. So that leads me to a question for the veteran sock knitters out there: will the ladders possibly block out when the sock gets its first bath?

Oh, but wait a second! What is the Discosock is reclining on? Yeah, that thing that looks like a chocolate sheet cake? Why, it's Big Boring Brown, in all it's big boring browniness! That's right, I finally let it out in front of the camera. I'm actually starting to like how the yarn is knitting up, but MAN, it seems like I knit and knit and knit and only get 1.5 inches further.

Hmmmm. Impatience with BBB, impatience earlier this week with the Discosock. Do I sense an emerging theme?? I think I may be developing KnADD. Maybe it's time to do something small and quick, like yet another Umbilical Cord hat for yet another pregnant friend/coworker. Seriously, y'all, it's like there's something in the water. So I'll stick to coffee, thanks.

Startitis . . . is there a cure?

I officially have startitis. I currently have two projects actively going, neither of which I have photos of today -- discosocks (or rather, discosock) is looking, well, like a sock-in-progress. Not that different than the last picture I posted, just imagine it longer and with a heel. Big Boring Brown is still too boring to even take a picture of . . . I'm starting to like it better now that it's growing, but it still is going verrrry sloooow.

I made a decision about Retroprep regarding the swatch: I did wash it (thanks for the suggestion, Becky!), and the smaller needles gave almost perfect gauge for the pattern. It's going to turn out a bit wider, so I'm going to adjust which size I make accordingly. So I have that to start.

Let's see, I also have some gorgeous GGH Safari in a color that will be perfect for my mom; I want to make Bonne Marie's Eyelet Cardi for that -- the gauge in pattern matches that of the yarn, and my mom claims that she is, indeed, a Cardigan Girl. The backstory on this is that I bought the yarn on clearance at my favorite LYS with no idea what to do with it, but that it would be something for my mom.

AND, I want to make another baby hat for one of my coworkers, and maybe a cardigan for myself, and I have yarn and a pattern for a little 3-year-old-boy sized aran sweater. And I want to make another Sophie bag or three, and some feathery-furry cat toys, and book cozies for my bookclub buddies, and and and and . . .

I just wore myself out.

I guess I'd better at least finish ONE discosock before I cast on for Retroprep. That won't take too long, I hope. As for the other stuff, I think I just need to pace myself a bit. Sigh.

Rhymes with "watch cap"

Swatch Crap.

Okay, so I didn't go away and swatch for the Retroprep right away the other day after my post . . . no, I ended up dicking around on the internet for a little while and then it was time to go to bed.

Anyway.

I did swatch for the Retroprep last night, and have made a startling discovery. Okay, not that startling. But sort of annoying and flabergasting. When I use size US6 needles, I end up with too few stitches per inch, a difference from the pattern significant enough that I would have to do the math to alter the pattern. But I love the soft drapey way it feels (in swatch form, anyway). When I go down to size US5, I still end up with just a bit too few stitches/inch, but it's close enough to use without recalculating the pattern (the sweater is *supposed* to be a big oversized, I think), but the swatch is noticably stiffer, and not as drapey. But it looks better.

So my dilemma is this: do I go for how it feels, or how it looks? I don't hate how the smaller-needle-swatch feels, so I'm leaning towards that, but I'm just not sure!! And I haven't even considered the row gauge yet, just the stitch gauge. Argh!

All this is further complicated by the rumors I've heard that Noro Kureyon does not like to be frogged; that it tends to disintegrate. So I'm not so much inclined to soldier ahead with the plan to knit now and frog later.

I think I may just cart the swatch to Stitch-n-Bitch tomorrow and see what the consensus is with my trusted partners-in-yarn.

Sigh.

dull day

Nothing photo-worthy to post today . . . progress is being made on Discosocks, and very slow progress on Big Boring Brown. Spent a while earlier installing Microsoft Office on my computer; nothing very exciting. The weather here is making me feel very unmotivated and incapable of interesting conversation.

What IS exciting (to me, at least) is that I'm going to go swatch some Noro for my Retroprep sweater. Right now. Right this second.

See you tomorrow!

sneak preview . . .

Okay, so as promised, here is a sneak preview of an upcoming project that I'm quite excited to start:

What? Is that Noro that looks like it is about to be consumed by Domo-kun?* Why, yes . . . yes it is! More Kureyon #126, to be exact; I fell in love with it while I was making my Booga Bag, and just had to have some more. So buy more I did . . . I bought ten skeins off eBay, and then bought four more. I knew I wanted a sweater out of it (nevermind that I live in Texas, where winters usually don't warrant wool sweaters), but I wasn't sure what kind of sweater. THEN I saw Brainylady's Retro Prep, and knew, just knew, that I had to make that sweater!!

'Course, before I bought the yarn, I already had yarn and a plan for Big Boring Brown, so I felt compelled to start that first. Again, I won't subject you to photos -- just imagine about 4" of brown stockinette browny-ness. I'm pretty sure BBB will be loved once it is further along -- what can be wrong with a nice snuggly chocolate-colored sweater? Well, nothing, unless you have a closet full of Noro chanting to you softly in Japanese, "knit me, knit me, knit me".

We'll see how long I last.

*note: admittedly, I am paying homage to Wendy and her adorable Spongebob Stashpants . . . I just thought it was so, well, appropriate to have Domo pose with the Noro. Don't you?

Feltorama/Sockarama

I finally got batteries for my camera . . . so here's what I've been up to:

Felting! I finished the knitting part of a Booga Bag and a Sophie bag a while back, and finally got around to felting them last week! (I know, I was holding out . . . but I wanted them to be completely blocked and put together before I showed them off to the world)

Here's Sophie, in Cascade 220, charcoal gray:

I'm amazed at how much smaller felting made the bag -- I was a bit worried, actually, because the unfelted bag was so LONG. I love how she turned out, and am going to make a lining as soon as I find my sewing machine.

And here's the Booga Bag, in Noro Kureyon #126:

Love, love, love it! It's just the right size for weekend pursage -- just enough room for my wallet, cellphone, and maybe a sock-in-progress.

Speaking of which . . . (nice segue, eh?), I've been socking along for the past week or so with this very cool yarn with sparkles in it. I have to say, I adore self-striping sock yarn!

It still amazes me to no end that this:

knits up to become this:

Can you see the sparkles? Can you? Maybe not . . . but they are there! The yarn is called "Disco", so these will be my disco socks. For all the disco dancing I do (yeah.).

I'm also working on yet another Umbilical Cord hat (for my new nephew), and I cast on for a sweater that is too brown and boring to show a picture of thus far. When I bought the yarn (back when I first started knitting), I envisioned a nice cozy chocolatey winter sweater, very plain and comfy. I have a feeling, though, that it might be too boring for me to finish. We'll see.

Okay, that's not all! I have yarn and pattern for a very un-boring sweater (again, for winter), but you'll have to wait for tomorrow for details/pictures. Ahh, I'm such a tease, aren't I? Heh.