skittermagoo!

All socks, all the time!

That's how it is right now chez skittermagoo . . . which is probably a good thing given the obscene amount of sock yarn that I own. I've barely touched Hub's flame sweater, which is ok since it's been, like, 70 degrees here lately.

I finished the first sock in my pair for the Sockapalooza swap, and cast on for sock number two:

colors in photo are darker than in real life!

And I also did a little bit on the Ocean Blue socks

I think I'm going to rename these, because the way the pattern is emerging, they remind me less of the ocean and more of this:

does anyone else remember this toy?

Whaddya think? Should I rename them the Magic Window socks?

And please, do tell me if you get bored with hearing about socks, socks, and more socks.

I will have some non-sock stuff soon . . . today I learned how to use my wool carders, and I spun up the rest of that butt-ugly "dusty rose" roving . . . I'm waiting for the yarn to dry before I take photos.

It's about time!

Finally the nice people who did the Knitting Pattern A Day Calendar put in a pattern for something I might actually want to make! Okay, I realize it's still only January, but I have to say that nothing so far in the calendar has really appealed to me. Some of the patterns have been okay, but nothing that just screamed "KNIT ME". And whoever decided that it would be okay to slip in a pattern for a knitted clown doll? Well, they should just be taken out back and shot.

Anyway, they finally hit it right with the pattern for this weekend!

Peacock Socks

Yes! Socks!!! And really pretty ones, too. Of course, being the sock-obsessed person I am, I immediately let out a yelp of joy when I saw the pattern. I will definitely have to add these to my list.

My weekend was sadly and unusually bereft of knitting . . . Friday night we had a birthday dinner with friends at a hibachi restaurant (ugh), and Saturday we headed up to Oklahoma to spend the night in a (reportedly) haunted house, and there was no time for knitting (I found out at some point earlier that I am prone to carsickness if I try and knit in the car). Got back too late today to go to Stitch-n-Bitch, which was a bummer. I really miss it when I can't go.

Sockapalooza sock#1 is rocking along . . . I turned the heel and am working on the gusset decreases part. Photos tomorrow, I'm sure! I could probably finish sock#1 if we had the blizzardy snows that a lot of y'all are experiencing . . . but none of that in the forecast for silly old Dallas. Hope all of you in the blizzard zone are keeping warm!

Sockapalooza!

I've been knitting on my Sockapalooza sock in a big way for the past few days . . . I have this habit of letting all other projects fall to the wayside when I have socks on the needles (yeah, I need to work on that).

I just love these colors! And the stripes, oh, the stripes . . . it's going to be hard to part with these when they're done, I think. I sure hope my recipient likes them!

A case of the Clap(otis)

I think I got infected over the weekend . . . and I'm actually thinking of making one of these.

Let me preface this by telling you I'm really not a Shawl Person. Nor am I really a scarf-wearer, either (especially here in Texas). And until Saturday, I hadn't even considered making this pattern . . . not that it isn't gorgeous, it's just not really so much "me".

But here's what happened: I saw Petra's Clapotis-in-progress, which is gorgeous. Then I started thinking about my recent yarnventory, and realized that I have a yarn that might just be perfect for a Clapotis of my very own. Part silk and part alpaca, yum. After more thinking (I really shouldn't do that, it almost always gets me into trouble), I came to the second realization that I probably have enough of the yarn to make a Clapotis, but not enough to make just about any other thing -- I have more than enough for a scarf, but not enough for a sweater. You know the drill. (I bought the yarn almost a year ago when I was a little baby knitter who had no clue how much to buy in general for a future project.)

So. It certainly looks like I am on the verge of a raging case of the Clap(otis) . . . I guess if I decide that I won't wear it, I can always gift it to my mom (the yarn is one of "her" colors, after all). Hm.

Since Tuesday is knitalong day (according to Alison), I'm going to go knit on a Sockapalooza sock . . . can't wait to show it to you!

New knitting toys!

Wanna see what I picked up from the post office yesterday (which was an ordeal in and of itself. but I digress.)? Sure ya do!

Oooo, a box! But what's in it??

This.

Hmmm. A bunch of wadded-up paper and a long, skinny box.

Wait! What does that box say?

Aha! It's the swift I ordered what seems like AGES ago! Yippee!

For the longest time I didn't think I needed a swift. Nope, not me! A ballwinder would be enough, thanks. And the LYS where I usually buy my yarn will wind it for me if I have the time to wait. So I resisted the swift. Until. Yes, until I tried to wind a skein of Koigu without one. And then I got an e-coupon from joann.com, and the swift was on sale anyway, so I caved. And boy, am I glad I did!

In a matter of seconds, I had the swift assembled, and swiftly introduced it to some of this:

Mmmmm, Lorna's Laces . . . .

They got on quite well, I think . . . the above swiftly became this:

And the second skein was quickly dispactched into yarny cakedom as well!

I sense a theme, actually, because Natalie had a very similar story today, too!

Days like this

Yeah, I guess Mom warned me there would be days like this . . . but it still never seems quite fair.

It's almost 10pm (reading time!), and I just sat down a while ago to read the day's blog offerings for the first time all day. Very unusual. Hell, I got to work at 7:30 this morning and didn't even have a chance to sit down at my desk until 11:15. Tomorrow will be more of the same -- I will have to hit the lab running full-out and won't get a chance to breathe until maybe lunchtime, if I'm lucky.

As for knitting, I did a couple rows on the Ocean Blue socks, but I'm trying to rest my right wrist/arm/shoulder a bit -- very sore from what I can only assume is a combination of knitting and Extreme Science (too much pipetting, which falls into the "repetitive motion" category).

Not to be a tease (okay, yeah, I admit it, I am being one), but I do have some stuff to show you, tomorrow. Right now I have to go introduce myself to some pajamas, have a 2-minute conversation with my toothbrush, and tuck into an entertaining book.

In the works

So I went ahead and listed the stuff I did (knitting-wise) last year, but what is going on this year, other than a failed sock and a half?

This stuff . . .

Voodoo Wristwarmers

I'm knitting these out of the gorgeous Silk Garden that my SP3 sent me a while back . . . I started them, oh, back in October/November? I can't remember when. Anyway, I finally finished one:

And started the second (they are best in pairs, dontcha think?)

Second in the lineup is the Ocean Blue socks . . . I just started these on Sunday at Stitch-n-Bitch, and didn't really get very far.

It's really hard to see the color in just that tiny little strip of 2x2 rib; click here if you want to see how it looks in the skein!

Even just this bit of sock goodness is making all the turmoil over that last one better . . . I did the right thing by putting it out of its misery!

And here's what else I did on Sunday at Stitch-n-Bitch:

Yep, I went against all my usual ways and made a swatch. But what's it for?

Well, I'm making the flame sweater from Stitch-n-Bitch Nation for the Husband. And sort of for myself . . . I'm hoping he'll let me borrow it from time to time. It'll be the first thing I've made for him other than a hat, so I decided to follow proper protocol and swatch it. Crazy, I know.

Here's the sweater so far:

Why the multitude of markers? Well, this part is a k6p1 rib (is that even rib?) in black yarn . . . need I say more?

Things I knit in 2004

Okay, so I finally got around to making a list of the things I knit last year . . . not even sure why, but it seemed like a good idea since I didn't document all of them here (some of them I finished before I started blogging, but for a lot of them I just wasn't good about taking pictures, etc.). I'm hoping this year will be better for the documentation part!

So, in no particular order:

Big Chunky Scarf from Stitch-n-Bitch
Cellphone Cozy (also from Stitch-n-Bitch)
Felted Marsupial Tote (again, Stitch-n-Bitch)
Booga Bag (pattern here)
Tricot (Magknits)
T3 (knitty)
Jellybean socks
Disco socks
Umbilical Cord hats (from Stitch-n-Bitch) -- many of these!
Snowball Cat Bed (Stitch-n-Bitch)
Fluffy cell phone cozy
Bottoms Up Bucket hat (Chicknits)
Flower washcloth (Weekend Knitting)
Sophie bag (Magknits)
Very Boring Washcloth
Orange and brown Washcloth
Pink Ribbon Wristlet (based on the pattern in Stitch-n-Bitch)
Blue Bernat Boa scarf
Silk Garden Beanie (from here)
Neckwarmer thing (no pattern)
Hat for the husband
Hat for my Mother-in-law
Big Red Hat
Laurie's Wildfoote Socks
Fun Fur scarves (several)
Airy scarf (Last-Minute Knitted Gifts)

Wow . . . that's respectable, especially considering that a year ago I didn't know how to knit at all! I still feel like I'm forgetting something, though . . .

Did y'all notice how many of those came from Stitch-n-Bitch? Coincidence? Nah, it's the book I used to learn how to knit, and I lurrrve a lot of the patterns!

When socks go bad . . .

Here's what happens when socks don't behave at my house:

First this

And then . . .

Sad, but true. I attempted to salvage the debacle with sock #2, doing a short cuff (for the heck of it) and then an hourglass heel à la Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook. For some reason, I just don't get that hourglass heel. I've tried it on practice yarn, and I tried it on the ill-fated Bad Sock Deux. It never seems to work for me (I end up with uneven number of stitches on each side at the end?!). I think part of it is the yarn overs and then subsequent k3tog on each side . . . my k3togs ended up looser on one side than the other, and vaguely holey. I like the general shape of the heel, but hate the way the decreases look.

So what am I going to do about that? I'm going to get inventive, grab some practice yarn (i.e. Red Heart), and see if I can't devise a similar type of thing with no k3togs and no holes. Yep, just watch me. (I say that knowing full well that I will probably fail miserably).

In happier news, I took that ugly-ass yarn that I spun all by myself, and knitted a leetle swatch out of it!

It didn't get any prettier upon knitting, but I'm still thrilled by the sheer fact that I Made Yarn Out Of A Big Wad Of Wool!

Bad sock! (or how I learned to listen to my gut)

So I've been working on this sock . . . (so what else is new?). And as soon as I saw how the yarn was patterning, I wasn't super happy with it. You know how it is with self-patterning sock yarn, right? I thought it was going to stripe, but instead it turned spotty on me. Did I listen to my gut instinct and quit knitting it before it got out of hand? Oh, no. 'Course not!

Anyway, I decided to try an afterthought heel, since I'd never done one before. So I put in a line of waste yarn where the heel would go, and finished the rest of the sock. In the pattern loose guidelines I was using, it said to do the toe decreases until 16 sts total remain, then graft the toe. Which I did. And I thought to myself, "Self, that toe looks awfully pointy.". And again, did I listen to that inner voice and rip back a bit? Nah.

On to that afterthought heel . . . Got the waste yarn out and the needles in (I was using a long circular for the whole thing, by the way). Started knitting along, and discovered a row or two after the heel started that there was a big gaping hole at the corner. On both sides. And discovered that I didn't have the right number of stitches anyway. Grrrr. So I ripped back a bit and winged it. Pattern loose guidelines say "continue with decreases every other row until heel is desired depth". Wha? I dunno how deep my heel should be! So I went along until I had about, oh, 30 or so stitches total left, and grafted the heel according to the pattern loose guidelines. At which point I wanted to throw the stupid thing across the room and stop sock knitting altogether. (for a second, anyway. Then I came to my senses!).

Here's the photoevidence.

At first glance, it doesn't seem so bad . . .

But if you look close up, you can see the botched "heel junction" (I don't know what the technical term for where the heel decreases is called)

I thought maybe when worn, the pointy toe and pointy heel would stretch out a bit and not be so pointy . . .

I was wrong.

This is bad. Very bad. And I call myself a sock knitter! Hopefully Alison won't toss me out of the upcoming sockapalooza for this . . .

Anyway, what I've decided to do is to knit sock#2 differently, with a non-afterthought hourglass heel and a less-pointy toe, and see how I like that. If it is acceptable, I will rip bad sock #1 and reknit it in the same way as #2. If I don't like it, I'll just mark the whole thing up to experience and hang the bad pair up on my corkboard to torture remind myself about what happens when sock knitting goes bad. And to remind myself that when the yarn doesn't speak to me even a little bit, that maybe it's ok not to go forward!

Other News (this time good)

Did I tell y'all I was knitting the Airy Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts for my friend Nicki for Xmas? No? Jeez, first I call myself a sock knitter, then I try and pass myself off as a blogger. Hmph. Yeah. I'm such a knit blogger that I totally forgot to take a photo either in progress or finished*, and ended up lucky enough to get a very poor shot of it being worn:

Can you spot the Airy Scarf in this picture? I didn't think so.

*I generally don't make New Year's Resolutions because I tend not to keep them, but in 2005 I do resolve to keep a camera with me while knitting and take lots of photos for you to see. And to document finished objects, too (a parital list of those for 2004 is forthcoming).

Next time: 2004 "stuff I knit", and a scary and cute microorganism. And maybe some more sock stuff.