Annie Knits

Summer of the Sock Update

Now that's a catchy title.  Can't be bothered.  I'm a woman on a mission.  Here's my knitting progress as of late:  Finished the Wild Thing socks.  LOVE them!  I think I've written enough about these socks except that they are decidedly fraternal... the yarn is hand-spun and simply random.  But they are so comfortable and the chevrons make their striping so interesting, doncha think?  And there I have quite a bit of the second skein left... started it halfway down the second sock's foot -- I've got a sock yarn leftover log cabin blanket brewing I think.  Anyway, these are some crazy socks, baby!  And I'm keeping them.  Of the last 4 pairs of socks I've knitted?  Given 3 away.  (That's not to speak of the several half-pairs I've got hanging around -- appletini, trekking, turtle tracks on line, my own hand-dyed...Sheesh!)

So fixated on the chevron am I that I bought this Sockotta yarn at work on Tuesday and started the sock on Thursday night just to see it do this.  Knit into the night (hubby was out of town on business) listening to Wicked.  Which, by the way, is an ingenious book, a prequel if you will to the Wizard of Oz.  It's the story of the Wicked Witches (of the east and west both -- sisters you know) and how they became so... I'm enchanted.  It's now, I believe, a musical as well.  Of course, my family had to call me Dorothy until I was 5 and I had a succession of lovely red patent leather shoes, so I might be a tad inclined to love it to begin with...  Made a ton of progress on the socks in any case.  Working the heel flap as we speak. 

Above the Sockotta?  A hint.  STR in the Scottish Highlands colorway.  That's the next Chevron Sock -- It'll get its start in the next few weeks when I won't be blogging... taking a little break...  pip, pip and see you all in a few weeks!

Wait! I'm Behind on my Blogging Too?!

How can we be just 3 weeks into summer?  I'm way more than three weeks behind on my chores.  Very little knitting, book-reading, gardening or grown-up socializing has gone on.  For instance, yesterday?  I put like 74 miles on my car (able to measure as the car guys wrote the mileage on that little plastic-cling-reminder windshield thing first thing in the morning).  Here's what I did:

• drove DD to her gig taking care of cats;
• drove her to her gig volunteering at a day camp;
• drove home, got DS, took him with me to get the car serviced (nail in the tire, AGAIN!);
• walked to the pet store and the game store;
• drove DS home;
• drove to get DD at her camp thing;
• drove home fixed lunch;
• drove to mall to return suitcoat (DH is no longer a 44 long -- 20 years he's been a 44 long... sheesh) get kids walking sandals and buy my own early birthday present (pics later);
• drove home and fixed light dinner;
• drove DS to his boyscout 'Shooting Camp' -- yep, he gets to shoot all manner of things for the week (bows and arrows, catapults, bb guns, I don't know what else, but those Boy Scout leaders are pretty rigid so I think he's safe -- he's sure a hog in mud!);
• drove DD to her gig taking care of cats then to basketball practice;
• drove home to futz with my present;
• drove back to basketball practice to help coach take the team out for ice-cream -- DD made her first basket on Saturday night.  Everyone cheered as it's been 3 years coming.  Where was I?  Out in the lobby watching DS and his friend who didn't want to watch the game.  3 years of basketball games and do I get to see the first basket?  No.  Husband does.  It's ok, he's more of a fan than I am, I guess.  I just the driver... Oh, yeah;
• drove 6 8th grade girls out for ice-cream and back to practice;
• drove to pick up DS from Shooting Camp.

Took the car home and parked it.  We walked the errands we could walk, and most of this driving was on the South Side,  just a few miles either way, but sheesh!  Anyone good at knitting and driving?

I have been working on the log cabin blankets.  Yes, you see an 's' there.  Here's the thing.  I 'm having issues.  I can't decide what to make.  What I really should have done is bought the yarn the Mason Dixon girls made theirs out of, Tahki Cotton Classic -- God knows we have a ton of it in the shop.  But the problem is that there is no apple green.  And that's what this mom wants, apple green.  So I've been casting about.  First I got out the Pallette -- love this little blanket.  LOVE it.  It keeps calling me so I put my other attempts down and knit on it for awhile.  I think it's all about the scale of this blanket for me.  It's close to the quilted version, see?  Each log is about an inch and a quarter.  Knit with size 4 needles, it's firm but will soften with blocking.  Really lovely.  And is anyone else brave enough to show the backs of their log cabin squares?  'Cause those backs can be a mess!  I'm getting the hang of picking up the garter bumps so that the 'seams' look cleaner -- still a lot of ends.  And the blankie definately has a back and a front.  But, let's not kid ourselves folks ... that's not apple green.   More of a key lime.  Back to the drawing board.  This might make it to other babies in the works, so to speak, 'cause I'll finish it.  'Cause I LOVE it.

So I went to *gasp* Hobby Lobby and got a bunch of Sugar 'n Cream yarn.  (No emails saying Hobby lobby is fine -- I just meant that I didn't buy this yarn at the shop where I work, ok?)  That cheap stuff is lovely/soft once you get working with it.  And I was very happy chugging along thinking I'd at least gotten the other yarn they knit with in that book.  And the colors are fine.  And then I looked at the book again.  They knit with Peaches and Cream, not Sugar 'n Cream.  I tried to ignore it and make a blankie/towel -- cause this stuff is what I've made wash rags out of, but I couldn't.  I just couldn't.  Even though it is super soft and the colors are right.  I'm such a crazy person.  I also think it's the scale thing -- the center square, the hearth, measures like 6 3/4 inches by 4 1/2 inches -- big. And the logs are like two inches wide.  I will rip this and rework the pattern so I get a scale I like.  And knit with smaller needles so it's not so floppy.  But this isn't right either, and that baby's coming the second week of July.

So, while at work on Friday I got a bunch of this Blossom from Reynolds.  I love this yarn for baby stuff.  So soft and squooshy.  And this weekend, I got through like 5 logs.

And last night I ripped it out.  The green is right, but the scale is all wrong again.  It's not that beautiful, petite Pallette blankie.  I give up.  I cast on for this last night, Classic Ripples out of Our Best Baby Afghans.   (See my pressie in the corner?  I got to listen to Cast on and my book club book Wicked while I knit -- now I've reached knitting Nirvana)  Where the white ripples I'll do apple green. 

Wait.  This would be so cute in the Sugar 'n Cream! 

Now you've experienced the crazy knitting design mind-wanderings I've gone through the last week or so.  You likely feel dizzy and disoriented.  Working on a sock helps. 

How Many Kits Would a Knit Swap Swap ...

If a knit swap could swap kits?  Say that three times fast!  I'm supposed to answer these questions cause I joined this Kit Swap.  Sounds like fun.  You design a sock, write the pattern out, kit it up, make a bag to hold it, and off it goes.  I think much of the work is done out there in terms of counting and sizing -- now I just have to pore over my stitch pattern books to find something fun.  And make a bag.  What?  that sounds like fun to you too?  Sorry, I think the sign-ups are closed.  But maybe there'll be another one... if we're all good kitters and behave ourselves...

What are your favorite colors?  I'm a Fall or Autumn, but I can swing into Spring as my eyes are blue...remember Color Me Beautiful of the 80s?  Um, yeah.  That said, I don't dislike any color.  Like 'em all and socks are the place to try colors you wouldn't put next to your face... have a blast.

Are you a new sock knitter?  How long have you been knitting socks?  I'm not a new sock knitter -- been working on socks steadily for 3 years or so.

Do you prefer solid or multicolored yarn?  For lace?  Solid.  For other simpler stuff?  Multi.  What do I own the most of?  Multi.

What fibers do you prefer in sock yarn?  Wool or wool blend.

Where do you usually knit socks?  Everywhere...they're portable and trek makes great bags to take them with you.

How do you usually carry/store small projects?  trek's bags now... before I just took my big bag with me.

What are your favorite sock knitting patterns?  Right now?  It's all about the Chevron... but I'm flexible.

What are your favorite sock knitting techniques?  Again, right now I'm doing Magic Loop, but again, I'm flexible.

What new techniques would you like to try?  None, really.

Do you prefer circulars or dpns for sock knitting?  Depends on the day -- maybe I'm a little too flexible.

What are some of your favorite yarns?  Socks that Rock; Opal Animal Series; anything Dani or Dave; oh, gosh... I'm a sock yarn fiend and I love it all...

What yarn do you totally covet?  None really, unless there's some out there I haven't seen yet.  Wait, is there sock yarn out there I haven't seen yet!

Any pattern you would love to make if money and time were no object?  Not really.

Favorite kind of needles (brand, materials, straights or circs, etc)?  Newly in love with Lantern Moon dpns and I use Addi Turbo circs.  Mostly size 1.

If you were a specific kind of yarn, which brand and kind of yarn would you be?  I'd be STR Fred Flinstone.

Do you have a favorite candy or mail-able snack?  Not really -- now coffee and tea though... and to have yarn that smells of either of those?  Heaven.

What’s your favorite animal?  My dog Sophie.  I know, not the spirit in which you asked, but other than that, I'm not too much of a cutesy animal person.

Do you have pets? What are their species/names/ages?  Sophie is a Great Pyrenees mix and I love her to death.  She's almost 5 and weighs 85 lbs.

If you were a color what color would you be?  Oh sheesh.  Depends on the season... I like seasonal.

Describe your favorite shirt (yours or someone else’s)..  Now?  Don't have one, but in 6th grade, Joan Mitchell and I had matching pink Ziggy shirts that we wore together every other day -- bless  my sainted laundry-doing mother.

What is your most inspiring image, flower, or object in nature?  Whichever one I'm looking at!  Again, I'm flexible.  I love flowers and the outdoors and can find beauty in all of it,  from the lowliest weeds in the yard to Niagara Falls. 

Tell me the best quote you’ve ever heard or read.  Man!  Something I quote from time to time?  I don't know... I still have the lumberjack song stuck in my head from yesterday.

Do you have a wishlist?  Not really.

Anything else you’d like to share with the group today?  Enjoy it!

This Is A Test...

Of how long it will take Bloglines to pick up this post... we're at 9 hours and counting for this morning's post... Sheesh.

ETA:  Oh sure... That took less than a minute... musta been down or something. 

Kidletts and Blogland stuff

First Blogland.  Knittyref has the Sisterhood of the Traveling Stash box.  She's sent it on, but she blogged about it here.  And Bridgett posted pics of her uber-cool stove.  I love that stove.

Kidletts?  I have after-camp carpool this week.  It consists of two going-into-2nd-grade girls, 2 going-into-4th-grade boys and a going-into-5th-grade boy.  One boy is mine.  Today they went creeking and were discussing it -- limestone striations and such... right.  Which led to discussing dinosaurs, their potty habits, and pre-historic times in general.  Which led to discussing Adam and Eve, because the kids all go to the same Catholic school.  Which led to discussing how on earth grown-ups could possibly NOT know they were naked until they ate some apple.  Much giggling and a stern look from the more prim of the girls.  Which led to a very funny re-telling of the Adam and Eve story by the three boys in the way back of the van (you have to say the names Ad-dumb and Eeeeeeeve.)  More stern looks.  At the end of the Ad-dumb and Eeeeeeve story, God comes in with, of all things, a chainsaw to cut off their heads (Prim calls them 'sinners') and at the mention of chainsaws, the entire car (minus Prim) breaks into song... you guessed it.  The Lumberjack Song.  I had tears of laughter rolling down my face as they did the entire first verse, all the way through 'the lava-tree' and 'buttered scones for tea'.  Hilarious. 

These children are well-trained.  One, they break into song at the mention of words or ideas related to songs they know.  Two, they can sing the Lumberjack Song.  My work is done. 

OK, Who's In Charge of Me?

'Cause I need a keeper.  To tell me to PUT DOWN THE SOCKS!  Sheesh.  I've got other knitting to do!  Imminent babies and weddings, and all I can do is fixate on Chevron Socks.  Knit out of the most lovely hand-spun yarn -- Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop yarn -- man oh man. 

To assuage the guilt I'm feeling about these projects hanging over my head, I got out the Palette Sampler I ordered from Knitpicks awhile ago and what to my wondering eyes?  (Logical --- when guilted out, begin a new project, right?) That stuff is SOCK YARN!  Well, fingering weight.  (How did I not know this -- or remember this?  Sheesh -- inattentive  I am.)  And, as you know, since I'm a knitting lemming -- ready to jump off any cliff with the rest of you --  I've been aching to do the log-cabin squares the Mason-Dixon ladies have sold so well...  And I need a baby blanket... And the mom wants shades of green for this little one... A perfect match.  I pulled out 10 of the brighter colors in two color families and I got this far last night. The great thing about this project?  I can work on it until the baby comes and then finish the round or two that I'm working on, bind off and voila -- it's a gift.  I know, I know -- wool, babies, washing, blah, blah, blah -- this mom's careful and will appreciate the lovely softness and color in this blanket.  So, for this, I was able to put down the sock... for now...

A Solicitation

So I need your opinions before I get much further...  This is an afghan.  But look -- blocked and off the needles, it's only 37 or 38 inches wide.  Wide enough?  Or should I start over?  I was knitting along on it and realized that it only seemed to be like 30 or 32 inches wide... Bad.  So I took it off the needles, wet it and blocked it... better.  But big enough to be an afghan?  A nice gift?  I don't know.  Can I compensate with a little more length than the pattern calls for?  I really love the pattern and the yarns are perfect together...

So.  Not all socks all the time... for now.

WWKIPD and a Sock

Five of us knit on our common ground for WWKIPD -- we had a lovely time, 90 degree temps notwithstanding.   Left to right are Jenn, Cindy, Dear Daughter, and Bridgett.  We chatted and knit -- a really great excuse to sit and knit with friends for three hours... 

Jenn gets the prize for the busiest knitter of the day -- check out her blog for details.  All I know is that she did Race for the Cure that morning, WWKIP that afternoon, and Shakespeare in the Park that evening.  I'd have been asleep in my soup. 

Cindy and I met in person for the first time for this event, and we chatted away like old friends. Here she's finished a cute, furry, stripey poncho for her daughter.   She's lived all over and we found several "it's a really small world" type connections.  So great to meet you Cindy!

I taught Bridgett to knit a while back and she's done a ton of hats and a pair of socks.  She hosted a great book club last night (my first encounter with chocolate pasta --fabulous!!!-- she topped it with ice cream and sour cherry sauce simmered on this stove which is exactly my age -- 1962 model year though -- sorry it's so fuzzy, but it's the only picture I could find online -- Bridgett, did you know there is an online forum for Flair users?  This oven/stove combo is possibly the coolest appliance, retro or modern, I've ever been in the same room with.  You slide the cook top out from under the double oven when you want to use it and it's all Jetsons and gleaming -- it sits on your cabinets, kind of low mounted like an apron front sink.  I'm enchanted.)

But I digress.  We knit, we chatted, we ate cookies Dear Daughter baked.  It was a lovely afternoon. 

I mostly finished this sock. Chevron pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks out of the homespun I acquired a few weeks ago -- WildThing colorway.  Kitchenered them this morning -- oh, and changed the heel to a heel flap rather than an afterthought heel.  Aren't they wavy and cute?  And orange?  A springy, comfortable, thick sock.  And a super fast knit, even on 1s.  More crazy socks -- but since I sent the Queen Rock socks away to New Zealand as Sock Savior Socks, I think I'll keep these.  Really.  

Gotta go out for errands, but I have a rant brewing, so come back y'all!

NYC Part the Second

But first, go check out the fun summer sock idea my sockapaloooza pal Beverly and her pal Scout have cooked up!  I'm all in -- even if there is math. 

Ok... Where were we?  Oh, right.  After our visit to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, we went out to dinner at Shelly's New York.  Great food.  If you order the fish and chips though?  You get a plank of fish the size of dear son's leg from knee to foot.  No kidding -- we compared everyone's appendages to the plank of fish, just for future reference, and his shin was the closest.  The people at the next table even got up and came over to goggle at the fish dinners served to my kids.  Humongous (and kind of a waste as we were in a hotel and didn't want doggy bags).  I had a great sole meuniere (is that spelled right?) and hubby had tuna -- both thankfully a reasonably sized portion.  Then we walked it off right up to Central park for a carriage ride through the park.  The horse's name was Buddy.

The next morning, we checked out of our hotel and walked down to the Empire State Building.  The sock came as well.  We really enjoyed the views... perhaps something one should do at the beginning of a trip to NYC -- get the lay of the land. We had left our luggage in the luggage room at the hotel and when we went back to get it, Dad had arranged this: you guessed it, a limo. 

Here's the thing about New York.  On a Wednesday afternoon, limos to La Guardia are only $10 more than a cabride... the look on your kids' faces when one pulls up?  Priceless.

Was this a slightly extravagant trip?  You betcha.  Do I feel bad about it?  Heck no!  We've earned it!   As I've said before, DH travels for his work a LOT.  This trip was partially on his work's tab... I'll take it as part of my reimbursement for his being gone so much.  'Cause I know, 'Busy is Good, Busy is Good', but dang... we miss him sometimes, you know?

So.  Knitting content?  Not really.  There have been Blue Moon acquisitions -- they've got new colors you know... but I'll leave those for later.  The socks and the afghan are progressing swimmingly, but not in a particularly photo-worthy way.

And World Wide Knit in Public Day is Saturday.  I'm organizing a knit-in in the public space near our house.  Email if you want directions.  See you all tomorrow!

The Cryptic References Revealed...

That ought to get some interesting (read creepy) Google hits.  I don't like to pre announce our trips -- seems like announcing being gone from the house when I've made no secret about where it is is tempting fate.  This weekend, we rode husband's traveling coat-tails to New York City.  He had business there and the kids and I bummed around while he worked.  Of course I took a sock.  My Trekking Sock to be exact -- color number 107.

We stayed at the Hilton at 53rd and 6th (Avenue of the Americas) -- just a jaunt from Central Park and a block away from MOMA.  We arrived on Saturday afternoon and explored 5th Avenue a bit, then hit The Peking Duck for dinner on the advice of the nice New York Lady we met waiting for the plane.  Yummy Chinese food -- near the hotel.

Sunday, the kids and I went to the Museum of Natural History while Dad went to his meeting.  We saw the Cosmic Collisions star show (very cool and surprising -- see it if you have the chance) and the Darwin exposition (that's a doozy too -- 'cause you have to talk about evolution to your kids in public and everyone has such divergent views ... sheesh).  Kids really loved the Darwin stuff, eventhough it was a lot of reading.  I think they got it and the museum does a pretty good job of hitting the high points.  Click the picture of son illustrating the high points.  He thinks he is very funny... unfortunately, so does his mother.  Does nothing to diminish his propensity to act silly in public.

That night, with Dad, we went to the Blue Man Group, off off Broadway.  Kids LOVED the show.  Those guys are seriously nuts.  Then we walked to a pizzaria in Little Italy (according to the literature, the first pizzaria ever to rent space in the US... est. in 1905.)  We also strolled a street fair in Little Italy and got a gelato.  Then we were tired.

Monday morning, I finally remembered to take the Sock with me on our adventure.  The sock strolled Times Square and shopped at the Mighty Toys R Us located there. While daughter and Dad shopped at the Swatch store nextdoor, Son and I visited this 4 story toy Mecca.  We did FAO as well, but, for toy shopping, I liked this store better.  More choices, frankly, and no life-sized, $10,000 stuffed elephants.  Really.  When I stopped to take a picture of dear son with the giant roaring dinosaur, a stranger asked if I wanted a picture of her too.  Get a load of son's face.  Then she hugged me and had me show her the pic on the camera.  (We did get a picture of just him after she had shuffled off.)  Son got to really experience New York.  As we were leaving, she was hopping into another tourist picture -- I wonder how many scrapbooks she's in...

Then the Sock got to take a cab ride to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.    A high point of the trip for the kids, frankly.  Such a famous American icon after all.  Both thought it was not as tall as they thought it would be.  They are sitting on a life-sized replica of the Statue's foot -- she's definately bigger up close.  And here is Dear Son next to a live sized replica of her face.  Whew.

By the time we got to Ellis Island we were tired -- but whew, is that place powerful. 

Afterwards, we walked up the Canyon of Heroes, Broadway in the Financial District -- imbedded in the sidewalk are bronze plaques commemorating the various ticker-tape parades held there.  The kids sat on the Bull for good luck -- at least that's what Dad said.  More later --- I've got to go catch up on my Bloglines -- 179 postings in just one weekend?  Sheesh!

I Have Really Got to Get Going This Morning!

So, no more than 20 minutes on this blog, ok?  Not the usual black-hole of my time will this be this morning.  So...

First, World Wide Knit In Public Day -- coming up next Saturday.  E mail me if you're in St. Louis and want to KIP.  I'll give you the particulars.  Thanks.

Second, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Stash?  Jocele has the box.  She'll blog about it this weekend and send it on on Monday... keep an eye out.  We have three ladies in the queue and since the Sisters have been so fast about this box, I think we'll have time to include them -- My goal is to get the box back by September, you know, so it has a good long Summer Vacay. 

And three?  The kids are out of school.  We went to the Cardinals game on Tuesday night -- we lost, but got to see Fred Bird up close and go to the Build a Bear Fred Bird store.

Thursday?  We took three friends to the Missouri Botanical Garden to see the Chihuly glass and the new Children's Garden (click to make the pictures bigger). For anyone counting, that's me plus 5 kids -- good kids I might add.  It poured rain, but we didn't care -- it had been hot.  Kids got to hold pieces of glass like the ones in the boat.  The new Children's Garden is fabulous (it got panned as the Disneyfication of our MO Botanical Garden -- crabby pants purists).  The kids spent three hours there -- and we walked around the rest of the garden looking for glass displays. 

Friday?  I worked at the knitshop and the kids swam all day at Nana's pool -- thanks Amanda and Nana. 

Last night?  Finished these -- the Queen Rock socks -- Garter Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks, 64 stitches on size one Addis.  They are the loudest socks I have ever knit.  Hands down.  I love them. 

Today begins our big adventure.  More on that next week.   Oops, it's 7:00 -- gotta go.  Have a great weekend all!