More Socks before Maine

Tomorrow we head up to Maine for Rich's cousin's wedding weekend, so I have a quick post with the latest sock, unbelievably finished in a mere 10 days by the grace of too much Olympic-viewing:

Spring Forward, done toe-up in Woolly Boully yeah oh yeah! sock, the Fishing with my Father colorway. The pattern and sock color are hard to photograph: the camera just can't show how loud this color is, and you just can't see the complicated pattern (because the yarn is so loud). I have to admit that the color grew on me as I was knitting. Actually, my appreciation of the yarn was no doubt helped along by how really pleasant it was to work with. Very nice yarn. The pattern was OK--not too hard once you got used to it.

Lean Mean Sock Machine

First things first: No, I have not heard back after my interview. Yes, it's been about 2 weeks. New resumes are on the way out, but I am disappointed the guy did not call me back. He seemed really interested and it would have been the perfect job, I think. Rats.

I am slogging through the Summer of Socks, and being more sock-productive than ever before. This winter, I can wear handknit socks every day, I swear. I may foist some off on others, as well. Share the hand-knitted goodness, right? Here's the latest:

I finished the Fern Leaf Lace socks (although I recently discovered this stitch is actually called "Baby Fern," but who cares).

These are done with Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport and I LOVE THEM. I am KEEPING these, for sure. This yarn is so soft and was a JOY to knit with. It also is so pretty IRL--it seems a little drab in photos, I think, but in reality is gorgeous. Am I shouting too much? Sorry!

After those were done, I worked on the Seaweed Socks, in the Tofutsies yarn. As much as I loved the LL Sport? Yeah, that's how much I hated the Tofutsies yarn. The pattern, however, was great. Although it is pretty much lost in the busy colors of the yarn, it worked out well. In fact, I really think my enjoyment of the pattern was all that kept me going on these socks. The lace stitch has a short repeat--eight rows, I think? It was so tantalizing and really kept me engaged. "Oh, look," I would say to myself when the yarn was getting especially annoying, "Only two more rows and that's another repeat done. Only three more repeats and I can start the heel. Only two more repeats and the darn things is done. Woo hoo!" And lookie here:

All done! These were done on a size 0 needles (ouch!), and I made them with a short leg because I could not wait for them to be done. Then I had a little ceremony and threw the leftover yarn in the kitchen garbage with the coffee grounds and shredded zucchini ... Yuck. There may have been some evil laughter. Dr. Horrible laughter. Goodbye Tofutsies, and good riddance! But, on the good side, I am very pleased with the socks themselves.

And ta da! I just finished these:

These are Boyfriend Socks, which oddly enough I ended up making for Mathboy. The yarn is by Spindle City Yarns in the Camouflage colorway. This yarn was great--it was very, very nice to use, and I can't believe how much yarn there was in this skein. I could have made socks for boat-sized feet with this skein.

So now I have to work on the Coupling Socks, but am finding that pattern really hard to memorize. Must. Concentrate. And I started a new sport-weight sock, because you just gotta love those quickies sometimes:

This is going to be another one of those mishmash socks, where I cram a lot of other folks' techniques into one sock. The stitch pattern is Cross Hatch Lace from More Sensational Knitted Socks, and I think I've kinda got it memorized--row 5 is the only tricky one for me. I'm using the Zen String Lotus Toes Sport in Boreal, and size 2 (2.75mm) needles.

Lazy Days of Summer

The camps have ended and the kids are sleeping in. They actually were looking forward to a week with no obligations, and they have advised me that it is my job this week to take them to the pool as much as possible. They want to see their friends and they want to stay in their PJs as much as possible as well. So, I'm wondering, the ideal week would be one in which they could meet their friends at the pool and swim in their PJs? I dunno. We'll see what we can do, I told them.

The play for Catgirl's drama camp was adorable. When we come to the big family wedding in a couple of weeks, we will bring much video for everyone's viewing pleasure: we have the play and the 95 degree piano recital from June.

New socks!
I'm working on these for this week's deadline in the Summer of Socks:

This is the first sock; the second is almost done as well. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in the Baltic Sea colorway, and it is wonderful to knit. It is very soft and the colors are gorgeous. I don't know how well the yarn will hold up over time, but right now I am in love with these socks. I used the Fern Leaf Lace stitch from More Sensational Knitted Socks, and the sportweight heel from Wendy's standard recipe.

In other sock news, I finished the first and am chugging along on the second Boyfriend Sock. It looks great, but the dark color of the yarn and the small needles make it a little less attractive to work on at times. I did forsake it for a while, turning to the Fern Leaf Lace socks, but I do want to finish it soon. I ripped out the Lotus Toes toe. Couldn't make it work for anything. I'll try again later. The Seaweed socks are proceeding very slowly because the yarn is really not my cup of tea.

The Jungle
The garden has reached that point in the summer where it would be more accurately described as a vegetable jungle.

The tomato plants have gone crazy and the zucchini plants churning out a zucchini every day. Even the broccoli plants still are giving me little florets here and there. I need to rip them out, but the guinea pig is enjoying their continued production for the time being. I planted bush beans, but the same varmint that ate all my chard in the spring is eating the bean leaves. As in the spring, said varmint is eating only that one thing and nothing else. Why?!

"Put on the Murder, Mom."
I downloaded the audiobook version of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express to listen to in the car with the kids and they are really into it. They make me pause the playback every few minutes so they can update me on how their theories have changed in light of the new evidence Poirot has obtained. It's a lot of fun. It's interesting for me, already knowing the ending, in that I am hearing a lot more real clues early on in the book than I remember noticing when I read it all those years ago. I loved Agatha Christie books when I was younger, but I became angry with her at times because it seemed like there was no way that readers could solve her mysteries. We just did not have all the onformation that Hercule Poirot had--at least until he would hold his big "this is how it all happened" conference at the end of the book. But I must admit, there are a few little tidbits of information dropped early on in this book, if you know what you are looking for.

I just found out that I was one of the winners in a contest on the Mason Dixon Knitting blog--I'm going to get a signed copy of their new book when it comes out in September! I am very excited; I loved their first book. And I won something! Woohoo! Ok, gushing over. :o)

Random Summer Thoughts

Putting the "Sport" in Sport Utility Vehicle.
I wanted to show you a picture of the back of my car, but I keep forgetting to take one. You'll have to imagine it. On any typical day, we are carrying supplies for softball, tennis, karate, golf and possibly swimming. It's crazy, I tell you.

The Summer of Socks
So far, I have completed 2 pairs of socks in the past 4 weeks, which is pretty darn amazing for me. Here they are:

Basic 2x2 rib socks in Apple Laine's Apple Pie yarn, Blue Bayou colorway:

Aren't they pretty? They are sooooo soft. Wow. And here are my Peace socks by Wendyknits, done in Schaefer Lola:

These were done in thicker yarn on a bigger needle so they flew by.

I am cruising along on the first sock of a 3rd pair:

Boyfriend Socks in Spindle City Yarns' Camouflage colorway. This is truly yummy yarn, by the way--very soft and lots of sproing! I love it. I started these for Rich, but the spiraling of the colors is a little less subtle than I think he would appreciate, so these are going to go to Mathboy instead. The benefit of knitting for Mathboy is that his feet are nearly the same size as mine, so I can use my feet for measuring. Plus Mathboy has been clamoring for more socks. Rich? Not so much.

I also had a Moment of Craziness the other day and cast on 2 more toes. I was looking through the yarns I have had hanging around for a while and I guess the yarn fumes took over. Before I knew what was happening, I had 2 toes: one in Tofutsies on size 0 needles and one in Zen String Lotus Toes Sport in Boreal, on size 1 (2.5mm). The problem was figuring out what to do with these toes. I tried a few different patterns, but the size did not look right, even though the gauge was supposedly correct, so they have both been ripped back to the toes a couple of times. Currently, I am trying Wendy's Seaweed Socks for the Tofutsies and Coupling from Knitty for the Lotus Toes Sport (which is pretty light to be labeled "sportweight," IMO, but I don't mind). This is how they look now:

My Lotus Toe:


And my Seaweed half-foot:


Summer Camps

(Silly Hat Day). Catgirl is having the Best Time Ever at her Drama Camp, even though her group made some weird choices for their skit for the end of year show--choices she and her friend don't like. Apparently, the group has voted for a story about people who don't like waffles, and wanted the set to represent "Waffleworld." Catgirl's suggestions were rejected by the group, even though the teacher apparently liked them and supported her. Oh well. Sometimes democracy stinks. She's still enjoying it, though, thank goodness.

Mathboy is doing a half-day golf camp this week (hence the bag of clubs hogging the back of my car, see above), and really enjoying it. Next week, he has full day camp at the Y, which will include golf as well. I wish I hadn't signed him up for that, though; I think he would have been fine with another week of this half-day camp at Ramblewood. Oh well. Sometimes moms make mistakes. And, who knows? Maybe next week's camp will be great and we will be happy he did it. We'll have to wait and see.

Adamas, he is done.

The last couple of repeats seemed to take forever. There were over 400 stitches on the needles by the time I was casting off. Finally, it is done. I give you ADAMAS:

Adamas slouching on the porch railing.

Adamas relaxing in the chair. All he needs is a mint julep, don't you think? (This was a tricky shot, by the way. Wicker and lace are not really the best of friends, if you know what I mean.)

It was hard to photograph this shawl. So much of our furniture inside and out on the patio is dark-colored, so the shawl did not show up against it. I had to take it to the porch instead. The color of this yarn is more interesting in real life: it just looks like a flat purple in these pictures, but in reality it's got some heathery-ness.

So now I can say I've done laceweight yarn. Been there, done that. Not going to do it again. I can also finally say I've done a triangular shawl--this was my first. I'm not quite sure I know how to wear it, but I will give it a try. Actually, after admiring the FO, the kids asked me, "So what do you do with it?" I hemmed and hawed. Then we all played around, wrapping it around ourselves. We all agree that the over the head method of wearing it is not the most flattering. Wish I had thought to get the camera out for the modelling session we had!

Summer's here!

Summer is most definitely here. It's hot. School is out. Sports are done. We've had our big party, and it was a good one (thank goodness the forecasts of severe thunderstorms with damaging winds, etc., were wrong).

We harvested our first carrots, and boy do they look weird!


They taste good, though.

My summer projects are going well. Here is Adamas (am I the only one who thinks of Battlestar Galactica when I hear the name of this pattern?):

I've done 11 out of the 14 required repeats of chart 2, then it's chart 3 and the cast off. This may sound like I am almost done, but it is deceiving since you increase the number of stitches every other row. I started with 5 stitches and now I think I have over 300. Each row takes quite a while to get through, at this point, and the last few repeats of the chart are going to take some time.

I am also working a little slowly because of this laceweight yarn. I really don't enjoy working with it. I just can't get used to how light it is. There's no weight to help me manage the tension of my stitches, and that is slowing me down. Well, I wanted to try laceweight, and now I have. Don't think I'll want to do it again. Frankly, I think this shawl would be just as nice, if not nicer, with a slightly heavier yarn. In fact, I have seen some of the Ravelers doing this shawl are using fingering weight yarn and I think the stitch definition on their projects looks great.

The Summer of Socks is underway, as well, and I have started my first pair.

The is Apple Laine's Apple Pie yarn in the Blue Bayou colorway. I've had this yarn hanging around for almost 2 years, and I decided it finally needed to get used. It's rather light, so I wasn't able to get a good gauge with it on my usual 2.5mm no.1's, and that is why I had not used it yet. But I recently purchased a set of 2.25mm no.1s, and the yarn looks great on that size needle. I thought about doing Baudelaires but decided against that pattern because the yarn is so colorful. In addition, the mohair content of the yarn gives the knitted fabric a major halo, so a lacy or complicated pattern would be impossible to see. In the end, I decided a simple rib pattern would be best, so here it is. The fabric is incredibly soft because of the silk and the mohair in the yarn. VERY nice.

We went to the library this week and signed the kids up for the summer reading program, which was just the last little nudge CatGirl needed to start reading again (Mathboy doesn't need any help there). As Mathboy settled down with the EarthSea Cycle by Ursula LeGuin, C picked out a whole bunch of books, including--get this--a Nancy Drew. I had been recommending Nancy Drews to C for a while, but she was never interested BUT a little girl she was talking to in the Juvenile Paperback section that day told her that she had read tons of Nancy Drews and loved them. After that, C came over to me and asked which Nancy Drew I would recommend she start with, and we happily found her The Secret of the Old Clock. You know, peer pressure can be a good thing. :o) Meanwhile, I am still listening to The Pillars of the Earth, but I am ready for it to be over. I have enjoyed it very much, I just want to have something new. I am also still reading The Last Child in the Woods, and I am tired of that one as well. I think it was very interesting, but I feel like I've gotten the point and I've had enough of that.

So that's it. Summer's here!

Season's Over

The Lucky Charms lost a tough one last night, ending their season. They should be pretty proud of themselves, though, having finished 4th out of 10 teams. This is pretty good, when you consider that the coach scheduled very little practice time at all this season, and the team was comprised mostly of younger girls (our team had only 2 3rd graders, while the team that beat them last night had 4 3rd graders).

In other news, the kids tell me that the birdhouse already has new tenant, and that there are eggs!