My sock is too big...

Here is my sock:

Two sock clubs ago, I decided that my sock was too big. I ripped out the heel and three pattern repeats.

Last sock club, I started the heel again. I guess I must have added in a pattern repeat or two. Because, having finished the heel for the second time, the sock is still too big. It may be growing while I'm ignoring it in favor of the big woolen stripy thing.

I'm feeling stubborn with this sock. At some point in the near future I am going to rip out the heel for the second time (and a few extra pattern repeats for good measure). Here's hoping that if it's still not right after I redo the heel for the third time, it's at least too small instead of too big.

Why I like San Francisco, part 1

Guess what I found this afternoon while I was walking around downtown. Without even looking for it, although I'd been meaning to make sure to visit sometime this week.

That scruffy looking building, once you ride the scary elevator up to the second floor, is the home of Artfibers, which is a very cool yarn store. They make all their own yarn. They let you try it out in the store. They have so many different options that it takes forever to decide.

And I found it by accident, which made my afternoon very cool.

Next up, dinner at The Stinking Rose with Erin, who used to live in Cincinnati.

San Francisco

Know what 4+ hours on a plane (plus maybe 1/2 hour waiting to get on the plane) gets you? This:

That's right. A good start on a toe up sock. Admittedly, this is my second start on this sock. But still. I think that's pretty good progress.

There were a few distractions. Turbulence. Snacks (twice, since it was a long flight). A small child kicking the back of my seat. His mother/female (ir)responsible person clipping her (hopefully) fingernails behind me. (Is this allowed? It seems pretty disgusting to me, particularly in such a small space with so many people next to you.) Stuff like that.

But, now I'm finally in San Francisco, hooray! I hear there are some good yarn stores here. :)

Sock details: KnitPicks Felici yarn (Arugula colorway). KnitPicks 2.5mm circular needle. Yarn over Cable pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks (p 39-43). I'm doing this as magic loop, which so far means working the sole on 1 "needle" and the rest on the other. I'm pretty much following the directions for using 4 dpns, just replacing the 2nd & 3rd needles with the other half of my circular and putting a stitch marker in between. Just like the Queen of Sock taught me. :)

Big woolly stripey thing, revealed

My baby sister got married this weekend. I intended to make the happy couple a Log Cabin blanket as their gift. Unfortunately, it's taking much longer than expected and will probably continue to take a long time since I start grad school in a couple of weeks. Fortunately, reliable sources tell me that I have up to a year to give a wedding gift.

I had been keeping this project a secret, or at least making an attempt in places where Brecka would see it. However, the happy bride decided that she wanted to see her gift in progress. Which means that I can now share pictures.

Here's a somewhat recent shot. Since this was taken I've added the next dark green stripe and started picking up for a small stripe of burgundy, which will be used as the border color as well after one or two more repeats of the three-color pattern.

Ugly hat

There are some things that just beg to be frogged.



It all started out so innocently. There was a sale on blue yarn for Father's Day. I bought yarn with blue in it, hoping to make a hat for my dad. I bought a top-down hat pattern to use with the yarn, thinking it would be fun. I started knitting and eventually got this. It looks ok in the photo, but imagine it on my dad's head - it just didn't work. At all. So this yarn, which I really do like, has been re-balled and is waiting for fresh inspiration. Poor yarn.

Why I love KnitPicks

I ordered some more yarn for a project on Sunday. This morning I had an email saying that it would be here in three business days. And I just got home from work to find my yarn sitting in front of my door. Yay!

Admittedly, I did pay for 3-day shipping because I wanted to make sure that I'd have what I needed by when I thought I would be ready for it. But getting it today pretty much makes it 1-day shipping - at least by my calculations.

:)

Update: Ok, now I like KnitPicks even better. I ordered a bunch of different things, including a skein of Felici sock yarn, since I was dumb and only ordered enough for one sock before. I asked them to send me another skein in the same dye lot, if they had it available, and they did! But that's not all - I was also ordering extra yarn in a bunch of different colors, and for every single color they sent me more yarn in the same dye lot as what I already had! I didn't think that would even be possible - I'm so impressed!

WooHoo!

My Ravelry invitation came today. I guess that means I no longer have the joy of checking to see how many people are ahead of me in the list... But now I can photograph yarn and projects and organize needles to my heart's content. :)

I see much procrastination in my future...

Lots of stripes...

That's what I'm working on right now. Lots and lots of never ending, woolen stripes. I can't say much more, and there will be no photo posting until the last stripe is complete. You'll just have to imagine the woolly stripes for now.

As of midnight tonight (or whenever UPS delivers my copy to me) I have a new dilemma: how do I read Harry Potter and knit woolen stripes at the same time? If only I was obsessing over a new movie or tv show - then I could multi-task. I think the plan is going to have to be as follows for the foreseeable future (or, at least, the free-time portion of it): Knit as long as I can stand it, then read until I feel guilty for not knitting.

Let's just say that by the time comes for me to start school in August, I think I might be tired of knitting. Maybe. :)

Ideas

Ok. I'm going to have to add this pattern to my list of ideas for making blankets. It looks great. And like it would be lots of fun. And I've never done a blanket in the round. :)

Credit goes to Grumperina for introducing me to it.

Elmore-Pisgah Update

I'm a little late with this, but I didn't want to leave the impression that I was having difficulties with Elmore-Pisgah or their yarn. It turns out that my purchase was returned to them as having been damaged, when the box had only been crushed a bit. So they repackaged it and sent it out again (without charging me more for shipping, wahoo!), and I had fun tracking it on the internet. Now I have my yarn, in colors that I had forgotten I'd ordered, and I am proceeding to feel guilty about not using it very much. :)

Yikes!

I can see that I'm quickly slipping back into the never-posting-anything mode that this blog suffered from for quite a while. So, in the interests of preventing any further slippage, here is a small update.

Somehow, I have gone from being a "one-large-project-at-a-time" knitter to a "too-many-small-projects-to-keep-track-of" knitter. I spent almost a year doing nothing but blankets. Want to know what's on the needles (or stitch holders) right now?

• Irish Hiking Scarf Reversible Cable Scarf - started on the way to Colorado in February. About 1/3 done. No progress since February.

• Fingerless gloves - Started sometime this spring. No progress since I realized I wasn't sure how to do the thumb.

• Cherry Tree Hill socks - Started not too long ago (0k, maybe 2 months, or 3?) Approximately 1 1/2 socks done. This would go faster if I stuck it in my purse, I suspect.

• Lorna's Laces Jaywalkers - Started more recently than the CTH socks. Making slow progress, because I keep ignoring them for too long and then forgetting the stitch pattern.

• Mason Dixon Knitting washcloth - Started somewhat recently. 1/4 done.

• Funny looking hat. Started on a business trip. Tried it on Dad, the intended recipient. It's going to need to be frogged. It just didn't look right. At all.

• Fuzzy soft lovely gift something - Bought yarn Wednesday. Not started yet.

• Big huge gift something - Bought yarn Wednesday. Waiting for it to arrive from KnitPicks.
• Mason Dixon Knitting Baby Kimono - Bought two different types of yarn to try this with. Not started yet.
  

I'm sure I've forgotten something in there. Probably. The comparison to my old "one-blanket-at-a-time" method is making me feel rather guilty.

Damaged in transit

I ordered some Peaches & Creme yarn from Elmore-Pigsah. It was recommended in Mason-Dixon Knitting for making baby sweaters, wash-cloths, and such. I tracked my order on the UPS website and was excited to see that it would be delivered yesterday. And I was conveniently at home instead of work when it should be delivered (the result of a visit to the dentist and a numb lip). But the package never came.

I checked the UPS website again. Somehow since I'd checked in the morning, the status had changed from "On Schedule" to "THE PACKAGE WAS DAMAGED IN TRANSIT. UPS WILL NOTIFY THE SENDER WITH THE DETAILS;ALL MERCHANDISE IS BEING RETURNED. UPS WILL NOTIFY THE SENDER WITH DETAILS OF THE DAMAGE".

Now my yarn is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, when I probably will be at work. Hopefully one of the neighbors will be around to receive the package.

Here's my question: How does a package of yarn get damaged in transit? Did they drop it in a puddle? Run over it with the truck? It seems like, of all the things I could have ordered, yarn should be one of the least likely things to be easily damaged. But maybe that's just impatience speaking.

Anyway - tomorrow should bring yarn. Lots and lots of yarn. Many shades of blue yarn. :)

Update: Boy was I mistaken. My yarn will be delivered today, but not to me. UPS evidently regards returning it to the shipper as delivery. So Elmore-Pigsah should be receiving my yarn (or what's left of it) today. :(

New authors, new book

I love my library. They have almost anything I want to read, for free (other than the $10 late fees I pay every 6 months or so). In this instance, they had Mason-Dixon Knitting (by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne), which I've been wanting to read since some blog (probably the Yarn Harlot) mentioned it.

I really like this book. I may have to add it to my wish list. It has some really neat ideas for blankets, with pattern ideas other than the checkerboard squares that my sister & I have been cranking out. Plus, washcloths, cute baby kimonos, & all sorts of other ideas. I have some yarn on the way (recommended in the book) so that I can try things out.

Sock!

I finished my first sock! I even did the Kitchener at the end (much thanks to KnittingHelp.com and the Queen of Sock, who taught my sock class).

I think some photos are in order:

• The sock on one of my couch pillows. It (the sock) looks kind of big, doesn't it?

• The sock on my foot. It is pretty big. This might have to be a house-only sock. I don't think it will fit in my shoe... (Ok, I realize that it doesn't look that big in this picture. What you can't see is that it's pretty really stretchy and a much larger foot/leg could fit in there instead.)
  

Now only one question remains: Am I on my way to becoming like the Queen of Sock? Having finished this one, I'm tempted to move on and try for a better fit. But then this poor lonely sock wouldn't have a friend, and I don't often find a need for a single sock...

Shopping List

One of the girls at sock club this morning took some time to show off some of the purchases she'd made in Ithaca - Spinning Bunny sock yarn, in the Blueberry Patch colorway.

If anybody out there feels the need to give me an unexpected, really early birthday or Christmas gift, this would be a great idea. :)

Sock Class

After reading about the Yarn Harlot's travelling socks, I thought it might be fun to try one of my own. So I signed up for sock class at Yarns & Fabrications, my local yarn store. I bought some yummy Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn and a loverly 40-inch Addi Turbo circular, and started learning how to use the Magic Loop method to make a sock.

I had some issues at first. Somehow I kept making an extra loop of yarn around the needle whenever I went to switch sides. Which was giving me an extra stitch every time. Not so fun. But we eventually got it figured out, and now I'm making good progress. See?

I'm back!

I haven't posted here for quite a while. Life got busy. I got annoyed with my stupid MythTV computer and all its difficulties... Note: eventually those difficulties ironed themselves out and I am now running MythTV quite successfully with Ubuntu as the host. It installed with no problem. I think it had just been long enough since I bought everything that the stupid motherboard and processor were finally supported by more Linux distributions.

My intent for this blog has changed. I don't really need to keep notes on what I'm doing to my computer - because it's working! So I'm going to turn to my new hobby: knitting. :)

I'll post pictures & such of all the stuff I'm working on or have finished. It'll be fun. And I think that the name I picked for the blog (total Over the Rhine reference, by the way) fits better with a blog about the stuff that I'm knitting than it did with my MythTV notes.

So, in honor of my first (new) post, here are some completed project photos:

• The baby blanket for Sophia. Double stranded Bernat Softee Baby. 3 skeins each of two different dye lots, since there weren't enough of one lot. I can't remember what size needles. Maybe 10.5s?
  


• The baby blanket for Kara's new baby whose name I can't remember. About 2/3 each of two Lion Brand Pound Of Love (huge, really huge) skeins. Size 10 needles, I think. It's tough to know for sure because towards the end I (stupid, very stupid) took the needle tips off of my Denise kit. That in itself isn't stupid, but I hadn't been removing the tips up to that point, so I didn't really remember what size of tip I was using. And once I put the tips back in the case, all I really remembered was the general case area where the needles were located. So, maybe size 10, maybe 11, maybe 10.5. Probably 10, as the gauge didn't change too much afterwards. :)