2.25 FOs

The two refers to Stine's socks and the .25 to the half of the back of my flutter sleeve cardigan! I went with size 6 needles for the under-bust ribbing and when I measured it came out perfectly! The real test will be when I put it on, but of course won't know that until a lot more knitting is complete!

general news and updates

so the last few months I have not been a very good blogger - that can be attributed to lots of reasons: we were out of town for two weeks, it was Christmas and New Year's, then I was a desperate housewife who only really had time to start on one pair of socks (Stine's Irving Park) before I got a new job at CKE Restaurants where I am blocked from blogging at work, unlike at my old job where the majority of blogging was done from work. so it will take a little extra effort to keep this up, but I have such great projects ready to start I want to share them!! I am almost finished with Stine's socks - just a few more inches on the cuff to go! Then I was seduced by Interweave Knits' spring preview a month or so ago and had to rush out to buy the new issue and yarn to complete the Flutter Sleeve Cardigan right away.
So, like I mentioned, Wes is back on night shifts now so I think tonight I will make my swatch for the Cardigan and make sure I have the right needle size and enough yarn to start this project. The socks can be finished in a couple more lunch breaks while looking out at the ocean from the bluffs of Carpinteria :)

My new lunchtime knitting view

It really is too hot to knit today but the ocean breeze makes it bearable :) so these are stine's socks that didnt get finished before i saw her for dinner last nite. But i have good motivation to finish them now that wes is back on nite shift

Hawaii socks done!

today I finished up another pair of toe-up socks ... again in Lorna's Laces and this time in Hawaii! I solved the too-tight at the top problem by casting off using size 10.5 needles ... a huge size difference, but it worked. The tops are perfectly stretchy. I didn't realize it would come off the needles so stripy. When they opened up the skein to wind it at AFY, half was pure white and the other half was a blend of the green, blue and purple, but I still like it. I had these in mind for Tia, not for anything special, just that I saw the colors and thought she would like it, so I hope she is pleased! We have the same size feet, so I didn't have to do any extra math to make the pattern work. Also in the picture is the start of another pair in Irving Park - Stine's choice for her socks. So far all I have is the toes on dpns, but plan to work on them the rest of the afternoon. One of the luxuries of not working right now :)

sock portrait

finally a picture of some FINISHED socks! the all navy blue ones are Wes, I started that pair in my first "learn to knit socks class" last year and finished them just before we left for Colorado for our anniversary. it has been sooo cold the last couple of nights, so even though it was hot in Colorado and he didnt' need them, I am glad they are finished now!
the purple/blue/green ones are me and those are the socks I made in the "toe-up sock class" last month. I finished them a few weeks ago. I knit the two cuffs at the same time and got a little greedy on finishing up the whole ball of yarn, so the second sock to be bound off it a little tight at the top because I was running out of yarn. It's just a little hard to get on and off, once they are on it isn't too tight and they are sooo warm. Perfect for lounging on our new couch in handknit socks! :)

finally finishing these socks

After a Saturday shopping excursion with Tia, I made it over to AFY to learn what I missed in toe-up sock class last week. Turning the heel on toe-up socks is way easy - I think I am going to make toe-up socks as often as possible!! Once I turned both heels, I put both socks on the same needles, so I could knit around and around until I run out of yarn, or I could be about done with this pair, pictured on the right, and use the leftover yarn to make matching socks for Taylor!! But if I keep making mine higher, they'll be warmer. It has been cold in our apartment the last few nights ... bring on fall!!

instead of dishcloths ...

thanks to Lois at AFY for helping me get all the beautiful colors of Lorna's Laces I want to knit socks with! I stopped by last night and put in the order, so soon I will have way too much yarn hanging around my house! I think I might make worsted-weight socks be my new car-knitting project. The dishcloths are great for practicing lace (so maybe I can finally cast on for the Lucky wrap cardigan that I bought yarn for over a year ago?), but there is a definite chill in the air and I am about to dive head first into warm sock mode. Last night during The Office and Grey's (yeah TiVo!) I finished up through the gusset on my second toe-up sock for class on Saturday. I am hoping that Karin will show us how to knit both socks at the same time after we learn the heel shaping so that from here on out, all my pairs can be completed at the same time, which will ensure that both socks in the pair get made in a timely maner :)

Grandma's socks

a few weeks ago Wes and I spent the weekend in Orange County for golfing, Ducks games and general family and friend togetherness and I was able to get Grandma to sit still for a minute so I could capture the bittersweet socks on her feet and on camera! I am so pleased that they fit her and that she seems to love them, since each time I showed up at her house over the long weekend, she had the socks on!
to recap: the yarn is Lorna's Laces worsted weight yarn in bittersweet and the pattern is also from Lorna's Laces, the Liberty Sock pattern that Lois used in sock class and the only sock pattern I've ever used ... but that is soon to change!!!

what to do with a little leftover yarn?

I presented Grandma's bittersweet socks to her on Saturday at brunch. They turned out really cute and I think I need to get more of that color to make myself a pair too ... but it's getting warm again and knitting socks isn't really a priority. HOWEVER, my attention span for knitting has been short lately as there are still boxes all over my new apartment and work has been slightly hellacious too. I was trying to decide what to do with this little bit of yarn that was left over from Grandma's socks and while reading the latest posts on pieknits, got some inspiration! it's always nice to find a pattern that I don't have to buy any supplies for, even if I don't have a reason to make it ... don't worry, this isn't my way of breaking any big news :)

changing the subject quickly! I was in town to have brunch with Grandma on Saturday because Tia and I ran in the Great American Adventure Race on Saturday a.m. It was on the westside of Central Park (with Edwards Hill!) and was sooo fun to run there again! my last race on that course was Cross-Country League Finals senior year of high school, almost 10 years ago! (omg, 10 years?!?!?!) anyway, I think being back on that course brought back some competitive juices and we ran pretty hard, but it yielded in second and third place finishes for our age group. We were in the top 25% overall ... my time for the 4.8 mile course was 39:06 ... pretty good for all the hills too! Next race is the half-marathon in Santa Ynez! Hope we're ready for it ... training for this one hasn't been as deliberate as the Rock 'N Roll in January. I would love to PR again, but with the hilly course and less miles under my belt this time, I am not too optimistic.

first finished socks!

today at lunch I officially finished my first PAIR of socks!! sooo exciting :) I think I did the toes wrong ... I'll have to ask Grandma how they feel, but hopefully, since these weren't made to go inside of shoes, the fit will be okay. I wanted to hurry up and finish these since I'll be having lunch with Grandma tomorrow and have been working on these socks for her for months! I am behind on all my knitting due to the move and lots of running to get ready for the Wine Country Half-Marathon in May. Plus, with Wes on day shift I am not as bored at night!

almost back to normal again

it has been a crazy couple of weeks with the move and everything, but I think life is getting back to normal. there is still too much to do at the new apartment (or too much sleep to be had) for me to be knitting in the evenings still, but I have gotten to enjoy some lunch-hour knitting. today I worked on Mom's shawl and got a few more inches done on that ... the picture is a little funky! cell phone cameras have come a long way, but still aren't that great, I guess! I'll try and take a real picture with my camera (once I can find it in a box somewhere ...) so you can see the colors ... I think it is turning out really well and I love the moss stitch for a little bit of texture. other than a little bit of lunchtime knitting on this shawl, I haven't worked on anything else since we got back from Arizona three weeks ago. I am to the toe decreases on Grandma's second sock, which means from here on out I just need to have an hour or two of uninterruptedness so I can keep track of where I am at! I haven't had that luxury for a while, so they are still on hold :)

reprieve

took a little break from knitting the last couple weeks because Wes switched to day shift and he's been home every night. yay! also, Tia and I have ramped up our running program in preparation for the Santa Ynez Wine Country half-marathon on May 12 and by the time I get home from running most nights I just want to eat and then pass out. Blogging has also been on hold because work has been totally insane ... However, I have a couple of projects still going and this weekend when Wes and I flew to Arizona for Taylor's adoption party I got back on track and work today is slow, so I'm playing catch-up on lots of things!
Mom came up to visit a couple weeks ago after we went to see Wicked at the Pantages Theatre in LA. She'd been talking about wanting a shawl for a while, so I took her with me to AFY to pick out the yarn herself. I am glad I did because I never would have picked out what she picked (Louisa Harding: Impressions. click here to see Mom's color choice - it's #1), but it has been really fun to work with and I think it will be gorgeous and go with lots of items she already has in her closet. No real pattern for a shawl (sort of patterned after this one but with different yarn, larger needles and no buttons); I did a swatch to figure out how many stitches I would get per inch and figured out the cast-on from there. Now I just have to knit (in moss stitch on 10.5 needles) until it is long enough. Hopefully we have enough yarn already - it was kind of pricey!
I am also working on finishing up my first two pairs of socks. I got some more navy yarn to finish up Wes' socks when Mom and I made our AFY trek and in the interim I have been working on the great bittersweet socks for Grandma, although I've only been getting in a few rows at a time on lunch breaks lately. Hope to finish them soon because it's starting to warm up around here and the need for socks to wear to bed won't be as urgent.
On Friday I joined a KAL (knit-a-long) with the Sexy Knitters Club to motivate me to cast on for Sahara. I've had the yarn for this since the Super Bowl Sunday sale at AFY, but I am a little intimidated by the crochet cast-on and mostly haven't had the time. the KAL officially starts April 1, so I'm going to try and finish up the socks before then, but no promises since we're packing packing packing to move to a more affordable apartment next week (yay for saving money for a real house!). Knitting has always been more of a leisurely, relaxing project for me, so I am not going to kill myself trying to get projects finished instead of packing, but I do need a break from boxes and sorting every once in a while.
p.s. after the party on Saturday I had my first attempt at teaching when Renee asked me to help her get started on a scarf. Her girls came to her asking if they could all knit together, which is awesome, except first Renee has to learn how! She was a fast learner, I just had to help with the cast-on mostly! I love new knitters :)

married to bigfoot

i sat down to do some knitting last night in between baking and cleaning and getting ready to move, but I didn't get too far on Wes' blue socks because I ran out of yarn! I guess for Wes and his big feet I need to buy more yarn or not make them so high at the top because with his giant instep, I can't get both socks out of one ball of yarn ... this was a big 100g/200yd ball too, but maybe next time I will try larger needles. The recommended needle size for this is 8, but I was using 4 as the pattern recommended (though the pattern also recommended worsted weight). Maybe a compromise of size 6 needles will stretch the yarn farther.

my own personal "one with the jam"

Saturday Wes and I drove down to the Staples Center with a buy-one-get-one-free coupon in hand for the Kings game vs. the Nashville Predators. The coupon (and a low-attendance due to an afternoon game the same weekend as the LA Marathon and the Kings general suckyness) enabled us to get ice-level tickets behind the Kings home goal. From this vantage point we had a great view of seven of the nine goals scored in the game (6 from Nashville, yeah!) including two awesome goals from Paul Kariya to make my stalker trip complete and happy. I also realized that Peter Forsberg is one scary Swede when he's skating full speed towards his opponents goal. He already scared me, but seeing him from that angle brought new levels of terror.
I brought along Wes' second navy sock to work on during the 65 mile trip and made significant progress, I also knit on the way home and my 130 miles of knitting produced a too-tall top of sock. oops. When I sat down yesterday to do the heel and gusset, I realized I had knit an extra half-inch on the top of the sock. I have some more heel decreases left to do before I knit a jillion rounds for his huge foot, but I was anxious to move on to another project last night. I couldn't take any more of the plain blue on tiny (size 4) needles so I cast on Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted weight (color bittersweet) on two size 8 circulars to knit myself a hat with seed stitch edging and ear flaps ... soo cute. the color is the same I am making my second pair of socks out of too. I am almost to the decreases on the hat, so hopefully with a couple good nights of knitting tonight and tomorrow while Wes is at work (only FOUR more night shifts left!) I can get his socks and my hat done this week and get on to finish that second pair of socks too. I have half decided to shelve my brown sweater until after summer as it is getting warmer here and I have two other spring/summer sweaters I want to make. I checked out Wendy Bernard's blog this morning and I swear she lives here in town. I already thought she lived somewhere in the county due to comments about local places (Ronald Regan Library in Simi, Santa Barbara Zoo, pictures of the Ventura pier, etc) but in yesterday's post there was a picture of an AFY shopping bag full of yarn! I feel like a bit of a stalker realizing this (too much stalking for one weekend!), but mostly I am soo anxious to knit up my Sahara now. She had pictures of more finished Saharas from other knitters and I want mine! I already decided I am going to do the sleeveless style and have bought (more than) enough yarn to complete it. Now I just need to cast on and get started once I finish the socks and hats and more socks I have planned ... better do it soon or I will be shelving Sahara to go back to the brown hoodie in September!

no TV for kitchener stitch

last night I finished up the first one of my second pair of socks (pink and orange!), I can do toe decreases with the TV on, but had to pause it (yay TiVo!) do do the kitchener stitch to close the toe. but it looked great - the first kitchener stitch I did that turned out right (the navy blue on Wes' sock makes it very hard to see the stitches so I messed up a little bit on that one). I absolutely love this yarn I am using (I keep forgetting to take a picture!) but I think I might go get another skein today at lunch and make a hat out of it. I still want to make myself a hat like the pink one I made for Marge before it gets hot again. anyway, since I keep forgetting to take pictures of my new socks, here is a picture of Reese Witherspoon at the Oscars on Sunday (I watched the Oscars with Stine while knitting the pink and orange sock, does that count?) and I totally want her hair cut ... what do you think?? my side-swept bangs aren't really working for me anymore so I am ready for something different! but if it doesn't look cute, then I will definitely need that new hat!

first-ever sock finished!

had the second day of sock class on Saturday afternoon and learned how to pick up stitches on the gusset and make decreases to make it fit. It wasn't as hard as I anticipated, but I definately think I should have chosen a lighter-colored yarn to learn on. It was hard to see all the stitches to be picked up along the edge of the heel and when it came time to kitchener-stitch the toe together, I had a very hard time seeing the stitches, but it all turned out. and guess what? it even fits my enormous-footed husband! hopefully I have enough of this navy yarn to make a second sock because I don't want to buy any more of this color. I did pick up some beautiful varigated yarn for my second pair which I got down down the leg and turned the heel last night while watching the Oscars. I wanted to do another pair quickly so I could remember how to do all the steps, but needed something more interesting than the plain blue yarn to look at. I'll do a sock in the pink/orange and then go back to Wes' second blue sock, then the second pink/orange one to finish out my socks for now. Too many distractions from my hoodie!!

learning socks, part I

Saturday I headed over to Anacapa Fine Yarns for the first of two sock-knitting classes. I had wanted to take this class before I made the Christmas stockings, but found a pattern for those easy enough to figure out myself (no turning heels or gussets!) once I found out the prior-to-Christmas sock class was full. Lois put me on the waiting list for the next class and I signed up, even though I wasn't sure if I wanted to wear knitted socks. The month of cold weather and no heater working in our apartment convinced me that I would love to wear knitted socks, but of course Saturday was 85 degrees and I had no interest in wool. but off I went to learn new things. I already knew how to knit in the round using dpns, but wanted to learn how to knit circularly with two circular needles. I found it was much easier to cast on and of similar difficulty to get the first round started, but then it was smooth sailing. I don't really mind using dpns, so probably I will go back and forth between two circulars and dpns, depending on my mood when I start a project. But Lois did warn us that if we knit one sock in a pair using dpns, we should use dpns for the second as well because gauge can be affected. once we were all comfortable knitting in the round (some in the class had never done it before) Lois had us put that aside and cast on with new yarn and needles to practice the heel, which she wanted us to complete on our own before next class on our real sock. I was nervous about the short rows and slipped stitches, but it came pretty easily and before I knew it, I had a little heel cup sitting in front of me (teal arrow pointing to it in the picture).
Saturday night Wes and I just hung out and watched a movie at home so I was able to finish the ribbing at the top of the sock and get in most the knitted rounds too. Yesterday I had a hard run at Wildwood with Tia and Wes' soccer game, then dinner and Wes left for work. I sat down to work on my sock again. I finished the rounds and started in on the heel. It didn't take long and I even remembered how to do the slipping and short rows. I wanted to keep knitting, but Lois has only shown us this far and I am even more nervous about the gusset (what the heck is a gusset?) than I was about the short rows on the heels, so I guess I'll put this aside until class next Saturday. but of course I couldn't resist trying it on :) p.s. glad I gave myself a pedicure on Saturday before class. love this pink from Sephora ... it is almost ridiculously too '80s pink, but it makes me sooo ready for summer but then I wouldn't get to wear the brown hoodie ... just the sleeve cap left on one arm, then another arm and pick up stitches for the hood and edging. the end is so close I can see it. maybe that is why I keep picking up other projects instead.