Two pair in two days!!!

And that makes the third FO pair this week {three pairs in four days for those of you who are counting}!!! I grafted the toe and wove in the ends on Derek's Columbine #2. That adds 400 metres to my total.

Once the kids find my camera batteries I'll be able to take pics of all these recent socks. I cast on the tigery jacquard for Derek and started the ribbing. I'll be making a generic pair of socks out of this to make best use of the patterning of the yarn. Once done, this pair will add 420 metres!!!

Now I can concentrate on my Old Shale for a few days. With luck I'll get these done in the next couple of days, and that will make this a FIVE pair month!!! HOLY CRAP!!!

Third FO this month...

Well the heel is turned and gusset picked up on the Old Shale sock #2, so I went and worked on Rebecca's sock. I now have my 3rd FO pair of socks this month!!! That makes another 150 metres on my tally, and another free set of dpns!!!

The agony and the ecstasy.

Well yesterday didn't provide me with any completed socks, but it was a success nonetheless. I found a bunch of stuff in my cryo lab. The biggest triumph was locating the missing sock yarn bin. *YAY* I can now properly tally up my stash for the marathon! I also found a bunch of nearly-FOs, and a bunch of dishcloths that need their ends woven in.

I'm on the heel turn of the Old Shale, and I'll be finishing off Rebecca's sock as soon as I've got the gusset picked up on those.

One down; two {or is it three?} to go...

Little Shells are DONE DONE DONE!!! Toes grafted, ends woven in, yadda yadda. I can't get over how close to being perfectly identical they are. I'm extremely pleased with how they turned out. 420 metres have been added to the ticker.

Derek's Columbine socks are up next for completion. Depending on what time I go to bed today, I'm in excellent shape for finishing them tomorrow. Then there's the toe on Rebecca's second sock.

I called Lyz to find out if we were doing the picot hem or not on the Lacy Scallops, and she told me that I'm not allowed to cast mine on until she's ready to cast on hers. So that means that I'll need to delay those about a week until she's finished her Little Shells and another SIP or two. That means I'll need a different at-the-computer sock, and what better to fit the bill than my poor ignored Old Shale socks. I'll have to put the needles back in it, as one of the kids decided to "help" mom with it. I'm on the leg ribbing *somewhere*, so if I can get it into heavy knitting rotation, I'll be able to get it done soon.

Snippets...

Little Shells sock made it to the end of the heel turn on Saturday before I went to bed. I picked up the gusset stitches and started going to town on the foot. I got to just over 40 rows before I decided that I *had* to get to sleep. I'm expecting to finish those today. That will add 420 metres to my marathon total.

After that I want to put the toe on Rebecca's sock, as I *still* haven't gotten around to finishing that up. That will add 150 metres.

Derek's socks are just shy of 40 rows on the foot, so nearly half done. I am hoping to finish those on my weekend as well. That's another 400 m to add to my tally.

I will be starting my Lacy Scallops as soon as the Little Shells are done, and I will be starting a generic stockinette sock for Derek out of the tigery-jacquard once his Columbine socks are done.

More later, as I'm busy blog-stalking Stephanie... I *so* need to find out what all happened on Thursday and beyond!!!

Scattered thoughts...

All kinds of things running through my mind and my needles today. I'm on repeat #14 of 16 for Little Shells #2. 1 or 2 more gusset decreases to do on Columbine #2. I've started a new super-secret project... this one needs to be done by the end of April. It's a fairly involved project, and I can only work on it when I'm alone... wish me luck.

In non-knitterly news, I got my income tax assessment in the mail today. This means my 2006 tax return has now been processed. They gave me an extra deduction of some sort, which means an extra federal non-refundable tax credit in my favour... not a great amount by any means, but as those of you in the know about my tax situation know all too well, that anything in my favour is DEFINITELY for the good.

I happy and bummed out at the same time for everyone that got to "Represent" with Steph et al yesterday... I can't even afford a trip to Ram's to cheer myself up with.

Damnit Lyz! I hope you're happy now!!!

Well your sock knitting curse has now officially hit me! In more than the time that it took me to get EIGHT repeats done yesterday, I've managed to only have a net increase of 3 repeats today. First I had to frog back one needle 5 rows to fix a missing yo... then I discovered another missing yo and fixed that as well... but that yo ended up being the size that you could easily poke a pencil through, and of course that wasn't noticeable until I had knit all five rows back up the one needle. So I decided to go ahead and frog it all back to prior to the pattern repeat that was causing me all the trouble. Now, each and every pattern row since, {luckily not every freakin' NEEDLE since} I have had at least one screw up of some sort that has required tinking back at least a few stitches, if not a whole needle.

LYZ!!! I'M BEGGING YOU!!! If you have any soul left at all {after you-know-who has sucked every last bit of life out of you}, can you PLEASE take your bad knitting ju-ju back??? I'm afraid of this carrying on into my FA socks, and I really want to enjoy knitting with that, not curse every damned stitch!

For those of you that aren't Lyz, and therefore have no freakin' clue what I'm hollering at her for, here's my RDCV progress report: Derek's Columbine #2 is over half-way through the gusset decreases. I'm hoping to have the gusset done or nearly tonight at work. Little Shells #2 is just past pattern repeat #11 of 16. I couldn't take pictures of my SDIPs because all of the AA batteries in this house are deader than my car in -40°C weather. That means that I couldn't do any frogging to recover yarn and dpns. As a side note, I can't find one of them anyway, but if I do save one of the pairs, that's the one that it would be. Batteries are now charging, so I can take the pics {but no promises of uploading!!!} tomorrow.

In other news, that "new" Eco-Fil stuff you may have spotted at your local WM is now on clearance at most if not all Canadian stores. At $4 a ball before, it was a good deal. Now it's between $2-$2.75 here in town which is an absolute steal. And as is typical with a lot of the newly released yarns at work, you don't find a pattern to use with the stuff until AFTER it's gone on clearance!!! I *did* find a cute little top pattern that calls for 2 balls, and Jackie has given the okay on a top made out of the blue tweed I bought for my shopping bag. Even if she hates it, it's gonna be less than $6 for a top! I'll make it bigger anyway, so she can wear a t-shirt underneath if it's itchy on the skin. I'll let you all know how it works out.

Just to upset Lyz!!!

Well I'm getting ready to go to bed here, and I've got 8 repeats out of 16 for the leg done on Little Shells #2. The wool for the Lacy Scallops has been wound into a ball, and the pattern printed... all ready for starting as soon as Little Shells are done... sometime this work week I expect. Derek's Columbine socks are all ready for their back and forth action as my work socks, and since it's all gusset, and then plain stockinette, I'm not expecting these to take very long either.

Tomorrow my plan is to photograph my two designs in progress, and decide if I'm going to finish the socks on the needles, or frog back the yarn. That might free up my 2.5 mm bamboos for the Lacy Scallops. I also need to rush home tomorrow morning as I want to try and catch the Today Show. It starts at 7, and the earliest I can get home is 7:30ish... "It's a purl, man" and others will be outside the NBC studios tomorrow morning for the start of Stephanie's "Represent" plan!

I ain't got no stinkin' SSS!!!

Nope, second sock syndrome does *not* reside in the Rodgers' household!!! It just *seems* like it does since I usually have so many pairs of socks on the go. Right now it has worked out that I have several pairs completed or very near completion. I'm expecting to have 4 FO pairs this month, and that will help my L&V Sock Marathon goal greatly.

Like I said earlier, Jackie's socks {which were started early last summer} are finally complete. I haven't written up the final draft of the pattern yet, but all things in good time! Little Shells #1 was finished knitting on Saturday, and I grafted the toe when I got home from work on Sunday morning. Then I finished the ribbing and did the first few rows of Derek's Columbine #2 before going to bed. On Monday, I finished the leg of his sock and started on the heel. Tuesday morning I finished the heel and picked up the gusset stitches. It's now ready and waiting to be my new "work-on-at-work" sock. After that I cast on Little Shells #2, and started the ribbing. I finished the ribbing at my SnB, and after comparing it to #1, they are very much looking identical. Rebecca's socks will be finished Wednesday morning, since I didn't feel like adding in the new ball of yarn at SnB. I was a few rows into the toe when I ran out of yarn, so it will be a fast finisher.

Lyz and I have decided on our next mini-KAL project, Lacy Scallops from SockBug's blog. I will be using my Fleece Artist sock yarn that I bought myself as my promotion present. I'm really enjoying doing this with her, since it's driving me to get the pair done quickly. Strangely enough, this apparent speed has carried over into my other projects as well. Derek has also chosen the yarn for his next pair of socks. I was half-hoping that he wouldn't find anything in my stash that he wanted, as I love working with the Regia Silk for him, and the Silk Shine is on sale at Ram's right now. He chose some Confetti that I bought last summer at Leona's in a tiger-like jacquard. Since the yarn is self-patterning, it only requires the most basic of sock patterns. I will be able to use the entire project as my "work-on-at-work" sock. As an added bonus, I'll finally get to try it out... I *did* buy it to actually knit with, ya know!!!

Note: I apologize for the lack of links in this post... I *had* linked all the pertinent information, but my browser crashed entirely before I had a chance to save it... I decided not to take a chance in the rewrite! If you want/ need the links, leave me a comment, and I will edit the post to put them in.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well I have a nice, new, green-containing dishcloth to celebrate St. Patty's with! As an added bonus, I just finished my first Little Shells sock, and will be grafting the toe before I go to bed. I *would* start the second sock as well, but it's already getting a bit late, and I'm really tired. I'll post more tomorrow about it and my shopping bag design-in-progress also.

I only do what the yarn voices tell me

Well today I had two balls of yarn talking to me... they wanted to come home with me and become new dishcloths for my kitchen. The first one I noticed was a cheery yellow mix, and it said "SPRING!!". The second one was more subtle. It was a white, beige, and mint mix, and once I noticed it, it screamed "St. Patrick's Day dishcloth" to me. Well since St. Patty's Day is in 2 days, I decided to listen to that one. Besides, after +1°C temps on Monday, it was -14°C on my way home this morning... that doesn't bode well for spring at all.

I tried to find a pattern that the yarn wanted to be, and couldn't find one online. Then I decided to design my own. That didn't pan out either. I'm gonna go frog what I've done so far and make a good ol' Granny's Favourite... *sigh* At least I'll have something clean to wash my dishes with tomorrow morning!

Time Warp!

Somehow I've managed to warp the space-time continuum! I started the heel stitches on my Little Shells before I went to bed last night. I had switched the pattern to 70 stitches, to add 2 more pattern repeats, and did the heel on 34 stitches. This morning I got the heel flap and turn done, and got the gusset stitches picked up and all the decreases done by 1:30 p.m... I went down to 64 stitches for the foot. I've got 30 rows done of the foot, and since my feet are usually 65 rows before the toe decreases, I can see even this stockinette black hole being very easy to knit my way out of.

Now I'm working on the never-ending ribbing of Derek's second Columbine sock. I managed to slog through over half of the 24 rounds needed to match sock #1, and am ready to start the pattern... FINALLY! I know from sock #1 that the leg goes amazingly fast, and that means that it will be ready to be my "work sock" by the time I finish the foot on Rebecca's sock.

No! No black hole for you!!!

Well, I'm really liking the Little Shells sock that Lyz and I chose for our mini-KAL. I'm using Fortissima Socka in a rainbow-like jaqcuard. I just started these a few days ago and I'm now trying to decide when to make my heel. Most of my socks have a leg in the 5½ to 7 inch range, and this one is now at the 6 inch mark. I often get into the black hole of knitting with my socks, where I knit and knit and knit, and don't get anywhere. Not this time. I think I'll take these to 7 inches before I go to bed and turn the heel tomorrow.

I finally finished Jackie's socks last night. I guess I'll have to get the pattern finalized for that, and pictures taken of the design... those socks had deadly black holes that I never thought that I would knit my way out of.

Now that Jackie's socks are done, Rebecca's socks have been bumped up to "work sock" status. Hopefully these will be done shortly as well, as I have just finished the gusset decreases for the second sock.

But is it blogworthy???

Well I've been getting a few complaints from some of my friends that I haven't been blogging as of late. I guess I've been doing a lot of introspection lately, and really wondering about my life, and what I am doing with it. The one thing that keeps coming up, to me, is "But is it blogworthy?" That's a big part of putting your life up on the web for everyone to see... just how interesting *is* my life, and does anyone other than me really give a damn anyway???