In more ways than one!

Annemor #8

Pattern: Annemor #8 from Selbuvoter
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Super Sock Solids in Natural and Sapphire
Needles: Size 2 addis
Knits: 2/14-5/20/2008
Mods: None

Yay! They are done and I couldn’t be happier! This project seemed to go on forever, mostly because of the lack of attention I gave it after a certain point, but they are finally done. I really love many of the patterns in this book and I’m sure there will be more items knit from it in my future. I also have been thinking about adapting the graphs to some other garments, but that’s for another time. The patterns here are fairly well written and the graphs are clear and easy to read. I did have a bit of trouble figuring out the directions for the fingers at times, but a couple of tries later they worked out fine. One of the instructions that made me think a bit was “continue palm pattern as established” or something to that end. I’m sure the astute among you will see a couple of places were I “improvised” on that instruction a bit.

This was my first attempt at making gloves and I think it was a good project to attempt. Leave it to me to choose the “interesting” way of learning new things. Colorwork and fingers at the same time? Sure! Sign me up! Doing the fingers wasn’t terrible once I bought a 24″ circ to do them. The larger one I had been doing the body of the glove on was just too much to handle with the little bit of circular knitting required for the fingers. While it wasn’t awful, I did develop a bit of SGS (Second Glove Syndrome) on the last few fingers. I just didn’t want to knit fingers any more, but that was the only way to get them done!

I was a bit nervous about the yarn working out for this pattern, but I shouldn’t have worried. The gauge was fine, the blue didn’t bleed (although I threw a color catcher in the wash just to be sure) and the stitches evened out nicely. The gloves did grow slightly but I didn’t mind since that made it just a touch easier to get my big mitts inside them.

Definitely a fun project! Will I do gloves again? Probably not any time soon, but I wouldn’t rule them out forever. I think my next pattern from this book would be a mitten, but you never know.

So not only did I finish these but I managed to get the two yarns I was spinning finished up to. Here they are in their final state:

The top is the merino-tencel blend from Cloverleaf Farms. I ended up with about 324 yards. The bottom is the yarn from the batts I carded. About 126 yards and a much different texture than the first yarn. As usual, I have no idea what they might become, so they’ll sit in the handspun stash for a while.

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So there you have it. I’m now ready to leave on what promises to be a crazy but wonderful vacation in NC by way of CT (how weird is my life sometimes?!?!). I am swearing up and down that when I turn off my computer at work today I will *not* turn another one on for AT LEAST a week. We’ll see how long that lasts. I am, of course, allowing for checking e-mails on the iPhone and perhaps a mobile blog post or two, ’cause that’s totally different. So if you need to contact me for SOS’08 related stuff or whatnot, send me an e-mail at Zarzuelaknits [at] gmail [dot] com. I’m still accepting prize donations for SOS until June 20th, so if you would still like to be a sponsor, you still have time!

I hope you all have a wonderful two weeks while I’m gone. I’m sure there will be many fibery things to tell you about when I return. See you then!

We start our vacation on Friday evening which includes a wedding in CT this weekend. I have to be totally packed for everything, including the wedding, the camping trip on the way down and Bassoon Camp by Thursday night because our timetable this weekend is rather tight. With so much to do and so little time I’m feeling desperate to finish some things.

Simba’s favorite toy, Miss Ladybug, decided to help with the picture.

These gloves. They’ve been on the needles since February. That is far too long in my book for such a little project. They must be finished before I leave. End of story.

I also want to finish this yarn from the carded batts I showed you the other day.

This yarn too.

Then there are these new socks that I started. I don’t really feel so desperate to finish them since I just started them a few days ago. The sock mojo was just itching away at me and I couldn’t help but cast them on despite knowing that the gloves Really Needed to get Done. The pattern is Nutkins and the yarn is handspun and handyed from this fiber which became this yarn. And yes, that is me doing a top down sock. Try not to hurt yourself with the shock. To help you recover I will tell you that I replaced the short row heel with a flap. Feel better? Yes, I thought so.

Am I the only one that needs to push projects off the bobbins/needles like this when going away?

And since I’ve been tagged twice, I figure I might better do this meme:

6 Things Meme

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
I was in undergrad doing a double major in music and hating the music education part with a passion but continued to do it because my parents insisted I needed to be able to eat when I graduated. I was in a long term toxic relationship which I would eventually get out of, but not for another couple of years. I was a pretty co-dependent workaholic without much of a social life and afraid of my own shadow. Nice to look back and know I’ve grown a bit.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order): An ILS Meeting, packing, finishing that yarn and those gloves, packing, making dinner, did I mention packing?!?!

3) Snacks I enjoy: Ice cream (we had some wicked good B&J the other day- Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream and Strawberry Cheesecake, *so* not on my diet!), grape tomatoes, yogurt, granola bars.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

* Take care of my parents for the rest of their lives and pay them back for all the money they spent on me through three degrees, a bassoon, a contrabassoon, a couple of cars, health insurance when I was too old to be on theirs and god only knows what else I owe them.

*Buy a house with some land somewhere remote and clean and far from cities and live off the grid. Have some sheep and horses and whatever else I wanted but keep the house only for Simba since she doesn’t really like other kitties. Stitches would stay inside too. Maybe start an animal rescue.

* Start my own fiber business.

* Donate copiously to charities that make the world better.

* Maybe marry that boy of mine.

5) Places I have lived: Accord, NY – Fredonia, NY – New Haven, CT – North Haven, CT – Hamden, CT – Plainsboro, NJ (Wow. For the longest time I only had three on my list. Time flies.)

6) 5 peeps I wanna know more about: The 5 who feel like doing this as I am short on time these days. See above.

Only because I can’t think of a better way to deal with what I want to blog today!

Thanks for the comments on yesterday’s post. Y’all may be amused to know that it was all part of a great conspiracy, hatched at last week’s Modern Yarn SnB, with cohorts Ina, Kim, Risa and Deb participating fully. There *are* knit blog conspiracies! Who knew?!?

Y’all also may want to check out this article about our favorite hobby. I guess I’m a kitty mom so that must count!

In knitting news, I have half an FO:

If it wasn’t for the fact that I actually do want to *wear* these for their intended purpose they would make an excellent cat toy as is.

I’m using Cherry Tree Hill Supersock solids for these by the way. (Sorry to take so long to answer that question Jeannie!)

So glove one down, glove two yet to be cast on. I’ve been too busy playing with my new toy:

One for me, one for the boy. An early I am still in my twenties even if it isn’t for much longer birthday present to myself (that I shall be paying off for quite some time to come, but I digress).

I’m also truckin’ away on the latest sock:

Not bad for a camera phone pic eh?

Finally, see this fiber that I dyed a while back?

Risa made my day by blogging a hat that she made from yarn spun from that fiber! How cool is that?!?

… you want to have them over more often!

On Saturday I had a little gathering at my new place. When we first looked at our new home, I knew the back room was going to be perfect for having fibery fun get togethers and I was so happy that I would finally be able to reciprocate on some of the kindness that had been shown to me at similar gatherings in the past. I was definitely not disappointed.

I was lucky enough to have Risa, Kim, Kristy, Ina and Deb join me for the afternoon. They graciously ignored my ineptness with pizza making, allowed Simba to throw herself upon them (and their wheels and yarn) and made the afternoon fly by. Ina even brought me flowers!

How sweet is that?!?

This also gave me an opportunity to finally present Kristy with this:

We had a little dyeing lesson before I moved and I spun up her work. These definitely aren’t my usual colors, but I really like the combination! I can’t wait to see what she makes with it.

It was a productive afternoon for everyone as well. Several of us managed to finish up a bobbin or two, myself included. After everyone left I finished the fiber I was spinning and was able to ply it up on Sunday afternoon. Here’s the finished product:

It’s about 194 yards of natural colored BFL. I had originally thought I’d dye it in the skein, but I’ve kind of fallen in love with this brown color. So much so, I wish there was enough for a sweater, but unfortunately this is all I have.

I’ve also finished up the yarn for the baby sweater.

Judging from the Ooohs and Ahhs on Saturday, this should work out for a baby sweater just fine.

The rest of the weekend was spent being lazy with HWJF on Sunday. It’s quickly becoming our favorite day of the week since he actually has the day off and so do I. We get to make a good breakfast

and spend some time together. Simba was just plain worn out from all the fun on Saturday.

All in all, a great weekend! More knitting progress next time!

Not from snow, but from life! Go away for a week and things pile up on you. I feel so far behind, on e-mail, on blogs… I just can’t keep up.

Incidentally, does anyone else ever do this? I have my blogs I read in my trusty RSS reader. Some I know I probably won’t comment on, which is bad on me, but it’s the truth, so I feel like if they pile up it’s no problem reading them. So I read them first and then the ones I *know* I’ll want to comment on, they just build up and build up and before I know it I’m not reading the back posts and I just comment on the most recent one or the one that catches my eye. Is it just me? Am I a bad blog buddy? Should I be banned from the blogosphere for leaving up the cranky chic on the left and not always commenting myself?

How ’bout I just stop my insane ramblings and give you knitting? ::all nod yes:: Ok! Then knitting you shall have. I shall not be so crass as to bore you with another shot of the interminable garter stitch that is the bog jacket at this point (although it seems to be all I’ve been able to muster mentally this week). Instead, here is my pathetic progress on my gloves as of last night.

Told you it was pathetic. I just don’t think fingers are train knitting and that makes the progress stall because all knitting must be train knitting or it doesn’t happen in my world. Well… mostly anyway. Generally because when I get home I want to do this:

That’s me (and my little helper) playing away at the spinning wheel. I finished spinning up and plying the stuff I recently dyed for the baby sweater. Finished yarn pr0n pics to come on that. Both wheels are empty right now so I’m pondering my next move.

In the meantime I started this:

Yep. No socks on the needles didn’t last long did it? We shall discuss this no more as this is intended to be a gift with a fast approaching deadline.

Let’s just hope the unstable sock mojo can keep up (although a bit of cranking did seem to help).

Have a great weekend!

I’m back from my trip to Newport, RI and while I had a great time, I’m definitely happy to be home. There were several highlights in the course of the week but the one y’all will be most interested in would be our little SnB “roundtable” meeting on Friday night.

Quite a good turnout and there were some people that we knew wanted to be there but couldn’t make it at the time we found to meet. We represented several states, two countries (hello Canadian neighbors!) and several different types of music libraries. There is even talk of putting together a group project to be auctioned off at next year’s silent auction. Not only that, but there were enough of us on Ravelry that I started a group for us over there too. It was great to meet so many people with common interests in several areas! I wish we could have hung out longer, but time is hard to find during these meetings.

Despite the weather on Friday which gave me a view out my hotel window like this:

I managed to make it back to my parents house without a problem. While I was there, Sandy showed her approval of my progress on the bog jacket:

Apparently she thinks it would make a nice cozy blanket just for her! However, I have other plans.

I also managed to get the fingers started on the first Annemor #8 glove while I was away.

I have one word for you on that. Fiddly. I fear there may be second glove syndrome with this project. Stay tuned.

Mostly I worked on simple things during the meetings where it was appropriate to knit. That got me to this point on the second Kaffe Fassett sock:

So close! But never fear, you’ll be seeing completed pictures of those next time! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to try and re-integrate myself into the daily grind. Wish me luck! I haven’t had to go to work in 10 days and I fear it will not be an easy transition….

I tend to be a pretty monogamous knitter these days. I get focused on a project and I just can’t stop working on it. That is, unless my fickle brain decides it doesn’t like something about the project or it gets bored. Mostly though, I only have one or two things on the needles at once. If I have too many WIPs, I start to panic. Anyone with me?

But then I realize that I have travel knitting coming up and that the Boatneck Bluebell will be done and what am I going to knit all week?!?!?

That’s real panic people.

So I started the hat on Monday.

Can I just say the little braid is a pain to knit? The two yarns twisting around each other was almost enough to make me tear my hair out. What you see here is probably about 2 hours worth of knitting. Seriously. I’m knitting this with some handspun and a yarn called Pace that I picked up in Pittsburgh at last year’s conference (just realized that. Pretty appropo to be knitting with last year’s conference souvenirs at this year’s conference!). HWJF picked the colors. I do not approve of the black, but I’m sure as heck not ripping it out!

To soothe my frazzled nerves from that project I started this one.

It’s Annemor #8 from Selbuvoter. Once I figured out what size needle I was using (things got a bit jumbled in the move and my needle organization failed me a bit) things seem to be going along well. I think these will match my new coat nicely. And I’m excited about doing gloves for the first time. Fingers! Woo!

You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers

Some bloggers get a lot of questions from their readers. Me? Notsomuch. So I’m taking my life in my hands opening up the floor for y’all! Ask me something! Anything! Something you’ve always been wondering? Ask! And I’ll answer it right here next week. Just remember, it’s my blog so if I decide it isn’t appropriate for posting in cyberspace (like if it’s crazy personal or something), I may decide not to post here. Just sayin’.

Have a great weekend everyone!

*goes to watch e-mail with baited breath…*

P.S. Whomever found my blog by searching “socks for fat feet patterns”…. Sorry! We only have big feet here!

P.P.S. I must have been extra good lately. Just sayin’.