A Whack of Socks

I pity the person with the second sock syndrome... maybe it's envy, it's really hard to say. In any case, with four little-boy feet and two little-big-girl feet, socks do not come by the pair at my house. They come by what the Harlot refers to as a "whack". I'm not Canadian, but - for our purposes, at least - socks come four to a whack. Of course, if you do have a problem with finishing a pair, you may want to consider knitting 'em by the whack, then. You can finish when you're half done and still have a sock for each of your feet.


Madam's slipper socks. These have actually been done for a while, but they were snatched, worn and funked before I could photograph them, so the picture had to wait until after I washed them. Generic short-row heel pattern, in Bartlett 2-ply (heavy worsted/aran) and some unknown cream color wool.



Crocs socks for little boys who are obsessive about their crocs. Again, generic flap-heel (which I like better) recipe, in sport-ish weight BFL/mohair handspun from Spinning Flock Farm. Lovely and soft. I will totally be stalking their booth at the Sheep & Wool festival in a couple of months. (Yes, those socks ARE all the same size. Really. It's just the stacking that makes them seem off.)

Yarn porn

My friend, Beth, posted yarn porn on her blog the other day. For any non-knitters, "yarn porn" is the pictorial of your pillaging acquisition after a trip to the yarn store. This may be a term actually coined by Beth.

Of course, like any good porn viewed with no outlet at one's disposal, the yarn porn kept me up last night. Then, frustrated, I drifted off to dream of sock yarn. Handpainted sock yarn. Beautiful, flowing sock yarn, running through my fingers as I slipped a pointy, silver pin behind each perfect little stitch and... huh? where was I? Oh, right. Excuse me.

Anyway, today, we went to look at a lovely 110 year old upright piano, which we will be buying so the little children can take lessons and make wonderful music. The little children stayed with Auntie while we looked and we took the opportunity to sneak to stop by Inez's Stitchery, which, if you're ever in the Silver Spring area, you should really visit, as they are a proper yarn store, with lots of wool and inspirational, handwritten signs like "BLOCKING means WETTING". Heehee.

There was a lovely selection of sock yarn, though I managed to make all purchases in the Brown Sheep family... hmmm.


Left, top to bottom: Wildfoote in Rock N' Roll (2), Bluegrass, and Ragtime.
Right, Nature Spun in Amethyst, Pagan Pink and Red Fox.
(Note the nifty little pointy sock pins. They say 4-ought on them, but they're bigger than that. I'll have to gauge, but I'm guessing 0 or 1)


Please note that, while Beth's porn is of the highest quality, a classic in its own time, mine is more of the campy, homemade variety. Do not despair for me, however; the hubby is currently working "stashtime" (that's overtime that he knows is going to be converted) for the Sheep & Wool Festival, only three months away! Come mother's day weekend, I'll be like a repressed divorcee turned loose at Hedonism!

I can't wait to finish my other socks, which I'm knitting by the "whack" as the Harlot would say (there are 4 socks in a pair for the boys) in lovely handspun 70 wool/30 mohair sportweight. More on those when they're officially FOs and I can have my way with the new stuff.

Finished objects...

I've finished some objects this week. Let us be clear that said objects have been languishing in my knitting bag (one of the many, actually) and really only needed minimal finishing. The boys' woolies are getting a little long in the tooth and short in the waist, so it seemed like time to add some legs and weave in my ends on these.

LTK longies, knit knee length, with the curly-purly waist in 100purewool "winter joy".

LTK Longies, knit knee length, in HPY thick and thin (discontinued), unknown colorway name.

The Green Hat-Along

So, one of the local knitting geeks posted to a local knitting group about the Green Hat Knit Along and, being the huge geek that I am, I simply couldn't resist. I haven't "officially" joined, mainly because I'm too lazy to create an account. Also, I had to finish Natalie's stuff and Bailey's slipper socks before I could start a new project - especially one for me! - in good conscience. Also, I couldn't find a pattern. I have this absolutely yummy hand painted merino and can't find a pattern to knit a hat. Issues. Really, my issue isn't a dearth of patterns - there are certainly a bazillion hat patterns on the 'net - but a strong dislike for hats. And it's not really that I don't like hats, rather, I have long hair that is worn up almost all the time and the donning of a hat results in my looking like I have a rodent stow-away on the back of my head. Add to that the fact that my hair is almost always put up with sitcks and the look gets even more interesting. Only a beret would do, then. I looked at beret patterns. Hundreds of beret and tam patterns, patterns for "pithy" hats... and then I began to understand that, in order to do justice to this lovely wool, I would simply have to design my own. I've decided to do a cabled band, topped with a bit of seed stitch, then your standard beret increase.

I probably, in retrospect, should have used a provisional cast-on and grafted the band into a round, but I had already frogged a bunch of cable prototypes and temporarily lost my mind, so this puppy will have a seamed edge to the band.

I do enjoy how the slipped edge stitches mirror the cables. Couldn't have worked out better if I'd planned it that way. Well, I did plan to slip the stitches to give a nice area for picking up for the rest of the hat, but I had no idea they'd behave so nicely. The seed stitch flanked cable is nice and firm, to combat the tendency of merino to want to stretch with use. I think of everything. Except, of course, that provisional cast on.

Bailey's party!

Grandma and Pop-pop did some festive foraging in Chinatown and in the goodies packed away from their trip to China, and Auntie - in the regular Auntie style - decked the halls with lanterns, dragons and fans and set up a Chinese eatery for the kids.

Bailey is most thankful for the party.

The boys are only there for the hats, really.

Wait! Was that the lo mein that was just delivered? Nope, just another picture of the marzipan on top of the cake!

I also finally got Natalie's birthday gifts to her. I felt terrible at Christmas - already three weeks past her birthday - that the gloves weren't done and I totally couldn't find the hat... of course, being late meant that I had time to knit her the calorimetry from this winter's Knitty issue. She almost always wears her hair up and when I saw that, I knew it would be perfect. Now her ears will be nice and toasty! AND I found her hat, so if she decides to wear her hair down, she's still warm and fuzzy. She was very excited about the flip mittens, too.

The Knit-Along Continues!

8:55 a.m. And now Trudi has joined along and, even though she thinks she's far behind, if she keeps up the pace she started yesterday, she'll probably finish before the rest of us or, at least, me!

1:00 p.m. Well, naptime went, er, well, it went. The boys napped for 45 minutes, then they were done. I suppose that's one way to decide whether to spend their nap time finishing the soaker or sewing on jammies. Anyway, now we've come to the seaming part of our program. Blech. Hate seaming. I'm trying to bribe myself into seaming with the thought of knitting the leg cuffs.

Here it is, ready to be seamed.


4:00 p.m. Quinn models the one-legged soaker. I may redo the legs to give them a little more room, but it looks like the rest of it stretches very nicely to make a really nice, trim soaker.

Living dangerously

7-22-2006 10:00 a.m. I confess: I didn't swatch. Everyone else seemed to be swatching and coming up with a much tighter tension and needing to go up in needle size, so I threw caution to the wind and went with my 10 1/2 straights. What a renegade.

So, with 5 rows of ribbing done...


4:15 p.m. Okay, so maybe I won't add rows throughout. I will probably still add some through the crotch to add to the rise and the leg holes, but it's looking like a good size with the ribbing and about half of the back done. (Yes, I DID have a nap)



8:15 p.m. So, I thought I'd multitask and do a little knitting with the wees in the tub. Everybody got in, I got BS paste on the boys' heads, blew some bubbles for all three to catch and then commenced to knitting. I got a whopping two rows done before Holden pooped in the tub and I had to pull everybody out, drain, clean and refill. Now the boys are out & clean and Bailey's soaking and playing, so I should be able to pick it up again. Do they know I'm working on something?

11:25 p.m. Babes in bed, there's quiet in the house. Bailey conned Daddy into painting her toenails after her bath. He does good work. They were letting them dry while they read some of Harriet the Spy when I brought the boys up.
I've decreased my way down to the crotch, made the increases and I'm ready to start the front. Not bad for having cast on this morning, huh?

The Ottobre-Knit-As-Fast-As-You-Can-Along

(Thanks, Annalea, for instigating and Ashley, for the perfect title!)

So, it's 1:15 a.m. and I've rubbed pork for tomorrow's cookout and now I'm winding wool. Perfect! Hopefully, I'll have time to get the ball wound before Holden wakes up and looks for a boob. (Quinn just woke up a few minutes ago.)

Meanwhile, here's the wool I'm using:


It's 100purewool merino in their "Orchid" colorway. We're using the
Ottobre Designs pattern and I will be adding some rows in each of the sections to make sure I have a high enough rise for the bumless, yet tall, wees.

This Boob's for You

Well, not really. They're actually for somebody else, specifically a colleague of my mother-in-law who was admiring her boobs. The knitted ones. Anyway, they are leading productive lives as bookends (ok, boob-ends) and, jointly, a conversation piece, fulfilling their wooly destiny.

Here is their practice run. They were just born to their job, no? I think they were enjoying the air.

Now, here's a question for the ages... is it in poor taste to vamp with someone else's boobs?

(Yes, I AM sure that's vamping. I'm not that good at it.)

Please excuse the giant ass I'm wearing. I think that's somebody else's, too.

Holden models the new LTK longies

These were knit in Bartlett yarns Rangely line, Blueberry colorway. I decided on seed stitch leg cuffs and matching cargo pocket. (The pocket it stuffed with the un-woven tails, it doesn't normally stick out like that.) I like that they're tall enough on the boys for me to fold over the waistband. I think it will keep them from untie-ing and dropping trou' this winter. I love Bartlett yarns. And this color was out of their bargain bin ($4 a lb) at the mill. Even better.

Please ignore the dog hair on the floor. No, not the big pile of it with the tail - that's the actual dog - but the ones lying here and there like Autumn leaves. We need to rake or vacuum or something.

Also, has anybody noticed the level of skill in my picture taking? This is the only modelling picture that wasn't blurry. And you like how I got Aaron's leg and Mia's butt in there, too, don't you? I know. Sometimes it's difficult, being this gifted.

And now I'm off to work on the "super-secret-excellent-surprise-that-I-can't-add-photos-of-until-after-it's-done-lest-the-intended-recipient-for-so-unknown-reason-look-in-on-my-blog-and-discover-it".

Peace.

UFOs

I have never kept a to-do list. I think it's time to start. There are so many things swirling through my brain, getting stuck in various pieces of fluff... then one untangles and comes flying to the front. It startles me when that happens.

So, on my unfinished object list I have... drumroll, please...

One half finished bootie.
Two unknit gnomes.
Three waiting sweaters.
Mittens without needles.
More yarn to roll...
Countless un-balled yarn hanks.
Piles of undone laundry.
More yarn on order.
Customers with deadlines.
Looming homeschool co-op.
A giant list of phone calls...

And a partri-idge in a pear tree.

Ok, it's backwards. I can't think in reverse order. Remember the fluff. Off to put the leg cuffs on a soaker I "finished" at the beginning of July. Gnomes and customer tomorrow.

Red and blue soaker

This red and blue soaker is for somebody else. The yarn looked a little thin coming off the spool (I bought the blue in a 2 lb spool and a khaki in a 1 lb spool, the khaki is definitely worsted), more like a light sport weight than a true worsted, so I knit it double stranded. Yeah, it fluffs up quite nicely when you add water. Duh. So this is the nighttime soaker being sent to a mom in need. There should be room for fluffy nighttime diapers and room to grow, too.

Rugby, anyone?

These are the first pair of LTK longies I've made for the boys. Obviously, I am a glutton for punishment to start out with a rugby striped version. Tourquoise and goldenrod are next.