As predicted, I’ve grown bored with the Wheat-ear pullover now that I’ve reached the waist. To my brain its all downhill from here. I probably can power through and get the body done for my class that I will be teaching in about a week on sweater fit. I’m loving the sweater but its time for more challenging things.

So I’ve powered through several rounds of the Tapestry, that was till Tuesday afternoon when I accidentally broke off my thumbnail to the quick while sorting the stash. Since then I really haven’t been up to much knitting. I think I can remove the bandage in the morning and enjoy a weekend of knits.

Because of my thumb injury and a conversation with BFF CareBear, I decided to bite the bullet and finally warp up my loom that’s been sitting around the house since before Churchable and I got married. The warp has been hanging out since December so that bits not so tardy. Well I’m totally thrilled to be doing my weaving, I’m not as far as I would like but then I did have this pattern to complete. Maybe I can assign one day a week to weaving something akin to the Yarn Harlot’s tuesdays are for spinning.

Don’t forget about the blog contest.

I was so excited to blog today. I was going to babble on about my mittens and socks that had progressed so far over the weekend.

Tuesday afternoon found me frogging my mitten back to the yarn. I love the pattern. I have named the pattern. People who don’t knit have been asking me if the pattern would be good for a beginner to learn. Such high praise for mittens not yet sent. I Rippit because I was not happy with the decreases and the detailing was roughly thrown in. I needed to refine the pattern so I did. I wrote up the Firebrick mittens last night in a fit of Insomnia.

Then this morning, I received a call from my friend to tell me about my the socks that I had sent her way yet again for her daughter to try on fit but were really snug. Well yeah, but my pal really would rather be a bit smaller than snugger. So I frogged that yarn all the way back to two small balls. Good thing the yarn frogs repeatedly like a dream. If you intend to knit and frog alot and want a fancy yarn then silky sock is your yarn. I am shelving the socks until after I finish the mittens

First up my submission that will be just under the wire for the Sexy Knitters Club – Tree Jacket.

Pattern: Tree Jacket by Zephyr Style
Yarn: Andean Silk by Knit Picks (55% Super Fine Alpaca, 23% Silk, 22% Merino Wool; 96 yards/50 gram ball) – 10 balls I used every last bit
Needles: Knit Picks Harmony Options US 7 (4.50mm)
Mods: I made the neck 2″ longer, which in hind sight I should not have done. I knit the sleeves flat per the recommended option. I realized that A) I was going to run out of yarn B) the sleeves would be too big and too long if I knit exactly to the directions. So I knit a shorter no shaping section and decreased on both sides of the seam line 6 times instead of the 5 times. I also knit the cuff shorter. All in all I have a great fitting sweater that did not even need short rows.

Currently at the moment, I need to redo the BO. It was a bit snug. Hopefully I have enough to allow for a better BO.

Pattern: Entrelec socks by Eunny Jang in IK Spring 2007
Yarn: Koigu Premium Merino (100% merino; 170 yd [155 m]/50 g): 1 skein of 2151-99 blue grey and 1 skein of p113-173 blue multicolored
Needles: Crystal Palace US 1 (2.25mm) DPNs
Mods: I started the larger squares earlier. I used a Russian BO which looked really nice on the mainly grey sock.

Cheers. Now I am off to host a lovely Harvest Dinner at our church. Hopefully my food cooks a bit faster.

I would like to say that the finishitis is still going strong. I finished the sweater. Si your present is done. Ha ok now I must knit the other sweater, the hat, and the pair of socks that I have in the queue for Christmas. Actually my finisitis is so strong it won’t let me cast on more projects, except for the baby presents that are for babies that were born earlier this month. I really want to cast something on but I have to finish my work project and my monkey swap socks. Well of the things that I just mentioned only one of them can be blogged about so. Let me flash what I have done on my second monkey sock.

Today when I received my new knit picks harmony needles. I had to cast on with my new sharp non-bendy size 0 DPNs. I grabbed the sock yarn I bought for a specific baby that was supposed to be born around a football game played in these colors. In this house they are rival colors, but as Anna says our colors are clown colored.

I am proud of myself. I learned 2 new techniques with these wee little socks. I did Judy’s Magic Cast-on and EZ sewn bind-off. Man why have I not been doing this. They were both so easy. I also think I have got my short row heel down perfectly. This little guy should qualify for SockDown a KAL on Ravelry.

Next up are the projects that are lining up on my desk and grabbing needles. They are impatient little buggers. They started fighting over the new needles as soon as I laid them down. Bad Yarn. You will have your turn.

Here they are in no particular order, Give me your opinion on what I should start:

Knitpick’s Gloss with Knitpick’s fixed Harmony needles for Endless Paper Mitts

Mystery Sock(not a ravelry link) for SockDown a KAL on Ravelry for Sock Knitters Anonymous lead by our own Fyberduck.

Brother-in-law Camo socks for Christmas. Pattern unknown. Just has to be non-fancy. He is a basic sort of guy, but he asked for camo socks. Pray these socks pool. Stripes would be bad.

Ribbon Yarn. About 1 lb. Unknown source. This will be the RCC that was part of last Sexy Knitter’s Club. It should be done but well I have a job knitting.

I was kind of productive last week which means I did not work on my design projects as much, but hey I just turned one in today. Two more to go. Yeah.

We have a few members missing from this illustrious blog. One is finished and one is hiding in the WIP basket (he realizes that I am bored with him – I guess I will have to find a time when I need something mindless to do and I can knit the little bugger.)

So that leaves us with our little monkey, how she grows.

The monkey pattern is fairly easy. It actually is part of the pattern that I am knitting for Si, my sil. It is super simple and is very intuitive. The monkey has been walking around town with me while I run errands and wait in lines. It grew the longest when I went to the Performing Arts Center in Portland with churchable last week. I got to the heel and started working on something else since I had not decided what heel to do. I did a short row heel since my pal has never gotten the opportunity to try out this heel on her feet. Personally it is my favorite of the standard heels, but that could change when I start messing around with Cat Bordhi’s new structures.

If you want to see the progress I have made with Si’s Christmas present, you will have to hop over to my ravelry project page. I really am glad that I am done with the lace portion of it and I am excited to be doing plain st st. I am onto the smaller pieces and have a sleeve and the top portion to finish. This project is going fairly smoothly.

The last project on the needles that is of interest to my dear readers is the Entrelec sock. I don’t spend much time on this beauty. I just lost the motivation when they turned out not to be knee-high length. But I am still working on them.

That is it for now. Look forward to a FO post and new projects jumping on the needles. There are several sock yarns jockeying for time, which one will get first dips (Hint: I have a skein of each type of STR. Will I give in to the wiles of the Silkie or go for a buffer sock?)

This has been a melancholy day. My mood matches the weather. It has been a long time since I have allowed this to happen, but right now I am taking a day off. I am allowing things to happen. I am not bothering with stuff unless it is necessary. Is food really necessary?

The day started out with a bang literally. I woke up at 5:30 am thinking someone was breaking into my house. Come to find out it was only my shelf of cookbooks with their glass shelf falling to the ground with a resounding bang. Not really my chosen way to wake up on a morning alone. I crawled back into bed and slept until the dogs got annoyed and stated that they needed to use the backyard. I let them out and crawled back into my warmth and phoned a friend – A great friend, an artist and confidant, Care-bear. She talked me out my mood and told me that she talked to her company and she might be able to move back out here that cheered my morning. I can’t wait for her visit in October. We are going to spend time exploring our art together. Maybe we can create somethings together to be placed in her etsy store.

I did not do much today. I got up and went walking with my friend Carolyn, who is blogless and computerless. No worries she is a great friend and moral support. I slept, which felt so good. I did not realize that I have been running my sleep battery ragged. I started a new project with the yarn I got last night for free. I read the new Cat Bordhi book. I watched a movie about Beatrix Potter. It was a nice day. It was ok.

Last night I was in Portland for an event. An event put on by Blue Moon Fiber Arts. This event was the big launch for Cat Bordhi’s book on sock architectures. The PDX Bloggers met up early and sat in the front row since we are all such wall flowers. It was a lovely event where we got to spend time talking because traffic had detained many people. We played a game to find unusual items in your knitting bag – the prize was free yarn. I had post-it notes in my bag, which was the first item that was on the list that Tina and the gang had compiled. You still got yarn if it was unusual and not on the list. Kathy from Vast Amount of Spare Time had the most unusual item. Since my camera died as the event started, I will recommend that you look at my fellow bloggers entries. As the event ended, we were informed that the first edition has been sold out and the second printing will not be available until October.

Now since I have been Blog Hopping it this week, ya’ll have missed out on my knitting. What have I been doing? It does not feel like much but I have been busily knitting my work project at every possible moment. I feel the looming deadlines. Oh how I hate thee. Well they are a fact of life. But I have a few things that I can show you. My plan to knit on things in segments has been working. All my projects have been progressing.

My favorite one so far is the Coquette Lace Tube Top. My mannequin who is modeling it for me is a little smaller in the cup size than I am now so it doesn’t look so smoking on her. I added Short Row bust darts across the front while I attended a drag race last week with churchable. As you can see I am almost to the waist with the second ball of yarn. I have already started the third ball and I am almost ready to start the ribbing around the hips.

My secret knitting for Christmas has brought me to finish one panel and start the second. I have been bad and not actually finished the second ball of yarn. I am loving the pattern. It is really easy to follow and I hope it looks great on her for Christmas.

My Entrelec sock has cheated me. It did not want to be knee length. It demanded that I stop at the top of the ankle. So I have started the toe of the second sock and plan on doing this pattern again with a different sock yarn.

Churchable’s mariner socks are coming along nicely. They get some play whenever the projects near a switch point. For some reason, it refused to pose for the camera. It kept coming out fuzzy.

Lastly I mentioned that I cast on something new. I joined the crazy masses that have become Monkey crazed. After finally figuring out Churchable’s fit and understanding things about socks, I decided to join the next sock swap whatever it may be and to put my knowledge to use. I joined the Monkey Sock Swap 3 this month. I think you can still join. I got the rather fortune opportunity to knit for the hostess of this lovely swap – Rebecca of socks for mum. Thus I get to post wacked out photos to throw her off the scent.

What do you think? Is this picture odd enough? I have finished the first lace repeat. I would like to say this is a super easy pattern. I had the lace memorized before I was finished with round 4. Since it is my first monkey, I am not messing with the pattern much. I prefer knitting toe up but maybe I will give it a try next time. Or I could knit one top down and the other toe up. Hmmm. We shall see.

Edited to add new links to the Cat Bordhi event.

Ok onto happier things. WIPs. They have changed. Ok maybe not the Entrelec socks but everything else is different. I have not worked on the Entrelec socks. I want to but other things are more important or easier. Right now my brain is craving simple. It also is going to soon have a bad case of startits. I am debating between Christmas presents or knitting for me. The selfish part of me wants to yell ME, but I think I will start a Christmas present. And since the beautiful women that the 2 knitted presents belong to read this blog I can’t blog about them. What maybe I will be selfish so I have blogging material. What to do? What to do?

Oh have you felt the Silkie Blue Moon Socks that Rock? I just got some today when I went up to work and oh my goodness, I don’t want to put down the small swatch. Can I sell the little princess for a swatch pet? A swatch pet won’t bark or wake you up at night. It will just love me and caress me gently like a lovely gentle lover. I want to cast on socks, but as usual my work knitting is not socks.

Well my only work in progress other than the entrelec socks is a sock for churchable. I finished is previous pair of socks the day before the Mariners Stitch n Pitch, so that I could knit on his Mariners colored sock yarn. He picked out this Lorna’s Laces color at Linda Knit n Stitch shop on our anniversary weekend (actually he took me on a yarn hop. I mean what an awesome guy to take his wife away for the weekend and listen to knitting podcasts in the car and go to knitting stores.) Well while at the game I found out that Tina had dyed up some Mariners yarn for Tricoter. It was awesome but she sold out way too fast. I am waiting for a new dye lot so I can get some for churchable.

Guess what FO Friday is coming a little early and it will be jam packed with yarn finished goodness. I even have a FO that did not stop for air. It tried to get knit in under 24 hours. The silly thing did not realize that I needed to do something other than sit on my butt.

My entrelec sock has gotten many ohs and ahs lately. It especially caused many passerbys at Fabric Depot to stop and pet it and comment on the fact that I was not even looking. My response would have been why do I need to look at my knitting when it is all little tiny squares of knit stitches, but I was brought up to be nice and accept it. My inside voice was screaming STOP PETTING the SOCK people. I might understand now about the whole people petting pregnant women’s bellies. Totally not ok. Ok it was fine for a few knit bloggers but not the entire group of people that I did not know and who did not ask.

My sweater with cables from Rebecca 30 is coming along well. I think I might only have enough to seam and crochet the neck. I don’t know how much I can do with the sleeves. I have one small ball left. It is currently blocking and waiting for me to seam it and figure out how much yarn I have. I started this project happy if it only becomes a vest.

I have restarted Fifi with more stitches in the neck and then realized that I was lazy and did a swatch but did not measure it. I just cast on willy nilly. It’s not good to toss about starts. So I got the sweater with cables off the size 8 needles and I will be swatching tonight and hopefully casting on tomorrow morning before I start work. I just got my yarn today for my big project for Tina over at Blue Moon.

Now on to the big weekend event. If you don’t care about my crazy life move along there is no more knitting till Friday. So I finally decided that I had had it with cousin It and he had to leave. I mean what good is a tree that is supposed to flower and has only flowered once in the 4 summers you have been spending time at this house. You must first know that cousin it is most likely about 40 years old. SO it was not easy. Now the house looks a little bare but much more to my liking.

I want to quickly catch you up and hopefully I don’t miss anything. The past couple of weeks has been busy/lazy.

We headed down to Sacramento to a memorial service. We of course had adventures on the way down. Two hours into our drive from home we discover that the front passenger tire is flat and has been for a while (we would stop every couple of days and pump it up since we saw no holes). Strangely odd. We also had left at 8:30 pm hoping to stop at a campground and sleep and then jump back on the rode. The campgrounds on I-5 between Portland and Grants Pass are slim if not nonexistent. So churchable’s grand idea was to sleep at the Salem fairgrounds. Ok fairgrounds don’t sound too great, but after I got over being freaked out at camping in the middle of a city, I got a good nights sleep till a big fat drop of Oregon hit me in the face. I don’t know about you but I don’t appreciate sleeping without a tent in the rain. We ended up sleeping at a rest stop. The rest of the drive down was pretty good.

After the memorial we headed off to see on of my HS buddies who lives in the Bay Area. We got to meet their baby who is very active but he is a year and half old. Unfortunately we stayed with them for a very short time since they were expecting family and leaving for Europe shortly afterwards.

The rest of the time in the Santa Rosa area of California. My SIL and family live in the area. We had good times. I spent a lot of time knitting. I finished a few things and started something very cool.

During this time was my FIL’s birthday which was celebrated by going to Santa Cruz and riding on a narrow gauge train up a mountain.

During this time everyone was suffering or recovering from a stomach flu. Bud, Frog boy and I did not get it, but churchable was attacked by it the day we planned to head out to the base of Mt Shasta so that he could summit it. I ignored his delusioned requests that I drive and all I would need to do was pull over so he could puke. No thank you.

So we headed back to the Northwest a day late, which just meant no Mt Shasta. At this point both front tires were trying to see who could be less deflated. While the tires bickered, we made a detour to see Crater Lake, which was amazing. I can’t wait to come back in the winter and go snowshoeing around it. Churchable wants to ski some parts of it (no not into it.)

On saturday we woke up and I complained that I thought I needed a warmer sleeping bag because I froze most of the night. Well come to find out it was freezing that night and my bag is not rated for that cold of weather. So if you go to Crater Lake and camp, bring a warm sleeping bag.

My body might have been cold, but my mind was quickly waking up to thought that I would be at the Black Sheep Gathering soon. My lovely husband was so kind to let me schedule it in. He was even looking forward to the sheep to shawl competition which we never saw. I saw lots of pretty yarn but I must say I really only wanted yarn from the Blue Moon booth, but I am a little biased. When I was ready to go, churchable was shocked. He questioned me about if there was more I wanted to do or so. I did say I wanted to meet up with some of the PDX bloggers but I seem to have missed all of them except Tammy, who was helping man the Blue Moon booth.

Ok on to the knitting content:

Oh first I must tell you a story. Si asked me to teach her to knit socks (she has never knit before people) back in early May, but she lives in Cal and I in Washington. At that time we were both in Spo Vegas and I started her out learning to turn the toe on a short row toe up generic pattern. As we were starting, Frog boy asked if Gee (his frog) could have socks. Each time she and I talked about me coming and her doing more on her sock, Frog boy would ask about Gee’s socks. So without further ado, Gee socks with a scarf.

Upon receiving the scarf, that I knit on the sly in his presence, Frog boy asked if Gee might possibly have some mittens. I think I have some mitten knitting in my future. I hope we don’t boil this little frog alive in all the wool I keep passing his way.

If you look closely at the slide show, you will see David’s Orange socks are being worn. I finally finished them. I will track him down with them on later.

Since I was sockless, well at least on the needles. I started one pair for me. I have powered through the main sections of the sock but these socks are Enunny’s Entrelec Knee socks. I am in love with the socks and their fit, but beware the pattern seems small for a US size 8-9 shoe size. My feet are 7 1/2 and they are tight.

While at the Blue Moon Booth, I bought churchable socks. Well ok sock yarn to be socks. Amazing if you look down, we have a sock. Maybe I did buy a sock at the booth. Ok no really I have just completely shocked myself in how fast I can knit my hubby’s sock. I started this a week ago, found out it was too big, ripped it out on Friday night, and Tuesday night I BO. Amazing. I must finally say the proof is in the yarn. I knit faster when I am in love with the yarn. So churchable’s socks are Basketcase socks. It is a really easy pattern to learn. It is perfectly suited to a man’s sock in its present state but that is because a man wrote the pattern and churchable likes a tight sock. The yarn colorway is Minestone.

yes I know the ends are hanging. GO look at something else

Now on to the fun stuff: What you thought socks were fun? Haha

This here sweater is one that I don’t think I have blogged about. The back was knit before I started this blog and it got pushed aside so that I could knit for the Sexy Knitters Club, babies and in anticipation of my new job. Now I have time to return to it. It is supposed to be a long sleeve sweater, but I doubt I have enough yarn. We will see how big it gets.

This is my next sweater for the Sexy Knitters Club. We are knitting Fifi. Now don’t run away when you see I am doing it in the called for yarn. I know this is so not normal. I picked Rowan Calmer because I had read so much about it in the No Sheep for You Book. I wanted to play with this miracle stuff. I have found a new yarn that shall be called nonwool crack. Yes I want to blow my yarn allowance on this stuff and this stuff alone. Forget about my love of Blue Moon. I must have…..

Oh sorry. I think I am better now. but the 4th is calling and I must enjoy some good ribs and corn.

This video is our Lab/Pug mix playing in the snow. She was such a wild thing that the snowmobilers had to come find out what kind of dog had that much energy.