Blog Struggle

        Well, again I have let my blogging fall to the wayside... It seems I've been too busy trying to fit in everything I want to get done during the day that I haven't had time (or made time) to stop, sit down and write about all of my activities. Now, in my defense, it was tough to blog after my last post since I started knitting Christmas presents for my family, and I didn't want to post in case they saw. However between the end of December and know...I've had no excuse! I've been doing a lot of working, wedding planning, and of course knitting.
Right now it's looking like 2012 is the year of the sock. I'm hoping to eventually have enough hand knit socks that I can wear a different pair every day, using store bought socks for exercise only.
I'm currently participating in three Knit A Longs that contribute to my goal of more hand knit socks. (however my ultimate goal to wear all my own socks is going to take a bit longer since I've started giving some socks away...it's selfish to keep them all for myself!)
The first KAL is the Socktopus book KAL. I bought this book for two reasons:
1. The quite obvious reason that the name Socktopus, is quite frankly AWESOME! and while they say don't judge a book by its cover... I judged this one by its name.
2. When I looked through the book at the store I immediately thought to myself "Wow, I could actually see myself knitting ALL of these patterns" This doesn't usually happen, so I took it as a sign that I should buy the book.
Naturally I wanted to start knitting through the book as soon as possible, but I didn't really want to tackle this gigantic task alone..so I searched the great place that is Ravelry.com and low and behold....a group, dedicated to knitting through the entire book! And it started the very next month! (December/January). I had to hop on this bandwagon. Now.. I did get a late start, since I couldn't start socks for myself before finishing Christmas gifts for my family. Luckily the schedule allows 2 months to complete each sock, with one month of overlap so if you finish early you don't have to wait too long to start the next pair. So, right after Christmas I kicked off my mission to get through the book. So far I've made it through 3 pairs:
Kwalla:

Spring Shoots:

 

Vorticity:

3 down, 13 to go! I'm feeling pretty good with my results so far, and can't wait to see how the rest of the patterns work up in my yarn choices. 

Now, since my eyes keep seeing patterns I want to make, and because in my mind I'm a much faster knitter than in real life I decided that just working through socktopus wasn't enough! 

I discovered in my search for the socktopus group Sock Knitters Anonymous. And let me tell you, this is the beginning of the end, I'm now definitely addicted to sock knitting. The idea of this group is that each month there is a challenge that has one or more themes or techniques your pattern must fit into to qualify. They also host a Mystery sock KAL every odd month of the year. Lucky for me January's theme was flora and fauna, so my socktopus spring shoots also counted! Then once I finished those up (they were a quick knit) I decided to hop on the Mock bandwagon and knit some Blathnat socks. Ceara was recipient of this labor and she says she loves them! It was fun to knit the socks as each clue came out. I've never done a mystery knit before this and I think this experience made me more likely to try Mystery KAL's in the future:

Then, because two pairs for the Januarychallenge didn't seem like enough I also decided to conquer my first pair of man sized socks. Since Lane had been asking for a pair for a while this seemed like a good time to go for it. (Like I said, I'm a faster knitter in my mind)... And so I cast on a pair of "Snape's Stockings" from the January designer of the month. And here's what I ended up with:

I actually ended up finishing all the projects I started in January and only overlapping a few days into February...so maybe my hands are catching up with my imagined speed..(only slightly). 

And on to the Feb. challenge! Slipped stitches. I love slipped stitch patterns and found what I like to think is my best yarn/pattern combination to date: Chopstick socks made in Ella Rae Lace merino:

The colors came out super cool with the slipped stitches and these socks are super soft!

As for the march challenge, I thought I wouldn't be able to juggle socktopus, SKA and my third sock activity Sock Madness! The ladies from Taunton encouraged me to join and so begins my first SM experience. It's a sock speed knitting competition. And the first round sock had cables in it, which made it conveniently fit into this month's SKA theme! The first round of SM is the qualifying round where people get put into groups based on finishing time. Then it works kind of like march madness (get it, get it?) and each round narrows down the amount of people that move on until 4 people are left at the end competing for honor and glory. Unfortunately this competion won't contribute to my personal sock collection as I have to make socks that fit a minimum of US women's size 7, as a person with size 6.5 feet, all of these socks will be too big. Looks like I'm making some socks for gifting! I finished my pair a little slower than I wanted, but at least I finished! 

My toes only make it as far as the cables on these socks... the toe part is completely empty :P

The pattern of these socks is called Dicey, and the idea is you roll dice to decide whether or not to cable each time a cable row comes around. It's a pretty neat concept. However, I was a little bummed with the amount of confusing wordings and inconsistent use of punctuation in the pattern itself. It made it harder to follow and I felt like I've never had to rip back and redo on a project as much as I had to do with these socks...But now they are done and I can move on to the second round! 

Alright along with my massive amounts of knitting I've also had to tackle a lot of wedding planning. 2 weekends ago was my bridal shower, it was so much fun! But quite overwhelming. I wish I could have had more time to catch up with each person who came rather than trying to talk to everyone at once! 

Lane and I also sent out our invitations, so I'm feeling relieved to know that the main things are covered: A place, my dress, food, and the guests! It's fun to see all of the details coming together. All we really have left to plan is music for the ceremony and a cake. I'm going to have to take more pictures of my planning process so that I can make a series of blog posts on my thoughts on wedding planning and what I've learned to pass on to people who are getting married in the future. 

Alrighty well I think this is a good enough update for now. I'm using up all too precious knitting time to write this. So much I want to knit, and so little time! Hoping to have at least weekly updates from here on out, but no guarantees! Work is going to get really busy really fast, along with my wedding planning... 

Now I'm 22!

I'm now one year older than I was when I wrote my last post. I have to say, as usual being one year older doesn't really feel any different....but I did get some awesome presents and had an awesome birthday!
We spent a family weekend in MA. Lane's and my parents and Ceara met Lane and I in Plymouth. We went to Bertucci's for dinner and then we went to bed early to get ready for a busy Saturday.

We spend the whole day at King Richard's Faire. And it was so much fun! I bought a leather belt, a mug holder and a wooden mug. Now my costume is pretty much complete..all that's left to buy is a leather pouch to put on my belt so I don't have to carry around a purse. Lane also commented that I should buy a war hammer...but somehow I don't see that happening any time soon... Check out this sweet mug:

It even looks a little like a barrel. Perfect for a renaissance faire setting. 

Then on Sunday I got to open presents and hang out. It was great. I got a keurig coffee maker from my parents!! woo! I've used it many times already. Look how good it looks on my counter

Like it was always meant to be there to brew me delicious beverages in the morning. I even got a use your own coffee pod so I can use up my remaining ground coffee. 

And I got a bread stone from Lane's parents!! now I can make nice crispy bread...

As if this wasn't awesome enough Lane got me beats headphones. And let me tell you I look super cool wearing them at work. 

And Ceara got me a thermos to keep my coffee warm, some Halloween socks and a tiny witch hat! It was a good birthday. 

Now for the knitting updates!

My coastal knits book came in the mail, so now I want to start my green sweater right away! But I have to finish up some other things (jekyll and hyde socks) before I can take off on another big project. However it is hard to resist a book that looks this nice

Also I have to block some of the things I made over the summer, so I finally invested in lace blocking supplies. The mats are on route and should arrive next week, but the wires and pins and yard stick arrived already. 2 day shipping is the best!

Hopefully this will help me make better finished objects since I no longer have to use improvised blocking pins and surfaces (cardboard box/picnic table cloth)...

And now for a sock update! One down one to go! I've started the second one and am working on the leg and I'm really pleased with how the first one came out:

It fits great and I can't wait until the next one is done. As I have often said, I wish I could knit faster!

Well that's all for now, one year older and one sock richer. Hopefully there will be some more exciting updates soon!

Rhinebeck! and a completed project!

So, in case you couldn't gather this from the title it was a very eventful weekend. I went to the NY sheep and wool festival in Rhinebeck and met up with Kate from work and Lindsay. It was AWESOME!!! I have so much yarn now! And while all the yarn does have dedicated projects...I really do wish I could knit faster. The festival was two days long and we went both days. Saturday was really tiring and pretty overwhelming...there was just so much to see! We started the day by going to the main vendor buildings and scoping out the lines for book signings. Then we headed over to the other side of the fair grounds to the barns where there were local farms selling yarn and wool for weaving.
There was also a building dedicated to wine and cheese, which of course, all had samples. It was delicious! We got artichokes for lunch and I ate a whoopie pie with peanut butter filling the size of my face. Overall it was an awesome first day. I also bought all my yarn on the first day, just to get that out of the way (or maybe I just couldn't resist all the pretty colors...) Here's my stash! (and the plans that go with it)

First thing I bought was a skein of Halloween colored sock yarn from Miss Babs:

I'm not sure if this yarn will go with the pattern I'm planning for it...I'll have to look at some examples first.. but I saw some socks that had a cable pattern that looked like a spider for Halloween and I thought this yarn would be great for that. So hopefully I can find some examples of those socks done in a variegated yarn to see how it will come out. Also there's a good amount of purple in this yarn, but it didn't really pop up in the picture too well... I also got some free samples from Miss Babs, not sure what they will become, probably test squares to see if I like their other yarns. But look how cute they are!

I also got a little sample of wool wash. So if it makes my blocked projects smell good, I might invest in a full bottle.

Next, I bought enough yarn to make a Rocky Coast Cardigan. It's an open cardigan with a loose cabled pattern. I knew I wanted to make this cardigan so I began hunting for an affordable and nicely colored bunch of worsted weight yarn. I ended up with 4 skeins of kelly green superwash merino.

I'm really excited to see this knit up. Yay sweaters! You can never have too many, since I wear them almost every day. 

After I bought the yarn intended I still had some room in the budget so I picked up a second skein of sock yarn..I promise I'll cut back after this! But we went to a booth for the sanguine griffon which we heard had really nice yarn so we went and stood in a long line. I'm hoping this knits up nice, since there was such a hype around it...and I really liked this color red, which will hopefully become a nice pair of cabled socks.

After I bought the second skein of sock yarn I cut myself off from buying any more yarn (aren't you so proud?) But I did buy one more thing, which I think was a legitimate purchase since I've been wanting one for a while. It's a sewn sock size project bag, so I can tote my travelling project with style. I put a carabiner on the handle so I can attach it to the outside of my bag and carry my sock projects conveniently. I need to be able to bring them everywhere now that I have so much sock yarn to work through, haha. 

It has inside pockets and everything!

So, after I made all of these purchases and we walked around for a bit longer we ended up running into some people from the Taunton SnB. It was so much fun to get to see everyone again! Then we walked around some more and called it a day. I was so tired, but it was worth it. 

On Sunday Lindsay and I decided to take it easy since Saturday was so tiring... So we got up at a reasonable time and went and got bagels for breakfast before we headed back to Rhinebeck. Sunday was nice and relaxing. We started the day by watching the leaping llamas contest, which was actually pretty awesome. Some llamas can jump pretty high, I was impressed. Also some of them were just confused about why they were jumping in the first place, so that added to the amusement.

llama that was confused...

After that we walked around and I saw some more sock yarn that I wanted and a cool sock yarn kit. Have no fear! I didn't buy any...but Kate bought her first skein of sock yarn, and I did warn her that it's a slippery slope. But there was so much nice yarn there! After that we went to the book signing area so Lindsay could get her books signed by Ysolda, the author of a book she just bought. After the book signing we wandered around until it was time for the cider tasting in the afternoon. We got a half hour lesson about fancy ciders and got to taste them. Some were really good! And some of them were really weird....one tasted like blue cheese...? Then we went and tasted some wines and I bought a bottle of red that's on the sweeter side, and is really tasty (and only $9). And that sums up a fantastic weekend at Rhinebeck. I will definitely put it in my plans for next fall.

Since I spent the weekend surrounded by yarns and knitters (since people travel from all around to go to Rhinebeck) I naturally got a bunch of knitting done. I finished my cabled arm warmers!! woo! And they came out pretty nice, if I do say so myself:

I'm really excited with how these came out. And I'm also excited to have another project done! Woo! 

I also got a bunch of knitting done on my Jekyll and Hyde socks, since I worked on them whenever we were in line this weekend.

Right now the leg is about 5.5 inches long and while the pattern says to knit until it's 7.5 inches long I think I might start the heel flap after 6 inches... My legs aren't that long and I don't want super tall socks. I also measured the leg of my skew socks and they were about 6inches long and I like the way those fit, so I figured it was a good way to ballpark a good length for these. 

Well, I think that's all. Whew! And I'm all typed out. So hopefully you made it to the end of this entry... I do know I can be long winded....but so many fun things happened! 

Right Mitt Done!

The right side is finished! And it fits! Hooray! I'm so excited this worked out the way I expected!

I was surprised that I didn't do the same amount of ribbing rows near my fingers as  past patterns. But I realized that my cables ended in a different spot and I've never knit something while trying to make sure it actually fit perfectly. Usually I just follow the pattern and hope for the best. In general I trust the pattern author to write their pattern so that it will fit pretty much everyone...well, now the pattern author is me! So, who cares if it fits anyone else since I'm making them just for me? 

Hmm...but in this picture it looks like I have no pinky....(it doesn't help that the nail on that finger fell off..)

I blame the photographer...oh, wait that's me too...sheesh. Well, nobody's perfect. At least I have a completed arm warmer. On to the other side!

Almost done the right Mitt

Well, I successfully finished the thumb of the right glove. And, it worked out more smoothly than I expected. Now I just have to decide how many rows of ribbing I want to do to make the glove the right length up my hand.

Anyway here's the progress so far:

I'm excited about how well this has come out! Here's a close up of the thumb:

Hopefully there will be some pictures of the complete right glove by this evening!

Happy Fall!

Well today was the perfect fall day. So, Lane and I decided to take full advantage of it. We went apple picking! The orchard was only a 15 minute drive away and it was larger than I expected. It was also super crowded and muddy. But I think it was worth it. Look at the goodies we got!

Delicious! The Cider donuts were definitely worth it. You can also see in the corner (though I mostly cut if off by accident) my bottle of old fashioned raspberry lime soda. It's delicious!

So, now we have this giant bag of apples, and only the two of us. I did at least make a slight dent in the bag and used 5 apples to make some apple crisp. First apple crisp of the season! Woo! And the first time I'm using the oven in this apartment for actual baking. So far so good!

Now I'm on the hunt for more apple recipes. If I can't find any good ones we can always just dip the apples in caramel or make more apple crisp. Which I think can be eaten for dessert and for breakfast.

Yesterday Lane and I drove up to Brattleboro, VT to meet our mom's for lunch. I needed to give my mom my engagement ring so she could bring it to the jewelry store and they could start working on my wedding bands. After lunch I convinced everyone to come with me to Webs, the giant yarn store in Northampton, MA. I'm now slightly poorer, but very happy with what I ended up getting. I bought yarn to make the v-neck sweater I've been wanting to make since I bought the book Classic Knits last year:

I'm really excited to get going on this project. But I'm going to be good and finish up my fingerless mitts first. No sense in working on too many projects at once, then none of them will get done! 

I also picked up a skein of heritage sock yarn, for 2 reasons: 1. I really like working with it and I've wanted to use this color for a while and 2. I told my mom I'd make her a pair of skew socks after she said she liked mine so much. Here's the color her's will be:

I think they'll come out really well. So I'm excited to start that project too. (so many projects, so little time! I need to knit faster).

I also have a ball of sock yarn that I got at the Westport yarn store when I got the yarn to make my market bag. I forgot to put up a picture of it before... anyway I don't know what I'm going to make with it yet, but this yarn will make an awesome pair of socks:

Now, as for my fingerless gloves I'm making some good progress. I've completed 5 repeats of the cable pattern and I estimate that after I finish the 6th repeat it will be time to start the gusset. 

Since the fingerless gloves I wear all the time are comfortable and I know they fit well I think I'll base the gusset for these off the gusset in that pattern. I just have to remember where I saved it on my computer... Hopefully the thumb comes out right, since it's the part I'm most nervous to come up with myself...even though I have a reference I still haven't decided how to choose the placement of it related to the cable pattern. Anyway, guess I'll just worry about that when I get to it. 

That's all for now. I hope everyone else enjoyed the beautiful weather on this perfect fall day!

Fingerless Mitt Progress

It's day 2 of my pattern designing and so far the fingerless mitt is looking like I expected it to, so that's good. I've completed 3 repeats of the cable pattern and here's how it looks:

I'm pleased that this is both looking like I expected and also coming out the size I expected. I've struggled with making swatches in the past and I've decided that while I normally knit in the gauge that is given in patterns, once I try to figure out my own gauge it usually goes very wrong. The last time I made something using my own gauge (entrelac beret) it came out waaay bigger than I intended. So I've decided that instead of making a gauge and casting on based on that, I'm going to cast on what I think is right, knit for a bit and work from there. I know my technique is pretty much swatching...but it works much better for me than knitting a square and counting rows and stitches. 

Anyway here's a look at my notebook I'm using for writing down my thoughts as I make up the pattern:

All I have to say is that mini-sticky notes are the best. They are perfect for adding notes and counting off rows. A full sized sticky note would cover too much space on the page and take away from my other notes. I know you must be thinking, you have a whole notebook...why use sticky notes too? But there's good reasoning behind it, I can bring the stickies for counting around with me without risking damaging my notebook and then I can add them in when I'm done. They also make it easier for me to compile my thoughts from other patterns I've done and then I can stick them in the right spot with the rest of my notes. So, as you can see, sticky notes are legit. 

That's all for today. I know it's short, and for the next few days it probably will be, but I figure some is better than none and at least you can see my progress from day to day.