the sock report

I've got a bevy of finished knits to show you, but first up will be the knitted good nearest and dearest to my heart: socks!

These are my first Christmas gift of the year -- socks for my brother's girlfriend in Ohio State colors.

Yarn: Loopy Ewe Solid Series in Strawberry and Smoke (about a half skein of each)

US 2 needles

Time to knit: About 2.5 weeks

Rav details

I'm happy with how the joins turned out, too:

I think Meg will really like them. She's been coveting the Ohio State mittens I made for my brother a couple years ago.

Next up is a pair of socks for myself. Also stripey!

Yarn: Vesper Sock Yarn, colorway Lovely Lollipop Sky (a summer 2008 Vesper Sock Club offering)

US 1 needles

Time to knit: a month and a half

Rav details

I'm really happy with them -- I got lazy on the first one and bound off a little early, so they're not the tallest things. But that's OK. They're so bright and cheery, I smile every time I look down at my feet!

These pairs are nos. 9 and 10 of 2010, putting me ahead of schedule for my goal of 12 pairs in 2010. I already have two new pairs on the needles ...

If you'll excuse me, I will return to my knitting. I have a pot of chili in the crockpot for dinner tonight. Yum!

Perhaps I will return to blogging more frequently now that this is in my hot little hands:



I finally upgraded my 6-year-old Compaq laptop! The breaking point was sitting down at the computer as I ate my morning cereal (as I do every day), clicking on Firefox to open a browser window, and eating all of my cereal before the damn thing loaded. I decided to stop waiting and just plunk down the money!

Of course, I'm blogging from the old computer right now ... I have to transfer my iTunes and various files over to the new one with the help of a Flash drive. For some reason I'm being a baby and am insisting on waiting until the boyfriend is home from work to do it. Oh hai, I'm a helpless female.

I can show you this: the socks-in-progress for my brother's girlfriend. These will be her first handknit socks:



They're pretty cute, if I may say so myself. Yarn is Loopy Legends Solid Series -- I didn't care for its hand at first, but it's growing on me now that I'm well into the second sock. I'm knitting these 4-row stripes on size 2 needles, but if they were for me, I think I'd have gone down to a 1 for tighter gauge. She has small feet (US women's 7.5), which is the smallest adult sock I've ever knit! So wee!

This is probably as good a time as any to confess that I am rather ambivalent about knitting any more socks for my family for Christmas. It's not that the socks aren't worn, or that my family doesn't know the work that goes into them. That couldn't be further from the truth. And it's not that I'm pushing sock-making duties off on my mom, now that she's knitting socks. I must confess that I am just itching to knit more socks for myself! I know my feet so well that I can knock out a pair of stockinette socks for myself in a week or so, but gift knitting seems to drag and drag ...

With four months till Christmas, I'm hopeful I can overcome this ennui and kickstart my gift knitting again!

Where am I?

Well, dear readers, I'm in the midst of a summer funk. I've been working six-day weeks. I've been knitting, but not too much. I've taken zero pictures in the past three weeks or so. Just when summer tempts us and gives a day *only* in the mid-80s, the next day it returns to 95 degrees with a swampy heat index of 110. Ugh.

I'm seeing my parents and brother in less than two weeks, so I hope that breaks up my mood. In the meantime, there is some good old summer TV filling my time ("True Blood," "The Colony" and "Mad Men").

I have two finished socks -- one self-striping Vesper yarn, the other stripes of my own doing for a Christmas knit, but again, the camera hasn't left the bag in weeks. Here's hoping I can report back with something to show for myself ...

pairs no. 7 and 8 of 2010

I'm checking in with two newly finished pairs of socks. This past weekend was very good to me, knitting-wise.



Yarn: OnLine Supersocke Afrika (about 80% of the skein)
US 1 needles
basic stockinette
Rav details

I have a hunch that these socks will wear like iron. It wasn't the softest yarn to knit with, but BOY does it make for a solid pair of socks.

Next up is my latest pair of Socks that Rock socks.



Quinault Canopy, mediumweight (93% of a skein -- yippee for toe-up!)
US 2 needles
Rav details

These might be the tallest socks I've ever knit. Love 'em!

These are my seventh and eighth pairs of socks for 2010 -- putting me ahead of schedule for my goal of knitting 12 pairs of socks this year.

I'm hard at work on a pair of stripey socks, thanks to some Vesper sock yarn I got in a membership to the Vesper Yarn Club two whole summers ago (gulp). I also picked up my long-suffering Clapotis and knocked out another repeat, so perhaps I'll finish that up before, oh, the end of the year ...

Mimi's shawl

After a furious few days of knitting (god bless the three-day holiday weekend, even if mine was Friday through Sunday unlike most Americans), the shawl for my grandma is DONE!



Yarn: Fearless Fibers sock yarn, colorway: Speak Softly (about three-quarters of the skein)
Pattern: In the Land of Oz
Mods: Knit charts 2, 3, and (to make it larger) chart 2 through row 14
Rav details

This was the second time I've knit this shawl. It felt like it went a lot faster this time, even though I made it bigger. Perhaps it just felt intuitive? Anyhow, I could see myself even making this a third or fourth time. It's a lovely, easy, well-written pattern.



My grandma is 88 on Wednesday but I won't be giving it to her until I see her in person next month in Pittsburgh. I cannot WAIT to give it to her. She's one of the most special people in the whole world and she deserves a shawl more than anyone!

I've been a quiet blogger lately because I have little to show for my knitting progress. I've found it hard to knit the past few weeks because it's been so darn hot here - temperatures in the 90s or 100s with high humidity. Ugh. I think I finally found my groove with the In the Land of Oz shawl (rav link) I'm knitting for my grandma -- I'm seriously flying through the lace right now. Though her birthday is July 7, I'm planning on giving it to her in August, when I see her in person on a trip to Pittsburgh.

I don't think I ever blogged this wee hat I knit for my friend Judy's baby. She's due to give birth to a boy in August.



I used Trekking 100 (white) and scraps of Araucania Multy (blue). It knit up really fast. And technically it's my first colorwork project! I got a little carried away with the checkerboard fun and I definitely think I'll try some other easy colorwork in the future.

I finished the hat over a month ago but waited to give it to her until her shower this weekend. She really loved the hat, so I'm tickled. Nothing like sharing a handknit with a friend! It makes me so happy.

A friend snapped this picture of us -- isn't she such a pretty gal?

an assortment of FOs

I have a couple finished knits to show ...

First up, a finished pair of socks:



Socks that Rock lightweight in Tricoter
US 2 needles, 68 stitches, 2x2 rib

I knit the first toe-up (to maximize height) and the second cuff-down, just for fun. I really love this colorway knit up.

Next up, a sock that took about a week or 10 days (I think), because it was my trip knitting in Missouri:


STR mediumweight in Quinault Canopy (a MDS&W 2010 purchase)
toe-up, 64 stitches, 2x2 rib
US 2 needles

I'm so happy with how the yarn worked up! No over-the-top pooling. It's just a really tall, cushy/comfy/cozy socks. Again, I cast on the mate as a cuff-down sock, just to mix it up.

And the last of the sock brigade:



Yarn: OnLine Supersocke 100 Afrika
US 1 needles, 72 stitches

I started this in late April and put it on hold to show my mom how to do a heel turn and gusset when we were in Missouri two weeks ago. The foot of the sock just flew.

Speaking of sock knitting, my mom has finished her first sock!! I am so very proud. She sent me a picture-text message at almost 11:00 last night showing it off once she kitchenered the toe.

Finally (boy, I didn't think I had been knitting this much but now I think otherwise), a Jayne hat:



This is a hat as seen in the sci-fi series "Firefly" -- many a "Firefly" fan has made this hat. I made it to wear to a screening of "Serenity" (the movie featuring the same cast) yesterday. I saw a couple other Jayne hats but of course I liked mine the best. =)

Next up, I'm going to keep working on the mates to those single socks and keep on working on a shawl for my grandma. I'm in the never-ending stockinette portion of another In the Land of Oz.

Missouri yarn-ventures

Of *course* my mom and I plotted stops at several yarn shops on our trip -- would you expect anything less?

The first shop we went to was Simply Fibers in Springfield, Mo. (Links are going to take you to my mom's photos of the shops.) A little Maltese-Yorkie pup named Charlie greeted us when we walked in. He was one of the cutest pups I've ever seen - when he got going with running, his front legs just went straight and he looked like a marching soldier (for lack of a better description). I have a bias toward dogs in yarn shops (especially when they're small, non-shedding and well-behaved) -- so Charlie was a big hit. Kelle was working at the shop and she was just the bubbliest, nicest gal. She even logged on to Ravelry to friend each of us. (Kelle, if you see this, I hope your trip to Ireland was great!)

I bought two skeins of sock yarn, some Opal (because I'm a sucker for self-patterning yarns right now) and a tweedy purple-blue one by Hand Painted Knitting Yarns, dyed for the store.





That was our only yarn shop in southwest Missouri. We stopped at a fabric store for my mom in what felt like the middle of nowhere. The selection wasn't to my mom's liking, but the shop owner was really friendly and outgoing, so I bought some buttons for baby sweaters and that was about it.

Once we got back to the eastern side of the state, we visited Kirkwood Knittery in suburban St. Louis. They had a Memorial Day sale, yippee! Their selection was nice, and they had a nice-sized crowd there, too. One of the proprietors was very friendly and had a ton of questions for my mom about the college where she works (my mom was wearing a t-shirt from it). It's always nice to chat with people when you're on trips. I picked up some Jojoland Melody.





We stopped at Jackman's Fabrics, where my mom picked up some nice things. (Um, can you tell I'm not a quilter/sew-er? This description is a brief one, hee hee.) Then we checked into our hotel in St. Louis, had some yummy Mexican food and a margarita and called it a night.

On Sunday, we visited Knitty Couture in the Delmar neighborhood. This was a cool area, but boy was it a hot day. It was a really cute store ... I *almost* didn't buy anything, but ... at the last minute I spotted this merino-cashmere-nylon sock yarn. Something I've wanted to try for a long while. So I picked it up -- Spirit Trail Fiberworks Frija sock yarn in a deliciously scummy color called Vintage:



We weren't going to go to the last yarn shop on our list -- our feet were aching, we were hot and tired. But the GPS told us we were less than five miles from Knitorious. So off we went.

It was a nice-sized store with a TON of selection. I had a tough time deciding but in the end went with something outside my normal color choices -- this Dyeabolic Strong Arm sock.



And thus concludes my yarn adventures in St. Louis! I think it's time to hold myself accountable publicly and say that's it for yarn-buying and me for some time. I am so incredibly fortunate to have the yarn stash that I do, and I'm going to continue to knit from it as fast as I can. I plan to stay on this yarn diet until Sheep and Wool next year (barring gifts that require a specific yarn that I don't already own). We'll see how it goes ...

visiting Missouri

I'm home from Missouri! (Um, I've been home for a week.) The trip was fabulous -- it felt so luxurious to get to spend four days with my mama!

We visited the Arch (just the base of it -- rides to the top were sold out) ...



Best of all, we drove nearly four hours to Mansfield, Mo., to visit Rocky Ridge Farm, home to Laura Ingalls Wilder (for whom I am named)!



This was a trip my mom and I had talked about taking for many, many years. We talked about it as a high school graduation thing, but my dad lost his job around that time and it wasn't feasible. Then college came, and summer internships got in the way. Then I had a job. Then my granddad got sick last summer. But this year, we finally made it happen.



We both teared up when we walked into the museum and saw Pa's fiddle, which featured so prominently in all her books. They had Mary's nine-patch quilt, which she made before she grew ill (with scarlet fever, I think) and became blind. They had countless "artifacts" (for lack of a better word) from her lifetime, including one of the tablets on which she wrote "On the Shores of Silver Lake." We got to see the very desk she wrote some of the books on, in her study. The house was lovely and I wish we had the opportunity to freely walk around the house and/or take photos indoors. Ah well. I will remember our trip always!

Oh yeah ... I might've taught my mom to knit a sock, too ...



I am so proud!

(I'll be back soon with a yarn-y report.)

more sockiness

I feel like a boring blogger, because all I write about are socks. I have socks on the brain all the time! I can't help that they're the best knitting project around ...



This is a 2x2 rib sock in Socks that Rock lightweight, colorway Tricoter. I bought this yarn at a LYS in Seattle with the same name. I love the colors so!

The first sock was knit toe-up, but I decided to knit the second one cuff-down to make it a little more exciting for me. I'm almost to the heel flap on its mate already.

I've got yet another pair of plain vanilla socks started for my upcoming trip to Missouri. I'm so very excited for some quality time with my mom -- we haven't done anything, just the two of us, in a long time!