Status update

Well, the good news is that I seem to have broken my standard Halloween pattern, in so much as it is October 29th, and I have two small, un-frillified princess dresses sitting on my dining room table. I have also discovered that I seem to have retained some of the sewing instruction passed down from my mother since I was able to completely wing a "pattern", and cut out these things on the fly.

So, tonight is for putting on ribbons and flowers and other crap. Boo has been invited to wear her costume to school tomorrow, so I need to find a pale blue headband for her to lose as soon as possible.

Unfortunately my other deadline project is still 60+ rows from completion. Lovely yarn, lovely pattern, and they actually fit me, but it may be a rough haul to the finish line.

And just a warning: next month's blogging will be intermittent at best. Not only do I have lots of unbloggable sooper secret Christmas knitting, but I've also taken complete leave of my senses and signed up for this again. Last participated in 2004 before Devil was born, and for some reason, this seemed like the year to start back up again.

Stop looking at me like that!

Oh crap!

Last night, the Viper Pilots and I had a come to Jesus meeting.

Actually, it was just one pilot. And not even a whole one at that. I have finally made it to halfway down the foot, and it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to try the damn thing on.

So those pretty twisted stitches and cables and such like? Not so elastic...who knew? (OK, I knew, but Denial is not just some big river in Africa somewheres.) The leg of the sock would go over my foot ok, but the heel? No dice.

The Viper Pilot(s) are now in time out. I wound up this yarn to start Installment #2 of the Cookie A Project. Here's hoping I can get them finished by the end of October...They were going to be for me, but I suspect that fit is going to be an issue once again. Mom, I know you got Glynis for your birthday, but maybe you need a pair of green socks for Christmas?

Ouch Redux

Last night I had to admit something very difficult: I couldn't knit. My sore wrist has expanded in scope to include most of my hand, such that opening things is becoming difficult, I'm losing a bit of hand strength, and any motion involving twisting of that particular appendage is a big no no. It finally sunk into my thick skull that maybe it was time to put the needles down for a few days and let those tendons and ligaments have a break*.

But...it was Friday night, The Matrix** was on TV, and I had to do something with my hands - Gourds forbid that I just sit there idle in front of the boob tube. What to do?

I'd had a brief chat with Alisha early in the day about spindles, so I decided to pick up my long-neglected Bossie and get reacquainted.

The end result of which was finishing off half of the superwash merino/alpaca that Morgaine sent along when I bought the spindle and starting on the second half. I even figured out what I'm going to do with it: plied with some undyed nylon, this yarn will become the toes/soles/heels (if needed) of the cabled socks I'm going to knit (someday) out of my Peat superwash merino. It will be 1 ply of nylon with the 2 SW merino/alpaca singles, and should make for some really warm socks.

The only question now is who will get them? The front runner is me, but Ironman has really bad circulation in his feet, so making them for him might be in my best interests. We'll see. Given the long queue of Christmas knitting that has now been put on hold, it might be next winter before these socks even get thought about, much less cast on.

*My hand definitely feels better today, so we're making progress.
**I had a sad moment last night when The Matrix ran smack dab into the brick wall that is neurodevelopmental reality*** at 75 mph. The problem being that if Nemo**** Neo really has never used his eyes when he gets freed from his little battery cocoon by Morpheus et al, then he wouldn't be able to see. No input to the visual cortex during the critical developmental period early in life means no vision. Just ask the cats.
***Yes, I am overedumacated. Why do you ask?
****True typo. Really.

Slogging along

I started some socks for a friend's Christmas present a few weeks ago, and they've been a tough row to hoe in several different ways.

The pattern is lovely, with lots of twisted stitches,

and the yarn is also lovely (and sparkly!), if a bit splitty at times.

But the absolute killer was the heel flap, with multiple rows of k1, ptbl...

Oh my aching wrist! I have a bone deposit on the back of my right hand that, 99% of the time, I don't even notice. (The 1% of the time I notice it is when I hit it against something and jump around turning the air blue for a few minutes because O The Pain.) However, every so often it becomes an issue. Like, oh lets say hypothetically speaking: when I get all fired up to finish a heel flap and end up totally wracking my hands doing ptbl on size 1 needles. Ooof.

Since my reckless foray into heel flapitude this weekend, my right hand/wrist have been less then happy with me, to the extent that large doses of NSAIDS seem to be in order. So in order to give it a bit of a break*, last night I cast on for the first of three parts of a present for Boo.

To say that my younger child has something of an obsession with animals would be a laughable understatement. Nemo is one of her all time faves. So I was hunting around Ravelry, and came across a free (hooray!) pattern for Nemo mittens. Originally using sport weight yarn, and sized for 4-6 years old, I'm using some left over Knit Picks Essential that I dyed (another post there), and size 1 needles. I think they'll fit. And they're using so little yarn, that I think I'll be able to bust her out a Nemo hat as well. Yee haw!

*To any normal person, a break would mean "Stop knitting you idiot!" However, the holidays are right around the corner and I Have Gifts To Make.

A great birthday present

So my birthday was a couple of weekends ago, and it was really nice. I'm not one for huge birthday celebrations at all, and in fact, when IM asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I was stumped. I don't need more stuff in any way shape or form, even the wooly kind. So I said I wanted a nice day with him and the girls, and chocolate cake.

I got all of that - I slept in, went for a nice bike ride, then took the girls to Richmond Park to ogle the deer and build forts while IM went for a run and met us there. We were going to have a picnic dinner originally, but didn't get ourselves organized in time, so we came back for a lovely dinner at home, which I did not cook at all, followed by chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles that the three of them made.

Then this comment appeared on the blog. And I thought "Yippee!" About a week earlier I had been slouching around the Rav forums and found a thread about a blog contest. SaRi had a copy of a new sock book, that she has a pattern in, to give away, so she was having a contest. The contest closed on my birthday, so I entered, hoping for the best. And I won! Strangely enough, SaRi used to live in the same part of London that I current inhabit, and she was coming to town for IKnit Weekender, so we made plans to meet up and have a coffee and a book handover.

We met at a coffee shop on Tottenham Court Road, and proceeded to spend a lovely half hour looking at the book and the gorgeous yarns she'd been acquiring. It was before the Weekender had started, so I didn't get to hear about any of those events, but from her posts it looks like it was a huge amount of fun.

On to the book. It's lovely, but there are two particular reasons why I'm very excited about it. The spiral bound spine, so it will lie nice and flat when opened,

and the sheer number of patterns inside.

30 patterns in 176 pages, including an introduction, some directions for handy things like different cast-ons and bind offs, and some gorgeous photographs. With this addition to my library, I think I have now reached a state heretofore unknown to man:

Sock Patterns Amassed Beyond Life Expectancy* (SPABLE). And I can't think of a better state to be in. Thank you Sabine!

* That's not to say that I won't get more mind you. Cat Bordhi's new book is now available for pre-order...