I have finished my Flaming Froot Loops Socks and lo and behold, they fit!! There is definitely something to be said for toe-up socks. Kristi's pattern is super, I highly recommend it. Just don't be a dork like me and choose shorter balls of yarn because all of those passed over stitches and mini-cables eat up that yarn... What worked for lace socks, clearly does not work for texture. Always a lesson to be learned.

Progress on my Heartland Shawl is slow and infrequent. It is now about 10 inches long. I finally got a copy of Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush and there are quite a few projects in there I would like to get started on... I am trying to tell myself not to start anything new until the old is finished.

Speaking of old, can I say that I LOVE Sugarmomma? She saved my ass swapping me a desperately needed ball of Cascade Sierra Quatro and it has arrived! So soon the monkey will have ears and a tail. Perhaps I will find the time over Thanksgiving to finish her up.

So many other projects I am desperate to start. Where do I begin? I am having trouble focusing this week... I, like Teenuh, am suffering from Twilightitis. With hot young vampires on the brain I have very little time to think about anything else....

I am having a serious commitment issue.

I can usually start a project and stick with it until I have finished. But lately I have serious starteritis! Sock monkey #3 DD's monkey is as finished as she can be. She has no ears and no tail but that will have to sit until the wonderful woman who is trading yarn with me sends me her skein of that darn Cascade Sierra Quatro that I need!

So in the mean time I have knit 2 rows on my Heartland shawl and have started a new set of Froot Loop Socks (which will heretofor be known as Flaming Froot Loops). Now I am eyeballing starting yet another shawl. I was also walking around with a blanket pattern in my hand, not 5 minutes ago.

So I need to nip this little problem in the bud by first admitting I have a problem.

Or by knitting faster....

Today I hate everyone. I am fed up with working with other people and I am tired. I also didn't get in my quota of knitting time, so I have withdrawls as well. I am so done with this whole book fair thing! This will be my last call on it, I think.

So Froot Loops are finished and both are stupid small. I hate top down. Toe-up or bust from now on! They look great, they are just about 1.5 inches too short. I love the color and pattern and yarn and everything but the damn size!! I finished with about 1yard of yarn left. Stupid yarn!


Here they are. They just need some feet to wear them.... Gratuitous close-up of stitch pattern with weird color change from flash! The bright orange-red-green is the true color of the yarn. I think I might make another pair, in a more solid color for better stitch definition becasue the pattern is so cute. They WILL be toe-up of course!

Zoinks!

I have totally bailed on blogging lately. I have been busy with soccer and school stuff. Walkathons and book fairs and junk like that. Today is Halloween, the most wonderful time of the year!! DS, DD and DN had a jolly good parade at school wearing their cute costumes. Pumpkins were carved. We went to a party tonight and I baked a delicious cake! As well as made a couple of nifty brains for dinner. Duh, I forgot to take a picture of them after cooking covered with bloody ketchup. Damn. It was quite the party, Judy found it to be eye popping... We had a fantastic time and got home about 12:30 am, which sucked for getting to the soccer field at 9:30 on Saturday.

On the knitting front: I struggled for a while with a pattern called Gail. Which is not very well written so after 6 failed attempts at it, I have decided not to make it and am instead using my precious Handmaiden Sea Silk for Evelyn Clark' s Heartland Lace Shawl. It is going much better. The numbers actually add up, which is always a good thing. Sorry tarded out again and didn't take a picture.

Finally, after months of putting it off, I have begun my pair of Froot Loop socks, with 1 done and the second about 1/3 done, but a word to Kristie. My sock is TOO SMALL because I ran out of yarn at the toe, this is why I knit toe ups and not top downs! ARGH! Someone with size 8 feet will be the lucky recipient of this pair of socks. Damn socks.

The knitting of the pink monkey, drones on forever. I haven't worked on it in a couple of weeks. I get a very dirty look from DD everytime she sees me knitting anything other than her monkey. I will go hide my guilty face and work on my sock.

Every once in a blue moon someone does something more amazingly special than even I have done (Yes, it is rare but true)... To commemorate such a momentous occasion a special name must be given.. perhaps we should call it the "Lost Keys Incident" or "Damn yYou Are Lucky" or "Why You Shouldn't Talk on a Cell Phone" or maybe just "The Duh Incident." Regardless, Lisa forget the "Gigi", you have earned yourself a new name....
I dub thee Spehshul Leesuh.......

Woo Hoo!! I finished the Mystery Shawl. It is not longer a mystery. The secret it out. It is some sort of insane punishment. Yeah. That's it.

Well, here it is all ugly and scrunchy like a new born...

Then here it is as blocked as I can get it in my living room. It is 86 inches across and doesn't fit. I have it partially pinned under my couch, but clearly you can see that it is not round at all. It has one flat side., this newborn is suffering from Plagiocephaly. The patterns are 1c, 2c, 3a, 4a, 4c, 3c, then the edging. Now the question, as always, is what to do with it?

Now what to do with myself? It is back to the Monkey...
Here is DS's sock monkey in progress. I am just going to punish myself and relentlessly crank this one out. I do have some plans for a sock and some fingerless mitts, but I will be good and make the damn sock monkey... Mr. Ben, gosh! He's like a monkey on my back...

I am becoming an yarn ordering addict. When my husband gets the credit card bill he is going to bad MAD at me! I went online and found this store in Oregon (sales tax free baby!) call Woodland Woolworks. I ordered 1 cone of Zephyr in Bottle Green and 1 in steel (which to my credit I am sharing half with Teenuh the vacation queen). I also ordered 2 skeins of black and 2 skeins of white of Panda Silk. It was on sale, how could I resist?? So I ordered on Tuesday and it amazingly arrives on Thursday of the same week. Sent priority mail for a most reasonable cost, like, you know, the cost of actual postage, were no one to "handle" it. So along with my box of crack yarn they send me 2 catalogs. 1 for knitting yarns and 1 for weaving yarns. I peruse the knitting one, nothing too special I haven't seen before. Then, I come to weaving one. Damn. There are these really nice little cones of Soy silk and others of bamboo and gee those prices sure seem reasonable. So then I make a SERIOUS mistake and I go online and LO AND BEHOLD the damn yarn is on sale. Well how the hell can I not buy it now!? " How," I ask you, "HOW!? Well, truth be told, I can't. So now I am sitting here with buyers remorse as I bet my order is already on its way.... I just have to intercept the package before the husband ever gets a chance to see it... and stuff it into a box and pretend it isn't there until I am ready to use it...

Really though, don't I deserve a reward ? I am almost done with the Goddess Anniversary Shawl. I now have 50 repeats left, that is only 300 rows to go now and, damn that thing is HUGE! Just wait until you see it...

I feel like an energizer bunny, but running on one battery with just 10% of its power left... I keep going and going and going and going but so slowly. I have just passed the half way point on the edging. I am at repeat 110 out of 192, so I am nearing the home stretch. But, school is back in session and I am the school's bitch, so I have been hither and dither all week long with no time to knit! Today I ran 1,300 double sided copies and in the mean time I managed to knit about 10 rows today. I am looking forward to Wednesday, a good day to knit!

Woo hoo!!!

I have completed the task of unending rounds of knitting I created for myself. I finished my 5th installation of the Goddess Knits Anniversary shawl, which was Clue 4-c. I entered the final phase with much trepidation as I only had a meager 28g of yarn remaining. I have since cast off with 5 repeats of my edging and am now down to 26 g. Oh, crap. Do the math folks. 6/sts decreased per repeat. Times 1152 sts. That is 192 repeats. I now have enough yarn left for 65 more repeats, give or take a few rows. So what, you may ask am I doing for the other 130 repeats/ 52 g? Well, panicking would be my usual answer and I would be near shear panic if I didn't have my helpful enabler blogless Melissa to keep me going... If you recall, she and I split a cone of Zephyr (that would be a 1lb cone, for a total of 1/2 lbs each or 227g). Well, unfortunately for her, she seemed to run out of gas and enthusiasm on her shawl part way through, uncertain if she would finish or just bind off. The question of the day is, what will she do? Can she spare a square. I don't know, we'll have to see! She has generously offered before to share more of the cone should I need it, but probably didn't realize I would need a whole quarter of the remaining cone. So now the question I ask myself is, should I just suck it and order a whole other cone or be a leach and bum a quarter? Sorry, pictures coming soon...

Still alive. Just barely. This shawl is killing a little piece of my soul with every stitch.... I seriously feel like I will never, ever , ever get through it... I am at row 13 of 48 on clue 3C for my post clue 4 size increase... it takes me almost an hour to get through 1 patterned row with 1152 sts per round. The even (all K) rounds take me about 25 minutes. Sometimes I want to just call it done and start adding on the edging. CALGON, TAKE ME AWAY!!!!

Damn. That sucks.

So as I am sitting in Starbucks on Wednesday with Teenuh knitting on my Goddess Mystery Shawl when I pause part way through chart A to guess (with a tape measure and pulling on it) at how large I think the shawl is (feeling almost done as I think I am on my last chart before the edging in spite of being only 60% done according to this) and I realize the shawl is only going to be some where around 54-56 inches. DAMN!!! DAMN! You know what that means right? It means that I have to add on at least 50 more rows to get my shawl over 60 inches. Damn. SO now I am staring at the various charts trying to decide which one will look nice following chart a. I don't think any of them are going to be what I would like. Damn. And that I have to knit freakin' 50 more rows!! ARGH! *banging head on wall repeatedly*

I guess I have added at least another week onto this project (because, yes, I do have to double the stitches again before I add on another chart!) Damn. This is the shawl that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends, for some reason I started knitting it not knowing what it was, but I'll continue knitting it forever just because, this is the shawl that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends.....

Run lemming, run! Jump lemming, jump!

So yeah, if all of my friends jumped off of a cliff apparently I would too. I joined Sundara's Season's Club. Choosing Fall. I was a little tempted by summer but then was wooed by this picture into the Fall category.... This thread on Ravelry offered a clear view of temptation... I just hope DH doesn't figure it out... All I can say is um, Thanks TEENUH!! And you too Lisa.

Now actual knitting content....
For my little Nephew's birthday: a sock monkey! It is a ~50% reduced, quite modified version of the Two Old Bag's Mr. Ben pattern. Made from Paton's Grace on size 2 needles. Made in about 3 days. Someone has let the monkey out of the bag and he loves it! He said,'Thanks Auntie it is a baby monkey to Diddy Kong!" The kids are very into baby this and mom and dad that.... My grandma likes it and says it is better than the big one that I made for DS. I think she really wants me to make her one too and thinks the smaller size more reasonable to mail away to Hawaii. With my huge over estimation of how much yarn I needed I totally could. It took less than 1 skein of the main color and way less than half of the cream and only a tad of red before I made the hat. He is lounging by the pool in San Diego here... His cap perhaps should have been larger? I finished him the night before around 1:50 am, struggled to take a picture of him because he wouldn't sit up straight and realized that he had no tail!! Ha ha! So 30 minutes later (at like 2:30 am) he was finally, completely finished... He would've been a sock ape instead...

The ship is still rocking!! I want back on the ship!!

He loves the monkey in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that the monkey is nearly as large as he is. Because of the red baseball cap, he has named his monkey Diddy Kong. I may put a letter D on the hat at a later time. He has been carrying it around with him all day!
On the Mystery Shawl front. Here is my zephyr. Half of a cone wound on the awesome gianormous ball winder I got for my birthday. It is a giant cake. I have not been on the ball about taking photos. So here is a crappy photo of clues 1 and 2 both are chart C's. Not much to look at at this point, I was going to shift to a larger needle for better photographic opportunities, when to my chagrin I found that I do not own any other size 3 circular needles!! I have size 2's in 4 lengths.! I have of course Knitpick's options in every size from 4 - 15. But no more size 3 's (or 1's for that matter. hmm time for another order??)

Now I have realized that I ordered some in a co-order with Teenuh in 40" and 47" and the order has arrived at her house. So I just need to be patient and wait to meet up with her to get the order! So for another day or 2 the shawl will have to remain crumpled up.... In the mean time, here is a glimpse of clue 3 chart A. And thanks to the brilliance of Janet I will begin work on Clue 4 for which I plan to work chart A followed by chart C creating the same length as using B or D alone.

King Monkey is finished! 2 down, 1 to go!! DS was quite the task master. Catching me working on the mystery shawl or something else, he would say, "So I guess my sock monkey must be about done, huh?" Or" Mom, why don't you finish my sock monkey instead?" Woo, tough boss! His hat is a top down increase with an added brim. The brim was made with short rows and folded over with a piece of plastic garbage cut to size and and sewn in the middle. He weighs a ton. Being made with about 525 grams of Blue Sky Alpaca Cotton. He was filled with 1.5 bags of Cluster Stuff. So he is pretty weighty. He is about 5" taller than the previous monkey but quite a bit fatter. Here is his bald pate photo. So along with half of the internet knitting world I am also working on the Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl. I was not smart and did not take progress shots. I have numerous photos to download from my camera and the fear is causing me to not take pictures. I know, how lame is that. I am knitting wtih Zephyr wool silk in the Blueberry color way from a cone split with Blogless Melissa. For clues 1 and 2 I have used chart c. For clue 3 I am using a and have decided to use b for clue 4. I have already fallen behind as I spent much time trying to finish off King Monkey. DS loves him quite a lot, especially since we didn't use the scary eyes! Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to that! And i f you are wondering, yes they are metallic and do reflect, they sure would like monster eyes to a sleepy imagination...

I haven't spent so much time knitting as I would like to, instead I have been doing that evil thing called housework and really trying to get ahead on all of the laundry, wash up all of the winter coats and get them stored away as well as enjoying 4th of July festivities. I could spam the page with photos of fireworks. There were so many to see. I just can't feel free on the 4th without smoke filling the air, gigantic booms filling the air and the vague smell of burning sulphur and the opportunity to be in a huge crowd that fills me with terror and a sense of forboding!
Here the kids and I are downtown enjoying the Fireworks. I have decided that since I am never in any pics I am going to start taking pictures Gina style. Me and Teenuh, we loves the fireworkz!

A little late in joining the game but...

49 As a 1930s wife, I am Average Take the test!

+ = yes, - = no: Apparently, my greatest failure is ...

-Asks husband's opinions regarding important decisions and purchases.
+Corrects husband's speech or actions before others. (With my husband, who wouldn't!? One can only take so much innuendo...)
-Laughs at husband's jokes and his clowning. (It only encourages him...)
+Doesn't want to get up to prepare breakfast. (Is this really so bad?)
+Frequently exceeds her allowance or family budget. (um, yarn anyone?)
-Likes to vacation with husband. (and you wouldn't either...)
-Often comments on husband's strength and masculinity. (who does this?)
+Puts her cold feet on husband at night to warm them. (That's what he's there for right?)
+Slow in coming to bed--delays til husband is almost asleep.(the foot thing works better that way!)
+Tells risque or vulgar stories. (Where's the fun in life!?)
+Uses slang or profanity. ('the fuck is wrong with that?)
+Wears red nail polish. (Save me I am a whore!)

Good thing that it didn't go much farther than that. I can't imagine how I'd score if it asked about other things....

Earth to blogger, come in blogger!

I have been so horribly busy and to make matter worse I was a little shell shocked after everything was finished. I was about ready to have a nervous breakdown from all of the busy school activities. So Art Vistas is done, classes, Art show, extra classes, all done! 3rd Grade play is done done done! I ended up in charge of costumes. Tried to delegate them out but people flaked on me (and you all know how I feel about that). So I ended up making 60 of the 120 costumes my self. It was a lot of work. It went went. It is over! Woot!

So needless to say I did not get a lot of knitting done. I got plenty of shopping done, which I won't drone on about here (think Knitting Arts going out of business and a trip to Green Planet) . I will post pics of my 2 whole FO's I accomplished during the busy time.

Here is Mr. Ben Sock Monkey Extraordinaire!
Seen here in a child's booster seat for perspective. And posing here with his new best friend the ever-so-slightly-smaller Mr. Ben Cain. (who has an awesome hat!)



I also finished my Aster from the Beyer Band 361 Kunst Stricken , Kleine und Grosse Decken. From Herbert Niebling and Irmgard Sorenson. It is about 23 inches across. (56cm) just shy of the original dimensions given for the original design. This instruction for the pattern was written in German. Knit in size 40 cotton from Daiso. Knit with size 000 needles. I did this as a knit along with a blogless friend who made her much larger with lovely seasilk on size 2 needles(?) Now summer is here I will be a better blogger....

No time to blog right now. To busy. Everything is coming down the chute at once. 2 weeks from now I'll be sitting at swimming lessons or at home wondering what I should be doing because I feel like I have way too much free time and I must be forgetting something. Until then. No time to photograph yarn or project progress... I am still knitting (King Monkey and Aster) You'll just have to wait to see it.

Super Awesome Monkey Dude.

I finished my sock monkey. He is super awesome and super cute. I am so happy to see him sitting on my couch - amid the unfolded piles of clean laundry. I can almost pretend I don't see that laundry. You should have one. You should make one. No reason not too (except it is the dulldrums of stockinette knitting insanity!!! 90 + rows x 6). I must make some more......

Give me a minute....

So on Thursday I sat watching television and felt inspired to do this:
Kind of ugly. Kind of dorky looking. Kind of splotchy, like a dog with mange.



On the sock monkey progress:

I finished the second arm today and triumphantly held it up! Victory!! But alas! No! The first arm was about 1-1.5 inches longer than the second!! I had just counted the rows on the second so I knew the problem was with the first. I counted rows. No, not 90 like it should be, or course not! It was 100!! Ugh! I unraveled the bottom from the cast on edge (hence the needles in the pic) and have since bound it off. Just ears and muzzle to go and Mr. Ben will done!! The kids are excited, they can't wait to see him! Me too!

I'm totally feeling this.



How about you?

Funky Monkey!

So the monkey totally jumped the queue. I was ogling Snuffykins' fantastically HUGE monkey and well I just HAD to make my own. She took all of these crazy pics of it. She was having so much fun with her monkey that I became inflamed with jealousy and set upon my own monkey (it only made me feel slightly better that she was giving her gianormous monkey away to live somewhere else).

So here is the fetal stage of my monkey dude. He is looking a little odd with only the one leg. The progress of this object is occasionally pornographically phallic in appearance and while knitting it in the Dr.'s office waiting room a man could not resist commenting "That is either for a REALLY big foot. or SOMETHING else!" He then turned red and sat snickering to himself for the duration of our wait in the chairs. On the other hand I have had several people practically falling over to come and touch my neonatal sock monkey, joyfully grasping him and cheering "Oh a sock monkey, a sock monkey!!" I have opted for the "striped" sock. I think I will make him the striped cap as well. Now back to work!

SO done and with time to spare!

I finished Icarus on Wednesday night. The last bead was slipped on and the last stitch cast off! It is now drying on my living room floor. This shawl was another tight fit on my tiny living room floor. There was hardly enough room for me to crawl aroundit and pin it down. So it is looking very red and flat and beady lying there. It will be wrapped and packed and ready for giving away on next Tuesday. The beads (about 100g) added quite a bit of weight on to it. It gives it a lot more drape. I added a bead to every single cast off stitch as I was casting them off. The bottom edge probably used about 40 g of the beads. I hope my mom will like it!

Get on the bus!

I am a Ravelraiser, don't you want to be one too?

Progress so far. So I ripped back to the beginning of chart 2 and reknit, applying beads as I went. This is the current result. If I did this again I would add beads all the way up the rows but the outcome on that happening looks unlikely. This is not a particularly interesting knit. It will be wonderfully Red and bright and sparkly when it is done! Yipee for shiny!

So I'm not really sure this was a good idea but....

As I was working the Icarus shawl I am making for my mom, it suddenly occurs to me that beads would be really nice. Ahem.

Yes, beads would be really nice. Particularly on those feathery parts. So I think it might be a great plan to pick back those purl/knit rows that run up the middle of those feathery parts and add some beads. Yeah, doesn't that sound like a great plan?

Oh and by the way, I am on row 12 of chart 4. Out of 4 charts. So yeah, isn't this a great idea? It sure is, only I should've thought of that sooner, like maybe around, chart 1???

I had to share this:

What Angela Means

You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people. You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts. You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals. You are deeply philosophical and thoughtful. You tend to analyze every aspect of your life. You are intuitive, brilliant, and quite introverted. You value your time alone. Often times, you are grumpy with other people. You don't appreciate them trying to interfere in your affairs. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

I don't know about you, but some of those descriptions are a little conflicted, aren't they? Sort of schizophrenic. I know I am sometimes a little crazy, but am I that crazy? I guess you just see in it what you want to see in yourself? Or do you all think this sounds like me and I am the last to know!?

I really found this to be more appropriate....

You Are a Dash

Your life is fast paced and varied. You are realistic, down to earth, and very honest. You're often busy doing something interesting, and what you do changes quickly. You have many facets to your personality, and you connect them together well. You have a ton of interests. While some of them are a bit offbeat, they all tie together well. You friends rely on you to bring novelty and excitement to their lives. (And while you're the most interesting person they know, they can't help feeling like they don't know you well.) You excel in: Anything to do with money You get along best with: the Exclamation Point

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Teenuh, how much you want to bet you are an exclamation point?