Where did the month of February go? I have no idea, I must have pulled a Rip Van Winkle and slept right through it.

I know for certain that there has been lots of house cleaning and a little bit of knitting going on. I made a quick pair of socks for the DD in her favorite colors. Much to my satisfaction they are a perfect match. This is

Lana Grossa Meilenweit 100 Multiringel color 5121. It used well under a ball to make this pair, her feet are a size 1 childrens.

This is the second ball of most precious yarn I have used from my stash. It is the Claudia Handpainted Yarns Silk Lace (20/2 ) in Ocean Depth. It turned out very nicely. The color with the pattern looks just beautiful. It is very light weight, shiny and silky. I LOVE the Laminaria pattern from Knitty. This is a terrific pattern, well written and easy to follow and it turns out wonderfully. I give it two thumbs up.


Now, after nearly a year of silence, I can finally show you a pair of socks I made in April 2008. I did a sample knit for Cookie A.'s fantastic book, Sock Innovation. The sock is titled Eunice. The book will be avialable on April 1st. This sock is Cabled with a lacy pattern in the center of the cross. This pair was made from KPM. It was modeled here by Melissa as her feet were the closest size to the socks. Sample knitting is fun, you just can't tell anyone about i!

Now on the needles, a pair of snaily felted baby booties. Super cute but you'll have to wait to see them!

Um, yeah. I can blog.
I have been kind of busy. So, we had my DD's birthday, Thanksgiving, ms DS's birthday, my DH's birthday ( a big party for his 40th), my Mom and Dad's anniversary, Christmas, then New years, then back to school. My DS got a severe ankle sprain playing at school and spent 3 weeks on Crutches, went to get his foot looked at again and got Strep throat. Now his foot seems to be bothering him still, so back to the Doctor! I have been busy teaching Art Vistas and running kids around! This year is already flying by and I am still trying to adapt to writing 2009 on things. Damn!

I have been busy and lazy to boot. I have so many finished things to show you! Well, okay, no so many, but a few! Here is my mom on Christmas Day, the joyful recipient of the small pair of top down Froot Loops that just happened to end up being her size. One might think she trimmed to balls to make them her size...

Whatever happened to that Heartland shawl? Well here it is!It came out wonderfully. Made of lovely Handmaiden Seasilk in the Glacier color way. I blocked it out at 4:30am December 23 ( I knew I would need to be wrapping on December 24 so I stayed up all knit to finish it, weave in ends and block it.) Here it is pictured pinned to the floor at 5 am... Where, you may ask, are the pictures taken of the happy recipient, my MIL? Well, I will tell you, there are none! Why, you may ask. because it is the last goddamned knitted thing SHE is getting from me. She opened the bag, took it out, partially unfolded it, said "oh, thanks Ang, it is pretty." then folded it back up and stuffed in in the bag. Didn't throw it on, or spread it out. NOTHING! SO off the list!

On the more selfish side of knitting, I made a pair of Winter Twilight Mitts (interweave free pattern). The black yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock and the colored yarn is a skein of

Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch in colorway 504. All of that perfect color is just from one skein without cutting to change the transitions (well the first one anyway). It was just perfect. There was a LOT of drama involved in making them, which I will spare you here, (you can read about it on Ravelry if you are that desperate to know) and just show off. The second mitten had to be cut and matched because the transition to that last dark color was not fast enough to match the first mitt. It still is not exact but fairly close, as I had to rip back about 15 rows, cut the yarn and splice it to ease the transition in because a world with out nearly perfectly matching mitts is not a world I am prepared to live in. Notice there are no 2 handed shots as I am unable to hold the camera and photograph my own two hands. I really love these!

What is on the needles now? A pair of vanilla toeup socks for DD made from this: I seem to have love affair with the Lana Grossa. Progress at this point is to the bottom of the arch of her foot. I was thinking of making them tall socks, I will have to see how long I can make them before I run out of yarn. Of course, I have to account for matching those stripes!

Also currently on the needles is a Laminaria knitted with this Claudia Silk 10/2 in the colorway Ocean Depth. This skein is a very dark and intense version of it. Janet commented that it wakes you up! I really LOVE this pattern, it is written nicely and knits up quickly, with the random happenstance that sometimes I can't seem to count to nine. I have tried for about a year to find another skein in a similar depth and shade of color but all of the other Ocean Depths that I have found have been a far lighter tint that looks very faded. Out of despair for never locating another ball, I just decided to bite the bullet and use it. Teenuh is so proud that I have used TWO different balls of my MOST PRECIOUS stash to make things. And in return I am just glad Teenuh is alive!

Oh, also I have been busy because.....
I got a new puppy! Her name is Marley, she is now 4 months old, but in this pic is about 3 and a half months old. She is, quite hysterically, half Chihuahua (mom) and half Golden Retriever (dad). Picture the physics on that. She looks much like a Lab pup, but she has a longish looking body and the stumpiest legs you have ever seen! They are so short and fat. She is naughty and cute and fun. I am working at training her, it is hard work as there are 3 other people in the house who work hard at untraining her. She is nearly housebroken and has already learned sit and down and NO! What fun!

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....