Happy Halloween!

FO Friday

I so love that I have finally finished these socks. These are the Waving Lace socks from Favorite Socks. They are awesomely stretchy and I so love everything about the pattern. The yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in the colorway Ruby River. The subtle color transitions in the yarn are really beautiful. I can't say enough great things about these socks and I am looking very forward to wearing them.


I did my usual cast on but this time I did an increase round and then knit a round with no increases. I didn't really like how it looked on the doomed Grasshopper socks, but I started realizing that the pattern on some of my socks was starting really far down my toe, so I decided to try lengthening the toe and see how I like it, and I think I actually prefer how it looks. Not that I dislike my previous knitting work, I think I might just like this better.

Anyways, what is going otn next are the Marigold Socks in my precious skein of Yarntini in the Vintage colorway. Here is the skein awaiting cast on:

My yarn is the self striping variety, and I am absolutely DYING to see these socks cast on. I really loved Sandra's self striping socks, I cannot wait to see them in the Vintage colorway.

Slow Poke Blogging

Work has still been completely kicking my ass. I am dying to cut back my workdays but wow, so much to get done before that can happen. Although, I think I am finally over the hump so I'm hoping it will slow down in the next week.

I've somehow managed to finish a couple of projects, although it has taken me over a week to sit down at my computer and upload the stupid photos.

I finished my Koigu Monkey socks:

The yarn is beautiful and very nice to knit with, a lovely treat for the feet.

I know the yarn isn't as durable as some yarns, but I'm fine with however long these last me. I'll enjoy wearing them. The skeins are really small though. I knit these socks on size 2 needles and they are super stretchy and the leg is a little longer than I typically make them, but damn if I didn't use all my yarn. As in, I had maybe 24 inches of yarn left over. I had to use some of the remnant of the first sock to finish the second sock and I didn't even finish the cuff in quite the same way (I had made the first sock 6 rows of garter stitch and the second sock was only 3 rows of purls). But I was out of yarn! I had no choice! They look the same from afar, and I'd be shocked if anyone ever noticed while I was wearing them that the cuffs were slightly different. Although if anyone would, it would be the OCK. Stripey freak that she is!!

I also finished a dishcloth for my hubby's birthday. I was a little late getting it to him, but he likes it, lateness and all:


I started on my own bag of lies scarf, though mine isn't so much a bag of yardage lies as it is a bag of tangles. I spent multiple days unsnarling my ribbon yarn and then after measuring it so that I could get the yarn mostly divided in half, it proceeded to tangle itself up again. Though thankfully less tangled, I only spent a couple more hours unsnarling it before the bead transferring began. Which, again, there were tangles involved as my bead strands, despite my careful treatment of them, somehow got crossed so that I couldn't safely get even one strand away from the clump of other strands without losing half the string of beads. I had thought I got half of the beads, but it doesn't look to me like I'm going to finish the first half of the scarf without having to cut the yarn and add more beads. But no worries, I'm enchanted with the sparkles and I know in the end I'll be happy with the finished project. And there is definitely no chance in hell that I'll go into mass production of this kind of scarf. Ugh!

At any rate, it is late and my ass is kicked after a long work week so far and another fun night of Bunco. I think I'll definitely have sheepy dreams tonight!

Fetching, the second

So on Tuesday night, when I was leaving work one of my staff inspired me to help her cold hands. The AC at the office is particularly miserable on most days, so we're often using space heaters year round. But when she was shivering at her desk, I was inspired to give her some warm hands. So I went home and knit her a pair of Fetching gloves!

I really love this pattern. I know I said it last time I made them, but it is really simple and I love how easy it is to do the cabling.

She really loved the gloves and the timing worked out perfectly as her birthday is coming up on the 10th.

Before I left for the night, I convinced her to let me take a picture of her wearing them. She was shy at first:


But then she relented and let me take a nice picture of her:


Saylor and Xi Xi say, "Aww, c'mon. We're cuter than she is!!"

Yummy

So I am totally on a beautiful yarn high right now! A couple of months ago, the OCK and I decided that we would order some of the SockPixie yarn. I was totally in love with Jill's yarn that she was using one night at Bobaknit and I had decided to buy some for myself. I ordered the La Vie En Rose colorway along with her new colorway Ladybug. The socks that were posted on the site were totally cute in the Ladybug colorway so I got it. The OCK wanted the Poppies and the Stormy Seas colorways. When the order came, the La Vie En Rose and Stormy Seas were beautiful, but I was really not happy with the reds in the Ladybug and Poppies yarn. I was so heartbroken. I took time to think about contacting the dyer, it was so hard on me to write her because I know that hand dyed yarn is different with every run, but it just made my heart ache because the colorway was just not anything near what I had expected to receive. But now? Oh man, I TOTALLY have what I wanted. Feast your eyes on this:


Not this:

Look at this red!!!

So. very. happy.

The OCK's replacement yarn turned out beautiful as well:


I am so happy this is finally resolved!

The Saylor says, "I'm happy too. Now stop all that ruckus and let me get some sleep already!"

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Dudes. Where the hell did September go?! I am simply gobsmacked that it is October 1st. Still working tons. So much to do, not enough time to do it in. Ah well, at least the network at work will be shut down at 5pm on Thursday for our move. Yippee. I got to go to the TKGA show yesterday with the OCK. Her mom and my mother-in-law went along as well. We had a good time. It's a small show, it's got nothing on Stitches, but it was fun nevertheless. If you can believe it, I got more laceweight yarn than sock yarn! I'm branching out. *nods* At any rate, here's my booty from TKGA:

Schaefer Andrea in the colorway Mary Breckenridge (purchased from the Adela's Yarns booth):

Terilyn Needleart Zephyr Wool-Silk Laceweight in Violet:

Village Spinning & Weaving Spun Silk, colorway unnamed but very lovely:

A scarf kit with Interlacements New York ribbon yarn in colorway 113P:

And, Classic Elite Alpaca Sox in colorway 1820 Dusk:

I primarily got the Schaefer Andrea yarn because they had a sample of the Beaded Diamond Shawl on display in their booth and it was gorgeous. I couldn't resist getting a copy of it with the yarn. I think this is ooching very quickly to the top of my "to cast on" pile. Also towards the top of the heap is the beaded scarf. The shiny beads are gonna suck me in I think. If this first one goes well, I think I might get some more pre-strung beads and make another beaded scarf out of my Tess Designer Yarns ribbon yarn. The woman who sold me (and the OCK, we both got kits hah) the kit said that the Tess yarn was too rigid for the beads to slip on, but last night when she got home the OCK gave it a whirl and disproved our friendly booth vendor. I have some purple beads that I bought recently that I could possibly use for the shawl. Not sure I have enough as I only bought one tube of them, but I could go back to the store I picked them up in and grab another tube. It would be nice to give those beads a purpose, they are very pretty.

At any rate, it's late and I need to get to sleep!!