Working on Saturday Sucks

So I haven't worked on a weekend in who knows how long now, but I am faced with having to go in today because at work we are finishing our quarter and my boss (the corporate controller) is in Minnesota attending her niece's wedding. Well technically today she is heading home, the wedding was yesterday, but still she's not around so I get to step in in her absence. Oh.yipee.for.my.accounting.manager.title. Not. Besides being at work for 12 hours yesterday, I have to go back again today. I'm dragging my feet slightly because, well, I want to knit dammit and I have a party to attend at 6pm tonight. As part of my work stalling plan this morning, I was over at no-blog-Rachel's blog and decided to see what my blog rated as. So I did, and this is the result: So why did I get this rating, you may ask. I think it's freaking HILARIOUS why I got this rating!! Look for yourself:

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• crap (2x)
• hell (1x)

That is so funny. Well, it is especially funny to me considering how much I use the f-bomb and other swear words in my normal conversation. I guess I am PG rated in the virtual world (of blogging that is... we'll not speak of my mmog self!). At least my site didn't come up with a G rating as my beloved friend the OCK's did. She only used the word bitch once! At any rate, I do have knitting content! I finished the first of my Broadripple socks. I'm knitting these from the toe up and using short row heels. Which I am SO happy I did because I don't get the weird striping effect the ones the pattern does because of the increased stitches from the heel do. Anyways, here's a shot of them:

I really love how the patterning in the yarn came out. It's variegating just how I would want it to. No ghastly pooling effects going on, just subtle ones with a touch of a striping effect. I have cast on the second sock. Huzzah.

I'm also doing well with the Adara Rainbow Shawl. I'm not progressing as fast as I would like to be but I've had a few rough days lately so I'll forgive myself. I am really loving the color progression. This yarn is very well designed.

I am very happy that I decided to knit this pattern as written. I am very much loving it. I can't wait to finish it so I can wear it!

At any rate, I have a busy day ahead of me so I had better get a move on!!

Early morning blogging on YPF

I am so not a morning person. I can't believe I'm actually awake and alert enough to be blogging! At any rate, I am finally blogging about my finished Apple Laine Apple Pie Monkey socks! I love these! I can't wait to wear them, I may just wear them today to work!

The colorway is Bubblegum and the yarn is beautiful and soft (50% wool, 20% mohair, 20% silk, 10% nylon) and I got it from The Loopy Ewe. It was amusing that I had forgotten this yarn had mohair, I was thinking that I was knitting an awful lot of cat hair into them. And gee, wasn't it funny that there was all this hair in them when I wasn't knitting them at home. Yeah. I'm smart.

I had a great time on Sunday. I spent most of the day with the OCK. We had lunch together at Pedro's (what a rocking Sunday brunch buffet they have. Forget the Mexican food, it's all about the dessert table!) and then we ran into Purlescence and Rasputin Music before heading to Boba to hang out. We got together since last Wednesday was my birthday! And man I got some awesome presents!

First off, I got the book Folk Shawls. What a cool book this is. There are some amazing shawls in it. I'm mainly impressed by the size of some of them, holy cow are they ginormous!

Then I got so excited when I got a hank of the handspun merino/silk fiber she had recently blogged about!
So very pretty. I also got a close up, but because I am not a morning person I so did not remember to do the coin as a size reference thing. (I am also too lazy to go re-photograph it!)

Overall, it was a very lovely day and I am very lucky to have such an awesome friend.

Adara Ranbow Shawl, First Progress Report

Now on my needles is the Adara Rainbow Shawl. I am on color 10 of 12 so I am nearly done with my first color sequence!

I thought it would be interesting to post a closeup of the beginning:

I really love how the increases are done. So you change colors with this pattern every 6 rows (omg the ends to weave in) and then every other color change (the even numbered colors) you increase on the 5th & 6th rows by 9 stitches (18 total over the two rows). It makes a small line of the color you are finishing up on at the bottom of the next color as you can see above. Pretty neat stuff. I also love the color transitions. It makes for pretty easy location of the next ball of yarn because the colors are designed so the next color has a piece of the color before it as well as one that transitions you to the next color.

This is knitting up really fast. I have only spent a couple of days on it and very little time on it and I feel like I've made a lot of progress. I was going to try to knit in the ends but there are yarn overs in the rows I should be doing the knitting in on and it wasn't looking very nice. So I am weaving in the ends as I go every couple of color changes. Not so bad and I won't have a million ends to weave in at the end when I finish!

The Cow of Victory

Anabel's Sweetie is victorious with her cow from the claw machine, thanks to the nice young man who won it from the claw machine.

Such good times are to be had at Bobaknit!

Birthday Fun

Well this has been a good birthday. Possibly one of my best, but we'll see how that goes in the next couple of weeks.

Besides today being my birthday, it also happens to be my manager's birthday. So I knit her a circular dishcloth. This is made out of Peaches n Creme yarn in the colorway 179 Aqua Mist.

When I started knitting this, I wasn't too sure about the mustard color in this ombre but I am really pleased with how it turned out. This is the same Rhonda K White pattern as I used before.

On Sunday night, I finished my Monkey socks that I started on Friday night. I swear there is some speed knitting mojo in the Knit Picks DPN's. I really love this Apple Laine Apple Pie yarn. It has such a pretty shine to it.

I had hoped with this nicely variegated colorway that I would actually be able to see the Monkey pattern but I'm not sure I've achieved that. But again, I don't mind. I love this sock a lot and I can't wait to finish the second one. I got sidetracked with the dishcloth but I cast on sock #2 this morning while I was waiting for a doctor appointment. Here's the detail of the Monkey sock:

I think if you click the picture and look at the original size on Flickr you can see the pattern towards the bottom of the picture. So maybe when it is actually on my foot the pattern will pop out.

I got my final shipment from my Posh Yarn sock club (*sniff*). It is a lovely colorway, each of their final skeins was pretty much unique to the individual as they varied the same mix of colors differently for each skein. This is the colorway Farewell:


I also may have ordered some yarn online... I couldn't help myself when I got an email from the Simply Socks Yarn Company that Cherry Tree Hill produced a special colorway for their 2nd anniversary. Their site has a lot of pinks and browns, and this yarn definitely matches their site! I love the chocolate brown and pink combo, that's been a favorite color pairing to wear of mine lately.


I also got a manly color yarn that will eventually be knit into socks for my large footed hubby. This is OnLine Supersocke 100 Highland Color in colorway #844.

This yarn was really nice to knit with my feather and fan socks, I am hoping it is as enjoyable to knit this for my hubby.

Hubby has earned socks. Not only does he put up with my mass yarn purchases, but he also told me that he wanted to buy me some yarn for my birthday, but he had no idea what to buy. He loves the Space Invaders sock pattern, so he Googled that and found Knitty and was looking for more inspiration but sadly he was unable to do so. But he still gets points for the thought. Oh, and he gets points for the beautiful pearl necklace and matching bracelets he bought me for my birthday. And the dinner he took me to at the Cheesecake Factory. Yum.

All in all, a good day.

Woot!

Yay me! I got an invite to Ravelry! What a nice birthday present a day early! ^_^ Now to find my Boba homies!

Where the crap did May go?

I knew very well that May was over yesterday, but I seem to have forgotten that meant that today was June. I know, it's a subtle detail but still I was completely bowled over that today was June 1st. I think I am just trying to suppress the fact that my birthday is in 5 days and, well, I'm not really prepared to turn another year older.

We planted our garden almost 2 weeks ago now. That's what my little hedgehog friend is doing at the top. If you click on him, you can see my Flickr album of what my flower beds looked like when I planted them. None of them have died yet, so I would consider it to be a success. I think I did a great job of cutting down our snail population last fall when I went on the great snail stomp fest 2006 and I have seen very few of them this year. Good thing too, they ate a LOT of my flowers last year. Little slimy bastards.

At any rate, I've been meaning to blog for a whole week the fact that I finished my feather and fan socks. They were super fast and they are super awesome to look at as well as to wear! I love them, I can't wait to see what the yarn feels like after being washed.

Here they are after completion. I think that there was one extra plain knit row in the first sock, so I think that is why the finishing pattern row was so different at the top (I'm off by about one round). I don't mind one bit, the difference is very subtle. This yarn is such a gorgeous pattern, I'm really pleased with the softness of the color transitions and I love the colors in the pattern.

I took a closeup photo of the leg detail, I love how simple this pattern is and how pretty the effect is:

So lovely. I wore these to work today and they were so totally cute. I am very pleased with the results.

So on the needles now I am knitting more Monkey socks with my Apple Laine yarn. I've been reading Cara's blogging about all the millions of Monkey socks she is making and I got the itch to make another pair. I've easily fallen back into the rhythm of the pattern (I'm knitting them toe up and I flipped the chart so they look the same as the top down socks, well except that I'm not doing a heel flap. I'll do my standard short row heel on them.). I love the Apple Laine yarn. It's very pretty and it is nicely variegated so I'm not getting any hideous pooling anomalies going on this time. It's a little heavier than some of my sock yarn but it's still a nice thickness. I am using my Knit Picks dpn's that I used for the feather & fan socks and I am loving them. It's funny, I thought they were so hideously short (they are 6") when I was using them the first time but when I went back to my Boye needles (these are 7"), they seemed hideously long. They are very nice and smooth to use, I love how my yarn slides on them while I'm knitting. Maybe that's part of the reason the feather and fan socks were so fast!

I started the new sock because I have put the sock of the month in time out. I'm working on the cuff finally (which omg is K1P1 and I want to stab someone) after knitting the rest of the sock for what seems like forever. I'm just not sure that I really actually *like* the pattern. I love the yarn, there is no question with that. I'm just not sold on the P2TOG/YO combo going on forever. It's a hell of a time to decide I don't like the pattern but meh. I am very tempted to just frog the damn things and make some other sock that I do really like the pattern. I did the heel flap that is in the pattern. I am not sure I did the initial wraps correctly but that aside, I guess it looks alright. I still prefer the short row heels but at least I can say that I have done a heel flap. I think I might be hesitant to like the pattern because although I am working on finishing the first sock, that still means that there is a whole.other. sock. that I have to knit. Bleh.

At any rate, I'm going back to knitting my Monkey socks! Happy Friday friends. ^_^