First Day of School and another FO

First day of classes today. Fortunately for me my first class on Monday's is at 12:40 which means I can stay up all night on Sunday either cramming for exams, hanging out with my boyfriend or knitting. Or I can get up semi-early, at 8-8:30 and get some quality knitting time in before I head off to school.

This morning it was all about the second Pomatomus sock. My goal this time was to make the toes a bit more square so that they would actually fit my feet. I finished up the chart and started decreasing before I was forced to leave for school. After completing two hours of Calculus homework I was able to finish sock number 2 tonight. Wove the ends in and everything. Then my attention was turned back to sock number 1. I ripped a good inch on it until it matched the stopping point of sock number 2, but the live stitches back on DPNs and finished up the toe. It was large before and it still isn't as snug as I would like. I think I'm going to blame the ribbing in the heel for the looseness of the sock. Why on earth would you put ribbing in the heel flap? I just don't get it. It is a technique though and I plan on using all these little techniques I learn to make my ideal socks. I like short row heels. :-D I don't mind the gussets though and I might try some other version of a heel flap when it suits me.




Pattern: Pomatomus from Knitty
Yarn: Bernat Sox in color Jazz Hot
Modifications: I ripped back so it would be a tad bit smaller and fit my feet better. Unfortunately my feet aren't pointy and the pointy toes did me no good. I have square feet. And I will make socks to fit my square feet!

An ever-growing stash

Bought trekking yesterday. It's gorgeous.

Now it's time to face my stash. I dug out the boxes of yarn that have come to live with me since I started crocheting again in late 2003 and started knitting in 2004. Then of course there's all the spinning fiber I've collected. I took so many pictures, I don't think they'll all fit in this entry, but I'll try.

First, let's start with the spinning fiber.

I new I had a lot. The good thing about this portion of the stash is that it will be easy to use up and hopefully not increase. I've really been working through the blue/green/black bag in the back of the pile. It's going down, but not too quickly. There aren't many stores around me that sell fiber, so it shouldn't be hard not to buy any. My goal is to use this up before the next fiber festival comes around next summer.

Now for my natural fiber stash.There's handspun there, enough yarn for about 16 pairs of socks, and some laceweight yarn as well. This will be my stash problem. I love the sock yarn, and I want to buy more all the time. It's just so pretty, but it's expensive too. So maybe, just maybe, if I limit my yarn money, I won't be able to afford really expensive yarn.

Now for the baby yarn.

Lots of baby yarn. The majority of it was inherited from my great aunt and is over 20 years old. That's where I got most of my knitting needles too. There were also two odd skeins of baby yarn not shown, they were found when digging through my other acrylic yarn.

Speaking of acrylic, it requires two pictures.There is overlap between the pictures. A lot of this stuff I had plans for, and others was just sort of gifted to me. Most of it will probably turn into charity projects or baby sweaters because it's washable. This portion of the stash needs some major busting, the problem is I do a lot of enhancing to this portion when other people want knitted items. There were also two more full skeins of red heart found hiding beneath the natural yarns. They aren't pictured.

Last but not least, I have some doily stuff! Two skeins that I haven't touched in a long time. I do like doilies though.

Finished Hat, and more Pomatomus

Finished the fuzzy pink hat yesterday afternoon. Isn't it pretty? It looks much better in person or on a human head, but there was no human head this size around when I took the picture. It fits her perfectly and she's thrilled. Her little sister wants a blue one with the exact same yarn as the leg warmers, headband, and scarf that she's already received.
Pattern: Mine. I held a strand of fun fur, and a strand of the sassy stripes together and did a K2P2 ribbing, then I dropped the fun fur and increased so I'd get the right stitch count for width I wanted. Knit for 4 inches and started decreasing.
Yarn: Lion Brand Fun Fur in color Hot Pink and Moda Dea's Sassy Stipes in color Crush.

I love this stuff... the striping is just so much fun! I think I'm going to go through and make a billion pairs of self-striping socks. Doesn't matter what kind of yarn... I just want the stripes.

A view from the top:

Since finishing, I've been working on Pomatomus with small breaks for charity squares.
Pomatomus is coming long nicely, which is a good thing since I have to finish by the end of the month for the Sock A Month KAL.

Speaking of Pomatomus, I was showing someone the chart the other day and noticed something... When making the first one I had issues with the foot part of the pattern. Turns out I compltely missed an important stitch in the chart. hehe... oops. I may frog the foot of the old Pomatomus and redo it. This time I can make the toes less pointy. :-)

Go Visit!

Now that my SP knows who I am... everyone go visit!

Her name is Brenda and she blogs here.

You can look at all the cool things I sent her like the handspun/hand-dyed yarn that I never posted about here. It was hard parting with that yarn...

They originally gave her all my info and she was told to spoil me... then they took it back and gave me her info. So of course I couldn't even hint at what I was doing here... instead I lied profusely. Little lies like, "I shipped my package today!" When really I had shipped it two weeks before... sneaky, sneaky me.

Before I disappear.

My boyfriend is over and he's taking my router when he leaves. We have two computers, but I might just not post until I get a new router. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. This should entertain you for two seconds.

That's a picture of my boyfriend...wrapped up in a blanket... he thinks he's an egg roll.
First, my works in progress. There are five total, but only four in this picture. There's the pink candle flame shawl that hasn't progressed very much, the second pomatomus sock with part of a heel flap, yet another square for charity, and last but not least a hat with a fuzzy border to match the mini-jaywalkers.

When I went to buy the yarn for the hat I came back with some other things as well... like more sock yarn. I like this sassy stripes stuff. I'm not sure why, but I like it! It's probably because I use size 3 needles, the socks just fly off the needles. I figured I could use some more since I joined the socks a month knit-a-long. I also like the color.

Then I wandered over to the clearance yarn. I love this color. I like bright colors... it's a fact widely known, and I've always loved this color yarn. I can't believe they're discontinuing it... oh well... more for me. I figured since I may never see this yarn again, and since it was only $1.50 a skein, I might as well buy it. All of it.

Did I mention that I had a 10% off coupon? That justified all my purchases. The three skeins of sock yarn came out to just less than what the nine skeins of baby yarn cost.

We have Bats

We have bats. Or at least one bat, but once we find one, there are many others lurking. Good news, we haven't spotted them in the house yet. Bad news, they're outside my bedroom window, I'd be the first to know.

In other exciting news, I found I can trick my router into working! Because of this I'm online right now ready to tell you that I know who my secret pal is. Yup, it's no longer a secret. I've been dying to go check out her blog all day, but haven't been able to because of the evil internet situation.
It's been Valerie who has been spoiling me all along.... She sent me pens. That's exciting, especially since RSVPs have been my favorite pen of all time since I discovered them 9 years ago. She's great. She practically reads my mind, and it's almost scary.

Go visit her blog!

All in all it's been a great SP8, but I think I'm going to stay out of SP9. Swaps are fun, but I think I'd rather do some personal ones, so if anyone is interested in a personal swap let me know. I know there are so many cool things in different parts of the world that you just can't find where you live.

Conventions and knitting...not so great.

I've been at a convention since last Saturday. Before that I hadn't updated because our internet stinks. Turns out it wasn't my router going bad, instead there was some issue with the cable line. Apparently too much power was going into the house. hurrah! Not only that but they aren't charging us to fix the problem. Because of that I wasn't able to update before leaving for the convention.

Before leaving I spun this:
Into this:
Or at least I'm trying to. It's very, very difficult and I can't get an even yarn. It makes me wonder what kind of sheep it's from because some of the wool is almost spongy feeling, but the rest feels like the roving I'm used to. Did I mention this wool is still in lock form? Hasn't been carded. I have carders, but when I purchased the wool I was told I could spin it like it was. I'm not too sure how I feel about it but I love the colors.

While at convention I finished squares number 10 and 11 for charity. There wasn't much time for knitting at the convention and I wasn't allowed to take my needles on the plane. :-(
Upon arriving home I was greeted by a post card from my Secret Pal and a package as well! The following items were in said box: the most gorgeous regia sock yarn I've ever seen, altoids gum, intense dark chocolate, another post card, and "A" shaped sticky notes.
What more can I say? I'm thrilled. I love my SP... It's going to be so sad to see it all end in a few weeks. I didn't manage to get a picture of the first postcard but it's beautiful as well and is also of Vancouver.

I'm glad to be back. I would have loved to explore Boston more, but the convention took up the entire trip. The convention was a blast though. I'm really looking forward to next years which will be held in Portland, a favorite city of mine.

I spun yarn.

I spun yarn this week.

Ta dA! Approximately 4 oz of white handspun wool. What kind of wool? No clue. Unlabeled so it must not be that fancy. If it was anything horribly exciting they would tell you.

It's nice. I like it. It's waiting to be washed so the twist can be set. Then it will go live in the stash until I figure out what I want to make with it.

I now have 12 skeins of handspun, and no clue what to do with them. Oh dear...

In other news... my boyfriend snapped one of my knitting needles in half. He was using it for the scarf that he's been working on for the past two years. To make a long story short, he has his yarn/needles/scarf in a plastic bag which has a large hole. Needle fell through the hole, landed on his bed, all his weight was put on it, and it snapped. He never saw the needle. I was a little heartbroken. The broken needle was one of my great aunt's which is why I always warned him to be careful. Oh well... it happens.

I've also promised my boyfriend that once he finished his scarf that I would put it on my blog.

Not much to show...

Every time I go to update... my internet goes down. I've worked on a charity square. I figured since I had some two little articles in one issue of a Club magazine written about my little project, I probably should pump out some more squares. Guilt got me. Occasionally the shawl comes out, and Pomatomus as well. I'm getting closer to starting the heel, but thats about the extent of my exciting knitting life. Oh... and I've been working on a test knit.