Slow, but Steady

I got this yarn a while back--it's the start of my Christmas knitting.  I'm making socks for the family.  It's no surprise, like I wanted it to be, but when you ask people if you can measure their feet and what colors they want, it kind of screws up the surprise.

I bought the yarn from Simply Socks Yarn Company and I threw in a skein for myself.  Even better? I got a free bag for ordering for their new website.

Also, I've been trying to find the right colors to make a John Adams Rebels hat.  I finally found all three colors in the same yarn and weight after trolling the shelves for ages.  Once I complete the two WIP's I'm working on, I'll get started.  I'm going to make another modicum hat, this time with 3 instead of 12 colors.

I finished my Meadow Stripes socks last night while watching 4 episodes of Luther. Sad the show was not renewed because I love me some Idris Elba.  These socks are going to be super warm and it's actually cold enough to wear them here in Cleveland...

And here's pair number 24--Martian Rainbow by Must Stash Yarns.  Working up rather nicely.  I do,love rainbow stripes!!!

Getting Back on Track

So, my yarnbox subscription was a bust.  Out of the 6 shipments, I only really loved 1. So, I've been exchanging and selling the ones I don't like.  These sales allowed me to purchase this beautiful yarn below.  What makes it beautiful?  School. Colors. Self. Striping. Sock. Yarn. Ok, it's actually Harry Potter colors, but who cares?

Today, I finished one pair of the 3 I have working.  These are Kroy in Sing'N the Blues and they are lovely.  209 yards puts me at 663 total yards for stash dash. 

And this lovely spiral of yarny goodness is the Plumeria Frill I fell in love with at the Great Lakes Fiber Festival.  I'm finally on row 5--only 12 more to go.  Gosh, I love crochet. Quick!

And this week I started walking a mile everyday with my neighbor Alice.  As a result, when I get home, these two insist on their walk, too.  So, I get 1.5 miles in each day.  One walk is nice, one is fast and quick and full of dragging! The nice part is that it gets Alice out of the house and gives her a chance to talk instead of listening all the time.  We've gotten closer and the husbands are now thick as thieves.  We spend a lot of time sitting on their porch picking on each other and it's very nice.  I don't really have any friends so it's nice to get to spend time with someone as nice as her.

When All Else Fails....

This seems to be how my first few days of vacation are working out.  And Tess has been joining me.  I'm terribly bored (don't tell ANYONE) and I canny actually knit all day like people think I can.  I find myself staring out the window a lot.  I actually wonder if I'm getting nothing done because Andrew is home with me.  Perhaps I am being a big baby.

I did, however, turn the heel on both socks today.  Didn't do much else and the goal of finishing both pairs by Friday is shot to hell, but what can I say?  I'm very well rested!

Planning my Days

So far, if you were to look at my daily activities, my summer would look like this: knit, nap, read, knit, sleep, repeat.  So, I created a list of things I would like to do and places I would like to visit so I don't sleep my vacation away.

Today, however, I knit and slept.  I did manage to move to the front porch for a while but it got hot and there was no breeze so I moved back to the cool house.

Andrew decided we needed real food so we showered and went to our favorite restaurant.

Now we're home and I'm knitting and he's doing whatever he does...  Here's my progress today on both socks.  These are Kroy Sing'N the Blues.

And these are Lollipop Yarn's Watercolor Memories.  My goal is to get to the heel on both tomorrow after I go to the West Side Market and Target and Office Max and I contact the county Auditor about lowering my taxes.  Wish me luck. 😳

Summer is Here

Summer means extra time for all the things I didn't get to while I was busy working.  So, I've been reading a lot, sleeping a lot, cleaning a little, and knitting.

I'm doing stash dash again this year as I mentioned before.  My current total is 555 yards.

These socks brought me up to 454 yards this morning.

The firefly sock I just finished brings me to 555 yards.

Today I cast on another Kroy sock and tomorrow I'm casting on my Lollipop yarns socks.  I know I won't reach my goal, but I'm putting a serious dent in my sock yarn and my sock bin is FULL.  I'm up to sock number 25 for the year and 15 pairs total for all time.  Can't wait to get through this stash so I can buy more!!

A few nights ago I attended graduation for my seniors.  As I was leaving a Public Auditorium I looked up and realized that Cleveland is truly beautiful up close.  Gonna try to get downtown more often this Summer and take advantage of the open spaces to knit and read!

I Smell Summer

One of the best parts of teaching is (obviously) summer vacation. On Friday, I will be released into the wild for 9 weeks.  I usually have a plan in place, but this year I'm in limbo.  I am not doing camp loopy this year because it was aggravating last year.  And expensive.  So this year, I'm only doing the Stash Dash 5K. 5468 yards knitted in 10 weeks.  That works out to 22 pairs of socks.  I better get moving!!

Here's my Yarnbox yarn for May. It is from Cherry Tree Hill and it is called Cider House.  820 yards of loveliness.  I may need a shawl out of this....

Here's my latest pair of socks half finished.  These came together pretty quick.  Probably because I love rainbows and skinny stripes.

And here is my first pair of cabled socks coming along quite nicely.  They are called Firefly and the pattern is from the book Knitters Book of Socks. I originally used a pair of needles that were sharp.  I thought that would be good for this pattern. But I found I hated working on them because my fingertips hurt.  Friday, I got a new pair of Addi Turbos and since then these socks have been flying!  I turned the heel tonight and have a good portion of the foot going.  These are going to look awesome!!

And as an added bonus, Netflix released season 2 of Longmire yesterday so I've been enjoying some one on one time with Walt.  😍

May Madness

In the past, May has always been the month I feel I lose control of everything and just hang on until the last day of school.  This year, it's been crazy, but in a much better way.  First of all, I'm not freaking out trying to finish a million reports and get tons of signatures on paperwork.  

So, here's a little of how the past week shaped up.

I found this awesome series on netflix called "Longmire."  Man is he a hunk.

I taught Imari and Danejah how to knit today.

I watched my student who is on house arrest completely freak out over rubber band bracelets.

I've continued to knit socks

I am doing cabled socks that are a pain in the butt.

And I'm getting ready to enter the Stash Dash 5K.  5468 yards of yarn knit in 10 weeks.  These socks will be my first entry at 207 yards when I sew the toe closed in the morning.  Technically, not cheating, but still cheating.  Stash Dash runs from May 23rd to some day in August.  You knit entirely from your stash.  If I wanted to just knit socks, I will have to make 22 pairs of socks.  Crazy, right?  I'm still going to give it a go.  I failed last year when that damn Color Affection ruined my life.  (LOL)

And luckily, these four beauties arrived on Tuesday so they count for Stash Dash!!

11 Days

11 school days left.  Eleven. 11. E-LEVEN.  I'm pretty happy.😜

So on May 31, I'll be free to do whatever I want--within reason.

As for now, I'm working on 2 more pairs of socks.  The ones below are another pair of Paton's Kroy Socks in Mean Green Stripes.  Compared to the last pair I did, this yarn is so soft.  I'm loving working on them.

This pair is out of Madelinetosh Sock in Kelp.  The pattern is Firefly in the Knitter's Book of Socks.  Some cable action going on in these.  I'm wondering if I should have picked a lighter color yarn so the cables would show more.  Perhaps the farther I get, the better they'll look.

And most importantly it was 91 degrees today and I had no air conditioning in my classroom.  And no windows to open.  And kids with coats on complaining about how hot they were. (Eye roll) And I have a painful rash under each eye 😳 from the heat and humidity that I can't get any relief from for the 8 hours I'm working. Let's just say I'm glad to be home with the air on and my clothes off (not completely, but I sure couldn't wear this outfit to work).  

And I turn 42 Friday.  (Sigh)

Solutions

So, I can't find my 9" circular needle I use to cast on my socks.  I've looked everywhere (except work).  I'm a little bit upset because that sucker wasn't cheap.  Anyway, I wanted to cast on another sock today and tried a stretchy cast on.  Well, it wasn't stretchy enough, so I tried something I heard one of the YouTube people say and I cast on using two needles.  Oh yes!  It works great!  Once all the stitches are cast on, pull out the extra needle and off you go!

I was able to get started on my Mean Green Stripes socks today and now I have 2 pairs going at the same time which seems to be good for me.

Here's the Opal socks I started last week.  The kids say this yarn is ugly.  What. Ever. Haters. 

And for the record, I'm not all that hip with knitting with beads.  I cast on the Twilight necklace 3 times today and messed it up each time.  Even when I thought it was looking great, it wasn't. So, I frogged it leaving the beads on the thread for a summer day when I have nothing to do but concentrate on bead placement and tension and and that mess....  And I probably needed a smaller needle. 🌷

4 Day Socks!

I mentioned a pair of socks in yesterday's post and then I looked back a saw a previous update that hadn't published and realized you probably thought I had imaginary socks on the needles.  Never fear! I did, I just didn't have proof.  Now, I do.  Here's my beautiful socks that took me 4 days to k it.  Pretty amazing for me.  I'm especially proud of myself.

So proud, if fact, that I cast on 2 pairs today.   This padri to work on at work--plain vanilla knitting. 

And this pair from the Socktopus book I showed you yesterday.  This is the Kandahar pattern.  Kinda tricky at first, but I'm sailing along quite nicely.  This pair will be knit at home where I can concentrate on the lace sections.  

Not bad for a day that started out fighting with a neighbor and being late to work.  Proof that knitting can make a bad day good.

Stashbust? Um, no.

Ok, so perhaps I've failed a teeny tiny bit on the "don't buy any yarn this year" front.  There was the yarn mom bought me, the Playstation4 retaliation yarns, and now the craftshow proceeds yarn.

Here's the final retaliation yarn--Kroy Sporty Stripes.  So lovely in person.

And here's the first craft show proceeds yarn--Dancing Dog Dyeworks, I can't remember the color, but it has "Summer" in the name and I'm too lazy to get up and go look.

My students are continually asking me why I knit socks when I can go buy them.  Then they see the finished sock and ask me if they can have it.  Ha!  I also had a coworker jokingly tell me how selfish I was to only knit socks for myself.  I told him, "After all these years of knitting and crocheting for others, I've decided to make myself nice things.  I used to want people to make things for me and I finally decided to take a class and learn.  And everyone else can go do the same.  These socks are mine, pal."  He laughed and said, "I like that in you."  

4th Pair of Socks in 2014

So, on the hottest day so far in 2014, I complete a pair of wool socks.  Go figure!  I tried to,finish the Mokndance socks today, as well, but I dropped a stitch and knew I was done for the day. (I caught. The stitch and fixed the error, but I knew there would be more if I continued.)

Socks #4 are Patons Kroy in Brown Marl Ragg. I used size 3 needles and cast on 56 stitches. The cuff is a 2x2 rib and the sock is basic stockinette.  I used the Fish Lips Kiss Heel by Sox Therapist.  

I personally was disappointed with the socks when I started because I like my stripes to change quicker.  Each stripe here was 13 rows and most of my socks stripe at 6 rows.  Big whoop, right?  Well, once I completed the first heel, I was in love with the socks.  That doesn't mean I would use this yarn pattern again, but I am very happy with the end product.

Tomorrow? Socks #5!  And I'm casting on the  Trenchcoat (Burberry-ish) socks by Turtlepurl. Yay!!

2 Socks and a Hitchhiker

I finished the second sock this morning. It is truly lovely.  I wish I had done both of them at the same time because my feet have been super cold all day--even with socks and slippers on.

Both second socks have been cast on and are ready to go!

And then the rest of the day was spent doing household stuff and working on my hitchhiker.  It seems like the yarn never ends...

Recovery

I woke at 10:45am and decided I was able to complete the first Moondance sock.  I guess the fiber overload was actually exhaustion because I very rarely sleep that late.

So, the sock--it is absolutely perfect.  Seriously.  It is so beautiful that I have it hanging from my pegboard in my craft room so I can admire it like a work of art.

Then, I decided I would look for Liberty of London fabric on etsy.  Don't ask why, I just did. And what do I find? Limited Edition Liberty of London Hello Kitty fabric.  There's scads of different styles and colors. Very awesome. (My mother is not to buy this fabric.) 

And once I finished the first sock I decided to finish the second sock I started this week, but as you can see, there were some errors and I had to darn the sock in 2 places before they are even done.  I'm going to work until I get to the toe decrease and finish it in the morning.  Thiese bad boys are going to be so warm!!

Tomorrow, I'm going to check through my stash and decide on my next project.  Probably the Silver Fern from Miss Babs.  We'll see...

Sock Fever!!

So, I started these socks on Sunday night and by Tuesday I had the heel turned.  And I'm finally starting to like the striping.  But--these suckers are 100% wool and I should have made them months ago!  My feet have been cold since October!!

These socks were also started on Sunday.  And I'm seriously in love with them.  I knew I would be--that's why I stalked the dyer for weeks until I finally scored the yarn in a nail biter etsy sale.  I actually had to stay late at work so I wouldn't miss out.  It is called Moondance by Lollipop Yarns.  Today,  I completed the heel in orange and I worked it perfectly between the stripes of grey.  You will be so impressed when they are done.  Trust me.

And what is this???  The yarn that brought tears to my eyes?  It is here in Cleveland in my yarn stash.  It is still in the bag, because I clearly have enough socks going at one time.  So I will furiously be finishing 2 pairs of socks so these bad boys can get in the works.  Much love to my beautiful and generous mother.  She bought and shipped it to me because she understands my love of yarn and she loves me, too.  Thanks mom!  You are so wonderful!