One Dozen Pairs of Clogs

This pair of pink clogs is the 12th pair I've knit in about 3 years. These are for Connie's birthday. They are a women's small so they went really fast - thank goodness. This fabulous yarn is Acero from Brooks Farm. Grace contacted them about a special "trunk show" just for the SOWs. Borders was very nice to let us use their coffee shop. The Brooks Farm ladies were very nice and the yarn is fabulous. I can't wait to knit these 800+ yards of fingering weight wool and silk into a vine lace shawl.

In fact, it will be all I can do not to cast on this weekend. And I may decide not to fight the urge. The only hold back at this very minute is the yarn is still in skeins. I need to get it caked up before I start knitting.

I started the heart pattern on my toe-up Gansey last night. I could tell something was wrong. I know I need a bigger sock but this was too big. I got the feeling I needed some ribbing, but it's missing from my interpretation. I read the pattern again, put on my pattern whispering hat and figured out what was off. I have to frog back to the toe. But no big deal. I considered putting in a life line at the toe, but for some reason didn't do it. Now I'm regretting that. But it's all stockinette, so it should be too hard. I think I'll wait until tomorrow though when I'm not so tired.
Here's a funny picture of Baby Girl and Niña playing. They make me laugh.

Dyeing, Knitting, Felting, Visiting...

First, my sister came to visit. Too much fun. Her (early) Christmas present is dyed yarn. Much more fun if she dyes it herself, so she flew down and away we went.

photo taken by Knittx. And there are pleny more pics. Just click and go.

Acid green and purple, a colorway entitled "French Whore" that's the look Jeannie was going for. Here's the end result caked up. Pretty.

For her Sterling skein, Jeannie used other people's leftover dye to create this fabulous cake of yarn. It has just the subtle bit of bling. She calls it, "OPD" for other people's dye.

I dyed the Sterling a Christmas colorway. I wanted red with pink undertone and a pretty, complimentary green. The green was nice. But the red was too pink. People thought it was a watermelon colorway and they were right it was. I decided I need a redder red so I added lots of red dye. Then the red ran into the green and green and red make brown. I was very unhappy. Then Lorelei, sweet woman, told me the color wasn't set until it heated up. So we took a hose to the yarn and washed out the red and the green came back. Yea!

In the end, I'm pretty happy with the result. I cast on (10 stitches on each needle) a toe-up sock last night on size 1 needles. So far the look is great. I plan to do "I Love Gansey" from the six sox knitalong.

I do not love the purple. After the debacle of my Christmas yarn, at that point I didn't think I was going to like it, I threw caution to the wind and went purple. I was going for a semi-solid look. That's not what I got. However, I do think this is salvageable.

When the yarn dried, the difference between the lightest color and the darkest color was even greater than when it was wet. The current color range is a 1 to 10, with 1 being the lightest and 10 being the darkest, I'd prefer a range 7 to 10 or 8 to 10. So I'm going to overdye the entire skein with a lilac color. I may buy the actual jacquard dye or I may buy Wilton's cake coloring - the violet is pretty. Stay tuned for more about that one.

We received our Socks that Fit yarn on Saturday as well. It was a co-op buy thanks to Grace. I wanted something that reminded me of the Caribbean. In the picture above the yarn does have the feeling of water both in color and in the way it's laying. Maybe not exactly as I had envisioned it, but it is definitely growing on me. I may have to cast on pretty soon just to see how it looks when it's knit up.


I put the yarn into two balls so I could knit both socks at the same time. The color isn't very accurate here. It's better in the first picture.

I've made progress on Baby Girl's stocking, the Red Scarf project Corrugarter scarf, Connie's clogs (those have to be felted by this Friday) and my Christmas socks. And Jeannie helped me felt Marshall's clogs by turning on the washing machine - yea! Jeannie. And he is happy. They fit great and look great. I'm just charging up the batteries on the camera so I can take pictures.

Planning my Random Dyeing Pattern

In preparation for the SOW's dyeing Saturday at Heritage Arts this weekend, I've been planning my random dashes of color. It's not translating that well here. I was burned once before when I spaced my dashes just so and when I knit, they landed perfectly on top of each other.

It's a 40" skein. I use about 36" for a round on my sock. Each block on the chart presents an inch. I kind of wish the skein was a larger circumference, but re-skeining probably won't be an option this weekend.

This yarn is Sterling. It has a strand of silver running through it. It said Christmas to me. As you can see the main color is red, but I want a semi-solid. The green dashes will be semi-solid too if I can work it.

I'm going to use the I Love Gansey pattern to turn my green/red/silver yarn into Christmas socks. It looks interesting enough to be fun to knit and a strong enough pattern to stand up to a multi-colored yarn. Plus they have hearts on them.

I'm planning to dye the other skein yarn (Jeannie sock yarn) a semi-solid, but I don't know what color yet. I'm waiting to see what moves me on Saturday.

In other news, I started another pair of clogs:-). A pink and black pair for Connie's birthday - 9/29. Fortunately she has a small foot so they should go fast. Guess I should get to knittin'

Progress Report - Doggy Christmas Stocking

I'm pleased with the progress on the doggy stocking. I'm a cross-stitcher from way back so this doesn't feel all that awkward. Well, except that you read the chart from left to right on odd rows and right to left on the even rows, but I'm doing alright. I'm 1/3 of the way through the chart, then there is a heel flap and knitting the sole, but that will be a piece of cake. I finally had to stop and weave in some ends because with all those color changes were getting a little out of control on the back.

I'm also thinking a little blocking might do wonders for this piece.
This is Baby Girl loving on the yarn while I had the stocking out taking a progress picture. Niña also took a turn at loving on the yarn. She's pretty quick. I couldn't get a picture of her.

Speaking of progress and Niña. She is doing so well. The worms and the fleas are all gone. She's getting the hang of the doggy door. Today she went outside by herself to use the bathroom. That is the key to getting out of puppy jail.

Puppy jail is where she stays during the day. We put a gate in the door of the restroom so she can see, but she is confined to that space, which is tiled. We put down a pee pad and Thursday and Friday she used it. She has made giant progress for only having her one week.

Now I just have to find a dog stocking pattern for her. The obvious thing would me to make two of this one, but I'm not that keen on doing the same thing twice.

Where Were You When...?

It's an old question. When I was little I heard my mom and aunts "remembering when" all the time. Today, when they said on the news that everyone remembers where they were when they first heard about an airplane hitting one of the twin towers I realized...I do remember exactly where I was. I was headed to work going north on 360 in Arlington, TX at about Avenue K. I was listening to the Kidd Kraddick show (I've since dropped that habit) when they made the announcement.

When I got to work I went directly to the lunch room to see the pictures on TV. There were others in the room, then more came. The details get foggy from there. The second plane, towers collapsing, they sent us home, nothing on TV to watch to escape what was going on. A zombie like state.

On 9/26/01 my Mom and I got on a plane to go to NH to leaf peep. We'd been planning the trip for a year. We wanted to go to show we weren't scared.

A woman got on the plane to Houston carrying, in her lap, a statue of the Virgin Mary. She was crying, petrified I'm sure. We flew from Dallas to Houston and then on to Boston. At the car rental in Boston, there were semi-truck loads of rental cars coming back to the city. Reminders of people trying to get home after all the flights were grounded.

We had a nice trip. It was worth it all. Absolutely no regrets.

Yup, I remember exactly where I was when...

That's Ñ with a Tilda

I'm not sure what we were thinking, but for Baby Girl's 1st Birthday

We got her a puppy. A playmate.

And they played. I just love this picture because it shows the action and Baby Girl's eye is the only thing in focus.

The new addition is Niña. Niña is spanish for little girl. We have a theme working. To get the ñ, hold the alt key and type 164. Just in case you wanted to know.

Niña's story goes like this. And I hope that side of family never reads this because they might get hurt feelings. Johney and Sasha got "Precious" (their name for her) for their 4-month-old daughter (hello?) and then decided she was a bad dog when she bit the baby. OK, I saw Johney play with "Precious" here yesterday and he was "play" slapping her around and, of course, she got all riled up. I know people like to tease animals, but the animal doesn't know whe you aren't playing anymore. Sasha said the dog had to go. So Belinda, Johney's mom, took the puppy. I won't go into a lot of detail, but I'll just say this, she was feeding Niña Old Roy dog food, the giant hard kind. This baby weighs 3lbs and she's 3-months old - hello?

Her coat was so rough, it was nasty feeling. She had fleas and worms. We picked up Friday night and took her to the vet first thing Saturday morning. She growled anytime we tried to pick her and she was anything but Precious. I was having severe second thoughts.

The vet gave her worm and flea medicine, all her shots and she stayed for a grooming. When I picked her up, she looked so much better and I'm sure now that the worms are getting out of her system, she feels much better. I ended up carrying her around most of the day yesterday. We had big party with "that" side of the family. All the grandkids that used to wrestle her around were here. I was kind of mean to them, but they were not going to mistreat her here. Because we bonded yesterday and I kept people from mistreating her, she hasn't growled one time today. She's actually a very sweet dog - she just needed a protective mama. I still have reservations because she is so small. I was in hopes she would get to be about Baby Girl's size, but Sasha said this is it. She's part Pomeranian and part chihuahua and apparently the minature version of both breeds. I think I may get one of those slings you use for babies to hold her.

She's supposed to be Marshall's dog (like Baby Girl), but because I was nice to her she follows me everywhere. And she's a lap dog. I don't want a lapdog. I knit. There's no room for a dog or a cat while I knit. Baby Girl and Fawn (one of my cats) will sit beside me, but this one wants to be on me. Hopefully in time she will want to spend more time on Marshall's lap. He wants a lapdog.

I'll end on a funny note. Isn't this picture of Baby Girl hilarious? It's like she thinks opening her eyes wider will help her jump.

A Three Day Weekend and Two Finished Objects

First, I finished Marshall's clogs. They may not be felted, but they are off the needles so in my mind they are finished. This is how he said he wanted them - fraternal twins. You don't wear these types of shoes out of the house, so I'm not too worried.

Then I finished - FINALLY - the Mad Weave socks. It only took 4 months! I like how the weave mixes up the colors. And the fit is good.

The bonus is making progress on the Red Scarf Project. This is a destash project. I've been wondering what to do with a single skein of silky wool. I don't want to knit a scarf for myself, but to help out a good cause...I'm all in.

Red Scarf is on the Needles

I did get my scarf for the Red Scarf Project cast on late Friday night. I'm using the Corrugarter pattern. I thought I was going to do the mistake rib, but the Corrugarter has no purl. It's all knit with a couple of slips. It's going pretty quickly. I have about and 1.5" done, but I'm just picking it up and knitting a couple of rows when I have a minute. So I'm pleased with the progress. I guess if I did 1.5" in a 24 hour period technically that would put me at about 45" by 10/1 (my goal date), but there will be times when I can kick it up a notch. For now, this knitting is not taking any time away from my other knitting.

Speaking of my other knitting. I'm at the toe on the Mad Weave socks. And all I can say about that is "finally!" I started the toe on one sock, but it went a little awry. I was walking Baby Girl Friday night and I decided (what I already knew) that I'd worked way too hard and long on these socks to constantly be making excuses why the toe was so jacked up. When I got back from walking, I sat down and got to frogging. I didn't want to take one minute to reconsider. I won't regret it.

Last night I worked on Marshall's clogs. That's three projects all getting knitting time - look at me! I finished the first column of instructions on the page. Row 15 I think. That last column takes the most time of course, but there is still plenty of weekend left.