It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

It was amazing to see Ken Griffey Jr's return to Safeco Field. It was equally amazing, in the exact opposite way, to see the worst beating the Mariners have ever received at Safeco Field.

I feel very behind on knitting, blogging, and sleep. I've been to three baseball games in the last four days, and went to seven quilt shops yesterday. I had no time to map out yarn stores that are near the shop hop, and we're leaving in a few minutes to hit more stores today. Our modest goal is to visit enough stores to enter the drawing, which will put us at about half the number of stores we visited last year. I'm fine with it, but next year maybe I'll take a weekday off so we can cover more ground.

I am an Admiral of the Sea

I'm way behind on blogging, and I blame Ravelry. I'm starting to get concerned that I'm never going to finish any knitting, because I'm obsessively surfing and documenting my stash and projects. And hoping that I'll have more friend invitations, and wondering whether I should just start sending a lot of them. My handle is clwork, if you want to be my friend! It's like junior high all over again, but without a permanent wave or leg-o-mutton sleeves. I've signed up to help with some data clean-up, which is one of my hidden talents.



In the meantime, I have made progress on the Sailor Girl garter rib socks. These go pretty quickly because the yarn is DK weight, and the pattern takes no effort to memorize--no chart or book to carry around. I'm just one gusset decrease before I get to the tube part of the foot and these go back into rotation as car socks. I love the colors, I like the rib pattern, but now that I see how pretty the stripes are on the bottom of the foot I kind of wish that I had knit plain stockinette socks. I don't wish it enough to rip out two perfectly good looking socks, however. To the right is a slightly-washed-out close up of the heel, the heel flap is eye of the partridge with garter edges. I cobbled the pieces of this pattern together from Sensational Knitted Socks, and although the first heel was easy to turn, the second heel took at least three tries--even though I'd written down the number of stitches to use. Obviously, I have trouble counting--the center of the heel was waaaay off center.



I have an unusually busy social schedule for the rest of the week, with two baseball games, trivia night, and the Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop. Hopefully, I will get some knitting in tonight, I need to make a decision about which heel to keep and which to rip out on the Sockapalooza socks. I didn't quite have the necessary focus over the weekend to make any headway, but the socks are about even so I need to decide how much further to knit before I really decide. I'd like to finish the pair by the end of June or early in July, so I don't get too stressed out about them.

Rainier Cherries are back

Washington's favorite cherries are back! I picked these up at a local u-pick strawberry farm, along with pre-picked berries. Now I just need to bake, can, or freeze things--although we'll probably just eat the cherries.

But if You Have a Change of Heart

I may be over-thinking this, but the fit of the Sockapalooza socks is still worrying me a little. The heel on sock #1 feels a little tight, even after two more pattern repeats, so I've started the heel on sock #2 with a size #1 needle and will knit up to the same point and compare. Right now, I like the fit of sock #2, but sock #1 still could work if sock #2 feels too baggy in the ankle area. I'm not sure which one to pick yet--all I know for sure at this point is that one of those heels will be ripped out, but it's not a lot of extra time to spend to improve the fit.

In other knitting news, I have been working a little on the new Chevron Scarf. I took it with me to WWKIP day on Saturday, and it's been in my giant messenger bag ever since.

Here's where I was on June 3:

Here's where I am as of today:

The beginning of the Chevron is great, because you can see the growth quickly. At some point, though, the growth isn't noticeable at all--I like to use the locking stitch markers as a reference point, so that I have some proof that the scarf is getting longer.

I really like these colors together , they are Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Red Rover and Argyle (I think--I need to find the labels to be sure.). So far, so good!

Whew! A sigh of relief . . . for now

The Bavarian Rockstars are out of their strictly enforced time-out, and after splitting them up and working a pattern repeat on one sock, I think that they are going to be fine. I can get the sock over my heel without a struggle, and it feels fine on my heel. It's a little snug, but my feet are a tad longer than my sock pal's, so I think they will be o.k.

In the interest of minimize potential ripping out, I'm going to continue on one sock for awhile until I'm sure that the heel / size are o.k. As much as I love knitting two socks at once, it's a drag to rip out two socks at once. Also, since I have to keep track of the rows on this pattern anyway, there isn't a lot of danger that I'll knit a different # of repeats on each sock (I hope). My plan is to keep the back of the heel in stockinette for a couple of inches, and then switch over to a wide rib rather than the twisted cables. I think that cables on the back could be less comfortable to wear with boots, and I like the way this looks on the Canal du Midi socks.

Yesterday was World Wide Knit in Public Day, and while much of the day was spent celebrating the 2nd birthday of my best friend's first born, my mom and I did pop in on the Seattle event at the Olympic Sculpture Park. The organizers reserved space at the indoor pavilion / cafe, a wise idea in this area--it was raining like crazy on and off all day. After the hue and cry of the birthday party, it was very relaxing to sit in an open space with a view of the very grey waterfront and knit, even if it was only for about 45 minutes.

In other knitting news, I did start Mr. Stripey the Younger yesterday, and I have about an inch of the cuff finished. Since all of my other car socks are at the heel flap and/or gusset, I think that Mr. Stripey is back in the rotation for awhile. I've spent quite a bit of time with Ravelry this weekend, I've loaded most of my recent projects and a lot more yarn than I thought I had. Yikes--maybe I should spend more time knitting, and less time buying yarn!

The Big Reveal

Now that last weekend's sewing project has been gifted to J___ C____ at her 2nd birthday party, I can reveal that it is a very girly jumper. My mom made a matching hat and handbag, to complete the summer ensemble. Despite the pain that it is clearly giving J____ to fake smile for the photo above, she seemed to like it. I'm not sure yet how it fits, because someone refused to try it on when we arrived for her party, but I think it should be fine--a little more full-length than expected, but not drag-on-the-ground long. The pattern for the jumper and hat is the Little Vintage Jumper from Favorite Things. It's a good pattern--very clear, right amount of detail, not a lot of pattern pieces. I love that the facings under the buttons on the front and the back are part of the main pieces, rather than separate pieces that have to be cut and sewn.

One thing that I think I should start doing is reading through patterns and finishing all of the raw edges that need to be finished first--it annoys me a little to keep switching back and forth between zig-zag and straight stitching, I inevitably end up doing one or the other in the wrong place.

The real highlight of the birthday party was the cake that J___'s mom made. The Teddy Grahams in bikinis totally crack me up:

That bear in the mask on the front creeps me out a little--what is he staring at, anyway?

Work on WIP Week: Mr. Stripey is now Half a Pair

Thanks for all of the nice comments about Mr. Stripey--seeing them on the blog was definitely the highlight of my day! I arrived home later than expected this evening, but I did finish Stripey #1:

This is definitely a sock that will benefit from a soak and a block, but I'll likely wait until Mr. Stripey the Younger is complete. Here's another view:

Oh, how I love the striping on the heel flap! I haven't cast on sock #2 yet, but I'll try to do that this weekend. I'm really looking forward to seeing how much my gauge has changed in the last 10 months--these socks are definitely not "perfect" enough to be a gift, but even I won't wear socks of two noticeably different sizes.

Work on WIP Week: Mr. Stripey

Yesterday, I planned to either keep working on Wicked or the Print O' the Wave Shawl. Instead, I spent hours adding tons of yarn and a few projects to Ravelry. I'm already feeling more organized, and also a little guilty about all of the yarn in the stash that I don't even remember buying. I mean a t a l l. Here are some of the yarns I added over the past couple of days:

Hmm, I guess I have a lot of brown in the stash--or at least in this layer of it. It's fun to photography & catalog yarn. How

This evening, after a very mediocre performance by my pop culture trivia team, I managed to resist ravelry in favor of Mr. Stripey. Mr. Stripey is a sock that I started late last summer, and I've worked on it very sporadically since then. He may, in fact, be the first sock I ever started, although I've finished many socks since then. The socks are on the stretchy side, and I probably should have knit them on US#1 needles instead of US#2, but they are still acceptable.

Named after a tomato plant that also features stripes, I may be lucky to finish this pair before the new Mr. Stripey plant bears fruit. Still, this evening I started the toe, and I'm pretty sure I can finish this tomorrow and cast on sock #2. This photo is pretty terrible, so I'm keeping it small--it's past my bedtime now and I took the easy way out and used the flash. Once this sock is done, I'll take some better photos & provide a full recap.

Work on WIP Week: Wicked!

I should have waited until Wednesday to use that title . . . it could have been WIP Work Week Wednesday: Wicked!

I received an invitation to Ravelry this morning, so I haven't spent much time on Wicked, today's long-ignored WIP. I submitted my name awhile ago for Ravelry, and had just about convinced myself that I wasn't really interested in it, but it is really, really cool. I can totally understand why they haven't opened it up yet to all comers, and I regret my impatience. All users can enter info about the yarns and patterns they are using if they can't already find them in the system, and I think that the data would be a total mess if thousands of people started using it right out of the gate. If anyone reading this is still waiting for an invite, you can start getting ready by uploading yarn and project photos to Flickr--that's been the most time consuming part for me, along with finding the stupid ball bands that litter my house. I've uploaded some current / recent projects, and some yarn as well. My Ravelry handle is clwork if you want to check any of it out.

Back to the WIP: I'm knitting a little on Wicked, which I shouldn't have ignored for so long. I'm at the mindless stockinette stage, and I've been using socks for the zoned-out knitting that I could have spent on this. Tonight I've knit about three rows of black stockinette--I don't see any point in posting a new photo of that.

Instead, here's a look at the three fabrics I used in my sewing project over the weekend:

Although I prefer to pick out my own fabric color combos, I do appreciate the ease of using three fabrics from the same collection. Whatever I'm making (I'll post photos later in the week or over the weekend), it won't go with charcoal Wicked when it's finally done.

Must resist temptation to start up on Ravelry again before bedtime!

Work on WIP Week: Print O' The Wave

Stretched out Print O' the Wave

While I think about / work out what to do on my Sockapalooza heel, I've decided that this would be a good week to work on some projects that haven't gotten a lot of face time. Lord knows I have enough of them (don't we all?). First on deck: the Print O' the Wave Shawl.

I started the shawl last September, after seeing lovely versions in progress here and (of course) there. I last blogged about the Print O' The Wave shawl about five months ago, and I should note that that was just a mention that I should work on it again--it's been a few months longer since I picked it up. I've been carrying it with me when travelling, but didn't crack into it until I was dogsitting in May. I switched from Addi Turbos to Addi Lace needles, and it's made the pattern a lot more manageable. Plus, having uninterrupted time to work the pattern meant many fewer mistakes, and I'm hoping that if I do a little at a time I'll have to pick out fewer bad rows. I knit another repeat this evening, only five more repeats until the first half is done. Unstretched (as below), it measures about 16", but it should block out a fair amount larger (I hope).

One nice thing about keeping live stitches on the ends is that I can add more repeats if I have enough yarn. That assumes I can estimate how much yarn I need for the border, of course!

The yarn I'm using is Blue Sky Alpaca's Royal Alpaca in Antique Black, which is more like an espresso brown. It's very nice to work with--extremely soft, not splitty, beautiful rich color. I bought three skeins from the Hilltop Yarns booth at Bumbershoot last summer, after visiting it all weekend. Or rather, I bought two there, and another one at the Eastside store once I picked out a pattern. It's pricey yarn (which gives me more motivation to use every last inch of it), but I bought it on sale so I'm not going to beat myself up about it. What's done is done, it's better that I spent that $$ on yarn and not on overpriced festival beer. Plus, I might have removed the price tags from the skeins when I brought them home, and thrown away the receipt, so who really knows what I spent on them? Not me!

The Blue Sky Alpaca website shows some other really gorgeous colors in this yarn, and I want more of it. More!!! I love that the colors that the yarn comes in so perfectly match the feel of the yarn--classic, elegant, understated. I know, I sound like a bad old-lady car ad, but if you look at the colors you'll understand what I mean. Until I finish this shawl, however, I'm off the market for this yarn.

I haven't quite decided if I'll work on a different old WIP ever day this week, or repeat some of the same items. There are a few (o.k., quite a few) projects sitting right next to me as I type this that I've ignored for weeks and/or months, and even if they won't be back in the everyday rotation it would be nice to make a little progress. In the meantime, I've packed the shawl back into the case I've been carrying it around in, so that it's protected from the elements (the dachshund elements) and the charts are together with the row counter, yarn, and notes. You can't be too careful--it could be another five months before I work on it again, and losing track of the rows would be very, very bad!

Bus Wheels Spinning, Song Birds Singing, Break My Heart

Those song birds that have been waking Frieda up at 5am are killing me, but hopefully it will be cool enough tonight too keep the window closed.

The School Bus Socks are coming along very nicely, I've finished the legs, heel flap & heel, and I'm working on the gussets. Here they are from the tops:

Here they are on the heel side:

The heel flaps stripe up a little weirdly, but I love the black triangle on the bottom of the heel. Right now I have three pair of socks that are at the "pay attention" stage (the Sockapalooza pair is an always pay attention pair), so I'd like to get these past the gusset in the next day or so.

Here are the Sailor Girl socks, which are just about at the heel flap point:

I'm not sure what happened with those wider stripes--I think I must have relaxed a little while I was knitting these on the way to Sasquatch.

A New Project

I worked on a new project this weekend--it was a little hot to spend too much time knitting, so I started a sewing project. It's not ready for prime-time viewing yet, but I love this little edge. Hopefully I'll finish it up this week, and post photos next weekend! The fabrics are from Heather Baily's Fresh Cut fabric collection. I had hoped to crank out a few quick skirts this weekend (and last Monday, and the weekend before Memorial Day . . .), and I have some Fresh Cut fabric for one of these as well. I need to come up with a better time-management system!!!

Short Row Heel--Too Short?

I've turned the first heel on my Sockapalooza socks, and I'm not sure that the heel is deep enough. This is only the 2nd time I've used a short row heel, so I'm not totally sure how high up it should hit--any thoughts on this? Here's how it looks:

The wraps look fine, and I did add an extra row of wraps, but it seems like it should hit higher. If I start knitting in the round now, I'm worried that it will end up too tight. Any suggestions? If a short row heel won't work, does anyone have a reverse heelflap tutorial to recommend? Please do not say "rip out both feet and try a different pattern"--I don't think I can take it!

I like the way the cables look on the top--here's a better view:

Squatch This!

I can't quite tell who was performing, but here's a panorama of the Sasquatch mainstage from the top of the amphitheater. Pretty gorgeous, isn't it? Slightly less gorgeous when the winds picked up on Sunday, lowering the temperature significantly, whipping dust in my eyes, and stopping the show for several hours.

Overall, my photos from the weekend are pretty bad. I didn't try to get particularly close to the stages, so my photos of bands are generally blurry and far away. One of my travelling / camping companions went down front and got some nice shots of Mixmaster Mike, but that's about it. Here are the best of the bunch:

Clockwise from top left: Beastie Boys (via the big screen), Polyphonic Spree before wind shut down the mainstage, Arcade Fire, Mixmaster Mike

The clear highlight of the weekend, music-wise, was Arcade Fire's set on Saturday evening. The Beastie Boys mainstage set was great, but there was too much overlap from their "instrumental" set the night before so it didn't feel super fresh. I also really liked Viva Voce, the Dandy Warhols, and the few songs that the Polyphonic Spree squeezed into their set. I've been checking out reviews of Sasquatch (a good one is here), and a couple of people have said that they didn't like the Long Winters. I completely disagree--they are not a band that I'm familiar with, but they seemed so pleased to be playing that they really stood out for me. Interpol, by contrast, were overly reserved for this type of show--not much interaction with the audience, not much interesting going on onstage. By the time they played, I'd been at the festival for maybe 10 hours, and had spent maybe 3 of those hours trying to get away from the wind and warm up. I needed a band with some energy!

A lot of the bands that played were new to me, so I didn't have huge expectations for anyone so I wasn't super disappointed by anything--I didn't HATE any of it, and some of my criticisms are probably based more on the surroundings / challenges of a huge festival than of the music itself. For instance, Ghostland Observatory sounded great for a couple of songs, but was a little too loud and shout-y for me after that, probably due to the headache that was induced by drinking gigantic beers in the very hot sun. Did they pour the beer down my throat? Of course not!

The biggest non-weather issue that I had with the festival was that they ran out of stuff (fries, straws, sweatshirts) as early as the first day, and many of the vendor staff were pretty unhelpful / unfriendly. The festival is a professionally run event, with much (if not all) of the concessions provided by a huge company. How hard is it to have enough straws?

Camping worked out just fine--we stayed at the "premium camping" site rather than the main site, and it was very nice. The concession stand had unexpectedly delicious food.

In knitting news, I worked on the Sailor Girl socks on the way to the Gorge, and worked a little on the new Chevron Scarf during the festival. I'm much happier with the new colors than the red / yellow combo of the false start I posted last week. I'm not sure how true the colors are here (try to ignore the shadows), but this is the scarf in progress on the Sasquatch lawn:

Note that the High Street Messenger Bag performed very well on this trip, holding lots of extra stuff for those long festival days--on Sunday, I packed a pair of yoga pants, an extra shirt, and wool socks in addition to the stuff I took in on Saturday.

Wow, this post was almost as exhausting as the festival itself. I apologize in advance for any errors, omissions, or general confusion, as well as the lack of comprehensive linking, but this has already eaten up too much of my evening!

Camping + Rocking = Exhaustion

I've been back from Sasquatch since early afternoon, and I'm dog tired. Rock show photos to come tomorrow or later this week.

Finish One, Start Two

This week I finished the pink and green Chevron Scarf that I started as my Project Spectrum project for April / May. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport, in Envy and Tickled Pink. I think that I still need to give it a good wet block, and I'm a little concerned that it will still roll in a bit, but I do love the colors and it was a very quick knit. So quick, in fact, that I've started another one:

These yarns are also LL Shepherd's Sport, but I'm not totally happy with the choice. I think that there should be more contrast, although after letting it sit for a few days I like it a little better than I did. Even so, I've picked out a new set of colors:

I'm hoping that the blue/brown will tone down the red a little, and make a nice fall scarf. We'll see how it goes.

The second project I started this week are a pair of socks made with the Sailor Girl duet sock yarn that I picked up on the LYS tour. I love the spiral-y, stripey pattern!

These are whipping along, because the yarn is DK weight. The pattern is the Garter Rib sock from Sensational Knitted Socks--very simple, stretchy rib pattern. I'm using Addi Lace needles for the first time, and I like them. They feel a little flimsy when you take them out of the package, because they are lighter than the regular Addis and KnitPicks that I've been using. Once the yarn is on the needles, they are ideal--nice and pointy, not flimsy at all.

I'm off to the Sasquatch music festival tomorrow for a couple of days of rock and camping, and both the new Chevron Scarf and the Sailor Girl socks will probably be going with me, along with the School Bus Socks. It's about a three hour drive away, so there should be plenty of opportunity to make some progress.

Yarn, Yarn, Yarn, Yarn

This past weekend was the Washington Local Yarn Store Tour, and although I didn't go whole hog I did make it to a few shops. Each participating shop (there were 20, I think) had a free one-skein pattern and offered a discount on the yarn for the pattern. There was a drawing for those c-r-a-z-y (or maybe lucky?) people who made it to all 20 shops--$400 at the LYS of their choice. Although I'd love to have that $$ in the yarn bank, I didn't have the time this weekend for three solid days of shopping.

First on the list was Renaissance Yarns, which is truly my local yarn store. I'm in there all the time, it's right between home and work, I can pop in during lunch. Their pattern was for a toe up sock with an afterthought heel in Duet Sock yarn. My plan was to just zip in, pick up the pattern, and zip out, especially since I've got a few sets of this yarn at home already (including the as yet un-restarted Leprechaun Socks), but the new colors were too good to pass up. I picked out a color called Sailor Girl, shown at the right. I love navy and pink together, and I love that the yarn comes with a little solid hank for the heel and toe. I've started a pair of garter rib socks, and they are zipping right along--this yarn is medium weight. I'm looking forward to trying the lighter weight version of the Duet yarns too, although maybe I should wait until I work through some of the yarn that I already have. These are great commuter socks, at least until I finish turning the heels on those school bus socks. I'll post photos / details about the Sailor Girls soon.


The shop that I travelled the farthest to (with Mom) was Churchmouse Yarns & Tea, on Bainbridge Island. I enjoyed taking the ferry over, especially since we walked on and the shop is a short walk from the terminal. I wish that I'd spent more time looking around the shop, but the wall of STR was too mesmerizing for me to get away from--I was afraid that someone else would get the last hank of something I wanted, if only I could decide what I wanted! The shop's pattern was a tea cozy made from heavyweight STR, each hank should be enough for two. Mom and I each got a skein, we opted for one bright and one mild colorway--Fire on the Mountain and Barney Rubble. One of the samples was knit up in Barney Rubble and it looked great, but the Fire on the Mountain should look good too, I think.

While on Bainbridge, we stopped by Esther's, a great fabric store. I picked out some fabric for summer skirts, which I had hoped to work on this weekend. I did not work on them. I will probably not work on them next weekend, either, but maybe . . .


I also picked up a skein of lightweight STR in Fred Flintstone, which is going to make one bright-ass pair of socks. Before you ask, K_____ W______, your feet are too big for socks from one hank. You got a giant pirate hat, isn't that enough?? I love how mysterious and moody this yarn looks in the photo, by the way.

These are the only photos I have, so I'll just give a brief summary on the other shops that I visited:

The Knittery: very nice selection of yarns--this is my source for Dale of Norway, and is also pretty close to where I live. Reasonably priced, too! Their store pattern was a cute fingerless glove.

Fiber Gallery: Close to where I've been dogsitting, so I spent some time there not too long before the LYS tour. Source for the yarn/pattern of the Soft Serve hat. Tons of Brown Sheep, also Koigu, Opal, and Artyarns. Their store pattern was a very cute felted teddy bear. I didn't get the yarn for this one, but I may go back for it. The samples were great--one had a happy face and the other was a little grouchy or sad.

Seattle Yarn: Great store in West Seattle--lots of yarn, plus an excellent selection of buttons and bag handles and notions. Their store pattern was for a small entrelac bag made of some sort of Noro. I forgot to take a photo of the yarn that I bought, but I'm really looking forward to making this one. I've never done entrelac before, plus the yarn is really cool. It was nice to see a $10 one-skein project after the $25 - $30 skeins that I bought in other stores.

Hilltop Yarns West: I love Hilltop, but my blood sugar was critically low when I stopped in, so I ended up leaving without pattern or yarn. Booooo, me. I find that I like visiting Hilltop during the week instead of weekends, when it gets crowded. I've had more success when I've gone in looking for something fairly specific, too, so I should probably have just stayed away.

O.K., that's about as much as I have to say about the LYS tour--more, in fact, that I thought I had to say.

This sock sure is going places . . .

This week I've worked on three different projects--the Chevron Scarf, the school bus socks, and the Bavarian Rockstar socks for Sockapalooza. This makes it feel like I'm not making a lot of progress on any of them, which isn't helped by my lack of car knitting. I'm dog and house sitting for a friend, and although my commute is longer in miles it's mostly highway and as a result there are virtually no long lights on the way--I've been lucky to get more than a 48-stitch row done in a day. Still, those little bits of knitting do add up, and I may finish the Chevron this weekend. In Sockapalooza news, here's the latest on the Bavarian Rockstar:

I took these photos on the ferry to Bainbridge Island this morning, Mom and I were headed to Churchmouse Yarns & Teas as part of the Western Washington LYS Tour (I'll write about that more tomorrow). On the right you can see some indication that we're on a boat, and on the left you can see the actual pattern and a better color representation. Good progress so far, I think, although I'm not 100% sure the four side cables are totally correct. It's a hard cable for me to visualize and the color variation hides the pattern (and hopefully any errors) a little. The biggest problem with knitting two socks at once is that ripping back involves two socks instead of one, or getting out of sync on the rows. I really think the socks look good so far, though--the center cable is pretty awesome. If at the end there are visible errors, there should still be time to knit another pair for my sock pal.

As I type this I'm watching the Mariners play San Diego. Can I just say that Adrian Beltre has an incredible arm? Seriously, that guy is good. Plus, he must have heard me typing nice things about him, because he just hit a home run over the bullpen.

p.s. Sock Pal, if you are reading this, please note that I will wash the socks thoroughly before sending them your way.

Gnomey Gnitting

I haven't made a lot of (or interesting) progress on any current knitting projects over the past several days, so I thought that today I'd feature an OLD piece of knitting that recently resurfaced. Back in December, I went to a cookie-baking party with my Prom Date T__ K___ and a friend from grade school, S____ P____. The green gnome above was a special guest star--I'd given him to T___ maybe 10 years ago, and he's been carrying him around over hill and dale since them, none the worse for wear. The gnome couldn't hold onto his hat, so T__ has requested a new one, which I will make, although I haven't yet.

The blue gnome surfaced in December when I was packing up my remaining belongings in Boston. This gnome never got a face, and looks a little thin next to ol' Greenie. I purchased the pattern / materials as a kit from a yarn store in the greater Ashland, OR area about a million years ago, and I think that the pattern at least will turn up again. I'm tempted to just give Greenie the blue hat, since it is the right size and is period-appropriate, having been knit within a couple of weeks of Greenie himself. However, I think that Greenie's new hat will probably be made of left over sock yarn, possibly in multiple colors or self-striped. And wouldn't a stripey gnome be cute? I could name him Mr. Stripey, in honor of the socks I started last summer but haven't yet finished.

Aaach! You Got Me!

I was tagged today by Missmalice:

Here are the rules:

"Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write in their blogs the 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and to read your blog."

So the toughest part of this is to tag seven more people--anyone willing to be tagged, please leave a comment!!!

Here are my 7 random facts:

1. I loooooooove pub team trivia
2. I'm going camping over Memorial Day weekend for the first time since 1988, when I camped out for a Grateful Dead show in Eugene, OR. That last camping trip cured me of any desire to adopt the "hippie" lifestyle or wear patchouli. This time, I'm camping at the Sasquatch Festival.
3. I selected my MBA program almost exclusively because it meant living in Vienna for 7 months.
4. I like South Carolina and North Carolina BBQ better than Texas or Memphis BBQ.
5. Right now I'm dogsitting / housesitting for a friend who has a black lab named Max. Ever since I've had Frieda and Gretel (the mini-dachshunds) he seems HUGE, even though he's totally normal sized.
6. In high school I won a $1000 scholarship in a bowling tournament.
7. My grad school internship was with Harry Barker. The people I worked with were great, and I loved having dogs around the office all day. Frieda and Gretel are currently destroying this toy, which I found in Harvard Square at Black Ink when I was there in March.

And we danced!

O.K., I didn't dance, but the grounds crew sure did. I took mom to the Ms vs. Yankees game this afternoon for Mother's Day, where she was given a super giant Mariner's Mom shirt and had the satisfaction of seeing the Mariner's stick it to the Bronx bombers. Nothing says "Mother's Day" like booing A-Rod! The next game that we're hitting is Felix Hernandez bobblehead night--we try to maximize the baseball experience by going to all of the hot collectible nights. I think of it as my retirement plan, since Megamillions once again failed me this week.

Yarn with Pirattitude

Two skeins of sock yarn from Yarn Pirate arrived earlier this week, and I couldn't be happier with the colors. Above is Coho, and below is Coho with Sweet Magnolia. Although I don't want to start any new projects right now I had to wind up the Coho immediately so it's ready to go when I need it.

If my Bavarian Rockstar socks don't work out for Sockapalooza, I think that the Coho might be a good fit for my sockpal in a plainer pattern. Assuming that the Bavarian Rockstar socks do work out, Coho might be a good match for ME. ME! The yarn is 100% superwash merino--480 whopping yards! Maybe enough for some very long socks, maybe even knee-highs!

Speaking of socks, and socks in progress, here's a shot of the schoolbus socks on the passenger seat of my car. Pretty good progress in a week, considering they've been knit exclusively in the car during my commute. I wanted to take a photo of them with a school bus (and I still might), but to photograph socks you need to be at even more of a complete stop than you do to knit them. I tried unsuccessfully to crop out the schmutz on the seat--it's time for some spring cleaning, I see!

When are you bringing us treats?

It's hard to believe how small Frieda and Gretel look when they are watching me leave the house. Those beady little eyes following me to the car . . . .

Two Toe Tuesday

Toe #2 has been added to the needles, and from here on out I'll be knitting two at once. Although Toe #1 looks a little misshapen above, that's just the way it's resting--I hope. I'd hate to rip it out, although I'll take another look at it when I'm not so glad just to be done with the short rows. I like the results, but I need to knit a toe like that all in one sitting which can be tough. Here's a close up of toe one (with the orange marker), showing the pattern:

I don't like to choose favorites, but Toe One is my favorite so far. Toe One doesn't stay out late, or wake me up in the middle of the night, or cause any of the problems that I suspect Toe Two is cooking up.

24 Inches of Prime Chevron

The Chevron Scarf is growing quickly, and is posing here at the park next to my office. Places where I've worked on this include my favorite knitting chair, my car, E___ C_____'s house, and the dive-y bar I popped into last Friday to watch part of the Mariners game. The patrons of the bar, who may best be described as extremely regular patrons of that bar, were curious about the scarf but not unfamiliar with knitting and crochet. Odd experience, really, but funny, too. This weekend was devoted to the Sockapalooza socks, but I'll start working on the Chevron Scarf again once I have both toes on one set of needles. Or maybe I'll start working on it again right now.

Bavarian Rockstar Begins

I've got the yarn, I've settled (for now) on a pattern, and I have one toe. The Sundara yarn looks a little darker in these photos than in my last post, and is closer to the actual color, at least on my monitor. I've started the Bavarian Rockstar pattern, which I've decided upon based on it being toe-up and less ubiquitous than some of my other choices. I just realized that this also makes my sock wholly Pacific Northwest--the yarn and pattern are both local, though both were purchased online. I swatched yesterday with size US1 needles, but the gauge was too big so I've started this sock on Knitpicks size 0s. I'm pretty happy with the gauge / cable pattern, and my plan is to start sock #2 from the other end of the yarn cake and then knit both at the same time. When I knit two socks at once, the gauge tends to be more consistent, and that will likely be important since I'm not planning to race through this pair. Here's another view, with foot out:

Yes, I deliberately included my manicured toes. I love the brown polish, but it's really too cold to wear open toed shoes right now. The angle is a little better on this photo to see the center cable motif, which is flanked by stitch markers that I bought yesterday at the Renaissance Yarns anniversary sale. The color is very matchy-matchy with the yarn, and so far they are working well--no snagging, no flying off the needles into the mouths of dachshunds.

Choices, Choices

Now that I've more or less gotten over the bitterness of Sock Wars, I've taken on a new, non-competitive sock swap--Sockapalooza Four. There are 1,006 knitters signed up for this swap, and the socks are due to be mailed the day before my 20th high school reunion in August. Plenty of time to knit something nice for my Pal, and to knit it right. No hoping that gauge is close, or accepting that the socks are "just about" the same size!! I think that I will use the Sundara Yarn above for my pal's socks--it's Caribbean over Light Blue. The yarn depends a little on which pattern I choose, of course--I can't risk running out of yarn! I think that this yarn will look beautiful with a twisted stitch pattern, and I've wanted to try that technique for awhile. Right now, these are the patterns I'm leaning towards, and some photo examples--any help deciding would be greatly appreciated:

From Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road: Conwy or Canal du Midi (also lovely in green here). Both of these are really nice, and I keep wavering about which I like more. The Conwy is so orderly and tidy looking, while the Canal du Midi has more intricate stitches on the top and a plain back. My Pal has indicated that she prefers thinner socks, so less bulk on the back is probably better.

Another option is the Bavarian Rockstar. I'm not sure where I first saw this, but a completed pair is here. One big advantage to this pattern is that it is knit toe-up, so I can knit until I'm out of yarn. However, the pattern on the back of the leg seems a little bulky, although the chart doesn't look that way.

Option #4: Bavarian Twisted Stitch socks (on the Knitpicks site) from Cat Bordhi's Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles.

Option #5: Clessidra from Knitty--this is the least likely of the bunch, but I'm still sort of considering it, though it would require a lot more yarn. Plus, there could be additional fit issues, what with them being knee-highs. I'd have to ask for more measurements from my sock pal, and then somehow incorporate them into the knitting. Yikes!

If anyone has feedback about these options, or similar alternatives, please let me know. The Canal du Midi is the front-runner, but I do waver when I look at the other options!

Come on Aboard, I Promise You it Won't Hurt the Horse

Yes, I've jumped on the Chevron Scarf bandwagon. I picked up a some Lorna's Laces over the weekend for my April/May Project Spectrum knitting, one skein of Envy and one of Tickled Pink in the sport weight. I'll try to get a daytime, outdoor photo of this, it looks a little dull in the photo below:

It's pretty quick knitting, I've knit about 18 inches in six days without a lot of dedication. I knit while I got a pedicure (featured polish: Can You Dig It? by SpaRitual), and a little at home. I tried to knit it in the car, but I kept making mistakes on the pattern row--it's a very portable project, but it does require a little attention. The pattern is from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.

There are a lot of gorgeous Chevrons out there, many that are more interesting than mine. Don't get me wrong, I do like this yarn in this pattern, and it's nice to put down the tiny needles for a little bit. But I recommend checking out the Flickr group, the range of colors is amazing. Or just Google it--you've heard of the Google, right?

That Pencil Smell Reminds Me of School

And my new knit in the car project reminds me of school buses:

This is one of the two projects I started last week in a rash of start-itis. I needed something to knit in the car while stuck in the commute (it staves off the road rage, to a certain degree) and I didn't have my Sockapalooza pal's info or my STR Grasshopper kit yet. These are basic, cuff down stockinette socks, knit in Lorna's Laces Bee Stripe Shepherd's Sock. I bought this yarn at Renaissance Yarns last summer (I think), the colors are great.

The two socks on magic loop works really well for the car because the socks are sure to have the same number of rows (i.e. no keeping track of anything) and the needles won't just slide out at random like slick dpns--they're either in use or the stitches can be moved back onto the cable. Very important for the quick drop when the light turns green. I also workd on these at Safeco Field last Friday, when I had to get to the park extra early for Ichiro Bobblehead night. These socks don't take a lot of attention (though I suppose they will when I get to the heel), so they go well with batting practice. I can't knit during the game itself, it interferes with the drinking and watching closely. Not coincidentally, the drinking can interefere with the watching closely, too--I tend to stick to a one (giant) beer limit.

p.s. I'm not sure what's up with using song lyrics as titles lately, but I can guarantee that it isn't going to stop. Two alternate titles for this post were "My name is Cheech and I am a School Bus Driver" and "Can I Buy Your Magic Bus?"