Knit-along Little Doggie!!

Endpaper mitts

so i finally cast on for my endpapers after many months of plotting.  my natalya's are finally giving out and i just don't want to repair them anymore, so i'm knitting the endpapers in colors to go with my scarf.  this is a very fast knit, and very addicting.  my only issue so far is that i don't like the way the purl seam is coming out.  i can't control the tension of that stitch, and in one section of the pattern i end up with a loose stitch at the beginning of the row.  i'm hoping that his will block out but time will tell.  they fit great and i think i may have them done by the end of the weekend.
on other knitting news, i really don't have any because i've been on Ravelry for hours at a time surfing the patterns and people's pages and queues.  it's so bad that aaron even asked me today if i was on ravelry, to which i replied "no!!", but i was.  every friend who has stepped foot into my door had been hijacked into a tour of Ravelry, whether they wanted to see it or not.  it's all i talk about and i even dream about it.  Bless you, oh Knitting Goddesses who thought this up!  may you never have to pay taxes ever again in your lives.

two things...

first, i am casting on for a pair of endpaper mitts because my Natalya's are finally wearing out beyond the point of repair.  i "cast on" in ravelry but i haven't really done that yet because it requires me to wind the yarn into balls to do that.  i. need. a. ball winder!  or at least an umbrella swift to start with.  when the promised extra money from the government comes down to "boost the economy", i plan to do my part for the yarn industry and buy me one.

second, and more exciting, a friend entered myself and one more friend to get tickets to Martha Stuart's hand knit/crochet themed show and we got in!  we'll be sitting in the audience on the 20th (which happens to be a Wednesday so i'm already off of work), with a finished object, and and work-in-progress per their request.  you can pretty much bet that i'll have a sock going.  now, which finished object to bring?

I'm in!

yesterday, I got my invite to join Ravelry and I was never heard from again.

but seriously, I just spent the last several hours inputting part of my stash (which seems to be mostly sock yarn),  a few of my needles, several books, added lots and lots of stuff to my favorites list, and some stuff into my que.  I even joined a Favorite Socks knit a long which starts in February.  It took me all of 5 minutes to see why everyone loves it, and I'm in love too!

Promised photos

here are my ShiBui socks.  I love them.  And while I was putting my current socks into the sink to soak in the Eucalan, I realized that they are all red, or pink, or have pink and red in them, and that this is way off the beaten path for me as far as socks go.  It was a nice break.
I took my Regia toe socks to work to knit on while I'm in the "inbound que" or waiting for 10+ minutes for Social Security (which we aren't supposed to set up anyway but that's neither here nor there...).  I'm hoping that this will push them along and get them done.  It really is amazing how fast they work up when you knit a row here and a row there.
And after I finished these, I also did this...   

Now, i know that this sock took about a year to knit, but to show that I'm serious, I cast right on for the second sock.  It's going much faster know that I'm working on one circular needle.  If anything slows me down, it's going to be rolling 462 yards of sock yarn into a ball so that I can continue with it.  And speaking of 462 yards, the first sock took just about all of it!  Holy Crackers, this is gonna take forever.

more like needles of fury!

i don't have a photo to show of my latest finished object, because the battery for the camera is on the charger, so you'll just have to take my word for it.  I knit Priscilla's Dream Socks by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts (out of the favorite socks book) using 2.5mm needles and ShiBui sock yarn.  I used almost every last yard of this yarn and for the first time ever, I sweat it toward the end.  The only modifications I made to the pattern is that I did not knit the top 3.5 inches on a larger needle.  What I did instead was knit the first 3.5 inches in 2x2 ribbing, and then switched to straight stitch.  I also chose to graft the toe instead of using the zigzag bind off, as I used it once on a pair of socks for Alex and I didn't care for it.  these socks were supposed to be the best fitting pair ever, based on the measurements of the wearer's foot, and it proved to be true!  I think I'll be knitting a short row toe from here on out.  Photos to come.
Up next, another sock from the Favorite Socks book.  My husband may take up knitting based on a deal that we are trying to work out.  I wouldn't hold my breath.

first, i'd like to start of by saying that alex is a biter!  he bit my finger yesterday and made it bleed.  (in his defense, i did have my finger in the back of his mouth to try to see if he had something in there that he shouldn't have.)
anyway, i have evidence of my shiBui socks in progress.  they're striping pretty nicely but i have to say that there is a lot more brown that i originally thought there was.  it's not as baby blue as i had hoped. 
it's funny, because i have a few other socks going...as i have discussed already...and i swear i'll get back to them, but i have really fallen deeply in love with my Favorite Socks book!  i'm going to Bella Yarns tomorrow for the Dale of Norway Heilo to knit the Elegant Ribbed Stockings.  I just can't help it!  and as if i needed an excuse to knit more socks, my mom has been having trouble with her feet (due to Diabetes) and asked me to knit her some slippers to go over her cotton socks.  just toss some fuel on the fire, Ma.  anyway, i've been going through the book and every time i think about the sock yarn i have hanging around, i take a pencil and jot that down on the pattern that i have in mind for it.  if i keep going like this, i could have some sock yarn in the house for every sock pattern in the book!
and for anyone who cares, i've posted to my other blog again.  take a look.

Feet of Fury

*This post is titled by the Husband*
I have finished the Trekking socks today.  It's all due in thanks to a snow day, put to very good use.  I love the fit and the feel of the yarn, but I still can't get over the mis-matched stripe dealy.  So these are definitely going to a good home with my friend Jana.  She should have them on her feet by tomorrow night.
I ripped the ShiBui socks because I've discovered that I like my socks knit on a 2.5mm needle better than on a 2.0mm.  So I decided that I'll knit this pair on my newly free 2.5's.  I'm fighting the urge to put these on the back burner and start on the waiving lace socks in my brown KnitPicks yarn that I ordered about a month ago.  I just need to focus and stick to one pair at a time, or maybe even finish one of the two other pairs that are currently in progress.

I've got nothing new really to report.  I'm realizing that I have 4 pairs of socks in progress and I'm still yearning to cast on more.  It's a sickness and it's taking over my life!  Somebody help me...

I'm settling in today to watch the Pat's-Jacksonville playoff game.  I will be drinking a MilkyWay hot chocolate, knitting on my ShiBui socks.  I picked up the rainbow trekking yesterday during a Prison Break marathon at my house, and worked the entire heel when I looked down and noticed that it wasn't lining up.  I had an uneven number of stitches on my needle and had to rip the entire heel back as it wasn't in the middle of the sock...it was more like off to the side.  So today at work I finished the second attempt of the heel and started work on the insole.
I also picked up a copy of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand from our break room at work.  Someone had left 3 old paperback books out on the table for anyone who was interested and I took two of them.  I chose to leave The Lord of the Flies there as I'd read it in school and didn't care to relive it.  I think I was supposed to have read The Fountainhead back in 10th grade but never got into it and just sort of slid by on the classroom discussions, so I figured I'd take a crack at it in the near future.  It's in the que with Pride and Prejudice.  But not before I crank out a few pairs of socks!

Yikes!

I don't know when it happened, but I've become unable to do 5th grade math.  I used to be very good at math and graduated with an accumulated 3.33 GPA and now I have to go online to Math.com to get be able to help Dante with his fractions.  I remember my mom having to defer that portion over to my grandmother, as she wasn't the best with fractions, but I used to rule fractions!  I almost called my grandmother up and put her on the phone, all the way in California.  It's sad how much I have forgotten, that does not pertain to nails, banking, or knitting.
Today I called my son's principal and went over my issues with her.  I let her know that a letter was coming so that she wouldn't be blind sided by it when it gets there.  She asked me if the accommodations had improved for him in class, and I was very impressed that she followed up with me on that, without my having to address it.  I told her that I still have not received a progress report on a consistent basis and that the homework assigning is still inconsistent, but that I would ask my husband about it.  Today Dante had the homework on fractions and they haven't reviewed it for a month so he didn't remember anything.  My MIL told me to get a composition notebook and write back and forth with his teach in there, so that we're communicating on a regular basis, and I'll have it in writing.  I think this is a great idea and we'll be starting asap.
In knitting, I'm flying along on the Shetland Tea Shawl now.  I'm finally in the zone on this puppy, and I've run out of yarn!  I have to hit Bella Yarns and get another ball and finish this once and for all, and hopefully before I lose my mojo on this project.  So I'm going to tunnel my "finish it" juice to these trekking socks so that I can cast on for a different pair in the orange, or maybe the Sui Bui!  (Oh crap, I still have to reknit Dante's mitten.)