How Much Do You Knit?

I should've joined the 52 pair plunge. I don't think that I would make it but I keep checking out the knitters and watching it, I'm like, ... glued. It's more exciting than the Olympics. Some people are off to a late start and some are on pair 10 already. Imagine, knitting 10 pairs of socks since Memorial Day? Geez Louise.... Some people knit '16 hrs a day' on the weekend. I wonder how much I knit?

How much do you knit? Maybe this week, (being I'm a math nut and find such things 'fun') I will keep track. I know that I knit an average of 4 hours a week in the morning. In the wee hours, before work. Sometimes, I walk on the treadmill and sometimes I blog, which would take away from knitting time. Then, I knit at night. Possibly three hours. Maybe a little less. Let's say that I do that almost every night. So, maybe 24 hours a week is spent knitting. That's one whole day and only a little less than half of what I spend working. Wow. It's like a part time job. No wonder I can't keep up with my housework, yard work, children's activities.....Then, there is all that time I spend glued to Ravelry minding everyone else's business, checking out what they made and in what color to see if I should do something similar or completely different...Oh well, time to show you my Embossed Leaves Socks which I started the other day.

Here's the cuff....

And here's what they looked like this morning....

Not that much done. Sunday night, I made a mistake, although I can't figure out for the life of me what I did. I didn't photograph it (because I didn't want to hear you howl with laughter) but I had a giant hole. I keep knitting along, too, thinking it would either heel when I wasn't looking or 'work itself out'. It didn't. Soon my leaves would be called Swiss Cheese Socks. So, I had to rip back about seven rounds on one of the socks, separating them and then putting them back together. That's always fun....thankfully, things are moving along swimmingly now.

This is Cherry Tree Hill in the Birches colorway. I don't know why I wasn't smart enough to knit this in a solid. I just don't have suitable yarn in my stash and it really is in need of an enhancement. Anyway, I like the colors in this. It reminds me of the sunlight going through the leaves in the springtime. There is some colors of the new leaves, the white light and some browns for the shadows. It's beautiful. This is Sockittome. Don't let it fool you, the yarn is thick and fat but when you knit with it, it goes skinny on you so don't think it's more of a heavyweight than it is. It's not. It has some nylon in it and it doesn't have as tight of a twist as the supersock but it's nice! Supersock is possibly my favorite sock yarn. It has excellent stitch definition, the multis don't pool, the colors are nice and there is adequate yardage for a pair of socks for people with chubby legs and feet.

I am a little further along than this picture and if the kiddies go to bed early (and stay there) I can do another repeat (16 rows) and start the heel flap if I'm not too tired.

I leave you with a poor photo of my blooming Lily.

Knitting Update-Baby Fern and Dragon Scarf

The Dragon Scarf grew enormously when blocked. It is now a perfect 60" long. Today I will sew on on the eyes and the nasal tassals and take him out for a photoshoot. We're supposed to get yet another thunderstorm today and the dark lighting may make for a mysterious picture.

I've also picked up the Baby Fern Sock, the one I'm doing on size zero needles in Valley Yarn's Huntington (shh! I believe it to be the same as Cascade Heritage!) in a lovely dark green. It's a bit hard on the eyes to knit at night with this small a needle with such a dark color but they're coming along nicely. I was going to work on them a bit over this weekend but didn't get to them.

It was sewing time! Yesterday, Elizzabetty and I worked on a small knit top for my DD, the fashion plate. I was assigned a small homework project of doing the shoulder straps on my own so I will try that during the week and then I will show you my progress. Oh boy! I am so excited to be learning how to sew. To tell you the truth, I really thrive on the repetitiveness of knitting and crochetting. That is part of the reason why I think that I will like spinning. It can be mindless and rewarding. The other reason why spinning is turning me on is because I love things that are historical and having a nice spinning wheel in my house as a piece to admire would be lovely. Ah, beauty.

Speaking of beauty, the front of my house faces the north and it's always a few weeks behind the seasons. The lillies are just starting to bloom...

Yet the other plant, in the brighter light, is in full bloom...

And, the pansies are looking happy, like little smiling faces...

Such beautiful colors all around us.

"Life is just a box of...crayons"

One Goal Down

Good Morning Loyal Readers!

One goal down, it seems the 10 lbs is gone off my body. Only I noticed but that's ok. (Ok, one other person at work). Phew. I better not find it.

We are now into May, post Kentucky Derby Day, post Cinco De Mayo, nearly time for summer. So, we bought a pool. More on that later, including pictures. First off, this weekend was the MS Walk. Here's a picture of our highly motivated sucessful team, Sleepy's Crew. You can pick me out, I'm the one with the sunglasses. My dogs hind end is peaking out there, too. The other is a picture of Bunker trying to keep warm.

At the bottom of the page, we have a nice picture of my Dark Pink Broad Spiral Ribbed Socks which are finally completed!

Today, I will be telecommuting due to pool prep. I need to take the Beast (Zoey, the puppy) for a walk so she'll be calm.

In other news: I'm happy to tell you all that Elizzabetty's Weather Pixie is out of her ugly outfit and into a nice two piece leather ditty that is very becoming. We can all rest easily tonight.

More later! Including pool pictures and blue socks pictures. And don't forget to check out my Brag Book that I've been working on.

Early Morning Update

Well, it's 6:05am and I am having an exciting morning doing laundry and maybe even a little knitting on my second dark pink ribbed sock. Yes, you guessed it, I have completed pink sock number 1. In fact, I have almost finished two pairs of socks in about two and a half weeks. I am just itchin' to start my socks that rock. First though, I think I am going to finish my UFOs. I have a hooded raglan for Daniel that needs a sleeve and a hood and a baby blanket that needs about four more inches. I could do that watching American Idol if I can stay awake that long tonight. So, one and a half sock feet, a sleeve, a hood and four inches and it's time for socks that rock!

The Wonderful Wallaby project will probably not begin until the fall but we'll see how I feel. I can't imagine having a giant man sized hot sweater in my lap in June but we'll see. It looks like it'll be fun to knit. Maybe I'll make an itty bitty one for one of the new babies that are arriving on my block. There are three in the works. One in June (that's the one that's getting the blanket) another one in June for the newbies on the block and another one in October. The October one is really in for a treat. Like me, she has a puppy. Puppies and babies leaves tons of free time for oneself, as you can easily imagine.

Ta Da! Here's my Dark Pink Ribbed Sock number one:

Here's Cherry Tree Hill PURPLE yarn picked out by my daughter:












To tell you the truth, I wasn't too pleased with the purple but now it's growing on me. I could also get four socks or more out of that being she has little tiny baby feet.

On the pink sock, it was the first time that I reinforced the toe and heel and I used wooly nylon. It's good! Not too bad to work with at all. I thought that it would be a little smoother but it's kinda 'sticky', it clings to the yarn. Looks kinda nice, too.

I also have a nice ball of Trekking Tweed that would make nice man socks...but I am not starting anything new until I finish all my UFOs.

Time for coffee and time to rouse the hubby to send him off to work.