By the Dawn's Early Light

Today is the last day of school and hubby woke up early. I guess he was excited that he's off for the summer for the most part after today. He also went to sleep last night before 8 PM so there was no reason for him NOT to awaken early.

Then, he left, at 6:25 AM. I had a few minutes to play with the socks. Here's their daylight pictures.



Crosshatch Lace Socks. Pattern: Crosshatch Lace from More Sensational Knitted Socks. STR, Rose Quartz. Knitpicks Options, size 1, 2.50mm, 60 sts casted on. Start date: 6/3/07, Finished: 6/21/07.

Aren't they beautiful? They're a teeny bit short in the toe for me which means that they'll fit the normal non-quintuple E foot quite well. They'll probably go to my sister in law in SC. (If I can part with them).

I also took out my crochetting yesterday! I worked on a baby blanket and made 6 squares so far. It's a way to clean out the basement, being I have a ton of yarn left over from previous projects. Pictures soon.

I also started Faggot and Cable Stripe socks from More Sensational Knitted Socks, same specs as above, STR Scottish Highlands.
See...
So, back to work and I'll have an update on this later.

Another Sock Done

Hot off the presses, the Rose Quartz Crosshatch Lace Socks are finito!
Details tomorrow, time to rest up for the Wallaby.

Crappy pictures, it's late, bad lighting, more tomorrow.

Good Night!

I Think We Can Make It!

I have 1.1 oz left, 30 something grams (I didn't pay attention to this stuff in grade school during the 'go metric' movement) of my STR Rose Quartz left and only a teeny tiny bit of the foot left. Good thing, I would've cried. It seems that the 360 yards should be sufficient for a pair of socks in most cases so maybe I will consider buying more of this yarn. I really am in love with all the colors they have.

And...I'm already planning the next pair of socks. I'm considering a chevron pattern for Scottish Highlands....but that's subject to change.

These MAY get finished today / tonight. Depends on how active my kiddies are and if we decide to go to the beach or not. Plus, I am feeling a bit run down today, runny nose, cough, scratchy throat. As my mother would say, "That's 'cause you went in the pool and the water was only 72 degrees".....AND, we have dinner out at the Chinese Buffet with some friends of the family who are in NY visiting.

I am also nearly out of solid sock yarn. This may require a trip to the yarn shop. I ordered some Lorna's Laces but that hasn't come in yet and I think the solid one that I got, peach, isn't available even though the website said it was in stock so I'll have to wait 8 weeks on that. I mean, how am I going to try fair isle without extra solids? We'll see....

Well, time for some aspirin and tea and finishing the foot. Take one more quick look so you'll remember where I am with this until next time...
Update later!

Keep in mind, although I'm getting this sock done, I had another Wallaby mishap (NOT A WOUND!!) and I'm still in the same place as I was a week ago...plus, that poncho is itching to get started...lotsa work to be done. The basement will stay a mess for a long, long time....

A Rose is a Rose...

Well, it's back to the sock for a bit....remember? Crosshatch Lace, Rose Quartz, STR. I am nearly convinced that I am going to run out of yarn. For whatever reason, I had '100 grams' stuck in my head and when I was on the leg and I still had 80 left, I thought I was home free! I now have both legs done and they're gorgeous. I love this yarn alot. The ball looks somewhat big, can I make it through the rest with what's left?
I forgot how many grams it is, I had 2.6 ounces left, which is more than half of the skein, going into the gusset. It's going to be close! I'll try and finish this tonight but we'll see, feeling kind of tired.

It was supposed to be 90 but it's only 70 today. That's good. I took the kids out early this morning to do some outlet shopping. We bought a few gifts. They love to go to the Pepperidge Farm outlet store and buy alot of goodies, goldfish rules in any house with kids. In fact, I like them, too! I got some cookies for hubby, a whole bag full, used my $1 off coupon and spent $10 for tons of goodies. Then, we went to the Corelle store and I bought Abundance, service for 12, plus creamer and milk thing and some bowls. More savings, got that for a little over $100. Then, some pjs for kiddies, a pair of sneakers and sunglasses for the she-witch and some bath and body works stuff to bathe her in. High Maintenance kind of kid....you can see how well she enjoys her violin practice....and how much happier she is when swimming with her beloved brother...well, just a few comments. God Bless the man that marries her and I wouldn't trade her for any other baby girl in the world.
Stay tuned for:
1. Celebration of finishing Crosshatch Lace Socks.
2. Cursing at running out of yarn for Crosshatch Lace Socks.
3. Wallaby update!

You think it's Mouthwash, but it's not!

See Punkin's Socks! See Punkin's Socks GROW!! Here's what they looked like on Wednesday:

And, here's where I left off last night:

Onward with Crosshatch Lace! Aren't they lovely? I don't think that I have any mistakes although I did knit them together...uh..twice and had to take out an entire round. It'd be much easier with a 40" cable. It looks like a 'hole' in the top right but I've looked at the sock carefully, it's not. It's slowing down a bit because I have a tangle in the yarn and I've been back to the Wallaby. The tangle is all pulled out, yards and yards of loose yarn, but it's hard to manage with both ends going at the same time. That's the disadvantage of knitting two at once. At this point, they're anklets for the most part and I've used exactly 25% of the extremely skimpy 350 yards STR. I do like this yarn. It's not even really all about the way it feels for me, which is very nice. It's about the shading, these colors are really beautiful. The cons are that the cost is high and the yardage is low and I have wide feet. I also like my socks to cover a chunk of my lower calf, no ankles hanging out from under the pants when I cross my legs. When I finished up the blue/purple Cherry Tree Hill ribbed socks, I only had a small amount left and that was out of 420 yards. It was adequate to finish a pair of socks. I'll weigh it and let you know, now that I found my scale.

I was watching Knitty Gritty and they were making socks. The guest, Cookie, who we all know from her nice patterns on Knitty, was talking about doing YOs. It's a real pain to me, first off, they fall of the needle. If you look away for a second, all of a sudden, you're missing a stitch! Pesky.... It really mattered with the Chevron Ripple baby afghan I made because the number of stitches in a row wasn't always the same due to the YOs. Additionally, it's tough to get all the 'holes' uniform in size. Her suggestion was to do a M1 instead. If anyone is interested in trying this pattern, this would be the one to do it with. The pattern is very straightforward and the number of sts is the same per row. Of course, I don't practice what I preach. Also, if you take out a row, it's easy to get the M1's oriented on the needle correctly.

Anyway, in other news, take a look at this, I got up early and brushed my teeth and reached under the sink for the mouthwash and grabbed it...

There's a bunch of stuff down there, pretty colors and all.....
and, just when I thought it was Listerine Orange, I got it unscrewed and was overwhelmed. Take a closer look. They really should be careful about the packaging on these things. Innocent adults could be hurt! Where is Ralph Nadar when you need him???

So, next week, I only work three days, then on vacation for the rest of the week and all of the following week. Goal: Finish the Wallaby and this pair of socks before returning to work on June 25th. I only go back for 4 measly days and then off again for a week and a half, in which time, finish the poncho, perhaps???? We'll be home through July 4th (can you believe it's really going to be summer already???) and doing stuff with the family, beach, swimming, cleaning up the house, father in law will be visiting for a bit, so we'll see how much I can get done.

As for Nutrisystem, I was not a very good girl this week. I ate sushi. It's not the worst thing in the world. I didn't eat a crate of fried chicken or hamburgers, it was only fish. So, I feel full of salt now.

I can tell that you're all on the edges of your seats for this, aren't you? I do have such an 'exciting' life as you can see by my goals. Will I succeed? Stay tuned to find out!

Two Socks at Once!

Well, I have news. I started the crosshatch lace sock. Two at a time, magic looping. It's cake! Let me tell you how to do it............... It took me three hours to cast on and get both socks going in the right direction. I have to figure this out and I'm beginning to believe that it's impossible without a spare needle. I did it and got it going only to find that I had the two ends in the middle. It takes too long to slip and redo and undo and re-cast on. Horrid. I should've gone with my gut, knit sock one for 10 rows, knit sock two for ten rows and then have them going in unison. But Nooooooooooooo, not me! I'm too much of an expert for that. So, three hours later, honestly, three hours, I had gotten them on the needle and had knit about 5 rows of ribbing. It took almost all of that time to just get it started. This is supposed to be faster!

I'm using STR Rose Quartz and I'm working on a size 1 needle, 60 sts around. These will probably be way too tight for me to try on but they're a gift. I am liking STR more and more as I'm working with it. It feels really nice. It's lovely. It's just not enough yarn. I need more, more, more! 450 yards. I want more, more, more of the STR...beryl. That'd make such a nice dragon sock...

Anyway, I did finally suceed with the use of a stitch holder and alot of trial and error. I now have two socks going at the same time on one circular needle and I should be fine until the heel. I am going to have to do one flap and one turn and then the other because I'm going to reinforce the heel this time, using wooly nylon.

Ok, I know you're on the edges of your seats, here's the pictures. The photos do not do it justice. They look pinky/gray and they're not at all that color. It's a dark, rainy day here and the lighting is bad. This is my first sock that isn't a ribbing pattern. This pattern is interesting and fun to knit. Hopefully, I will sail through without a mishap.

I knit that while watching the Sopranos. It's summer, the two things I watch, American Idol and the Sopranos are both over. I am not going to ever watch American Idol again after this season. It's too many episodes and I think that I can sing better than 85% of the contestants and that's not saying much at all. The Sopranos, well, I'll be borrowing that entire series again from the library. What will I knit to?

My prediction on how the series will end seems to be on target. About 5 episodes ago, I thought that AJ would kill himself. I predicted that Tony will be killed and Phil will be the new head cheese, this way we could have a new mafia organized crime series on HBO. So, let's see what happens.

As for the Wallaby, he's still hanging out, in recovery from his wound. I'm working on him in betwix the socks. I am considering making my son one in a maroon color, soon. Little daughter asks me about the poncho every day and he wants that Puff the Magic Merino Scarf. Now she wants the "Sheepy scarf". My daughter is very much into lambs and sheeps and it would be something that I know she would love so I'll probably make it. It's also longer than she is by far so she'd best eat her broccoli and grow a bit....

Time to do another few rows and watch the Today Show!

Stay tuned for another exciting update soon!