Carol Knits!

Just a little post to say that I’m still alive and knitting, just busy with life and enjoying summer on top of it all! I’ve been working on getting a weekly knitting group at my church off the ground (more on that in another post) and my triumph of the month: I’ve talked my boyfriend into braving the crazy knitters and going to Stitch ‘n Pitch with me next month. At first the reassurance that there would still be baseball and beer wouldn’t sway him, but when I told him there would be baseball, beer and me, that’s when he caved. Sucker…

I’ve dug into my stash of Socks That Rock, and started a new pair:

Can I say again how much I love this yarn? It just feels… neat. The colors are fabulous, as always, and I love the little bit of pooling I got at the top when I decided to switch to a smaller needle earlier than the pattern called for. I can’t wait to see what the colors do at the heel and foot.

I also have a Finished Object; well, a piece that was mostly finished quite a while ago, but I was just lazy about weaving in the ends.

Pattern: Garden Scarf by Michelle Ameron (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Aurora 8 from Karabella; Orchid, Plum & Beige

I finally got them all taken care of last week, and gave it a light blocking on Saturday to flatten the flowers a bit. My boyfriend took one look at this thing and said “You’re crazy.” Why yes, yes I am!

Pattern: Retro Rib Socks by Evelyn A. Clark (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Kureyon Sock Yarn from Noro, 149

What a fun knit! I loved working with this yarn; aside from the occasional knot in the ball, I didn’t have any breakage or any of the other problems I’ve heard people having with it. And even after just blocking, the fabric softened up quite a bit. I love the randomness of the texture and colors.

…is much better than the first.

Happy Knit in Public Day! I was going to head over to Greenlake today to knit with a group of Seattle knitters, but I realized early on this morning that I wasn’t up for meeting a bunch of strangers. I don’t know, maybe subconsciously I knew I would be around a ton of people tonight at the graduation party I’m going to, and the bit of myself that’s introverted wanted to spend the morning alone. Ah, me.

So I went to the coffee shop to knit instead.

Afterwards, I went to the Weaving Works to drool over some yarn, and I picked up a little somethin’ somethin’ for myself. I’ve been good about not spending any money on yarn since I moved, and I decided to reward myself. One of the employees there was expertly drop spinning away, and I got to have a nice chat with her about it. I bought a drop spindle and some roving a while back to give it a shot, and my first attempt was absolutely horrid. (I won’t even post a picture here, it was that bad.) But after watching this lady spin away, I was inspired and decided to give it another shot.

We’ll see how it goes!

I had put these socks away for a while after I finished the first sock. There were so many other patterns and sock yarns that I was just itching to try out (there still are) and my knitting ADD was well on its way to peaking. Now that I’ve cast on the second sock in this pair, I’m wondering why I put them down in the first place! I love this sock yarn, it’s just so unique. It definitely feels better on my wooden dpns, so I’ve put the circulars away for now. I’m trying to limit myself to one pair of socks in process at a time; we’ll see how long that lasts.

Pattern: Waterfall Socks by Anne Hanson (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Superwash Merino Wool Sock Yarn from Fearless Fibers, Lust colorway

I loved working on these socks. The lace pattern stuck with me after a few repeats, so it was really easy to take this with me and knit in church or on my lunch breaks without having to consult the pattern. And I can’t say enough about the yarn; it is so lovely to knit with, and I just adore the colors!

Look at all those unfinished projects! —>

I’m determined to get a few of these off the needles before I start anything new. My knitting ADD has gotten way out of control! I just finished the last of my Waterfall socks (minus stitching up the toe, which I hope to get done tonight after work) and although I would love to cast on a pair of mitts with what’s leftover of the Fearless Fibers sock yarn, I need to hold off. I want to finish my Kureyon socks, and I bet Kristin would love to have her scrubbies sometime soon. All I need to do with the Flower Power scarf is weave in a bunch of ends (which I despise with a passion, and there are a lot of ends to weave in with that sucker) and I need to figure out what to do with the hat that’s too small. Rip it out and start over again? Finish and gift it to someone with a smaller head? Hmm.

Decisions, decisions.

Once some of these are finished, it’ll be stash busting time. Moving always makes you realize how much crap you have, and while I won’t classify my stash as crap, I certainly have a lot of yarn! There’s enough sock yarn in there to keep me busy for a good while, and lots of other lovelies that I’m not sure what I’m going to do with yet.

Seriously. It’s one thing to knit with distractions, like TV and the such, but to knit with distractions when I’m already thinking about a billion other things… No bueno. The other night, I was knitting away on the first of my Waterfall socks while watching my boyfriend work on some stuff in his studio. I still have a lot on my mind involving the move (I’m 100% moved into my new place, just settling in) and the usual work and family stuff… And somehow, I managed to totally skip the part in Anne’s pattern that says to knit stockinette for half an inch before decreasing for the toe. Um, hello, Carol!!

Seriously.

*huffs*

On a completely unrelated note, I <3 Bob.

Moving is such a drag! Luckily, I’ve had a great mindless project to keep me from going completely insane.

The stitch pattern was really easy to memorize, and the yarn is just heavenly. Most of the work I’ve done on it this week was in church yesterday; luckily, I have a fabulous pastor who doesn’t mind me knitting through his sermons.