New Beginnings ...

I am currently searching for a home to purchase. There are several reasons why we want to get out of where we live, but what I would most like is a yard to plant things in and a porch to sit on and knit with a nice view of a yard (not 4 other mobile homes and a bunch of noise and the stinky asphalt plant across the street).

Have you ever noticed on tv the amount of knits? I was watching New Amsterdam and Everybody Loves Raymond the other day and noticed the lovely crocheted and knit throws on the couches, ever notice things like that as a knitter?

If you are a Battlestar Galactica fan go to the site and check out the What the Frack video, its a re-cap of the last three seasons done super fast and its pretty funny!!

Well that's all I've got for today :o)

FO: Seduction Socks

I finished them today! Even when I forgot the pattern at home and took these to work. Luckily the pattern isn't complicated so I was able to work up to the toe then I stopped until I got home to make sure I did the toe the same so that they match.

Pattern: Seduction Socks by Ann Budd
Yarn: Berocco Comfort Sock
Needles: 32" US 2 Knit Picks Circular - Magic Loop
Cast On: 3/7/08; Cast Off: 4/27/08

I think I can ... I think I can

I got a bit done on the second sock in the last 2-3 days, I am hoping to finish it over the weekend. This'll count towards my April sock for SAM 5 and March Sock for Sock Knitters Anonymous on Ravelry.



I also got several more rows done on the diagonal baby blanket, but I'll wait until much more is coplete before posting another progress picture :o)

Tama Tagged me for Scategories:

WHAT IS YOUR NAME: Angela

4 LETTER WORD: Arts

VEHICLE: Accord

TV SHOW: Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

CITY: Acton

BOY NAME: Anthony

GIRL NAME: April

OCCUPATION: Air Traffic Controler

SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Accessories (yeah that's cheating huh?)

FOOD: Apple

SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Air Freshner ... this gets easier as I go along, LOL

REASON FOR BEING LATE: Ambulance

SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: Oh this is too easy! Asshole!

Off to work I go

This was my off weekend for my part-time job, but I have to cover this holiday so I have to work one night. The money is good, but sometimes this third shift kills me. I have my stuff ready to go, I usually bring a project or two and a few magazines to look at while I am at work.



Here's some progress on the baby blanket, my intentions with this were to use up stash and not have to buy more yarn ... well it looks like I will run out of at least 2 colors, maybe 4 ... so I think I will end up with MORE yarn in my stash once this one is done! I am going to wait until I actually run out to buy more though, sometimes its deceiving how much is left. I am going to post the pattern once complete, its very simple and great for using up stash yarn.

Sweet Saturday

I started one of the baby blankets that I plan on making for June. This one is also going to get rid of some stash! I have four colors of Cotton Ease that I used for make the Color Block Baby Sweater earlier this year and then I had another two colors hanging around in my stash. I am doing 10 rows of the colors that have been used before and 20 rows of the skeins that are new, and hoping that I don't run out of any, LOL! The colors are not showing up well in this photo. The redish color is terracotta and goes well with the other colors but is showing up funky here.

This is something else I picked up again recently. Its a simple drawstring bag that I started back in July of last year, the yarn is meditation and its infused with lavendar. Its a very cool yarn to work with. I have a copy of the pattern in the baggie with the project and I laughed when I picked it up again because I wrote on the paper what a yarn over is ... so obviously this was one of the first projects I started using yarn overs, LOL!



This is another project I would like to finish up soon. This is a tank top that I started last yearn in the Spring ... intending to be able to wear it last summer ... yeah right.


I'm starting to find its really quite a pain when stuff is left like this, luckily most of these projects I ended on sections that said, knit until piece measures x inches from beginning. I usually try and write down what row I am on, but not for stuff like this for obvious reasons - I can just measure to figure out where I am, picking stuff up after so long is hard to start again for certain patterns.

We had lovely weather today, but my allergies were really bad. I love the Spring, but my nose and eyes disagree!

Thursday Thoughts ...

No pictures today, nothing to post pics of. I cleaned out the dining room today in preparation for moving / people looking at this place. I use the table to do rubber stamping and had all of my supplies there. No problem for me, its all organized and in plastic containers, but I am sure other people won't think that's so cool. So now its all in a closet in the bedroom.

Two people are having babies in June at work. I am hoping to knit a diagonal blanket for one (have left over yarn from another project I think will work well for this) and crochet another for the other person with yarn I have in my stash. Let's see if I can get both done by June and get my sock knitting and other stuff done, LOL!

While getting all of this cleaning done I think I need to buy another plastic tub or two for yarn and other miscellaneous craft items (felt, google eyes, ribbon, etc.). I also have to go through my enormous book stash and get rid of some of those. Any Janet Evanovich fans out there?? I've got a couple of her books I've read that I would part with.

Wahoo Wednesday!

Bags, bags everywhere! I have all of my WIPs in plastic zip-lock bags to 1) keep them clean; 2) keep them contained; and 3) keep a copy of the pattern with the materials. Also the bags are portable if I want to bring a project with me somwhere. These bags are all in a shallow box in the bedroom ... baby kitty keeps jumping in them in the middle of the night or 4AM and scaring the wits out of me. So I decided that I must do something with them .... ultimately FINISH the projects, but until that time I wanted somewhere else to put them.

Hopefully we are moving in the near future to a house with a nice yard and far away from the psycho next door with her outside phone calls and now THREE barking dogs used to be one that was bag enough ... and I LIKE dogs. Anyway ...

I was cleaning out one of the bedroom closets in preparation for hopefully moving one day in the near future and I of course don't want to move a bunch of junk that's been collecting over the years. Well this cleaned out a nice little spot for my WIPs in bags!

Soon I hope to go through the yarn in my stash and put patterns with the yarns that I bought for a specific purpose before I forget, LOL!

P.S. I went to my LYS today and didn't buy anything!!! It felt so good. I am trying to save money to move into a house so this is really important to me :o)

Seduction Sock Repair

As usual, after sleeping for a good 8 hours, I decided that I couldn't live with the messed up toe, LOL! Its amazing what you can live with when you've been up all night. I did this with another project I was working on during the over-night shift and after sleeping decided to go back and fix it. Live and learn!

I ripped it out:


Then I did it correctly. I moved the markers around so that they were in the middle of the stitches and added two decrease rounds to come back to the number of stitches in the original pattern.



I am MUCH happier with this! Here's a close up of the pattern stitch:

Saucy Seduction Socks ...

I finished the first sock for this pattern this morning while at work. I made a boo-boo though that I will have to repeat on the second one so that they match, but I learned something for the future.

This pattern called for 56 stitches, my foot size is usually 64 and I think after trying this on that 56 really would have been too few. So I added stitches to the instep, but kept the heel flap the same so that the instep stitches had the correct multiple for the pattern.

My mistake was that I didn't move the markers for the toe and do the decreases in the center of each half of the stitches, so the bottom decreased quicker and the closure was more towards the bottom of the foot. To help correct this I ripped out the kitchener since it looked really weird and instead just pulled the yarn through the stitches and pulled tight to close. That worked much better for both look and comfort.




I really like this pattern and if I do it again will make sure to do the toe correctly. Hey, that's what knitting is all about, learning!!

This yarn is Comfort Sock by Berocco and "comfort" really is a good description! The yarn is nylon and acrylic, but its super soft and squishy. Really is comfortable on the foot.

Mid-April Already?

Its mid-April already! And I am not saying that because of tax season ... it interests me more because I don't have April socks almost done! My taxes were done at least a month ago, if not more and I received and spent my refunds already, LOL! My boyfriend on the other hand perpetually does his taxes on April 14th ... despite each year saying he'll be doing them early this year ... uh huh!

There's not too much going on in the knitting department here. I am still working on my Firestarters and Seduction Socks, and other numerous WIPs and UFOs crowd around me everywhere I look.

We applied for a mortgage through the Credit Union I belong to and were pre-qualified, we just have to submit paystubs and other proof that what we said it true. So hopefully we'll be moving this year!!

Because of that I have been trying not to spend any money that I don't have to ... like if I have 30-something skeins of sock yarn, there's really no reason why I need to buy more. However, I just had to purchase these kitty stitch markers from Anita's Etsy Shop. They are so cute and well crafted!

I worked last night at my part-time job so I missed the second episode of Battlestar Galactica. Since Comcast puts it On-Demand I didn't bother trying to dig through the 20 VHS tapes piled on top of my VCR to find one to tape it on (probably to find out the sound is crap anyway). So I am hoping its available On-Demand asap!

I was glad to see that the Rivendell Sock pattern was available for purhase as a pdf. This pattern will be in a book that is going to be published, but is not yet available. Being the super sci-fi nerd that I am ... how can I not knit this pattern?!?! So I purchase it, you can too at this site.

Its another rainy, grey April day here in New England, but since I worked third shift I am off to bed anyway, LOL!

Fun with Fire

I am really loving this Superwash Me Sock by J. Knits! The colors are so rich (hope it washes well). I cast on this sock last night and got this far for a lazy Sunday of sitting around and knitting.

I am not sure if I will be able to do all of the repeats or if that will make the sock too long. I am only worried about this since I did a different toe, but it looks to me like the cables start at the ball of the foot like everyone elses' anyway (I've got really long toes).

Burn baby, burn!

Where did the sun go?!?!

We saw the sun yesterday for a couple of hours, of course, this was after we got home and were inside again, LOL!! Now it seems like it will be another grey day. I went and got three pots of pansies, my favorite flower, before they were all gone. If you don't get out there and get them they dissapear quickly and since they are cold weather, Spring flowers, local places don't carry them again in the year. I am going to put them in a planter so that when it gets hot out I can move them to the shade and hopefully they will last longer.

I started The Firestarter socks yesterday ... though it was around 11PM so more like today, LOL! I had this yarn in my stash specifically for this pattern. I didn't really like the toe in the pattern, so instead I used Judy's Magic Cast On and the Standard Toe from New Pathways for Sock Knitters. Now I am going to check the length and the pattern info to make sure that this will work with the pattern. The yarn is J. Knits in colorway "Kansas".



I received my recent order from Knit Picks! I ordered More Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. I also ordered another 32" US 2 needle and a 40" US 3 needle, as well as US 2 Metal DPNs. Then I got a Go Knit Pouch to carry my sock knitting around and DPN WIP tubes to hold DPNs (I always poke holes in my plastic bags when I carry those around). And lastly some Knit Picks Essentials in Pumpkin to make some mittens for a friend and some Felici in Coney Island that I think I will use for some Jaywalkers.



The Wee Tiny Sock Swap was last weekend. I finished my sock and mailed it out to Tawana. I was curious to see how self striping yarn would turn out in such a tiny sock!



This is the sock I received in the mail from Laura. She made this sock out of a lovely merino/silk blend that she hand dyed herself and sent a mini skein as well. This yarn is super soft and the color is just lovely. Check out the link above for her Etsy shop!


I updated my sock yarn stash in Ravelry yesterday, whew, but it'll be nice to be able to see it while I am looking at patterns. I often forget what I have in my stash and miss matching yarns up with patterns because of that.