Finished Round 2

I sent in my official Finished email at 2:22 pm Pacific Time.

I think these are really cool.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with ghost ship socks.

More Round 2

Hello:

One of the things I love about living in the northern part  of the USA is that in the summer, we will have such long days, and now that we have crossed the Spring Equinox, we are headed into those long days.  And while I don't love the long winter nights, I love being able to watch the sunrise over our lake and mountains at about 8 am.  That is no longer happening.  The sun is now rising at about 6:30 and it will get earlier and earlier.  I made myself get up this morning so I could grab some photos of the sunrise.

This is just a quick post about my progress on the socks I am knitting for Round 2 of Sock Madness. I am further than this photo will show, but I hate bad photos, and I have learned that I really need daylight to get anything decent.

I took this photo at about 10:30 am.

I took one more photo at about 7:00 pm.  This shows one sock with the leg finished ready for the heel:

I hope you can see the sailboat and the waves.  The name of this pattern is Flying Dutchman. I have finished the legs on both socks, and knit the heel flap on one.  I was hoping to finish both heels tonight, but it is now after midnight, and I really need to go to bed. 

I am keeping up with the beginner group, the Mighty Minnows, but I think only because I am doing nothing but knitting.

Hope to get both socks finished through the gussets before bed tomorrow.

We shall see.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the world with a ghost ship on a sock.

Round 2 Begins

What the ????

We actually got some snow today, but as it was about 35 F while it was falling, it didn't stick.

It just make the higher elevations slushy and slippery so that we had to cancel our Eastside Stitchers Fiber Friday.

I had so much stitching to do today.  I got up at about 6:30am and got right to work on my Transfiguration OWL Afghan.  I have one more square to finish (well 1/2 of one now) and a border to hook, and it is all done.  Well, I have to sew in the last 4 squares.

Sock Madness Teams were named yesterday, so I was expecting the Round 2 pattern to be released today, and indeed it was.  I got my email with the pattern at about 9:00 am, but I made myself finish the afghan square round I was hooking.

The pattern is by Caoua Coffee, and is really interesting.  It has intarsia in the round.  I have never done intarsia.  I am learning as I go.  It isn't tough, but I am not sure if my tension is the most even.  I hope it all evens up in the wash.

I am using 2 yarns from my stash, a pretty purple (plum) from Cascade Heritage Socks, and a nice delicate pink from Spud and Chloe.

We cast on with the dark color and ribbed for a bit, so I started mine 2-at-a-time.  The cast on wasn't specified, so I used the Slip Knot Cast On from the book, Cast On Bind Off: 54 Step by Step Methods by Leslie Ann Bestor.  I have used this before, and it is stretchier than the long tail cast on, but it is a bit fiddly.  The hardest part of this cast on for me is keeping the slip knots close together so the top of the sock looks neat.  This was a bit of a problem today, but I think they look fine.  It took me quite a while to get both socks cast on, though.  I am definitely feeling a bit of time pressure.

I knit through the cuffs,

then had to separate the sock to 2 different circular needles (I am using my 2 new Chiao Goo Red Lace size 0) to work on the intarsia.  My son, Pookie, came home after school, and realizing that It Had Begun, he brought me the apple snack, and did the dishes for me so the kitchen was clean.

I kept up my strength with healthy snacks.

When the Doc got home, he also realized that the Round had begun, so he made a frozen pizza for dinner.  What good sports I have.

 I have finished the intarsia pattern on the first sock, and just begun it on the 2nd.  I had to stop checking the progress thread as it is just too intimidating to see how fast the other knitters are.  I took this progress photo at about 4 pm as I wanted  to have decent light.

Yes, it is supposed to look like that.  The intarsia is very subtle.  Wait until you see the finished design.  It is really cool.

It is now after midnight so I am going to get some sleep and get back to work when I wake up.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with somewhat stiff shoulders.

Madrona 3

Hello,

The tulips and daffodils are getting taller.

The gospel in mass today was the one where Jesus is out in the desert for 40 days (precursor to Lent) and the devil tempts him.  I bring this up because I am continuing my coverage of the Market at the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat, and well, temptation temptation temptation.  Luckily, I did not give up yarn for my Lenten Sacrifice.

Angora Valley Fibers and Fly Designs shared a booth.  They are out of Tenino, WA, and specialize in both hand dyed yarns, and New Zealand naturals.  Their yarns were very vibrant.

In addition to the beautiful wool blends, they had some beautiful "other" fibers, including Tencel.

But, I thought their wool blends were the best.  Just look at the colors in this rack of fingering weight yarn by Fly Designs:

Great Yarns, from Everett, WA had a booth.  While I was checking out the lys booths, I wasn't really looking to buy.  Not because I don't love what they have, but, well, I can easily drive up and DO plan on stopping by during the North Puget Sound LYS Tour this Spring.  They did have more of their Pure Elegance yarn which is 100% mink.  And they swore to me that no mink are harmed in the making of the yarn.  The yarn is from COMBED mink, so you can knit a mink stole, completely guilt free. 

Island Fibers, from Lopez Island, WA offered both local yarns and fibers.

Another local fiber booth was Rainbow Farms Pygora.

I remember from the Whidbey Island Fiber Festival, that Pygora are pygmy angora goats.  This booth had raw fiber, beautiful bats, and yarn for sale.

They were sharing a booth with Spindle Wood Co. 

They had some of the most beautiful spindles I have ever seen.

It was fun to see the beautiful spindles with the local fibers.

On to my knitting.

Right now, I am working semi-monogamously on socks.  Semi because I am working on two pairs:  The Improvised Crossings, which are my "bring places" project, since I have the fun chart memorized,

and the Smaug Socks which have a complicated pattern, and can only be knit on at home.

I have finished the heels and am 2-more-rows-to-go on the gussets.  I was finding the gusset instructions very complicated.  They are written for one sock at a time on 4 double pointed needles.  I am knitting 2 at a time on Magic Loop.  I had a stitch marker in the middle of the backs so I could think needle one (back, left side of marker), needle two (front), and needle three (back right side of marker).  But, it was very confusing jumping from right sock to left sock and up and down from directions to charts.  I had to simplify it for myself.  So I put 18 plain stitches on the "back" or "sole" needle for each sock, then all of the other stitches in front, and rewrote the pattern so I could read it this way.  MUCH faster knitting for me.  I am finally beginning to make sense of how it all works.

I have about 10 more days to finish these 2 pairs to be able to submit them to SolidSocks and Sock Knitters Anonymous (SKA).  Well Smaug will go to both, and Improvised Crossings just to SKA.  That is about 1 inch per day on Smaug, and 1/2 inch per day on Improvised Crossings.  I can do it.

Peace.
f1bercat
shaping the planet with gussets.

Knitters and Spinners at Madrona 2013

Sock Progress

2013.02.14

 

Hello:

It's Lent.  I am going to try to post every day.  Can I do it?  They might be little quick posts, but I will try to make them meaningful.

One of the problems with this is that I often wait too late to take photos of my work, and since the sun is still setting pretty early here, that means no photos or badly lit photos.  I need to set up a light box or something to take care of that problem.

I did take photos of the 2 pairs of socks that I am working on, though, in bad light.  This makes the colors look really sad.  Which is wrong because both of the yarns that I am using are really amazing looking.  And, for entirely different reasons.

The first pair are the Smaug socks by Claire Ellen.

I have turned the heels on both of the socks.  In this photo, taken at about 4:30, I had turned one heel, but just finished the heel flap on the other.

You can see the wonderfully fun dragon scale pattern.
Here is a much better photo of the color of these socks:

I am just loving them.

The second pair are the Improvised Crossings by our own Hrvdmnky.  I flipped her pattern and am making them toe up.  I rarely knit socks in anything but solid colors these days (it is all about submitting for as many possible prizes as I can, and if I use solid yarn, I can submit to SolidSocks and Sock Knitters Anonymous SKA as well as Harry Potter Knit Crochet House Cup HPKCHC).  This partly for the prizes (ok, it started out ALL for the prizes) but then, I realized that you can see the pattern way better with solid yarns.  I have a few skeins of multicolored sock yarns from before I joined SolidSocks.  One skein, especially, is just particularly lovely.  I WON this yarn in an SKA drawing last year from Lisa Souza Dyeworks.  I decided that since I was going to try to make 2 pairs of socks this month (am I crazy?  it's the shortest month of the year), I thought I would use this yarn.  The pattern is simple enough that the yarn does not overwhelm it.  I think the yarn and pattern are working well together.

I have been bringing these with me to knit on when I need something that does not take a lot of brain power.  That means that I am knitting them in the offices of our local high school and middle school while I wait for the kids I am tutoring to show (or not) up.  No less than three people asked me if they were cookies.

What is wrong with people?

Here are the tops. 

You can see that I have finished the heels, picked up the gussets, and am beginning to knit up the legs.  I will probably bring these to Madrona tomorrow as they don't require a chart and a lot of counting.

If you are at Madrona, please look for me.  You will know me by the socks!  I would love to have someone who reads this blog say hi.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with 4 heels.

Apologies

Hello!

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days.  I'm also co-writing the blog for the Gryffindor House in the HPKCHC Group on Ravelry, and have been working on a few posts there.  Also, as the new "term" starts on January 1, I have been trying to get things organized.  I've also been cleaning/organizing my stash and needles/hooks. 

I was working on a pair of blue beaded socks of my own design for SolidSocks (blue) and SKA (beaded) December challenge, but they are about 1 1/2 in too small in the foot, so I am going to rip them back and add those inches.  I will lose the SolidSocks turn in, but as long as I do a CO (cast on) post in SKA before midnight, December 31, I have the month of January to finish them.  I like they way they look, so I might just go ahead and finish making them.

I hit JoAnn's today and got enough yarn for 2 afghans.  I have decided to do an afghan in 3 months for a HPKCHC Transfiguration OWL.  More on that later, but, to turn in the OWL proposal, you have to show that you have all of the materials BEFORE you begin.  The second afghan will be done over the year with the 2013BAMCAL Group.  I had so much fun this year with that group, and I so love the 2 afghans I made (I am currently sewing them together), that I really want to participate again this year.

I also want to show you the yarn I won in HPKCHC.  I was randomly drawn from people who participated in Quidditch this term and won some beautiful sparkly lace yarn!

Ok, way time for bed.

Peace.
Yours,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with 1 half sewn afghan, 1 in blocks, and a pair of super small socks.

Why Do I Do This?

Chihuly Garden and Glass

Why do I tell myself, One More Row?  Then I am dead tired and can barely write?

Well this will have to be quick because I'm falling asleep at the keyboard.

Today, I finished the heels of my Socks For McGonagall, the Coupling Socks by Deb Barnhell.

I did an Eye of Partridge heel instead of the ribbed one in the pattern.  Or should I say "modified" EoP Heel as I got off on one sock and you can see where I ribbed for 2 rows.  I am not fixing it. 

Since these are toe up, I can try them on and so far they fit beautifully.

I finished one of my Spa Washcloths, using the idea from Liz Marino's Gift Knits Club.  I didn't get a photo of it though since I finished it after dinner, and it was too dark to take a decent photo.  I'm not necessarily using her textured patterns, but am riffing a bit on them.  I plan to make 10 more of these, well 9 more now, for Christmas gifts for Sisters and Sisters in Law.  Also, for the HPKCHC, I proposed those 10 new ones for my BROOM project.  AND, I just remembered.  I am in a group that is doing a group project for the Marauders Mission Thread in Gryffindor.  We have taken on a "Relaxicrafting Mission."  I kid you not.  We will win a shiney badge by crafting something that is relaxing every month.  It needs to be something that is for a class, and these washcloths are super relaxing.  They are not boring because they have some pattern to them, but they are easy and small and I can take them just about anywhere.

Life
was good today.  Not much happening here.  My daughter, Moogie, has taken off with my car on a driving adventure with a college buddy to visit some National Parks in Utah and Arizona.  I hope to post photos from her trip, perhaps with a bit of a guest blog.

My son, Himes, the dancer at U of A, called and sounded great on the phone.

And I bought a new Roomba, from iRobot.

 I splurged for the model that is programmable.  Right now, I have it vacuuming the living room/dining room every morning at 8.  I love it.  It is totally taming the cat hair.  The cats hate it.

Got to get some sleep.  Just want to say that I walked 1 mile today.

Stay safe and well.
Yours,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with a clean rug.

Chihuly Garden and Glass