Lily's Socks

Hello!

I'm posting quickly before running out to attend the monthly meeting of the Eastside Knitters Guild. This is not my regular S n B group that meets on Wednesdays.  This is an actual Knitting Guild and it is a member of the Knitting Guild Association.  I have posted about this group before, but not for a while because I have not been able to attend a meeting since the beginning of the summer.  Since they only meet once a month, on the 4th Monday, if I am not at home that day... well, I have been gone quite a bit.

They not only participate in some great knitting charities, like making scarves for the Special Olympics, but they have speakers at the meetings.  Tonight's speaker is from the Skacel Company. This company is based in the area, is the distributor of Addi Knitting Needles,  and will be opening a retail store soon.  I will report back here.

On the needles

This is just a quick photo of my purple Bubbly Socks.  Once again, the pattern is by VeryBusyMonkey, and I am getting a 3fer out of these.  The color for October for SolidSocks Group is Purple, VeryBusyMonkey is one of the featured designers for Sock Knitters Anonymous (SKA),  and these are the 2nd of 3 pairs of socks I am making for my History of Magic OWL in Harry Potter Knitting/Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC) Group.  They are for Lily Potter, who excelled in Potions Class.  The bubbles and the purple color both reminded me of Harry's mom.

I started these before I left to go down to California to help out at my brother's house, but didn't make much progress.  I love the pattern, I love the yarn.  For some reason, I keep twisting the cables the wrong way.  Finally, I just gave in.  If they are twisted wrong, well they will just stay that way.  I think that I will make my next pair of cabled socks 1-at-a-time, though.  It is just too hard to fix cable errors by dropping down, and too time consuming to tink 2 pairs when only one has the error.

I brought these socks to Arizona last weekend, and worked almost monogamously on them.  I was able to knit both heels, finish the gussets, and begin working down the feet.  I was getting a bit worried that I wouldn't finish them by October 31, the deadline for SolidSocks, because they are tough to work on if it is at all dark.  Now I know I will be finished by this weekend at the latest.

I still have a special hat that I am knitting for my son, Pookie, for Halloween, and my daughter, Moogie, asked if I would sew her a costume.  I need to get cracking on those.

Maybe tomorrow.

Stay safe and well.
Yours,

f1bercat
Shaping the planet with purple socks.

Taco Tuesday (as reported on Thursday)

Hello!

No Eastside Stitchers today as I am still down in Southern California helping out at my brother's house.  I miss my stitch buds!  Hello, everyone.  Can't wait to see what you are all stitching.

 Life

On Tuesday night, my sister, S, invited me out for her regular "Taco Tuesday" group.  Normally this group of friends meets at various taco restaurants around North Orange County for ... Tacos!  It is a very informal group, and they just have fun.

This week was different because they didn't actually go out to eat tacos, but headed down to Balboa Bay.


View Larger Map

This narrow bay is lined with gorgeous houses and shops,

 and has all of these islands that just extend the number of possible houses.  Many celebrities live there.

There are tons of sail boats and yachts docked all over.

It was just lovely.

We rented a small boat, the Knot So Fast,

and spent 2 hours just moseying around, enjoying the sunset

and eating a delicious picnic dinner.

HPKCHC

I have been working hard on my class assignments for the Harry Potter Knitting/Crochet House Cup. Or, I could say that I have been working on stuff that I already had planned to make, and am searching for class assignments that these things might fit.

What I do every month is make a list of the class prompts, then note possible projects that will fit.  For instance, for Herbology, the prompt deals with wands again.  This time, we are learning what types of magical animals provide the core materials that the wandwood we studied last month wraps around.  There are 2 prompts:  Make some crazy hybrid project, or do some cozy "from-the-core" crafting.  The second one is easy for me.  If I make an afghan square, that is definitely a "go-to" craft for me.  So any of the squares I need to make for my 2 afghans I am making for the 2012BAMCAL will work for this class.

So far I have finished both of the main 12 in. squares.  This month the square is Winterslace by Teresa Kohlhoff, and published in HeartmadeBlessings.

The next project I've started, and then had to restart after I just could not get the first filler square, In Treble by Julie Yeager, JulieAnny on Ravelry, to go from round to square.  Then I realized that I had hooked a 5 point star instead of a 6 point in the VERY FIRST ROUND.  Why is counting so difficult.  So no photos yet of this one, but just you wait. It is absolutely gorgeous.  I might turn it in to History of Magic class.  One of the options includes crafting an item to represent the ability to recognize the Fae or Fairy Folk (Seelie) of Scotland in all their exquisite glamour.  I'm hoping that I can sell a beautiful square as recognition of beauty.


I have cast on the second socks for my OWL, the Bubbly Socks by VeryBusyMonkey for Lily Potter.  I'm calling them "Lily's Potion Socks."  These are being knit in the Aussi Sock by Oasis Yarn in Amethyst.  I've finished the cuffs and am starting the pattern.  This is my first pair of symmetrical patterned socks.  I hope that I can keep the charts straight!

The other project is of course my Mobius Cowl, the pattern is Easy Mobius Cowl by Haley Waxberg,  for Pookie.  This is being knit by holding 2 balls of the gorgeous Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend together.

It is very fast and easy, so I am not working too much on it as I want to finish up the afghan squares and get a good start on the socks.

I will find a class for this project, also.  One idea that I have is for Muggle Studies.  In this class, we are studying muggle pets, particularly DOGS.  Ha!  So, one option is to craft something for a dog.  I think I can sell a mobius cowl as a dog collar for a large dog, a very fashionable large dog.  We shall see.

Stay safe and well.
Yours,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with lots of work to do.