Speedy Gonzales on a Caffeine High

My Speedy Socks are done and done early enough to wear to work last week! It looks like I didn't mention all my fretting over the foot length of experimental socks. I had convinced myself the foot length was too long for my foot size and most everyone that I would knit for. Somehow Mom's genetics took over for both of my sisters and me. The 4 women I grew up with all wear the same size shoe if not the same clothing size. (I would like to point out I am the tallest of us!) The only other person left knit for that is family (without being related by blood) is my college roommate Rachel. So I instigated a series of text messages where I poured out all my troubles with the foot length and if they were too long would she take them. Evil being that Rachel is, of course she'll take them and in fact she wished me the greatest of evils that the foot would be too long!

Guess What Rachel! You Lose! They fit me perfectly! See? Pardon the really early morning photo shoot but that was the time I had energy and opportunity.  DS2 wanted to show off his superhero shoes too! Please notice the shoes are roughly 1-2 months old and he is already destroying them!

Since the socks were cast on and completed in EXACTLY a week, I even had time to take other knitting to work. The problem with knitting at work over the lunch hour is, IF you forget you set the bag under the desk, in the back far corner, you might not have much opportunity to work on it at home. Whoops! 

Good thing I almost always have a back up project. I pulled out my much neglected dishcloth. This poor dishcloth. Beyond the neglect by it's knitter, the knitter's children have abused the needles to excess. Since the knitter is not well known for putting her toys away, Darling Dearest Children helped themselves to the needles. After spending an extraordinary amount of time putting the stitches back on her grandmother's unaffected needle, the knitter spent a great portion of time working the special needle. We'll just call it a success and hopefully over time and with a lot of love, the needle will correct the rest of the way.

As always knitters have grand ideas and a ton of time because we know how to multi-task. DH and I have started kettle dying yarn on a grander scale than what I've done in the past. So we've opened an Etsy shop named Dixie Fiber Works. Currently we have solids and semi-solids in the shop with plans to add some of the stitch markers DH has been making for me. There's a few modifications I would like for DH to make before we add them to the shop. He has definite ideas regarding the stitch markers like only wanting to use real gemstones like Tiger's Eye and (various types) jasper. Must be the inner geologist in him.  

As you can tell, I've been giving a test run for the stitch markers currently made by DH in my Dr. Watson Sweater! See the Tiger's Eye in the upper right hand corner? 

Speedy Socks!

Last post, I was head over heels in love with the Dr. Watson Sweater; not anymore. Work sent me to Memphis, TN for a Continuous Casting Course hosted by AIST. Because the set up was 2 days of 8 hour lectures, I decided to dye a little yarn to see if I could make some sock yarn self-striping. Some electric green yarn met the dye pot once more with some black dye.  Sunday afternoon is when this last minute panic started. After adding the acid to set the color, we drained the water and abused the poor hank by wrapping it up in a towel then jumping on it. It took 2 towels to get most of the water out of the yarn so I could lay it on top of my dryer while doing laundry. See how wonderful of a house keeper I am? Laundry was done for the yarn!

While in the hank, the yarn looked AWESOME but not quite like the other self-striping yarns I’ve seen.  I needed to leave for Memphis Monday afternoon so I left work early and performed last minute panic packing. That’s when I took out my sweater, balled the sock yarn, grabbed some laceweight, added the Dr. Watson sweater to my bag, and added the last used items to my bag. Then I hopped in the car for a 4 hour drive. By the time of arrival, it was straight into bed for an early start in the morning. At 6:30 I cast on 64 stitches on my size 0 Knitter’s Pride DPN’s and started my ribbing.

Love vanilla socks during lectures! I needed to pay more attention to the lectures than my knitting so after 2” of ribbing I moved to straight knitting. Around the lunch break I noticed I might be getting close to needing a decision on the heel.  A little scrap yarn and delaying the decision until another day.  In 2 days, I managed to knit 1 sock, minus a heel, and start a second! Go me! I feel like such a speedy knitter.

On the way out of town, I visited a new yarn store! Yarniverse actually carries size 0 40” circular needles. I never find those in stores! Magic Loop is my favorite method for knitting socks but I need sharp points. That means Addi Turbos are not for me but the ladies at Yarniverse have the AddiSock Rocket needles. So far I’m loving the Sock Rockets but will admit I miss my known Knitpicks needles. In case you don’t recall, the kitty was under attack from my size 0 Knitpicks a few months ago. 

Dr.Watson All The Time!!!!

The last hat is finished! Again this hat has no pattern and just loosely based on the Sixty Cables hat I had been making for the Podcaster Throwdown. Used in the making of this hat was Jojoland's Melody superwash yarn in the MS16 colorway (teal green). It was so much fun to use and the subtle color changes were perfect! Someday I'll have models for my hats but my darling children don't like to cooperate most of the time.

I promise it is done, just not in this picture.

However instead of casting on the next hat for Halos of Hope, the Dr. Watson Sweater was cast on instead. Last week had a swatch in progress but that was as far as planned. Somehow in my ability to not count to 48, I was able to successfully count to over 200 stitches. That was only counting through ONCE. OK, maybe twice. Since the cables and the chevrons require thought processing different from ribbing and stockinette, it's a knitting place I'm ready to be in! Happy Happy me! Oh, wow, just measured the body and it's 8" in length. There's 15" until the next step in the pattern. 

Great place for a swatch!

Since I was a good Knitter, I swatched. Good thing I did, too. The swatch showed I needed to cut out several stitches in order to make it fit my build without a ton of excess fabric. The center of the sweater has 3 cables on each side of a chevron. In order to create my size, 2 cables per half were removed. This is being knit in the Knitpicks Wool of the Andes Gypsy Colorway.

ARGH what a week! I think I'm done for lately. Fates are conspiring against me! The night I typically write a post had issues and that's putting it mildly. Thursday night are when DH has college classes. Last Thursday DH had a final to take where he needed a laptop. So he borrowed mine. Shouldn't be a problem right? Wrong. My old reliable decided to act up for him and refuse to load the user profile. As always I get the call right as I'm within a mile of home. Campus is several miles out on one of the busiest roads around. So after leaving the Things in the car, grabbing the charger for my work laptop, and fighting traffic. DH was able to take his final roughly 15 minutes late. The ride home was rough because the Things wanted their Daddy and it was dinner time. So we grabbed some chicken nuggets for just the boys. Then it was bed time. I spent the last few waking hours of that night restoring my laptop.

On the docket for Christmas money may be a new laptop just so DH and I each have one. Mine for use will be the work laptop and his will be the new one.  Naturally it may take more than just Christmas money for a new laptop but that's always a good reason to save money.

42 = 48 in my world

There's a book, fresh off the press, that needs a lot of people to purchase it. My Brother in Arms: The Exceptional Life of Mark Andrew Forester, United States Air Force Combat Controller is written by a co-worker, Thad Forester. I'm one of the few people I know that can cry at the drop of a hat while reading a book or watching a movie (Lion King anyone?). Reading the description of the book almost made me cry so I'm personally worried about how I'll make it through. This is a book that I'll read slowly and over several days. I know Thad said he doesn't intend the book to be tearful but I'm such a wuss. So far I have the sample downloaded to my Kindle App and have only made it through the preface and foreward. So moved by a few pages.

When I hear stories like that I always feel a little inadequate. I have a comfortable life if a little tight financially sometimes and I've slowing starting to knit for charity and I needed a challenge to motivate. The goal of 26 hats by Stitches West was a little beyond me and my knitting abilities/time. The 5th hat knit on at the zoo last week is finished and a pair of toddler socks were cast on. The goal was to make the socks for DS1 but he informed that he wants orange socks. Instead DS2 now has a pair of hand knit socks in a colorway named Still Waters.

For DS2's socks, I decided that he needed 48 stitches around. Easy enough you might say. The yarn was measured and cast on. No problem. As always count twice before dividing the stitches in half for magic loop. 42 stitches both times; Perfect! Count out 24 and create the loop of cable. OCD kicks in so I count each half; 24 here and 18 over there. What?!? Grumble grumble. Pull it out and re-cast on. 42 stitches. Counted to 42 THREE TIMES. Awesome- Good to Go. Count the 24 stitches and pull the loop. Then I joined and start the k2p2 ribbing. The round ends with two knit stitches. What the heck?!!!? (insert stronger words of choice). Count the stitches. 24 over here and 18 over there. Impossible! I counted THREE TIMES; three times. Calculator: 24 + 18 = 42 no matter how many times you enter the formula or calculate it in you head. The answer will always be 42! As I think back, I realize I never did count all the way to 48 stitches. I stopped every single time at 42. DS2 better wear these socks.

So far he hates them! Maybe I'll give him no choice before too much longer. They stayed on approximately the length of time for me to get this picture.

While I have another hat started because I'm a dedicated knitter (snicker) I also pulled out some Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Gypsy for a gauge swatch. A Dr. Watson's Cabled Crew Neck Sweater by Trudi Brown will be mine! Once I measure the dried swatch, make any adjustments I need, and actually knit the sucker. Think setting it on the dryer will be an acceptable cheat to make it dry faster?

Schedule Toss Up

Things I discover over time are sometimes the most interesting. For example, now that DH has located a job that requires several evening shifts during the week and weekends, The odd days he's home on a weekend, it throws EVERYTHING off. The laundry wasn't done in favor of a trip to the park. Dishes weren't washed in favor of a trip to the zoo. Putting the Things down for nap time in a separate rooms mean they go down much quicker. Normally, I prefer the letting them play in their room during nap time until an hour or two has passed before I separate them. On weekends that DH works, my goal is longer mental health time.  This weekend had a packed agenda for DH's weekend day off. We spent HOURS at the Birmingham Zoo.

Starting the Halloween Decorations at the Zoo. Scary!

My charity hat knitting gained a few rounds while watching the Things play in the splash pad. Yes the weather's getting a little cooler and we brought a change of clothes for the boys. First off, we went straight to where they get wet. Talk about funny times! Somehow I thought that when the boys got cold they would tell Mommy and Daddy. Wrong wrong reindeer. Eventually we convinced the boys to come out of the water so we could go see animals. They played long enough the latest hat gained a few rounds while I spent more attention to laughing at them.

Cascade Colorway Sixty Cables

Silly boys! Not only did we have a fantastic weekend, I finished a hat before the hat I took to the zoo! I modified Sixty Cables by Gabi Krisztian. Instead of 120 stitches, I cast on only 110. Then there were a few added decrease rounds thrown in for good measure because I had the yarn! Where the pattern tells you to cut the yarn and draw through the loops, I did a K2tog round and a knit row before drawing through the loops. So far, it fits my head and is done in some fantastic guy colors! I used Patons Kroy Sock FX in the Cascade colorway. The new hat taken to the zoo is roughly half done and is knit in the Patons Stretch Socks in the Taffy colorway. Hat #5 for the Podcaster Throwdown is a made up pattern based on Sixty Cables. I cast on 108 stitches, k1p1 for ~3" before increasing for a k2p1 rib. Crown decreases are yet to be determined.

Taffy Colorway