Socks and More Socks

The Confetti Socks Redux are finished, washed and blocked. Two strands of sock yarn, one white, one hand dyed. Nice warm thick socks, great for Crocks or Burkes. No particular pattern, just a vanilla sock with some YOs in the legs.These are a pair of socks I've been waiting for quite awhile to CO. The Yarn is Crystal Palace's Mini Mochi, colorway 101. It's a single ply sock yarn (merino and nylon). The dyeing process is what makes it so pretty. The pattern is Dreams in Fiber's If You Know Where to Go. For those that are Harry Potter aficionados, you'll know that refers to where the entrance to the Wizarding World's best shopping spot, Diagon Alley is. As the pattern author says: Diagon Alley can be described as a twisted cobbled street located somewhere in the middle of London. It is also the place to go if a Witch or a Wizard needs to get a little shopping done. The only problem is, no one is able to get there unless “yeh know where to go”, as Hagrid so elegantly states in J.K. Rowling’s book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Inspired by the brick wall entrance found in the back of the Leaky Cauldron, and the endless maze of cobblestone alleys and brick buildings, this textured pattern develops as one knits and is also rather hidden (especially in this particular colorway) to those who do not know that it is there.

Although this stitch pattern is more futzy and contains way to many purls than I generally commit myself to, it's very pretty. I think I can survive it!

I want to share an internet delight I've recently found: Pandora Radio. I've so enjoyed setting up my commercial free radio stations and listening to whatever kind of music strikes my fancy, including some that are impossible to find on CD, such as Hooked on Classics and Hooked on Swing. My friend, Joansie, much prefers Slacker Radio. Check them both out and start enjoying some good music while you're surfing!

My daughter gave me her Pocket PC. It's neat! I can write down, say a stitch pattern, and take it with me in my knitting. Once I pick up some memory, I can download the pattern as a Word document and take it with. It also has internet capability, but have no idea what I need to do to get it working. It's a discontinued 2002 model and I have no documentation, so it'll be a job finding out what I can and can't do with it.

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Check out Helen! You go, Girlfriend!

The USPS...is it really 2 days?

Exercise, Furniture and Swine Flu

Keep updated on the Swine Flu.

5/2/09: Your Weekly Address from White House on Vimeo.

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The changes have started settling down. First and foremost, the Wii is fixed! My BFF said he'd try his hand at it. What did we have to loose? It would still cost us $85 to send it in for repair no matter what. Well, genius that he is, with the help of a special screwdriver, he took it apart, removed the offending piece of paper, reassembled, and Voilà! I can exercise again!

All the old furniture we were getting rid of is pretty much gone and the new to us stuff is here. Much of it just stacked around the living room, but.... I got a pillowtop bed. Yummy! and a two seat bench, a glass door stereo cabinet that is full of yarn, and a full spectrum floor lamp! I am really surprised how much clearer my knitting is now!Other furniture includes two big dressers with a mirror for my daughter, somewhat usable big TV for youngest son, a queen size hideabed, lounger, end tables, china cabinet, heavy wood TV tray set, and two nice wood veneer file cabinets (also full of fiber projects). A couple of pieces of faux Corningware, and this gorgeous afghan. It's Tunisian Crochet (done with those long crochet hooks with a hook on each end) and all the flowers are hand cross stitched on it. Very pretty!I have doctor appointments this week so we'll see how successful my first 90 days of my new life style has been. I've lost +/-30 lbs, my blood sugar numbers are well within the normal range, and my blood pressure is way down (last time I took it about three weeks ago it was 114/70). I've gone from dragging myself up the stairs to just about running up them, have gone down two clothing sizes (including all my skirts and dresses are too long as there is less tummy and butt for them to go over), found muscles I didn't know I had and feel a whole lot better. Now just to get "official" confirmation from the lab.

OTN? Finishing up the Confetti socks. I'm working on the gusset on sock #2. Still have two different sets of handwarms OTN, but found some yarn that will work for the second one of one set. Now just need to get working on them.

Life is better.

Confetti Sock Redux

I ended up frogging the entire pair of socks and starting over. Much simpler pattern...ala plain vanilla sock. Fifty-six st cast on, two strands of sock yarn, yadda yadda, yadda. Second sock is CO, cuff half done and moving forward on this.

As of yesterday, I've lost 30.5 lbs. My Wii is at my BFF's house this morning. We know what is wrong with it, he just doesn't know if he can fix it. If he can it'll save us $85 dollars and two weeks. If he can't...oh well. It's been very hard for me to deal with this. As I'm want to do, I put all my eggs in the Wii Fit basket. And I've been very successful in using it for the exercise part of my healthier life style changes. I'm learning to use other methods of exercise (doing what I can do from memory from the Wii workout routine, using the exercise routines on Cox Communications On Demand channel, dug out my old belly dance DVD, etc.) Of course these new methods are a bit too much for me. I'm not at a point where I can do high impact stuff, and the exercise routines on TV are really high impact. But I do what I can. It's just change and I don't deal with it, especially when it's mixed with the fear it won't work, okay, irrational fear it won't work and I'll start gaining weight again.

The gaining weight part isn't so much an irrational fear. I've never been able to loose weight in my life (not for lack of trying, though). As it turns out, the combination of hypothyroidism and borderline diabetes all my life (one wonders how one can be in the USAF for eight years and this never coming to the surface) sent the false messages to my body to turn everything to fat and hold on to it. I'd loose weight and then gain more back. If I completely ignored it all, I'd not gain so much so fast. Tthese are all normal for thyroid and diabetes issues.

Anyway, it's working now. Medication, diet changes, and exercise. Thirty pounds in 90 days. Thus my fear of having this monkey wrench thown into something that is working.

Bedsocks

My DIL's sister is having a baby this June. She asked for warm bed socks to wear at the hospital. Said, "The wilder the better!" They are finished. Two strands of acrylic for the legs and a strand of wool and acrylic for the feets. Should be plenty warm and hold up to a lot of wear. Certainly were a stash buster!

Had a very enjoyable weekend. Went out to Old Tucson on Saturday night with my BFF and his hubby. I hadn't been there in many many years so it was nice to see, despite a huge fire many years ago, not much has changed. We rode the train through the desert just a sundown which was very picturesque. The highlight of my evening was being able to get on and off the carousel horse with ease. Having tried that almost a year ago at Disneyland and struggling with it all, I feel confident I can not make a fool of myself if son and DIL in TN decide we're going horseback riding while we are there visiting!

Yesterday was aforementioned hubby's chorus concert. It was a hysterical risque poke at everyone entitled Make 'Em Laugh. I'm pretty much a prude and I never laughed so hard in my life!I had an old project sitting around...a pair of socks that just didn't fit. Foot too short and too big around. So I frogged the one finished sock back to the leg last night, and worked on the second sock to finish the leg. Now I'll figure out how many sts to decrease and finish them. They've been patiently waiting since last March...that is March 2008!

Knitting Fun

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Mariella (another Mittnz knitter) read my post yesterday whining about the lack of pretty heavier weight yarns. She sent me this link to Grumperina's about combining several different yarns to create the look of creatively dyed yarns. I'd used the technique before, just forgotten about it. So I reacquainted my self with it and CO another muffatee. Although Grumperina's instructions take a bit to understand.... It's really easy.Just CO with color A and knit a few rounds. Then somewhere in the round, start with a new color, B. Really doesn't matter which color or where. Knit some stitches and then start another new color, C. Continue knitting around and adding new colors as you'd like, till you get to the spot where you dropped Color A. Now drop the color you're knitting with and pick up A and continue to knit to the next place you added a color. Drop A and pick up B and knit to C, drop B, pick up C and continue around and around and around.

Now, my next experiment is to take four different variegated yarns and do it. I think that will make a gorgeous color experiment some little kid (and several grandmothers I know) will absolutely adore!

We had a lot of flu at our house yesterday. So I retreated up to my room once Youngest Daughter started feeling better. Youngest Granddaughter was really sick (and would let no one but mama take care of her). Thankfully it's just a 24 hour bug. So I got some work done on my Confetti Socks. The pattern requires a bit of concentration, so the relative quietness of my room allowed me to get into the rhythm.

I like to read books that come in series. I like to get to know the characters, see them develop, share in their problems and triumphs. One of my favorites is the Anne McCaffrey Pern series. I've tried to read other series she'd written, but no go.... until I listened to the first of the Freedom Series: Freedom's Landing. I was hooked. Now I'm reading Freedom's Choice. Too bad there are only four books in the series.....

Back in the Routine

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Spent the day getting reacquainted with routines. Got some housework done, back yard cleaned up, laundry and all that good stuff.

Here are the works socks I made for 3rd Son while visiting. Plymouth Encore Color 9625. Simple Vanilla Socks. They fit him perfectly and he said they kept his feet toasty warm at work. Mission accomplished! Now I need to get four or five more pair done over the summer so next winter he's got clean socks for each day.
I spent a great amount of time frogging my Second Sock of the Confetti Roundabout variety. I just kept miscounting which is normal for me. Then I remembered that when I made the first one I had to kind of sequester myself in order to get the leg done. So I put those down and started working on a pair of socks for Youngest Daughter. I got some gorgeous yarn that matches the Tinkerbell colors she's so fond of. It's a gorgeous Merino Superwash and I'm really enjoying the feeling of it.

We looked for something "new" to keep grandson occupied during our 4 hour journey to Gatlinburg. I suggested the toddler crayons from Crayola. 3rd son kept a pretty good eye on him except for a few minutes:His dad, being King of Quips, said, "OMG, he ate a Smurf!"

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Thanks to Ann at Sheep Shots for making the world aware of this pic:


GlittyKnittyKitty has a great pic of some random acts of knitting in Ohio.

Heel Flap

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Pattern: Two Yarn Resoleable Socks from Favorite Socks. Okay, so I finished the instep, picked up the appropriate number of sts around and am working on the heel flap. Don't thing there is anyway I'll be able to finish this sock before I leave, so it'll get packed and perhaps I'll find time to work on it while I'm gone.

Now that the Heet the Feet challenge is done (and between all the members of Native American Support we sent out over 700 pairs of feet warmers) the next challenge is Mittenz! We can start knitting them now, and send them on in October. I think I'll gather up some left overs and put together a mitten kit to take on the plane with me. They are easy enough, don't really need a pattern and well...off we go. I've already purchased two pairs of Magic Gloves to pair up with knitted fingerless gloves, too. Making some stripped mittens would help me practice some different jogless jogs techniques.

Today is pedicure day. Off to get pretty toes on the off chance I won't need to wear socks while visiting my son and his family. Pretty damp and cold there, though!

We live in an apartment complex...or a row of town homes is more accurate I guess. We've never had neighbors directly to the east of us, and haven't had neighbors directly to the west for about 10 months. That all changed over the weekend. The easterly neighbors are nice and calm. But the westerlies have been booming their music. Now, it actually isn't that loud, but the bass is cranked up and the reverberating boom boom boom comes right through the concrete brick walls. Sunday night I couldn't get to sleep despite sleeping pills. I finally had to turn my fan on and crank up my TV to cover the sound of the boom boom boom. Yesterday, I couldn't hear my book in my headphones and we couldn't hear the TV comfortably. So I have some recordings of drum and bagpipe music. Acting very childishly, I cranked 'em way up right next to their walls. For five minutes.

I think it worked. No noise last night.... I hope it worked. Yes, I think they have the right to play their music, and yes, I think I have the right to not be driven crazy by cranked up bass. Yes, I understand it's going to come through the walls to some degree.... But, maybe we've come to an agreement on it now.

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My Second Son called me with bad news last night. A young friend in her early 20s died sometime Saturday night. Went to bed on Saturday and when her mom went to wake her up....she was gone. Mom is a nurse and couldn't resuscitate. The young lady was not a drug user so there is no apparent cause of death. Makes one sad. This is the second young person that my kids grew up with that has died. One just never expects the young to go so soon. If you are the praying sort, send some kind thoughts to the family and friends of Holly Vickers.

Confetti Socks

I cast on the Two Yarn Resoleable Socks from Favorite Socks. I'm using the pattern from Roundabout Socks for the legs. Although this looks like a normal sock in this pic, with the heel flap started, that is actually the instep I'm knitting now. Once it's the proper length, then I'll start with the heel flap and sole. I may use a different yarn, just so it's apparent they were knit differently! So far, it's not hard, just different.

The yarns I'm using is a strand of KnitPicks I hand dyed with Kool-Aide and a strand of white yarn I bought on a cone from Knitivity-Lamb's Pride Nature Spun Sport. And I just realized it's not super wash. Oh well, I guess all the better I am knitting a "weird" sock with it so I remember not to throw it in the washer!

We went to the Renaissance Fair yesterday! What a nice time we had. It's the twentieth anniversary of our fair, and after calculating a bit realized we'd been going since it started! It was tiny back in the beginning...one could walk around it in a couple hours. Now it takes all day and more if you want to go to all the shows! The only fiber people are a reenactment group (where I got that gonga of a deal on llama and alpaca last year) doing some spinning demos and selling some hand made stuff. Like most knitters selling their stuff, they were way underpriced: A man's pair of hand spun, hand knitted mittens for $20. So this little guy is the closest thing to yarn I could find to take a pic of. :)