Sunday, April 27, 2008

This is for all you Dim Sum eating people!


I crawled out of bed this morning with a mission. Do a little work, then sneak away for a Dim Sum in the Chinese/Vietnamese part of town. :D Doesn't Mr Dim-Sum Head Guy make you want to go back for more food?
Then Sockfanatic helped make faces at me.

And wished me happy sweater Karma. I am just hoping it will be better than my Yarn-sale-start-Date Karma. I may not have mentioned, I rode an extra 4 buses to a Store to find out the sale was the next day. :( But I still lived and the yarn I had been searching for over the last year to match a gauge for my potential dream hoody was on sale. What was I to do?
Oh, I have now turned the heel of the Madness sock 4 pattern and I am awaiting the early am release TOday... hmmm. what will it be like?

Friday, April 25, 2008

Hurry before it snows!

Well, I better blog again before it snows again. All right, it is not SUPPOSED to snow this weekend, like the predicted snow storm while waiting at the bus stop last Sunday morning. The winter is kind of LOoooOOOnnnnG. But I am trying to decide if last weekend was a start to winter 2008. Because it is still kind of cold, and the weekend before was nearly summer at 80 degrees. The weathermen don't know whether tomorrow will be 50 degrees and rainy or 70 and partly cloudy. I have to say playing soccer in the cold rain is not as much fun in April, than December.

With the cold weather I have still been indoor knitting. First achievement was surviving Sock Madness round 3. This year I am not calling in sick to work so I can play, in fact I happened to pick up a couple of shift during round 3 and was still alive for round 4! This pattern was the coolest yet because it used lace weight and the results are pretty interesting. Notice how the colors change.

While knitting these I kept thinking Puff the Magic Dragon or Barney because these colors are VERY bright and happy! The yarn is Tess yarns in Frog Kiss and Raspberry. I will remember to not trust the colors on the internet. I think I really did want coffee bean instead of raspberry. BUt these socks are very soft!
While I was preparing for round 4. I gathered up a few sock remains for a SWAP. :) SO here is what I sent along to the sock yarn swap fairies. Did you notice Lambchop the lamb who went along with the package to make sure it all arrived safe and sound. I hope he sends me some fun colors back! It seems my blankie could use a few brighter colors, instead of my usual browns and greens. Here is a not too recent picture of the blanket project which now actually has 43 squares done. I am hoping for 448 squares in total. SO I am close to 10% into the project. every square is 4 inches across with 41 stitches on size 3 needles. ONLY 405 squares to go! Did I mention each square is taking just under an hour?

This is round 4 which came in AFTER I left for work on Monday. I was finally able to get to the pattern on Monday night as most of the competition had a sock done. Having low motivation in regards to the first couple of patterns anyway, I took my time deciding on the yarn. It seemed to be a good choice because the cherry tree hill Loden yarn is really easy to knit with and looks really good.

What you see is commuting knitting. I bought the bus pass and have finally started commuting, three buses in 40 minutes. It is way better than sitting in traffic and drinking gas like your favorite choice of Seattle style coffee. The last time I bought gas was last month. :) Even better, I now am finding driving a "luxury item" and it is fun! Yep, driving once a week to my soccer carpool is great. :)
Oh, so round 4 is well over with and I am fortunately on the sidelines. The next pattern comes out on Sunday if anyone cares. I may take a crack at it after this sock is completed. Let's hope the snow is OVER!

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Doubled and halved

Cool news is that my camera was doubled and halved. I was using the Olympus 410 which I took EVERYWHERE with me. But it has been getting tired of taking so many sock pictures and snow pictures that it has gotten sick and possible caught pneumonia this winter. It was doubled to the Olympus 830, which regardless of the number difference is actually smaller in size. Let's see my quick picture test.



Which is the new camera???


























new camera on the right.... wanna try one more?




New one is....






















on the left.

These are the Sock Madness socks, upper sock is the Zombie from round one. the lower one appears to be quite small, BUT really is quite stretchy. The stretchy just MIGHT be from the 72 stitches on size one needles. Both pair have caused me to continue into the third round, although I was hoping Sea Turtle would help put me out of my misery. But here I go into round 3 hoping for an easy pattern that will fit my foot properly and be released on the date that they say it will be... let's just wait and see.

oh, the temperature did get above 50 degrees and the snow seemed to quit falling around town on Monday evening. Is it spring, yet?