sockergirl

We want to win!!!

2011-10-11T17:27:00.001-07:00

Sheldon and I really want to get ourselves some tickets to Japan. We decided to stay home last summer because of all the termoil and clean up from the big March event. All of our friends are fine, but we did not want to burden them and consume the resources in Japan, such as electricity. The truth is, Sheldon is a big pansy and can not survive Japan with out AC. Here in the northwest we have a pool to chill-in. I mean, he is a turtle after all.
So Sheldons new plan is to get free plane tickets. Did you see this? Free tickets
Yeah, we want to blog to all our socker fans about the trip we will win. Just think of all the knitting spots still to be discovered.... I would even like to volunteer to take some knit socks to the Tsunami affected areas.
When can we jet our hands on these tickets? Will it be in time for Sapporo snow festival? Or Cherry blossoms in Okinawa or Tokyo? Maybe Sheldon and I will get geothermal sand baths in Kyuushu, or mail you a post card from the top of Mt Fuji.
Hurry up Japan, let me know when I can get those tickets. I really need a good Japanese meal and 足袋（tabi） for my tabi（旅）。

Really don't alarm yourself.

2011-09-25T19:01:00.001-07:00

Snow day!

2011-02-27T21:52:00.000-08:00

Sheldon had been wishing for a snow day all winter here, in the NW. We finally got one Thursday. For those who slept in, they missed all the snow as it melted off by about 1pm.

While Sheldon and Ari were out in the few hours of snow, I was able to finish off the Skacel's KAL gloves. With the fingers securely knit on, I eventually made my own shady snowman, who sadly fell over as he melted in the joy of sunlight.

With the the record low temperatures the past couple days he is still hanging in there on the lawn. Poor guy!

Here is something a little cheerier. I bagged up more than a baker's dozen of Cookies (i.e. socks) and hauled them over to the LYS for a bit of a taste test before Cookie comes into town. (If you look closely, there is a representative from every Sock Innovation pattern and a few other socks from Sock.Knit.Love.) I hope the shop display stuffs her classes to the brim. But who wouldn't want to monkey around with Cookie? Gosh, what if my socks scare people away from the classes.... (I hope Cookie likes my socks, I hope Cookie likes my socks, I hope...)
I'll show and tell my 2011 socks next time. As I have 5 pairs done this year, with a bunch of singles which will soon become pairs. (Well, that is the plan.... for now....)

Do I dare mention Cookie club? Or Sock Madness? Or ugly yarn knit along? or... just the word hand knit SOCKS!!!!
Stayed tuned my friends, and keep those needles in your hands with new socks on your feet.

Sheldon's Summer Adventure

2010-12-31T22:00:00.001-08:00

I am guessing my best of socker fans may have given up on me. BUT Sheldon and I are indeed still HERE. We will try to do better for all of you in every corner of the earth. This past summer Sheldon grew a hard shell and decided to swim across the ocean.

Along the way he met up with some pirates, but we showed them a few yarn tricks to help with their nets. This allowed us to pass by the pirates and keep swimming.

When we got to shore we sipped a delicious green drink to quench our thirst, as it was super hot on this Pacific island.
The further on shore we went, we found many obstacles, such as this crazy monster!
He did inform us where we would find a few knitting friends:

We took in a few sites along the mountain sides.

Is it refreshment time?
Sorry, a little Tokyo congestion before we meet other knitting buddies.

These are real silk worm cocoons. We were able to see how silk was made and there is now a higher level of respect in regards to those silk socks.

As we were "chilling out" and enjoying our healthy greens, along came this guy.

He was very kind to us, Sheldon wanted to voice a concern to the island's chief before we could consider returning home.
Sheldon's complaint was the construction rails. Do you see the issue?

Why the monkeys? Shouldn't the rails be held up with friendly green turtles?

The leader clearly was not happy with the suggestion and got a few of his friends. We bought a round of ice coffee and Coffee jelly,
Soon they understood how turtles should be displayed a little more prominently around their island. They even shook on the agreement, we will see more turtles next visit.
They waved us off and wished us a safe journey back through the warm waters.

As you can see summer was quite busy and fulfilling on the island. After returning home knitting slowed down a bit and we started to dye,

Beautiful kool-aid sage greens made with Blueberry & Orange combination. (I would have never guessed, Orange and blue to make sage.) AND it smells so yummy!
Let's review last year a bit, my apologies for the lack of a jingle Sheldon was too tired to pick the proper track.

Stayed tuned for more socker action and Sheldon adventure!

Quick update

2010-12-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

Bummer game

2010-07-04T19:53:00.001-07:00

I've be hidden in my cave watching all the World cup Socker games. My team finally got bumped off last week. I've been cheering for the underdog, Black stars.

Yes, that's not very patriotic of me. Since they knocked-off USA in extra time. This week they played Uruguay and it was a great game neck and neck through the extra time periods. Then I had to watch the kick offs... where my team was out scored. Bummer for Africa.

Ghana losing was not the worst part of my day. When I turned away from the TV, there was a giant ant eating my cookies!!!!

OH MY!!!! LOOK at this guy!!! He took a few bite out of the cookie a Mock Socks,

and Milo Cookies.
I think he actually walked off with my specially dyed Rick socks. Don't worry I will shake them out of him soon. Otherwise he will look like this the next time:
So keep watching my gracious fans to what happens to Ali. Don't worry Sheldon is not being replaced, he's will come out of his shell soon.

Socks everywhere!

2010-05-17T14:44:00.001-07:00

As you can see Sheldon has been hibernating during our chilly spring. (of course, the warmest spot would be in a pile of freshly knit socks.)

After our last hike of the year, we went to San Diego to get a taste of some warm water swimming.

I was afraid Sheldon would want to stay and make friends in the ocean. Thank goodness Sheldon got cold feet (huh huh huh)and insisted on returning to the Northwest.

Here I knit up a pair of Knotty gloves from the past summer's cool-aid dyed sock yarn. These babies are very cozy.

My mohair sweater finally was stitched together after sitting in the closet for a year. :)

So I had no choice but to start another sweater......yeah, a mohair hoody! But it still needs some sleeves. Now let's talk about socks!!!

Sock Madness is over for me this year. I was knocked out of round 4 due to some beautiful knee-highs... with a 120 stitch cast on! :( I would rater have stitched with 90 stitches from the start. Round 3 socks were the GAMs made with Opal rain forest yarn, snake. It had a weird heel but another interesting way to knit a sock. Round 2 was the Cool Bean socks. Yes, they look very cool, just a bit time consuming with all the stranding. Round 1 was terrible with sideways socks (happy feet yarn). About 160 stitches Kitchenered, couple hundred picked up at toes, heel and ribbing. Not to mention the lack of stretch in the sock length. No plans to make any side-winder like socks in my future.

How about some cookies? Every month I get A., Cookie. From the left is Vilai, Angee, Wanida, Sam, Bex, Cauchy and a mystery on the needles. Cookie A's book is a pretty good read, I recommend it. Next up is to spend time with Rick.

Oh, I have to thank Gherkin hand spun yarns for her gift to our Cookie A knit-a-long. As you can see she drew my name for some beautiful yarn. Perhaps there will be some matching climbing hat in Sheldon and I's future?

Here are a few more sock odds and ends. The random free pattern out on the web.

Let's hope Sheldon stays out of hibernation and does not get attached by any more snakes. I apologize to our fans for Sheldon's homebody mood these past months. I will work harder to keep him out and about .... so stay tuned.

Broken Adventures Linked Together

2009-09-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

Without fail, Sheldon and I have been taking in lots of adventure. I don't even know where to start! (yes, the knitting continues to squeeze into life.) A week ago a bunch of crazy knitters filled a room at a local pub on a Friday night. I think the regulars were a little surprised to see such a crowd.... I was. The unexpected thing was the yarn shop that organized it gave away fabulous door prizes.
As you can see this beautiful skein of yarn was a different shade of green than I would have selected, but they included a pattern in the gift bag. Yep, I was a happy Pub knitter. I can't wait to see how this gathering evolves over the next few months.
The next day, Sheldon and I rounded up a few more knitters, packed up our gear and needles to head out of town in the rainy weather. We heard great weather was coming in time for a Sunday afternoon knit-spot. Sheldon and I set up the tent in the rain, got some zzzz-s and awoke to a frozen tent. The temperature had apparently dropped to -2 degrees Celcius,(28F) in the night. Brrr.... crunch, crunch, we knocked the ice off and packed up the tent. Then we got moving into the early AM.

YEp! We spotted the 9100 ft destination. The top looked a little crumbly, but nothing hard-hatted knitters and a hard shelled turtle could not arrive at with mad climbing skills and yarn.
Sheldon was a little shaking getting up the summit blog. He was much happier sitting on top taking in the scene, although the wind kept up from knitting up a storm. (I guess we kind of did not want a storm at this point in the trip.)
After the wind blew us back down the mountain, we finally got our knitting break by this creek. As you can tell the sun was making the day much warmer than this frozen morning. Sheldon was even sunning himself on a rock near the creek. (He is there take a closer look.)
The below pair of socks is a result of our true to spirit "Knit-Out"

These are the no name socks for this months Sockamania knit along. A pretty quit rib style pattern made with Happy Feet. AND wouldn't you know it, hot off the needles and they were quickly on a naked footed friend's feet. You see my friend Dragonlady had a fire-y party, good food and roaring company. At the party I was able to off load 9 pairs of socks!

These dragons grab up my new Cookie A Devon socks soon after the kitchner. There was NO WAY I was going to lose a knitting hand to grab them back for me and Sheldon almost become dragon food. Kind of a bummer those socks are gone because there were made from the KnitPicks Alpaca/merino wool naked sock yarn. Dragonlady actually did the Kool-Aid dying with Berry/cherry combo and then an over dye of grape. So these dragons had better really enjoy the one of a kind socks!
I may have failed to mention before off-loading some of the sock stash I attended a knit out. The attendance WAS profitable as you can see here:
The goody bag included lion brand Wool-ease and size 8 straight needles, Addi turbo size 8 needles and some Stoller & Stahl BIG super wash yarn, and Jojoland Melody yarn to make the included pattern. Let's just say it was a great day.
Here I leave you with an unedited video of Sheldon's knitting group. It really was a beautiful day just a tad bit winding for knitting on the summit.

Did you notice the massive drop off? It is ok if you did not look, it is a little scary for some knitters.

Here is a shout out to my fans all around the world, including the Mediterranean.
I hope to be back before the end of the month with one more sock made the wrong way. It is made from Sock Summit stash. :)

Summits, Superheros and Sunshine

2009-09-07T01:26:00.001-07:00

Man! I don't even know where to start. August is gone and there is still so much of a story to tell. The month started with Sheldon dragging me to this location in Portland.
He wanted to help set a Guinness Book of Record. So we dusted off our straight needles and grabbed some non-sock yarn, YES, that was a challenge around here. We did not hurt ourselves with the straight needle sticks, and we DID help break the record of knitters knitting consecutively for 10 minutes. Cool, eh?
As you may have guessed we were at Sock Summit. Sheldon dove right into the yarn.

He was happy to not be a cow, Milk yarn. What will they think of next? Turtle shell yarn? Or is that Chitin in the Tofutsies yarn? (Just kidding Sheldon, Chitin is shrimp & Crab shell.) We looked at many beautiful yarn and kept the purchases to a minimal level.

Although we kind of broke the one skein budget.

And had to sell my mountaineering tent the following week. Hey... wait.. look on the bright side, without the tent I will stay home a little more and get more knitting done, right? Beside I only bought about a years supply of sock yarn.

It was cool that there were ball winders at the Summit. Sheldon wanted to take a spin on this one but instead settled on just rolling in their baskets of fiber.

We eventually jumped a train away from the piles of sock yarn and went to meet famous people like.....BOB!
How cool was it? Sheldon really liked meeting Bob and thought he was really awesome. The party Bob threw was really amazing, complete with gift bags. Next meet-up, Sheldon is mandating hand knit socks to hang with the big dogs. :( Work is never done for Sockergirl, unless Sheldon learns to knit.

To work off the sock yarn high, Sheldon and I took a bike ride with about 10,000 others.

Are we supposed to on the freeway? Did we take a wrong turn?

Really? Its gone? NO regrets, right? Fair trade? hmmm...
.....just quit thinking about it...
After that weekend the Sunshine cleared. Cookie A. Rocks! She signed my book and touched this pair. What a cool gal! Should I ever wash these socks?
You fans might have thought I was under the weather only knitting one pair of socks for August. You were RIGHT! It was not the swine flu but almost as deadly, Acyrlicitis. The disease causes a person to knit large non-wool item for future superheros.

This project started with 14 stitches and ended with 728 stitches. By row 100 I had about 500 stitches on the needles, and I kept thinking about how that would equal 9 rows on a sock. Then each color change should have been half a sock. A crochet hooks was even to used to add the webbing. Can you see how painful this red heart blanket was for me? I am telling you this superhero better take this item off to college in 18 years!
For now Sheldon enjoys the web, pretending to be a superturtle and I hope you fans all over the world do too! Let's hope September brings us three pairs of completed socks and some.

Slippery Surfaces

2009-08-30T23:51:00.000-07:00

Sheldon and I jumped in the car bright and early. Passports in hand, we were headed for a big international trip. A little currency in our pockets, we headed north for a few hours in hope for finding Maple flavored yarn. Before we got to the boarder we picked up the homemade cookies.... I mean cousin Nyata who brought the cookies in trade for a days adventure. We won't mention her getting her fingers stuck in the car door getting the lunch out. You could say she had a little bad luck today.
This was our big destination the Oval. Alright, so you might have caught on that Sheldon and I were out doing a little research for the winter Knitting Olympics. Yes, trying to assess the size of the event ahead of us. First we started outside the building with the beautiful architecture and artwork.

And high rafters. The wood used in this building is beautiful pine beetle infested lumber, one million board feet. The roof is 6.5 acres!
After sheldon got out of the cement, we wondered further around the building...

to the salmon pond.

Before we headed inside the Oval Cousin Nyata had to attract a bee to sting her foot and take a little attention away from Sheldon. He then made a friend.
And would not leave until he had free entry and $3 skate rentals.
This is a 400 meter rink to be used for the speed skating contest. In the middle there are 4 basketball courts, 4 badminton courts and 4 ping pong table. This place is ready for any competition, even a little knitting?
Oh, Sheldon wants you Olympians to know the time to beat in the 400 meter is 87 seconds.
Finally, after skating we wandered down to an old Japanese fishing Village, Stevenston. We were able to take in the farmers market, but not able to taste any of the international cuisine or local sock yarns as we did not have any currency.

Therefore the three of us drove back to our land of the free to fill our tummies. BUT why is it sooo difficult to enter this land??? I am always baffled by this timely event.
Thanks again to our fans out there for joining us on our field trip, please don't turn us into the knitting police for trying to assess the competition ahead in the up coming event.

NO Kidding!

2009-08-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

Apparently my number one fan thought I staged the previous blog posting. Seriously... The green yarn was at the bottom of my drive and the yarn is still there! So I decided to make a voodoo doll to protect me. She is made from the most fabulous yarn "No Kidding." (It was free for a contest.) The yarn designer must have created it as a joke! If you are dying to get your hands on No kidding, I can hook you up with a ton of it for free. My self designed doll has quickly made friends with Sheldon, well he is a little spooked by her beauty.

Then Voodoo Girl and I went off to Stitch N Pitch. She was part of my gift bag set. If I actually used No Kidding I would get a prize. (Have you noticed I am all about free or discounted?) Here is Voodoo Girl posing at the coffee shop before the gates opened up at 5pm.

When I entered the ticket gates, I asked where the Yarn vendors were. The ticket-taker looked at me and said, "Yes, there are vendors at the top of the stairs in case you forgot something." Hmmm, are knitters forgetful? It seems my groupies forgot a FEW items, projects AND cute knit kits. I was good and knit with what I had on me.

Since Voodoo girl and I bought no souvenirs, my friend D helped me get the perfect souvenir picture of Voodoo-girl enjoying the game. (Wait, were they even playing back there?) I just know there was a game in the background interfering with our knitting conversations, someone won and someone lost. BUT I did get my prize for the joke yarn I knit. Was it worth it??

I can always use another set of needles. Seems every time I need a specific needle, I don't seem to have the correct length or size... or smoothness. In recent I have been depending on my fans and supporters. Thanks again for feeding the addiction.
Sheldon and I are going to leave the country. I hope his lack of a passport does not cause us trouble with security.

This might be a sign.

2009-08-26T20:54:00.000-07:00

I walk to work and on my way this morning I found this along my shared drive way.

[The above image should show a wood log piece with green acrylic yarn set on top.)
What does this mean? Is it safe to return home? Should I have picked up the yarn to protect myself later in the day? I am so conflicted and confused by this siting!!!
WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?????

Wave Hot!!!!

2009-07-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

Sockergirl is sooooo glad the last game of the season was last week. IF we had a game this week the temperature would have been 41.5 degrees. (For you Americans, that would be 106 F.) For this NW girl... 41 is too hot! I want my meter of snow and this Character back so I can wear my wool socks.

Since Sheldon was trying to crawl out of his shell to stay cool, we jumped in the car and headed west. Having no AC, we kicked in the "460", 4 windows rolled down going 60 MPH. Driving in the sunny day was making the steering wheel & gear shift HOT, I wished I had my Mario Andre driving gloves to keep from burning my hands. But we were headed for cooler grounds. You know it, first stop was:

It was quite busy as we were not the only ones with this genius idea to move closer to the Pacific O. We ordered up our ice cream then wandered into the work zone.

Sheldon was quite excited to see his favorite cheese being made before his threaded child proof eyes. When we got to the cheese tasting section he dove right in, and had to have a picture laying in the cheese.
After the Cheese Factory Sheldon realized he was moments away from meeting other Sea friends. He soon was dashing down the trail to see the ocean for the first time.
Then he posed for you readers and fans:

And tried to make a friend:
Sheldon's new friend was a bit stingy... and we moved on. WE knew a day at the beach is not complete unless you build two things.

A drift wood fort AND....
a sand castle complete with a king turtle.
Sheldon was mesmerized by his sand shadow following him everywhere.

As the sun got lower in the sky and his shadow BIGGER, Sheldon wanted to go back to the cabin for the evening. This is the best sunset picture I captured before heading inside for the night.

Wednesday we woke up to heavy fog and temperatures in the teens, 16 C / 62F. This was wonderful weather for finding the local yarn shop, in an explodingly BUSY beach area.

Can you believe this was a Wednesday? Don't these people work? Or are they ALL hermit knitters like myself? Parking was another issue at the Exploding Beach, again thanks to my yarn shop who has me covered with private parking. :)
Then we retreated to our quiet town to knit and blog, without a sunset view.

I hope these pictures make you feel cooler if you are burning up in an unnaturally warm climate. Here is a shout out to my fans in Iceland.

Jackpot!

2009-07-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

I hit the gold spot! See? Here is my hard earned yarn from the Sockamania Knit along group. This just might be worth more than a bar of gold...... to me. :)
While I was awaiting my bar of gold, I whipped up another two pairs of socks.

This is Knitpicks yarn with Fixation scrap yarn in the heels and toes. There is a heart pattern camouflaged into the stripes.

This sock here is Darcie's disaster. It was headed for the trash can until Scokergirl swooped in to save the sock's life. You see, this associate of mine, let's call her D. She picked out the Tofutsie yarn and the colors fit in with her color scheme, so she started the sock. She knit away steadily getting past the heal turn and then... the yarn won. It is kind of splitty and started pooling. D was really going to toss it in the garbage at the coffee shop. SO I collected the abused yarn, took it home and gave it a little TLC. It now has a mate and is ready to make a debute.... well after the heat wave passes. (If you likes temps in the 100s come on over, Sheldon and I are headed to ocean.)
Here is a shout out to my fans in Antarctica, wishing I was knitting with you. What day does your knit group meet, again? To all my other Fans stay cool and keep knitting.

You Nice

2009-07-20T00:36:00.000-07:00

Many good things going on over here in the northwest. Well, maybe a little to hot, but it is never too hot to knit up some wool socks!

What you see here is the color of the yarn I won from Anni and the Sockamania sock group. Yippy! The yarn is in the air and some bird is flying it across the Atlantic Ocean. Thank goodness it is not yet hurricane season to displace my package of Aztec Gold yarn.

Like I said the colorway is Aztec Gold. I am hoping this guy is not in the package with my yarn. Thanks Sockamania!
While waiting for my yarn I managed to get through the second pattern in Cookie A.'s book, "Eunice." These socks are a bit intense, in comparison to the other pairs I have knit. Really fun especially with these results:

You nice socks, Eunice. :) Sorry I could not resist the cheesy play on words. These socks are knit with Malabrigo Turner colorway. Very NICE! I am still surprised I managed the 80 stitch rounds AND even added a repeat to get my favorite 6 inch leg length.

As you can see Sckergirl is a little behind on the marionberry picking so Sockermom can bake up one of those famous Sockermom berry pies. I better put down the soccer ball N socks and get back to the homestead to pick those berries.
Thanks again to all my fans. Next blog should describe Sheldon and my camp trip. I hope to appease those fans everywhere from the east coast, Europe to Asia.

All dyed out

2009-07-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

After dyeing 10 skeins of yarn and soon after winding 4600 yards of beautiful sock wearable fibers, I went off to my yarn cave to drink 45 gallons of delicious Kool-Aid. I think I am back to tell the tale.

It all started that morning with Sockergirl scurrying around town searching for more Kool-Aid colors. (Especially Lemon-lime, I was not sure the Kiwi Watermelon was green.) But no store had much variety. I settled with the 50 packets to bring to the party. My buddy, Angle K, purchased about 10 packets to assist the cause. Angle K prepared the dyeing facility while Mama Ann was out... of all things .... SHOPPING for yarn! Once Mama Ann returned to the scene we gathered up our teenage elves and went to work. 10 skeins, 10 elves, 60 packets of sweet smelling deliciousness, 1 soaping station, 7 clear glass boils for the dyes, 3 burners boiling water, and one drying line hung by Papa Bear. And we were off for 3 hours to Dye to our hearts content.
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Step 4:
End results:
A day later:
After weeks of sleep:
Yes still contemplating which sock pattern to go with the special yarns. Do you feel like the yarn is making a funny face at you? Maybe I should knit it up soon.

Who will Die?

2009-06-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

NO! NO! Who will dye? (Sorry for the confusion FBI guys.) See this box?

Sheldon got so excited when the mailman came, he jumped right in the box... little did he know there would be no new friends only TEN skeins of yarn. You can see Sheldon almost drown in the yarn. (Isn't that cute!) But this is not just any yarn, it is NUDE yarn.
This yarn is ready to be cool-aided up!

That is right. Mama Ann is having a dying party. She may be 82 years old but NO ONE will die. Are we clear? I hope my $8 kool-aid investment pays off tomorrow and will make a good variety of colors.
I forgot to mention in all of this chaos I finished another pair of socks.

Dimpled Diamonds pattern from Sock Madness 3. This used two colors of yarn, pretty fun pattern.

Here is a Shout out to my Fans in Finland and Sweden for read. Keep your threads moving on your needles!

SO load up your pockets with cool-aid and let's go make a mess of the kitchen! Yes, there should be some pictures coming soon!

GREEN! Green! Green!

2009-06-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am seeing green. But unfortunately it is not the type of green that will buy me more yarn. Instead is it the kind that will make you more friends. See?

Meet Sheldon! He has been in my stash for a while and last weekend I kept hear him call to me. "Help! Help!" Finally, I could not take it anymore and put my socks up for a few days. Three days later Sheldon was released from his cedar box. He really is pretty cool and as you can see he has taken to my reading preferences. He even allowed me to finish a few pairs of socks along the way.

Doesn't Sheldon has good taste? These are the Waterloose Socks.

These socks have an easy 5 row pattern, with one technical row (if you call it that). Yep, it is a free pattern on Ravelry. Give it a try!

These are Anni's Lazy Leaf Socks for this month. Made with Happy Feet yarn and a toe up design. Seems I have been making a few more pairs of wrong way socks these days.... what is the world coming to? X-Rated pictures on my blog?

SORRY!! I tried to warn you! Sheldon got a little carried away and came out of his shell. I may need to get him a crabby friend to keep him under control. (Check out knitty.com?)
Next on the list of "things-to-do" requires some blue yarns. One is the next pattern in Cookie A's book, Eunice.
If I get gauge this will show up in sock form next month. I am also contracted by free yarn to complete a hoody mohair sweater :) Again it will not be green.... but a nice NW summer sweater.

Sheldon and I have started preparing for an upcoming camping trip in two weeks. We are watching the weather and avalanche conditions carefully.
Thanks again Fans for sticking with me. Hope you are enjoying your summers and winters where ever you are in the world.

May Day! May Day!

2009-05-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

May Day! May Day! Procrastination has set in! Apologizes to my dedicated fans as I went amiss for almost two months. Of course, I am fine just knitting up a storm. Woh, wait! T here actually have been very few storms here in the Northwest and I've been out searching for knit spots again.
As you can tell there were mobs of knitters taking over the hill, so we called it a day and took the quick run down. :) hee hee...

No worries we put the knitting needles away before boarding down a few thousand feet! See....
Upon returning home we grabbed more wool, a couple more knitters and ran up another hill. This mountain had an Anniversary recently. :)

As you can tell, there was continued awesome weather for our knitting adventure.

We soon realized this spot might not be good for fumbly knitters. If you drop a needle or a place marker, worse yet your new Cookie A book? It just might be infuriated by the volcano. You want to see our live view?

7 hours of hiking and you could enjoy this view too.......
One of my knitters was a little anxious to start a new sweater, so we all put on our best heavy duty garbage bag and sped down the mountain. Weee!

There were a few other knitting adventures less spectacular, but the results were the all quite similar:

Sock Madness Round Two socks. Some tough stranding work to keep me in the competition. Knitpicks Daffodil and a solid light blue.

Then there was Round Three, with Happy Feet. I opted out on this round due to too many hours at the office. :( Just hate it when work gets in the way.

Third pair here is the Lacey Diamonds in an amazingly cool color, green OF COURSE, from Fancy Images. Nice, eh?

Fourth completed pair was knit with Regia Patch Antik color 5754, this pattern is from the new Cookie A. book, pattern number one, Glynis. We will see if I succeed knitting every patten of the book. Looks good so far!

Sorry to be so long winded, but there should be a little something to satisfy everyone of my fans out there. Hope to see you all soon.

I quit knitting!

2009-04-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

Alright, did you really think I gave up knitting socks? April Fool's Day. I was protesting the length of winter and refusing to post until I found さくら cherry blossoms. I was waiting and waiting ... until a week ago! I found one lone cherry tree over on Bainbridge. Yes, I had to risk the chilly ferry ride to seek out the blossoms. Look, here is proof spring is around the corner.

The green snake posing with Cherry Blossom-san are my green pretzel over-knee socks. (Thanks 'K'.) Yes, I spent 3 weeks slaving away on two at a time toe up socks. You see, there is this character I know, K-san, she haD this mass amount of GREEN yarn she decided she was not fond of and wanted to D-stash. K-san picked up on the fact that I tend to knit a lot of green yarn and knit it rather rapidly. Therefore K-san pushed the green yarn on me, divided in evenly wound skeins. What was sockergirl to do? Say no?
The so called "450 yards" of yarn was accepted with a smile and the challenge to maximize the use of the yarn. After 2+ weeks of serious knitting I had to call up K-san and ask her to drop the curse of the endless yarn. K-san quickly got her garlic necklace on and the yarn slowly evaporated. I have never seen 450 yards of yarn make a pair over super hero socks. (When the weather gets better I will get a close up of the pretzel pattern.)

Next up are the amazing Leyburn socks created top down 60 st in the leg and 61stitches in the foot. This was a really fun, quick knit. The best part was how Socks that Rock - Barney Ruble colorway did NOT pool with this pattern. I highly recommend this pattern!

Next up: The March sockamania socks are fresh off the needles. This was the Rollercoaster pattern. The pattern did well with some random stash yarn, which I believe is Lana Cervinia Forever Jacquard yarn.

Have you seen this sock? It is that time again, Sock Madness has begun its third year. While I was not a huge fan of this pattern, yarn colors really makes me want to put these on my feet! What you can not see? There is a Drunken crazy Quilt pattern knit & purled in the socks. This is also the first pair of socks that required an installation of an "afterthought" heel. WHY? ... yes... WHy the heel last? Did I mention the additional 32 kitchner stitches to sew closed? I am mad fast with Kitchner stitch, but the heel really zapped my mojo for more Madness. BUT.... the next pattern is out on Saturday... sometime. Aren't we all a little curious what it will be?
As always a huge shout out to my dwindling fans across the world. I promise to do better for you readers, especially since mountain climbing season is coming soon.... along with spring.

Grass is Greener

2009-02-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, the grass finally IS greener in my backyard. Frosty DID invite himself into my house for Christmas, apparently even frosty was tired of the NW snow fall.
My nephew helped me put frosty outside with the 5 inches of snow that fell during our Christmas dinner.
Ten days later Frosty looked like this:
And I had a new pair of socks while I watched the mass amounts of snow melt. (I still have a slow melting pile of snow in my drive.) The completed socks are made from Fancy Image Yarn with the ZigZag pattern from Cavy designs. I enjoyed both the yarn and pattern. I am bummed that TalkstoStrangers is receiving these socks soon.
I was also able to whip up the Sockamania Scroll pattern. This is made with the very soft Pagewood yarn colorway of Camoflouge. Sooooo.... can you see the pattern through the camo? Can you even see the socks in the picture??? Look closely.
This year I am trying to dive even deeper into the stash with none or uhm... ok ... more realistically, Minimal sock yarn purchases. The sock yarn grew out of control before my travels and it may have grown while I was away. The vast amounts of sock yarn in my treasure chest really seem to be challenging the titanium hinges and air tight seal. I would love to hear the crisp click when I close it up before my next journey. (I will feel better about my wool being safe from zombies.)
Next blog will be exciting, as the current two pairs of socks are very fun for me to knit. I am blowing through them hopefully by this coming weekend.
A big shout out to all my patient fans and groupies all around the world, I hope to be there for you in the Near future!

Unexpected Visitor

2008-12-24T17:30:00.000-08:00

Looks like this year we have a couple of unexpected visitors for the holidays. Take a look!
AND
Come on Frosty, wipe that smile off your face while I go shovel some more snow! Give me a break I need to have time to knit.
We have opted to delay Christmas as there is no parking in front of the house, and the potential for one more snow storm... the last one? Today's high was 34 degrees, NO, that is a good temperature! Hopefully, the 4 ft + snowdrifts are not covering our address, so.... IF Santa chooses to come he will recognize we are not Alaska state. It really would be a bummer to get Homer, Alaska - Sally's stocking full of crochet hooks and snowmobile wrench set. It would definitely be better to get Sockergirl's stocking full of sock yarn and size 2.5 needles.
I did manage to get this month's Sockamania pattern completed. It was made from stash yarn, which explains why you might not be able to see the fancy lace and cable pattern. Not really that fond of the Seashore color way, Lorna. Although I still like knitting with Lorna's Lace yarn. Oh, this picture showed the 4 inches of new snow this morning which resulted in 2 hours of shoveling this afternoon and a little neighborhood exploration.
First off, I had to get out my skis to get the newspaper at the paper box half a mile away. Then I discovered that my Neighbor actually had his paper delivered! You bet I hucked that paper at his door in disgust.

Obliviously, the above house does not reside any knitters. This photo will remind you to wrap your pipes in lots of warm knits before you leave home. It would be bummer to return home for a little local ice climbing instead of using the stairs on your house.
Finally, warm wishes to all my fans. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and lots of lumps of wool in your stocking!

Oh BOY!

2008-12-22T20:26:00.000-08:00

ふぶき！ is your word of the day. ”Fubuki" is the word for Blizzard.

Sorry, not that kind of blizzard, the kind from Mother Nature.
Yep, it is another day of snow here in the great northwest! As you will see below this is my current mode of transportation.

As you guessed, this method of transport takes a little more work and requires eating more chocolate. But Mother Nature's windchill temperature of 5 degrees Fahrenheit, surprisingly is not a problem. Today's mission involved mailing those last minute Christmas cards. For some reason our mail carrier is not picking up or delivery mail in the 4 ft drifts since Saturday. So I took it upon myself to drop off those final letters to Santa, and collect the mail. There I found out that today's mail did not EVEN make it to the post office. Maybe the truck could not make it up the icy hill through snow drifts?
What do you think? Am I the next van Gogh? Yesterday it snowed 12 inches or so with big drifts. I dug out the house to prevent potential water seeping in the event it warms up to tropical temperatures of say 40 degrees. The hour and half work built up a nice 2 foot tall berm the length of the house. From this shoveling I was able to salvage my ice chunks to have a try at modern art. It is quite pleasant to view through out the day as the snow falls. (The snow has been so dry this past week it is impossible to make a snowman.)

While I felt very accomplished at my art work and shoveling..... the snow started up again at 5pm and dumped all night long until 2pm-ish. You got it. I had to start all over again, another 90 minutes of shoveling with out the umph for modern art. This time the drifts are out of control and my shovel piles are about 4 feet tall. Depending on the weather tomorrow I may go play in the snowdrifts next to the house to build a knitting cave. I have an extra snow shovel and extra hot chocolate if any of you readers wish to join? I am ready for anything!

Let's take a look at a few houses around here. :)

Now let's take a look at the main road through the 'burbs. (3 lane road during rush hour) Really I don't live in the sticks.
The next post should have knitting and... probably some snow, as there IS another snow storm scheduled. Hope everyone is safe and warm. Christmas shopping complete? well, I apologize to all my readers, even my #1 fan, due to the weather I have been unable to shop for your individual gifts.

Knitting up a storm

2008-12-20T20:56:00.000-08:00

Now don't be mistaken, I did not knit so hard to cause the horrible storm which has come to the Northwest. The first snow fall was sorta welcome on Sunday to allow me to stay in and knit up some quick washcloth patterns for Christmas gifts. The next 3 or 4 storms I wanted to go away NW style - melt quickly and be done. Anyway, we will start with a little penguin on ice. My little friend is kind of in a penguin phase.

Kawaii, ne! My little friend, she is going to love this one. Then my little dude is going to enjoy a little fishing in his bath time.

Then there was of course the last minute present for a co-worker. I used my left over mohair from my un-sewn sweater combined with a DK weight wool. Multi-direction-diagonal scarf. It is quite a timely gift for our temperatures in the teens. She loved it and almost did not take it off at work.... that was until she broke into a sweat! Seriously, it HAS snowed every day this last week. ARGH!!

Today is a complete blizzard. I tried to get video or pictures for all you fans... but the lens kept getting snowy. In the evening pictures were a bit easier? I didn't mind the 16 degrees and wind chill of 0 degrees Fahrenheit for the sake of my reader(s).

It is so windy I did not think there was much snow accumulation, until I wondered around the house. The above drifts may go up to my knees. (While I may pretend to be, I am not Asian. I am like 6 feet tall.)

This is the eco-girl in me trying to use stash yarn as much as possible. The next pair of socks, Lace & Cables, used my Lorna's Lace Seashore colorway. It came out... uhm quite... uhm not as hoped.... a little on the ... uhm... ugly side. Not really the pattern's fault. I knew this pattern would be better with a solid, instead of the Seashore's horrendous pooling pattern. I love Lorna's lace and just wanted to knit with it. So this time I am not quite sock worthy. :( My secret stash of yarn is in its treasure box in a far away land. Can't wait to go retrieve another handful of fiber from the magic box.
I was able to finally complete my traveling socks, but I will save that posting for another day. Instead I will leave you with a cheery frog I found while I was out and about, enjoy.
And there was this beautiful scene not far from his reflection pond.
Amazing, isn't it? well, stay safe & warm in front or your computers. Oh, And keep reading!

November?

2008-11-29T23:47:00.000-08:00

Uhm.... yeah, bye-bye November it's time for December. I am hoping for even lower gas prices and a bit of snow. If the slow retail sales continue, then I may have more leisure time for knitting (from stash) and playing in my snowshoes wearing special handcrafted wool socks, of course.
Again, not sure where November went..... let me see.....

I was not able to visit Obama, but this summer I think there is need for some research and sock investigation. Hey, Maybe there is an Obama Yarn shop?? I won't know unless I go and check it out, right? Of course, all of you fans are now dying to know more about this fabulous fishing village. You must not be let down. So hold your socks on until July for those special travel pictures.

The above picture is just a teaser to our little project.

Yarn! Yes, I have been knitting a little. My sock blanket is now 26.1% that is 117 squares of the planned 448. No repeated squares, yet...... I received the above scraps from a new knit pal. I can't wait to add them in to the master"piece."

These Get Fruity socks from Sockamania are HOT off my size two needles. Sizzle sizzle,eh? If you are a real fan, you would remember this yarn I won from the Sockamania drawing in July. Free socks are great, but free is even better with green!

There is no need to clean your screen, the photo is a little blurry. This is another completed pair of autumn socks with Celtic cabled heels. This means there is one more happy sock wearer in the world. Does this mean we are one STEP closer to world peace?

I will continue to travel with AND neglect my reversai socks, they seem to be in search of a more satisfying knit spot....

Lastly a shout out to my ever so reliable fans in Italy, Turkey and the 12 of you in Boring, Oregon. Keep reading as I will try to be more Boring for you next time!

technical difficulty

2008-10-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry to delay, I seem to have left my laptop power cable at sockermom's house. :( I was able to use the public computers at the library, but I seemed to have taken the little black cloud to the library with me. The printer was not function and would not print off my yarn discount coupon or a pattern I was hoping to read. Even with this mild drama, I managed to make all of my yarn parties with out the use of 24/7 internet information and communication. Yes, I even had to dust off the phone book a few times to get a phone number or address. (When that did not have the my answer I called up knitwisecracker at her computer to assist in the minor crisis.)

Now do you want to see all the unfinished projects?

This is TO-BE a Glow-in-the-dark scarf.

This is TO-BE a pair of cable heeled autumn socks.

Not pictured, still working on my blanket and another pair of socks that has been on a bit of a tour.

I may have mentioned that I am really trying to knit as fast as time permits and trying not to buy any more yarn. This is a hard task when I meet up with my knit gals at the .. yarn shop. Recently, I went through my stash and took a bag of yarn over to the yarn swap party. I really had no intention to bring any yarn home... but..... just look what yarn found me... or was forced on me!

It seems I have enough yarn for about 2 sweaters and bundles of socks. :) I guess this means even less time blogging and more project pictures to come?

Here is a quick shout out to my new fans in Brunei, Portugal and Indonesia!

Squares

2008-10-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

In August I was deep into Square making to try and participate in my Dragon friend's BIG birthday party. We made a blanket of 9x9 squares. I learned from this collaborative project that I need to stick to socks. all my squares needed to be blocked and stretched a bit. :( i think I will just stick to hanging out with my my cool triangle friends.

this is my cable square.
My triangle square.

And of course a trade-make sockergirl square. :)
I guess these are the only sock pictures I have for now.... :( but they may have a story to tell soon.

I blame the sweater making to explain why there are not as many postings and pairs of socks. (Good excuse right?)

Here is a smart dumbie who tried to steal my sweater. This is the Central Park Hoodie, made from 5 skeins of Cascade 220. I used all but 6 inches of yarn. It was a little scary. Let's look at the dumbie taking a rest after a few swings.

What a nice sweater! It turned out to be a snugger sweater than I expected. But I really like it. It is green, what is not to like?

Oh no... the dumbie tried to pick blueberries. He is so dumb he did not notice there are no berries left. That is when I was able to tackle him and get my sweater back to wear for the weekend.
Now a shout out to my fans down under, the gals in Charlotte and Paso Robles. I will try to keep the dumbie out of my blog and get more socks pictures to keep you fans happy!

Traveled-traveling Socks

2008-09-07T23:19:00.000-07:00

The Ya-Yo gals and I went on a little boat ride to hang at one of the local yarn shops. (I did make a small purchase of Socks that ROck Agate yarn which are on the needles now) This was the second annual or possibly the "3 years after the first trip" Reunion. This year EVERYONE took the public transit to the ferry dock. Yippy! I am slowly influencing ALL my friend. Al Gore are you watching me?

These soon-to-be-famous socks are the Sockamania Cable heel socks. While this weekend they traveled with me and got a few photo opportunities, they will be put in the mail for a new adventure. Watch out "Number won fans," who ever you are... you might find something in your mail box. I am hoping this cool gal will let me in on Cable Sock's next adventures in her clogs. :)

One more with a city shot.

These here are the Sockamania Flower socks. They are going out to one of my scrappy fans. She helped my blanket project in a big way, this caused her to join the number WON club. She will be surprised to see what her garbage scraps can make!

Here is an update on the blanket with a few more scrapped into it. 21% into the project.

This month might not be a typical sockergirl blog as I am trying to make new friends in a sweater knit along. (Yes, I will try to surpress my sock snobbery and pretend to knit sweaters regularly.) I don't think there is need to worry that my name will change to sweatergirl, although it might change to Sweatgirl if this project gets me a bit overworked and stressed out. (hmmm what ever happened to those knit mohair sweater pieces ... dream dream... wishing it would magically sew itself up.)

Now a shout out to my one fan in Istanbul, my groupies in North Brook & Hillsborough.

No free ride?

2008-08-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

Who said there was no such thing as a free ride? I will tell you they are wrong. But is that a good thing? I will prove this!
Tonight I went downtown to meet-up for a little knitting. Are you surprised? :)

In addition to being Sockergirl, I try to be Eco-girl. I tend to carry fabric bags and load up my backpack at the grocery check-out. My favorite eco-girl act is utilizing mass transit.

Tonight I walked to the bus stop yarn bag in hand. Everything was very normal for evening rush hour. While the bus WAS on time, the bus driver told me, "The ride is FREE. Get on the bus." I was puzzled because I like to pay for my bus rides to show support for the route in hopes for increased services. BUT I quickly got over it, found my seat and pulled out my sock to turn the heel. After the heel was turned and stitches picked-up, I should have been downtown in 30 minutes. I did not notice my free ride was rolling through traffic to town. 90 minutes later and gusset decreased I made it to my knitting group.

See? There is good in a free ride.

Now the stress in my life. I am not sure how much I am suppose to share in case someone is reading. Are you suppose to stop reading? Do you really want to spoil the surprise IF it is for you? hmm... what are you going to do? Well, I am going to tell you the stress. I was asked to make a 9 inch square in a blanket and here is the problem:
I have the yarn, but now I must choose from 1300 possible patterns to create a 9 inch square! Can you imagine the possible neglect to my sock yarn? I believe I will get through this medium crisis by the end of the weekend and eventually get back to the sock knitting.

On to the topic of #1 Fan

You might ask WHO is Sockergirl's number one fan? And what does the above picture have to do with the "Number-Won." I must mention that it was a tough call to select the "Number-Won fan" My groupies in Cherry Hill, NJ have been wonderful in recent weeks, keep knitting away you could be next! Even those of you home alone reading in Delhi, Albuquerque, Reston and Chile don't give up hope.

My "Number-Won" fan is Knit-wise Cracker! Her gift this round is from the famous Sockermom's Organic blueberry tree.Sockermom even hand picked the lush blueberries for Knitwise-Cracker. The awarded prize was quickly put into pie, check out the yummy results.

Good luck fans, keep reading and leave a little time for knitting!

In Search for....

2008-08-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

I may have found the perfect knit spot for my tough knitter friends. (To enjoy the full views as a reader you may want to click on the picture.) How cozy does this rock look?
This knit spot is not on the bus line, so we all piled into the Subaru and picked-up our NW Forest parking passes for the first day of knitting. As you can see the first lesson was a little confusing.Yes, I thought the bulky 10mm yarn would be easier and safer for lesson number one. These knitters gave a good effort and soon we called it a night.We awoke at 4am to get to the cozy knit rock with the perfect view. At first the mission seemed a bit daunting with the first light and the small shadow of two possible crocheters racing ahead of my knitting team.
Eventually we built up our yarn management speed, yarn overs and tying off....
looking south, capturing great views along the way.Then we looked to the North and dropped our 10mm bulky Noro yarn to scrabble to the best view.
As we settled in to enjoy the knitting view, one of our knitters pulled out a bag of yarn from his hometown. We were all in 'aw' of his Welsh merino. You can see our knitting Chief in the back mid-left looking on to make sure we did not drop any needles from 10,047ft/3064m. Yes, we wear helmets to avoid any needles dropping from above, double points seem to hurt the worst!
Then we knit for an hour in perfect calm weather and the view was fabulous! Watch this:

The Knit Chief made us pack up our yarn after an hour and we went on back to the Subaru. Here is a look back.
Next up, I need to thank a couple of local gals for their generous donations to my sock blankie. Good things may be coming their way. ;)
Stay tuned for an adventure my sockamania socks took me recently, and where they are headed out on their own tour.

Lastly, a shout out to my Newnan, GA fan. I've biked with the BRAG'ers in your town, and camped in your park. Fun hills you've got for cycling. Keep those needles going!

It seems.....

2008-08-01T23:55:00.000-07:00

I am really getting bad about blogging.... and even about knitting 24 hours a day. Instead, I seem to be searching for the perfect place to knit. Yes, the search is on. My friend Casting Away had some good spots for knitting recently, and I am getting a little jealous. So here I go to show what I believe to be Awesome Knit spots.
Two weeks ago I met up with KnitWise Cracker to view the Olympics and knit. Nice, eh?

This location was pretty good, BUT I knew I could do better. Look!

In case my technology skills have failed this is what I had pictured:

Not sure you can see my fellow knitters up on the glacier trying to position for a prime knitting spot on top while I stayed at base camp. There was a small set back in their grand plan. Can you see it?

There was a bit of a gap between snow fields, uhm...25 feet away. This Crevasse seemed to span the top to the mountain. Bummer.... this "snow problem" turned them around 1000 ft from the summit knitting spot.
There is always a bright spot to this event. While they were returning to camp I realized........ crevasses could be a great place for yarn stash. Just imagine the amount of yarn you could fit in there. AND the yarn would be WELL preserved..thousands of years... for the next generation dinosaurs. Also, if the wool is frozen, it should be safe from bugs and moths. ;) What do you think?
Now a quick update to my slow knitting. My blanket is now officially 20% complete, 90 squares. Sockfanatic and I swapped scraps last weekend so we can continue to knit fresh colors.
Here is a picture of the Japanese Fan socks with Lorna's Lace "Asian" color way. This is supposed to help pay the rent for my brief stay in Asia. Do you think TalkstoStrangers will be satisfied with this exchange?

I did miss the deadline for the July Sockamania Celtic cable socks. I just needed to finish the foot and toe of sock number 2. Since it is August I need to get started on the August socks. How am I supposed to do all this knitting while I am out searching for the perfect knit spot????
Lastly, I can not forget to give a shout out to one my million readers, Welcome Cadirs.

NOT a Loser!

2008-07-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

I finally won! My name was drawn to for a beautiful skien of yarn from the Sockamania sock knit-a-long. Yippy! Now I have to wait for the right pattern to grab me.

While you may have thought I forgot my blog sign-in and password, I don't have any cool excuses to explain my blog-laziness. Sorry to you, thousands of readers. I just hope my month of absence has not scared off my fan base. To make it up to you I have a few nice pictures.

Here is a Hat and Bootie set I powered out for a July baby. Problem is I have not had time, in all my laziness, to give it to the mom-to-be. I hope the baby does not out grown his clothes before I meet up with his mommy.

I did some knitting to go along with my few hikes. I am going to try and fit in a video here. Can I really do this? Hmmm.. This video just shows how full the creeks are around here, after the lingering winter and high amounts of snowfall. It is now summer, but the waters are still early spring-like, very chilly and quick flowing in those spots we used to splash around in.

Glad I did not drop my socks in the creek! They would have been swept away in seconds. This pair of socks in the June Sockamania Jungle sock pattern made from opal Petticoat yarn. I really like the colors.

I gave the Noro Kureyon (Crayon) sock yarn a try. As always the color transitions are awesome and the socks turned out amazing. I used a simple 7 stitch Chevron pattern. BUT.... I did not enjoy the yarn as it curled up uncontrollably as I knit. This made it uncomfortable to handle and there are no plans to buy this yarn in the future. I did see and touch the new Silk Garden sock yarn. Nice... although after the crayon yarn I think I will not be purchasing the Silk Garden.

Of course I made the pair!

Oh, one more picture from a hike ... :) It is called Punch Bowl, usually good swimming on those 100 degree days. Still a little too cold for that, so a picture does the cooling instead.

While I really would love to start the hoody sweater... I am kind of addicted to the sock square blankie. I am now at 17.8% complete ... with 80 of 448 squares. NO repeats, yet. 50 untouched scrap colors to add. Then I will pull the ends off my yarn in the stash for about another 50 colors. Once I have gotten this far... I will beg my friends for scraps and then start the repeat of colors. Until I get motivated to blog again..... Put on your sunscreen and enjoy knitting outside while you can. :)

Crunch time

2008-05-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

It was down to the wire. I had to finish the Sockamania socks by the end of the month (tonight) to be entered into the drawing for a skien of hand dyed yarn. But a little birdie told me I should take a boat ride.....

So, I did. Even though I needed to get the socks done by tonight. While along the adventure I was able to knit, see?

Almost done right? Well, looky! looky!

Even the scuba divers saw that.....

The socks are done and now I can go back to playing Wii Fit. Yep, I made it!

ウィー・ボーくん、いらっしゃい

2008-05-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

ごめん、ね。みんなにちょっとお久しぶりです。大切なお客さんがいらっしゃい、本当にウィー・ボーくんにおまたせました。12月に東京で会いました。けど、電池やソフトの問題があったそうだから　一緒に帰国ことができなかったんです。ウィー・ボー君は先の4－5ヶ月に英語が上手になって、遊びに来ました。私はチョーうれしい！でもかわいいそうな編み物ちゃんはバスに乗る時間以外にあまり遊ばない。というのは。。。ソックマニアの靴下はいっそくにならないかもしれない。
So as I was saying... I have a new guest in the house and my knitting has lost some time. TV time seems to be down and Wii-Bo time seems to be up. :) After all I had to wait 3 or 4 months for him to come over. I think I did pretty good with being patient. What do you think, Geezer? (For those of you out of the loop, Geezer seems to help enable me to get completely hooked up with Wii- Bo)
Above is the happy family picture with everyone getting along. But the unseen details are..... 3 days left in the month and the Sockmania sock, Number One was finally completed before my real life soccer match and Sock Number two was started this morning on the bus. (I should mention I took the long way home tonight to get more bus'n'needle time.) I don't think that sock Number Two will meet the dead-line for the sock yarn drawing. :( I guess this pattern keeps me on watch while knitting. Whenever I walk and knit at the same time, I seem to have stitch problems and then back tracking is needed in the next row. :( It just seems to take some of the speed out of making a pair of nice socks. well, I better leave you with one final picture and an invite to go skiing... then get back to knitting these socks!

One off and then one on

2008-05-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Today I completed another pair of socks. (Yes, I realize this is a little bit of a shock.) This pair of socks is for my supervisor. She wanted a pair of hand knit socks. The problem is... the stripes matched up almost perfectly, so the socks don't look hand made. :( I hope that will be acceptable, what do you think? I really was not trying to match I was just knitting on the bus and started the second sock. When I looked at it later the sock just seemed to match the beginning of sock number one. Kind of a sock miracle! But really check it out, look closely at the toes they even came out perfectly with matching little blue stripes. Now do I need to remind you of the broken needle incident caused by this pair of socks? Let's just take a look at the miracle cotton/wool socks, Online Summer colors. Nice and soft.

Update on the needle crisis: The replacements just arrived in the mail...... to my other address. But they will be in my hands soon.

Socks are for the bus, and the blanket is for watching basketball. Here is an updated picture on my blankie. This picture shows 50 squares, almost 4 rows of 14. Since there still are a few more double headers I should be able to get a few more squares on tonight. :) Although the temperatures are going up a little this weekend, so it might be an outside weekend.

And the day started like.....

2008-05-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

Do you see the problem? These bus incident almost had me on the phone to the 911 knitting police. A crime happened to me on the bus.
Picture this: Sockergirl serenely sitting on her bus to work, bus pass safely tucked in pass holder, busy with sock knitting in hands. Almost zen like, right? Then "pop!" and all knitting comes to a halt, Sockergirl looks down to assess knitting damage. Sock knitting was fairly safe and secure. But the favorite, preferred Knitpicks Options knitting needle was shockingly out of commission. The nickel plated needle snapped off of the connection. What was sockergirl to do for the rest of the bus ride and the transfers? How about the return trip?? Sockergirl was worried how the day would go from here!!!!!
Sockergirl does not carry excess pocket books as a skien of wool is much lighter and more useful in almost all cases. You can tie-up a bank robber with a ball or yarn. How about that romance novel or wall street thriller? I think you get me point.
The bus ride was ruined, and then my Boris Yeltsin looking bus driver sped off as I tried to get the connection. Again, left stranded with out my knitting to keep my company. I did get to work barely ahead of time and the day was okay. Come on, work is nothing like relaxing knit time at home in pjs.
Before leaving work I called knitpicks and they hooked me up with some new needles in the mail. :) Kind of a happy ending, right? regardless, was I tempted to walk to the next bus stop and buy some new needles for the ride home. I resisted and instead looked around work for a not too intellectual enjoyable book for the ride home.

Here is the product of two weeks of bus riding. This is the Sock Madness, sock number 4 pattern. It was an interesting pattern but not one for racing. This is Cherry Tree Hill color way of Loden. Nice yarn! One bus gal I seemed to see frequently at the first bus stop asked if I was making socks for the military because I keep making green socks. She will soon learn that I don't make a pair of socks everyday. Realistically, a pair a week or two. Next picture!

Yep! Sock scrap swap yarn. These are for my neglected blanket. It might be getting too big to haul around and knit on the sometimes crowded bus, so I will stick to breaking sock needles while I knit ligthening fast!

Oh and here is one more bundle of scraps to enhance my blanket to look a little less "uptight" and more "perky." We will see the effect in a couple of months, come summer, when I get back on my knitting schedule. I seem to be getting knitting orders riding around on the bus. These orders will help decrease the yarn stash and aid the costs to keep the yarn warm in the winter.
In conclusion to this day, I am going to stop telling my knitting friends to "break a needle" on their new exciting project. AND to always carry a spare set of needles.

This is for all you Dim Sum eating people!

2008-04-27T02:09:00.001-07:00

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?

Hurry before it snows!

2008-04-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

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!

Doubled and halved

2008-04-05T00:23:00.000-07:00

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?

And it keeps following me!!!

2008-03-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

When this stuff follows me... it makes life a little difficult.

Brrrrr... I'm talking about snow.
It followed me to this historic city....
to this beautiful historical spot.....
Even when I changed cities to get away from the cold white stuff... look what the pictures had a fresh layer of:
A day later... still a sprinkle of snow.
Then there was a sign... of springSince it is the end of March and all....but then my luck ran out.. and the white stuff returned. So I felt I needed to get started on a blanket. While it is only one 3x3 square of a predicted 420 squares... it is a start and by next winter I should be a bit warmer.
Did I mention the cold weather makes it easy to stay in and knit? Here is March's Sockamania Sock made from Lana Grossa yarns. This is also my last pair toward my attempted 52 sock plunge. I tried to keep up with a pair of socks a week but life got in the way and I only made 37/52. Maybe I was a little short on the goal. Believe it or not, I'd rather take in a little life over a few more stitches.
Will somebody please make the snow go away????

I'll post when the weather finally gets above 50 degrees.

uhm.. yeah, I am here?

2008-03-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

I suppose we should start with a nice picture to make up for lost time. I have a couple thousand more but this will have to do. I actually says a lot.

This was the slip stitch sock. they turned out real nice. :) NEXT!

How about a little autumn socks in the spring! so they are a few seasons late but... they are completed. NEXT!

Here we have the first of a few more on the Sock Madness competition. I wonder if 120 people have completed their socks, yet... Regardless, a new pattern will be released the end of this week. (I am guessing.) Zombie pattern on trekking. nice color, eh? NEXT!

Now on to something a lot more interesting. :) This sock will put a smile on your face while you are getting all your stitches in the right spot. Really fun pattern from knitty.com the slippery stitch pattern, Lorna's Lace Envy. hee hee... this concludes show and tell. Now on to the 6 month challenge I had, Did I stash away enough yarn? How much was left over? looky looky!
I think I did good. I knit from the allotted bag and only buy 2 skeins. Not bad, wouldn't you say?

Still have some work ahead of me. Need to finish the Sockamania socks before the end of the months!

I've been Marched on.

2008-03-10T08:29:00.001-07:00

I don't know what happened. Marched has squished me to the ground and I have not been able to blog. I send my apologies to the thousands of readers out there. :) yeah, I am probably dreaming that this blog is famous!

My story is this... I have over a thousand pictures to download. In those thousand picture I have three pairs of completed socks. JUST believe ME. I will start the Sockamania socks tonight, and the Sleeves of my mohair sweater tomorrow. yes, the sweater thing could be a lie. BUT I did take the giant mohair ball and split it into 2 balls to be able to knit 2 sleeves at once. The splitting credit goes to Talkstostrangers. She pushed to split the mohair using her digital scales and ball winder. She really wanted to use the outer-space winder... but most of the 100 meters was already into the sweater and the super size winder was not necessary.

Well, a blog is not complete without a picture. So I will put a flame under me to get those super cool pictures up within a week... well... unless sockmadness 2 gets in the way of life, AGAIN!

Back to knitting???

2008-02-19T06:08:00.000-08:00

まあ、今週はちょっとつまらない、まだ、旅行に行たない。さびしいね。また来週にいい写真を取ろう！
Here it is, February's Sockamania sock. Like the hearts? Not quite my style, so I am giving them away. In fact I made them small to pass off easier to a small footed friend. Hope she likes them, otherwise one of the Indonesians want them to stay warm.
You might think these socks look a little goofy, well your right. When I bought this yarn I accidentally miscalculated the yardage and grams of yarn for a pair of socks. I started toe up and turned the heel... then started to notice the yarn would not make a second sock. Of course, this was sale yarn and there was only one skien of this lavender color. Then a wise person came along and gave me the idea to buy another color of the yarn and make the pair cohesive. What do you think?
While this is only my 3rd pair for th year, I seem to have 3 single socks hanging around my room. Not to mention the March sockamania pattern coming out next week.... and then once we ar ein March it is time for Sock Madness competition!!! oh my!

A guided tour of the north

2008-02-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

I am sorry if you are illiterate and can not read the sign to see where I went... study a little harder and you'll get it. Just like knitting a foreign language takes practice, you may be wondering if a native language takes practice, too!

I introduce my 7 year old tour Guide. Guide and I got along great. Although I am still a little jealous he passed the 4th grade writing test beating my score by 10 points. I quickly got over that as we road the bus to the park to observe the crowds at 9am. Our eyes got kind of big a the site of this:

Regardless of the 3 hours line, we jumped right in... for the 20 second tube ride. ;) (I later found out that the locals don't stand in line, they just sled in their back yards to avoid such lines.) Guide and I, we spend 5 hours at the park sledding, bamboo skiing, participating in obstacle courses, walking through a snow maze ... lots of fun. After we had ramen for lunch Guide put me on the bus to see the big sculptures. REALLY, these structures are HUGE, 4 stores high. Take a look!

Here is one of the stages.... 18 Meters tall x 30 meters wide x 20 Meters. 385 five-Ton truck loads of snow were hauled in for 3000 "Spent Personal"

And another...

A little smaller...

The crowds seemed to get in the way of a good picture... I am afraid these pictures aren't that interesting for you.

wow!

ahhh

couple more...
And on to the ice sculpture park

Since the ice sculptures did not take good photos I am just going to move on to a word from our sponsor

And now a little tid-bit about sock knitting, I seem to forget from time to time, one pair of socks takes 100grams of fingerweight yarn even if the package says 200 meters.. I try to kick myself to make things better, but that does not make another ball of yarn appear. As you can see my panda friend is holding one nearly completed sockamania sock.. this story is to be continued while I...

Cast on another pair, which panda's counterpart is modeling for us. The slip stitch cable sock... it is going quickly.
I would love to have showed the Pizza hut pizza we ate or the Wii games Guide and I played... but enough is enough. Hope you enjoyed!
Next adventure in about 2 weeks.... if I can't find one sooner.

A cold snowy week

2008-02-07T06:52:00.000-08:00

I started the week with a visit from a scary man! (Well, I really went to a drama and he appeared!) Then we threw beans to get rid of the bad spirits on the third. Am I sounding crazy yet???

After all the crazy spirits the sky threw snow at us... and all the Indonesians went crazy in their first snow experience and saved me the work of building a snowman. While I sat warmly inside the house, I was happy to have house mates. But I am not bragging about the construction of this snowman. We all know American snowmen are three balls high.

It snowed yet again today and the weatherman says it will come back again this weekend. Currently there are only spots of snow around so walking to the train are not too bad.... While these pictures are nice & soothing... I almost guarantee fabulous pictures next week. hee hee hee.... I am just as excited to take the pictures! Just wish I had a new million camera to play with....
uhm... yeah this is a knitting blog so here is the knitting goods... Sockamania "wrong way" socks with heart pattern. Hey stop laughing at me... but don't worry these are not for me. Sockergirl can not wear hearts!

Check back next week for cool photos.. more knitting?? That is still questionable.

A bit of knitting & snow

2008-01-31T05:33:00.000-08:00

So I will not put any suspense in this note... here is ONE Slippery sock finished. (Free pattern on knitty, the designer is a high schooler! I wish knitting was cool when I was in high school.) It is really cool in person and I can't wait to wear this one sock. But then there is a part of my that wants to find the right person to give the complete pair to because I almost feel like they are too nice to wear. The last pair of super cool socks that took a little more time than usual were sent to the East Coast to be loved. Just need to find time to wind the yarn so I can start the next sock before the February Sockamania pattern comes out... uhm tomorrow.

I also finished these boring plain blue socks. They came out all screwed-up and I can not explain why. The two skeins of blue yarn were different lengths, and I opted not to fix the unmatched design. Some poor soul will end up wearing this goofy socks somewhere in the world.

Last weekend I was out with game-girl. We met up at the yarn shop and then went to my coffee shop of choice, Tully's. (Although, I am a little upset they no longer have the Tiramisu latte.) While we camped out at Tully's for a few hours, she helped me read the instruction of a game and then....... we pulled out our weapons and I made my best attempt at .... Amigurumi. It is too bad I did not take a video of my first attempts trying to hold the hook and pull loops through. It was ugly...trying to knit with a hook. Eventually I got the hang of the , while I completed what is in the picture, game-girl finished a scarf. Unfortunately, I have not had time to work on the basic crochet stitch since the outing, but I know how to read the patterns and can probably attempt and complete anything in the current book I have... I think..... more practice is needed....... IF I had more time...

Ok this is a picture from last week. I guarantee I will have better snow pictures in 2 weeks...

Very Cold here...

2008-01-20T05:53:00.000-08:00

It was a busy week as the winter has arrived with freezing temperatures every night and highs of about 38 degrees. I think you will have fun with this weather in the NorthWest for about the next 2 weeks. We might get snow here to night, only 3 cm. Should I wake early and look out my window?
As you see in the above picture my body guard and I did brave the cold temps....

Not for a round of the highly popular, past-time sport of Gate Ball, but to visit my outside friend、大ちゃん、who views the Pacific ocean.

To say warm we walked down the street popping in and out of gift shops to stay warm... I even found a nice yarn shop along the way, but sadly there was no fancy sock yarn to be bought. The socks featured with "Dai" are my Sockamania New Years socks for the little sis. Renaissance 100% wool yarn, super soft!

I just can't get a good picture of this... the Slippery sock from Knitty.com. It is a lot of fun to work on with all the twists and cables. This is the first time I am understanding cabling without a cable needle. So quick and easy? Well it is going quickly, or is that because I am dying to see the results? Or trying to burn through all my yarn? This color is Envy by lorna's laces. Aren't you Envious?? huh huh... Sorry. m(_ _)m (To the left is a little bowing dude.)

Then I went indoors for my own "Push SUMOre Stitches." Is that what they would call that here?? Should I start that event? Would the 400 pound wrestlers get offended and sit on us regardless off the sharp needles?? well I worked on the simple boring blue sock so I could avoid any wrestler conflict.

While the weather is so beautiful..and cold.. I still felt like I needed to ride the train really far.. 3 hours (so I could knit) ... and see how cold it really is in other areas. I ran across this super cool spot. I believe it might be a natural gizer(sp?)

But don't worry about the almost freezing temperatures in the sunny day because... you can join this lively bunch for a dip...
If you chat it up with the volunteer galおばさん who mans the towel vending machine, you will learn this is a special hot spring for your feet.
Would this work in the states??? Cool ... but .... really... this hot springs is situated next to a busy intersection. Note the 10 story building in the background. I am really glad it is not for full bathing! Maybe that is why they designated this as a foot springs guarded with tough　おばさん-gal?
I leave you with a soothing picture to dissolve your angry feelings after having read to the end of this blog to find.... there really in not much knitting content here or any surprise skien of yarn give away, just the random adventures of a girl with needles, Sockergirl.
また、来てね。

おひさしぶり

2008-01-11T05:06:00.000-08:00

I did not realize I took a longer vacation from the blog than expected. I was sooo on vacation that I forgot to take a picture of pair #38 for the year... my third pair of banana socks made in the Eleanor pattern for my music friend. I guess you will all be in the dark on this pair. If I catch my friend wearing the socks I will try to sneak a picture.

The first picture is of the mono colored Christmas lights around here and the famous tower in featured in most dramas. These people do not know how to do Christmas lights likes we Americans, variety of colors with various shapes. Kind of missed those this year.... but in exchange I tried to show my patriotism by attending this next event:

I got up early and fought the winds and rain to see this guy wave to the crowd. He only does this twice a year at specific times. In order to see this we had special security checks and polite body searches, the women police patted-down the women. We were handed flags to show our spirit. It turned out to be a very cooler event than I expected.

Then I went to mom and dad's where it is suppose to be warmer than where I live. But as you can see I ran into some of this white stuff around New years. Crazy!! Here is a picture of our outside activities we planned for this cold snowy day:

We are making pounding rice for the New years, it only took about 5 hours. Just think I could have made a sock in that time instead of 12 trays of rice cakes... outside in the cold! Really it was fun because I got to eat rice cakes for the next week as well as being with friends and family. (Dad is in the left back corner.)
Then the big New years Eve came and mom, dad and I had this great idea to run down to the local shrine at midnight. We thought it was an original idea...

Well... we knew would not be along at the shrine, but we did not expect the lines in the country side.

Then the next day we climbed a mountain to this temple to make more wishes for the new year. We even fought the crowds to buy a charm for my little niece's health... and it fell out of our bag somewhere on the mountain. I hope that is not bad luck! (well really we were suppose to buy this charm at the shrine, but forgot as we went for the free soup and hot ginger drink!)

After all that fun at with the family... I had to return via a 14 hour train. AND that is when I had time to knit this scarf, the branching out scarf, made from mohair. Fortunately, this pattern is rather fool proof because you can not rip back mohair.

Oh, and finally here is the Sockamania New Years Pattern I have one sock done... this pair is for my little sister :)

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

Well this is the best I could do for holiday pictures. Maybe I will get some better pictures when I visit the local base tomorrow. I am kind of hoping to see a real Christmas tree and multiple colored lights, not just white. Not complaining, Rudolph left something in my stocking since Santa was too busy. He might of had trouble reading the Japanese maps to get here, not to mention the lack of a chimney in this cement building.

Yep, another pair

2007-12-17T05:09:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been a while. Life has gotten boring again. hee hee.. Sometimes boring is a good thing because that means I can get some knitting done. I finished the Sockamania snowflake sock. Made with tweed black and gold fortissima yarn on size 2s and yikes! 68 stitches, which I gradually decreased after the pattern to 60 with the added toe variation. Let's see instead of blogging I ... read a whole book (The first non text book this year, it was about the mofia.) and I found a really cool Kung Fu game for the DS, and I am making travel plans for the holidays.

Here is a picture of my rock star friends hanging out in the expensive part of town. We tried to get the Sherpa to buy my Phillipine bodyguard and I coach bags. But none of us are that famous to even step in the store. *( We were on a mission to see a little live theater... for 5 hours! a couploe hours is fine but sitting in little theater seats is kind of uncomfortable when you are the size of Godzilla.
Well Until next time when I get some interesting knitting going or finished...

Ran to the hills

2007-12-06T18:05:00.001-08:00

We took a little field trip to the hills, and on the way we had to pass through some beautiful autumn colors. The air was crisp and the colors were amazing.

As the air got crisper the leaves got fewer

...and fewer..
The clouds started to come in.

AND........
Oh, sorry about the scary ninja. Really this is what happened:

My body guard was forced to knit my socks outside in the snow! The picture does not show the snow falling very well. But many of my friends saw snow for the first time ever. Then we got back on the bus and saw

The beautiful Kegon Falls. Although, being an NW snob, my waterfalls are better in the NW. We got back on the bus... hee hee knitting time!!! Where I finished this,
Lorna's Laces Camouflage sock with the Mock Cable pattern from IW book My favorite socks. Check the errata before starting. but awesome socks!
Then I also returned to my computer to get the new Sockamania pattern which is looking like this:
That is about all for this week, as for the NW ... Rumor has it the water was up to my window sill, and within millimeters of flowing into my apartment. The maintenance guy saved the day and magically moved the River & Lake outside my window. Is that possible? I am very thankful. Hope every one survived the storm without much harm. Until the next pair of socks.

Snow for you and still leaves for me

2007-12-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

Rumor keeps coming over the internet that I sent a typhoon over filled with snow. I need to set the records straight, I had noting to do with the typhoon. I did not even meet it, I have had blue sky almost everyday all week. There may have been a cloudy day Wendesday. This weather is perfect for watching the leaves fall. (Don't be mistaken, winter is just around the corner and snow could fall within the month.) So with the leaves theme, I found a beautiful Maple tree to let my camo socks photo in, but it is hard to see the socks. DAH, they are camoflouge, what was I thinking? First here is the beautiful tree:http:
Now here are the Camo socks resting.
I used the Mock Cable pattern from My Favorite socks book. After I was 4 rounds in I noticed something not working in the pattern. Since I don't have my book here in my hands, I went to Ravelry were someone noted the errata web page. I was able to get this sock whipped out soon after the correction. Lorna's laces has awesome yarn and there was no trouble with pooling. the colors are amazing, not to mention the soft yarn. ... well, I am not wasting anymore time here I should be finishing this pair!

Oh I am waiting for the sockamania sock pattern but it is jammed in internet space. :( not sure what the next pair will be then... since I will finish these socks tomorrow. Pictures on Wednesday

A second encounter

2007-11-26T08:44:00.000-08:00

Today’s scare was an attack by ninja’s. Look how scared my Philippine body guard is….
We were just at the mall sipping Tully’s Tiramisu Lattes… How innocent was that?

Then I wondered to this fabulous hotel for a concert, in the hotel there was a conference for monks, a couple of wedding ceremonies and various other meetings.… While I was waiting for my concert I took a picture of my multidiagonal scarf in the garden. I am not sure if you can see the fake ivy painted on the fence. It was funny and kind of cool.
I wanted to get a picture of my scarf keeping a penguin warm BUT… it was kind of fenced off. 

Finally here is my Sockomania Ripple Clown socks, not sure f you can note hope perfectly matched they are… wow… I did not think I could match so well with a patterned sock. While I await the next pattern… any ideas on a quick n easy patterned sock???

oh and lastly, I had to take a picture of this one... Has Charlie Nagatani been an honorary citizen in your state??? Does anyone know this guy?

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Mine is on Friday. Well, I already had it... today. I went to the cheesy waterfront area with the Statute of Liberty replica. No, I am not kidding. There I ate a Hawaiian Hamburger - well it IS American flavored and the restaurant broadcasts radio from Honolulu, HI. Good burger, fries &　American size Med drink for $10. Well maybe now it is more expensive as the dollar weakens.

well... not a lot going on here. The temperature suddenly dropped on Thursday and I walked home from the station in the 32 degree temperature and strong winds. Oh it was chilly. I was just wearing a light sweater and light jersey-like jacket. Wish I had my down jacket and scarf. Well finished the scarf for tonight`s walk from the station.

Fortunately, I did not run into this guy on the way home. Can you see Godzilla?

Chat with you later!

Hope you don`t scare easily

2007-11-18T07:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a pair of socks I knit last month, and just this weekend got the finishing touches threaded in. Can you see my special glow in the dark scary ghosts? (There are 6 in total 3 you might see.) I can*t wait to wears these around to scare people. Or will I only be scarying myself when I wake in the dark?

Next I show my Irish Hiking Cable scarf in chestnut color. I thought I would get to wear it to the soccer game this afternoon, and then the sun came out and I could not wear all my new knits. I am sure there will be many chances in the near future. Apparently the winter winds are here. Does this make sense?? well it is cold out and I may have to turn my heater on with in the week? But I will hold out a little longer and enjoy the chill.
I have been working on my fall socks... which I guess are too late according to the weather man. but the leaves have not fallen yet... maybe they will be ok...

These socks have two letters in them one is the 月moon and one is 秋Autumn。Autumn is suppose to be the best time of year to enjoy moon viewing and relaxing in the cool evenings. Hopefully you were able to enjoy a few moon views.

Here you will see my next project as the cold winds role in. This is of course the multidirectional diagonal scarf with the remenants of my glow strands delicately placed into the noro. ;) should be fun to wear!
Of course there is the sockamania sock I have one done and it is reminding me of clowns... you will see it later. Busy week ahead. I am wondering if my SNB group is meeting this Tuesday. 2 weeks ago No one showed so I came home... after a round of sushi with a friend!

Adventuresand a small shake

2007-11-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry to have vanished for a week or so.. my current connection is shady at times. As I share with... uhm.. about a hundred people and whoever has the coolest computer gets the weak signal. Which means those of us with cool knitting supplies and a not so cool computer have to wait until the signal is stronger or the majority go to sleep.

Last weekend the weather was beautiful. So I took my socks out for a bit of an knitting adventure. The park seemed like a good idea ... until my yarn got so excited and jumped out of my bag into the waterfalls. :( I can't say it was the cleanest water but we did the photo in the sun and then headed home. So keep an eye on that yarn, the little fibers might walk away if you don't give it enough attention.
It was a pretty uneventful week after the yarn jumped in the water. I started the new sockmania ripple socks and should have one done by this weekend. It is a fun pattern but the sock reminds me of a clown... hmm.. you'll see.
My Thai model is debuting my completed Holly's socks from #144 trekking color. I think this is pair number 34 for the year.

The weather here is get chilly in the evening So I finished the Irish scarf and cleared the needles to start a multi diagonal one with glow in the dark strands.. Can't wait to wrap up! I will show pictures soon....??

Last night the weather was stormy, thunder and lightening and heavy rains. Kind of made for a mellow weekend knitting at home. I did venture out to the cafe, but pictures were marginal. We also had a nice earthquake of 3 magnitude. The glass of water on the table was moving pretty good, no worries I did not drop a stitch. :)

Another happy Pumpkin

2007-10-31T07:18:00.001-07:00

Looks like the hat make it in time to scare off the ghosts and gobblins.

saga of a hat

2007-10-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

I did not realize that Halloween was just around the corner. So I ran to the dollar store and bought the cheap size 9 dbpt needles and some BRIGHT cheery orange yarn to quickly pound out a pumpkin hat for my little friend on another island. I hope she likes it.... or better yet, I hope it makes it to her house by Halloween. And it might be a problem....

You see I got the brillant idea to make the hat at about 830pm Friday night, and I stayed up late knitting. Saturday I woke up wrote a letter and addressed the envelope, I knew it was raining... So I grabbed my umbrella and put on my NW rain parka (Green of course) to wonder out to the post office I thought would be open Saturday morning. NOPE! After asking around I could not get anyone to fess up the location of a post office open on Saturday morning. It must be a national secret. I will get to the bottom to this in time. Anyway, As I am walking home the rain is stronger and the wind even more! ... and of course the postmen were cruising past splashing water on me. it was like an line of ants marching... but I could not figure out where they were going or coming from. Thought about jumping infront of them to make them tell but opted to teh safer side and kept heading home. At this point the package no longer mattered, I was soaked my umbrella was almost broken by the huge winds, I could not find a dry spot for the cell phone.. and my package was pretty wet... :( And you wonder why it was raining so hard?? oh, there was a typhoon passing through. I think the weather man forgot to mention that in his weather forecasts earlier in the week. ARGH!

But typhoons are fun to watch from inside and I can't wait for the blue sky to follow. I will see blue sky, right?

Took the socks for a walk

2007-10-23T05:50:00.000-07:00

The weekend was super busy and I never had time to recover before the work week to update the blog.

Saturday I met Game-Girl and we resisted the game center in place of a nice walk. :) We did the Race for a Cure. The course was cool because it went around the Emperor's palace. Did I mention the weather was fabulous? High 70s with a gentle breeze. Perfect for a 5K walk. Then after the walk... we decided to take the socks to the park to watch the Herons, Koi, turtles and ducks. (Click on pictures to get a better view of the wildlife.)

Of course, Game girl and I had to go to an electronics shop and look at games, Nintendo DS, also tried out the relaxation chairs and current trendy sports equipment. Then window shopping in the expensive shopping district for cake and coffee. YUM! chocolate cake. After not being able to buy any of the $4000 hand bags, we went to the book store where I purchased a pattern book to attempt my personally designed autumn socks. Can you wait?? Do you think they will really be unique? Hope I can figure out the pattern I want.

Almost forgot to show you a picture of a sweater I am saving money for... I don't want to own up to the quality.

How much so you think I need to save for this creatively miss sewn sweater? $450 Yep, in sock terms that is slightly less than 30 pairs of socks.

Today since I seem to be catching a cold, my socks took me to the park to view a natural Rose-sock bush. Amazing!!
Seriously, there were roses in all colors. I was looking for the rare Blue colored rose famous in this area. Roses in October???
Then my almost complete socks did a bit of a photo session, enjoy:

NO sock in this one:
While some people offer their toys to the gods, uhm... I kind of have second thoughts about offering my hand knit socks.
Then we came home and my socks quickly went to sleep on the bed. :( I thought I was the sick one.

I used Fortissima tweed yarn, and of course the Sockmania October Elegance pattern. Hope all is well and my socks are staying busy enough for you.

Culture day!

2007-10-17T01:29:00.000-07:00

Yet again... I am up to my usual doings. I finished a sock for the Sockmania group pattern Elegance. It is hard to see in the following picture, but I will try to post a better one this weekend. (Maybe I will have a pair of socks to show.)
My beautiful model is not only wearing my favorite color, but she is also from Argentina. Thanks Ms. Argentina!
The following is a picture of me wearing a similar outfit. Not sure you can see how small the shoes are... ouch! They were about half the size of my size 11 feet. Our style of outfits would typically be wore to weddings and special occasions.
Also, I went into Town to find the knitting Cafe Saturday. Even with all the wacky blocks and funky addresses here, I found the cafe but the doors were locked. I found out later after reading the webpage a little closer with at the crazy symbols that you must make reservations. :( Fortunately to make up for the closed cafe... last night was the SNB group in town. They are always a good group to bounce ideas off and try to gain more knitting energy, although many of them are crocheting. I am not yet used to the smokey atmosphere with the meet up spot being in a bar. hmm.... will I adjust?

Really I must move on to other things. Or to finish a second sock?? hmmm...

quick question?

2007-10-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

I am getting feed back that you want to see more pictures or my socks on tour. The problem is i can't knit that many socks so fast these days because I am pretty busy. Do you want to see one sock on tours, should I attempt to knit a socker ball or just buy one at the nearest dollar store??

Like a river

2007-10-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

It seems it is time for another weekend. No one can complain about that, right :)

Life is like a river, once in it you have no choice but to follow it...somewhere. It has now been a month since I started working on this project with the new colleagues. I think I am really lucky there is good group harmony. There is so much to learn in my new position, I frequently feel overwhelmed and wonder why I chose to escape my previous office burn out. In fact last week there were days when I wished I was there in the frustrating environment. BUT Change always makes one stronger and better in the long run.
Some how it seems that I have picked up the role of the go-to-girl, I seemed to have given everyone the impression I know what is going on at all time of the day. Reality, I am just as confused as they are, but I might have a sharp ear, then take the time to read the documents and ask questions. Since we were all new a month ago, we were given the chance to pile in a bus and go tour together. Yippy, bus time equals.... knitting time!

So here is what I was hoping to do after 2 hours of cable knitting:
But this is what we actually ended up doing. I think is was still very cool. oh, take a look at the weather. A little too warm to work on the Mohair at this point, mid 70s.
Well, as I was saying the weather was nice until.... the wind picked up and we got slightly stuck in the river. So we put the Kenyian amd Nepali guy to work to pole us back to shore. BUT in the end the guides came out to save us. We just got a little longer boat ride. :)
Do you want to see the latest knitting or what we had for lunch? Always nice when the company buys lunch.
Enough pictures of me outside playing in the sun shine, it is time to show a complete sock I finished on the crowded train last night. It is Trekking with the Holly's sock pattern from Sock bug. Two people volunteers to be my model. You be the judge as to who is cuter?

In the one picture we have Ms. Brazil, and then in the other picture is weird cute character of the week.I have no idea what it was. A cute pink bear with vicious claws? thank goodness I got the sock back from him.

Started another new pair of socks, this one with cables and did I mention I now have 2 single socks floating around my room. oh well... here is a close-up on one of them.

Tomorrow I am going to try and meet-up with a new knitting group. Hopefully I will have lots to tell you then.

Lastly, I leave you with my Thai model posing with a frog. I also want to thank those who left a message on my blog last week. It was nice to know that I am not taking note of my life alone and that there are people out there reading my blog.

Rockin Flowers and... Knitting

2007-10-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

Wow! The week flew by and it was another big week. Let's just start with this picture to put you in a cheery mood. ...

The week started with a lesson in flowers. Kind of fun but I think I will stick to knitting. It seems there are too many rules to the proper arrangement, not to mention I can't tell one purple flower from another. Actually, I can't tell the difference between a pink flower, blue flower, white flower.... etc. I think you get the picture. Didn't I mention earlier I tried to kill my flowers this summer and they only came back to haunt me???

The cool thing about the flowers, is I have them set in my doorway to greet me. Every time I come home I get a fresh smell as I walk in the door and the flower make me smile. Even my new daffodil hat is enjoying the flowers. This hat is really truly the last of the daffodil yarn. I barely squeezed it out of the scraps of the socks and gloves...

Friday night I went into the big city with my friends. As we will milling around I found....

Yes, these are crazy looking green shoes and they were in my size. I had not choice but to spend the $10. BUT, when I got home I tried to make my snazzy hand knit socks work with the funky green shoes.. and... seems I need to knit a pair of solid colored white or blue socks. Put that on the list of things to do!

Saturday I went to one of my favorite concerts around town. My friend sent me the invite a week ago, so I planned the 90 minute commute to fit my knitting schedule. This was about the right amount of time to finish my surprise sock. I have taken its picture with Penta-kun.

WHO is Penta-kun? Or better yet, WHAT is Penta-kun? I don't know... I was walking down the street and someone in a penta-kun costume was handing out this doll. So I got in line with all the little kids to get my very own Penta doll. I know you are all VERY jealous, I can see that look in your knitting faces.

Oh, I hope the yarn gods will be ok with me if I spend my yarn money on a Nintendo DS my friend was showing me some cool brain games and other nerdy games for the system. I am having trouble parting 2 months of yarn money. I have not bought any new yarn for 2 weeks! oh other things... had my first encounter with the Wii system. FUN even though Game-girl kicked me at every game!! Just means there is room for improvement, right? Also, Game-girl noticed the earthquake before I did ... I have not felt one of those in a while. It was just a small tremor and we watched our tea giggle back and forth... no big deal!

I will try to keep the earthquakes small this week and hope to have a new sock to show soon.

Socker!

2007-09-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

Wow! I can't believe the week flew by so quickly. I have been working so hard that I am finding it hard to make time to knit. But I did take a few trips into town in the evenings which bought me some knitting time! Not to mention that the temperature are finally dropping a bit. While I am still optimistic to get the mohair sweater done by Christmas... I am not seeing time to have it done this month. :(

I finally got a little mojo going for the kool-aid socks and they are DONE!!! Thank goodness. The next easy pair is on the needles and I am hoping to thread in some cool pattern after they are knit up. It should be a surprise in many aspects. :)

The Brazilian girls and I went down to the local soccer game, after changing trains 3 times!!! It was a lot of fun and we were lucky our $25 seats were covered from the heavy rain that has been falling all day long. The game was scoreless until the last 3 minutes when the Brazilian player knocked in a goal. My friends were super excited. Here are a few pictures to enjoy.

Did you want a better close up? Little arrow pattern

I forgot to mention the super cool fireworks I viewed from my friend's 10 story building. WOW!!! the fireworks went on for an hour. I thought after they put the happy face images in the sky and hello kitty images up the grand finally was just around the corner.... not for another half an hour. I would love to see them again next year. I wanted to take pictures but I was afraid to leave my comfortable seat and plate of sushi. :) It was really a nice party to attend.

Friday night I met a friend an we went to a popular area along the river after a 90 degree day. It was wonderful to sit and watch the boats floating by with the cool autumn breeze. We counted 40 party boats out in the bay area at one time. nice way to end the week.

I took a picture of the socks guarding my computer in my new computer room. This is were everyone shares the signal. So when I am talking to you on Skype this is where my socks and I are.... :) Cozy isn't it?

I went to tthe park!

2007-09-24T04:12:00.000-07:00

Look what I did at the park besides eat my lunch with a friend.

I got a picture of my fabulous new gloves. Now my friend whom I had lunch with wants a pair. hmm... not sure I want to do that since each finger took about 30 minutes.

I think there is hope that I may wear these soon since the weather seems to be cooling down for fall. I can't wait!!!

Summer of Socks count

2007-09-21T00:29:00.000-07:00

I believe today is the last day of summer, unfortunately summer just keeps continuing!!! It is a ridiculous 35 degrees Celsius out. Yes, definitely not "knitting in the park" weather. To celebrate the coming of fall I don't have to work on Monday, although it will probably still be 30 some degrees in the 90.

As summer concludes and the SOS wraps up I must confess the socks are slowing down as more interesting winter projects start to take over. I only managed to to knit 8 and a half pairs of socks. I had hoped to knit more to get ahead on the 52 sock plunge. I may just jump off the wagon.... but I have all this stash to burn through!!!

To conclude summer I must show the half a pair of socks... maybe by Monday it will be a pair and ready to wear in the beginning of fall. This is my hand-dyed knit picks yarn with the little arrowhead pattern from Sensational Knits. 4 simples rows that threw off too many times. Even after all the pain of the pattern I can't wait to wear them.

More knitting adventures

2007-09-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

I've been busy knitting, meeting and playing around... of course. Yesterday I finished the awful kool-aid sock and now I have one more to make. Can I finish it before the end of the month?? I would rather sit in the library and study that knit on the stupid sock. It looks really nice on and will be great for this heat wave we are in. Yes, it was another 90 degree day and too hot to wear any hand knit socks. :( In fact I ALWAYS wear my delicately hand crafted socks that even when I am not wearing socks... I am still wearing socks. (I have a bad tan line, albino white to a light white color.)

I went to my new knit group Tuesday night. of course I got lost on the way, did not take the address, phone number, etc... so I stopped into AmPm to ask where the bar was.... and the clerk kind of freaked out. "No not around here." I circled the block because I could sense the needles working nearby, and half a block away I found the group. It was a pretty cool group. But I am not used to knitting in bar. hmm.... but I will get used to it. there were about 10 people and they were all working on a variety of things. Once it cools down a bit more people will probably drop in.

I saw the coolest thing in the yarn store. It was kind of expensive but I am a glow in the dark fanatic. There was fingering weight glow in the dark yarn in 4 colors, 75 yards for $6. While I can't really justify the purchase yet.... uhm, I am definitely trying make it seem cheap. I could put hidden stripes or patterns in my socks. How cool would that be???

oh, I finished a glove and the other one is about half done. I did take a picture and with the background says 32 degrees, that is not in F.
I am surprised I did not have a heat stroke modeling the glove in the sun.

Do you want other curious pictures?

This is taller than that thing in Paris. :)　勝った、よ。

How about this building?

If you are watching the news you would know that it is empty for various reasons. Next week it should be back on track... well of a sort.

Mary Poppins, I am.

2007-09-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

Today was a nice causal knit day. I thought I would take my super cool Mary Poppin's wheels out for a spin. I am not used to having hand breaks and no gears. But all the same I can break light speed and pass everyone on the street. :) I can even eat and ride the bike, all I need is a coffee holder and I will feel more at home.

Of course the first order of the day was to elbow in for some parking. As well as be attentive to where parking ticket are given out.
NOPE, this is not my granny bike. I think the parking fines are chopping off a finger. That sure would make knitting a challenge.

Here are the results of my errands.
I have two of the five fingers on the gloves. I am using the knitty Broad Street Mitten pattern slightly adapted. Ok, very much adapted. I am taking notes for the other glove in hopes they match.

I was glad I road the bike in the hot 85 wind, as walking would have been more tiring. When I got home I took this picture of my gloves with my neglected arrow socks in the garden. I must show this picture as I had to brave the mosquitoes!

I am just glad today did not involve 4 hours in the Karaoke room!

Picture update.

2007-09-14T05:42:00.000-07:00

Here are those pictures as promised. The Irish Hiking scarf. Nice isn't it? I almost want to start counting the days until winter. But then again I should enjoy the final 80 degree days, even though I tucked all my shorts away last week when it seemed fall had kicked in.

I have been working on these little arrow socks... uhm very slowly and there seems to be many disagreements. :( Will I ever finish this sock?

Good news is that my sock stash has been conveniently relocated next to my desk. It seems I will be working late because I seem to have a lot to learn. My peers are quite amazing and I feel like a little frog learning to swim. (Do they learn to swim.... I just like green things ... maybe a bad comparison.) Even though I am just a tadpole, everyone is very very nice and it seems like we are working very well together.

I may go start a new pair of socks that will go fast... I really need another unfinished project.

Lack of concentration

2007-09-13T00:47:00.000-07:00

It seems I am becoming attention deficit. When I went to log in today I forgot my password. You know I thought I would change it up and make it difficult to log in. It also seems that spell check has run away from me. Sorry, please read at your own risk.

Today`s random thought - On the way to work it was lightly raining with 80 degree temperature. How does that work anyway?

As some of you know I just wrapped up one big project at work and I have now shifted to a different division. So I have been a little on sensory over load. The new group is working out well. I am looking forward to this change and perhaps there will be room for lots of creativity. but who wants to talk about work here?

Yesterday was a slow day and my fingers were able to work fast. I started an Irish Hiking scarf in a beautiful chocolate brown. I was able to do 32 inches, 2 skeins of knit Picks wool of Andes :) then I worked a little on the cool-aid socks, even though the pattern and I keep arguing with each other. :( Then I just could not resist starting a pair of daffodil gloves. I have being talking about making gloves, well this year it will happen. NO pictures yet... but they will come soon.

I must go to the store and see if I can find khaki tights, I am not ready for winter black tights yet. (yes, with the changes I have to dress up from time to time. That does mean a skirt, button up blouse etc. don:t worry I am not posting any picture here for this rare siting.)

93 degrees and knitting?

2007-09-11T02:25:00.000-07:00

As I ran errands this afternoon in the Pacific NW September heat wave, I tried to motivate myself for the next wool project. I just know that soon it will be back to fleece weather. I am trying to decided which pile of wool will get all the attention. It is either ... Irish HIking scarf, the lacy leaf pattern mohair scarf, the Tototro hat, or another pair of socks. the cool-aid yarn is all wound and ready to go... but which will get posted next time??? I better go sip some lemonade first!

Flames put out

2007-09-08T01:15:00.000-07:00

One more pair of socks done! This pair was a tough one, not technically but I never caught the rhythm. Not to mention I hate fixation. This is the same color of yarn I used for my knee high soccer sock project, which I thought would take 4 balls and only took three. Meaning I had a ball of the green stuff around the house left over without a mate. I had to buy another ball to get make a pair. I like the color and subtle color changes, BUT this yarn does not match the pattern, Flame Wave from Fav Socks book. I thought this would be a quick knit on the size 5 needles.... not so much. I am not really going to talk about the extreme snugness this sock has... this pair might go to my little sister with rinky dink feet. Now I can start the cool aid socks!!!

Oh I have a small correction. I have 62 pairs to choose from everyday. There was a completed pair hiding in a bag and this pair.

Definitely not tranquilizers

2007-09-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

I had a pleasant surprise this afternoon when I got home from work. I found this box sitting on my door step. At first I assumed it was the large box of pain killers I ordered so that I can deal with my supervisor. I tossed the box into the living room and made a few phone calls.
While I was talking to a friend, I noticed the bubbly hand written address label. (That was a hint that there might not be drugs inside the box.) It was box from an enabling guardian angel in California. Look what she sent me!!!

This box was full of fun. There is a handful of sock patterns and dish towel patterns. One is a Washington State dish clothes pattern. Then there was some Knit Picks sock yarn, Sockotta sock yarn, 800 yards of merino wool (possible sweater?), and some blue-green sock yarn WITH Brittany knitting needles!!! Then a friend tried to spoil the reality of the packages' origin. "She was just cleaning out her old patterns and unwanted yarns." But the cool thing is that in the end, I am the spoiled one! I always accept boxes of unloved yarn, I could probably open up a house to care of foster yarns or find space for unwanted yarn.

Going home to have dinner with the big family this weekend and I think the blue yarn and needles is joining me. BUT whenever I have a quick trip away, here is the trauma I have to deal with:
From the 60 pairs of socks I have to pick just a few pairs to take with me. How does a person decide which pair gets packed to travel and which one gets to stay home? Choosing my socks is often the most stressful part of the weekend get-away! Then while I try to choose, the socks come alive and attack things in the house. This next picture maybe a little graphic, look at own risk:
Can you see Kermit getting attacked by these crazy socks? Fortunately, I saved him in time so he can continue to be involved in future photo shoots!

Now do you want to see my finished pair of socks from the weekend?
These are the Broadripple. I really love how the pattern turned out. Yes, it is fixation yarn, which I hate, but the stretchiness and pattern make this yarn tolerable. This is color #9385, I bought it about a year ago.

Well, Happy knitting. I hope to have another pair for socks for you to see soon!

Welcome to the NW

2007-09-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

Today is a holiday and apparently I committed to an annual event last year. It is an official hiking day with my friend, Super trail woman. Off of the sofa I went to hike Tiger Mountain, just a few miles east of Seattle. (30 minute drive) We get there about 8:30 am, first car at the trail head and up the mountain we go. Sadly there were no signs of any massive wild life like bears or cougars this time so we wondered through the woods listening to the birds and watching for "organic" huckleberries to nibble on, as well as counting the varieties of mushrooms on the soft forest floor. Ah nice isn't it?

At the top of the mountain this is the view I was able to take in as I chewed on my cliff bar. (Kind of jealous I did not think to make a delicious sandwich like Super trail woman.)

This is Mt. Rainier at 14,000 ft tall. Typically a 3 day climb to summit in good weather. It is a nice site, isn't it?
In the next picture I will introduce you to the city, Seattle. Can you spot the Space Needle?

After our little lunch break taking in the scenes it was time to hike back out the 4 miles. No big deal it's mostly down hill and through the beautiful cedar trees.... and then... Zappity- Zang... OUCH! Mr. yellow Jacket/Wasp guy decided to sting me on the leg. :( OWE... Fortunately I am not allergic to bees like Super Trail Woman and the good news is at this point there has been no need to amputate my leg yet and I will live to see another day of work.

But yet again boys and girl there is a moral to the story, The world just is not safe and I should have stayed home to knit!

KIlled by knitting neglect?

2007-09-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

Well, to my surprise not yet. I just can't keep a plant alive, and yet people (friends and family) try to make me a better plant mother by giving me "easy to care for" plants. The cactus, it was fatal. The poor thing was instantly killed as I tried too hard to love it. Yes, perhaps I tried to give it too much water. oh, the poor thing...

Then my dear friend Fionna moved east and gave me her Christmas tree, ok it was a Christmas Palm tree. It was ok until the first Christmas, still hanging in there for the second one, then the third Christmas... it appears to have no more leaves. I did not give up on him. I kept watering and pretending it was alive. Then one day little sprout Palm-y came up out of the planter. oh My!! how exciting was that? So I tried a new approach with the little guy. Neglect. It seems to be working ok. see here is a picture of dead man palm and little palm-y. But will he make it through winter?

The next victim is a really cool plant. Well, it was really cool until it was terrorized by sockergirl. I may have loved it too much, again. drowning and lack of sunshine. Typical NW problem, even inside sockergirl's cave. I keep picking otu the dead parts and pieces hoping something living will pop up. Today I found flowers in the pot!! how exciting is that???? WOW amazing. it has lived 9 months with me, take a look at its potential.

Now the last prisoner, he has done well for me. I think it is a rubber plant. NO it is not FAKE! It might be a rubber tree thing, I'm sure it has a name. It keeps turning different colors on me. Reds to browns after water sometimes back to green... very puzzling. This color change thing scares me and then I throw water on it and worry that it has drown. He seems to be doing ok, today.

Ok. Do you see the moral of the story here? There are reasons why I collect yarn NOT plants and kids. Please don't torture me with either kids or plants.

End of the month already?

2007-08-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

I just realized it is August 30th. I believe that means it is pay day. Yippy! Not only that it means doing bills and posting my August sock on the sock-a-month KAL. While I have started many pairs I am lagging a bit behind. Work has kept me busy and more than frustrated me lately. Why do supervisors give projects for you to work you tail off and then throw in that last minute surprise that puts all of your time and efforts to waste AND basically makes you look like a fool. Just yesterday all the pieces were getting worked out and my project was a go, so I show my co-workers and they were very impressed with my findings. Then I get a call after I am home from work to find out my project may not even be used even though I was told to share it with my surrounding team members and add them as support. WHAT!! I swear someday soon I am going to suddenly quit and totally blind side them. Yes, I hate my employer. Ok sorry for the explosion. Let's talk about something happier.

I finally found a good deal on some yarn to make the sweater. It is the hoody I can't stop talking about from Rebecca No 32 magazine. The cost of this yarn was about $15 plus Washington's 10% sales tax. I was debating about olive or this color. What do you think?

The sad news about this... I won't be able to throw it on the needles until my mohair sweater is knit and then my next giant work project begins. Sad... But to make up for that and the bargain yarn I was able to buy a happy colored yarn from Opal feelings collection. :) I thought about buying a second skien to make knee highs for soccer... but then I calulated the amount of time I am going to be able to knit in the month of September and common sense won out. :(

well... I am going to escape to go meet my knit buddies tonight. :)

Citrus fun

2007-08-26T20:46:00.001-07:00

As you know the day started with just this:

But then my "partner in crime/yarn enabler" knit-wise cracker invited me over to dye yarn. She bribed me with green Kool-aid. That caused me to grab my ball winder, always ready knit kit and fresh knit pick skien to make into a citrus medley.

After I got to her house I found I was bribed without there actually being green Kool-aid. oohh.. not so kool!

So we jumped into my socker-mobile and ran to the store to find green lemon lime kool-aid. What is wrong with stores carrying only tropical punch red kool-aid? Don't they know there are desperate yarn dyers in the world? FOUR stores later I had my green kool-aid, some blues, purples and you get the picture. We now had so many colors it was hard to pick our "yarn-to-be" colors.

Knit-wise went first and made a beautiful green blue skien. Check her blog to see "Emerald City." Rasberry Ice and Blueberry with Lemon Lime and Lemon. We followed Knitty.com rules of 4 packets per 100 grams. In the end we decided if you want a better defined color use more packets. A nice washed out tint of color is the 4 packet rule. Just depends on what look you want. Sure her yarn did smell as good as it looks!

Then it was my turn to have a try. I washed my yarn. Then selected orange, lemon and 3 lemon lime Kool-aids to make "Citrus Medley". Those were my three colors to get multiple shades. If I had more Martha Stuart cooking bowls I would have made more colors. Here are just a few colors I worked into the yarn.

I was able to make multiple shades of greens, olive and then some interesting orange orange-yellow browns. What fun!!! If I had more yarn and Kool-aid, knit-wise would have sicked her dog on me around 10pm. Here is what ended up boiling.

And here is what I was sent home with to dry. What do you think? "Citrus Medley"

Never enough time

2007-08-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

I forgot to show a few pictures of the lake I camped at last week. This is my brother taking his little gal swimming in Wallowa Lake. It was so hot there I could not knit on the mohair sweater I keep swearing I am going to finish before September.. :(

Was there wild life at the camp? Do the three year olds count? ok, just kidding. I am more curious why the deer is in the horse pasture?

oh no... he is coming after my yarn... watch out! Nah, I think he went for the loaves of bread at the neighbors site and cantaloupe. I saw him unzip the duffle bag the food was in... wow, smart deer. Last year we had to tie up the cooler because these deer can pop a cooler open with their nose and mouth.

So after the camp adventure I snuck into mom and dad's house and painted both bathrooms, first time in about 27 years! It was a job. I did not might doing the work, just it kind of took away my my knitting and soccer time. :( I'll recover. i am thinking that mom and dad might have given up something for me at some point in time.

In between paint and hardware runs, I was able to sniff out a yarn shop. And the results? oh just look!

No, I really did not need three skeins of yarn BUT This was on sale half off and I don't usually knit with solid colors. I have been noticing have much nicer some patterns are with a solid color. This is sport weight and each skien is only 230yards. I was told to find a lacy pattern. not sure what they will be come. I'll just tuck them away for a rainy day. (Wait I live in Seattle. Q rainy day just might be tomorrow.!.)

The yarn diet has gone out the window, again! I also ordered from knitpicks. I need yarn to make the Irish Hiking scarf for my book worm friend. I like the serious look to this scarf. Not to mention it seems warm enough for a good cold winter. Let's hope for a cold winter so Book Worm can wear my scarf. here is the scarf to be...

The bad news about my Knit Picks order: I ordered before vacation and had the package sent to MOm and dad's house because I was planning do a little painting. the yarn stuff came and I knew the Ann Budd book would be a little later. Guess what, it came the day after I leave. :( now I have to either wait a month or so until I get back to mom and dad's, OR... I sneak into a friend's house and swipe is for a little over night reading. Hmmmm.... maybe a bribe would be better...

On the way home from grandmother's house (Grandma sounds better than mom and dad, right?) I stopped by IKEA along I-5. I bought a placement. Then this morning after reading a knitter's blog and doing some research I believe I successfully made a sock blocker. WOW! just looky here. oh, the place mat was only in one color and it fortunately was... GREEN and silver!

Now look and see how it really shows off my lovely broadripple. (I finished this sock since the photo was taken.) I am loving this sock. Good pattern, only a 2 row pattern. I still hate the stretchy Fixation yarn,but the colors are turning out great! (Also, trying to burn the stash a little.)

Well next time I hope to have a pair of socks done, and then I will reveal a growning problem.

A little variety

2007-08-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

I am back from the lake and the weather was great. Well, a little hot for two of the days. Now I am home watching paint dry. I just painted two bathrooms. This evening I will put up some of the fixtures and take the tape off the edges. Kind of sounds like work, so I will sit here and knit and internet a little longer. More fun, eh?

I finished my test socks. I really liked the Pagewood yarn. It will be interesting to see how it knits up. Awesome color. The pattern is quick going. If I was to make another pair of socks in this pattern I would put my favorite flap heel in instead of the short rowing. These socks feel good on. :)

Last week at the lake I whipped up this sock, the flaming wave sock from Favorite Socks book. Pattern was frustrating for me since I can't really see the pattern very well. bummer... like the color but I am wasting effort on an invisible pattern. Maybe I will change my mind when i do the second sock. hmmm....

I got a little ambitious this morning and started another sock in addition to the others on the needles... I started the Broadripple. It is coming along rather quickly. quicker than the flame. I am following the pattern 56 st size 3 needles

I started two socks in one. I mean inside the other. It is kind of cool but a little slow. So I don't suspect a quick pair with these socks. The trick is to keep one thread in the front and one in the back. I am thinking it woul dhave been quicker if I knit the outside sock inside-out. This way i would not be flipping the tread forward all the time just purl a st knit a st...

Let's see if I am doing it, right? Can I pull the two pieces away from each other?

YIPPY good so far.

Let's see how many other projects I can get started to fill the knitting bag I carry around.

How could I forget?

2007-08-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot to share that my super cool Sock Pal (the one I made socks for) got her socks. Fortunately she did not "fall" the tree on the UPS man. you should check out Her blog, Cool sock friend She is also on Ravelry, (Like all the cool kids,) see what sock patterns she has queued there. :) oh, she is under bonitapita. (did you see what wisecracker taught me this weekend, its a new trick!)

No time for knitting today, but I did go shoe shopping. I wanted the Gwen Estafani "harajuku" shoes. I thought they would be fun, and they are in a converse chuck style. I don't usually spend $65 on a pair of shoes, but my thinking is.... I tend to keep things for a long time. Like the shirts from middle school, Esprit shoes from HS, my old worn out GAP jeans that the sales clerk laughed at me when I asked if they still sold that style. (yeah, they actually are designed to stay on your waist.) I think you get the picture. I am not so much up to date on latest fashion and I tend to do my own thing. This could explain why Chico's did not call me back when I applied for a job there recently. Or was I over qualified? Sorry I got side tracked my real story is what the girl said to me. I tried on the 11s, but they were a little long, then the 10s... but they were kind of tight. She said, "well I am sure you will be wearing a thinner sock, so they will fit." Does she know who she is talking to??? Sock-ergirl... only hand knits here! I just kindly pointed out I woul dbe wearing hand knit socks. I don't think the sales girl understood the great artistry of hand knit there socks.

Well, I am off to knit up a storm in my special spot of hybernation. Let's hope my Mountain bike does not distract from my knitting.

Eleanor and some creepy crawlies

2007-08-13T01:20:00.001-07:00

One more pair done. A pair of Panda Eleanor just barely squeaked out of two balls of cotton Panda. These socks have a great feel to them. While I was not a huge fan of the splitting yarn as I knit the stretchy feel on the foot is fabulous. This is a better fit than fixation and easier on the hands.

Below are the creepy crawlies. I just got two skiens of opal yarn. Bumble Bee on the left and Snake on the left. I intend to try the Snicket sock for the Bees and the Snake pattern from Six Socks KAL. hmm... have been knitting as fast as I have been buying yarn? Oh I hope so...

Next up... finish test socks. (Heel is turned) then finish Mohair sweater so I can buy hoody sweater yarn, knit Sheldon, as for next socks... uhm.. Jay walkers? Broadripples? two at once? Or, maybe I will just surprise you!

I also need to go get some SOS photos for the contest.

A single and a single equal....

2007-08-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

Single sock syndrome? Nah... not yet, right?

I completed the Test sock in Pagewood's green color. It is way better than the pooling socks that rock I tried last week. The pattern is nice and I learned a new way to turn a heel, short rows with YOs. The pattern was made on #2 needles following the recommended gauge of 8 st per inch.

The other single is Eleanor from panda cotton. It is very snuggly. I thought I was going to run out of yarn, but I squeezed out the toe. On to the next one, already have the ribbing in. :) Good mindless pattern of a sort, but you have to remember what line you are on.

I had to go downtown to take care of some office work and along the way I had time to stop in at a yarn shop. hee hee... I was able to preview Ann Budd's new book. I think Ann is becoming my new hero. Move over Nakata, Pele, Beckham.... :) Her book has good sensible layout and visuals. There are also a few patterns toward the back. I think it could make a great coffee table book next to Favorite socks, and the Sensational Sock series.

Surprise!!! It's super cool!

2007-08-04T23:45:00.001-07:00

I opened my front door and I almost tripped over this....

My sockapalooza socks! My pal was working hard on this package for months. :) Oh, I am SO happy with my magic box of goodies. Way better than imaginable. My Pal Gena rocks!!! I hope she has a blog so I can see what other cool things she does. But let's look at the goodies. The Awesome socks, TWO chocolate bars - healthy ones :) (I will TRY to share with a friend, it always makes the chocolate taste better.) two natural flavored lip shine (Vanilla Cola & Orange Cream) and what I thought to be green altoid chewing gum. Oh, pal you tricked me, really.

With the careful wrapping and decorated box, the nice postcard from MSU, the organic items for ME. How did she know I try to hide my inner "hippy" from my blog? But the package got better when I opened the green altoid box it had GREEN knitting markers and the super bonus... ONE soccer ball marker. Nope not loaning these babies to anyone. :)

Then the coolest part of the gift. The socks! (of course) Look how snuggly these socks fit! WOW!!! She really got the whole package right. I have been wanting to do this pattern, Ann Budd's Diagonal Cross Rib Socks. The color choice - Perfect! it's Pine Tree green, soft wool. Brown Sheep Wildfoote Luxury Sock yarn to be exact. Looks like I will have to make this pattern for a friend. I hope that my pal's feet are about the same size and she did not have too work too hard on the size 11 socks. I am sure that she has a pretty box of socks in the mail to her too. She deserves it! Thanks pal, you made my week!

Now about my knitting....After the depressing start on the test sock, I set the Socks That Rocks aside and wound the Pagewood GREEN yarn. hee hee. :) I got a pretty good start I am already to the heel turn and it looks pretty good. See

Here is today's added bonus to all the knitting time and surprise giftS. I went to my knitting guild Picnic potluck and someone was destashing .... cotton sock yarn in mint. I am very happy to take this yarn off their hands. Now I need to find the perfect knee high sock pattern. :) Any ideas?

Monkey offf my back, come over Eleanor

2007-08-04T00:20:00.000-07:00

I shipped out my Sockapalooza socks to my pal. I hope she likes them. I sent a little care package of a sort, the items included - black sheep tape measure, Hello Kitty Mermaid cell phone charm from Japan, yarn sticky note pad and of course the lovely Lorna lace Mashed-up madness socks. I shipped it UPS to make sure it gets there and so I can track it. I can't wait to hear how she likes the goodies!

While everyone is doing monkeys, all the cool gals I am hanging with are making Eleanors. Sockfanatic is on her third pair!!! wow... will I end up like her? check out the pattern. I started it yesterday adn I am about half way throught the first sock. I should have a pair by weekend. uhm,... the test pattern has got me a little behind on my socks-a-week pace... hmm.. Is it time to give up? I know Sheldon is still calling to me, as well as the mohair sweater & all those sock patterns on Ravelry.

Below you will see the test socks in their current state. The pattern is working out fine, but the yarn??? Not so well... it is pooling pretty bad. The Thursday night gals voted to rip it out and try Jaywalkers with this yarn and pick something else for the test pattern. :( Yarn is SOcks that Rock G-rock. So sad...

Here it is.... wah ha ha... Mash-up madness

2007-07-31T14:38:00.001-07:00

These beautiful socks could be yours.... if you are my Sockapalooza Pal. Is it you? Do you wish it was you? These socks took about a week to knit up. There is a beautiful design on the front (uhm, kinda like the Breeze sock at knitty) and the back of the foot is a lace deisgn with cables mixed in. I know this design would have been so much cooler with a solid color. But have you ever seen me use a solid color yarn for socks? I don't believe I could knit a pair of socks in a solid color...... unless it was a green yarn. So, apparently my pal did not request green. the yarn here is Lorna Laces in glenwood, size #2 needles. the color way is very soothing.
OH, I forgot to have you check out the lacy top. Yes, it was a knit 99 cast on with yarn overs- unders and thrus... which turned into 62 stitches, I swear. Since this is a public forum, let's just say I mastered the rib in the first try.
This blurry picture is the back of the leg..... can you make out the pattern?

oh man.... I feel Sheldon the turtle wanting to be knit.... what to do? turtle, turtle...

Completed but distracted by blinky-girl

2007-07-30T23:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, I did complete the Sock Madness Mash-up Madness socks which are also my Sockapalooza socks. I had full intent to post a picture of them here, but I got side tracked in blog land. Are you surprised? Has it eve happened to you? To conclude: I will post the sock pictures tomorrow, and you will have to be satisfied with tonight's photo, or uhm.. avatar. You can get your own at www.simpsonsmovie.com

Stitch N Pitch - Losers or Winners?

2007-07-27T00:40:00.000-07:00

The gals and I suited up with our best compact knitting projects and hiked into the nosebleed seats. We were surrounded by other knitters, had a pretty good view of the home plate and better yet, no one needed oxygen or the defibrillator machine. We did good!
Yes, this one the give-away, needle holder. I will have to test it out in my next travel trip. Maybe then I won't lose needles in China. :)
As in previous years there were many shops to show off their beautiful fibers... and I tried to resist. I knew I would buy one skien, but they tricked us. They had two sections of yarn tables. After I looked over section one I decided on the below yarn. Yes, GREEN. (I was feeling like I've been neglecting this color with all the recent orange-ish socks.) Then we get closer to our section and see... a few other tables. One was filled with Socks that Rock.
My partner in crime (Sockfanatic wishes to remain anonymous) quickly found the magic sock yarn of my dreams. We had both been waiting to see Lemon Grass in the stores. Next issue after the one skien on the table was snatched by shopping enabler, she preceded to inquire if there was MORE Lemon grass. Indeed there was, and we both were able to enjoy the evening talking to each other, without harm to each other and lemon grass skien in our knit bags. hee hee...
After the bit of shopping and drooling over many other reasonable color choice we sat to watch the game, take silly pictures and be rowdy knitters. Look at the progress of my Sockapalooza sock... cool eh?
The worst part of the game was not losing. Sorry Ichiro... and all the Joses on the team. Me being the eco-girl that I wish I coudl be all the time, I rode the bus downtown. Good idea? Oh yeah. Cruised INTO the city 20 minutes. Return? the actual ride was 20 minutes, BUT they did not post that our return bus stop closes on game day and if you walk 2 more blocks the bus will pick you up there afte rthe 7th inning. oh... well you do learn something knew everyday. At 11pm I was boarding the bus and 1130pm I was stinking into the front door. Well, must wake early AM for the 7am work shift, then paint a house this weekend.

Tessellating Lace Sock colors?

2007-07-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

Recently I have become addicted to the laptop. You might not notice it yet because... there have been a few completed projects and posts. But I have been floating around the web looking for new patterns and seeing who is up to stitching up cool socks and the patterns involved. You guessed it... I am becoming a Ravelry-aholic. I am who I am... you'll find me on Ravelry as "sockergirl." Upper case? Lower case? I am not a snobby about the "S"... but I might become snobby about my knitting. I'll apologize in advance.

The Sockapalooza socks are half completed :), which always makes me think about my next pair. I spotted the Tessellating Lace Socks at Kat's Knitting the Light Fantastic blog. (Sorry not sure how to link.) She designed some pretty socks and needed a knit tester. Since I need to get OFF line and do more around the house, like knitting, (not cleaning or painting the outside) I volunteered to test knit the pattern. Below is the sock Kat designed and knit: Nice knits! But the next question is.... which yarn should I make them up in? Let me know what you think. the yarns from left to right are: On-line cotton (red, blue, green, yellow) Opal (yellow black white) STR G-Rock (varigated purples, green, golds) Monarch Sport (local hand painted greens and yellows varigated?) and Opal (striped yellow gold blues.)If all goes well with the mash up madness, I will start the Tessellating Lace Saturday or Sunday?

Lots of cables here lately

2007-07-22T00:48:00.000-07:00

Here is this week's pair of socks. It is the Favorite Socks (interweave)- Cable Rib Socks. Pretty easy, especially with the soft Austerman Step yarn. Although it seemed to fuzz a bit when I had the socks in creation. hmmm.... I may need to wash them carefully. :( there are full cables (leg-foot) on the outside and short leg cables on the inside. I like the colors. they should go well with .. uhm... my khakis.I opened my blogg and all the orange socks scared me.... so I quickly cast on a ... GREEN pair of socks to calm me. I feel better .

BUT.... reality... I MUST knit Sockapoola socks. Oh they are due... in a week. I hope my pal is cooking up something super cool!! I am going for mad Mash UPs - attempt number 2. starting them tomorrow and not knitting anything else until they are done... well maybe a green relief every once in a while. oh, if any one has ideas for a pattern for my green panda friend... 56 sts....

One more for June, and two for July

2007-07-16T00:47:00.000-07:00

Here is the much awaited pictures for the last few weeks of my knitting life. I hate to tell you guys, I really did not miss the internet connection for the last few weeks.... I guess that is a good sign that I am not addicted to the computer.... I think. :) Here is pair number one completed on the plane. Pattern is from More Sensational knits and is a 5 stitch pattern Open Twisted Ribbing. Made from Lana Grossa cotton, size 2 needles and 60 stitches. I recommend the pattern and the yarn!Then in July I decided to give the 6 sock's Eiffel Tower design a try. I had to change the toe up image to a top down... hmm... not sure it went so well. But the sock yarn color turned out pretty good. On-line summer color 100, size 2 needles 60 stitches. These socks seemed to drag on through the dull pattern. Or maybe it was the heat and humidity that were getting to me.After all this crazy patterning I thought it was time for a pair of green socks. :) Creative Arts color #104, size 3 needles, 48 stitches, simple sock pattern. This pair of socks will keep my toes toasty in the winter for sure!The long plane ride home helped me get a good start on my next Jojoba step socks. :) one done tonight, and the next one???? but I also need to get the sockapalooza sock finished by August 2nd. Hope to log on soon now that I am closer to my stash!

Sorry no pictures

2007-07-08T00:24:00.001-07:00

Been a while since I wrote. I have been busy on the road dealing with lost passport, wallets, cameras. Thank goodness none of these items were mine. :) I have been able to finish a pair of cotton socks for summer and I have one more pair close to completion and another single sock from wool. I am pretty sure the weather will become hot and that wool sock will hybernate for the remains of the trip. Fortunately. the temperature is hanging in at 26 C all day long. :) so too humid yet. WIll did have a day last week at 30 C adn humid. today is a long sleeve day since i am cold blooded. HOpe to post pictures by the end of the week. Sock on!

Busier than expected

2007-06-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Funny how time flies when you are on vacation and getting ready for vacation. But the time leading up to the vacation. The regular everyday life?
So I had hoped to finish a pair of cotton socks and post the completed picture ALL over the internet... but I am stuck on the heel and the last time I through a loop was... shhh.... Sunday. :( To make up for the non knitting. I D-stashed the crappy frilly stuff I had some how accumulated into those under bed bins. After moving this on to a happier owner, I cruised over to the yarn store and bought some.... GREEN..... Panda cotton. hee hee .... hee hee.... so on to my 2 week vacation. Let's see how many socks I can knit!!!

still knitting

2007-06-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

Here are the tofu socks! small needles and lots of stitches. This pair makes the 78th pair of socks I have made in the last two and a half years.
I bought another skien of tofutsies thinking I should make the Jaywalker 72 st pattern. But then I realized I would have to go down another size of two of needles. So I was able to entice a friend to try the marvelous tofutsies yarn. Wa la... yarn passed on and out of my stash. I sure have a lot of yarn left from this pair of socks. I'll just add it to the remnants bin. :)
Oh, so I am super busy right now at work and I was working most of the weekend on this project. The project is close to complete... but I had to take a little time out and ferry across to the church mouse and check on some yarn colors. :) well at $11 a skien I did a little in store research, and came up with Bel-Air being similar to Cascade's Pastaza yarn. Now I am going to have to find that perfect color. I was looking at olive... I still might be. hmm....
Well, I need to move on to doing some more work before the work week! This pair makes the 78th pair of socks I hav emade in the last two and a half years.