You Nice

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

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?

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!

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!

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!

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

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!