And it keeps following me!!!

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?

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.

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???

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

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

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

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...