Show Me Your Knits

Right On Target

Just a quick post, in which I pretend that I really need to blog about my knitting, but in reality is just a way to procrastinate.  I've got a mound of clean laundry to put away, but I've been finishing up a book instead.  Anyway, just checking in to mention that incredibly, I'm still right on target with this 52 Pair Plunge thing.  Yup, it's about midway through the third week and I'm finishing up my third pair of socks.  Wow, I haven't fallen behind yet.  I'm amazed at myself.  Pair Number 2 are also knit out of Artyarns Merino 4 sock yarn, in a nice pink and green colorway that reminds me of English roses.  This was a quick pair to knit.  No photos yet of Pair #3 (which is sadly turning out a bit floppy) but I'll show them when they're done.  But now, laundry folding beckons.  (Unless I can procrastinate just a bit longer.)

Mission Probably Impossible

This morning when my husband left for work, I waved at him happily and sang out, "Ha ha ha, you have to go to work today and I have the day off!"  I'm oh so mature that way.  I'm enjoying my day off by knitting and watching Euro 2008 soccer matches today, with a side trip out to get a facial.  It should be a perfect day.  I'm particularly excited that American television has wised up and ESPN is showing all of the games, even though most people here in the States are completely oblivious that this soccer tournament is going on.  In the past, I've had to listen to the Euro Tournament via an audio feed from the BBC Sport site on my computer.  No visuals, just game audio, kind of like those old timey baseball games on the radio I remember my grandpa listening to.  So, you can see why it's pretty exciting that I can now watch my boyfriend, Thierry Henry, in high definition on our new giganto tv.  Plus, my pores will be deep cleaned, so I'll be looking good for him.

And I'll be knitting socks today.  (And spinning.  And knitting a baby gift, but this blog topic is about sock knitting goals, so I have to say I'm knitting socks.)  Why?  Because I love knitting socks, obviously.  And I have an impressive sock yarn stash, that is currently escaped from various plastic bins and is lounging all over the bed in the guest room, but mostly, because I signed up to do the 52 Pair Plunge II, which may be an exercise in insanity.  The goal for this group is to knit a pair of socks a week and at the end of the year you have 52 hand knit socks and a deep sense of satisfaction and a little frothing of the mouth.  The deal is, I can knit a pair of socks a week.  I've even whipped out a pair in two or three days.  But do it continuously for an entire year?  Doubtful.  I mean, I love to knit socks, but I also love to hang out with my family, read a book, work at my job, and shave my legs occasionally.   Knowing myself pretty well, I figure there are three possible scenarios:

1.  I take on this challenge as a fun goal, knowing ahead of time that it's Mission Probably Impossible, but it will still be fun to see how many pairs I can knit in a year, and it will be a great way to try all the different types of sock yarn in my "collection".

2.  I fall behind right from the start, feel frustrated, and throw in the towel and give up, much like when you vow to eat right and then have three glazed donuts for breakfast and figure the day is already shot.

3.  My weird competitive streak kicks in and I start knitting socks obsessively, comparing my numbers to the other 52 Pair Plunge knitters, posting my completed socks and count number statistics on the Plunge Blog, while pointing at my computer and shouting, "In your face, suckers!"  (Not attractive.)

Obviously, I hope I opt for the high road of Option 1, rather than the wussie quitter mode of Option 2 or the deranged competitor of Option 3.  Do I think I can knit 52 pairs of socks in a year?  Yeah, if I made it my only knitting goal, but I like to spin and have some lace knitting plans for the summer, and it always seems like I have a baby sweater in progress.  But, I like to tally things up.  (Note my cool count column on the left of my blog that I figured out how to set up.  Yay, me!)  In the past, I've counted how many scrapbook pages I've made in a year, but I've quit that tally, as I now could count them on my fingers.  I still think it'll be fun to try to challenge myself.  I'm estimating that I can pull off somewhere in the mid-thirties for a count number for pairs of socks.  I'll see my sister, Kirsten, for her birthday in July, so I could potentially give her a stack of hand knit socks for her birthday present.  (She's probably reading this blog right now and saying, "Screw the socks, Jessie!  I want a pony!)   So, the 52 Pair Plunge II runs from June 1, 2008 through June 1, 2009, putting us well into the second week.  I have one completed pair of socks so far.  Now you can't say that I'm already behind schedule, because we're still in the second week, and it's very possible that I finish up another pair.  (Remember, lots of soccer match viewing today on my day off from work.)  I'd probably have better luck if I were a bit more sock monogamous with my knitting.  Here's what I've got on my needles right now.  Yes, that is three different pairs of socks, plus a skein that's just begging to be cast on, because it's always better to have four socks on the needles than three, right?  Yeah, Mission Probably Impossible might be correct.

The Socks I Forgot To Blog About

Several weeks ago, I knit a pair of gorgeously soft socks and held off blogging about them, because I didn't want the recipient, Laura, to see them beforehand.  Laura bought her first spinning wheel right before I did, so we've sort of been checking out each others first spinning attempts.  I had Laura's name for the second Loopy Ewe swap, and what was nice, is that I got to meet her in person at the Loopy Ewe Spring Fling.  She is lots of fun and I wish she lived nearby so that I could knit with her and jump on her trampoline all the time.  Laura also teaches 6th graders and as I've got one, we would entertain ourselves endlessly with "sixth grade speak", including all the proper eye rolling and intonations.  Some examples?  "Whatever."  (insert eyeroll) "You're not the boss of me."  (Umm.  Yes, I am.)  Anyway, I like Laura, mucho much, and I knew she would be a challenge to buy for, since quite frankly, the woman has a yarn stash that could choke a horse.  Luckily, we shopped together at the Loopy Ewe during the Spring Fling and at one point, filled with shopping guilt, she laid three gorgeous skeins of Handmaiden Casbah on the floor and had us pick out the one she should keep.  Naturally, I surreptitiously put one of her sadly rejected skeins in my basket.  It was a spectacular colorway called Teal.  Normally, I am ambivalent about the color teal, but this skein was amazing.  And it was also the first time I was introduced to the Casbah yarn, which may be my new favorite type of yarn crack.  It is so unbelievably soft, that, as always when I am faced with a wonderfully soft yarn, my first urge is to tuck it in my bra.  Yes, I realize that sounds weird.  I don't mean it in any sort of kinky way.  Really.  If you mention this wish out loud, which I may have done at the Fling, someone may nickname you "Yarn Perv", even though you know perfectly well that you just said what they were all thinking, but they all had that special filter that let them keep comments like the weird "yarn in the bra" comment to themselves.  Anyway, this Casbah yarn is unbelievably soft.  I have no idea how it will wear as a sock.  It may be total crap and pill immediately, but the tactile pleasure of knitting it makes that practicality unimportant.  I knit Laura these socks, using the Charade pattern by Sandra.  (Oddly, I knit socks for Sandra during one of the Sockapalooza swaps.  Yeah, no pressure there, knitting socks for someone who has designed them.  Also, small knitting swap world.)  Charade is a lovely pattern.  It's basically just a two row pattern and immediately memorized.  I will definitely knit it again.  I loved these socks.  In fact, I loved them so much, it was really hard to part with them.  Lucky for Laura, we have different foot sizes.  These may be some of my favorite socks that I've  knitted, and that's saying a lot, not only because I've knit a lot of socks in my knitting lifetime, but also because I tend to forget socks I've knit once I've finished them.  I'm fickle that way.  (Seriously, I've glanced at friends' feet, admired their handknit socks and had the friend look at me oddly and then after a pause, remind me that I had knitted those socks for her.  What can I say?)  I do love these Casbah Charade socks, though.  Lucky for me that I've fattened up my Casbah sock yarn stash.  I may even be able to knit myself a pair.

People Give Me The Coolest Stuff

Have I mentioned how lucky I am?  Fiber people, like other knitters and spinners, just feel this overwhelming urge to send me cool stuff.  I don't know what it is, good karma, maybe, or just dumb luck, but I've been visited by the mailman gods.  Sherry, who lives in Alaska, had my name in the second go-round of the Loopy Ewe Swap.  She sent me what can only be described as an unending box of treasures.  I just kept pulling out wrapped packages.  I'm not even sure everything fits in the photo.  The first thing I saw was wads of Monopoly money tossed in the box, which completely cracked me up because I had been teasing her that she was supposed to send her swap partner money.  Har har.  There's tons of goodies in there, including a skein of buttery soft Handmaiden Casbah yarn in a to-die-for Mahogany colorway and some handknit socks out of this fantastic pinky/red yarn.  Now I've yet to travel to Alaska, although I have eaten moose stew, but Sherry sent lots of Alaskan stuff.  The kid and I are posers in the Alaska hats she sent along.  Thanks Sherry, this was fantastic.   

And then, as you might know, I've been struggling through the beginning stages of being a very beginning spinner.  A few days ago I  mentioned on my blog that some fibers, like the merino, were a bit more difficult to pull a good draw out and get a consistant spun fiber.  So out of the blue, Jess, who reads my blog, up and sends me some Shetland roving to try.  It was so generous of her and the absolute best confidence builder.  Look at that perfect skein.  Go ahead, admire it.  I don't mind.  I made my husband admire it for about ten minutes straight.  (I could tell he was forcing the love after the first few minutes, but he knew it was best to humor the crazy spinning woman.)  I am abnormally proud of this skein.  I kept running into the bathroom where the hank was hanging to dry every couple of minutes, just to look at it.  The Shetland was really rustic and rather rough, with little bits of hay and stuff in it, but really easy to spin to get a consistant size yarn.  My plying improved this time, too.  It was the first time using the niddy noddy that I just bought.  Talk about a comedy duo--it was a two person job winding on the thing.  My husband and I kept following the schematic directions and dancing around the thing, trying to get the yarn looped correctly.  I hope that one gets easier with time.  Look at that hank of yarn, though.  Isn't it gorgeous? 

Booties, Baby!

Grumble.  I wrote this nice, long blog entry this afternoon, did a spelling check, and the Typepad, my blog publisher, completely locked up and I lost the entire entry.  Ugh.  It's not like I wrote brilliant prose that's lost to the masses forever.  It was more just yammering on about baby booties I've knit lately, but still, I'm still irritated.  I don't know if the problem was with Typepad (they've made some changes lately and I'm slow to figure it all out) or my computer, but I doubt that I use spell check at the end of typing this.  Please pretend you don't notice anything amiss if you see a bunch of moronic spelling errors.  I live in fear of another blog post freeze-up. 

So anyway, I finished up the final pair of baby booties for the Baby Bootie Swap on Ravelry.  These are the Jester Booties from the Zoe Mellor "50 Baby Bootees to Knit" book.  The recipient has an interest in medieval history, so I thought these might be appropriate.  I don't know how historically accurate they really are, but I think they're pretty funny.  I used leftover Debbie Bliss Wool/Cotton yarn from my stash.  The knitted cuff trim looks quite a bit bigger in the sample photo of the pattern book than this pair of booties.  If I knit these again, I'd either use a larger gauge yarn for the trim or modify the trim pattern to get that bigger ruffle effect.  Still, cute booties.  And jingle-y.  I sewed on the jingle bells really well, but it wouldn't be any big deal if the recipient wants to snip them off to prevent a possible choking hazard.  No problem.  I just thought it made a cute presentation.  Speaking of presentation, I got a little Martha Stewart-y with the packaging of all the swap bootie packages.  At the last minute I got a wild hair and  knit up a bunch of Magic Slippers, which I attached like little party favors to   

the outside of the packages and felt very fancy.  Great pattern, because it uses up the little balls of leftover sock yarn (and I have a lot of leftover sock yarn) and there's no finishing to these booties.  You just weave in the beginning and end of the yarn.  Plus, they're adorable.  I can think of tons of ways to embellish them, i.e. with buttons, knit bows, pom poms, tassles, etc, but I left these plain. I used   some Koigu, some Socks That Rock, and some Zen String for these booties.  And just for kicks, I took a photo of all the booties I've knit   lately, mostly because it looks like a whole bunch and it makes me feel like the Bootie Queen.  Not all of these booties are for the swap--I knit several duplicates as gifts for expecting friends/family.  I suppose it's pretty goofy to knit so many booties when I'm not even pregnant (although it was entertaining to see how freaked out my husband got when he saw me knitting them) but they were lots of fun to make.