Waving Lace Socks

Pattern: Waving Lace from Favorite Socks
Yarn: Lorna's Laces in Lakeview
Needle: s.b. dpns size2
Cast on: August Cast off: Sept 28

I love these socks! They are super awesome. The color is gorgeous. These are my first lace socks, so I look forward to wearing them with my slippers inside or saving until next spring. Winter has come, termination dust has hit the hills. There was snow in the valley three days ago, but thankfully it didnt stick!

WIP- Campanulas for a Cure are both cast on and past both heels, working towards the cuff. I wound the J.Knits in two unequal balls, so the first sock to be finished will be the smallest ball and I will make the second sock that lenght. That is a serious advantage with the toe-up socks. Knit until the yarn is gone!

WIP- The shawl/wrap from the Fall kitty.com. Dont remember the pattern name. Yarn is Alpaca Cloud from Knitpicks and addi turbos from the LYS. Havent cast on, but hope to finish it on the plane either to French Polynesia, or from. I selected Lagoon for the color to commemorate the trip. Three weeks away, with a stupid work cruise to San Diego this next weekend.

Not the color I ordered!

Yarn: Yarn Pirate in Brown Sugar 480yrds Superwash Merino Fingerling Weight Thinking that I would be receiving a chocolate brown to golden to ivory. What I received was a deep maroon to a horrible shade of mustard seed/ squash/ cat yack. I opened the bag and WTH? I am so disappointed. So not what I had hoped for with my first hand-dyed, esty seller. I was expecting greatness and only received a mediocre sock yarn. I checked the tag. Yep, Brown Sugar. Guess I got the nasty dye job. Wow, I am so depressed.
I went and played around with my camera to see if under different light situations I could reproduce the colors. I hopes of reducing my disappointment, this is as close to the picture in different light. But the middle picture represents the colors in natural sunlight. Still disappointed. Guess I will stick to the Cherry Tree Hill. I am going to gather my courage and try Socks that Rock, to see how their colors turn out. I just hate spending $30+ and not receiving the colors I had hoped for.

Shedir is done!!!

Whoo hoo!!!

Pattern: Shedir from the knitty.com 2004 Breast Cancer Awareness Month surprise
Yarn: Rowan Calmer in Coffee Bean
Needle: addi TURBO, size5 and SB dpns, size5
cast on: August 31 cast off: September 11

We started off beautifully. The pattern was coming along great!!
All the side cabling is done, time to start in on the decreases...
Then all heck broke out! The brown turned to mud! There was no recognizable pattern to be found, so I ripped back four rows and put it back on the needle. The stitches got twisted and misaligned and went right back to mud again. In a fit of red-headed madness, I frogged the whole frickin' thing.
The patterns repeat eight times, but it wasnt the repeating part that got me confused, it was the decreases. I figured I would throw a stitch marker in for the initial row start and then some reminder clips after each repeat. Those little green markers are what saved me on the decreases. They were helpful reminders telling me that I was in the middle of a repeat and not at the beginning, so when someone ran by to ask me a question, I could go back and count eight stitchs instead of 128!
The finale! I am so in love with this design and the yarn, and the needles, and the stitch marker I made up from old earring beads. I am also so in love with DH for my Coach birthday bag! He is so awesome. I am constantly bombarding him with emails of all of my online shopping carts. He even had the kids pick me up a gift certificate for my LYS Inua Wool. Yeah for sock yarn!!

That star at the top is so darn cute! The author of the pattern has some other really great patterns. All-in-all, it was my first cabling experience and the results are beautiful. It was relatively easy to follow, there is one error on the chart that doesn't mention moving 1stitch back, but if you follow the picture, then you will easily realize the error. It tells you on front page which rows to move over 1, but the info got dropped on the second page with the chart. The yarn was a breeze. I haven't worked with acrylic before, I usually just stick with wool (if Qivuit is unavailable, geez...), but I would have to say, the cotton/acrylic "microfibre" is dream to work with. No grit, no shine, no shrinkage! Next time I will move up a needle size. It is snug over my ponytail and I would make the ribbing 1/2" longer so it covers more of my ears. This is Alaska, hats are necessities, not just fashion!

My Birthday

The Earth opened up on my birthday, September 10 and made Hawaii just that much bigger. My ego says that Mother Earth wanted to give me just a wee little bit more of Hawaii to enjoy. I was so excited to see the sign with my birthday that I made sweet DH (fiance at the time) pull off the side of the road to take th picture. Happy Birthday to me! And I am almost finished with the Shedir. I will post the finale of that sweet, sweet hat tomorrow.

Well, the Shedir didnt turn out like I had hoped. I got passed the chart repeats, then everything went all screwy. I started the decreases and my brown hat turned to mud. I frogged back to the picture on the left, but got all the knits/purls twisted, so in a fit of redhead anger, just frogged the whole dam*ed hat.

I have the provisional cast on for my Campanulas, but gave up after three tries. I drove over to Barnes and Noble and picked up two new books with more explanation of toe up: Vogue Knitting and Socks, Socks, Socks. A $50 gift card only to realize that I have the Summer 2007 Interweave Knits tutorial already on my bookshelf, oops.

shopping too much?

You know you are shopping too much when a mystery box shows up in the mail and you can't remember ordering anytime. I was hoping for a surprise, unknown birthday gift, but it was only {not that it is a bad thing} an order that I placed last week on a busy day.

It is Mission Falls 1824 Cotton in a pink and ivory. For yet another upside-down daisy hat. Cotton seems to work better, no pilling, you can wash it as many times as you want. I am starting to LOVE cotton. No yarn snob, here!

Shedir

Started the Shedir on Saturday. Was frustrated with the starting of the toes-up Campanula, so I cast on the Shedir that I have been oogling for six months now. Expanding my skillset, I have begun by tackling a cable pattern. Albeit, the cables are only twists and Cable 2 left/right, but it is a start. And I have to admit, this pattern rocks! It is so simple to follow! I am so looking forward to finishing this! Only repeating the braids for four series instead of the five listed for a shorter hat. Whee! The gsMgr called off of work today, and being a holiday that I get paid for, I am sitting at my desk knitting my little heart out. Oh well, for me. Memorial day, 4th of July, and Labor day all come on October 20, 21, and 22 (when I am on the Society Islands {just bought the tickets this weekend}).