Socks, we have socks

Yippee, yahooey. I finally got my socks done for the CIC challenge. Finished last night and shipped today. I was working with Cascade220 and Patons Classic Wool on these. They are both really nice to work with. I almost cast on another pair last night, but I need to start on my FLAK back(after I frog and re-knit one of my saddles).

I wish the little design showed up better on the fawn colored pair of socks. I designed it as I knit and I am quite please with it. But, did I write it down as I went? NO. It was such an exercise in focus that I didn't dare take time to write it down and I sure can't remember exactly what I did, now. lol

I am so pleased, I got 62 full term baby hats serged, and now I just need to hem them. They need to get done tonight. O-o-ow! I have a few preemie size serged and a few more that need serging. Uh, I think I can sew in my sleep if I need to. hee-hee-hee.

I did get out some yarn for another pair of socks for me, Regia sock yarn. But, the repeats are kind of out of whack. The blue/white repeats on one skein are shorter than on the other skein. Pooh. I wasn't in the mood for that, so I just put it down for later. But I love the colorway, so I am going to have to get up some patience and get them started.

I am so happy to finally get the FLAK ring button up on my blog. It is so easy when it is done thru ring surf. Dear Marguerite was so kind and send me a brush up on how to add links. I'm ashamed to say that I still haven't tried to do it. I know it is basically the same as when you do it with ring surf, I just have a little mental block about it. I'm sure I can do it, I just have to make myself get at it.

Gotta get off here and install a couple programs. DD Kimie is coming over to use them later and they are still sitting here beside me waiting to be installed. Well, what can I say? I'd rather be knitting/sewing, well actually just about anything but installing programs in this cantankerous computer.

DJ

A froggin' I will go

I have been conspicuously absent from my blog lately and from the discussion on the FLAK group. The reason is that I am a horrible procrastinator. I have known for over a week that I made a mistake a couple inches back in my “saddles”. I have been trying to talk myself into just ignoring it. It is, after all, just one stitch! I have had so much other knitting and sewing to get done for my charities that I have had (sort of) an excuse for not just jumping in the frog pond and getting it over and done. Well, I have finally resigned myself to the fact that I will never be happy until I rip-it! And re-knit it. So, come Tuesday or Wednesday, I will be spending some time “in the pond”.(insert tears and sobbing here)lol.
I finished this pair of sock since I last posted. I call them my “monet” socks. I used some stretch yarn on size 2us needles. Cast on 64 sts. For my wide ankles. Just a simple sock. Nothing special, but I love wearing them. I call them “monet” because the colors reminded me of a Monet painting of a field of flowers. I'm not really impressed with the way the colors pooled, but I like wearing “fraternal” socks. lol Even taking the picture outside on the snow on a sunny day didn't improve the photo quality much. But, there they are.

I finally got my serger set up again. And I am busily making little hats for Parkland Memorial Hosp. in Dallas, TX. I am sewing standing up. Partly because I don't have a place right now to put my serger that is sit-able. lol And I really like sewing this way, anyway. I have fibromyalgia and my body tends to 'draw down' in the middle when I sit very long, and especially when I am sewing. So, standing up for short periods of time to sew works better for me. My computer is so slow that I can actually get quite a few hats done while I am reading my email. I don't think that I have ever mentioned the fibromyalgia here before. I guess that is because I really don't want it to become the focus of my life. I do what I can to accommodate and adapt and then just try to ignore it as much as possible. It's not like I'm the only person in the world who lives with terrible pain. And after the emotional pain that I went thru with my son's accident in 1995 and the ensuing 7 years of him being completely incapacitated in a nursing home, the physical pain is easier to take. Ummmm......enough of that. On to happier things.
DH did the laundry and the grocery shopping this week! Yippee...... he is such a nice guy!!!! That left me lots more time to knit and sew. Lol Gotta love it.
And we have decided that I will 'not' be seeking employment. It has been too frustrating to find something that I am both qualified for and capable of doing. It isn't like we are destitute, although we certainly aren't that comfortable, either. But to remove the frustration, we talked it over and decided that I will start doing a few alterations here at home again. I made my living that way for more years than I think I want to admit right now, so that shouldn't be a problem. It will give me a little yarn money and hopefully a little vacation cash, too. In fact, I should be designing new business cards right now instead of sitting here running on and on.>g<
Gotta go click my needles and think about business cards.
DJ

FLAK-ing Away

I finally finished my 1oo stitch swatch last night. Washed it and did my measuring this afternoon, just before getting online and finding that Step 3 was available. I am using Cascade 220 and for a while I was worried that I wouldn't like it. But, now that I have the swatch done I can see that I will like it very much. I have done the math and cast on for the shoulder saddles.
Too much company today to get a good start.

I did some mindless knitting on my Monet socks. I just finished the gusset decreases. I should get them done by weeks end.

I have about 3 inches of my current pair of CIC socks knitted. I just work on them while I read my e-mail, so they go slower. But with all the activity on some of the yahoo lists, there is a lot of e-mail to read lately.

I hope to get the sewing machine out sometime this next week. If I can keep myself from straining my back again, that is. I have scads of baby hats to finish cutting out for Parkland Mem. Hosp. in Dallas, TX. I would like to send them 50 or so this month yet.

They are talking about a knitalong on the Knitting for Children yahoo group. Phooey! They are going to make a cute sweater that I have really been wanting to make, but I don't think that I could pull that off and keep up with the FLAK and still get my charity knitting done. Why am I only one person?

Gotta go do at least a few rows on my shoulder saddles before I call it a night....errr make that morning. hee-hee-hee
Clicking away,
DJ

Knitathon and Rant

I finished a pair of CIC socks and am going to do the toe decreases on another pair of CIC socks when I get off the puter. When those are done I will go back to booties for the Knitting for Children yahoo groups Knitathon. I started a pair early this a.m and just have about 8 rows of ribbing to do on that pair and then I will start another pair and see how many I can get done before the knitathon is over at midnight EST.
Time to vent. I took a tax preparation class the third week of December. It was a farce right from the first day. I saw the handwriting on the wall, but decided to stick it out anyway. Which I shouldn't have done anyway because my back and hip were flaring up so bad that I really couldn't concentrate. We were told on the last day of class (testing day)Fri. the 22nd that we would be notified on the following monday if we passed the class and there would be a staff meeting on that thursday. We were told that if we didn't hear anything that meant that we didn't pass the test.
Here we are Sunday January 8 and at 2 oclock this afternoon I was called and told that I am scheduled to work tomorrow from 9 a.m. Til 2 p.m. Whaaaaaaaa!???? When I didn't receive a call I thought that I had failed the test. DUH!!!! I am just so irritated that they would assume that they could just call me and tell me that I was to come in tomorrow morning and expect that I would just run right in there. Not!!!!!
To back it up a little here: the first day of class there were about 18 students and only 3 and sometimes 4 computers working. That was my first clue. Everyday we were told that we would be getting computers “tomorrow”. Well, you guessed it, tomorrow never came. On the last day of class there were about 12 of us left in the class and only 5 or 6 computers. We had to take turns taking our test. What a rinkey-dinkey outfit!!!! I won't name them, but I will say that it wasn't H&R Block.
I am still fuming and it is almost 4 hours since they called. I am not going to work for them. And I am not going to call them to tell them, either. I can play their game just as well as they can. So, There!!!
Gotta go click my needles,
DJ

Finished my 'ugly socks'

I finished my 'ugly socks'. they are made with Phildar Prognostic. I would never use this yarn again. Or at least that is how I feel today. I wish that the lace design on the cuffs would show up better. Oh, the trials of not having flash on the camera.lol They haven't been worn or washed yet. So I should probably reserve judgment. As mentioned in a previous post, I just had to have this color(a nice med. loden) and the LYS didn't have real sock yarn in this color. So it's my own fault that I don't like them. I was experienceing a lot of swelling in my feet at the time that these socks were started and I made the cuff way too big for the way my feet and ankles are right now. I'm hoping that some very warm water will help that a little. By the time I got the socks out of the 'put aside' basket to finish them, my feet were not bothering me so much, so I switched to a smaller needle for the 'foot' part of the socks. The foot actually fits like a glove and if my swelling ever comes back I'm ready with one pair of wide ankle socks. LOL
This is the yarn for the next pair. I am going to call them my Monet Socks. I love these colors, they remind me of a Monet painting(wish I could get them to show up true to color). I have them cast-on and will probably knit a couple of rows of the ribbing tonight. but, I have 2 pair of CIC socks that are at the point of the toe decreases and I would like to finish them by Monday night. I still only have 18 rows of my FLAK cable swatch done. But unless things have changed since yesterday, I can do that on Tues and still have time to re-knit if it doesn't work out. I was over at Stitches of Violet Blog and looked at Marguerite's swatch, yesterday. It is gorgeous. I got mine out show DH today and it is beginning to grow on me.
I am taking part in the Knitting for Children yahoo group's Knitathon tomorrow. I think that I will work on booties for Warm Hearts/Warm Babies. I have about 2 dozen hats cut out for Parkland and dozens more that I need to cut out. But that will have to wait til next weekend at the earliest. I feel so selfish that I am taking such big chunks of my knitting time for things for myself. Last year about 99 percent of my knitting was for chairity. This year I am going to be doing somethings for me, myself and I. lol
Gotta go click my needles,
DJ

Cable swatching

I have been working on my second swatch for the FLAK and I'm not sure that I like it. It isn't as firm as I think it should be. The sample that Janet put up is much more firm looking. I don't see the purl sts between the cables on her sample but they are very visible on my swatch. I will continue to knit on it and see what happens. I have only done 12 rows, so maybe it will tighten up as I go along. The filler st sample was right on, so this is disappointing, to say the least.
I finally caught up on all my email reading. I was behind so far that I thought about just dumping some, but I got them read. I still have some to respond, but I hope to do that tomorrow. I wasted so much time reading email that now I need to go clean up the kitchen before DH gets home from work. It's a disaster area and I don't want him to think that all I did today was sit around knittng and reading email. LOL
DJ

Fear of FLAK-ing

I have been dieing to make an aran sweater for the longest time. I haven't done cables in years. Marguerite has been talking about an aran KAL and I keep telling myself “NO”. Well, my mother can tell you that I don't often listen to good sense. LOL Anyway, I finally gave in to temptation and joined the "Follow the Leader Aran Knitalong(FLAK).
We got the cable charts this morning. Oh, my goodness. I don't read charts very well. I'm not a 'picture' kind of reader. I need words! I can see that I am going to be referring to the written explanations a lot.
I have my swatching done for the filler stitches. I made an emergency trip to LYS(Ivelises Yarn Shop/Benton Harbor MI) yesterday and came home and swatched my little heart out on the lovely Cascade 220 that I got there. Bless her heart, she was having a 20% off everything sale(just for me??). So, I just have to have DH do the measuring of my ample body and I can get started.
I am trying to finish up a pair of CIC socks in a pretty bright pink that I thought was Cascade 220, but it may actually be Patons Classic Wool. I can get that at the local grocery/everything store and nobody seems to notice if a skein jumps in my grocery cart every week. Hee-hee-hee! I've really only done it 3 or 4 times, but it is definitely going to be a regular habit. I can't risk running out of CIC yarn, can I?
No pics today. Maybe tomorrow I will get progress pics up of the Flak swatch and my little bright pink CIC socks. I have to cook tomorrow, ummmm, not what I want to do with my time. but the DH want to eat. Really!
I'm off to get measured and start my cable swatching.
DJ