This turned into a sock post

(Sorry. It didn't start out that way, really!)

I am knitting a sock for a giant. I don't know what happened. My gauge was fine, and I never (well almost never) knit gauges, so that should tell you how seriously I'm taking this sock-knitting undertaking. I re-started this sock Saturday night at coffee with JF and finished up the leg portion on the way to the shower Sunday. It looked perfectly proportioned. Yesterday I did the heel part. Today I take it out to knit the toes with MZ, and we notice that it's GINORMOUS.



You might not be able to tell from this photo but trust me, it is. (Btw that pink blob on my desk is that hat I felted but never posted a photo of - does this count? ;-)

I'm just happy that I've been able to follow this pattern so well. Sizing will be a concern for the next round. And this is why I'm knitting my first pairs in cheap yarn, not Tofutsie :-)


In other sock news, my first order at Knitpicks arrived. I got some really pretty yarns, see!

I was chatting with a friend from the HSKS4 swap the other day - btw best idea ever to make a private chat room for a swap - and suggested that she design a pair of Ravenclaw socks. And she did! How cool is that? She's going to let me test-knit the pattern for her, and even offered to send yarn! I'm just looking forward to trying the pattern, the preview I got was great.

I haven't left the house since Tuesday night. I'm still feeling unwell, but it's slightly less unwell than previous days. I'm okay with that. So far I've avoided getting anyone else sick. I think. My coworker A has come down with a sore throat but since she always works from home, I'm clearly not the culprit ;-) She called in sick today. Wimp. Or very smart of her. We'll see.

I'm not the only one on the DL in the house. Sky cut her paw on Monday when she and my mom were at the park. Tuesday she went to the doc and got a stitch and a snazzy looking bandage. She's really working the look - maybe she knows it's Fashion Week? Sky's being awesome, as usual. She's not eating at the bandage at all and she's walking around like nothing even happened. She even stopped limping after Tuesday night. What a trooper!

Speaking of Sky, my mom sent me a link to the cutest video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqbVbPvlDoM . J would kidnap Sky and go live in the city before letting her do something so *silly*, but that looks like a very happy dog to me!

I haven't done any cross stitching since last Sunday, despite some grand and ambitious plan to finish 2 things by this Sunday. That's what I get for planning! Instead I've been knitting. I find it much easier and quicker. With my short attention span and lack of focus, I wanted to work on something that's harder to mess up ;-)

The pattern is here. It's a really fun knit so far. First I did a rectangular base, then I picked up stitches all around the rectangle and I'm knitting it in the round on circular 16" size 8s. And you can kinda see the stitchmarker - I made it myself :-) For all you non-knitters that means I made a square base for the bag, then created additional stitches from certain loops on the base until I had stitches going all the way around the bag. So now I can knit all the way around the base and build the walls evenly as I go, instead of making 8 thousand little rectangular pieces that I'd have to sew together later (I hate seams. And sewing). If you squint really hard you can see the needle-bling, aka stitchmarker, that I made the other day.

It needs to be blocked (stretched out properly) in the worst way and I'm felting it, so it'll look completely different by the time I'm through. And hopefully not so... deflated.

Last week Jennifer posted about a good stashbuilding deal she found. $22 for a box of assorted needlecraft supplies from a going-out-of-business lns. Jennifer's always being helpful with PSAs and good ideas, so go check out her blog if you haven't yet. I'll wait.

Back? Cool.

My box came yesterday, and I really like most everything I got. There's a few things I know I'll never use though, especially the Christian stuff, so if you're interested in any of these let me know! I'd much rather send these things to a good home than have them lay about here doing nobody any good. (I'm not sure about international shipping but email me and I'll check with the post office how expensive it'll be)
Charland Designs, Holly Band Sampler
http://www.charlanddesigns.com/o/designs/hollybandsamp.htm

Designs by Lena Rose, Waiting Room Sampler
http://www.myspclstitches.com/PriceLists/images/LenaRose/DLR003.jpg

Coca Cola Santa Series #1, When Friends Drop In

Stoney Creek Collection Book 223, Prayers and Blessings (can't find it online, but here's a pic)


Email me or leave a comment if you're interested. I'll probably put more up later too.

If you're a fan of Jon Stewart, Conan, or Stephen Colbert they all had really, really funny crossover shows on Monday night... check out the Comedy Central clips here, then head over to Conan's website for the last segment.

That's almost all I got. I'll do another little post soon. Happy Thursday!

Overheard in the office today

I'm teaching MZ to knit during our lunch hour. She's finally mastered the knit stitch :-) Anyways, we knit at her desk which is relatively high traffic.

Some dude walks past us, notices the knitting, and says, "Oh, do people still do that? I thought it was a dying art". Seriously?

MZ used to be in a different group, and one of the guys she used to work with stopped by to see what was up. He asked MZ to make him a scarf, so I offered to teach him to make his own scarf (I've taught some of the guys at work before). He'd been watching us for a while, so he was able to articulate exaclty why he wasn't interested:
"It's like tying your shoes. I don't like tying my shoes. No, it's like tying your shoes 1,000 times. With chopsticks."
LOL

Edited:
PS At least they didn't ask what we were sewing. Honestly people, can you really not tell the difference between sewing and knitting?!? I don't ask you if you think the Giants are going to win the World Series, do I?!?

A long post about Knitting and Crocheting

Something's wrong with my computer. It keeps shutting down on its own immediately after Startup. Consulting the brain trust to see what my next step should be, but for now my laptop's MIA, presumed dead.

My HOE fob's almost done! Just a tiny bit of backstitching left, then beading and putting it together.

I recently (like last week) signed up for Ravelry. If you knit or crochet and aren't on Ravelry, what are you waiting for? And if you're a programmer with more free time than I have, could you please create a Ravelry for cross stitchers? The "Stash" feature alone would save me hundreds of dollars at my LNS.

The reason I mention Ravelry is, I've been looking for patterns for the HSKS4 swap. Part of the swap is creating a knitting bag for your partner, to hold all the goodies you're sending and the WIP as she or he makes her or his socks. After waaay too much deliberation, but really there were just too many options, I picked the pattern and hit up Michaels on my way home from work. The exact yarn I wanted to use was on sale, so now I *might* make my budget :-)

It's weird to be blogging about knitting, because my focus has always been cross stitch, but really I've been a knitter longer than a cross stitcher, and I've both knit and crochet more than I've cross stitched. I started knitting when I was 10 years old. I was going to spend the summer with my maternal grandparents at a bungalow colony in the Catskills, and I wanted to sit in the circle with my Grandma and the other ladies and knit with them. Well that January or February (c'mon, I was 10 but I remember it was cold out) they came over to our house and Grandma F taught me how to knit. My first projects were simple rectangles, but they were blankets for my toy horses so I loved making them. Not to be left out, my Grandma E made me a horse-blanket too - seed stitch with a crocheted edging, through which she ran a sparkly silver ribbon. I loved it. Forget the sparkly ribbon (which I also LOVED), I fell in love with seed stitch. I lay so... flat. And even. Moving on...

Grandma F and I knit a sweater vest for each of my 2 brothers that summer. She was a much faster knitter, so we'd work for a bit and then swap projects, so that they'd work up more evenly. That was also the summer I learned about 20 words of Yiddish. Fun times! Grandma and I would later go on to collaborate in stitching Tallis and Tefillin bags for each of my brothers for their Bar Mitzvahs. I'll see if I can snap some photos for you guys, they're pretty.

I knit on and off until high school, when I started knitting all the time. I had an hour long bus ride... plenty of time to knit. Then Grandma E decided I needed to learn to crochet also. I think she was annoyed that Grandma F taught me continental knitting (the one where you hold the yarn the correct way, in your non-dominant hand). All of a sudden I had my best guy friend (who was on the bus with me) trying to help me decipher the incomprehensible abbreviations in crocheting patterns - lol. Btw, I'm now really good at reading and executing crochet patterns, so thanks Ben!

Over the years I've knitted and crocheted lots of different things... afghans, ties, hats, scarves, mittens, shawls, pillows, doilies, a kipah, a bandage (in ecuador when we didn't have an ace bandage handy :), stuffed toys... and other things I can't think of just now. Recently I knit that wine cozy, I'm working on my first pair of socks, I learned how to felt stuff, and a few months ago I knit myself an afghan. And since you were so patient and read all the way through my second uber-long post in 2 days, your reward is some stitchy pics - hooray!



My most recent afghan


The wine cozy


My doily WIP

Ok, off to work on that scissor fob. Ttys!

Fair & Square, Socks

My Fair Square exchange from Pokua arrived. She stitched me squares that she designed herslef, using elements of Drawn Thread charts. Aren't they gorgeous?!? Those big birds in the middle *must* be emus. Pokua also sent some postcards of Australia and a boomerang keychain. I hope that means when I lose my keys they will come back to me ;-)


In other news, I figured I should get ready for my sock kit swap by knitting some socks. I've been hearing a lot about South West Trading Company so I looked up where their yarn is sold, and found thepointnyc.com. It's a cute store in Greenwich Village, very little in a very Manhattan way. I picked up a pattern book, some Tofutsies yarn, and some tiny DPNs. I am all for supporting the small retailers of the world, but yarn stores make it tough - I could've printed a couple of coupons and got the same for about 1/3 the cost at AC Moore. And maybe it's an NYC thing, but the store is very small so selection's not great. I wasn't keen on the uber-beginner book but it didn't seem like they had any other sock pattern books. Whatever, I found enough to do one pair and Raverly will take care of all future patterns :-)

**** Updated ****
By the way, I ended up on a 6am flight Monday morning... which meant that I had to be up at 3:30. Is rocks, she drove me to the airport and everything! She got to go back to sleep for a couple of hours while some of us went to work. The morning went well but by 4 I was starting to fall asleep at my desk. I was waaaay too tired to post yesterday when I got home!

All in all, the DC trip was a complete sucess & I'm looking forward to going back. Probably in the summer so I can take the bike ;-D

Stitching, shidduch dating and shiva calls

Yesterday (Monday) was pretty quiet, mostly just bumming around the house. Sh had plans in the city, so I stitched and cleaned and did laundry. At night I had an offer from C to go to a Matzah Ball or 2 in the city, but I had plans to go out with a friend for her birthday, which was Sunday.

We went to a kosher dairy restaurant in the Five Towns - I'd tell you which but I can't tell them apart. It ended up being 13 girls and 3 guys, all but 1 of whom I only knew through my friend. Some of them are all cliquey but Shira's really sweet and is also completely uninterested in the conversations about people I don't know, so she ended up telling me and a few other people the funniest stories about shidduch dates she'd been on.

For the record, shidduch dating is very different from normal dating. It's blind dates on crack. What happens is, you have a matchmaker, called a Shadchan (shod-chan, with the ch like in chanukah). The Shadchan finds a boy and a girl to set up on a date. She (or he) checks with each that they are interested in the date, and then if it's a go gives the guy the girl's # to call. They then go on a very PG, not even PG13, date. Depending on how religious they are, this could be a *normal* date like dinner or coffee, or it could be sitting & chatting in a hotel lobby - I kid you not. After the date is over, they each report back to the Shadchan as to how the date went. If both people tell the Shadchan they're interested, she gives the guy permission to call the girl for a second date. I'm not sure if they need to do this before the third date or not, I keep forgetting to ask Shira.

So anyways, Shira was telling us all kinds of funny stories about her shidduch dating experiences. The cute Israeli waiter kept giving us these looks. Finally he starting pitching himself to us! I don't think he's Shira's type though, not religious enough. Oh well.


Today started off really mellow, slept late, woke up & stitched on my Mirabilia Ivy. This is a pic of how far I got. Then we found out that my uncle D's father, who lives in Israel, passed away. He was sitting shiva already at his house (in Monsey) so we drove up there this afternoon to pay a shiva call. It's a schlep - at least an hour each way - & I hate watching other people drive so I brought along some yarn & my circular needles to make another felted hat. Between going and coming I got through 70% of the hat.

D is probably my favorite uncle, but his family has the strangest minhagim - even my aunt (my mom's sister) rolls her eyes sometimes. He was explaining something about when he & his family were supposed to start & finish sitting shiva... we just smiled & nodded, and were very thankful that my grandfather wasn't around to challenge their wacky minhag. My cousins were there, and very eager to tell me how they got to stay home from school to be with their dad. I stuck with them as much as possible, it was safest.

w00t!

My brother sent me an email this morning, subject: competitive knitting and this link in the body of the email. He's not a big fan of my knitting/crocheting/craftsiness so I was intrigued by what he would find that has to do with knitting, and then be cool/interesting enough to forward on to me. He didn't disappoint.

Sock Wars!!! (If I understand it correctly), everyone gets the name of a target to *kill* and the same sock pattern. If you receive a pair of socks you have *been killed* and have to turn over your started pair to your assasin to finish & use to kill the next person. Last person *alive* is the winner.

Best. Idea. Ever. Knitting is plenty combative already - it's all about poking and stabbing yarn with needles. And now they've turned it into a kill-or-be-killed game. w00t! I got googling right away and signed up for the Yahoo Group. I've knit for years but I've never done socks before, so I'm going to hit the library for some pattern books & practice. Next round starts in the new year and I can't wait!!!

Hmm, I wonder if we could do a similar cross stitch war?

In other news, my Fair Square exchange is complete! Now I just need to mail the darn thing off to Australia and hope/wish/dream that it gets there eventually and unscathed. MaryKathryn warned me that her package tore open last round so I'm wrapping this one better. It'll help that I'm not sending a heavy-ish book in an unlined envelope this time around, lol.

Ok that's all, just a quick update. Ttys!

Felting's not as eco-friendly as I'd imagined...

I woke up extra early yesterday so that I could pop my laundry in before work, since I was dangerously low on options. Well I'd been meaning to toss my hat in - the knitted hat I posted - in order to felt it, but I completely forgot it. Mornings are so not my thing, I end up forgetting tons of stuff I *meant* to do the night before. Turns out it was for the best though, when I got home last night I googled up some felting instructions, and apparently it's not as simple as just tossing it in the laundry... You need to put it in the machine by itself and after the water gets poured in, and then run the agitation part of the cycle a few times. It seemed very wasteful of both water and electricity, all to felt a little hat that probably won't even turn out right! Plus the odds of me getting the washing machine settings right (and that my mom would let me try it with her machine) are very bad. So I found some hand felting instructions, and tonight I'm sit watch the new Project Runway with a bucket of water and some sort of stirring implement. Wish me luck!

Last week for my birthday I met up with some friends for dinner & karaoke. My friend JS (the one who's getting married) was so funny, I don't even think that knitting came up in conversation but she turns to me at dinner and says, "You know Kim, I have a neck that gets cold." My response was like, "what the heck are you talking about?" and then she explained - "Make me a scarf!". It was the funniest way I've ever gotten a request like that.

JS likes blues and purples, so I found a pretty blue yarn with purple highlights. While I was at AC Moore I found this eyelash yarn for $1 a skein(!), so I bought some in silver and I'm using both. I'm doing a basic k2 p2 ribbing about 12 inches wide, and so far I've done about 8 inches. It's very sparkly and I'll try to post a picture for you tonight.

In other news, I signed up for a new needlepoint meetup. Needlepoint is far inferior to cross stitch, mostly because it's so mindless and exorbitantly expensive, but I dabble. I'm hoping that after the first session or two I can bring some other needlecraft projects to work on instead. To that end, I think I'm teaching the meetup organizer to knit. :-D

Backtracking to Monday's post, in the end I didn't get/make anything for the friend that I saw Monday night but over dinner I figured out what I'm going to make her - a beaded hair clip thingie - and I'll probably just give it to her for Chanukah instead of her birthday.

Ttys,
Kim

Another quick post...

I just finished up all the work I had to do today, and we're going out to dinner for my grandfather's and my brithday tonight, so this will have to be quick. My grandfather and I share a birthday of November 6th - election day this year :-) Usually my mom makes dinner at the house but this year we're going out to dinner. I'll let you know how that goes, but it should be fun.


This is the package I received in the mail yesterday from Mary Kathryn as part of my first exchange. I don't know how she did it, but she picked the perfect pattern for me - green is my favorite color, and after my trips to Scotland I really like thistles. The squares are beautiful. She also sent some linen, pretty green and purple silk to stitch with, and a care package from Celestial Seasonings. It was a great way to start off the week of my birthday, especially since none of my family support my craft hobbies.

Last night I went to see Bee Movie with my aunt C. Despite the overload of commercials and promos and all the hype, it was actually a great movie, very funny. There were multiple problems with the projector though, so don't go see it at Fresh Meadows. I can knit in the dark (and without looking) so I brought my hat to work on and finished almost an entire ball of yarn, which only made the night more fun. It also kept me from eating much popcorn. Hmm, I should start marketing the knitting diet...

Over this weekend I got very far on the-project-I'm-not-supposed-to-have-started, per my rotation and stithching goals that is, but now I'm out of one of the Kreinik colors I'm using. For those of you keeping score at home, that's right: I used up an entire roll of thread in under a week on this project. Luckily when I was in Michael's last Tuesday I saw that the color I need is one of the 3 that they have in stock, so I'm going to run over there and pick it up before dinner. But that means signing off, getting dressed post haste and dashing. So I'll have to owe you a longer post later.

Here's hoping that none of us run out of supplies in the middle of a project today, and
a good week to all.

K