As Promised

Knitting:

In my blog-surfing I’ve come across several mentions of the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I happen to own this book, simply because I want to make the Hourglass sweater at some point. I’ve really loved the different scarves I’ve seen and I was intrigued since it uses sock yarn. I have plenty of sock yarn, and I even have some that I don’t particularly love. It’s not that I don’t like them, but I don’t love them. The idea behind the Chevron Scarf, as you may know, is to take two different colors of yarn and make this really cool scarf from it. I’ve seen people pick the oddest combinations, but the scarf ended up really beautiful.

Here are my choices:

or

The first is Lorna’s Laces in Jungle Stripe and Lorna’s Laces in Argyle. I have a feeling that the Jungle Stripe will be very similar to the Ugly Socks, only in a different color. That alone would make them infinitely better than the Ugly Socks, but I digress. I’m somewhat interested seeing how the Argyle works out for socks, but there are many other yarns that I’d use first.

The second is the Jungle Stripe and a green Koigu KPPM. I’ve had my issues with Koigu, but I do like the green. I hope the the first combination will turn into something fabulous so that I won’t have to try the second. I think it could either be really great, or really bad.

In any case, I won’t get that started for some time. In two weeks I’ll be gone for almost a week and I’m already carefully planning my knitting for that time. I’ll bring my Wicked sweater, a sock (maybe one of Cookie A.’s patterns?) and the Chevron Scarf. I’ll spend my evenings alone, in a hotel. This will be bliss for me. I covet time alone and I’m looking forward to it. Having my living space cleaned daily by someone other than myself will be another bonus.

Reading:

I finished my brain candy book that I was working on this week. There’s no need to mention the title. It was full of romance and sex and was completely mindless. After finishing that up this morning, I started Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman. It was quite good. Yes, I did type “was,” because I finished it about 30 minutes ago. I did say I read very fast. Up next may be Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, or Night Watch, or Mary, Queen of Scots.

One of the many great things about the summer is that I go to the library twice a week. LouLa and I go once for Storytime, and then I go on my own at other times. I don’t have tons of disposable income, so getting books from the library is good for me, especially considering how quickly I read them.

Only Knitting

I am getting closer to being done with the wrap dress. I’m working on the third piece now, which is a lot of mindless stockinette, and then some shaping. I am a *little* concerned about seaming it, as I’m not confident in my measuring for each piece. I did keep track of rows, so that I would begin shaping at the same place, but I also measured and there were a few rows difference in the first two pieces. We’ll see. My hope is that if I’m careful about blocking and making sure I measure carefully then, that any irregularities will get blocked out. I did take some pictures of one of my front pieces, but it looks pretty much the same as the back. I’ll wait to take pictures of the final product. The knitting should be done in a week and I might be able to get the blocking and seaming done next weekend. I may be slightly overestimating the amount of actual knitting time I’ll have, though.

I do have some more pictures of the Fleece Artist Blue Lagoon socks. One is completely finished and I love it. It might be my new favorite sock! The fit is great. I cast on with two needles (suggested by Liz some time ago) and I knit a pretty long leg and it fits wonderfully. I did the same cast on for Josh’s socks, too. It’s just the right length and feels great on. As I’ve posted before, I have temperature issues, so I will wear my wool socks during the summer.

Here’s the foot and toe, to show off the chevron:

Here’s the heel flap:

Have I mentioned how much I love a garter edge on the heel flap? Yeah, I thought so. I just love how it looks and I love how easy it is to pick up. It’s a good thing. If you look closely, you can see the striping on the bottom of the heel. I wish self-striping yarns striped in a wider stripe, like what happens on the heel turn. I like the wider stripes and self-striping yarns tend to stripe skinny. If there are any out there that have a wider pattern, help me out and give me the information, please!. By the way, that’s an eye of partridge heel flap, which I also love.

I need a sock blocker. I even tried to make one with a wire hanger (idea from Stich ‘n Bitch Nation) but there were NO WIRE HANGERS! to be found in our house. It’s not a Mommy Dearest thing, but rather a case of plastic hangers being more sturdy, I think. In any case, I’m reluctant to shell out the chunk of change that “real” sock blockers cost. There’s got to be a wire hanger around here, somewhere. I’ll keep digging.

Tomorrow’s post:

-upcoming project possibilities

-book news

I miss you!

But, the good news is that I’ll be able to post much more now. Yay!

School is out for the summer, so I’ll have more time and I won’t have to leave my posting until the weekend. Plus, I’ll have more time to knit (I hope!) which means I’ll have more FO. I’ll still work a day or two a week, and I’ll have LouLa home for a couple of days a week, but I should get more things done. I’m really looking forward to some downtime.

And, the computer issues are temporarily solved. I was able to bring my laptop home for the summer. It has a newer OS than my home computer. Husband thinks that when I updated Firefox, my slightly older version of Mac OS X wasn’t happy with it. I’m going to look into using the older Firefox version, but I may have to bite the bullet and buy the newer OS. In the meantime, I don’t have to worry about it. It is nice to have a laptop at my disposal.

I’ll post pictures of my recent progress this weekend, even though not much have really changed. In the meantime, kitty pictures! This is Boo-Boo, our 25 pound baby:

Still having problems

Grrr….

We’ve tried everything- updated my version of Firefox, changed from a DSL wireless to the regular DSL, gotten pissy with the husband.  Nothing has worked.

It’s annoying.  And, of course, I’m not home to call the ISP and try and figure it out.  But, give me another week, and they’ll hear from me.  I pay enough that I should have internet service when I want it.

Okay, enough.

I finished Wicked and have started Murder in Belmont.  It’s about the Boston Strangler, written by Sabastian Junger (of The Perfect Storm fame).  It’s very interesting so far, especially because of the connection with Junger’s family and the Strangler.