Life Gets in the Way

I've been so busy/stressed with LIFE this past week, I haven't had a chance to work on my favorite project (or blog about anything). It's patiently waiting, pinned to the blocking board, to be seamed.

I love how clean the guts are:



P.S. - We voted on Tuesday and are over the moon with the results. I was all prepared to knit in line, but there were only two people in front of us!

Sock Wrangling

This weekend, I will have from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon to myself. From now until then, I plan to make some serious headway on my sock problem. I currently have 6 pairs of socks in various stages of completion - from only a leg done on the first sock to some duplicate stitching away from a finished pair. This problem needs to be addressed.

The candidates:

Typhoon Socks
Working up the leg of the first sock with this pair. The yarn is wound into one large ball, so I'll need to stop on the first sock soon and begin the second one.
Pros: stockinette stitch can be done without paying much attention, color changes in the yarn make it interesting
Cons: stockinette stitch is boring
Success = getting past the heel turn on sock #2



Koolhaas Socks
Sock #1 is past the heel turn here as well. Yarn is in separate skeins, so no need to stop on the first sock.
Pros: cables, colorful slubs in the yarn keep things interesting
Cons: sooooo many tiny cables hurt my wrists
Success = completion of sock #1. cast on for toe of sock #2 would be a bonus




Accepted Argyles
Just picked these back up this weekend, knit the heel flap, turned the heel and picked up gusset stitches on sock #1. Realized intarsia, working socks flat and DPNs are one too many variables. Ordered fixed size 0 needle from Knit Picks.
Pros: colorwork keeps it interesting, I LOVE these socks, can't wait to wear them
Cons: high frustration level with yarn tangles, tiny stitches, intarsia
Success = finishing sock #1


Rock 'n' Roll Argyles
One of the first pairs of socks I ever knit. Haven't touched these in months. Only needs ends woven in and black stripes duplicate stitched onto sock #2.
Pros: finishing these would be a monkey off my back, they look awesome
Cons: whew, that's a lot of work, they're too big to wear as is (80 stitches around)
Success = all ends woven in, all stitches duplicated



Mystery Socks
This KAL is toast, they don't fit. As I mentioned in my last post, I have one sock started based just on the cuff pattern. The leg is almost complete, but I can't decide how I feel about the yarn color.
Pros: pattern is simple, yarn color can be interesting
Cons: these are kind of depressing due to KAL failure and yarn color ambivalence
Success = completion of sock #1 (although knitting on these at all might qualify)


Carbonite Socks
As you can see in the photo, these have not been touched since last winter. Progress halted slightly after this photo - the first sock is done. Sock #2 needs the heel ripped out to add increases before it.
Pros: stockinette is simple and easy, I can wear these to work
Cons: frogging hurts my heart, makes yarn barf that is not easily transportable
Success = second sock knitted, but not hemmed







My goal is to achieve success on at least one of these projects as defined above. Two would be wonderful. Three would probably be dangerous as I will probably have injured myself. Feel free to weigh in with your choices or general encouragement. :-) Wish me luck.

How'd I do?

1. Have lunch with both of my parents, individually
   Managed lunch with my dad, but not my mom, which apparently caused a stink. Can't win for losing.
   
2. Have lunch with my wife
   
3. Fix the closet doors in our bedroom. We got new carpet almost a year ago (yikes!) and the closet doors need to be trimmed to fit now.
4. Organize my knitting closet
5. Hang out with my friend Joe & play video games all day long
   Check! And I had the sore shoulder/arm/wrist to prove it.
   
6. Get the bathroom tub re-glazed. My wife's been wanting this since we moved in, I thought it would be a nice surprise for her.
7. Make progress on my Vintage Red Wings sweater. This includes both knitting and removing dye from the red yarn. I bought some of these to help.
   Got the yarn flushed (holy crap there was a lot of extra dye), but made no progress on knitting the sweater. Technically you could say I made negative progress since I'm now going to have to re-kint a sleeve because the stupid Shout dye catchers didn't work.
   
8. Finish the pirate bag. Includes sewing a lining and installing a zipper.
   Hand sewed the lining, but balked at the idea of hand sewing the zipper and lining to the actual bag. Should have gone to my mother's to use her sewing machine. Would've helped with #1.
9. Dye some yarn. I have two more skeins of Knit Picks bare merino, I'm thinking something blue and green.
10. Take the dog to the groomer for a haircut
11. Research and possibly book a vacation for the week after the 4th
    If you consider calling on a chalet up north research...
    
12. Make some serious progress on my argyle socks
13. Take a break from argyle sock my knitting a BSJ for my friend's new baby
    Totally got this one nailed. I almost finished it before the week was over.
    
14. Finish up all the random WIPs I have lying around
    
15. Remove the dirt from an old flower bed and fill in the holes around the tree in the back yard
16. Move bricks from said flower bed off the patio
17. Plan 4th of July party
    Lists have been made and initial invites circulated
    
18. Locate and purchase Jeep decorations for 4th of July parade
    They're pretty garish, but we got em.
    
19. Make home cooked meals as many days as possible
20. Sit outside as much as possible and enjoy the nice weather
    Considering I had a nagging cold hiding in the background all week and I did manage some significant yard work, I'm calling this one done.
    
21. Pull weeds in front yard
22. Remove bush next to porch
23. Trim trees so I can walk under them

Eh, so I didn't get everything done. I didn't really think I would. Point is, I enjoyed my time off and got enough done to where I didn't feel completely lazy.

Finally, here's an update on the Accepted Argyles:



and a rear-view:



I absolutely love these socks. Knitting the accent lines as you go is definitely the way to go. Hopefully they fit.

Right Back Where We Started From

After a week, I'm back to where I began on these, only four stitches wider. *sigh* I hope these fit, because they look AWESOME.

And since it's probably in your head now...

ETA: And I apparently decided to switch the colors around! :-)

My eyes!

It stings the retinas

My wife's aunt (aunt-in-law?) commissioned a matching hat and scarf set in the pinkest possible color. I think I got pretty close. The pattern is from Cables Untangled by Melissa Leapman, a book I purchased well over a year ago and from which I had yet to knit a pattern. It's a basic braided cable, so nothing to strain the brain, but I'm glad to have an easy/mindless pattern to turn to because... I've started another pair of argyle socks. Unfortunately they're turning out too small, so I'll need to frog, but I'm super stoked about these. I love the colors and I can't wait to show you. Perhaps I'll take a photo before I rip them out and create a tangled mess of yarn. This time around, I'm knitting in the accent stripes instead of leaving them to be duplicate stitched afterward (the first pair are still not done!) so that's four extra lengths of yarn. Yikes!

ETA:

Ta Da!

It's been too long

First a clerical issue... The response I posted below was not my own, but someone who had commented on Debbie's blog post. I simply agreed with what he had to say. Thanks for all the comments, it's good to know there are people out there with their head on straight. :) Enough of that, it's been up too long. Back to knitting.

I've picked up progress on the Garter-Rib Socks. It kind of puts me back on deadline to get these done by the end of November, which was the reason I gave up on the SAMKAL4, but I think now that I'm past the heel, I can just finish them up and be done. I won't be able to wear them to Thanksgiving, but I definitely plan on wearing them for Christmas (it's one day before Thanksgiving, I suppose it's alright to mention the C-word).

I've also started adding the black lines to my Rock 'n' Roll Argyle Socks using duplicate stitch. Holy crap these are a lot of work. All the intarsia was bad enough, but I left most of the ends unwoven because I couldn't tolerate weaving them in when I was done. When I started the duplicate stitch, I was catching a lot of the ends with my needle, so I had to stop and weave all the ends in before I could continue. I'm almost done with one sock, but I'm afraid SSS is going to creep in again before I can start the other. Who knew you could get SSS twice on one pair of socks?!

The Baby Shedir is finished, it just needs to be blocked and photographed. Speaking of, there's practically no good photography light anymore. I really hate winter. I know as a knitter I should love it because I get to more easily wear hand knits, but I'm not at a stage where I can whip out a sweater in 2-3 weeks and I don't have one already done, so it doesn't really do much for me.

If you've scrolled down past my most recent entry in the past week or so, you've probably noticed some lovely progress bars. I was lucky enough to get in as a Ravelry tester for this particular feature. It pulls the progress on your project straight from Ravlery, so you don't have to update it in more than one place. Pretty neat. So far, I've learned two things: 1. I have a lot of projects that are in the home stretch and I really should finish them up. 2. I need to start some new projects! I'm just not sure what yet.

After finishing the Baby Shedir and Aww Knucks! I realized that other than one ball of Wool of the Andes, all I have is sock yarn. I do plan on knitting at least one more pair of socks for December, but otherwise, I'm not really into knitting socks right now. I really want to use some heavier weight yarn. But I'm on a self-imposed yarn diet until after Christmas. I did think about making the WOTA into a hat, but I'm not sure one skein is enough. I'll have to find a simple top down pattern.

I have been yarn shopping though. I want to make a brown cabled sweater with some worsted weight wool yarn, but I'm realizing that I know next to nothing about yarn other than KnitPicks. They were the first yarn supplier I bought yarn from since the price is right and I've been scared to take a chance on more expensive yarn. I really like the look of tweed yarns, so I've been browsing WEBS for good deals.

Argyle update

The argyle socks are almost done. The socks themselves are done, but I still need to weave in the ends (the inside is a big pile of yarn vomit), duplicate stitch the crisscrossed lines in black (is there a term for that?) and block them so the stitches come out looking all purty. But, they're done enough to post on the SAMKAL4 in time to qualify for an August entry, and that's all I was worried about for now.

Up next? Why, another pair of socks of course! I'm not sure which ones though, so you can vote on your favorite here. Just note that the fair isle socks are no longer in the running, I'm a little sick of multiple strands of yarn on one piece.

One down...

One argyle sock down...

...and one to go. I finished the first sock early Sunday morning and promptly spent the rest of the day battling the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome (SSS). I just couldn't bring myself to cast on, and it didn't help that my arms and shoulders hurt from the sprint to the finish line the night before. I eventually did cast on Sunday night and found that once I was over that hump, working on the ribbing wasn't so bad. Once I added the color, I was back in action.

I'm making good progress on the second sock so far. I started with 12 days to finish this to qualify for a prize on the SAMKAL4 I joined and I told myself that if I divided the sock into manageable parts (diamond repeats - 6 total, heel flap, heel turn and gusset, toes) I could get it done. So far it seems to be working, I've got almost 3 diamond repeats done in three days and I could start the heel flap tonight. The wrench in the whole monkey will come this weekend when we have company staying overnight Saturday. Hopefully I can either knit while we watch a movie or knit by the fire if the weather is nice.

August is for Argyle

An update on the argyle socks...I've made it past the heel on the first sock and only have one more diamond repeat to go before finishing off the toe. I wanted a thicker heel, but I thought just a plain gray heel wouldn't look as neat and one with some color. So, I worked a fair isle pattern over the heel flap using the three main colors of the sock. The idea seemed solid and it looks cool on its own, but I fear that it may take away from the sock design as a whole. We'll see once I seam this bad boy up and try it on. I did manage to slip it over my foot last night to check for a rough fit, but with the two seams and the DPNs still in it, the measure was not accurate at all.


To put even more pressure on myself, I signed up for the Sock a Month KAL 4 and dubbed these my August socks. The goal is one pair of socks a month for August, September, October and November. For each month you complete a pair of socks, you're eligible for prizes. Today is August 16th, which means I am officially cutting into second sock time. I suppose if I can finish them tonight, then I'll be ok assuming the second sock goes a bit faster than the first. Cross your fingers.

Progress

I've made some progress on the argyle socks, although not much. I'm alternating between these and the Fibonacci sweater (pics to come soon, I swear) to help alleviate knitting pain. I'm happy with the way they're turning out. I started to worry about the size, so I ran a lifeline through (that's the green yarn still in there) and took it off the needles. It's a little looser than I'd like, but not loose enough to require frogging. These are 88 stitches around, the next pair will be on fewer stitches.


Here's a picture of the back of the knitting. It's a little blurry, but if you click on the photo for the large size, you can see how I've twisted the strands at the color changes to lock in the yarn. It's most noticeable in the white diamond by my thumb. You can also see the "flaps" on the "back" of the leg where I started knitting flat.


In other progress news, patio construction has begun. We're really excited about it, I feel like we can finally enjoy our backyard. Now all I have to do is fill in all the dog holes.....

Rock 'n' Roll Argyle Socks

These are my newly named Rock 'n' Roll Argyle Socks. Why are they Rock 'n' Roll? Well just look at my hand in the photo! Inspirition can come from anywhere. They're knit with KnitPicks' Palette in ash, blue and white and I plan to duplicate stitch the criss-crossed lines in black. I knitted the ribbing in the round on dpns, then started working back and forth for the intarsia; I added a stitch on the edge to account for seaming. I think on the next one, I'll just knit the whole leg flat instead of starting in the round. I realize now I should have taken a photo of the back, oh well.

It's really fun to see the pattern grow with each row and it's really hard to stop knitting these because I think to myself, "Oh the top half of the diamond is almost done, just a few more rows." And then, "Well that's done, but now I want to see how it looks when the grey comes back in." It is a bit of a pain to work with all the bobbins hanging off the sock, but it forces me to go slow and be patient, which is probably good for my wrists. The other nice thing about using the bobbins (which are made from a cereal box thankyouverymuch) is it's easier to manage the tangles. When I have done colorwork in the past, the skeins just sit there while I twist the yarn to lock it in and they get all tangled. Now I can lift the whole bobbin over the working yarn to twist the two strands.

And now for something completely different, the demolition on my deck. Here's a before picture, before we moved in, before I demo'd the deck, before the dogs destroyed the backyard...
and here's the after(math)...



oh, and those dogs I mentioned? Here's one of them, Miss Ruby (Loo), otherwise known as Baloo.