Computer on the fritz

Blogging from DH’s laptop. Hopefully the situation will be fixed later Tuesday. But in the mean time, here are some of my latest Monday Favorites.

1. Mystery Three 2, 2. small ideas, 3. niecephew block 1, 4. The Boys, 5. Melody’s Birdie Sling, 6. Invasion of the Garden Gnomes., 7. Jollypops, 8. Tomte gang, 9. Forestry Cardigan, 10. rétro ? phare !, 11. papercutting, 12. Quilt Show

1. Rainbow of yarns, 2. Margaret Bag – Shoulder Bag Variation, 3. Shelley’s pillows, 4. owl, 5. a peek :: 1, 6. LG – oh hai! say cheez!, 7. Part Two, 8. fabric-pear, 9. Christmas houses 2008, 10. pretty hair pins, 11. Gocco Christmas Baby Fawns 3, 12. fisher-price-sheep, 13. day 51 of 365 : feeling colorful., 14. Little Birds 9, 15. thrifted-blanket

1. stack o noro 2, 2. blocks for Amber, 3. owl family, 4. CHARGE!, 5. Kid Mohair and Merino, 6. Gnomes in a Row, 7. Mummy hedgehog and babys ^_^, 8. 蘋中小花朵, 9. Washing the pretty dishes, 10. new fabric! (C365:298), 11. Soft Trees, 12. new vintage teapot, 13. Twinkle: almost done dyeing and piecing, 14. TADworks featherweight foto frames, 15. masterpiece theater (84/365.2), 16. Pretty Hydrangeas, 17. Embroidered Felt Advent Calendar, 18. Three Pears, 19. embroidered buttons, 20. Granny squaring away, 21. Behind the curtain, 22. log cabin insides, 23. More Colors: up close, 24. a peck of peppers!, 25. well hello there! I’m just nuts for squirrels., 26. pink ragged squares, 27. what a bunch of squares, 28. progress, 29. snow-cone, 30. Handspun Legwarmers, 31. Shopping trip to Cologne, Germany, 32. Patchwork Pillow Detail, 33. goth babette blanket 2, 34. Red Riding Hood Papercut , 35. For the Birds, 36. linna

Things that make me happy Friday

New “knitted” mug from Starbucks*

3 quinces

2 persimmons

New Anthropologie scarf

My Spare Change Swap squares

Clean socks

Anthopologie’s Christmas gift wrappings

What makes you happy this Friday?

* If I had more money, I would have bought my knitware mug from the original, Alyssa Ettinger.

11 months

That’s how long it took me to knit, not an aran sweater nor a lace shawl, but a simple pair of socks.

Back at the beginning of January, I had this brilliant idea of joining the “From your Stash Sock Club“. My first installment was a skein of Lotus Yarns Aura with which I cast on for a pair of Snowflake Lace socks from the now defunct Magknits from October 2006 (link to Ravelry pattern.

The colorway was “Walking with a Ghost” and I thought that the silver color of the yarn added to the silver thread would be extremely appropriate to a pattern evoking snowflakes.

It took me less than a month to finish the first sock but then I just had all these other yarns and sock patterns I wanted to try so the first sock languished until September when I finally cast on for the second one. It still took almost 2 months to knit the second sock, again, I was distracted by other yarns and deadlines, but I finished it, like I expected, a couple days after coming back from Stitches East.

I haven’t had a chance to wear them yet but the season for shiny, shimmery things and snowflakes is almost here, so I finished them just in time and will wear them soon!

Additional notes: They were knit toe up, of course, with a short-row heel. I wouldn’t have it any other way!

B’s on Monday

Banana Bread

New Books

Box Bags for sale*

Back of Celtic Vest

Bindingless but quilted

Boatload of yarn to photo

* Measurements: 7″ long x4.5″ high x3.5″ wide, $20 each plus $2 shipping to US address. Let me know in the comments if one of these interests you or if you have any questions!

WIP Wednesday

Quick, before Wednesday’s over!

Here are my projects currently on the needles:

First are my Twisted Tweed socks out of Yarn Lust BFL in Tiffany. I started those back in June so it’s their time to be finished.

I’m making good progress on my Calvert sweater, in a couple inches I should be able to start working on the cabled panel. I’m really looking forward to something else than plain stockinette! Here you can see it with the antler buttons I purchased I Stitches East for it.

The last project is one I mentioned last night, something I just could not resist. I cast on for my Celtic Vest and have made a bit of progress on it. I’m knitting it on 11s so it’s going super fast!

My hands are wanting to cast on a million other projects but I really want to finish those I have going on now (including knitting the mates to 5 single socks) so I’ll try to be good! No guarantees though! : )

Stitches East

I’m finally back. I haven’t been posting much in the last few weeks/months but hopefully I can start blogging more regularly again! For my come back here’s my (short) recap of my latest trip!

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Stitches East was a blast. We drove down on Wednesday to Baltimore with the car packed with yarn, displays and much more. We had time to unload on Wednesday and start setting up. The next day, we finalized our set up and got ready for Market Preview when all the students came to check out the marketplace. The next 3 days were a whirlwind of business, achy feet and lots of shopping. Here are a couple of pictures of our booth (before we found out we weren’t allowed to take pictures).

We met lots of really nice people at the show and had a lot of fun browsing through all the booths when there was time to do so. I did a lot of shopping… and made some great purchases!

You can find out more about all the yarns I bought and some that didn’t make it onto the photo by clicking here (you’ll also see more photos of the booth set up). I got some great sweater yarns, a couple sock yarns of course and a few accessories like buttons, a circular needle and a shawl pin.

I also sold most of my box bags; I have 2 left and I’ll post pictures as soon as I can in case one of you is interested!

I finished my Snowflake Lace socks last night and felt totally entitled to starting a new project, the Celtic Vest that you can see above. It’s a really fast knit so I should finish it by the end of the month. I don’t know if that counts for NaKniSweMo (or something like that) seeing as it is a vest but there’s no chance I’ll finish my Calvert by the end of the month, so I’ll settle for that. I’ll have more pictures on my next post, hopefully before next week! ; )

I’m looking forward to Stitches East next year, especially since it will be only about one hour away from where I live instead of seven!

Socktober Recap

I really wanted to have a successful Socktober this year, I was planning to finish a few pair of socks, post a few times about it, etc. Instead I’ve got almost nothing to show for it… And on top of that it’s November, not even October anymore!

I ended up starting and finishing only one single sock during the month of October, the Pomatomus in Dream in Color Blue Lagoon. I finished it a few days ago, and I’m quite proud of it! I had been wanting to knit this pattern ever since I started knitting socks but always thought that it was so difficult I’d never be able to knit it. Also, I didn’t think that a sock with 72 stitches around would ever fit me so I never got around to trying it until now. A couple weeks ago I decided that the Blue Lagoon had to become a pair of Pomatomus and I cast on. Of course, I modified the pattern and started it toe up. And, after knitting on whole Pomatomus, I have to say that it was quite easy, relatively speaking. I haven’t done as much tinking on a sock I have on this particular sock but overall, it’s just plain ribbing, with a couple yarn overs and decreases here and there… Anyways, here’s a not so great picture until I can get better ones!

The sock fits perfectly, even with a lot more stitches than my usual stitch count and I can’t wait to have both socks knitted up! I think they’ll look quite good with my new Danskos!

I also finished a pair of socks, the stripey Vesper socks with afterthought heel. I really tried to finish it by October 31, but instead I finished them on November 1st.

I wore them yesterday already and they’re quite comfy. I was afraid that the heel would feel a bit weird but not at all, it doesn’t feel any different.

I really wanted to finish my Snowflake Lace socks before I left for Stitches but as of November 3rd I admit defeat but I am 2 repeats and 1 ribbing away from completion, and once I come back from Stitches, they’ll be done in no time and I’ll have another pair to wear!

Here’s the last picture I took of the pair:

To Stitches I’ll be bringing the mate to my Twisted Tweed sock and I’ll possibly wind up another skein for a plain stockinette sock to work on while manning the booth. But I think that if I were to run out it shouldn’t be too hard to find more sock yarn to knit!

I will be back next week with hopefully lots of pictures of Stitches!