midgeling: life in a shoe.

I finally started on Mr Midgeling's birthday socks for this year. Why finally? Because his birthday was on June 24th. Every Christmas and birthday I ask him what he wants. He always says "nothing". A couple of years ago he started saying "Hand knit socks." Finally - a real answer.

I am using Lisa Souza's fingering weight sock yarn in Mars Quake. The pattern is based on some sock pattern I saw on the internet some time ago. I am doing it over 88 stitches for his big, fat feet, toe up, using Wendy Johnson's method used in the Toe-up Slipstitch Heel socks. Mr Midge has such fat feet and ankles that there is no way short row heels would ever work for him.

So I am going to head to bed with my sock, iPod, inhalers, cough drops and Chloraseptic spray. Good night!

Posted by midgeling at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have to post this. I am sick of the clickety-click of rescheduling exams for work.

Almost done with my Mom's socks. They were supposed to be mine, with my Zen String sock club yarn, but I made them too tight. I know, they look like chicken leg socks, but they fit her fine. Hopefully I will get them finished tonight so I can start on Mr Midgeling's birthday socks.

Posted by midgeling at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Two sleeves down. 10 rows into left front. Wedding is on the 28th. Don't know if I will make it, lol. At least I will have a lot of car knitting time on the way to CA. Too bad Baby won't be there to assist with yarn wrangling.

Posted by midgeling at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I meant to post this back on May 22. Obviously, I didin't get to it. Life has been insane with trying to finish up the move, get kids registered at the proper schools for next year and people getting sick.

I am going to be going to a cousin's wedding on June 28th, and I need something decent to wear. So I am knitting the Sapphire Wrap by Melissa Wehrle.

So I happened to do my shopping while the 2008 LYS Tour was going on. While at Renaissance Yarns I spent more than $25, so I got the lovely free tote bag you see in the photo. I am doing the pattern in the same color, but not the same yarn. The pattern yarn used is cashmere, which just isn't in my budget. I am using Louet MerLin (merino/linen), which isn't cheap either, but it isn't as much as cashmere.

I have one sleeve plus most of the second sleeve completed so far. I sure hope I will get it done in time. I am also hoping that the computer gets brought over to the new house soon. Until then, I still have to come over here to the old house to work and use the computer. Blech.

I hope everyone has a great weekend, and I hope to catch up with you all soon.

Posted by midgeling at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Note: Poor photo taken on my phone since I still haven't replaced my card reader and I can't for the life of me find the stuff to hook my camera directly into my PC.

So since Weebug mentioned my sock yarn scrap blanket thingy, I figured I'd better post a photo of it.

I started it a couple of years ago and have been slowly adding to it as I knit socks and have a bit leftover. There's a couple of socks not represented here - those were made for Mr Midgeling and his monstrous feet, so I had no yarn leftovers to use. One pair I made him had toes from the yarn in that orange square there since I ran out of his yarn. It is more or less chronological, but not completely, since I have been known to lose my scraps and find them again in odd places months later.

It's not really a true knit-along, since I am famous for not being a put-together person. But you can have the recipe I used here:

Mitered Square Scrap Sock Yarn Blankie (MSSSYB - pronounced "Misseeb"?)

Square size: roughly 4" when I am not on painkillers for my back, lol.
Needle size: 2.0 mm or size to get gauge. If you want. I mean, it's a scrap blanket. It only has to look the way you want it. Gauge really isn't critical here.

First square:
Cast on 60 sts.
First row: Slip first stitch PW, Knit 27 sts, SSK, K2tog, Knit 28 sts.
Next Row: Slip first stitch PW, knit across.
Next Row: Slip first stitch PW, Knit 26 sts, SSK, K2tog, Knit 27 sts.
Next Row: Slip first stitch PW, knit across.
Continue on like this until you have 2 sts, then K2tog.and bind off.

Second Square:
Cast on 30 sts, pick up and knit 30 sts along the Right (Public) Side of the first square.
Next Row: Slip first stitch PW, knit across.
First row: Slip first stitch PW, Knit 27 sts, SSK, K2tog, Knit 28 sts.
Next Row: Slip first stitch PW, knit across.
Next Row: Slip first stitch PW, Knit 26 sts, SSK, K2tog, Knit 27 sts.
Next Row: Slip first stitch PW, knit across.
Continue on like this until you have 2 sts, then K2tog and bind off.

Keep adding squares in this manner until your blankie is Big Enough. If you are like me and oddly particular, you may wish to pay attention to what direction your miters are facing as you join the squares. If not, just go for it and let them end up facing whatever random direction you like.

Posted by midgeling at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Okay, so I wasn't fast enough to make the second round in Sock Madness 2008. I knit and finished my first sock late Friday night. I was so tired that I forgot where I put it, so a photo will have to come later.

I was so knit out by then that I decided to finish up some spinning and free up my favorite spindle.

It's from a Spritely Goods merino/firestar handblended batt in the Larkspur colorway. It's about 135 yards of roughly sport weight yarn. It will likely end up as a lace scarf of some sort. I tried to get it all in one hank, but my spindle refused to take any more than the 135 yards. The yarn kept breaking under the weight of the full spindle. So I Andean plied the remainder of the 2 chunks of singles into a couple of mini skeins. I'll probably end up weaving those into some coasters or something.

Lace week was sort of stressful. There were good parts and bad. Friday evening I felt like a totally crappy, horrible mother. I couldn't Make it to Marti's house Friday because Chace had his orchestra concert at 7:00. Guess what we found out? It was on Thursday. We missed it. He started to cry really quietly in the car. Then I started to cry and apologize all over the place. It was a big concert with 4 schools combined into one giant orchestra. I used to play violin, so I remember how big of a deal these things are. And HK didn't go to her boyfriend's karate competition because of the concert. And Mr Midgeling came home from work early, too.

Yeah, I suck.

Um, but on the bright side, the house we wanted is 95% ours. We sent in the paperwork accepting the seller's counter offer. Now we just wait on the inspection and by the end of the month, we will be the proud owners of a new (to us) 5 bedroom home down the street from the #1 rated high school in the state. According to Newsweek (I think it's them) it is ranked #37 in the country.

So it's not all bad. Losing at Sock Madness and orchestra. Getting the house we wanted. It's been a bit bumpy, but I'd say things are looking up.

Posted by midgeling at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've been under it, around it and even in the gift shop. But on Wednesday, I finally went to the top of the Space Needle. Mr Midgeling emailed me and told me to pick him up from work so we could go hang out for the evening.

Our visit was at sunset, and during some freaky snowy weather. Seattle can't seem to decide if it is Spring or Winter. The last four days or so have been spent at the mercy of a seriously bipolar Mother Nature. In the morning I would go out to the car and drive kids to school while admiring the sun peeking out from behind the clouds and showing off patches of blue sky. The drive to the doc a few hours later had me bundling up against sleet and blowing snow. Weird.

But I got to experience snow at about 500 feet above Seattle:

And Mr Midgeling even took photos of me:

And I took photos of him:

That's not the most flattering photo of me, but hey. I don't seem to take many flattering photos these days, lol. And guess what? I even got to knit up there while we had coffee and watched the snow collect in the outer windowsills.

It was a nice surprise.

Posted by midgeling at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It's yet another WIP. It is That Little Scarf by Anne Hanson. Normally, I hate buying scarf patterns. Aren't scarves just insanely long gauge swatches? Why should I pay $5 for that? But I hadn't seen the stitch pattern before and it intrigued me. I found myself looking at it for days. So I bought it. And I am glad I did.

It's not an easy pattern where all the wrong side rows are purled across. And I am normally a devoted chart knitter. I usually skip right over written out directions. But for some reason, these charts had me confuzzled at first. You read them from the left on right side rows, and from the right on wrong side rows. After 2 pattern repeats of me comparing what I was knitting to the chart, the light finally came on and I got it. Duh.

The yarn is Zen String Bambewe in Moonshadow. Bambewe is Bamboo/merino/nylon. It's really soft and sort of shiny in the light. The color is a really pretty grayish blue. In darker lighting, it looks mostly gray, but in the light you can see more of the blue hues. And the coolest thing happened:

The whole scarf is knitting up with one half shading lighter than the other. It's a Happy Little Accident that I am really liking. Hopefully it will stay like that through the rest of the scarf. It's not so spectacular unblocked, but it will look. better when I am done.

*sigh* Tonight I have to drive HK the 11 miles to church for Youth Group. I am glad she likes it so much and I am WAY glad we found such a great church after our old one imploded upon itself last year. Once we move in (hopefully) a few months, The Husband will likely complain to me about the distance even more. He will just have to find a way to cope.

Posted by midgeling at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Well, almost. It's the Big Basin sock from the Six Sox Knitalong. The yarn is Dream In Color Smooshy in the Wisterious colorway. It makes my foot look like a hydrangea. Is started it Saturday afternoon while I was watching the kids swim.

It's coming along nicely so far, but I have no idea if it will end up fitting me. (Gauge? who needs to check gauge?) If it is too small, Mom gets it. If it is too big, my sister Laura gets it. (BTW, Laura and Michael are swiftly falling in love and all that mooshy stuff, so all is proceeding well with my Valentine's story.) If it fits, then I get to keep it until either HK or Laura decide to steal them and force their fat feet into them anyway. It's happened before.

Wish me luck.

Posted by midgeling at 09:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The 3rd Mohican Hat in the color Iris. More Christmas Knitting. I finally passed the first set of decreases. After this point, it goes pretty quickly.

Posted by midgeling at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My phone did not arrive. It is currently on a delivery truck somewhere. So at least it should be here soon.

Enter the Black Dog: The new year isn't going quite as well as I had hoped so far. Like yesterday, for example. I arrived back home after dropping HK off at school to find that I had to turn off 9 lights that people failed to turn off before leaving. NINE. From the upstairs attic room (my bedroom) to the basement. Then came work. And it wouldn't stop. I am still dealing with asthma and congestion issues, but in an effort to save my crappy immune system, I have gone off my asthma inhalers. I mean, I have had some virus or another since the end of September. I get a 2-3 day break in there on occasion, but I am SICK of being sick! Oh, and I am still not done with all my Christmas knitting.

And today I slept through my alarm for 2 hours. I let HK stay home from school because I had to drive Mr Midgeling to work. His motorcycle had a flat tire and he was going to be late for a meeting with Bob-the-New-Boss-of-First-Impressions. I am not impressed by that man (Bob, not the mister. But actually, I haven't been to impressed with the mister lately either, lol!). He is a dolt. So the middle 2 kids have late start school at 10:30 on Fridays. But they were 10 minutes late anyway.

I am having insomnia issues. I frequently get to greet 3 am in a completely conscious state. I have been feeling restless and irritable. My concentration and motivation is shot. If I had my choice, I would stay up all night knitting and listening to my iPod and sleep all day. I am having a hard time resisting the urge to buy stuff. I seriously want to renew a couple of sock clubs, but I can't. I have to save that money for the new house that will hopefully be entering our lives in the next 6 months or so.

My former boss still manages to be like wet sand in my underwear, even though I don't report to him anymore. Well, I suppose he is like wet sand because I don't report to him anymore. I don't even want to work anymore because my place of employment is dysfunctional (as is everywhere) and preally pretty hostile. I report to a new woman now, so hopfully that will go well. I have known her for years, though I didn't work with her much, but I have never had issues or anything negative go on with her.

My friend Chris asked me today what I have been doing to try to cope with these feelings and problems I have had lately. Here's an excerpt from our conversation:

Chris says (11:39 AM):so what have you tried to do differently to break the funk?
midgeling says (11:40 AM):
um, leaving my purse in the car so I cant shop online, lol
midgeling says (11:40 AM):
And I upped my meds by a half a pill
midgeling says (11:41 AM):
trying to be positive. think positive and plan things out. more structure makes for less opportunity to start spinning out of control. it's hard sometimes. sometimes I just want to sleep and quit trying to be level-headed
midgeling says (11:41 AM):but i know I cant

So there. I know it will get better. It just takes time and effort. But it is still a struggle some days. But on the more positive side:

More Christmas knitting. I'm on the second sock. It's plain rib, but I need to get stuff done fast. I will make it up to teh recipient by making another fancier pair when I get a moment.

Posted by midgeling at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yes, the colors are truly that blinding in person.

Posted by midgeling at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here's my first Zigzag sock from the Vogue Knitting Ultimate Sock Book. I got the book for my birthday from, my sister. The yarn I am using is Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Tweed 6-ply / 6 fädig in a light gray color. I shortened the leg by one pattern repeat since I didn't have as much yarn as the pattern called for. I had about 3 yards leftover from my ball! I can't believe I made it.

The book is great - just beware of the heel turning for this pattern! After the second try, I realized that their directions for the heel turning were all screwed up, so I eyeballed it and got what worked for me. A newbie sock knitter would be really frustrated, so I hope this doesn't mess anyone up.

Hopefully, I'll start the second sock tomorrow.

Posted by midgeling at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a poorly taken photo to display today. Today was... not good. It started last night with transmission fluid accidently getting drained from my car and a mad search for the ATV-IV to replace it. Then today was windy, rainy, cold and icky. Normally, I like that kind of weather. But when doing car maintenance, it sucks.

Then add a 13 year old who is pissed at not being able to go to church tonight.

Good times...

Posted by midgeling at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Okay, so yesterday was good. Sorta. Started out rocky - new church, narrow minded people that don't think that if you wear black that you can already have an established relationship with God. You know, you must be "lost" or something. Eh, we have a few churches to try out. And just maybe my family can teach these conservative peoples that you can be different AND Christian.

After that, we went to Weebug's house. We hung out for the day while went all supergeek on them and tuned up their PC and recovered music files from the iPod that was orphaned by their previous PC. It was fun in a sick and twisted kind of way. I got some sock knitting done. Quite a bit, actually. See?

Those are Nathan's Never Ending Socks. Those are supposed to sorta replace his blue Birthday Socks that were too small. And by "sorta" I mean, he still wears the other ones even though they are too small, but I wanted him to have a pair that fit since they were a birthday present. So here I have knit these socks with Lime N Violet sock yarn in the Basement Dweller colorway. 462 yards will not be enugh to comfortably fit his size 11.5 EEEE feet. So it's a good thing I bought Cutters Are People Too, because that's what color the toes of his monstrous socks are going to be. They coordinate quite nicely.

It feels like I have been knitting them forever. But really, it's just been since the beginning of July. But I may finish them this week! Woot!

Oh, and so in return for my hours of sitting at her computer ignoring everyone while she fed my kids, Weebug graciously gave me a big hunk of pretty fibery love. It's Lisa Souza fiber in the Lime and Violet colorway, of course! Do I have awesome friends or what?

Posted by midgeling at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yup. I have been spinning a bit again. This is 1 oz total (off and on the spindle) of a rose colored wool. I have one more ounce of this same fiber, plus 2 ounces of a darker rose colored wool that I bought in Ashland, OR at Web*sters. It's vacation fiber. I am liking it.

Then we have the socks. I will be ripping them out shortly. Too tight. Pretty, though. They are Wendyknits Southwestern Socks. I'll try again in a different yarn.

Sometime in the future I will post photos of our Saturday with the family at the Ballard Locks. That was fun. Unexpectedly fun in strange ways. The whole day was really nice. I got to spend time with my aunt and cousin that I don't see nearly enough.

Posted by midgeling at 05:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I started something for myself. It's the Chickami from Chicknits. I am using some Intermezzo cotton yarn i bought years ago from Elann.It's going pretty fast, but would have been faster if I had been paying attention and noticed that I was only doing the body shaping on one side and not both sides of the stinking cami. At least I only had to rip out a couple of inches.

Oh, and just like the Harlot said, you really need to treasure your non-knitting friends who understand what your knitting is to you. My friend Magy is one of those treasures. She is wonderful with my girls and really does understand me more than I thought she did. Friday, I was dropping my little girls off at her Playschool for a few hours. I ended up staying and talking with her because life was sort of sucking and she is an awesome listener.

So Magy made me a quad-shot Americano. About an hour later, she says "Girl! Where is your knitting? Now I see why you knit all the time. You can't sit still without it. Go out to the car and grab it - you're making me nuts!" LOL! So I ran out and grabbed a sock to work on while we finished talking. Not once has she ever made fun of me for having yarn in my purse. Yeah. Those kinds of friends are priceless.

Posted by midgeling at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm doing more socks. Yes, socks. I have been sock obsessed for several years now. I have heard many people say "*sigh* [eyeroll] I can't wait for this stupid sock fad to be over with."

Sock fad? Um, honey - how long have you been knitting? I have been knitting 11 or 12 years and have been knitting socks almost that entire time. It's not a fad. It's been going strong for more years than you or I have been knitting. Centuries longer. Get over yourself. People like to knit socks. It's not a fad. Polyester sparkly glow in the dark fake fur yarn is a fad.

Posted by midgeling at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Let's try to ignore the fact that the sock is sitting on my foot all wonky, mmmkay? Let's just appreciate that for the first time in a long while, I actually managed to shave my stupid legs before snapping a sock photo.

I started it! The second shipment from the Rockin Sock Club arrived many weeks ago and the yarn has been staring at me quite accusingly. So rather than risk an angry skein trying to strangle me in my sleep (they do that, you know) I decided to get the socks started. Once again, I am underestimating the size of my feet. I usually make my socks a tad on the large side, but the last couple of times they ended up a wee bit small. Small socks usually go to my mom.

So I also started editing my stuff at Ravelry. Holy Crap. There is no way in hell I can enter my whole yarn stash in there. Even just my whole sock yarn stash would take FOREVER. I have at least 4 plastic bins of just sock yarn. I have over 20 skeins of Opal. And pictures? Dude, I would fill up all the drive space on my server with all that after burning through all the space that Flickr would allow me. Yes - I am a shameful sock yarn addict. And I have been that way for about 7 years now. But hey - as time goes by, my taste in yarn gets better, lol!

Okay, I gotta git to bed. The Man gets antsy if I wander around the house too long after bedtime. He is a big baby who can't sleep without his security blanket. And yes, I would be said blankie. *sigh*

Posted by midgeling at 09:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ED: I have been trying to write and post this stupid thing since Monday, and it is now Thursday. If it's not me being sick, it's friggin DRAMA everywhere. I'd like to personally tell everyone shooting out their negative vibes to go screw themselves. I don't need anything else negative this week.

Okay, so I have been sick. SICK. It's really a drug withdrawal (NO, not like methadone or anything like that). The mail order pharmacy screwed up my prescription, tried to fill the old one instead of filling the new one, which led to contacting the doc, who was wondering what-the-hell-is wrong-with-you-can't-you-read-the-paper-she-mailed-in-why-did-you-click-the-wrong-thingy-on-the-computer? So due to the pharmacy getting confused by a new piece of paper vs an old prescription still in their computer, I ran out of my medication. Okay, so why do I need these meds? To prevent my body from freaking out like it did these last 4 days. It all started Friday. Nausea, gastrointestinal ugliness, insomnia, fatigue, dizziness, numbness and prickly feeling hands and fingers, difficulty regulating body temperature - oh and the never ending migraine from HELL. Oh yeah - and I had allergy problems to contend with also.

And since physical crappiness wasn't enough, I must have drama elsewhere. Work is pretty much the same brand of stupid it always is. Nope. It is my friends that are wiggin me out. Weebug has her typical struggles - which aren't an issue for me (past my feeling of wishing I could do more to help her out when things get rough). But she is my nice little chunk of relative sanity these days in the friend department. Thank God for her. Really.

(Okay, that was written Monday and Tuesday. Today is THURS-friggin-DAY. Here's the part where I skip to the photos and then do a mental/emotional vomit post later on.)

Okay, so Saturday was a tournament sponsored by Untalan's Taekwondo in Graham, WA. Here's Harely doing her thing. She lost 10 to 12, but she did so good. The girl was pretty terrified of her. My favorite moment was when Harley kicked her in the gut/chest area, the girl went airborn, arced and landed flat on her butt with a gigantic THUD. It looked like a cartoon scene. The girl was okay, but it was one of those moments where you felt like you were in a real live Roger Rabbit movie.

And here is the mess that is my bag. I have a sock in some self striping Mama Llama and a Cascade Fixation baby sweater based on the Bamboo Baby Sweater in the One Skein Wonders Book. They are tangled and I was prevented by Mr Migraine from detangling the mess to get a proper photo.

I need to regroup for a bit. My grasp on my sanity and nice-nice is very tenuous at the moment. I may go into full-blown bitch mode in a bit. Have I said that I hate drama? Um, yeah. Well I hate it. And my life is full of what feels like high school crap at the moment. If you want to avoid this kind of thing, don't have any friends and don't, don't DON'T let any of your children do competitive sports on a damn elite team.

Posted by midgeling at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ETA: Dang, I have a spot on my lens. I can't believe I didn't see that and Photoshop it out. *sigh*

I made it a little farther on my Conwy sock. It is looking nice overall, I think. It fits snugly, but not too tight. The pattern isn't all that visible, but you can still see the ridges pretty clearly, and I like that. I think if I ever do this pattern again, I will use a less busy colored yarn to show off that traveling vine stitch a bit more. But really, I am pleased with it so far. Here's a detail shot:

Funny that when I started this sock, I had completely forgotten that I wanted to do a pair of Rozas next. I guess this just means that the Conwys just really wanted to be knit. And even though they aren't turning out "perfect" I am really happy with them. And I am weird about the yarn and pattern being 'perfect' for each other. I have a sock that I have knit in 2 different patterns already and I am probably going to rip them out again. I think that yarn will end up making a pair of Jaywalkers if it isnt too ratty looking by the time it is reknit yet again.

I guess the Conwy pattern was just really calling out to me quite loudly.

Posted by midgeling at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

4 out of the 6 people in my family made a trip to the doctor today. Kass needed a followup for her sinus infection/bronchitis episode. Harley needed to be seen for her allergies and the infected spots on her face and ears. Nathan needed to be seen for his sinus infection and probable case of strep. And I needed blood work fto go with my annual exam (oh, goodie) that I had on Wednesday.

So... Kass is okay and probably doesnt have asthma just yet. Harley had a case of eczema and/or bug bite on her face that turned into a staph/strep/viral infection. She also had a sinus infection (again for the second time this year). Nathan was just all around crappy and I happily donated blood to the nice, needle-wielding phlebotomist in the office.

So 6 prescriptions and $96 later, Harley and Nathan are drugged out and feeling slightly better. And we still have 3 prescriptions yet to be filled out by mail-order. Sheesh. Harley's allergies are as bad as mine. Thank God our insurance is good.

I started another sock while I was at the dojang watching Chace's class and got to work on it more today at the doc's office:

KPPPM, size 000 (1.5 mm) needles, 80 sts around in 2x2 ribbing. Too damn big. To be honest, I ended up with 80 stitches because I was happily watching the taekwondo class while increasing away on the toe. And when I realized I had 80 stitches, I thought to myself "Oh, that won't be too many sitiches, after all, I am working on 000 needles!!! That's just crazy to begin with!" Rip, rip, rip......

Aaaah, much better fit. I am still on 000 needles, getting about 9 sts to the inch and 72 stitches here is working muuuch better. And 72 is like the most common number used in sock patterns. So I decided to do the Conwyn Sock from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road. You can't really see the pattern too well yet. Hopefully as I get more into it, it will look a bit more distinct. I thought it would show okay, because the yarn I am using is similar to the yarn used in the book. But I'm not so sure now. Eh, I don't care if it is obscured. It's a fun pattern. That's what counts.

Oh, and the yarn? I got it in trade with Weebug for the leftover yarn from my Mad Cow socks. I had 65g of black and 75g left of the zebra stripe. She is using it to add to her Opal of the same colors make her new nephew a baby sweater. It looks good so far!

Posted by midgeling at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This morning is sort of good. My boss decided to get me to set a schedule. So I start work at 9 every morning. I actually work less this way. It seems that I was working for free before - I wasn't really good about reporting the actual hours worked. I got my breakfast, snapped a fuzzy photo and sat down here to type. Fuzzy photo seems sort of appropriate since I feel fuzzy-headed since I haven't yet finished my coffe. Harley and Chace are both home sick today - Harley with stomach flu and Chace with strep. Yup, he must have caught it from me.

Here you see my coffee and bagels. The coffee is in my giant Starbucks Portland coffee mug that I got at the 2006 Taekwondo Friendship Tournament (I think) in Portland at the Rose Garden. I had another mug from Junior Olympics in Atlanta, but some person who refuses to identify themselves broke it. I am still sort of traumatized by the demise of my favorite coffee mug, so I haven't been able to throw it away. The chipped-to-hell mug is still on my kitchen counter. The bagels look kinda gross, but they are really quite tasty. They are lightly toasted and have balsamic, fresh mozzarella, proscuitto and sun dried tomatoes. Yummy!

The sock is Froeliche Wolle (I always want to sy "Frohliche Weinachten" - Merry Christmas). It's stripey pinks and purples, and the pattern is S12 Scalloped Socks. I was part of the Opal Sock of the Month Club several years ago and never managed to make these socks. I screwed them up somewhere along the line - I suspect sometime at yesterday's visit to the pediatrician. I get to tink back a couple of rounds so I can get moving on this sock again.

Posted by midgeling at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Spring seems to be arriving. The camellia tree is in bloom. Yes, I realize most people think of them as bushes, but since ours has got to be at least 20 feet tall, I would say that qualifies as a tree in my book. It's a tree, folks, really it is.

Oh, and did you know I am a glutton for punishment? Yeah. I really am. I am currently knitting the Twist and Lace Scarf. It is in Cherry Tree Hill Sock (Supersock? I can't remember.), colorway Misty Moor. This has to be one of my favorite colorways. Ever. Really.

Oh, and what is the problem? Well, I got gauge using US #1 needles. I have one skein of this yarn. ONE. Uno. Eins. Ichi. The scarf is maybe about 14" long so far. And I have 50 grams left. That is a bit less than half the skein.

So you know what I am going to do? Yup. I am going to rip it out. Why? because I am going to say "Screw gauge, this obviously isn't working and I need to use bigger needles and maybe do fewer short rows so it is slightly less ruffly so it eats less yarn so I can get a bit longer of a scarf." (Yes, a bit of a mouthful, but that's what I said.) Why didn't I start ripping when I suspected the size weirdness 40 grams ago? Because I second-guessed myself and assumed I was wrong. I have been knitting for 11+ years. You would think I would learn by now. Things like "not enough yarn for the project" generally don't work themselves out if you knit for 6 more hours. Nope. Glutton. For. Punishment. That's me!

Thank God Miss V extended the Sock Marathon deadline. Kisses to Miss Lime and Miss Violet.

Posted by midgeling at 06:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

WTF? This is one of the headlines off the MSN page: "Family Feuds Dog Famous Folks in Death". What the hell does that mean? I have read it several times and I can't make any sense of it. My 3 year old makes more sense on a bad day than that.

Heehee. Yet another truck trying to get past my house on my icy hill. What makes these people driving trucks weighing a couple of tons think that they can drive up a fairly steep slope that has a 2" ice sheet covering the top? It is just another snow day here in the Seattle area. Today was the second snow day. It didn't snow yesterday. I fact, it was quite sunny and bright. But it was so cold that very little melted. The only snow melt was what was up in the trees - and all that did was melt, drip down to the ground and re-freeze. So my whole hill is ice and I have 4 kids home and destroying the house when they should be at school learning something useful.

I finished one of my socks for the Lime and Violet Sock Sock Marathon 2007. And here it is!

One down, one to go. Then only 9 more pairs to go, lol!

Posted by midgeling at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Socks That Rock lightweight in colorway Henpecked. 8.5 sts per inch. This photo was actually cropped from a much larger image. I really love playing with my different lenses. The stock lens is icky and never seems to help capture the lighting and mood as well as the telephoto and the macro lenses do. I would really like a better quality "all-purpose" lens. A wide angle would be nice...

Anyway, this sock is the one I have been referring to as the "Broadripple Inspired Sock". I have knit and frogged this thing at least twice that I remember. The first time was because even though I was getting gauge, the sock was way too large. The second time was because of the Evil Toe Eyes. The fabric that this yarn knits up into is so nice and soft and squishy and pretty that I don't really mind having re-knit it so many times. I am one of those process knitters that many do not understand. I usually don't mind frogging and knitting, because I just enjoy the knitting more than anything. I usually give away most of the things that I knit. I suppose if I had made any New Year's resolutions, one would be to knit more things to keep for myself.

********

Lexa's Preschool phrase of the day: "I want peanut butter and honey because chalupas are not ignoring."

Posted by midgeling at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Guess what this is? (besides a bad photo taken on my phone) This is me and my 5 year old daughter Kassie. I am helping Kassie hold the needle steady and she is mumbling "Poke, wrap, wheee!" It was the only little poem thingy I could think of that Kassie could remember to help her keep track of what she was supposed to do. She actually caught on pretty quick. I bought her a pair of kid sized US8 needles and gave her an old ball of leftover Red Heart in bright red. She's knitting a scarf for her teddy bear.

In other kid knitting news, Harley'sfriend Claire asked me to teach her to knit. So I found an old pair of bamboo circs and skein of something that looks like vintage avocado colored Patons Decor. I cast on sts and knit one row to start her out. Here she is after several rows. she has some nice, lacy yarn over holes, but it looks good!

In other less fun knitting news, I decided That I am going to frog the socks back to the toe. Why? Well first look at how far I got - just past the ankle.

Okay, now Why do I want to frog them? Well, no matter how now hard I try, these funky "toe eyeballs" (as Nathan called them ) are really bugging the crap out of me. I can't even convince myself that they are a design element. I wanted the arrow things to point down toward my toes, but if I had given this pattern more thought, I would have realized that the biasing would make that bump of knit fabric have to go somewhere. If not toward the cuff to form a scalloped edge, then toward the toe area to form "toe eyeballs."

Eh, oh well. Live and learn.

Posted by midgeling at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In my last post I showed the progress I was making on my "Henpecked Socks That Rock Broadripple Inspired Sock". Well, Nathan was admiring the sock and lamenting about how his knitterly wife hasn't knit him a pair of socks in a couple of years. So I took pity on the poor guy and decided that I would let him have these socks. He snagged them and squeezed his foot in. They were snug, but not too tight. I think. But after making some calculations, I figured that I was going to end up needing about 200 more yards of yarn to give his US size 11.5 EEEE feet something more substantial than ankle socks.

So I went online and bought more yarn. Of course. But pay all that shipping for one lonely skein of STR? Never! It made much more sense to buy the Farmhouse Mediumweight and the Love In Idleness Lightweight to accompany the second skein of Henpecked.

So with all that said, guess what? He isn't keeping the socks. After I ordered the second skein. Why? Because when I got to the heel section, it was way too damn tight on his big old cankles. (And yes, I had to explain to him what cankles are.) Then right as I was about to say "Oh I can just rip back a bit and do more gusset increases before starting the heel flap..." he said "That's okay, I am not too crazy about the color anyway. Do you have any blue?" *facepalm* I think he only pretended to like the sock as much as he did to try to get a pair of new socks out of me. Now that just shows that I haven't knit him nearly enough socks. My bad.

My husband's hairy canckle:

So now I am going to have 2 skeins of this colorway. Not that I am complaining. He just doesn't care for the color. So I am going to rip back several inches and adjust the heel for my size 6.5 feet. They aren't snug on me, but they aren't lose either. I think I will like them. After that, I just need to dig through my mountainous stash of sock yarn (more than 1 extra large size Space Bag full) and see if I can find a couple of skeins of bluish sock yarn for him.

I need to find the canister vac so I can suck the air out of the space bag again. Or else that giant bag of fibery goodness will not be fitting under my chaise lounge again.

Posted by midgeling at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I never thought we would do it, but we did. We traded in the Little green Short Bus for a New Black Short Bus. The new one is PRETTY. I just love her. She is new and black and shiny and CLEAN. The dealer was having a customer appreciation event last night. They fed as dinner and plied as with wine. They gave out prizes, but we didn't win any. At about 8:30, we started talking to the sales guys about the car. After giving Nathan 6 beers or so and some intensive negotiations (LOL!), we drove off at 11:41pm with 4 Candy canes, 2 balloons, a magnum of champagne and a new car. It was a very weird experience.

And now for squeee the second. ("Squeee" is a term I have become reacquainted with courtesy of Ms. Lime and Ms.Violet.) My Socks that Rock arrived, so I started searching for the perfect pattern. I thought I would do the Broadripple socks, but for some reason I decided I wanted to do them Toe up. I can't recall why I wanted to do them toe up. But I did some research and found the Magic Cast On for Toe-up socks. So I happily knit away and got several inches into the toe when it dawned on me that the sock was awfully W-I-D-E.Yup, my gauge was right on, but my feet are just really small. So I had to alter the pattern to make the circumference about an inch smaller. I also had to reverse the decreases to make everything point the way I wanted the zigs to zag.

So I explained all this to Nathan last night when we were going to bed. He pointed out that I had basically written my own pattern and just based it on a design I liked by the time it was all done; and I should write it all down and post it. Good idea. (BTW, this colorway is called "Henpecked".)

Posted by midgeling at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)