Catching up

So, I had this intention of getting several blog posts in this week and somehow the whole week got away from me so here is the conglomeration of three short blog posts into one bigger blog post.

1. The birthday socks

These are the socks I was knitting for my brother Chris for his birthday. They were finished on time and gifted to him. He really liked them. Unfortunately this picture does not do them any type of justice. It is Trekking XXL sock yarn and it a strand of black or dark blue plied with a strand of changing color. It goes subtly from red to blue to orange and other colors. They are absolutely beautiful. I almost wish I had knit some for myself. I was a little bit concerned about the colors being too girly for him but he really liked them.

2. Dad's Christmas Felted clogs

Again, this is an AWFUL picture. Almost not worth even posting. But I wanted some proof that I am working on my Christmas project list. I have also started my brother-in-law's clogs and I should finish those next week. These are done and put to the side for Christmas though. Yum.

3. The sadness that is hubby's socks

Less than 72 hours after the Earl Grey/Brown socks were completed and given to hubby he was wearing them and this is what I see. A hole! I could have cried. Now normally, I am not one to fix a pair of socks but I think these things are cursed. I had so much frustration with them. I (in my own stupidity not by any fault of the pattern) messed up the pattern and had to tink back and fix. Then I would do it again, then I dropped a stitch. I finally finish the beasts and this is what happens?!?! What is wrong with the world?

I will be fixing these because I cannot stand the thought of working that hard on a pair of socks to have them ruined in less than 3 days.

Sigh, off to do more Christmas projects because I'm not ready to face the fixing.

Pouting

So, while all those lucky knitters and spinners are either on their way to or are getting ready to be on their way to the fabulous (or so I have heard) New England Sheep and Wool Festival also known as Rhinebeck, I sit here at home.

I should be happy. I have finished the Earl Grey/Brown socks

Observe

The beautiful Earl Grey/Brown socks shown here on the feet of our reluctant model.

Meanwhile, the birthday deadline for my brother's socks fast approaches (Sunday) and I have a whole sock and the very end of the toe to knit.

Enough blogging. Get thee to work woman.

Whooee. I have been gone for awhile, sorry. I haven't been doing a whole lot of knitting. I had to (okay I was asked nicely and wanted to) go down to my mom's last weekend to help her friend's daughter who I am very close to; with a scrapbooking project. Did I mention I do a little scrapbooking? Plus I am working on quilt so I have been sewing on that lately too. I am not by any means an experienced quilter but I have always wanted to learn so I got this kit that is the Quilt Block of the Month. I bought the previous year's so I actually have all the blocks and it gives you hints and tips as you go along. It has all the fabric and it is already cut to the right sizes and tells you exactly how to sew it together. It is really helping me to learn. I have 5 of the squares sewn and so I have to finish the other 7 and decide how I am going to make it bigger. (It is for a full size bed and we have that now but we want to get a queen size so I want the quilt that big.)
So, excuses, excuses, I have been busy. Meanwhile, I did finish my Earl Grey/Brown socks and will post pictures as soon as I can get hubby to hold still long enough for him to model them (they are for him.) Meanwhile, I will be sitting under a quilt watching TV and knitting socks for my brother's birthday now.
It's been grey and drizzly here for over a week and I am SICK of it! It is especially brisk today so I am going to relax and knit.
Have a great day everyone.

Absence

I have no idea if that word is spelled right. It doesn't really look right and I don't feel like checking on it.
I have gotten very little knitting done because I went down to my mom's house last Wednesday and didn't come home until Friday, at which time, I came home with my two nieces for the weekend. This meant almost no knitting got done at all. I went down to my mom's house because a neighbor of my in-laws was kind enough to allow us to come out to his house and pick apples off his apple tree. We had a TON of apples and had to do something with them so we canned apple pie filling. It was a fun time and a lot of work. We finally got done on Friday and my brother stopped by and had fresh apple crisp with us. Then about ten minutes after he left, my grandpa and grandma stopped by. I left straight from my parents' house to go get my nieces and we had them until Sunday afternoon. It was a grand weekend and now I am trying to get caught up. I spent all day yesterday doing the laundry and now it is at reasonable levels and now today I need to get the dishes caught up. The men in this house just go kind of feral when you leave for a few days. You should have seen the state of our bed when I got home. The sheet and mattress pad were almost completely off the bed!
Oh well, back to getting things done and hopefully some knitting. (It's starting to get chilly outside and we haven't touched the furnace yet, but I think it may be time soon. This weekend it was actually hot though. We went to a local family farm with the girls to see animals and stuff and everyone was sweaty and hot when we left. Now it's starting to feel like October.)

New Stuff

So, as you may have noticed, I have finished stuff lately. A sweater, a shawl and a pair of felted clog slippers for my mother-in-law for Christmas. What does that mean?
It means I can start some new stuff.
Please excuse the exceptionally bad pictures. The air has been gray and dismal for a week so I am having a hard time getting decent pictures.

Here are the felted clogs I started for my dad for Christmas

This picture is really just the sole of the first one and the yarn that will be used for the top. I was almost done with the top and realized that I wasn't going to have enough so now, this green/black swirl yarn will be knit with a strand of black (the pattern calls for double stranded yarn) but that meant frogging the whole top.

Also, these are on the needles

You cannot see anything in this picture but it's Trekking XXL sock yarn that's a black or deep, deep blue and it's plied with a strand of changing color. It goes from red to kinda orange and on. It is absolutely beautiful and keeps me from going absolutely nuts knitting something that's boring because the color changes keep me totally interested.


I swear I am making progress on my earl grey/brown socks but the solid brown color means that it's so boring, I can only work a few rounds before I am completely nuts and need to work on something else. I did finish one whole sock and am past the heel turn and gusset decreases on the second but my husband has size 13 feet so it will be awhile til they are done.


One more thing. Remember the mystery pink thing? Well, it has sadly been frogged. Here is a picture prefrogging

You can't really tell anything about it but it is pink. What I did was make the diamond pattern from the 365 days of knitting patterns calendar (can you tell that I just got it this last year and am finding all kinds of great patterns in it?) and made it increase on each side. I had two skeins of the same exact yarn that were in the stash. They are old, they came from my grandma and I knew I couldn't get more so I started with one stitch and increased to the almost end of the one skein and then modified it and decreased supposedly with enough yarn to finish the diamond shape. Get it, a big diamond made of little diamonds. The plan was that I would then use another color to make a border around it. I ran out of yarn with about 50 stitches left on the needle. I couldn't believe it. I was so sick of it and I so wanted to be done. I had been working on it for weeks almost solely to get it done. I was in denial and tried to find some yarn that was similar. I couldn't find anything anywhere and so, finally, I admitted defeat and frogged it. Sad but true. Oh well, back to the grind. I'm pretty sure I will survive.

Knitting News?!

Well, I have been on a project finishing roll apparently. I finished the Felted Clogs slippers I was making for my mother-in-law. They will be gifted (unfelted) for Christmas so she can felt them to fit her feet. Only about 12 pairs more planned for Christmas. Plus I started a pair of socks for my brother's birthday which is coming up later this month. Other than that, I haven't been doing a lot of knitting and nothing interesting at all.
I tried to start that sweater I was telling you about but I can't seem to get gauge and so, I set it aside for awhile to avoid throwing all the yarn and needles out the window and saying good riddance. I'm pretty sure that it will not be finished in time for the intended recipient's birthday. Oh well, he will be two, I don't think he'll notice if it's late.