Catching Up

It's been a while since I've posted. Things have been busy around here. I had 2 straight weekends of call time in addition to the other stuff in my life that hogs up my free time. I've been knitting like mad though. Joining the HPKCHC on Ravelry has given me inspiration of motivation to keep my needles in motion.

I've now finished several hexipuffs, and am waiting for more left over sock yarn to knit them up with. I came up with the idea last night while falling asleep of using some of my yarn samplers so I can try out the yarns. It'll also give me a wide variety of colors for the puffs. I can keep a small strip of the yarn to label for future color reference.

I have also been working on some yummy fingerless gloves using Rainy Days & Wooly Dogs' Laudanum Lache in Romantic and Valerie Johnson's Elphaba pattern. It was one of the skeins I managed to snag at Sock Summit. They were to be for the Halloween knit along in the Gothsocks forum as well as for HPKCHC. However, I didn't finish them by the deadline for HPKCHC, so I have until the end of the month for the Gothsocks turn in. The yarn is simply lovely, the cashmere in it makes it super soft while the wool and nylon keeps the halo to a minimum. It may bloom in the wash though, we shall see.

I recently broke down and purchased a Kindle. I've had it for 3 weeks now and I am madly in love. I think I actually read faster using it. It's so easy to use and with the e-ink I forget I'm not reading a paperback. I've bought several books for it already as well as put my patterns onto it. It's easy to read the patterns and I can zoom in on my charts. I don't know why it took me so long to make the decision to get one, but I am happy I finally did. It celebration of this I knitted a Doctor Who themed cozy for my Kindle, since both it and the TARDIS are bigger on the inside it seemed appropriate.

The last and most recent of my projects since my last post is an argyle cell phone cozy. I used some lovely yarn I got from the caffeine addicts swap a while ago. It is a Norwegian wool yarn called Dalegarn Falk. So now my phone is looking snazzy in charcoal and red argyles.

So with the purchase of the Kindle, I have added some new books to my reading list. The main one being Brent Weeks' The Black Prism. I just found this great YouTube trailer for the book. Who'd have thunk, a trailer for a book? Ah well, you may remember my rants about his Night Angel trilogy. This new series is even better. He's developed a totally unique system for magic involving turning light into solid. It's a pretty cool concept. Each drafter (his term for "mages") can use one or more spectrum of light. Each spectrum has it's own properties for drafting. For instance green is flexible, ultra violet is invisible and sub red is hot. I also love that the main character is chubby 16 year old boy. Something more realistic than the usual athletic sword trained men in more fantasy sci-fi. I'm about halfway through the book now, so I'll be sure to let you know if my enthusiasm holds up or if I am disappointed.

I think that is enough for now. I just hope that gap between posts isn't as long next time.

Sock summit day 1

This is a little late, as by the time I got back to the hotel last night, I was exhausted.

I was up by 7 and taking a nice walk to Stumptown coffee by 7:30. From there it was a quick ride on the max to the convention center. My morning class was heels for toe up socks. I was proud for having done all of my homework, until I discovered that the homework changed while I was at comic-con. Suddenly I was scrambling to make the modifications from the changed homework. The class was good and I learned quite a bit to point me in the right direction for my socks.

After class was a quick lunch, and them camping for the marketplace. I met some lovely people during my 3 hour wait and made a lot of progress on my hitchhiker. I am up to 32 points. Sadly, my center pull ball has fallen into disarray. As I am writing this some lovely knitter next to me is untangling it. She said she loves to untangle and asked if she could help. I love knitters! Anyway, back to the waiting. We all got bunched up at the doors before they opened, and despite the fact that I was first in line, everyone shoved, pushed and elbowed. So despite my patience, the Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs's booth was empty. Luckily they had some tucked away that I got my paws on. Not as much as I wanted though. Poor Clarine even had yarn ripped out of her hands. For shame knitters! I also got some Sanguine Gryphon skinny bugga. Other than that, just a couple of project bags came home with me. I'll post pictures later.

The opening night reception was fun. Tina and Stephanie were really funny. There was also vodka. Nursing our wounds and toting our precious cargo Clarine and I headed back to the hotel before going out for some beer. We went to the Deschutes brew house. It was yummy.

More coming soon.

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Frakkin' Smegy Socks

So, to conclude the SSS saga. I washed them in hot water and tossed them into the dryer and that shrunk them up some. I think they will still be house socks though. The felici is incredibly warm and snuggly. Maybe the next go round with it will be better.

So, my new project are my Frakkin' Smeggy Socks. So named as it is Gothsocks gothling Frakkin' Toaster, on her Ricin' base. Ricin' is a merino, bamboo, nylon mix. I expect it'll last forever. It's got a gorgeous bit of shine to it, some nice stitch definition and a still a bit of stretch. The coolest part about the shine is that it makes the grey look silver. I'm really in love with this yarn and her use of colors. I don't generally like variegated yarns, but the way this is knitting up, I just might be a convert. So the second part of the name is a reference to Red Dwarf, which is a BBC comedy sci-fi series from the late 80's and 90's. It is really very hilarious and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do you. It's available on Netflix instant streaming. The reason for this reference, is the pattern I am using is Cristi H. Brockway's, Red Dwarf Socks. So, there you have a long winded explanation of my project name.

So far I am really enjoying the pattern. I have gotten to the heel turn at this point. I am substituting the fleegle heel instead of what she has in her pattern. I had a good experience with the fleegle, so I am going to continue to use it for now to get more sock knitting experience under my belt. Now, don't get the wrong idea. I am not going to be knitting nothing but socks. There were just a few KAL's I wanted to participate in the last couple of month. I plan to one day soon finish my hoodie, start a cardigan and a skirt. I want to have some nice things to show off at Sock Summit in July.

Madrona Fiber Arts

Today I went to my first fiber festival! It was a good time. I mostly went to get some Rainy Days Wooly Dogs gothsocks.  If you haven't seen it, it is beautiful self striping and variegated hand dyed yarn. I had fund shopping for myself and a few other people. When the show floor opened everyone walked briskly toward her booth and by the time I got around the corner I couldn't even fit in her booth. Sadly, that means I missed out on TARDIS which is the one color I really and truly wanted. I probably spent way more money than I ever should have. *sigh* Such is my problem. I did manage to net several lovely colors though. At least I get my tax return at the end of the month! I also got myself some Blue Moon Fiber Arts socks that rock medium weight in a rare gem colorway. It was actually funny when I went to check out Tina, the owner/dyer eyed my skein and threatened to keep it because she liked it so much. I also had a really great time hanging out with some lovely knitters and spinners. I learned a little bit about spinning, fiber and had a great time checking out everyone's projects.

This is the GothSocks booth after everyone emptied it out. It looks so sad and lonely. There were some pretty gothlings and sparklies whe I left though. You can also see the lovely Stephanie (the gothsocks creator) in front.



In other news, Joe and I just celebrated our 6th anniversary! He made a lovely dinner and we had a great night hanging out.

Sock knitting is also going well. I will write more on that when I finish it though.