Yarnivorous

G'day all! I'm waaay into socks at present. All socks all the time. Except I'm currently working on two jackets. LOL Anyway, let's look at some socks. This is one of my favouritest ever socks. Honest. It has *everything* Colour and design! I've been testing patterns for bright yarns. That is what inspired the butterfly/bow socks and this new one. Gosh I like this sock. It is actually a good fit - the lighting in our atrium area was sorta dodgy and makes it look baggy, but it fits like a glove. The yarn is easy to knit with (minus some carding problems) and the sock feels really fluid. I guess that is the seacell in it. Look at that heel! The gusset increases (this is a toe up sock remember) were inspired by ooh, gotta go check the latest Knitty, ah and the heel is a version of the one Cookie A used on Baudelaire. The yarn? Sea Wool. The pattern? My own basic sock pattern, quilting pattern (can be found in Vogue Stitchionary and also Barbara Walker'...

G'day all! Hope it's been a better day for you than me! This morning I "did" my back (it was playing up already but I moved the wrong way and WHAMMY!). I went to the doctor where I got a mole shaved off. That didn't hurt until the anaesthetic wore off and now? Burns! Anyways, I hopped onto my bike for the umpteenth time today (doctor's visit, then find a chiro - had to ride to them cos we don't have a phone yet, then grocery shopping then back to the chiro.) Chiro does all this stuff and then tells me I have a disk bulge. Crapulous. No wonder why it hurts more and has more neurological signs than the usual SI joint popping. More crapulous? Even though we have health insurance, the $40 a pop co-pay means that after four visits this week, we can't afford a mobile (cell) phone. Bottom and poo! Oh and he doesn't want me riding my bike. Umm, well I can walk there but he doesn't want me walking much either. Or sitting much or standing much ...

G'day all! I'm BORED! And lonely. I've spent the day at home and there is noone to talk to here cos DH is here giving a talk on Sunday arvo. He has been away Too Much recently and I have been Home Too Much. I have not left Fort Collins in three weeks. I neeeeeed to get into the mountains! Neeed! So I have stained the two chairs we bought ages ago, now I have to sand them and wipe them down and apply the first of the top coats (all with waterbased, low voc stuff). I have plied up some angora/lambswool/nylon yarn that I recycled from an op shop jumper (translation: thrift store sweater) and dyed it magenta/purple/blue along with a poor unsuspecting ball of Opal all in my quest to make me some nice warm tights/leggings for the bike when it gets cold. I have dyed up some grey silk/angora/nylon mix in the same dye with the idea that if the angora is not too fluffy (it is a very small % in the mix) I can make me a balaclava or a mask with it. Gotta make some nice warm g...

G'day all! You all know that I *love* love LOVE colourful stuff. If it is rainbow coloured, I am like a butterfly drawn to it. (If it is shiny and rainbow coloured, well I am almost beside myself). So I've been knitting these socks in a yarn that will not be mentioned cos while it is lovely to knit with, mostly, it also has some flaws from the unusual material that makes up 30% of it. You saw the butterfly bow sock a week or so ago, and I would like to show you the new sock in a different pattern! Oh yes, a different pattern, which I think really helps highlight the luridness of the sock. So pretty! Plus I have some new lurid yarn, indeed two skeins of happy yarn, that I am itching to cast on with, but I forgot to take photos of it before DH ran away with the camera last night. So now I am at a loss - I can neither show you the finished new sock, nor the new skeins of yarn that I have to play with. I don't want to wind the yarn before I get a shot of its happiness. ...

Arrrrr me hearties! It be International Speak Like a Pirate Day today. ArrrrrhhhHH! So what be a poirate's favourite letter? "P" - it's just like an "R", but only has one leg! What's shiny, golden and sounds like a pirate? Pyrite! An oldie but a goodie: A pirate walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. What happened, you look terrible!" "What do you mean?" the pirate replies, "I'm fine." The bartender says, "But what about that wooden leg? You didn't have that before." "Well," says the pirate, "We were in a battle at sea and a cannon ball hit my leg but the surgeon fixed me up, and I'm fine, really." "Yeah," says the bartender, "But what about that hook? Last time I saw you, you had both hands." "Well," says the pirate, "We were in another battle and we boarded the enemy ship. I was in a sword fight and my h...

G'day all! You know those days when you rip more than you knit? Well I've been having LOTS of them recently! I cast on for a new jacket. It is going to be verra nice. I am making a jacket rather than a sweater from a pattern I have been eyeing for a long time. Jackets are more useful to me cos I can shed or add them as needed. So I carefully worked out how many stitches I needed and cast on. Hmm, my needle is a metre long, my hips are a metre around and the knitting is bunched up on the needle. After 20 rows, I pulled the knitting off the needles and discovered that the jacket (including built in "buttonhole" allowance) wrapped 1.5 times around me. Ah. Back to the drawing board, minus 50 stitches. Lord knows how I miscalculated that so badly! Maybe my gauge is way off as I am doing it on circs and also am doing it combined or continental or something - left handed and as long as the stitches don't twist I am happy! Then there is the most Beautiful Sock in...

G'day all! Autumn Knitty 2007 is out and boy oh boy, are there some good looking patterns! Go see ! Now I have to figure out what I can realistically make. Anyone got a good (cheap) online shop for Rowan wool cotton? I need to try some I think. Cucumberpatch? Do they do it? Must go see! anon!

G'day all! Ignore the date on blogger - I still have it set to Oz time, not this time in the past in the USA. Today is our anniversary! Yep, September 11. Some people think it is really weird, but it is just a day. Three years ago, we got married on the coldest day with the worst weather. Of course we planned an outdoors wedding amongst wildflowers, but had to deal with indoors whilst it sleeted and snowed outside (and sleet/snow is not at all common in Oz outside of alpine areas). (Gadzooks, we don't even have any pics online anymore! Can't link to them! Ah well, DH looks nicer now with a goatee than he did back then. Maybe I should GIMP a beard onto his then beardless face....) So for our anniversary, we went for a nice little walk, we did some supermarket shopping and I cooked us fish and chips for dinner (with a lot more vegies than fish and chips normally come with). OK, most people go out and do the whole schmoozing thing but we had an oopsie with the money. ...

G'day all! I finished another sock last week. This sock took a lot less time to knit up! Not sure why. Possibly because the conjunction of the needles, the yarn and the pattern were all working for me. I started this sock two Tuesdays ago, and in that time knitted, slowly, the cuffs of the heart beats true socks and almost finished a stole that has been loooong in progress (as long as the socks). I am trying to finish UFOs you see, but this sock just kept leaping into my hands. Even annoyances like the poor spinning of the yarn didn't stop me! (BTW, I emailed the company and they said it is a problem with that yarn but I shouldn't have gotten a skein that was that skanky, or words to that effect, and they will send me a new skein. Good, eh? Hope the new skein is better quality controlled...) The butterfly sock is toe up with a gusset and "flap" heel based on Cookie A's Baudelaire . Because the yarn is so brightly coloured, I thought a busy/lacy patte...

G'day all! 10 or more days ago I finished a pair of socks. DK weight socks. Socks that I started Back 'Ome. I have no idea why socks that normally take 8 hours each for me to knit took so long (though I guess I did have to wait for the second ball of blue yarn to show up with our Stuff). These socks felt like they would never end. It was driving me crazy! So I give you my heart beats true red and blue socks. Pattern is my standard toe up with short row heel pattern, modified for DK weight (ie 56 stitches or so rather than 64). Toes are opposite colours and so are heels. Why heart beats true? Well I barrack for Melbourne in the Australian Football League back 'ome, and part of the theme song is "every heart beats true for the red and the blue," red and blue being Melbourne's colours. I've finished them just in time - it has suddenly gone cold here. Overnight temps are no longer 20 something like they were three weeks ago, or even in the high teens like...

G'day all! I've been knitting socks again. Yep. Even finished a pair. No pics yet, but I was very pleased with myself cos I finished them and then fixed up the ends and all before I went to bed. So I started knitting another toe up sock at the LYS knitty gathering two Tuesdays ago cos I had said I would show their sock guru how to start a toe up sock. I carefully chose some expensive sock yarn I had bought from them for the demo sock. This sock has been whizzing along - so much easier to knit on the Addi turbo circ than on the plastic needles. Whiz whiz whiz. At the heel turning, I found a little tuft of yarn that sticks out - an end that was not spliced well. Then I found a thicker bit that was not well dyed but I ignored it as much as possible. Then I found another thick bit that was even more poorly dyed and was about as thick as DK. I had to loop that bit out cos it was realllllllly obvious as it was right at the front of the sock. Guess what? Another thick bit tha...