Socks Of Doom

I finished the socks!  The socks are done!

Today was just one of those days.  I slept on the couch because my grandmother was staying in my room.  Twelve hours, but I probably woke up half a dozen times (awkwardly turn over, go back to sleep).  I woke up feeling somewhat better than yesterday but still just... blah.

I'm taking Vitamin C supplements that are gummies shaped like orange slices.  Marketed for adults.  They're basically like candy for sick people.  It's so great.

In English I got up and started to leave when the professor was readying to hand back essays.  It's the last thing he does in class and I hadn't turned one in on Tuesday, so I figured there was no reason for me to stay.  I got to the door before I realized he was staring at me, so the entire class was staring at me.  I paused with my hand on the doorknob, turned toward him, and shrugged.  "You don't have one of mine, remember?"  He unfroze and I knew he'd forgotten.  "Ah.  Yes.  If you didn't hand an essay in to me on Tuesday, you can leave now."  I realized on the stairs I should've said, "Oh, did my fairy godmother turn in an essay I didn't know about?"  Same result, but with added laughter.

Government was pretty much a repeat class from last semester, talking about good sources versus questionable, bad, and worse-than-nothing sources.  Did you know that watching cable news networks is scientifically proven to be worse at informing the public about political issues than not watching any news at all?  It's pretty sad really.  Also one of the students asked, "What about TMZ?" and half the class started snorting.  The professor actually giggled.

Anyway, I bet you want to hear about the socks.

Basics Of Sock-ing

We're still talking about the socks.

Arg, the socks.  The Kick Off The New Year Socks.  The cables that I have to remember to mirror, the toes that are too long, the gauge that isn't tight enough.  Oh, the socks.

I'm halfway through the gusset increases and I'm ready to -- quoting Ian -- punch a llama.  I am so tired of these socks being un-sock-like.  We are having a rocky relationship and the end is not in sight.  I am skeptical of this whole Fleegle heel thing.  What kind of a name is Fleegle, anyway?  Not one that sounds very trustworthy, that's for sure.

I don't know what I'm doing for February's socks.  I kind of want to make heart socks out of hot pink yarn, but I don't want them to take forever.  It might end up being basic toe-up socks I knit tiny reverse-stockinette hearts into everywhere.  That sounds cute, right?  But first I have to finish the stupid New Year socks.  ARG.

Okay.  That's enough WIP Whining for today.  Let's talk about something else sock-related, shall we?

A Few Major Victories

Sorry this post is coming in so extremely late that we're already almost four hours into the following day.  It's been a bit of a long evening, which relates to the second victory.

Victory: This teddy bear!

I finished it!  Yesterday, in fact.  As you can see, M is delighted.  She has a purple stuffed heart among her stuffing (it's just barely visible from the right angles and in the right light, but it's definitely obvious to the touch), and red features.  She has no name yet, but I'm sure one will be determined soon.  I'm really pleased with her.  I did not expect the camouflage yarn to turn out that awesome.

WIP Wednesday!

In order to make it easier to post every day, I've come up with some elements to add to each day's post.  Having some regular content will help me have enough to say, and give some regularity to my posts.  Here's what I'm thinking.

Sundays will be Resolutions, where I review what I've resolved to do this month or year, and how I'm doing with them.  Having regular reviews will probably help me get more things done!

Mondays will continue to be 3 Good Things.  It's a good bit of positivity for what tends to be a bad day.

Tuesdays is going to be a food thing, which I don't yet have a title for.  (I'm contemplating "Tasty Treats, but that sounds like either dog food or dessert.)  Essentially I'm going to post something I made for myself in the last week that I really liked.  I'll for sure either post or link to the recipes so you can all make them for yourselves!

Wednesday will be Works In Progress.  Mostly fiber projects, but other things can also make an appearance like books I'm reading.

Thursdays are going to be Showcase.  This is strictly fiber-related, where I show off crafts done by friends or even perfect strangers (I'll ask first, obviously).  Essentially, if it strikes my fancy, I'll put it up.  (This will probably also give those people some publicity, which the ones with blogs or charities would appreciate.)

Fridays will be Victory days!  This is like FO Friday, but more inclusive.  Anything I consider a victory can be added to this one.

Saturdays are going to be Adulting Blanket days.  A nice overview of the squares I've made in the past week.  It'll give some great color combinations, at the very least!

Now that we've talked about this, let's move on to today's element, Works In Progress!

Sock Update

These are the socks.

They are lovely socks.  They are soft, and the cables are fun, and the colors are amazing.

Right now, I do not like the socks.  You want to know why I don't like the socks?  Let's make a list.

Ready?

52 Reasons I Love You

Some things happened today!

Clue #2 of my MKAL was released today, and I got to look at the cable pattern.  I'm sort of pleased because it's as complex as promised, and sort of unhappy with it.  It's a wave pattern, not a "knot" pattern.  The cables won't spiral so much as wiggle, because the same threads of the pattern are always "on top".  Even more disappointingly (and the wiggling thing makes this twice as bad because it'll be really obvious) the socks are identical rather than mirrored.  That means, basically, that they'll both look like left socks.  I'm trying to decide whether I want to keep knitting them (as I'm already five rows in) or whether I want to frog back to the beginning of this clue and figure out how to mirror the pattern on the second sock (I think perhaps reversing the chart would work, but this requires more thinking).  I'm leaning toward frogging and reknitting, because dammit mirroring is important to me.  Identical socks are annoying.  Symmetrical socks are nice.

I'm a little OCD with my crafting.  Just a bit.

In other news, I finished something!

Tada!  It's that cowl I was working on yesterday!  It's lovely and snuggly, and it also works weirdly well as an earwarmer.  I have blue eyes and red hair, so if I put it where the blue end is around my face and the red end is around my hair, it looks amazing.  I love it a lot and will probably wear it a lot.  It's also completely flat because of the moss stitch (UK: double moss stitch), with no curling at all and plenty of texture.  Moss stitch is my favorite right now.  For some reason the "k1, p1" pattern doesn't bother me in this particular stitch.

My bread from yesterday was delicious, and I did make my soup today.  Aside from the cup of beans, I added two carrots, two sticks of celery, one small onion, one baby zucchini, and half a yellow squash.  After I cooked them in butter and oil for about a minute just to give them a little buttery flavor, I filled up my pot the rest of the way with water (I think it was a 3 quart pot?) and let it simmer a good two hours.  No need for broth, because the vegetables did it for me.  It did need salt at the end, and I should have added some spices when I cooked the veggies initially (but I know for next time).  It was delicious though.  If you don't like smooshy vegetables it would not be for you, but I happen to like them all soft and smooshy, so it was great.  I have a ton left, so I'll be eating it for lunch for the rest of the week.

Okay, time to explain the title.

Yoga And Bean Soup

Today's been a bit of a quiet day.  I got up at a regular morning time (which resulted in my mother inquiring if I was accompanying her to the park this morning; ha, ha) and pulled out my yoga mat for some sun salutations.  I haven't done that in over a year, and today reminded me exactly why I signed up for a yoga class: I love it to bits.  It's so relaxing and energizing.

I spend the better part of the middle of the day (11-3 or so) with Ian.  It's the last week he'll be here before school starts again so there were a lot of really tight hugs.  Both of us started crying at different times, which made the other one cry.  (His was really disconcerting; he just stared at me from about a pace away for a good thirty seconds before finally saying "I'm going to miss you," which is when I realized he was trying really hard not to cry and failing.)

The afternoon was quite a bit more productive.  I started making a cowl from some gradient merino handspun I did over a year ago.  It's a really nice skein and I'm sorry there's only 66 yards of it.  I dyed the fiber in five sections in ratios of red to blue: 100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75, 0/100.  Those ratios don't give a perfect red-purple-blue gradient (especially not on grey and brown fiber), but it's actually gorgeous.  In the spinning and plying the transitions got even more muddled than they were already, which makes it very gradual indeed.  I'm knitting the thick-and-thin mostly-worsted yarn on 10.5mm needles, so it's pretty loose, and it's in moss stitch to give some texture.  It's turning out quite nice and I look forward to finishing.

Red, red-purple, purple, and the very beginning of purple-blue.

I also took some time to make a strap for my yoga mat, since I expect to be hauling it to school twice a week (then back into my house for practice).  I still have some ends to weave in somehow, but it looks excellent and functions perfectly so far.

I used the brightest rainbow variegated yarn ever, but held it with black to tone it down a bit.  It worked wonders!  

In addition to the fiber-type crafting I did today, there was some food-type crafting as well.  I've had a bit of a craving for both the process and the finished product of homemade bread, so I finally just went to the kitchen and did it.  I was a bit freaked out by the refusal of my dough to rise in the pan, but a bit of poking around on the internet informed me that it was probably just too cold, so I put it in a warmed (but not on!) oven and it promptly puffed right up.  See?

2014 In Knitting

I think I'm going to start doing a yearly review of my crafting accomplishments.  Because I've taken up so many different crafts, I'll probably split it up into pieces.  This year we're likely going to do knitting, crochet, and spinning.

So today we're going to talk about what I accomplished in knitting.  (At least according to Ravelry.  Anything not on Ravelry doesn't count because I don't remember any of it.)

I knitted seven projects in 2014.  These were projects for me and for other people.  Big ones and little ones.  Fingering weight and worsted weight.  Garter stitch and lace.  It's a wide range and really makes me proud.

Colorwork Teddy

I started this one in August 2013 and finished it in February 2014.  I'm so happy I actually got it to work, because I had tried doing alternating stripes of brown and rainbow and it just wasn't... working. This is just white worsted yarn and rainbow thread held together.  It was a birthday gift for my boyfriend's younger brother, following my tradition of giving people a teddy bear for their fifteenth birthday.  He actually turned sixteen though, so I was a bit late.  I expected him to just hide it away somewhere, but as soon as I handed it to him he figured out how to balance it on his lamp.  I don't know if it's still there, but the fact that it was put up at all made me very pleased.

Irish Roots Socks

This was one of my projects for the 2014 Ravellenic Games, so February.  I used a toe-up recipe and added two small cables to the top of each foot.  The light green I hand-dyed as a tonal (which was fun but a challenge) and the darker green was a hand-dyed yarn I picked up on a trip to New Braunfels, which was great fun.  (I had used the rest for a shawl in 2013).

Golden Roses For Christmas

At Christmas 2013 my boyfriend's family gave me a gift card to the local yarn store.  It wasn't until May that I went to use it, because the store was closing!  I picked up this lovely laceweight yarn in a cashmere/silk blend (with a bit of merino wool).  It was the only skein left so I was sort of stuck with the pink color.  I added a container of gold beads and this is what came out.  It took me just over two weeks, mostly because I was recovering from wisdom tooth removal and all I was doing was watching Netflix and knitting lace (I didn't take anything stronger than ibuprofen, so I made no more errors than normal).

A Gentle Jab

There's actually a blog post associated with this one somewhere.  I made this in an evening in June to add to my boyfriend's graduation present, which was a small set of good-quality kitchen tools (my mother sells the stuff).  Apparently over the course of the semester he used everything we gave him except this -- because his roommate washes the dishes!

Wibbley Wobbly Timey Wimey

MKAL Clue #1 And The Return Of 3 Good Things

My MKAL has officially started!  Ahh!

As you may be able to tell, I'm a little too excited about this.  The thrill of mystery and all that.

So my first swatch on my 2.75mm (US2) needles turned out with 8.5 stitches per inch, which is pretty common for me.  I did the math for the size of the socks and figured out that the small would be 6.5 inches and the medium would be 7.5 inches.  I need about 7.2, so neither of those would work.  Thankfully, I have 3.25mm (US3) circular needles that I can use to make them two-at-a-time.  That swatch turned out with 8 stitches per inch, which would give me a 7-inch small or an 8-inch medium.  Small it is, I guess.  They'll be a little tight but there's not too much I can do about it.  I needed smaller needles so I could get 9 stitches per inch, which would have been about 7.1 inches, but I don't have any.  So I'm settled.

This week's clue is just the toe portion.  It uses Judy's Magic Cast-On with 8 stitches and increases up to the 56 stitches for the foot, which is a type of toe I've never done before.  It's going to be a challenge with the magic loop two-at-a-time thing going as well.  I'm super excited.  I've already ripped it out once, so hopefully the second round goes better.  I'll be working on it while watching anime with a friend for the next couple hours.

One of my New Year Resolutions was to keep up with 3 Good Things all year, so periodically -- when I don't have enough material for a regular blog post -- I'll be posting [some of] my 3 Good Things.  You obviously don't have to care, but I'd like to share the little bits of positivity I can drag out of my life.  Read on if you're interested.

The Leaf Said BLOG!

"Time to turn over a new leaf," I thought, so I did.  The leaf said "BLOG!" and I said, "Oh, yeah, I have one of those.  I should, uh, do that."  So here I am, hopefully to keep up with regular (daily?) posting for at least a while.  What's with the leaves?  Well look at the date: it's January 1st.

Happy New Year!  It is currently about 2pm on New Year's Day here just north of Dallas, Texas, where the weather is frightful.  It's been gloomy outside, to be sure, wet and rainy since last night (it seems to have cleared up now).  The chill and the damp don't seem to have chilled or dampened anyone's spirits -- although their bodies are a whole 'nother story, as we say around here -- and there has been much celebrating and running around.

I, for one, am quite exhausted.  Not because of the partying, but because of the work!  Yes!  About 48 hours ago I walked out of a coffee shop with a job I had applied to the night before.  It's been so surreal.  I applied on Monday, got the job Tuesday, and had my first day of training Wednesday -- which became about 50% working when a rush hit and a coworker said "Hey, Lissa, stir and lid these and put 'em up on the bar" and suddenly I was running drinks to the drive-thru and grabbing milk from the fridge in back.  Even though I knew only the barest minimum of what to do and how to help, I felt the flow.  It was magical.

It was also terribly painful and tiring.  As soon as I got back I had to soak my feet in a sinkful of water with a handful of Epsom Salts, which must have been pretty funny-looking considering I was eating lunch at the time.  I was also so tired I went to bed just past midnight, so I could get up this morning to do another shift (I worked the drive-thru register toward the end and my goodness were we a smooth team).

Before I got to sleep though, I cast on for my first project of 2015, the Kick Off The New Year socks!  These are for three different knitting... things.  Two are knit-a-longs and one is a personal challenge, so I'm not sure how to categorize them all together, but there you go.  Here is a picture, and then we'll talk about the "knitting... things".

Cherry Field

Once upon a time I was a new crafter who had no yarn.  So I asked if anyone had some yarn they wanted to get rid of, and ended up with a box from my grandmother's attic and a box from a friend's mom, and I still have a lot of those yarns.

One of them was a huge ball of cherry-red aran-weight acrylic.  It was soft, so that was a plus.  It was brighter than a lightbulb, and nothing else seemed to go with it, so those were minuses.  I fooled around with it for a while and could never find anything that it wanted to be, so I gave up on it and shoved it back into my Stash Tower.

Two days ago I was watching some of the Olympics from February that are still on our DVR, and needed something mindless to work on.  I pulled out this yarn on a whim and asked if it wanted to be a small blanket.  It said...

A Gentle Jab

Tomorrow is Ian's graduation party, the next day marks four and a half years of us "being together" or "dating" or whatever you'd like to call it.  This is kind of a big weekend for me.

Because my mom sells kitchen supplies for The Pampered Chef, pretty much every viable occasion is met with some sort of kitchen gift.  There's already a stash in the garage of boxes for me.  This means that Ian is moving out with a small dorm kitchen package from my family (mostly Mom), which is somewhat colorful. Off the top of my head I only remember that the color-coated knife is green and the mini cutting board has pink edges (I insisted; Mom consented on the condition that it clearly be my fault), but I'm pretty sure there are a few other colors too.

And now there's going to be one more.  Why?  That requires a few stories:

Summer Fun Bingo, Or, Resolutions For June

Sometime before the end of last semester, Ian asked me if I'd like to go to France with him in July.  He has family there and occasionally flies out to see them (and practice his French) for a few weeks.  I said yes, of course, even though I don't speak a word of French and I'd had half-formed summer plans already.  Pretty much nothing takes precedence over Europe.

I'm still not sure if we're going -- planning this has turned into an adventure for him -- but I operate under the assumption that I'll be out of the country for three weeks in July because if I don't I probably won't be able to go.  That means I can't go job-hunting (no one will give me three weeks off when I started working like two weeks ago), and I can't take a summer class (the last week or so overlaps when we're potentially leaving).  Essentially, it means I have to cram my entire summer into June, and hope I won't be here in July.  Enter the Summer Fun Bingo, Year Two.

Click to zoom

This is something we did last year.  I honestly don't remember if I did all 24 things or not, but I at least gave it a shot.  Last year there were categories, and really hard things as well as really easy things.  This year I just threw together a list of 24 things I want to get done, and think I can possibly accomplish in June.

So for this month I have either 1 resolution or 24, depending on how you look at it.  If you think of it as one, my resolution is Complete Summer Fun Bingo Card.  If you think of it as twenty-four, here's the rundown:

How To Juggle

In like a lion, out like a lamb.

I'm pretty sure this saying is supposed to apply to the month of February.  This year, in this part of the world. February pounced on us with its giant lion paws, and then laughed gleefully.  This year, it was more like In like a lion, out like an enormous grizzly bear.  Oy vey.

I'm well aware how pathetic it is to complain about temperatures in the 30s and 40s (-1° to 10° Celsius), but this is Texas and frankly no one else is aware of that fact.  So while I'm trying to grit my teeth and remind myself that 30°F (-1° Celsius) is really good for this time of year, it's all too easy to start whining.  But at least we're getting that lovely grey winter weather.  Precipitation and all that good stuff.

In the midst of all this winter, I'm on spring break.  Oh, the pink fluffy irony.  While washing dishes on Friday I started mumbling to myself about juggling, and this happened:

How To Juggle (In Just Two Steps)

Ravellenic Games Day Seven

Wow.  It's the end of the first week already.  How did that happen?

The crazy Texas weather decided to actually allow me to go to my Astronomy class tonight.  It would have been better if I'd remembered to wear my winter boots, because Converse have absolutely no insulation whatsoever.  I was physically in pain from the waist down when we went back inside, from not having enough layers.  I'll try to remember next time.

I'm thinking my medal count is off at this point, because surely we've finished more projects.  I'll check tomorrow, but I'll put up the old count tonight anyway:

Cable Cross-Country (1)
Cross Cowling (1)
Mitten Moguls (1)
Single Skein Speed Skate (2)
Stash Skeleton (1)
WIPs Dancing (2)

I'm actually extremely pleased with my progress for today.  I hit two major milestones today, which makes me think maybe I can actually get this stuff done with time to spare.

Ravellenic Games Day Six

Why did no one inform me it was Stupid Drivers Only Day?  That would have been nice to know before I went out on the road today!  Driving Tip Of The Day:  When you signal to turn left, move into the left-turn-only lane, don't just block up the straight lane!

In other news, I've discovered that people with weird or unusual hobbies and passions are more likely to listen to each other talk about their passions even if they don't share them.  Case in point: My English teacher has a great love for pens and pencils.  He spends a great deal of money on really nice vintage pens that have a rich history, fancy quick-dry ink from Liverpool (because he's left-handed), and "the most perfect pencil in the world" according to somebody.  And we spent half of English class today talking about the pens he uses to grade our papers (a Parker 51)and how using a favorite pen or pencil actually makes the writing process more pleasing.  Some students were laughing, but I was really interested.  It's always wonderful to listen to people talk about subjects they really care about.

My knitting circle was tonight, as I think I mentioned yesterday.  My best friend ended up having to do something for his world history class, so I knew he wouldn't be coming.  But no one else came either!  I did not expect to be the only one there tonight, but I was able to make significant progress on my socks (more on that in a minute).

The medal count seems to be stalled.  Are we just not finishing quick projects anymore?  Just a a reminder, we have 8 medals total, from the following categories:

Cable Cross-Country (1)
Cross Cowling (1)
Mitten Moguls (1)
Single Skein Speed Skate (2)
Stash Skeleton (1)
WIPs Dancing (2)

My spinning sort of... crashed.

Ravellenic Games Day Five

Today has been the weirdest day.

I woke up when my alarm went off at eight, checked my computer to be sure classes were definitely still canceled, and pulled the covers back over my head.  I love my Octuple Rainbow because if I pull it over my head and tuck the rest of the blankets around my neck, it's still warm and reasonably dark but the holes in the granny squares allow me to breathe.  My mother came in at nine-something to let me know that while our street is totally clear, a friend a few miles away had reported that her driveway is completely iced over.  Weirdest weather ever.

I've now watched all but the last five minutes of The Square, which is a fascinating documentary released on Netflix about the ongoing Egyptian protests against the government. (Did you know those were still going on this past summer?  Apparently America lost interest, because I didn't know that.)  I'll try to finish the last five minutes tomorrow, which is frustrating because it's probably two minutes of movie and three of credits.  If that.

And because of the evil school-chomping weather that did not exist, I went to hang out/study with my best friend and Astronomy classmate, talked about grocery shopping and the horrors of kids who won't clean up after themselves with his mother, and listened to more of my frightening audiobook on the way (more on this later).

Medal count stands just as it was yesterday, so I'll simply remind you:

Ravellenic Games Day Four

Really, it's only Day Four?  Wow.  Time is crawling.  I thought it was later than that.

School does not seem to be cramping my speed much, but maybe that's more of a reflection on how much time I actually spend doing homework.  I think the most time-consuming part of school is actually the driving, but that's probably because it feels like wasted time.  (Except I listen to audiobooks, and that makes it not a waste of time.)

Anyway.  You all are here to see the medal count, aren't you?  Then let's get to it!  New medal categories and additions in current categories will be listed in blue to make them easier to recognize.  Oh, and I'm going to start alphabetizing them.  This random order thing is starting to kill me.

Cable Cross-Country (1)
Cross Cowling (1)
Mitten Moguls (1)
Single Skein Speed Skate (2)
Stash Skeleton (1)
WIPs Dancing (2)

Both our new medals today were earned by a wonderfully soft-looking bulky cowl knit by one of my teammates in an astonishing 2.75 hours!  (Seriously, she knit a thing you can actually wear.  In under three hours.  She deserves those prizes.)

On to my progress for the day:

Ravellenic Games Day Three

No one is slowing down yet!

I'm only hearing sporadically from my teammates, so I assume they're all knitting like the wind.  (Can the wind knit?)

The medal count stands now at:

WIPs Dancing (2)
Mitten Moguls (1)
Cable Cross-Country (1)
Single Skein Speed Skate (1)
Stash Skeleton (1)

Which is only one more medal than we previously had, but that medal is mine!  A WIPs Dancing medal earned for me by this lovely little fella...

Ravellenic Games Day Two

This year's Ravellenics are off to a good start.  Two of my teammates have already finished their first projects.  I'd like to keep track of how many medals my team earns as a whole, just for the fun of it. So far, we have medals in...

WIPs Dancing (1)
Mitten Moguls (1)
Cable Cross-Country (1)
Single Skein Speed Skate (1)
Stash Skeleton (1)

That's five events my team has medaled in, and it's only the second day!  I'm so proud.

My own projects are coming along nicely as well.  Ready to see some major improvement?