FO Friday

I have an eloquent post all written out that I composed during lunch earlier this week, but I've been to tired/distracted/busy at night to type it up and post it. Yes, when I say "written out" I mean by hand. With pen and paper. Shocking, I know. Sure I probably could have done as I'm doing now and posted it using the app, but I had all sorts of links and snazzy stuff in that post that it would have lost it's pizazz if I did it here.

So instead, as to not prolong my blog-absence, I present to you a not-so-great phone picture of the husband's finished pair of socks. Details to come.

Happy Friday everyone and happy knitting!!

Of socks and other ramblings

There really isn't much in the way of knitting about which to update. Basically because I haven't done much knitting in the last few days (mostly because I need to get away from the computer). Well, I take that back. I have been working on more preemie hats and I did (finally) cast on my second May Day Sock for the Sockamania Club. I had cast on a few days ago, but had to frog about 1/2 way through the ribbed cuff because I somehow messed it up. Serves me right for trying to knit while on the phone and in poor lighting. Yesterday I made it through the cuff and started the first repeat and today I all but finished the first repeat -- I think I have 2 more rounds to go. This second sock is going much faster than the first. I've reached the point where I don't have to rely so much on the chart and don't have to be meticulous about marking the spot where I am. Anyway, one more repeat, turn the heel, 2.5 repeats on the foot and then onto the toe. Should have it finished by the time I receive my J.D. on Friday.

Yes, that's right. I graduate on Friday. That reminds me.... I have to change the header of the blog -- I am no longer a "3L", so this really isn't a "3L's Adventures in Knitting" anymore. And technically I am not a lawyer until I pass the bar in July. Hmmm... I'll have to think about that one...

Back to the knitting. Lately I have been fascinated with the idea of toe-up socks. Mostly due to my other fascination with knee socks. (I know, a little warm to wear knee socks in the summer, but at my pace, I should start them now and they'll be finished by the time cold weather arrives...) I'm a fairly short gal at 5'3" (give or take) and might be able to eke out a pair of knee socks out of 430 yards of yarn, don't ya think? I'm going to try to anyway. I have a decent number of skeins of Lorna's Laces in my stash, which would be perfect as they are already divided into 2 separate equally long skeins. If I start at the toe and just knit until I run out of yarn in one ball, I should get pretty close to a knee sock out of it.... I hope. Maybe?

The problem is that I have a lot of sock yarn despite the facts that 1. I only started knitting socks in February; and 2. I have finished only 1 pair of socks, even though I currently have 2 pairs OTN's right now and one pair recently frogged. So I weigh my desire to knit knee socks with my need to not buy any more yarn and I get the crazy plan to try and get a pair of knee socks from yarn that is sufficient to knit 1 pair of medium adult socks. Actually... Now that I think about it and as I browse through the pictures of my stash (stash is at home in CT -- far away where I cannot pet it and stare at it and play with it)... the Lorna's Laces Lilac complements the Iris Garden. I could do contrasting color toes, heels, and cuffs to make the yardage stretch a little more. Hmm... Now we're going somewhere:



And I was going somewhere with this, now that it has turned into a marathon post. But alas, it is late and I have lost my train of thought. Which is fine by me because I solved the conundrum I was having over this knee sock business.

One last thing before I sign off: I did a little spring cleaning of the sidebar. Moved some things around, deleted some things etc. I also updated my list of blogs I read and the podcasts to which I listen, as they both have grown in numbers since the last time I did a major update of the list awhile back.

Good night all!

And I'm done...

...with school that is. Handed in my last paper yesterday. What a relief. Now I'm home in CT for a few days before the first round of Bar Review classes start on the 14th up in Boston. Then Graduation on the 25th and home for good.

Hopefully over the next few days I can take pictures of my knitting and update the blog a little more. Even though I was on a bit of a blogging hiatus during the last week or so, I did tweak a few things here and there. For instance, I added a link to the side bar to the Knit for a Cause post that I will update from time to time. You may have noticed the newest addition to that list a couple days ago - Crafting for a Cause. Aimee from the Fairie Knits podcast helps run this group. Their goal is to donate 3000 handmade goods to charity this year. If you already knit things for charity, you should come on over and join to help the group reach its goal.

Let's see, what else? Oh! Many of you out there in blog land may have heard about Ravelry. It is a new community for knitters and crocheters to keep track of all their WIP's, FO's, future projects, stash, needles, as well as meet up with other fiber artists. Last week I signed up to be put on the waiting list and yesterday I received my invitation and already started adding in my projects and pictures -- it has become very addicting. I am in the process of cleaning out my closet getting ready to move back home for good, so it's been really helpful to keep track of my yarn and needles. I do have an excel spreadsheet, but I haven't updated it in awhile.

And last but not least, I have a finished object! Or I guess you could say half of an FO -- Yesterday on the train I finished the first May Day Sock for the Sockamania Club KAL. I really love this pattern -- very easy to follow and quick to knit up. I used Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Blues/Greens. I'm really pleased with how the striping in the yarn came out -- no pooling anywhere. :-) Take a look:

Quick update

I am still in the midst of exams, papers, and other exciting end of the year stuff, but I decided that I'd take a quick break to do a little update. Despite the tight deadlines for papers, etc I have been able to knit quite a bit, and it has helped me to keep my sanity. Unfortunately though, I do not have the camera up in Boston with me. That just means there will be a monsoon of pictures once I get back home (which is VERY soon :-D). For now here is an unillustrated list of what I have been up to:

Wednesday I cast on the May Day socks for the Sockamania Club KAL, turned the heel on Friday and am about 2" into the foot already. Very fun and fast socks to knit. I chose Cherry Tree Hill supersock in Blues/Greens and US 2 needles.

The Pink Ribbon Sock finally has a heel flap and as soon as finals are over I will turn the heel. The foot should go rather quickly since it is straight stockinette.

The Jaywalkers may have to be frogged. I turned the heel and am well into the foot. I tried them on last weekend while I was home and they are a bit tight. An increase in the needle size should be enough to do the trick to make them fit.

I've been working on the Project Linus blanket when I can and am almost at the halfway point.

Carlos had given me his Borders rewards card and a 30% off coupon that was good for this weekend. Yesterday I went to hopefully pick up one or two of the books on my Amazon Wish List. I wrote down my top 5 titles, all of which were there last weekend when we went, none of which were still there yesterday. How sad! I did end up picking up One Skein Wonders, which was still on my list, just not in the top 5. Which is still OK because Amazon has most of them on sale with free shipping to boot, so it probably would be cheaper to buy from there anyway. I also picked up the HUGE Leisure Arts book Now You're Knitting from the bargain books section. It has 165 project patterns and 99 stitch patterns. None of the sweaters are really my style, but there are quite a few blanket patterns that piqued my interest -- well worth the $8.

In awe

Before stopping for lunch, I had to make another update. I just turned the heel of the Jaywalker and I must say that turning the heel will forever amaze me. Pure knitting genius.

Quick Update

The end of the semester is quickly approaching, which means knitting time has been limited severely. I am hoping to catch up during the long weekend. Monday is the Boston Marathon and I was thinking about having a little knitting marathon of my own during that time. If the weather isn't as terrible as they predict, I might even venture out to catch some of it in person. We shall see.

As for what I am working on, I have my 4 Socks a Season KAL socks, which are the Pink Ribbon Socks knit with Lorna's Laces Pink Flamingo. This pattern is probably more suited for a solid or slightly variegated yarn, but I love the way that it is coming out so far:



In the last week, I made progress on the Project Linus blanket. This is my "I don't have to pay close attention" project that I pick up if I'm on the phone (yay for hands-free ear piece) or watching TV. It is knit in garter stitch on a diagonal, with a YO toward the beginning of each row, creating a decorative eyelet border as well as increasing the size.



Also, I have my Jaywalkers OTN, but I have not worked on them much in the last couple weeks. They will definitely move to the rotation this weekend.

And as if that weren't enough I have a couple other projects that I'm working on, but they are going to be gifts and I do not want to ruin the surprise.

Jaywalkers

I cast on the Jaywalkers on Monday using US1 DPNs and Cherry Tree Hill supersock in "brights". So far the sock is knitting up fast and going well. The superwash merino is very soft and I love working with it!

Take a look!

And we have a picture!

Here is the completed pair!



EDIT: Knit with Plymouth Sockotta on US2 DPN's; K3 P1 ribbing for the leg and instep, Stockinette for the heel and sole. I did not use an actual pattern for this sock - I merely adapted a basic stockinette sock pattern to have the ribbing and adjusted accordingly to fit my foot. However in recent searches for sock patterns, I found there is a similar pattern here that uses the same ribbing pattern.

And we have FO's!!!

Not one, but TWO FO's for today! First, I apologize that there will be a delay in any new pictures as the batteries have died for my digital camera... *sniffle* Perfect timing. The charger is back home in CT, but tomorrow I will try to pick up some AA's so I can post new pictures.

The WONDERFUL news is that I have COMPLETED a pair of socks!! I love them :-) There is a picture below of the first sock of the pair, and here is another one:





The other FO's are the bright orange and blue mittens, the first of which is also below in a previous post.

I am so tempted to cast on my next pair of socks (Jaywalkers in CTH brights (orange/red)), but I really should finish up the last two projects I have OTN's here before going back to CT in 11 days.

Finally organized my stash

Some of my stash
Originally uploaded by ndjen04.

A few weeks ago while cleaning my closet, I found this great sweater storage/hanging shelf contraption that I had used while in college and it is perfect for storing my current stash of yarn. And it makes Mom happy because it is now organized and in one spot - beats having plastic bags all over the place. I also created an Excel sheet to keep track of what yarn I have, how much, and what it is currently being used for. I've found that I often will be in the store, find yarn that I like, think that I have something similar at home and then realize that what I have will not be enough or isn't right for the project I had in mind. Or the opposite happens - - I think that I don't have it, buy it, and then I have too much (although, is there ever a such thing as too much yarn?).






In other news, I finished my first sock!!! This picture is a little fuzzy, but tomorrow when I have more energy, I'll take a new one. And then of course I will cast on the mate for this one. I really want to start another pair to work on, but my goal for this week is to finish the few projects I already have started before starting anything new. So far I have been doing well, but we shall see how long it lasts.

For now it is bedtime.

EDIT: I re-took the picture this morning under better lighting conditions. Now you can see the texture of the ribbing and it's just a better picture than the one I had up last night.

Okay, so I am a bad blogger... No pictures just yet. Saturday and Sunday I did not have a chance to photograph my knitting - But I did organize and inventory my yarn stash!. So I figured I'd bring the camera with me back to Boston. Of course when I opened the bag, I realized that I did not have the USB cord to transfer the pictures to the computer. I did take a bunch, but unless they are magic jpegs that can teleport their way from the memory card to my hard drive, my blog will have to be boring for another week until I go home on March 1. Yet another thing to add to the list of things Jen has forgotten this week. (that's a whole other story - I won't bore you with the details...)

In knitting news, I've turned the heel on my first sock and am about an inch and a half into the foot. So far so good. While decreasing the gusset I ran into a few issues. Usually when I knit on DPN's I carry one stitch from the previous needle to the next one as to prevent any "ladders" or gaps between the end stitches on the needles. This pattern specifies the number of stitches for each DPN and I kept getting ladders and a few times I dropped stitches. After a few rounds of getting frustrated, I decided to do things my way. I marked off the beginning of the round with one color marker and used other colors to mark off the end of each needle. Now I can carry the stitches around and still keep track -- the first 13 sts after the beginning marker are "needle 1"; the next 33 are "needle 2" and the last 14 are needle 3. As long as I know which sts are which, does it really matter if they are physically on one needle? Didn't think so. I know this sounds a little confusing. If I had a cord for my camera I could show you a picture...