Surprises

I had two surprises in the mail yesterday. First was this:

I nearly wept. It was the June shipment of Sundara's sock club--the petals collection. Each kit features a flower, and June was the blue grape hyacinth. Have you ever seen anything so incredible? The matching tissue, the heavy card stock pattern, the matching envelope for the pattern, the postcard, and oh yeah. Yarn. It was nearly too much for me to bear. So I guess you know what I'll be knitting next, right?

Next was this:

Have you seen it? I first heard about it on Lolly's blog. You can get all the details here. I'm stunned by these designs. I want to make one of everything. But I'll probably start with this

And this:

And who knows what else.

The solstice slip? Thanks for asking. I'm getting ready to turn the heel. It should be finished over the weekend. I don't dislike it as much as I did yesterday, but I'm still not in love with it.

Snapped!

I had a feeling this was going to happen. I broke my first knitting needle. Ever. These are Brittany Birch, size US 1. When I first started using them, their flexibility seemed so fragile, and I was very afraid they would snap. But they made it through several pairs of socks with no problem. Until this pair. I was pulling the sock on after I turned the heel Tuesday morning, and I felt it pop.

Fortunately, I have an extra set of these needles, so I just swiped one needle from the second set. I never ever buy two sets of needles of the same size. This was a total accident that I happen to have two sets of size 1. And isn't it a little eerie that these are the ones that broke?

About the sock. I'm losing the love on this one. Although I turned the heel in the early morning, I was only able to work 3 inches of the leg all day Tuesday. And Wimbledon was on the tv! The perfect knitting background! Wednesday wasn't much better--I did finish it but it only took another 2 inches. I have managed to figure the cabling without a needle, so that does help push it along, but man, this pattern is so boring now it's sucking the life out of me. I'm actually contemplating cleaning to avoid working on it today. And I have a whole 'nother sock to do after this one.

Once I start the second sock of a pair, I allow myself to start thinking about my next project. If I think about it before I finish the first sock, then I'm afraid I'll never finish the pair. I have no idea what I'm going to do next, but I'm leaning towards the jade yarn, or the lilacs in bloom.

Of course, if the Pink Posh Package arrives before I finish this sock, that could upset everything.

Today is the third day of our heat wave, with strong thunderstorms forecast for later today. Herself and I won't be leaving the house today. It's a perfect time for sock knitting and other summerly stuff.

It's hot, but there's yarn

At about 3pm it's 90 degrees here. Tomorrow's forecast is 96. Although I really don't like it, I turned the air conditioner on, and now it's very comfortable.


And lucky I did that too because the mailman just delivered two boxes of yarn. It's not nice fondling yarn when it's so warm.



Let's do the Loopy Ewe box first.



From left to right are Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn in "Strange Harvest", Fleece Artist Sea wool in "Aegean", Seacoast Handpainted in "Cherry Fizz" (yes, I know that's a pink-brown-white colorway--I had a momentary lapse) and Dream in Color again in "Good Luck Jade". My favorite by far is the jade. It doesn't show in the photo, but this looks exactly like a piece of jade. It has some bits of brown in it. I also had to buy strange harvest for both the color and the name. It's definitely not a very pretty color, But I like a lot, for reasons unknown. Just one of those things.

And now the Sundara box:


Two skeins of her silk lace--one in "Midnight" and one in "Black Currant". The midnight will be a Christmas gift for my SIL. She's a redhead and hard to pick colors for. I'm hoping it will also match some silk sock yarn I bought from Posh yesterday. Black Currant will be all mine, and it's much deeper than in the photo. Love it.

And the six skeins of sport weight:


From left to right, "Black over Cherry", "Blue Violet over Cotton Candy", and "Eggplant over Cream."

So that's what I bought last week. Plus the 10 skeins from Posh yesterday. I really need to get cracking on some holidays gifts. I know there's plenty of time to do what I have in mind, but I always feel better once I get the first gift done. I'll be sitting down with Victorian Lace Today, and spending some time on Ravelry to find the right lace patterns. But first, I'll have to finish the solstice slip socks.



Here's what I've done so far. It's kind of slow going with all the cables every third row. If I were patient enough I'd figure out how to do the cables without a needle (Grumperina has a great tutorial here). It is a perfect fit however.

Stay cool!

I behaved for 3 days

And then I bought 10 more skeins today. It wasn't my fault. Posh Yarns had a huge update, and there were so many lovely colors. Photos when they arrive...

Meanwhile, my order from One Planet arrived. Remember when I was waiting for the Yarn Pirate to be added? (And for the record I did wait until it appeared, and DID NOT BUY ANY) I bought four skeins of Sereknity Sock Options.

December Beaches:

And Lilacs in Bloom:

I love both of these colorways, and I haven't seen anything similar anywhere else, and that's why I bought them.

I also finished my monkey socks:

This was a very enjoyable pattern, and easy too. I'm sure I'll be knitting it again. I used Posh's Lucia yarn in "Illusion".

And within a half an hour of finishing these, I cast on my Rockin Sock Club socks. I'm attempting these toe up. The pattern gave options for both toe up, and cuff down. I usually hate short row heels and toes, but I don't want to waste any of this yarn since it looks like the legs turn out a little short.

Hopefully my next post will include photos of my big Sundara purchase.

Too much yarn?

That's a question I've been thinking about over the past two days. I know *I* have too much yarn. Just looking at my stash basket reveals over a dozen skeins purchased in just one week. And that doesn't include the two plastic bins in my upstairs closet.

That also doesn't include the 4 skeins I bought from One Planet while waiting for them to load their new stock of Yarn Pirate. That also doesn't include the 4 skeins I bought this morning from the Loopy Ewe in their great big sneak up.

In the early hours of the morning after I read my email and check the blogs, I sometimes wander around looking at new yarns. Yesterday I got caught in the handpainted yarn vortex. I would find a yarn I hadn't heard of before. Which would lead me to a store that I hadn't heard of before. Which would lead me to another yarn I hadn't heard of before. And then they all started to look the same. There was a lot of pink. A lot of pink-brown-white colorways. Some of them even had the same name! And I started thinking, who is buying all of this yarn? (Well besides me, he he) Will there ever be a point where there's just TOO MUCH YARN out there for us? Clearly, I'm buying yarn at a much faster rate than I can use it. So from now on, I'm going to focus on those rare yarns, the artistic dyers who come up with creations so unique that I know I'll never see them repeated anywhere.

Well, I'm going to *try*.

My Rockin Sock Kit arrived today, and I'm amazed that I wasn't last again. In their first shipment in February, there were people who had finished their pair of socks before I even got my kit! Talk about shipping glitches! Anyway, no spoilers here, but I will say that this is my favorite yarn/pattern combination so far. I'll start them when I finish my monkeys.




And speaking of the monkeys, I just finished the first, and I hope to cast on the second tonight, but there's other stuff to be done around here. Stuff that doesn't involve yarn, sadly.

I like the monkeys. I swore I would run short on the yarn, but the first one took only 38g. It's a great fit, and it should be considering I started them on 2's, switched to 1's after the first pattern repeat, could barely get the sock over my arch so switched back to 2's after the gusset decrease, and then back to 1's again to tighten up the toe. I hope I remember where I did all that.

I'm also liking the colorway a lot. "Illusion". Very moody, smoky. Very me. Very my mom too. But I bought two skeins, so she might luck out.

Tomorrow's a marathon day for me. Herself has an appointment at Children's Hospital (ask me how much I like driving into downtown Boston--NOT!) and Da Man is at a conference teaching a course, drinking bad coffee, and going out to a function afterwards. So herself will have the pleasure of my company for the whole day and evening. Wish me luck.

Whose stupid idea was this summer vacation thing?

Oy. I was up at 5am as usual and at 5:40 I heard the creak of someone's little feet down the stairs.

"Good Morning Mommy!"

By 7am she was in tears because it "hurt to put my socks on."

Thankfully by 8 we had our happy faces back on, and we even cleaned up the downstairs pretty well before we left for the bookstore.

I bought 4 or 5. No knitting books. Not even a magazine.

Herself stocked up on workbooks, a Ratatouille coloring book, and a hideous Princess thing. I let that one slide in the interest of domestic harmony.

I bought more yarn last night. Sundara updated her one of a kinds yesterday--go take a peek.

I really love her sport weight for socks. Very squarshy. I like me a squarshy sock when it's cold. I came away with Blue Violet over cotton candy, Eggplant over cream, and black over cherry in her sport merino, as well as Black Currant and Midnight in laceweight. Yeah, I know it's a lot, but she's going on vacation and won't be updating her store for another month or so. Wouldn't want to have an emergency or anything, right?

I'm also waiting for my June Rocking Sock Club shipment, and, come to think of it, I also joined Sundara's sock club which ships in June. I love automated yarn!

No photos today. I'm close to starting the heel flap on the Monkey socks, and all is well on that front.

It's official!

Summer Vacation has officially begun! Next Stop--First Grade.




This is the pile of yarn I'm loading into Ravelry today. Three separate orders from the Loopy Ewe. There's Claudia Handpainted, Yarn Pirate, Perchance to Knit, Misty Mountain...I think that's it.


And I did finish the Lupine Lace socks before we left for school:

And started the monkey socks before I picked her up after school:

Really like this pattern, and the yarn too.

Wow. Two posts in one day. Go figure. Tomorrow we're off to the bookstore early for boredom prvention.

What's that noise?

Shhhhh----Do you hear it? It's the sound of Moms and Dads weeping. Today is the last day of school in our town, and in a matter of hours hundreds of kids will be dragging their feet, sighing, and muttering about how bored they are.

So, more than three months since my last post. Still pathetic. But I'm vowing to do better this summer. How about at least one post per week? I joined Ravelry about a month ago, and I'm able to keep up with that, so I'm hopeful for this blog. Plus we have a new camera, which may make the picture aspect easier.

Today I've got 12 skeins to load into Ravelry (so much for that yarn resolution), I'm nearly finished with my latest pair of socks, and hope to cast on a new pair later today. That's inbetween dropping HRH off at school (Da Man has an early meeting) and picking her up at 1pm.

Photos soon, maybe. I know better than to make promises.