Haste Makes Waste

So, all that sock yarn I mentioned in my last entry? There's more:

From left: Strange Little Mama Vesper yarn, Crew Vesper yarn, Lollygirl from MamaE, Summer Skin from Sweetgeorgia and JetSet from Sweetgeorgia.

I love them all! And I'll be taking two of them with my on the beach vacation. Any guesses? [That's a mean question, because I'm likely to change my mind.]

Anyway, one day last week I'd had a really rough day. And I got home and there was a parcel from Sweetgeorgia. Hooray! Yarn! I went to the office and went to open it... and I think I was a little too excited with the scissors. If you're yarn-sensitive, you may want to shield your eyes.

I snipped the top of the yarn when I was opening the envelope! ACK! I was so distraught. It made my stomach hurt. I mean, here is this beautiful yarn that someone MADE, and I go and hack it like that! I'm so sorry, sock yarn! It took me about a week before I could bear to look at it again. Now, upon reinspection, it's not fatal. There are about six strands that are cut through on each skein, but I can deal with that. The yarn is still too gorgeous not to use.

But I've definitely learned a tough lesson there: only open packages with your teeth. :)

On the knitting front, there hasn't been much progress made, but there has been some. I have been running around trying to get everything ready for the wedding--we leave a week from tomorrow! [I will be missing MDSW, sadly.] Wedding day is TWO WEEKS from today! Hard to believe it's right around the corner. My single days are now nearing the single digits.

Wait--where was I? Oh yeah. Knitting.

I finished the back of Sea Breeze, though. Still haven't gotten up the energy to block it, but it's all done:

And I finished the second skein on Breezy, meaning I'm now 1/3 done:

And I have a good bit of knitting and relaxing ahead this weekend--in between the last few wedding-related errands, of course!

AND: Go vote in Erin's sewing-machine-naming contest! I know it's for a sewing machine, but the prize is yarn!

Knit for Sanity

After a long and stressful week, all I wanted to do was stretch out on the couch and knit. And knit and knit and knit. It's funny how my mindset really shifts as my days become busier -- what normally is a delightful kicker at the end of a day becomes a craving, a necessity--a ritual of calming myself with yarn and two sticks.

The boyfriend was off for the weekend visiting his folks, so I had the run of the place. I rented movies he has no interest in -- Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban and Capote -- and plopped myself down on the couch with a big salad from a restaurant up the street.

The project at hand: Sea Breeze. And after those movies, plus a few Tivo'd shows I needed to clear off the DVR, I have this: An almost-completed back!

I love how this yarn shows off texture. I wouldn't have expected the Natural Silk Aran to be quite so texturrific, as it has a loose twist, but the cables, they pop! And the narrow lace panels between each cable also are showing up quite well.

Love that tweedy goodness! Now, there's a bit of suspension of disbelief at work here. This baby is currently several inches narrower than it needs to be to accommodate my ribcage. So there will be some blocking as soon as the back is done (tonight or tomorrow) to make sure that my swatch was on target and it will in fact stretch out and acquire the correct shape.

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Lest you think I didn't do anything but knit all weekend, you're wrong! I went to a delighful Easter party at Erin's and managed to score a few eggs in their hunt. (And they were good eggs, too--redeemable for booze.)

I also set about doing a good bit of spring cleaning on the house, including putting the sweaters into storage (and making a generous winter-clothes pile for Goodwill) and pulling out spring clothes. [I love summer clothes--I have twice as many fun tank tops as sweaters. Wonder why?] I also tidied up the yarn stash. All the yarn I've bought in the past several months had been hiding in odd nooks around the house; it was time to put it in its place. I also had been meaning for a while to pull all the sock yarn into one place, so that it would be easy to sort through when the sock urge strikes. I also wanted to know how much sock yarn I owned.

It's not as bad as I would have expected -- enough yarn for 12 pairs of socks. (I would have guessed around 20). And I LOVE all the colors I have. [Is that common, to love them so much you almost don't want to knit them up?] Of course, there are a few sock yarns en route to me from some more special handpainters. I am a sucker for the handpainted yarn.

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Finally, a picture that just makes me happy: Ann and Kay with one of their gorgeous blankets at Knit Happens last week. Who couldn't love such a gorgeous creation?!

Alterations

So I took my dress last night to get some small alterations done to it. The tailor was a wrinkly four-foot-tall Peruvian woman who came highly recommended; she marveled at the lace on my dress. Irish lace, she said -- I take this as a good sign, me having some Irish heritage and all.

The alterations came with a side of God, though, and not just because of the abundance of Holy Mother figurines gracing the shelves and the dressing room floor. [Rivaled by the 21x36 framed picture of Reagan in the dressing room... that's not something you want to see while getting undressed.]

The good news is that the alterations were about 2000% less than I expected to pay AND they're going to be ready in less than a week AND she's going to pray for my soul, since I'm living in sin for the next 3 weeks. It's a risk, she explained, to have so much temptation around me. All this promiscuriosity ends up with girls in bad situations.

That might be my new favorite word.

Good Things Come...

Don't worry, I'm still here! Things have gotten a little insane lately. Today, the wedding is exactly one month away! That seems weird. I still feel like I have a million little things to do. So what have I been doing instead? Knitting, of course. And working out. [I ran almost 2 miles without walking today! Go me!]

So what do you suppose comes in this package? Take-out?

Why, blueberries, of course!

Pattern: Blueberry Waffle Socks
Needle: US1 Addi Turbos, done on 2 circs
Yarn: Merino sock yarn from seller kbrece on eBay [With plenty left over!]
For: A good friend who just entered the dirty-30 years
Started: March 21, 2006
Finished: April 5, 2006
Modifications: I used Wendy's fabulous toe-up sock pattern to start at the toe and add a short-row heel. I also added four rows of straight 2x2 ribbing at the top cuff.
Notes: If I were making these again, I'd probably add some stitches on the top of the ankle and then decrease back down. They fit perfectly on the ankle and foot, but I think switching to short-row heels made them slightly tight across the top of the ankle.

The view from the top--I love how the pattern shows so well in this variegated yarn:

And the heels, ready for their close-up:

Whew. Now that that's taken care of, I've forbidden myself from casting on for more socks until I make some real progress on the other projects on my needles. [But not from buying sock yarn...wait'll you see some of the acquisitions I've made! Gorgeous socks in my future. But not now.]

I FINALLY figured out gauge for Sea Breeze--my needles were being sort of uncooperative, so my maths involve a slight bit of pattern tweaking and some guestimation at the size needed to work with my numbers. Fingers crossed for me, okay?

The good news is that the RYC Natural Silk Aran is pretty easy to work with [though I've already found 2 knots in the ball....grrrrrrrr], and after all those socks, it's knitting up lickety-split. I've finished two pattern repeats on the back:

And, I've returned to Breezy for some subway knitting and mindless knitting during intense TV-watching [Sopranos, 24]. I knit to the end of the first skein [of seven] and am now well into the second:

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will block out wide enough for my liking. I think it will -- anyone out there had experiences blocking the Blue Sky Alpaca Silk? Should I expect it to hold a good blocking, or will it shrink back? One thing's for sure -- it definitely has some room to grow. Right now, the pattern is forming little hills and valleys on the herringbone lace parts:

And it's turning out to also be a fairly quick knit, even if the rows are long.

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So, the mall knit-out: I suck. I got back from playing in the mountains later than I expected, and I wasn't sure I could make it up to the Mall in time to get any knitting in. In retrospect, I probably blew that call--seeing the pictures on Lolly's blog made me sad I didn't go and at least try to see anyone! Lesson learned. I'll plan better next time!

Tonight, I'll be at Knit Happens to see the inimitable Ann and Kay talk about their book. Fun!

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Final thought: Welcome, spring! It's been so nice to feel the warm sun outside on my face. I'm celebrating by breaking out my only handknit spring sweater today--it makes me smile. [Now stay, spring!]

Tap Tap... Is This Thing On?

I'm still alive and knitting, though my free time has substantially dwindled lately.

* Boot camp: Still going, still running myself ragged. Last week marked the first time that I did the mile run without stopping to walk--yeah! That's a big personal victory. My hips and knees are pretty mad at me, so I bought some new shoes this weekend. I'll be giving them a test run on the treadmill tonight. Yes, you heard that right -- a second workout. I'll be falling asleep by 8, my dears.

* Wedding: I found THE DRESS. The one that, as soon as I put it on, I knew it would be what I would wear. Stumbled upon the dress while walking home from Old Town on Saturday morning -- I was sweaty and gross, and the shop's owner was 100% batty... none of this deterred me. No pictures--I can't find it anywhere online. But maybe you can use your imagination...as the owner explained, it's exactly like the one Cindy Crawford wore, except hers was silk and not lace, and long, and white. And had a slightly different neckline. But hey, it's *almost* like Cindy Crawford's! [Except it's completely different.]

* Knitting: I'm ready to turn the heel on the second blueberry waffle sock, so hopefully I can finish it this week. In the past few weeks, I have fallen asleep while knitting more times than I'm comfortable with.

* Knitting EVENT: The real reason I'm posting today is to spread the word: Lolly and Heather & Co. have put forth the very excellent idea of a KNIT-OUT! on this coming Sunday, on the Mall, in full view of the cherry blossoms [which are completely spectacular right now]. Lolly has more details in this entry on her blog. I'll be there!