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I was so sure that I would be bored once all 3 kids were in school & I had the house all to myself. What was I Thinking???? I have never had a ’social schedule’ but let me tell you something! This week there was a schedule that had to be followed. I can’t wait for next week when I only have one morning with solid, set plans. Between school mornings, home improvement projects that I have put off for years, shopping for neccessities that come with the start of the new school year, delivery of finished knit items, serious maternity clothes shopping with Suzanne, lunch with Tracy & Laura, visiting/getting a sneak peek of Knit & Pearl (new knit store opening in Institches old space now owned by Julie who used to attend our Java Station group, you know you are all so jealous!!), there is so much more that I have done in the last 4 days I can’t even remember it all. Where my days went I really don’t know. That is not how next week will go. I will clean, garden, knit, do laundry & scour to my hearts content. ~snort~ we’ll see about that

I worked the Lime & Violet sock leg with the sl2k1psso instead of the k3tog and decided the k3tog is the better decrease. I didn’t want to admit it only because the k3tog is a tad more difficult to execute but in the end I admit, it looks better for the sock pattern. SO it stays in the pattern. GOOD! Overall, no mistakes that I found. I liked the depth of the heel flap, the arrangement of the sts on the needle was not my normal arrangement but it worked with the stitch pattern used so I got over that pretty quickly. Overall, I say it’s a WINNER! Yay! Once I get the second sock totally finished I will get a photo posted with a link to their site with the free pattern.

I got my SOCKS THAT ROCK yarn yesterday & while I watched my nightly X-Files I cast on for a picot hemmed top, stockinette sock. I do LOVE the yarn and will now happily admit that I am following the knit blog crowd in coveting this yarn in all its’ sinfulness. It is sinful yarn, I don’t care what anyone says, it’s perfect & that is not natural.

Here is the inside seam of the picot turned hem. It’s a simple, albeit time consuming, top for a sock that I do like so much. This sock is all about showing off the yarn. Look at the beautiful green striping!

It is now up there with Crack yarn & if you don’t know what that is, well, you need to find yourself some Malabrigo merino worsted weight yarn somewhere & prepare yourself for some serious addiction.

I have to put a big plug in here for Julie, the newest owner of a LYS in Santa Barbara Knit & Pearl. Located at 5 East Figueroa in the same location as the now closed InStitches. Julie’s stock is MUCH better. All the way around. The brands & quantities of yarns she has in those boxes ready to be displayed made Tracy & I just about fall all over our-previous-retail-manager-selves! I could have been elbow (or more likely shoulder) deep in yarn in a heartbeat had she just said yes. All that fiber. All that color. All that potential! I am saying right now that I will now be a LYS shopper. If she has the yarn I need I will purchase from her. I won’t do the usual thing & hunt online for the best deal because our 2 yarn stores aren’t worth my time. No, there is a new change a-coming & it is called KNIT & PEARL. Listen up girlies. We need to have ourselves a good yarn store here in town & this is our chance! More details to come on when the doors will open. Julie will let us know a couple of days ahead & then we all shall descend upon her fantastic store, like ravenous fiber-starved-knitters that we are!

I switched the Feather & fan, fan & Feather whatever shawl from my 24″ plastic needles to my new Knitpicks 32″ needles. I do have to say that I am more than impressed with them. The needle tips themselves feel the same as addi’s but with more sharp points. The join, the join is seamless. When Tracy told me that I wasn’t sure I really believed. Now I believe! The shawl will be worked on much more frequently now. I am up to 1224 stitches. Whew!

I will be working on that  and the Lime & Violet second sock. I have conversed with Lime about a few small changes I am going to try on the second sock. Swapping the k3tog with a sl2k1psso. That will help with the quickness of the decreases. I am going to suggest slipping the 2 stitches separately as if to knit instead of slipping them together as if to knit them together, make sense? That way you won’t get a raised column of straight stitches like on the Jaywalker socks, but a more subtle leaning decrease.

Suzanne is deserving of a huge congratulations on the baby news!!

My apologies to all of you at last Thursdays Java Station knit group. I didn’t mean to mislead anyone about why Suzanne had to leave & go home but she hadn’t even told Oliver or her mom she was pregnant yet so I couldn’t let the cat out of the bag until she did first! She really was feeling ill from the shock of it all so I only fibbed a little.

I won’t be able to make it tomorrow night, it’s Man’s Night Out. I wish I had more babysitters to pull from but I don’t so I have to miss it. I was really looking forward to it too!

OH!! Summers took me to the spinning guild meeting on Monday evening. I had SO much fun! All of the women were older, closer to my mom’s age & it was just a happy group! I don’t care if our politics are different, if we don’t expose ourselves to others thoughts & opinions we won’t ever fully develop our own. I am rather excited for the next time I get to go. Thanks Summers for making it so easy for me to come along! I am not sure how George will really feel about me having another group to go to, I think he’s rather surprised at my socialization lately. So out of character for me.

DUH! How could I possibly forget??? Tawny’s Miramar legwarmers are DONE!

They still need a good blocking but other than that they are Finito. I do love this yarn. Knitpicks Andean Treasure. I am making myself a pair of legwarmers using brown & pink but I am not sure which pattern I want to use. I am tempted to make these same ones but that is a little too matchymatchy for me. Tawny, Tracy & I all having them? um…no. So i will scour fun fair isle charts & come up with the perfect one!

Ah crap. It’s already after noon & I have stuff that has to be done before getting Trevor from school. I so thought I would be bored & feel wrong about being home with no kids all day but boy was I mistaken! I feel like I have more to do. I have run errands for George & work. I have done more shopping in the past 2 days than I think is healthy. Although it was all needed shopping, not really fun shopping. I just want to get my backyard totally cleaned & weeded. Hah! that will take more than 4 hours in the morning!

LAURA!! Yes, that Laura! The One that started our little knit group at Java Station! She is doing well and attending a different knit group now. She also has a blog! After years of hounding she finally gave in. Go visit her & drop her a line!

http://knitalife-laura.blogspot.com/

So happy to hear from her. sigh.

Okay. Summary on the first sock. The pattern is written well. Only thing, no gauge given. I didn’t think twice about it at first because I only cast on 66 sts & that should be fine. But with the open lace work they stretch! A lot. Unfortunately for me, I have little ankles & skinny, skinny feet. So they are a tad big. DOn’t ask me for them, I am keeping them!! You know who you are….

The yarn is heaven to knit with although the k3tog’s are making me a little grumpy sometimes. SO on the second sock I will be using a sl2k1psso instead. It will change the look a little bit by giving it a ridge but it will be easier to actually do than the k3tog. Actually to get  it to look almost identical all I would have to do is slip the first two stitches individually as if to knit instead of slipping them both together as if to knit. That is the plan & I will post pics to compare the differences.

I posted a new photo to WorksinProgressPhotos.

I love,love,love how this one turned out! Jacquard Pink & Brown acid dyes on Knitpicks Fingering weight dye your own yarn.

This is What Kind Of Flower You Are

 You Are an Echinacea

	“You are a health conscious person, both your health and the health of others. You know all about the health benefits and dangers of the world around you.”
Let everyone know what kind of flower you are!

I got my package yesterday that I hinted at! It is a test knitting package for a pair of socks from Lime of the Lime & Violet knitting podcast (hellloooo, they totally talked about me in their last podcast, watchout, minor celebrity coming through) & a gorgeous ball of hand dyed yarn, that Lime dyed herself. This yarn is so soft & scrumptious, mmmmmm……

Those colors totally speak to me, little voices in my head that say “knitmeknitmeknitme”. So I did! I took it with me to our Santa Barbara knit group last night at Java Station to cast on. Right. I got through the ribbing just fine but with 2 different kind of cakes to distract me (1 the lovely Susie baked in honor of Erin’s last week here, which is actually next week now yippee;o), the other cake Erin brought from Carvel’s) and all kinds of photography talk, new jobs talk, moving talk, I had a bit of trouble paying attention to the first two rows of the leg pattern. I bitched, sharpened my brittany birches with my nail file, ripped it out, started over (thank god it was only 2 rows!) and then put it away until I got home. Yeah, I pulled it out as soon as I got home (10:15, quick trip to Kmart on my way home) and had NO trouble at all working the pattern. I guess it shows that you can knit & do somethings but be at knit group & you may just F things up pretty badly. So this is how we are getting along after half an hour last night.

Isn’t she pretty??

And, other big news, where are my snaredrums when I need them?, I finished the first Miramar legwarmer! Yippee!! It only took me a total of 4.5 hours to knit top to bottom. That was a hell of a lot faster than I expected! Tracy did a hell of a job with picking the fair isle design, it goes so smoothly.

So I cast on for the second one & will try to zip through it also. My goal is to finish the second legwarmer & then work solely on the Lime socks. Rather happy knitting I think!

I posted a new photo to Photosnotknitting.