finally!!

From this rather awkward looking beginning, a month later, the Socks that Rock socks are done!

I can't believe that it took me a month to finish these! They're made just for me - I have a wide foot and a narrow heel. The sock on the right has been washed, and the one on the left is right off of the needles. It's amazing how much these soften up after a wash; this yarn feels very stiff until then. This is Socks that Rock medium weight, Garnet Dreams, knit on size 1 Inox needles.

One of the reasons I've been slacking in the sock knitting department - I bought a 2000 yard cone of superwash 80/20 wool/nylon sock yarn from Boogie. I wound off about 500 yards, and played with my dyes. I finished a short row toe - I love how it's starting out!

I sprinkled black dye powder on the wet yarn, squooshed it in a little bit, dunked the whole skein in gun metal blue, and then dropped small sections into the pot for a stronger dye in those spots. This is knit on my new size 0 5" Brittanys. This stuff is SOFT!

When it's 90+ degrees outside, tired puppies enjoy the air conditioning:

whew...

Whatta day - and it's not even over yet!!

My day started at 4:00 am. Kevin and his friend Shawn were going to take Kyle walleye fishing on Lake Erie today, and they planned to leave at 4:30 - and they were going to let me sleep until the alarm went off at 7:00.

So much for that idea...Kevin forgot that he didn't have a fishing license. Since he doesn't know how to use a computer, he woke me up at 4:00 so I could go to the Ohio DNR website and print one for him. Yippee. Here's Kyle at 4:00 am, full of Pop Tarts and Dramamine and ready to go fishing:

At 9:00, I left for the Great Lakes Fiber Show. Within minutes of arriving, I ran into Cheryl and her daughter Rachel from the Ohio Soapers, and then minutes later I found Molly.
We're quite dangerous when you put us together in an area with fiber!!

I did some serious bargain shopping today, though. At the Pollywogs booth, I found this:

Large, beautiful skeins of New Zealand Wool! This isn't the rug-type NZ wool, either - it's not scratchy at all. And look at the price!!

Yes, that is 16.3 ounces for $8.97! At 1100 yards per pound, I have several sweaters worth of wool. I've already knit a swatch for a sweater for Kevin - it's lovely to knit.

More bargains:

This is 70/30 angora/wool. Beautifully dyed, 70% angora, and $3.00 an ounce.

I bought 3 more bobbins for Queen Matilda (at I See Spots farm) so I can start playing. :-) I also bought these from I See Spots:

5" size 0 Brittany sock needles. No more 7" beasties poking holes in me and everything around them.

Some silk hankies and dye

And, so Kevin quits griping at me, 2 pairs of 60/30/10 Alpaca/nylon/wool socks from Zeilinger Wool Co. 2 pairs for $20.

It was strange today, though...as I was walking around the fiber show, I was knitting on my sock

People were stopping and actually pointing at me, saying "Oh my gosh - she's walking and knitting at the same time!" Umm...okay.

When I got home, though, my actual day was just beginning. Yesterday was Kelson's 14th birthday, and today is his birthday party. My brother-in-law helped drive, since this group wouldn't all fit into my Durango:

Yes, that's 10 freshman boys - the only one that belongs to me is 3rd from the top on the right side. I took the entire gang to CiCi's for the pizza buffet (cheap way to stuff teenage boys!! All you can eat pizza and salad for under $6 with a drink), and then we went to see X-Men: The Last Stand - good movie!!!

And right now? It's going on 11:00, and they're all in my basement...they're ALL spending the night. Sanity? What's that?

The fishermen just got home - Kevin is on the right

10 walleye in the cooler; Kevin and Shawn are out cleaning them now.

The party can go on without me - I'm going to bed!

sock and scary stuff

I finished it yesterday. I tried 3 different cast offs before I found one stretchy enough - I did a sewn cast off. I've cast on for the 2nd sock; hopefully it won't take me as long as this one did! They evacuated Brunswick High School today - somebody called in a bomb threat to the police station. My high school is 5 miles north, and we didn't hear about it until they had already sent students home. It's a terrible feeling when your heart falls into your chest! Kelson made it home, though - they had to leave everything at school when they evacuated everybody to the football stadium, so his bookbag, coat and lunch are still at school...

I have an interview tomorrow for an English position at my high school...keep your fingers crossed! After going through this for the last 2 years, I'm not getting my hopes up. They made it very clear to me after my first year in Corrective Learning that they can always find English teachers, but they have a hard time finding anybody to do in-school suspension. I need to brush up on my "education lingo;" they seem to care more that I say the right buzz words in an interview than that I'm a good teacher with tons of great recommendations...

Kyle left yesterday for 5th grade camp at Hiram House. He's been looking forward to this since school started this year; I really hope that all of the rain doesn't spoil everything. He'll be back Friday - I'm really glad that my boys don't get homesick. :-)

Repo is enjoying the little bit of sunshine - it's been raining since Thursday. It's already clouding back up since I took this picture 15 minutes ago

SP8 and the sock

My SP8 Questionaire is here - it's nearly identical to the SP6 & 7, so we'll go with that again. :-) SP8 starts today - I got an email from my secret pal, but I've never received the information for my own pal!! I emailed the hostess nearly 12 hours ago, but still no response...

Yesterday morning, the sock looked like this - almost out of yarn and nearly ready to cast off:

Two minutes later, it looked like this:

I had started the ribbing too early, and just knit away on it Saturday night while I was watching TV. Unfortunately, I didn't think to try it on until yesterday morning - when I discovered that the ribbing started right on my ankle bone, and that caused the ribbing to roll down on my foot. Grrrr. I'm now into the ribbing again, but it's about 2 inches farther up on the sock. This yarn calls for size 2-3 needles, and I'm knitting it on size 1, so it's a tad slower going, but it should wear like iron. I've had to rip back enough on this thing that I've probably knitted at least 2 socks worth of yarn on the way to getting this one done!

16 school days left...........

My SP7 Angel!!!

As I've mentioned earlier, my Secret Pal from SP7 bailed out about halfway through. I was assigned an angel, and she sent me a box today!! After a horrid day at school, it was a wonderful surprise to come home to this:

Some Celestial Seasonings Tea, Fran's Dark Chocolate Thins (mmm!!), a cute little notepad and pen, an adorable measuring tape with little paw prints all over it, and a plastic box stuffed to the brim with a gorgeous assortment ofsoft, beautifully dyed spinning fiber!! The color assortment is just gorgeous - and it has all of my favorites! Lots of blues, mauves and purples. Thank you very much, Angel, for making my day!! :-)

I'm getting ready to start the short row heel on my Socks that Rock sock. I had the heel halfway done last night when I realized that it would be a tad too small, so I ripped it back and I'm knitting a few more rounds before I try it again. The challenge with a short-row heel is eliminating the holes from the short-row wraps, and it's doubly challenging with a tightly spun yarn.

There is a contest for Knitting Camp 3 this year - movie props. I've been tossing ideas around, trying to come up with something unique for a knitted movie prop...and getting nowhere fast. Leave it up to Kelson to hit on the perfect idea! I won't tell just yet, but I'll give you a hint: "Look at the bones!!!!"

19 days of school left - you cannot imagine how much I want this school year to end! The seniors have 5 days left, and the senior pranks have started already. Today, somebody released thousands of clear marbles in 6 different hallways. Lovely.

The beastie lives on...

Remember this? Well, the Princess Pullover is now up on the KnitPicks website. I still think it's a beast, but it looks much better on somebody else! :-)

Saturday Stuff

I took a free online literacy class through my school system. I had to show up for the introductory class, and then the rest was done online. I got 25 professional development hours, books, a $50 Visa gift card (worth $46.50 after the service charge) for supplies, and this:
A 2GB IPod Nano! Kelson has already claimed it - we're calling it an early birthday present. He gave me his 256 mb MP3 player that we got him for Christmas. I'm going to use the gift card to buy more time on my TracPhone. Did I mention that the class was free? :-) I'm taking another (free!) class in June - I'll get another IPod, (this one's mine!) books, and a $400 stipend! If I decide to use the class for graduate credit, I won't get the stipend, but I'm thinking that the $400 sure would come in handy for Knitting Camp at the end of July!

I'm almost halfway up the foot of the sock I started on Monday:To answer Bev's question, the sock yarn in the previous post is Socks that Rock, medium weight. (100% superwash merino) The unopened skein is "Farmhouse," and the skein I'm using is "Garnet - something." I'll be able to fill in the "something" as soon as I find the label. :-) UPDATE: I found the label - it's "Garnet Dreams." This yarn is really, really nice - very tightly spun, so I won't worry as much about wear. I started with 10 stitches, knit those, picked up the stitches on the back of the needle, and started knitting around - the same method as the 2-circular cast-on, but with dpns. I'm using size 1 Inox needles.

My sister found these for me in an after-Easter sale - 8" tall, squooshy Peeps!!!

okay, okay!!

Finally - an update!! As I mentioned earlier, this past weekend was the Ohio Soaper's Gathering. I left for Greenville about 1:30 Friday afternoon, and I got there about 6:00. Sabrina and I shared a room - she got in from Chicago a few hours later.

When Molly got there, all yarn broke loose.
I brought my ball winder and a giant cone of sock yarn (and a garbage bag full of other yarn) and the swapping began! She had picked these up for me at a fiber show in Indiana - I still think that I owe her more yarn for these!

The whole bed was covered in yarn and knitting (and a giant bag of crochet cotton that I wanted to get rid of at the swap table). I started a top down sock with one of the skeins, but it decided that it wanted to be a pair of toe-up socks, so I frogged the ribbing and divided the ball on my scale when I got home.

The alarm didn't go off Saturday morning, so Sabrina and I were just a tad late to the gathering...

This is Jan and Molly, and

this is Mari. Can you tell where I sat?

I took Jan two balls of a beautiful purple Froehlich Blauband as a present...and this is what she had brought me as a present:I agree with her: Great minds think alike!!

Some pictures from around the gathering

(this is Thumbelina. She's a month old, and she's absolutely adorable!!! She was quite a hit with everybody there - thanks to kay for bringing her!)

I won 2 door prizes!

A soapmaking kit from Dianna's Sugar Plum Sundries and a bag of lavender and bottle of lavender oil from San Francisco Herb Co.





After the gathering, Sabrina and I went in search of this Annie Oakley was from Greenville, and they have a really nice monument in the middle of town. When I got home Sunday afternoon, I discovered that I have been accepted to Knitting Camp 3!! Woohoo!! As another nice surprise, I got my prize from Comfy Bev's blog contest: 1050 yards of Blue Heron laceweight mercerized cotton in the Blue Violet Colorway! This is absolutely beautiful yarn - the picture doesn't begin to do it justice. Thank you, Bev!!!

And finally on the knitting front, I officially have an Angel from Secret Pal 7. My own secret pal seems to have bailed, and my angel has been sending me wonderful emails and beautiful e-cards. The only clue I have so far is that one of the ecards is of the Seattle sky-line...