knit1frog2

sockapalooza update

Funny thing, I had finished the socks for my sockapalooza pal weeks ago, but I neglected to say anything about it!!  Maybe subconsciously, it's b/c I'm wondering if I should go ahead and quick knit up a different pair for her...these socks, (and yes I keep measuring them to make sure) are per the sizes emailed to me...but I'm just worried that they're going to be too big.  Should I knit another pair?

here they are, all done!!

I find Regia yarn to be funny sometimes...I tried to make the socks matching, and it was going great until toward the toe!  See how the color scheme goes, dark green stripe, light green stripe, black stripe?  But the back sock goes dark green stripe, black stripe, dark green stripe!!  and the stripes on the toes are different colors of blue!!

mangoes for dry hands

I went to my local British Pantry last night to pick up a steak and mushroom pie...there were other people picking up items ahead of me, so I went to peruse the side I don't normally and I stumbled upon this:

this stuff smells seriously good!!

My hands have been terribly dry from the knitting and from the um, cold (27° in the AM) weather we've been having. There were testers of the product, so I started smelling them. OMG did this one smell good!! It smells totally like a mango...a real one! It also has the most interesting texture...like a glysolid if you know what that is. If you don't, it feels kind of like a wet semi-solid jell-O.

If mango isn't your thing, they have other fragrances (all equally fantastic: mandarin orange, peach and melon -- which really did smell like a watermelon!). There are 8 fragrances in all, but my BP only had 4. I would have loved to smell the coconut one.  If you're interested, on the back it had a website. 

Oh, and p.s. it doesn't leave your hands greasy--I bought the body treatment, but use it on my hands.

the (now not so) evil brioche stitch

on newsstands now!

Why o why wasn't this printed last year in the Fall? This would have made the Harakiri scarf sooo much easier!  It wouldn't now be referred to as the Harakiri scarf.  At first when I saw the sweater, I laughed raucously!  That stitch!  But, Nancy Marchant goes into SO much detail of the 2-color brioche that I seriously still can't believe it.  Descriptions, drawings, everything is in there...!  It's great!  Go pick one up if you don't already get it delivered to your home.

Though the sweater that is made with this stitch is cute, I'm not sure if anyone should really wear a sweater made from it.  It's a seriously lofty stitch...read:  it will add at least a 1/2" to your frame.  For people like me, well, that's just not a good thing.  Do this:  Look at the woman in the sweater with the view from the back...turn the magazine upside-down, doesn't she look like a linebacker??  Well, sadly, you will too.  I still say it makes a great scarf.  Not only does it look pretty, but it's very very warm.

oh no socks again?

Yes,  I'm sorry, I can't seem to stop with the socks.  But remember that my nephew asked for red, white and blue ones!  I still can't figure out why red, white and blue, but here they are regardless...

for my nephew

And sorry, but just one more...

for me finally!

I was at the yarn store on Saturday...and I saw a nifty pattern for a sock, and I tried it with the koigu, but it didn't work.  Koigu is so patterned colorwise that you just don't see textured patterns very well.  Frog away on that one.  I started over and above is what I came out with.

I'll stop with the socks at least for awhile...I promise.

The progress on the Dale sweater is moving along...trying to carry across 3 colors has been slightly nightmarish, since I've had to stop every few carries to blow my nose and wash my hands, but I'm plugging along.  I would have posted a picture, but I need a few more rows of the pattern to do so easily.  It's curling right now and I can't seem to get a picture of it by holding it with one hand and taking a picture with the other.  I'm going to say it one more time, I need a new camera.  Mine really sucks.

something fits!

Well, I gave the boing-boing socks to Livvy last night--she was very excited and the good news is, she loved them!  The bad news is, they didn't fit!!  They were too small.  I still can't believe it what long piano toes those kids have.  (I shouldn't talk though, I think they get that from our side of the family.  I could be sorting documents with my feet as I type.)  Another funny thing...wow were those socks slippery.  She put one on, ran across the hardwood floors to show her mom and immediately did the splits!!  Later, with both on, she wiped out completely.  But she still loved them!

I even got a request from my nephew for red, white and blue ones.  I think I'll pick up some yarn this weekend for those.

Better news is that Zubie's socks fit!!  His mom sent me a picture just now.  It looks like they fit perfectly too!!  Hooray for that...phew!  Oh happy Friday!

Zubie in his new socks!

I'll be taking over Numie's unfinished socks tonight to make sure they fit before finishing the toe off, because after Livvy's mishap, I just want to make doubly sure...

stuff that works

I don't have knitting pictures for you today, but there is knitting news towards the bottom of the post. Today, however, I'm posting about something else because I've been meaning to talk about this for awhile now.

Ever seen one of these? 

(this is a blown up view)
don't ever poke your finger with this
I'm telling you, you'll severely regret it

It's a felting needle and while I bought it to make cutie hair pins from carded wool, I have found some other great uses for it.  The first was a snag fixer!  I had gone to Joann's to find some magic tool to fix the snags in my dri-fit tops...but the contraption they had there was so huge I was sure that it would make a bigger mess than I started with.  (Have you seen the Dritz Snag Nab-it tool? If not, you can kind of see it here.)

The gauge on that bad boy is enormous and I'm not quite sure what kind of fabric they think it would work for...definitely not a dri-fit top kind of fabric.  Anyway,  I got to thinking one night before dozing off...that the felting needle just might be the thing!  The barbs would push the snag to the back of the shirt and b/c they're pointing downward, they wouldn't catch on the fabric on the way out.  I tried it the next AM and wow.  Was that the most perfect thing ever!  I fixed all of my tops in seconds.

The 2nd way to utilize this tool is to unclog my Illy X5 espresso steamer wand.  What, you say?  I know...   I had noticed that my milk was starting to take forever to steam and was adding serious minutes to my daily routine (yes, more than 6)!  I called the Illy customer service line and they asked me if I had tried a paper clip.  Um, tried a paper clip how, exactly?  Apparently, their fix for a clogged steamer wand is to poke an unfurled paper clip up the wand to free it of any obstructions.  I found it odd that it must have happened to other users enough that their suggestion to customers was this fix.  It was more odd that even though I had followed the instructions (both the manual AND the video) about keeping the steamer wand clean and clear, that it still clogged up.  Then once again, while dozing off for the night, the felting needle fix popped into my head!   I tried it the next AM and wow, I'm back to steaming my 12oz of milk in seconds.  la la la. 

For knitting news, I finished Zubie's socks and I'll be sending them over to their dad to take home!   What to do, you say?  I started a pair for Numie last night and I almost finished one before falling to sleep.  Talk about a quick knit!

p.s.  after mentioning to a friend about my stuffed nose, he suggested I try the felting needle...b/c you know, you should never poke your finger up there, but this tool would work wonders...a 3rd way to use the tool.  I'm dying...hahaha

can't stop...

Before, my nose was completely stuffed and I felt like I was suffocating.  Now my crazy nose feels like it can't stop running.  And I...I can't stop knitting socks.  Am I becoming a sockaholic?  Do I soon need to be going to SA meetings?  I thought for sure that was the case when I looked outside and saw it snowing!  It actually snowed here today!!

smaller and smaller...

After knitting Livvy's socks...here is a closeup of the heel, I thought I'd knit some for Zubie.  He needs socks for those big-little blocks of his...if I can stay awake that is.  I'm so tired.  I barely did any knitting today, I spent too much time blowing my nose, when I was awake, that is.  bah.

Oh yes, and apparently I'm a triple-threat.  I have a sinus infection, an abcessed tooth and the flu.  Happy Valentines day...

under the weather

I wonder where that expression comes from?  Wherever that may be, that's where I've been. 

OMG...I...have...been...feeling...about...this...quick...

Remember that swollen throat I had awhile back?  Well it reared its ugly head again and I went to the doctor this time.  Diagnosis?  Sinus infection.  Infarktion is more like it.  On Friday my manager at work told me to go home and rest...isn't that about the best thing you've heard?  I truly appreciated that b/c later in the day, WOW did I feel bad. 

Then comes today.  I've never felt this achy in my entire life.  Seriously achy.  Wake-you-up-at-3:28-in-the-AM-achy.  Achy all the live long day.  And now comes the sweats.  I guess that means I have a fever.  bah.  Then on top of it all, the various cold/flu/sinus meds have been making me dream weird things, scary things...like a horror flick gone mad.  Tonight I vote for no cold meds, if I can handle that.  I hate not being able to breathe.

So where's the knitting you say.  Here is it.  I can't stop knitting socks now.  Here are the ones I've been working on in my zombie-like state:

boing boing socks for Livvy!

I used size US2.5 dpns for these and that cutie stretchy Regia yarn that I talked about earlier.  Interestingly, knitting smaller socks means 4 dpns are suddenly cumbersome and pokey.  I ended up using 3 to hold the stitches and then a 4th to knit the round.  That's all for now...I must go collapse.

the eagle has landed

My friend finally got his doubleknitski!  I wonder what took so long for it to get there.  I wonder if it had to go through customs?  My yarn box from Breiweb did...

mekalekahigh mekahiney ho, mekalekahigh mekaJOHNNY ho

My brother and I still say that chant every now and then...and maybe one day we'll actually see Jambi appear. Until then, we will have to be satisfied with my friend Johnny's picture! The hat got there safely in a box full of foodie treats for him.  It's got to be cold in Toronto if it was an odd 27° here this AM...I hope it helps to keep him warm...as you can see, I strayed from the original pattern a bit.  I moved the stripes down and shortened the overall length.  I wanted it to fit more like a beanie.  ^_^

Oh yes, he said I was a cross between a Santa and an angel.  I'll take that!

searches are funny

I was surfing last night and I found it funny that people had been posting recently about what searches hit their knitting blogs.  I don't even want to post some of them (and yes, they were funny!) for fear that those searches would then end up at mine (ha!)!  Mine seems to get a lot of hits for 'swollen throats!'  I ended up putting a good link to info to that subject b/c I felt so badly that someone might be wanting that information, but ended up finding a site about knitting!

Maybe this would help a person get over a swollen throat...

what the...?!!

I can tell you that even if I was feeling awful, and I have felt awful before from a cold or sinus infection, I would never EVER wear that thing.  What IS that?!!!  And yes, that's from Rowan.  Let's have a moment of silence.  Thank you.

On to prettier knitting news, I did pick up a couple of skeins of this...

it reminded me of summer fruit!
yum.

I thought it might make a couple of pretty spring socks!  One thing...I'm not looking forward to setting the clocks ahead in April.  That will mean that I will need to get up at 5AM instead of 6AM.  Maybe I should start practicing in March -- which is, man, next month already!!