evil evil yarn harlot

So you may all remember the a game that makes the blog rounds every year that has a yeti whacking penguins across a glacier trying to get them to go the furthest distance.

Well, Yarn Harlot's friend Lene distracted her with this game and in her turn, the Harlot has done it to the rest of us.

I'm up to 400 feet. Go play! (It does have sound...Ride of the Valkyries if anyone cares.)

Two down!

Two patterns have been written, one has been sent out to the test knitters. I haven't sent the other one simply because I'm waiting on a couple of people to get a free account on the system I'm using. I'm lazy and don't want to do attachments to emails.

Now it's time for a little food/knitting/movie break, then I try to bust out the third one....or at least get a start on it.

And can I just rant a little? Don't companies have people testknit their stitch patterns? I'm using about 17 different stitch pattern books and liked the looks of one picture better than another. Then as I was writing it out, I thought it looked funky so I pulled out the needles to knit a swatch. Sure enough, instead of the little motifs I was looking for, I got zigszags of eyelets. Went to the book with the picture of a similar pattern that I didn't like as well. That one came out with the motifs the way I wanted them. What the heck?!? Needless to say, I used the second one because I just wasn't in the mood to rewrite a stitch pattern that should have been correct in the first place.

Now I'm done.

It's here!!!

The first shipment for the RSC '08 came in the mail yesterday. Of course since I didn't get out of bed until almost 9 last night, I didn't see it was here until even later. It's really not my colors, but the pattern looks neat and it's top-down so my yarn is already wound into a ball and I'm getting ready to cast on.

I also spent a couple of hours working on the secret project. I've still got a few stitch patterns I need to find and then tonight I'll buckle down and try to write out at least two of them, maybe three and get them sent out to the test knitters. Now if I could just get the charting software to load onto my computer.

Off to snuggle the puppy and spend some quality time knitting.

a night of rest

....and getting rid of the housework looming over my head.

Work is slowing down a little...thank goodness. I just think that a lot of my stressing out over work has been from lack of sleep. I was able to get some good rest on Monday and again yesterday. I'll be in to work tonight, then it's three glorious days off.

I dashed off a quick crochet bath pouf tonight, just to give my hands something to do. I also finished the laundry (so I had a uniform to wear tonight), vacuumed the house, and washed the dishes. Now I just need to find time this weekend to pick up all the general clutter around the house and do a little dusting. Yes....I said the D word. I despise dusting, but when the dust bunnies begin to morph into dust buffalo, then it's time to break out the dust rags and pledge.

And since I finished Mom's socks, I don't know what my next pair will be. I'm kind of waiting for the first kit of the 2008 Rockin' Sock Club to arrive. If it's something that I really like, I want to be able to cast-on right away. I can hear you all now, telling me that I can have more than one pair of socks on the needles at a time. I tried that once and it didn't really work. I hit a point where I got sick of both of them and just didn't knit on either one for about 3 months. So one sock project at a time. That's fine with me. I need to get going on stuff for the finish-a-long anyways.

Tonight I also finished re-writes on the second pattern for my secret project. This weekend I'm setting a goal of writing up three more to get out to the test knitters. More if possible.

A couple days ago I signed up for the Mystic Lights shawl KAL. It won't be starting for a while, but it's knit in fingering weight yarn. So now I need to decide what to make it out of. I'm leaning toward STR in the Oregon Red Clover Honey colorway. I'm thinking that it'll be a warm enough yellow that I won't look jaundiced if I try to wear it. I'll have to look at E's skein of it when I'm out there on Friday.

I guess that's it for now. I need to go try to get warm. My feet are freezing!!! (Even with wool socks and felted slippers.)

barely surviving

We were so short-staffed at work this weekend. Sunday night especially....we had 3 nurses with 9 and 10 patients each for the 7-11 shift. I can handle that many on the 11pm-7am shift, but not those first 4 hours. I was basically running in and out of each room and just throwing pills at the patients. We survived, but it was tough. Then I got a call from staffing today (after only 4 hours of sleep) asking if I was available to work last night. Ummmm....let me think about that one...NO!! I'll be back into work tonight, off Wednesday, work Thursday, then have an entire blissful three days off. And I'm going to need it.

Once I dragged my sorry carcass out of bed at 8:30 last night, I got to knitting. I think that's what I miss the most when I work weekends. I don't really get to pick up the needles for three days. So after 8 episodes of Voyager, I have completed the Monkey socks for Mom's birthday!!!


They're the Monkey pattern from Knitty, done in Lisa Souza's Sock! in Berry Poppins. The only mod I made was to knit them on size 2s.

And that's it for now. My brain is fried so the secret project has made no more headway. That'll have to wait for the weekend.

drat!

I forgot about the 4 skeins of sock yarn from my Taste of Germany package. And the two skeins of handspun hanging up in the bathroom. So the total actually should have been 124. Oops!

But I did cull 33 pairs worth from the stash.

So that leaves me with a current stash total of 91. Still pretty bad, but not as bad as before. I'll be going through the stash again next month I think and try to whittle that number down a little more.

Off to work on that second Monkey sock.

coming up for air

I survived the stash diving!! But now I'm in a state of shock. Here's why.



118 skeins.
.....one hundred....eighteen....
*gulp*
(Phoebe the wonderdog included for scale.)

So I went through and culled the stash a bit. Thirty-five or so skeins gone.



Mom called just as I finished and laid claim to 10 of them. The rest will be gifted/given/traded/sold away.

And now I'm going to bed.

diving in

I've got to finish up the final load of laundry, then I'm really going to do it.

Do what you ask?

Go through my sock yarn stash that has gotten completely out of control. There will be pictures.

E, Minnie, Tara, Deawn.....if I'm not at SnB tonight....send help!!!

relaxing

The tension of this previous week is slowly working its way out of my back and shoulders. I can feel the stress melting away.

And my absolutely least favorite team was kicked off Amazing Race tonight. Yay! I honestly don't know which of the three teams left I'll cheer for. I'd be happy with any of them winning.

I've started designing some sock patterns and put out a call for testknitters on The Daily Chum. Talk about overwhelming! I've had over 40 people respond so far. Plenty to do all the knitting. Now I just need to write the last 13 patterns. *gulp*

The first monkey sock is about 8 rows away from being finished. I think I'm going to eat some nachos and then buckle down on that so I have a sense of accomplishment for the weekend. I might even get wild later and do the dishes!

just keep swimming...just keep swimming swimming swimming

I am about on total burnout from work. I was never so glad to have a weekend off as I am right now. Yesterday, I slept until 8 pm or so then went out to E's to record a new podcast. My back was killing me from work, so we didn't do any dyeing while I was there.

Came home and finished watching a movie while I worked on Mom's monkey socks. I'm ready to pick up this gusset stitches before I head to bed for the day. This sock is just flying and I'm hoping to have the pair done in plenty of time for Mom's birthday.

I'm also working on designing some patterns, and will be in need of testknitters very very soon. If you'd like to volunteer, keep your eyes on The Daily Chum for an announcement. The turnaround time needs to be quick on this.

First FO of 2008!!!

I completed my Lenore socks last night at work. These were from the Rockin' Sock Club October kit.

Pattern: Lenore by Yarn Harlot
Yarn: STR lightweight in Lenore
Mods: I knit the regular size, but went up to a size 2 needle.



And here's the color in sunlight. These are really hard to take pics of and don't do the color justice at all.


I'm off to one more night at work, then I'll have the weekend off to recover. Working 6 days out of seven does not a happy Carin make.