SockTart

More questionny goodness on the Secret Pal front….

I’ll probably wind up adding it to the SP11 page that’s currently at the top of this page on the screen (look up.  To the right.  There you go.)

About two weeks ago I made an order from Lime & Violet. It finally came in the mail this past Friday! Squee!

The colours are absolutely wonderful. The pictures don’t actually do them justice. The dark multicolour is called “Sideshow Husband”, and the one with pinks and yellows is “Strawberry Lemonade”. Fitting, no?

I immediately wound the Sideshow Husband and cast on a pair of Jaywalkers. For the Man In My Life, of course. I’m rather surprised at how quick it knits up….and how thick the striping is. It’s wonderful! I’m almost finished Sock #1 (which is good…I just finished Sock #1 of the Pink Tofutsie Monkey Socks, so this is a nice change before casting on Sock #2).

I think I’ve found a way to combat Second Sock Syndrome. Well…aside from using the two socks on either two circs or Magic Loop method. Which, in retrospect, would likely have been smart of me.

(A couple more pics below the cut! That is, if all works out OK…)

(more…)

Well, my Secret Pal (it’s a knitting thing, for those who aren’t aware of this Secret Pal thing) wanted colours, so….some examples of colours!  No, I’m not reproducing the pictures here, as I’m not the copywrite holder and don’t want to get into trouble (grin)

Please bear in mind that these are examples for colour reference on my preferences only.  If it’s something I’m severly lusting after, I’ll try to mark it as such

Scout’s Swag: Okies…here you’d be wanting to look at things like Appletini, Bluetini, Hot Tropics, Hunker Down, Needles on Fire, Run like Hell, Secret, and Strawberry Quick.  The Marina Piccola colourway is also pretty yummy.

Blue Moon Fiber Arts Shaded Solids: I’m going to preface this by saying that I’ve never worked with Socks That Rock, and I’ve always had a bit of a yen to give them a try; I’ve heard some good things about them.  That said, I find the colourways Hoofle Foofle, Spinel, and Rose Quartz to be quite yummy.  They’re not quite the usual colourways I’d choose, but they’re the kind of thing I’d knit socks for someone else (usually family or friends) out of.

Viola  and Paris from Yarn Pirate are the kind of saturated colours that I enjoy.

I’ve downloaded some pictures from my camera to the hard drive of the computer, so I should have more examples soon.  At least examples of things that actually made it into the house

I have a little project for this weekend.

I have to find references for my Secret Pal…so she knows what kinds of colours I find attractive.

So I’m likely going to be putting a new page in my site called “colours”.  Spelled the proper way, yes, because I am Canadian, and that’s how we roll (grin).

I’ll have links to different colourways that I like.  Some surprise even me.  Yowza.

I promise I’ll do it this weekend.  PROMISE.

But right now….I have to get ready to take the man to work…

We’ve gotten addicted to Katamari Damacy in the past couple of weeks.  It’s one heck of a video game….weird language pattern for the main character(s), and the fact you have to “roll up the world” in a ball is really funny.

Yes, I’m a nerd.  Sorta.  I found a crochet pattern that I’m going to have to buy.  It’s the little Prince from Katamari Damacy.   Of course, to actually MAKE it, I’m going to have to learn how to crochet, but that’s not the point.  The point is that I could make little Prince dolls.

It’s amazing the things we see on the net.

Got a few rounds done on the Monkey sock yesterday, and a few rows on the Persephone scarf.  Thinking of  writing out the Persephone pattern so that I can take it to work, but I’m not going to stress on it.  Still waiting for my order from Lime & Violet to get here.  I had picked up two skeins of yarn when Miss V updated the store.  I’m hoping that there’s just a little delay from customs, and that it’s  not a matter of the postman misdirecting our mail, or a neighbour deciding that they suddenly need wool.  I find the misdirection by the postman a more likely event, mainly because the guy’s a lazy arse.  We get mail for other folks all the time.  Yeesh.

In other news, have been eating mostly properly for the past few days, and it’s making a difference.  I’d been gaining and losing the same 5 pounds for the past two months, and it’s been driving me nuts.  I guess it could be worse… I could have ballooned back up to my highest weight.  At any rate, I’m on the way back down, and I hope to break the barrier that’s sorta sprung up at that 10 pound mark.  That is…I seem to hit a glass wall at every 10 pound mark.  It keeps me within a certain 10 pound range for a while, then allows me down to the next 10 pound range.  Maybe it’s just the way my body adjusts; I don’t rightly know.  I just know that the past 2 months have been pretty frustrating.

Of course, eating all that ice-cream to counteract the insane heat wave earlier this month didn’t help (grin).

We’re trying to strike a balance in our eating habits.  Cutting a lot of the junk carbs has really helped.  I have to admit that the goal of getting rid of the next 30 pounds is exciting.  That will put me at the weight I was when I first got to Calgary.  Another 10 pounds beyond that, and I’ll be the weight I maintained in college (of course, by “maintained” I mean “kept off by eating Smarties, fried rice, and orange-pineapple juice & walking everywhere because the trolleys moved slower than my own 2 feet!”).

Very exciting stuff.  Now time to get ready to go to work (pout)…don’t wanna!!!

I tell you…the nice part of waking up at 5am for a 7am shift?  You get to come home at 3:30pm.  The drawback?  You have to wake up at 5am.  ***THUD*** (sigh)

Right now I’m on a dishcloth knitting kick.  Why?  Because they’re small enough that I can whip one off in about an hour or two.  We’ve been knee-deep in the Rec Room Renovation this week, so I’ve been only  been able to do a couple of repeats of the pattern on the leg of my Monkeys during lunch hours at work.

We’ll have to post pictures of the “After” once we’ve got everything done here.  I didn’t take any photos of the “Before”, because frankly…the basement was too disgusting for words.  To me, at least.  We had two full-sized sofas down here, plus a washer/spin dryer, my domed steamer trunk, big L-shaped desk that the both of us used for our gaming space…a bookshelf full of console gaming stuff…you name it, it was crammed in here.  Right now, we have one loveseat in here, a lazyboy, two computer workstations, and the TV stuff.  The L-shaped desk is still here, waiting to be torn down.  I can probably do that on my own, but I’m a little scared to…it’s basically holding itself together through its own weight.

I kid you not.

So while I’m taking time off from cleaning, I sit down and knit a dishcloth.  Not necessarily for washing dishes, really, but for slurpie-cup coasters.  Cotton makes a great coaster for a slurpee cup.  When moisture condensates on the outside & starts to melt…the cotton just soaks it all up.  Whee!

So yeah.  Not only fun to knit, but also useful down here in the place where I’m knitting.

Here’s my answers to the questionnaire.  I may just turn this into an easily-found page on its own.  Never know

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
- Ooo.  Good question.  I’m not a big fan of cotton.  It has its place, but unless it’s  blended with some other fibre, it’s a little hard to work with at times.  I hate to admit that I’m not much for the “fad yarn” that you can pick up at Michael’s or Wal-mart.  I’m choosy in my Wally-world/Zellers stash!  Why go for faux suede when you can get chunky black &  neon blue colours instead?  Right?  Right!

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
- My straights are currently stored upright in a Bowmore Islay Single Malt Scotch box.  We bought the scotch for our fathers one year for Yule, and stuck the bottles in decorative Christmas boxes for liquor…so the original sleeve was repurposed for holding my long, straight needles.
I generally keep my Addis in my knitting drawers, and my dpns in a Tinkerbell pencil case that also holds my notions.  The Other Half calls this pencil case the “Tinkerslut case”.  It’s not a very flattering picture of Tinkerbell

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
- I’ve been knitting off & on for about 3 years on my own.  My paternal grandmother was a demon with the needles, and tried to teach me when I was a kid…but it was something I had to teach myself, really.  I blame it all on the Kittyville Hat in Debbie Stoller’s Stitch & Bitch book.  Yeesh.
I’d say I’m at an intermediate level.  I’m not doing any stranded colourwork or knitting any sweaters quite yet.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
-Um….yeah.  It’s pretty out-of-date, but it shows how much of a sewing geek I can be.  If that link doesn’t work, look for the name ArcadiaX.  Because Amazon doesn’t like to make things easy, y’know.

5. What’s your favorite scent?
- In no particular order, Vanilla, Raspberries, Strawberries.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?
-I do have a sweet tooth (I loveLOVElove chocolate!) but I’ve found that I’m highly sugar-sensitive.  No, I’m not diabetic.  Sugar makes me fat. Since I cut out sugar, I’ve lost about 40 pounds, with another 90 or 95 to go.  That will make me half the girl I used to be.  In the meantime, I usually suck on sugar-free mints (peppermint or cinnamon flavor).

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?
-I cross-stitch, do chain-mail, and sew my own corsets. Well…I’ll be going back to sewing my own corsets when I stop shrinking…

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
-I like a little bit of everything.  Except maybe country.  And rave music, unfortunately, gives me a headache.  I’ve rediscovered a love of 70’s and 80’s rock & new wave respectively, and since our city got an alternative radio station, I’ve been happily grooving away to all the old songs of the 90’s that I used to enjoy when I was a poor art student in downtown Toronto.  Yes I wore flannel.  It was usually paint-stained.  Shuddup.

9. What’s your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can’t stand?
- My favourite colours are pinks, purples, blues, and blue-greens.  Normally I can’t stand yellows and rusty colours (oranges, etc), though I’m seeing some interesting solids & chromatic blends. Like that variegated yellow that I’m having the devil’s own time tracking down.  Grr!

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
- Two adults, one cat, no kids.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
-Scarves, hats, mittens, gloves and/or shawls.  I haven’t worn a poncho since the 1970’s, and at that point I wasn’t dressing myself so I had no choice in the matter

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
-I am an admitted sock addict.  Booyeah.

13. What are you knitting right now?
- A pair of monkeys in a bright pink Tofutsies sock yarn.  Mmmm…

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
- Handmade gifts are much appreciated.  Particularly since I know the amount of work that goes into them after trying to make a little something for everyone in the extended family these past two Yules.  Never. Again.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
- I loves me my Addi Turbos.  **LOVES**.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?
- Thanks to my local yarncrack dealer, I have a swift.  It saves the Other Half (and any friends foolish enough to wander into our house) from having to sit still for half an evening, holding yarn.  I do not have a ball winder as of yet.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?
- Ummm….about a year old, I think?  Almost a year?  I was knitting scarves for my brother & my Father-in-law…and, uh…got bored with them….
It is by will alone that I…uh…finished the Dr. Who Scarf for the Other Half.  He’s still paying that one off…

18. What is your favorite holiday?
- Every Day is Hallowe’en, Baby.  No, I’m not a goth.  Not at all. 

19. Is there anything that you collect?
- Dust, according to the Other Half.  But more seriously, about the only thing I’m really “collecting” right now are tarot decks.  Can’t read ‘em worth a heck, but they’re darned pretty.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
- Um….Cookie A’s non-free sock patterns?  I’d love to get my hands on some of the basic Elizabeth Zimmerman books.  I have one of the Vogue Stitchionaries that I’d like more of (I have the first one), and then there’s the Knitting over the Edge books.  I’d love to get my hands on those ones.
I have no magazine subscriptions.  I’ll pick up Interweave Knits at the grocery store or Yarncrack Haven when possible.

21. Are there any new techniques you’d like to learn?
-No, not really.  If there’s something I want to learn, I generally get a book and figure it out.  See, this is why Granny had such a hard time trying to teach me.  I like Diagrams Where Appropriate

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?
-Guilty as charged!  Size 9 and a half foot.  Length: 9.5 to 10″, circ: 9″, approx.  Usually I make the socks just a wee bit smaller than that.  If I actually make the socks to what my measurements are SUPPOSED to be, then they wind up fitting my sis-in-law (size 9/10 feet) or my Mum (size 11 feet).

23. When is your birthday?
- February 7th.

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what’s your ID?
- Yep.  My ID on Ravelry is “Maire”.  Same as my name.  I try to keep things pretty simple

I keep forgetting that furniture is three-dimensional.  In the context that you can do more than just use it as intended.

Robin and I are currently working through a mutual frustration with our furniture, our storage, and our decorating style.  Right now it’s a mixture of hand-me-downs, junk, and assorted odds & ends that we’ve either picked up on the fly as needed, or brought into the house on our own.

We’re working on getting rid of the junk & clutter, but it’s taking some time.  In the meantime, I’m looking at different options for how to decorate with storage possibilities.

Everyone loves IKEA, right?  Well…IKEA is good for certain things.  Cheap, modernistic furniture?  Yeah.  Might not be at a cheap price, per se, but definitely not as expensive as many high-end shops.

At any rate…There are folks who don’t necessarily use IKEA as “intended”.  Okay, okay, yeah, walking through IKEA shows you that IKEA doesn’t even use their furniture as intended…but painting it, using it as a balcony hardwood floor, or turning it on its side & attaching legs?  Oh yeah.  Bookshelves are now sideboards, and a TV shelf plus a platform turns into a Captain’s Bed.

Head on over to IKEA Hacker or IKEAFANS and boggle

Obligatory knitting content: Hedera are cast off & grafted.  Whee, pretty!  Now there’s a pair of Monkeys on the go, in a vibrant pink Tofutsies sock yarn.  Yeee!  Cute! How many more exclamation points can I use??!!!!111 

Busy week so far, what with cutting down plants, trying to clean the house, getting better after being sick, and having a spouse with a cold and a twisted ankle. We’re making inroads on trying to get the wasp nest dealt with (yes, it’s a wasp nest. Those are definitely not bumbles), and then we’re going to start on our longer-term plan of decluttering & making the space more ours.

In the meantime, the Hedera socks are off the needles. Both toes have been grafted, and the socks are looking faboo. Pictures soon (need a cleaner place in which to shoot pictures, truth be told. My current environment sucks for that. You don’t need to see my laundry!)

Trying to decide which pattern to do next. I could very happily truck away on some Jaywalkers, or Baudelaire, or Pomatomus…