Knitting Navy Wife

Friday, May 19, 2006

The emperors new socks

Last night I showed Jeff my new socks in progress and asked his opinion. I should know better.... (sigh) This is the man who I have never been able to knit anything for and who doesn't really understand my obsession (yes, it is an obsession. I like that word better than addiction) with all things to do with knitting. Why he woudn't understand I don't know. He has his own addiction with Warhammer and anything from Games Workshop and can spend long periods of time modeling, painting, and showing them to me all the while expecting me to gush over his hobby. I will admit he has a lot of talent and I'm impressed, but I dont' know how many times I can look at the same miniature model of an elf or dwarf and ooh and ahh over it! I can't model like he can but then he can't knit at all. He tried cross stitch once but he picked a truly difficult project to start with and that lasted about a week. I may have to finish that one for him someday.
Back to the sock. I got an entrelac sock kit about 4 years ago. It was before I had ever tried knitting socks. I saw it knitted up in the shop, thought it was cool and just had to try it. I made 2 or 3 attempts to get it started and finally threw up my hands in disgust and consigned it to the depths of my stash. I've decied entrelac is the work of some truly sadistic person. One of the knitting groups was having a discussion recently about entrelac and one of the ladies there said she loved doing it. I offered her the kit and passed it on to her the next time I saw her. A month later she gave me back the kit telling me her calves were chubby enough and the sock would make them chubbier. Ack! I can't get rid of this thing so I guess I'll have to knit it myself! It's not really that difficult it'll just be a pain to weave in all the ends. This is where I'm at on the first sock:

I'm using Interlacements Toasty Toes with a size 5 needle. I may have to go up a size. They're a bit snug trying to get them on over my ankle. Once they're on though they fit great. I'll just have to see how they fit when they are done. I really love the colors and it's a joy to work with. Unfortunately the colors don't show up too well in this picture. I'll get some better ones when I finally finish these. I showed Jeff the sock like this he said it was great but that my toes were going to get cold. Grr! He can't just give me a straight answer, always has to make a joke! I told him these were the emperors new socks and couldn't he see how beautiful they were? I should be able to finish this up this evening and I'll start the second one just so I can get them out of the stash and the yarn can quit making me feel guilty!

The home improvements are continuing. So many projects in so many states of completion. I hope I have some hair left when it's all done. The fence is almost done, the garden is in (now if I can just keep the rabbits away. Having the fence completed will help), the bathroom is almost completed and we're going out today to get some sort of playset for the two munchkins in the house. And there are a bunch of things still on the list that haven't even been started yet!

My youngest is napping right now and her brother is at school so I'm off to move more brush.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Maryland Sheep and Wool (among other things)

We went to Maryland Sheep and Wool. We saw, we ate, and most importantly.... we SHOPPED!! Ok, I shopped and Genia enabled. Gotta love her.
But first an update on the ankle. I went to the orthopedic surgeon for a follow up on the 1st and he verified what I'd figured out in the emergency room. The guy who told me my ankle was broken was an idiot! The ankle was never broken, cracked or chipped so I think said orthopedic guy in the emergency room needs to go back to school! This was good news and I was able to walk around MS&W with no problems.
And since Sue has been moving merrily along and waiting patiently to show off here she is showing off her cute ruffly (is that a word?) legs:


She's actually a bit farther on but my camera and computer decided not to talk to each other, or maybe the memory card is messed up, and there are a bunch of pictures stuck in the camera.

But I did get some pictures of the stuff I got at Sheep and Wool! Not all of it but enough to tease you with.

I understand this was the find of the weekend if you were there early Saturday. When we got the The Fold booth the Socks that Rocks was almost gone but I managed to get these two skeins, both in colors I really like, I think she sold out completely of this yarn about 10 minutes after we left:




















A little farther along I found this sock yarn:


Both are from Flock Bransonas or Bransonas Shetlands. They mostly had roving but in the back of the booth they had some beautiful hand dyed sock yarn. I really like the colors of these and in my personal opinion I like them better than the Socks that Rock. I like them both in the skein but I think these will win out once knitted up. The colorway of the skein on the left is named "Alana". Can you understand why I had to have that one in particular?





Genia has decided to tackle my aversion/fear of two color knitting. As soon as she and I can get together we're going to do a mitten knit-a-long with this:



100% alpaca. It's really soft and I can always use more mittens!







This is destined to be a Clapotis:

Fleece Artist 100% merino. I was really into reds and oranges at Sheep and Wool this year. I spotted this just as we were about to leave and not having a clue and needing a justification to but yet more yarn, I turned to Genia and asked,
"What can I make with this, it's 750 meters?"
Genia: "A Clapotis"
Me: "Sold!"
I told you she was a great enabler.

We also discovered a new breed of sheep (well it was new to us since neither of us had heard of it before)

This isn't a really good picture of the sheep and her baby, I was using a different camera than normal. You can't really see her long wavy/curly wool. She's called a Wensleydale. Spinners really like this wool because it has nice long staples. It's also pretty soft.

I ended up getting this Wensleydale wool to make a pair of gloves out of (notice the orangy color once again? It's actually more of a copper, but it has that orange feel):




















And last but not least (there are a couple more things I got but the pics are stuck in the camera!) is this wool I picked up:

Two unique things about this yarn.
1. I have no clue what I'm going to do with it. Everything else I managed to think of something to make before I bought it.

and

2. It's neither orange nor red! Ok, burgandy is in the red family but I'm still saying it's not red!

There were a couple of other things I got but like I said my camera isn't cooperating so I'll have to save those for another day.

I haven't had much real knitting time lately. We've been working on the house like crazy to get everything ready before Jeff leaves for overseas so I don't have to worry about much while he's gone (and I'll have more time to knit ). I'm not looking forward to him being gone but well, that's the life of a military wife.

And I'll leave you all with this. The scene of the crime and the perpetrators.

Notice the innocent looks. The 'we're not doing anything wrong mommy.' appearance. But the clues are there. Both of them are ignoring me in the hopes I won't notice the empty tissue box in Logan's hands and the shredded tissue all over his sister Sidney. I would say Logan was the brains behind this caper and Sidney followed along with her big brother. He emptied the box and she tried to shred the evidence.