Hello again! Why, yes, that is an FO!

I've been absent from my blog for too long, I know.

The last couple of weeks have been nightmarishly busy. I've taken on a new "25% of my time" assignment at work (but of course haven't shed any other assignments), have become a new girl scout leader (with all the meetings and training that entails), and my spouse was out of town this week (and since I haven't mastered the art of teleportation, my 3 kids and I were 10 minutes late for absolutely everything.)

When I have spent personal time with a computer, it has been to log my stash into Ravelry. My husband doesn't understand this at all. "Why do you want to put pictures of your yarn on a web site when you can just go in the closet and look?" Well, yeah, but...it's SO COOL.

One of the coolest features is downloading your stash list to an excel spreadsheet. Just how much yarn have I logged so far...hmmm, let's see...wow, 4 miles...wait, that's in yards...so, what?12 miles? And that's just sock, lace, and wool yarn. I've got a bit more wool to go, then I start on the cotton, which I buy by the sweater's worth rather than by the ball. I'm worried. I'm debating whether to list the acrylic or not. I have not yet done the backwards calculation -- how many miles of yarn have I knit so far this year -- but 12 miles seems like an enormous amount of yarn.

So, anyway, no time or energy for blogging, but I've had some time for knitting. I made good progress on my Dunes socks. So much progress, that all I had was one toe to decrease and to weave in ends tonight. I am very pleased with these, despite the trouble they gave me initially. I love the delicate lacy look, I love the way the stitches flow, I love the way this yarn looks with this pattern, I love the way they fit. And it got cold enough this week to wear pure wool socks! I hope we have another "cold snap" next week, or maybe just another rainy day so the air conditioner works extra-well.




Specifics:

Pattern: Dunes of Tinfou by Dipsy
Yarn: Unknown, charcoal wool sock yarn I bought several years ago to finish the toes on a pair of men's self-patterning socks. I had at the time such an amazingly powerful memory that I didn't feel any need to keep the ball band.
Needles: US size 1 Brittany Birch DPN's initially, then switched to Crystal Palace Bamboo circulars. Love the tips, hate the joins, but didn't want to change to metal circs.
Modifications: Besides working mostly with 2 circs instead of DPN's, no modifications. The YO's for the lace fell just before purl stitches, so I do wonder whether the pattern intended the YO's to be the half-wrap you get when you purl with the yarn in back or a wrap-and-a-half. I did the latter, because I liked the more pronounced holes in the lace. The sock might have been too small with the half-wrap.
Learned for next time: I knit tighter with circs than with DPN's, even when the needle material is very similar.

Like some others who have knit this pattern, I wasn't wild about the 2 extra stitches on each round. It was only an issue on the leg (and it was much easier to manage with 2 circs), because on the instep you expect to make some adjustments anyway. So when I finished the leg, I just adjusted the stitches so that the extra stitches were down the back of the leg. I'll never have to think about them again.

Hiding in Plain Sight

A few weeks ago, M and I told our sons that they would be going to Boy Scout winter camp this year. Both of them have said that they want to earn their Eagle rank long term. Earning an Eagle rank requires lots of service hours, a big service project, and lots of merit badges. About half those badges are non-discretionary "Eagle-required" badges on subjects like "Citizenship in the Community" and "Personal Management."

My husband and I have been, and will continue to be, very supportive of our kids' scout activities. But sometimes support feels more like, well, nagging. Citizenship/Community for our older son required nearly daily "support" all summer. Occasionally this "support" culminated in screaming fits of exasperation. As in, "This is the third day in a row you've told me you didn't have time! How could you not have 10 minutes to google 'suburban alligator control'!" The worst was the 3 weeks of "support" it took to get him to actually talk to someone in the Texas Parks and Wildlife department about alligator control -- the absolute last requirement on that badge. While I remember my own teenage mortification at the idea of talking to a grownup, I was nevertheless impatient with his plight.

So I'm a bit weary of "support." And this winter camp looked like an exceptional opportunity. Large attendance (something like a thousand kids) and staffed by parents and scout leaders who share our interest in knocking out those badges. In a 4 day camp, they typically earn 4 to 6 badges. And with the large numbers of boys, they offer just about every merit badge.


We decided to trade in our summer badgering routine for a few relatively short weeks of acute whining. Good trade-off so far. The boys even wrote a highly entertaining essay on Why Winter Camp Sucks.

From the opening paragraph:

You get pneumonia from being in an overly cold environment, like winter camp. It
is one of the most horrible diseases ever. Frostbite can cause fingers, toes,
noses, etcetera to fall off. This could make it quite hard to play the guitar or
trumpet. And it would suck.

They tried pushig every real and perceived parental button -- here's one of the more entertaining attempts:

With the $280 bucks that you save from not sending us to winter camp, you could buy your own x-box 360 and the Tiger Woods golf game.

There was a comment about starving children in Africa -- a cliche I thought had passed with my childhood.

Or try this one:

Grandma and Grandpa won’t get to see us over the break and they will be sad because their only grand children are at some sucky winter camp in crappy little tents, trying to stay warm and not die of pneumonia or frostbite of the brain.

And the coup de grace:

There is no caffeine.
I suffer from caffeine withdrawal and there is no caffeine at camp.
There is no eggnog.
Eric suffers from chronic eggnog withdrawal.

If I could quit laughing I might feel bad for them.

But what does this have to do with knitting, you ask?

Lest anyone accuse me of not being sympathetic to my sons' miserable situation, I cast on a new pair of socks last night. Winter Camp Sucks socks for the elder son. Worked in DK-weight merino on size 3 needles, they should keep his toes from freezing off.



I knit the swatch as he sat across the kitchen table from me, doing his Chemistry homework. He never asked. He showed me a magic trick while I was doing the ribbing. He might have looked at my pattern notes with the heading "WCS socks." But I'm sure he didn't. And I'm sure he won't look at this blog either. And the funnest part will be that since our feet are the same length I can try them on my own feet instead of his, and he will just assume the socks are for me. They will be a surprise Christmas present that he's seen a hundred times but not noticed.

If he's lucky I'll have enough yarn leftover to knit him a Winter Camp Sucks hat.

Distractions

I finally got my Ravelry invitation! I was so excited Sunday when I saw it, but it's so simple to use, it's almost a let-down. I was looking forward to a couple of hours of loading my current WIP's to Ravelry, as a warm-up, and it only took a half-hour or so. Sigh.


Over the weekend, I began my X-mas knitting. I started with what I hoped would be a quick but luxurious project and it was everything I wanted it to be...almost. It was nearly perfect --easy to knit, delightful stitch pattern, lovely soft yarn. But the pattern calls for beads, and the ones I picked look terrible. I was wrong to assume that "size 6 beads" are the same as "6mm beads." Perhaps my error was in worrying too much about whether the yarn would fit through the bead hole? Regardless, the beads are WAY too big for the pattern, and since I haven't been able to convince myself that It Will Be OK, I must rip the otherwise lovely half-done project.


Alas, I cannot post pictures project since the recipient knows about this blog. The recipient is not a knitter, however, so I have posted more info on Ravelry. (My apologies to those of you who are still waiting for your invite!) But I won't leave you pictureless. For your viewing pleasure, Belinda's Dream: