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.

Remembering the Symphony

They guys -- both sons and my husband -- went on a Boy Scout "camp out" this weekend. Quotes because the troop went to Schlitterbahn, an enormous, old, and truly wonderful water park in central Texas. They pitched tents at a genuine BSA camp near by, but ate all their meals at the water park so as to maximize fun time. So "camping" is term loosely used.

So K and I were at the house by ourselves this weekend. We had talked about what to do with our Girls Weekend. She suggested we go "motoring" in the MINI, but she quickly abandoned that idea when I mentioned a drive through scenic countryside that would also go very near a LYS I wanted to visit. That, and she wanted to have a classmate over for a play date.

I quickly jumped on "play date" because she suggested a girl who...how to put this...I think is a good match for K. The girl seems sweet, K never reports any conflicts with her, and I've met her parents and they seem to have the same values and lifestyle as us.

Last year, K had two good friends that I could never quite embrace. One was a girl I actively disliked -- she was petty, domineering, and manipulative. And, worse, the only time K didn't seem stressed about their relationship was when she was outmaneuvering, out manipulating the girl.

The second girl, the third of the disturbing little threesome, was nice enough but I couldn't connect with her mom. The girl was the grand daughter of a major sports celebrity, and dad had some considerable wealth from managing the franchises in grandpa's name. Her mom and I tried to connect for the sake of the girls' friendship, but we just couldn't find common ground. For one, I work full time and she never has. We had gone to the same university but she was into the sorority scene and I was an engineering major. We agreed that it was important to expose our kids to the things that would be important in later life -- but for her that was golf, tennis, and not pressuring kids too much about grades, and for me that was scouts, tae kwon do, and making sure my kids had challenging coursework.

So, I jumped on this opportunity to encourage a friendship with a sweet little girl whose parents are both professionals, who seem to have similar academic goals for our kids, and who have a hectic evening schedule that rivals ours. And that took care of Saturday DAY.

At piano lessons on Wednesday, the teacher and I were talking about upcoming Houston Symphony concerts and how we'd like to attend that weekend's program. As we left, K jumped on that idea -- "let's go see that, Mom. It sounds really fun." I agreed, we'll do it.

On the internet next day: cheapest seats were $45. I regained my breath, clicked "buy", and we were going. And on Saturday, I treated her to the whole thing -- dressing up in our best, getting dinner near the symphony hall with other concert and theater-goers, then claiming our seats at the hall.

They opened with Beethoven's 1st symphony -- good enough, but mainly interesting for historical perspective. The next piece was to be a modern thing, written in 1998 by Kevin Puts. K was already fidgeting, so I decided to start our intermission early. The bartender had a little sister about K's age, so he made her a very special Sprite with pink stuff and cherries. And we watched the Mr. Puts piece on the CCTV they had in the lobby (I actually liked it, but it was...modern.) Then we explored the hall a bit -- found all the bathrooms, talked about the 2nd balcony that had been closed off when they rejigged the ceiling for better acoustics, checked out the gift shop.

Then back to our seats for the Emperor concerto.

And what a treat that was. The pianist, Garrick Ohlsson, was wonderfully expressive, with tones ranging from silver bells to thundering cavalry. The orchestra was spot on with timing and phrasing. And, of course, it was Beethoven at his mature best, and there's not much in the world that can be better than that.

And I remembered why I love going to symphony, even though I haven't been in a few years. In a hall, you hear every note, every nuance -- without fiddling with the volume nob. And somehow you're part of it, not just a passive observer.

Ohlsson, for his part, was a very gracious showman. On his third call-back, he sat back down at the piano and played an encore -- the adagio from Beethoven's Pathetique. As it turns out, this was Kathryn's favorite part. When I told her that being able to play something like that was why I had started taking piano lessons again, she she said that she, too, wanted to learn to play pieces like that "so that when you and Daddy are making dinner at night, I can play something nice for you to listen to." How could she know that was the perfect thing to say?

Oh, and I got some knitting done. While watching the girls swim on Saturday, I got to within about an inch of starting the toe decreases on E's camo socks. And I finished the heel turn and gusset decreases on my Dunes socks. I really like the way the eye-of-partridge heel stitch shows off the shading in this nearly-solid yarn:

And I putzed around in the garden a bit. This guy seemed to be enjoying the flowers too:

Knitting Delimmas

It has been a weekend of knitting...disappointments. Not catastrophes. Minor setbacks that may take many hours to fix, but not catastrophes.

On Friday at dinner I nearly finished the heel flap on the Monkeys. The Monkeys have been my carry-along project, worked at restaurants, while waiting, etc. But since picking up gusset stitches takes concentration, I decided to finish the flap and pick up the stitches at home. So, I was picking up the last stitch on the first side and SNAP. Like a toothpick.

Now, with all the extra gusset stitches to work, doesn't seem a good time to start working with 4 needles instead of 5. So...to the internet, order another set of Brittany Birch sz 1 DPN's. AND and a set of US sz 1 steel DPN's. I realize now that having options is good. I will no longer snicker at those knitters who collect needles in addition to yarn.

I can't NOT have something in my purse, but what to take along while I wait for replacement needles? The other small project I have cast on is the Dunes socks. I threw them in my purse. And I remembered when we got to our favorite Italian restaurant why I had not been carrying them along. This particular restaurant is well lit, but I could barely tell knits from purls, and I could only tell bad stitches (splitting yarn, catching the stitch below) by the relative resistance in finishing the stitch. So back to the box under hte Ott-Lite for Dunes. But I am getting close to doing the heel flap -- here's how they look so far:

After dinner I worked on Josephine and nearly finished the lace section of the front. Before I put it away for the night I pulled out the instructions, looked at the revised measurements I had marked in, looked at the back that I had finished, and realized that I had added the "get the drawstring below my boobs" allowance below the drawstring rather than between the drawstring and the armholes.

Surely not, I thought. I held the back up to my front to check. I held the back up to my back. I wondered whether I could fix this with blocking. I wondered if a different bra might hoist things up an inch or two. I tried to convince myself the drawstring across the lower third of my bosom wouldn't really make me look saggy. I considered whether I could cut the sweater and graft in a new piece. I put the sweater away and went to bed and dreamed of bad knitting.

This morning I woke up knowing what I must do: rip back to just below the armholes and rework all of that almost-stockinette. It will be tedious. I need to update my NetFlix queue.

To cheer myself up, I worked up a simple pattern and cast on for E's camo socks. With good ol' unbreakable Addi Turbo's.

Where am I?

I know I've been delinquent about posting. I'm not sure what my excuse is. I'm not spending long hours at work. I haven't been reading the new Harry Potter book. I haven't been living at the piano. I haven't been going to extra Taekwondo classes. Heck, I haven't been grocery shopping or cooking or cleaning either. What I have been doing doesn't seem like it should take up that much time:

• getting oldest son equipped, packed, and on his plane to a SCUBA camp
• watching the Tour de France
• oggling sock yarns on-line

I have been spending a fair amount of time knitting -- about as much time as I'm spending watching the Tour. None of it is photo-worthy...yet. I'm working again on Josephine, but the front is progressing very much as the back did. I've knit a few inches on the Dunes socks, but since it's a dark yarn you can't see the pattern unless I put them on something, which I don't dare do again because a whole bunch of stitches fell off the DPN's last time I tried. And I am working a simple pair of ankle socks for K out of the leftover Clown yarn -- my "goes everywhere" project.

Since the sock-yarn oggling seemed rather pointless, I bought some Panda Cotton from the Loopy Ewe (who delivered faster than I thought possible):

The blue (Blueberry Grape) is for K. I've been playing with the other ball of the Roses colorway, and I have to say the yarn is kind of strange to work with. It feels very cool to the touch and is silky smooth, but it looks pretty heavy even though the ball band says you can get 7 sts/in. I've tried it with 3 mm needles (looks almost sport weight) and with 2mm needles (too tight for my taste, but amazingly it was still supple and stretchy.) I need something in-between, but my in-between needle sizes have the above mentioned socks on them. Back to Loopy Ewe for some more needles and another 2 balls. My 10YO son insists he wants a pair of socks in the Fern colorway.

And speaking of my middle child, he is still working on his finger weaving occasionally:

But this week's Hot New Crafts are bead animals and "coasters" (or what I called God's Eyes back in my Girl Scout days.) Here is the batch of finished goods he emptied from his pockets just before dinner yesterday -- a fair day's effort, eh? He's leaving piles of them around the house, but he is consuming large quantities of acrylic...

Out with it, then

I think I've finally realized why I've been so reluctant to blog about the knitting I did on vacation. I mean, I did finish a pair of socks before we even finished driving to the cabin!

The FO:

K's Clown socks.

But here's the honest to God truth: I don't like them.

They were fun to knit -- feather stitches are always fun, especially with shaded yarns, because you never know where the pattern will land. And I like the yarn. I just don't like the socks.

The good news is I have half the yarn left over, so I can make K the ankle socks she really wanted in a simple stockinette. With a ruffled cuff or picot cuff? Hmmm.

On to more pleasant topics. While on vacation, I also knit about a sock and a half for myself in my last ball of cotton/wool yarn:

I was able to make amazing progress on these with odd bits of time -- an inch while we ordered and waited at a restaurant, a couple of inches while everyone else still slept in, a couple of inches under a tree while the kids skipped rocks and I talked to the locals. A whole foot while we drove back to Spokane to fly home.

I am now about 3 stripes shy of being ready to bind off both socks (I waited on binding off the 1st until I got home and could look up suitable bind-offs for toe-up socks.) I'll probably power through it this weekend, because I can't wait to wear them And since I can't be without socks to knit...

I'm swatching for Dipsy's Dunes socks. I swatched the main stitch pattern last night, and today I've been fiddling around to see if I can do better than my usual on the 2x2 rib cuff. I've found the right trick, which I will share later -- too late to write it up tonight. For now, one last picture, Dunes at Midnight: