Here's my newest project

OK, so I just bought the pattern, and am just starting to think about what yarn to use. OH OH OH I'm excited about this one! Calista's site has such lovely designs.

I'm also going to be working my way through my 4.3 MILES of sock yarn that I've accumulated. Lime N Violet's sock marathon is starting in January 07, and I figure what a perfect time I've picked to become totally addicted to socks, socks, SOCKS! Four point three miles is a LOT of freaking sock yarn. That doesn't count the ugly stuff I'm going to be getting rid of, either.

Pat from the Yarn Shop & More has a friend that works at one of the local women's safe houses. (the kind where abused women and children run away to) She said some of the women have shown interest in starting a small knitting group and she's taking donations of stash and needles (mostly worsted or heavier and probably mostly superwash or acrylic). I have a bunch of duplicates of wooden straight needles (I can't remember the last time I used straights, now that I'm circular & dpn-woman). I'm saving some for my daughter as she's still every so often picking up the needles and working on projects, but thought giving the extras would be a great way to give a little something to someone who could really use it. If you have stuff you'd like to donate, leave it at the Yarn Shop & More with Pat's name on it and she'll see it gets there.

HAPPY NEW YEAR PEOPLE!!! You've been such a great part of my 2006 that I want to thank you all! All you readers & commenters, you lurkers, you friends & family, you bloggers yourselves, have a safe and happy 2007.

sock yarn, sock yarn, everywhere!

First of all, I had so much fun meeting another blogger and sock knitting goddess at the big sale! Chery has promised she can get me not only comfortable with continental knitting, but also toe-up socks and 2 socks on circs at the same time. I'm not holding my breath, but do like the idea of learning continental knitting. I only went back into the store one time after Chery left, somehow a bundle of Schaefer Anne sock yarn had to come home with me too.

OH what a fun sale. I did well, ended up SAVING enough money on the 30% off part to more than pay for one of my skeins. I saved $31. I'm not focusing on what I spent, because SOCK YARN DOESN'T COUNT! Right? right.

Schaefer Anne Sock Superwash Sock Yarn, 1 skein, 560 yds. Dark purples to almost black.

Artyarns Ultramerino 6 yarn, 1 skein, 274 yds. Oranges and yellows.


Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock superwash sock yarn, 2 skeins, total 430 yds, blues/teals/purples


Remember the beautiful brown socks I made of Mountain Colors Mountain Goat yarn for Jeff? They were so beautiful, but they were not strong enough for regular wearing and he ended up partially felting them in his boots and I got them since they've gotten a tiny felting all over (on purpose) and now they're my house socks. ANYWAY the yarn colors are beyond luscious, the feel of this yarn is unbelievable. I thought I'd give the bearfoot superwash sockyarn a shot since it was highly recommended by Chery, who has the best husband EVER! He wears any and all colors of socks she makes for him, even pinks and oranges. He LOVES his socks and encourages her love of fibres. He was sweet and happy and I enjoyed meeting him as well! Here's the colorways I thought I'd try for Jeff and my son and myself (hopefully I can do short socks for me and still have enough left for Joey on one of the skeins). I've still got a skein and a half of the mountain goat left, I'm thinking they would make a very soft and pretty scarf.

Mountain Colors Barefoot Superwash Yarn, 1 skein, 350 yds, color Obsidian


Mountain Colors Barefoot Superwash Yarn, 1 skein, 350 yds, color Moose Creek


I'll post better pictures soon, I just wanted to get back to work! I swear, my work gets in the way of my KNITTING dammit!

Merry Merry Everyone

Guess what I'm wearing to the Christmas parties? Nope, not the pretty little black dress that I wore to Jeff's business party, nope, my MONKEY SOCKS!!!

Have I said how much I love these socks? They're my new absolute favorite! Now I need to figure out what pattern to use for my new socks that rock yarn. *sigh* life is so hard...

OH, did you see the Holiday Google picture? KNITTING Kangaroos? How cool is that?


Merry Knitmas everyone! I'm sure Santa will be very good to me this year as I'm doing my shopping on the 26th at KnitWit's big ass yarn sale. Get yourself there. If you can't, just come by the blog and drool over what I get. I'm so excited! Bigger than usual bonus from the bosses means YARN for momma. I'm going to try to be there at 11:00am 9:30am so if anyone wants to come say "HELLO CHRISTINE, My, what a lot of sock yarn you have..." and introduce yourself, come on by!

Hope you all have wonderful weekends spent with family and friends.

It's nice to see some things never change. (and BIG ASS YARN SALE)

Driving home from the grocery store this morning I passed some groups of high school students waiting for the bus. It's raining this morning, not a downpour, but a steady rain. One group of girls were waiting, chatting away, each with their colorful umbrella above their heads. The next group was a bunch of boys, who were too cool for weather. No umbrellas, no hoods up (theirs were apparently being used as rain barrels), and not one coat was zipped up. Idiots. It's so nice to see that high school boys are just as stupid today as they were in my day. It made me think that I still may have a clue as to what it means to be a teen when my daughter gets there. I'll still be totally screwed as all mothers of teenagers are, it just gave me a glimmer of hope and made me laugh.

At the Christmas exchange at the sunflower knitter's guild meeting on Monday night, I scored these beauties. I LOVE THEM! I may have to frame one set of 4 and use the other set. Knitter's Coasters. very cool. I took Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's new book Knitting Rules, which I just bought myself and LOVE. It's a good read and has some very good info to use as a reference to go back to. I'm even inspired to DESIGN my VERY OWN SOCK PATTERN sometime in the new year.

Still knitting away on monkey, my new socks. I am IN LOVE with this pattern. It's not too hard, it's fun and interesting, it's even empowering. Yes, socks that are empowering. Maybe it's secret monkey power or something, but the finished product is something that makes me feel like I can do anything. Anything. I'm ready to turn the heel on the 2nd sock, made myself put them away last night before I started. Once I start a heel, not a damn thing's getting done other than the heel. It's too magical.

SPECIAL NOTE!!!! BIG ASS KNITTING SALE!!! Tuesday, Dec. 26th at Knit-Wit, the shop at 1815 S. Ridgeview Road in Olathe, KS. ALL yarn and kits are at least 30% off, some 50%, and there's the famous $3 boxes. I'm not sure what the $3 boxes are, but you can bet your butt that I'll know come Dec. 26th! If Santa doesn't bring you what you want, go shopping! Jan really has an amazing amount of beautiful yarn inside that little shop of hers. Every time I go in, I find new things to pet and drool over.

I just found another free online magazine for knitters and crocheters! If you already knew about them, WHY didn't you TELL ME? I'm such the magazine addict, and FREE online magazines are my bestest favorite EVER! It's a fun read. If there are others out there that I don't know about (and have posted in the sidebar) PLEASE TELL ME!!!

Still knitting along

And because it's just so damn pretty


Thanks Darra, my satan sticks now have a home! I hope they bring you much joy and little hand poking.

You know, they're right...this stuff DOES rock

Holy crapamighty. I finally figured out what happened to my socks that rock yarn I ordered. My paypal account still has my old po box address on it, so the kids and I stopped by and GOT MY YARN!!!! Now it's pretty much just hung out with me day and night. I don't want to stuff it into one of the stash drawers or cedar chest. nope. I don't just want to start some boring regular sock pattern with it. nope. So I figure if I just keep looking at it and squooshing it (Oh LORDY this stuff squooshes good) something will occur to me. My loverly boyfriend Jeff keeps telling me I'm getting a bit "overly yarn obsessed" lately. I keep telling him "OH I'm nothing...you should see some of the others..." but that argument doesn't seem to work when I was seriously considering taking a picture of it riding shotgun in the truck with me on errands yesterday. It may have spent the night on the pillow of Jeff's side of the bed (he was traveling) last night, but that's only because I fell asleep with about 14 knitting books, patterns, magazines, and other yarn from the stash strewn across the bed.

I'm cranking along on my koigu blue monkey socks and think it's a very cool pattern. The repeat is easy to remember, it's so interesting. Every few rows you do SOMETHING ELSE rather than just the k2, p2 ribbing I've been cranking out lately. Oh, right, my last sock was a k3,p1 rib. woo hoo. I've been bit by the creative sock bug.

Order was restored to the world (or at least MY world) when I finally ceremoniously put the damn additurbo 4" long metal sz 1 dpns back into their little packet and put them AWAY in the drawer after only stomping on them twice. At first I thought, "oh these could work..."then I thought, "maybe they're right for someone else, but not quite right for me..."then I thought "Sticks of Satan, be GONE from me, you DAMN metal instruments of torture!" If they were wooden, I would have burned them. They really REALLY started pissing me off as I tried and tried to knit. I got a pair of 5" long (which is just the right length I've found for my sock knitting) rosewood needles and the knitting is just so much quicker and easier and my hands aren't sore any longer. much much better.

It seems so strange not to be freaking out about crafting all my Christmas gifts this year (I'm crafting NONE for the first time I can remember since I was about 10 years old. seriously.) But then it occurred to me that this means I have to actually SHOP and BUY THINGS. Ah well. We're having a much more scaled back holiday season this year, with only a few people (mostly children) getting actual gifts, but there's the teacher gifts, etc. that I need to sit down and figure out the list and hit the shops.

ANYONE WANTING MY SATAN STICKS email me with your snail mail address and they're YOURS (free)! I'll stick them in the mail and get their bad mojo out of my house. I'm an additurbo circ lover, but will stick to my rosewood and ebony dpns or nothing.
Note: The satan sticks now have a home! Thanks Darra!

Knitty's up!

MAN I love the day each Knitty episode comes out. Even if it's one like the sex in the knitty episode where I was tempted to knit, um, NOTHING, I still get all aflutter when I see my little image tag has changed to the new season's magazine! This one has many that are calling my name. I've even cast on for Monkey socks with two different balls of yarn. I love this girl's sock patterns! WOO HOO!

Magknits has its December issue out too and has some good stuff, I love the scarf pictured on the cover. Crochet Me has its winter 2006-2007 has been up for a little while. I just saw the Halloween/spooky issue of Anti-Craft. Go out there and browse and get all inspired.

Here's my monkey socks starts.

The one on the right was the first attempt, on some VERY vivid opal and size 2 dpns. Working up quickly and lovely, except I couldn't get over the fact that the way those colors combined in the pattern was starting to look exactly like the beginning of a migraine for me. The flashing of violently pink, yellow, green & whatever in an orb-like pulsing shape in my vision whether I open or shut my eyes forecasts a very very bad time a-comin'. I thought this would be just tempting the goddesses of fate, and put them away. Frogged and put them in the drawer. In the bottom of the drawer. In the dark. far, far away. No migraines, please.

The pretty thing on the left in blue is some koigu. I'm afraid it'll work up bigger and just have this thing about refusing to swatch for socks. Nope. Not gonna do it. I'll swatch my ass off for sweaters, tanks, what-ever else, but not socks. Though I have had to frog a few starts, I normally have enough completed socks in different yarns that I pretty much know what stitches per inch I get on the different yarns...Except I've never knit a koigu kpppm pair before. I've done Koigu Kersti (the dk weight) but not the little bitties. I thought and thought and figured I'd better start with 1's since I was just barely at gauge with the Opal 2's and the koigu seems to have more texture and heft to it. The yarn shop had NO lantern moon sz 1s and I've lost 2 of the set of my only pair. I was talked into trying out the new mini additurbo dpns. I do love the addi circs, but am not so much a fan of these little babies. They're 4 inches long. That part I thought would freak me out, but really, kind of cool. Stitches don't slide off (unless you put your big ol' FOOT through to try it on, um, lost a few stitches there this morning, but they picked right back up again), but they take some getting used to. I have to hold them differently because I kept getting a sore spot in my left hand where I was getting poked with the end. Though they were slick without being slippery, I'm still gonna stay with my lantern moon ebony's or dark wood. There's just a different feel to the wood. warmer? maybe? I don't know. It just feels better to me to knit my socks with the slicker wood than these metal toothpicks.

My sock experiment with the striping of the 2 koigu kersti balls left over to make a pair of socks is turning out much like the pile of dog barf I cleaned off the floor after Miles was trying to digest legos. It wasn't pretty. The picture (of the sock, not the barf) turned out too dark, so you won't have to look at it. It's funny how two balls of yarn can look so good sitting next to each other, but when knitted together the hand-painting can sometimes turn out so horrid.

OH, and I'm totally buying the Tilli Tomas yarn for the Sahara sweater. I'm gonna do it. It's gonna be my Christmas present to myself. Now I just have to decide what color combo to do and what sleeve length. It's going to have to be either sleeveless or the short cap sleeves cause that's just another chunk of change for the long sleeves, plus the combo of a clumsy woman with big ass bell sleeves is just asking for trouble.

Oh Tilli Thomas, Oh Oh Oh

WHY OH WHY are you so freaking beautiful? Nothing else compares. damn damn damn. First of all, you're unbelievably expensive. That I can deal with. Ms. Queen of Yarn Rationalization can handle that. I can't afford you, but dammit, I could have found a way. Now it's unethical to knit with you. cripes. I have found some other lovely yarns that could work....artyarns regal silk, Knitpicks Andean silk, there are a few others, but dammit, I want the Tilli Thomas stuff. I was going to be just fine, until I saw THIS...Tilli Tomas Exotica. For the love of all things yarny, I must have it. It's got CHUNKS of funky beads! CHUNKS people! I was fine ignoring the sequins. I'm not much of a sequin kind of girl. I was fine ignoring the seed beed looking yarn, if I really had the patience, I could slip a buttload of seed beads onto any yarn and knit away. no big deal. But chunks. Chunks of turquoise looking things. That's more than I can take. damn damn damn.

You know SOMEONE's still buying the damn stuff. Can I be a quiet little hypocrite in Kansas who knits with it and wears it to only non-knitterly events? Can I knit with the stuff and not blog about it? Create something so beautiful as the Sahara and NOT post pics?

I've been cranking out hats for Caps to the Capital SaveTheChildren.org and a warm hat and scarves for the Dulaan Project to work on my guilt at even THINKING of purchasing the sacred yet damned yarn. Maybe if I spend as much money at Sarah's Yarns as I would spend on the Tilli Tomas, that would help my guilt? Yeah, right. I can't afford that idea either. Can you tell I'm an old Catholic girl? Guilt knitting as substitute for spending time on my knees saying my hail mary's? Ah well. It'll help keep some kids warm, so that's what matters.

Good thing I'm poor right now or I'd be SO knitting and wearing that yarn....I'll try to hold out until after the holidays and then see how I feel.

I'd feel much better if I had received my socks that rock that I ordered a few weeks ago. I know they charged my paypal account some time back, but no squishy to-die-for yarn has appeared on my front step yet. Waiting for that skein is worse than a kid sitting by a "do not open until Xmas" present.

Aren't they beautiful?

No, not my kids, my SOCKS!!! (though the kids are cute too, no worries)

The color's actually more like the brown in the 2nd photo. Koigu Kersti 2 1/4 skeins, 2X2 rib on sz 5 dpns. EBONY double points. Life's too short to use crappy needles. I will eat macaroni from a box just so I can get away from those DAMN bamboo needles. I get more splinters and scuffy areas on them. These ebony babies just GLIDE the yarn along. They're like BUTTAH baby. More socks for Jeff (my bf). Like a good boy he also admitted they were quite pretty, but drew the line at actually petting them like I did. Socks for this man have to be very VERY muted and understated. aka brown. black. grey. That doesn't leave a whole lotta yarn falling into the shopping basket. This Koigu is gorgeous. It has just a few flecks of lighter colors, giving it a depth and oh, it's just stunning. Go ahead, pet them virtually. You know you wanna.

I have most of one ball of this left and one ball plus a few extra remnants of a green/brown medly of Koigu Kersti so I think I'll try to widen my horizons and make striped socks. Yes, I know. The excitement is just about too much to bear. I'm actually increasing the amount of yarn ends ON PURPOSE for a creative purpose.

TWO SNOW DAYS and then the weekend along with about 5 inches of snow on top of an inch or so of ice made for a few great afternoons of sledding!! I should've taken action shots from the bottom of the hill, but then I'd have had to walk back up to the top again. I took a few runs down the hill, our best was the last run, where we ALL THREE were on the sled and proceeded to FLY down down down and beyond the end of the hill and ended up dumped into the big slush pit next to the road. Kids were fine & dry in their snowsuits, but momma had a wet, cold ass, so it was TIME TO GO HOME! I do love the snow. It's absolutely beautiful around here!