I should go back and see how many times I’ve started a post with “I’ve been slack.” This one may take the cake, though – it’s been nearly 5 months since I’ve bothered to blog. Part of this is the problem of it building – not only do I post on the blog, but I put pictures in the gallery, and list projects on Ravelry. One or two are not a big deal, but once you’ve gone a month or more, it gets to be daunting and you put it off – and off – and next thing you know, it’s the end of January.

So here’s a post that’s mostly pictures – but you’ll get the idea.

September:

Mark goes bald – all in one day. Actually, it was for a really good cause – he had his head shaved for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which raises money for children’s cancer research. In the end he raised $690, and spent several weeks being mistaken for Mr. Clean.

Also in September, Mom’s cousin Dori was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. They held a benefit to raise money for her treatment and for her family. I made lace scarves out of Noro Kureyon and Silk Garden.

The bottom one was actually one of Mom’s Christmas presents, but this is the only picture I got of it.

In September we also took a family trip to the beach (with the MINI club), and celebrated Shea’s 18^th birthday. Sniffle, sniffle is all I have to say about that. During our trip, I worked on a pair of socks for a sweet lady (Donna) in the MINI club. These are my first pair out of Berroco Sox, and I must say I loved it.

I also knitted some boot socks for OtherMom, who along with Dad has recently moved to the NC mountains, where they actually get snow. These Cherry Tree Hill DK socks should fit the bill quite nicely.

I finished the socks to go with my orange sweaters – Lorna’s Laces Gold Hill was the winner, and it was the Sockapalooza 4 pattern (I think – don’t quote me on that).

At some point in September, I also started the Mystery Stole 4. More about that later.

October:

October is mostly a blur. The MINI club took a trip to an alpaca farm (gotta love it when you can combine interests!). I came very close to kidnapping this sweet girl and bringing her home with me.

Sometime in there I finished up Mark’s Gentleman’s Fancy Socks, made with a Trekking Pro Natura. Another great yarn – washes up beautifully.

Somewhere in October I got tickled by the top of my washer and dryer on laundry day – now that there are 2.5 wool sock addicts in the house, we’re running out of drying space!

November:

November was busy, full of play practice, mountain trip, and a new roof.

Of this roof, I can say four things:  it was time, it was expensive, it made for a very noisy 2 days at home, and it was worth every penny.  We had weeks of driving rains in December, and my kitchen would have been a disaster.

And I can’t forget to mention frantic knitting for birthdays and Christmas:

Mark’s Happy Feet Footies – knitted during our trip to Fontana – it was a slightly rainy, cool weekend, but the leaves were still beautiful.

At some point I finished up the Mystery Stole, which by now had decided that it’s fate was to go live with Grandma – I knew she would love it. Yarn is Malabrigo in color Molly (I think), with 1000+ beads hand-knitted into it.

As anticipated, Grandma flipped over the stole!

I knitted socks for Mom and Lee for Christmas:

Great Adirondack Silky Sock – pattern is Mockery

Happy Feet – basic ribbed pattern (in size 13!)

I made fingerless mitts for Sarah’s birthday:

(thanks to Jennifer for modeling) – Sweet Georgia Speed Demon, Berry Hill pattern (and enough yarn left over to make a pair for me!)

and socks for my sister for her birthday:

2×2 ribbed socks, Mama E’s C*Eye*Ber Fiber color English Roses

December:

December came and went in a flash – we had Mom and Lee in for Minnesota – visiting for Hayley’s play and my birthday, and the rest of the family here for the play and for birthdays. Hayley had a principle role as the Minstrel in Once Upon a Mattress. The play was phenomenal, and H had a great time, and did a fabulous job. If you haven’t seen the play, the Minstrel and Jester are the main narrators, with several parts of the narration sung. Here she is with the Jester:

In mid-December we got the sad news that Dori had passed away.  She was young, with pre-teen and teenaged children, and it was a sad loss.

By the 3^rd week in December, the big girls were home for college, and we had Christmas break. It was busier than usual, and definitely noisier than usual, but we had lots of fun. Holly was “bored” – nothing to study, and her computer was broken, and she needed something to do, so she asked if she could knit something. I said sure, and we found some yarn, and she knit a 7-foot striped and ribbed scarf in 3 days. There was enough yarn left, and she made a ribbed beanie.

Then she needed another project. I took the girls to the yarn store, always an expensive thing to do. Shea picked out 4 gorgeous yarns for a scarf (I’m still waiting for her to send pics, as she took it back to college), Holly got yarn for a beret, and Hayley got yarn for a scarf and legwarmers. Here’s Holly’s beret:

It was much bigger to start with – too big and floppy, and we tried to hand felt it, with no luck. We decided to throw it in the wash machine and see what happened – and here it is. A bit smaller than planned, but really cute, and Holly loved the idea of felting. This was a common sight around our house during the month that Holly was here:

That still wasn’t enough – she ended up making another beret-type hat and another beanie before she left.

I made her a school colors scarf, and a pair of socks (of which I apparently didn’t get a picture):

The “M” is for her school name.

I finished up a pair of socks for me in Sweet Georgia Boheme – the pattern is Simplicity from the new Eclectic Sole book.

I got an awesome Christmas gift from my husband – a beautiful sweater chest for the end of our bed, made by a good friend of ours.

I made a sweet pair of booties for Zoe, my new niece-to-be, due in June. Her mom and dad refuse to dress her in pink, so I figured green was cute, and thought it would be fun to give them a baby present WAY in advance.

January:

Just before the end of Break, the girls went to see my sister for a photo shoot. Brenna is an awesome photographer, and she shot well over 100 pics of them. These are some of my favorites:

We are so blessed!

It’s now January 20^th, Inauguration Day. I had taken the day as a personal day, as it was a teacher workday – it would have been ½ a day of meetings, then I would have left for a doctor appointment. As it turned out, it snowed last night, the workday was cancelled, and my doctor’s office is closed. Of course, the roads are 98% fine, but that’s how it usually goes. Hayley was disappointed that we didn’t get as much snow as Shea did in Charlotte – they got 3-4” and campus was actually closed today.

One more thing before I go – many of you out there know Alison, designer and knitter extraordinaire, and one of the best people I know. She has been truly sick these last few weeks, beyond anything I can comprehend (if you want details, they’re on her blog), and I’m asking for your prayers for her. There’s a running joke in the comments on her blog that God must be getting really tired of hearing her name, there are so many people who love her and are praying for her. Alison – we love you, and hope that you recover soon!

With that said, I actually won a competition today during our Faculty Back-to-School Carnival. Faculty/staff only, no kids, with competitions like cornhole (I didn’t know what it was either – it’s apparently beanbag toss), knock-out, scooter races around the gym, racing rubber ducks down the waterfall (not enough water, they all got stuck multiple times), and more. This was a clever way to bring together nearly everyone in the school to actually do something fun, and it worked very well.

I had signed up for the rubber duck race only, figuring I’d save the more sports-like events for the, well, sportier. We had seen “chilling marbles” on the signup sheet, but no one seemed to know what it was. Once I saw it, I knew that I had found my sport. Back story – I have monkey toes. I pick up dropped things (see clumsy above) with my toes – why bend down? Mark has always called it lazy, but the girls do it too. So we went outside (in the rain) and saw a large washtub, filled with about 8″ of water and a few hundred marbles, surrounded by chairs. The object, of course, was to pick up as many marbles as you could with your toes in a minute. The first group of 8 played, and when time was up they had picked up anywhere from 9 to 27 marbles. Sarah and I knew we had to get in on this, so we pulled off our shoes and socks, rolled up our jeans, and had a seat. When we finished, I had a big pile, and while people hollered out “21″ and “25″, I was still counting (and proceeded to count the rest out loud) – until I reached 38. Yes, folks, I am the reigning Queen of Chilling Marbles. Even with my gimpy toes – I rule.

It took me only 38 years to find my sport – anyone up for a challenge?

My other dilemma is the Rose top. I finished up the body last night (still needs sleeves), and tried it on.

Whoops – shows a bit more than I intended. And before you ask, I am so not the “wear a cami under it” kind of girl. This is a summer top, I live in NC, where it is HOT in the summer, and I don’t need another layer under this, no matter how light. There will be a single crochet edging on it, but that will not be nearly enough to bring it up the inch or so that I need. If I had any crochet skills at all, I’d concoct a cool wider edging, but I have not a clue how to do that, and I don’t think a knitted edging would do it at this point. If I rip it back (Mark’s suggestion, as he thinks the body should be a bit longer anyway), I would have to go all the way back down, and improvise the pattern to leave the armholes where they are but start the neckline higher. I could do that, but I really really wanted this done to wear to the faculty back to school party Monday night. So – suggestions? Or do I just suck it up and wear the new orange sweater (and with what color pants? Brown? Black? Too Halloween-y?) to the party? Ugh! Too many decisions and already a headache.

For now the sock yarn is hanging out, waiting for a choice, and the tank is folded up in time-out. I’m going back to my reading.

These are not the worst of the search phrases – there are lots more that are too gross to mention. And this post probably just got me several more hits just like these. Yeesh.

As I was racing home from work yesterday (my first day back after 2 missed days, 1 for a migraine), still with a headache, I called the Queen and asked if it was crazy that I was coming up with an odd version of the 12 days of Christmas in my head, but mine went something like this:

4 days before the new employees come, and here’s what I have:

12 bio changes
11 pointless emails
10 pounds of paperwork
9 payroll questions
8 background checks
7 “no thanks” letters
6 want-ad phone calls
5 minutes to eat
4 new contracts
3 workers comp injuries
2 handbook changes
1 huge mound of paperwork

If only this was everything there was to do, I could maybe de-stress a little. I could also be stressing slightly about sending Shea off to college NEXT WEEK. Though creating the song helped – at least I got to giggle for a minute. That and an Icee saved the afternoon, and of course I got to go hang out with some of my knitting buddies last night (missed you Kim, Cindy, and Karly!).

Between this and the rest of my life, there hasn’t been much time for knitting. OK, well, I’ve been reading a lot, but only because Hayley dragged me into the Twilight series, and I couldn’t put it down until I’d read all 4 books! I’m going to give you the rest of this post in pictures.

For anyone thinking that the office was too “knitting-heavy”, I give you the new and improved version:

We now have the knitting/dragon/moose/MINI theme in full swing.

Including what I like to call the “Wall o’ MINIs”.

And the desk, with the pile of paperwork I brought home to work on today (yes, I’m posting when I should be working. I promise I’ll get it all done.)

Then there’s my cool new knitting bowl – our friend Jennifer has recently become a full-time potter. I told her that I’d heard this cool idea about a bowl to hold your yarn, with a slot to thread it through. She took the idea and ran, and look what she brought me on Saturday:

She wouldn’t let me pay her, since I had given her the idea, and she’s already sold a few. Instead, I asked what size shoes she wore (and she said “7, why?” before looking down at the sock I was knitting, then she said “Oh.”) After a quick try-on and a next-day finish to the 2nd sock, these became Jennifer’s socks:

I also recently made a cute pair for socks for a sweet new baby at work – Skylar Neveah. This yarn is Miss Babs in Watermelon, left over from Holly’s socks.

Unfinished knitting hanging out at the house:

Sock #1 in Mama’s Pajamas from Mama E

Artisokka Rose sweater in SWTC Bamboo – halfway through for the second time – first was too small.

Muscari socks in Lorna’s Laces – love these, but they are definitely not a car project.

Gentleman’s Fancy Socks for Mark – getting there!

All right, now that I’m feeling guilty for doing this instead of working, but slightly relieved for finally posting, I guess I should get back to work. Have a great week (or 2!).

Anyway, before she left, Hayley moved in to Holly’s old room, and we’re fixing up her old room as an office/yarn room. We can’t move the computer and its assorted stuff in there until we get the electricity upgraded in that room, but we can do just about everything else needed. The only thing really missing at this point is a comfy knitting chair for me, and we haven’t found one we can afford yet. Looking in through the door to “my” corner:

Notice that the swift and ballwinder have permanent homes, much to Mark’s chagrin. The unit the swift is on has wheels, so I can just roll it to where I need it.
The desk area:

We found this great desk at World Market – we wanted something really simple, yet elegant. Mark picked the curtains, and we chose the wall color based on that. Backwards, I know, but it worked for us. Here’s my little corner, sans chair:

Bookcase with knitting magazines and ballwinder, and a yarn-holding moose. The red pig was Mark’s choice – he found it when we bought the curtains and had to have it! Imagine a nice comfy chair right here – it will be my quiet getaway place.
And of course the closet:

I’ve been kind (OK, OCD) enough to label it for you so you can get the full effect. You never really know just how much yarn you have until you put it all into one place. I still have to move other craft stuff in there that has been stored in my room.

In other news, the Socks of Kindness are finally done. They weren’t hard, but the repetition kicked my butt for a while. Now that they’re finished, I absolutely love them, and hate that I dragged them out so long.

The yarn is from Mama E – Signs of Spring, I believe an exclusive KnitPicky colorway that I picked up back in March when Mama was here for the dyeing workshop.

Currently there are lots of boring socks on the needles – a brown one for Mark, a rainbow one for me (which may be frogged), one for me in Mama’s Pajamas (another Mama E exclusive), and my carry-around striped one. Oh, and another pair of cute baby socks for another new baby at school. I’m waiting for some yarn to come in from Turtlegirl – she was destashing and just happened to have some SWTC Bamboo in a colorway that The Queen sent me a ball of a few years back. I think that it’s going to become the Artisokka Rose sweater instead of the ArtFibers, which just doesn’t do the pattern justice. I know, poor ArtFibers yarn just can’t decide what it should be. I’m starting to contemplate Clapotis.

I’m off to go get ready to go get my girl – I’m so glad she’s coming home. It has been SOOOO quiet around here!

We (and I mean that in the royal sense) have graduated, or at least survived it. Holly’s family came in from Korea, did a whirlwind tour of Winston-Salem and Atlanta, and went back home, taking her with them. We’ll see her again at Christmas, but that’s a long time away! Before she left, I made sure she was appropriately knit-covered:

Fountain hat from Interweave Knits – pattern here. Yarn is some funky hand-dyed we found on Granville Island in Vancouver.

Basic socks in Online Summer yarn.

Also on hand is yarn for socks and a scarf and hat in Holly’s new school colors, sent by Mom with her graduation gift. Fortunately I have a few months to worry about that.

Hayley’s chorus teacher and his wife welcomed their first baby, Madeleine. We thought socks an appropriate gift (aren’t they always?), and the teachers at school just flipped over these:

My own pattern with a ruffled edge in leftover Lorna’s Laces in Happy Valley.

Sarah and I joined the girls from the Charlotte Purls and the Charlotte Knitting Guild for some fun on WWKIP Day in Charlotte. There were lots of knitters, knit shops, pizza, and even snow cones! And of course, door prizes. Sarah and I both got prizes for being the people who had driven the furthest to the event – I got the Little Box of Socks (I love it!) and Sarah got Stitch ‘n Bitch on CD.

Stacey gave me a hard time about my lazy-person chair, and the fact that my ball of yarn was conveniently resting in my drink holder:

We ran into the lovely and talented Jan Smiley again, and met Connie with the cool Columbine wheel.
I of course had to pose for pictures with Cristi and Stacey.

Before we headed for home, we made a quick detour to Charlotte Yarn, where we’ll just say we had a great time and found lots of stuff we loved!

Fast forward to last Thursday, when we left for Waynesboro, Virginia. Now Waynesboro is not really that exciting, but it is where the Blue Ridge Parkway officially starts. Mark and I, and about 30 of our MINI friends, met there to drive the entire Blue Ridge Parkway this weekend. The Parkway itself is 469 miles, but driving to the top and home from the bottom added considerably, and we put about 1100 miles on the new MINI over the weekend. We made stops at key sites for photos, hiking, eating, and spending the night. We had a great time, though I was truly happy to be out of the car when we got home. I got teased a good bit about always having knitting in my hands, but I managed to finish about a sock and a half of this pair, along with bits of another pair, during the trip.
They’re officially known as Spring Forward socks, but I can’t stop referring to them as Sproingy socks. The twisty-turny pattern was perfect for the drive we were doing at the time. I did have to put down my knitting at a few points, this one in particular (this is a GPS photo – the pink is the road we’re on):

It does look pretty bad, but realize this – it’s down the side of a mountain. Down, the whole way. I held on pretty tightly, and Mark was ghostly white by the time we got to the end of it. It was worth it, though, for these gorgeous views.

We got a lot of strange looks when we were stopped anywhere as a group, and here’s why:

(We’re the front car on the right in both pictures.)

We had tried to visit a yarn shop in Staunton, Virginia, but they apparently had a staffing issue and were closed. There was a sign on the door stating this, and they gave a number to call in case of emergency. It took me a few minutes to decide that me being there probably wouldn’t qualify as an emergency, so we left. We did have a few extra minutes in Boone (9, to be exact), during which I popped into a cute little shop called Laura’s Yarn-Tastic. Since time was limited, I bought the only thing I knew I could buy without a pattern or yardage needed – sock yarn. They had just gotten in a great shipment of Miss Babs sock yarn (and chunky yarn – oh man – need more time!), so I found 3 that I loved, and we were out of there.

From top: Rainbow, Rock Wall, Rose Garden (got my 3 R’s for the day!)

So, that’s it – 5 weeks in review. I promise to try to do better, if there’s anyone out there still actually reading!

Our beach trip was great, though way too short. The drive down there pretty much did me in, so I was on the couch or in the rocking chair on the screened porch during our downtimes. It was great being there with 2 cars – on Saturday morning the girls took off to do what they wanted, and Mark and I took off on our own – wow! What a difference from our normal “dragging the kids around” vacations. This was the last big family trip before the big girls leave for college, and that made it just a little bit sad. We won’t be a family of 5 for much longer – suddenly it will be 3, something we haven’t had in almost 13 years! The girls spent most of the weekend running around taking crazy pictures (with my camera), so I didn’t really get to take too many. Here are some of the good ones:

On the way…

The ice cream shop in Calabash

Silliness on the beach

Silliness around town

As you can see from the pictures, they just didn’t have any fun at all! Now that we’ve taken Holly to both the mountains and the beach, we asked which was her favorite. Definitely the beach, she said. I’m not sure how 2 mountain-loving people have managed to have 3 beach-loving girls.

There was of course knitting at the beach. We even stopped at the one knit shop in town, Knitting Up a Storm. It was a nice shop, run by a very nice British lady. There was nothing there that I would consider particularly unusual, though she may have had every single color of every single line of Regia sock yarn in stock. I did come home with some Regia silk, some Happy Feet and Universal Pace sock yarn for Mark, and some gorgeous Misty Mountain Farm Jubilee sock yarn for me. I spent most of my weekend working on these – they are Artichoke socks in the gorgeous Pagewood Farms merino/bamboo blend (colorway Creamsicle) that Tricia sent me for Christmas. This yarn is so soft, squishy, and shiny, and I need more. Right now!

I also finished up some Tidal Waves in another Pagewood Farms merino/bamboo for Mom (for her birthday – these went to her along with the socks in the last post, which were for Mother’s Day). These came close to not going in the package – Hayley developed a strong love for them, and tried them on more than once!

Also, for OtherMom for Mother’s Day, I whipped out some Fixation footies in between coughing and fever spells (I believe they should earn double points for that!).

Finally, I managed yesterday (on a trip to have lunch with the MINI folks for the club’s third anniversary) to finish up the socks I worked on during Hayley’s softball games this season (they finished 1 and 8, but they had lots of fun!). She picked this yarn and loves them. I did make them a little long, since she’s growing faster than ever, and her feet just keep getting bigger.

The best part of working on these socks was the reaction of 2 kids (1st and 3rd grades) to my knitting and the yarn. They had never seen anyone knit. The little girl, in particular, wanted to know how it all worked, and Sarah and I patiently explained the different parts of the socks (Sarah was at the toe, and I was at the heel). The self-striping yarn, in particular, fascinated her, and she kept trying to guess which color was next. I let her pull the yarn out of the center of the ball until the next color change, so she could see it. I believe by the end of that game we had created 2 future knitters!

These last few weeks of school are always crazy, with every group having an end-of-year party. Add to that all of the graduation stuff, baccalaureate, etc., and Holly’s family coming into town, and it equates to large quantities of stress. I suppose I should go finish up the grocery list so we can have food this week. I’m desperately looking forward to a 3-day weekend next week, and praying that I will feel good so I can get some stuff done around here!

Due to our unusual staggered vacation this weekend, I spent last night at home all alone.  Mark and the girls are at the beach, and today Holly and I will join them.  Holly, however, didn’t want to miss her last day of school today, and had to be there at 7 a.m. – and since I wasn’t working today, I was not about to get up and take her.  I asked her to see if she could find a friend to spend the night with, and ride to school with this morning, and she did (and they say teenagers never do what you ask!).

After work yesterday, Sarah and I attended a self-defense seminar put on by one of the teacher’s husband, a tae kwon do master.  It was fun, funny, and man was it a workout!  My butt may never be the same.  Sarah then took me to pick up my car (oil change before the long drive), and I was on my way.  I stopped at the grocery store to pick up my favorite “alone” dinner – Stouffer’s mac & cheese, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  I also stopped at a discount store and picked up 3 Sterlite clear tubs – I was going home to have fun with the yarn!

While my mac & cheese cooked up nice and brown on top (yum!), I broke out the yarn.  All of the yarn.  My, what a sight to behold.  The problem with the yarn being cooped up in non-see-throughable containers is that I forget what I have.  I petted, played, sighed, and admired.  I had threatened to come home and roll around in it, and take pictures of it in comprising positions, but someone had already packed and taken my camera, so you’ll just have to believe me.

In the end, the yarn (which was in 2 large containers and 2 big plastic bags) ended up in 2 large containers and 3 smaller clear containers.  The sock yarn, being king of course, got 3 clear containers of its own.  One is for the really good yarn – CTH, STR, LL, Mama E, and any hand-dyed (including mine).  One is for the “other” sock yarn – Regia, Trekking, Online, Louet – you get the idea.  Both of those are rather full.  The third is for sock yarn remnants.  Some are actually full balls, but they’re 50 gram balls and wouldn’t make a full pair of regular socks, so they’re in with the remnants.  I actually have some really good remnants – maybe I’ll make a pair of Monstersocken some day.

The rattan chest in the living room that formerly held most of the “other than sock yarn” stash now holds the good stuff – shawl yarn, Noro, some llama – the stuff I’d like to see most.  The former sock yarn container now contains all the felting yarns and all of the other stuff – the stuff I probably won’t need too often.

While eating my yummies and playing with yarn, I watched most of the 2nd DVD of Firefly – still loving it, though Shea says it’s the most implausible show she’s ever seen.  Well, yeah – combine the future with the prairie days, and it’s a bit strange, but I love it.  And obviously there’s a knitter on the costume crew.  You’ll catch glimpses of knitted shawls and sweaters in every episode.  In one of the episodes last night, I saw Zac Efron playing a very young Simon, and I was impressed that I actually figured out it was Zac – he looked very different.  I stayed up late, watched Lost, and slept in until 9 this morning.  

I suppose I should go start packing!  It’s very strange to only have to pack for me – other than the bag of food I sent with Mark and the girls, everyone packed for themselves.  One definite bright spot in this whole growing-up mess.

Of course more feeling-good time leads to increased knitting time, and I’ve been cranking it out. First I finished up the Big Bad Brown Socks – aka Classic Socks from The Knitting Man(ual) for Mark. He picked the pattern, I picked the yarn – Louet Gems fingering in (I think) Bark. I like the yarn after it’s been knitted and washed, but while knitting it I tended to think of it more as string than yarn – it made my fingers sore, and made me seriously rethink the enormous quantities of it that I purchased back at Christmas.

Next I finished up the Mardi Gras socks. They’re not for me, but we’re not going to talk about that. Suffice to say that the intended recipient likes the yarn, and the socks are a bit small for me. She will just have to wait, however. The yarn is my own hand-dyed (KnitPicks Bare merino/silk – very yummy!).

Part of my increased knitting time has been due to good movies (and thank goodness, the end of the writers’ strike), and we have seen a few. We watched August Rush, and though the story was pretty improbable, it was still really good, and the music was awesome. Then Friday night I watched the original pilot of the Firefly series, Serenity. I had heard so many good things about it, and I really loved it. I can’t wait to watch the next episode, but I want to wait until Mark watches the first one, as I know he’ll really like it. I tried to explain to him that it was like a combination of Star Wars and an old Western, but that just didn’t make much sense to him. Then I looked it up online and saw that that was exactly what Joss Whedon was going for when he made it!

When we went to see the Harlot, I cast on for a new pair of socks for me, with some great Mama E yarn (her warehouse is back open, BTW!), Signs of Spring, that I picked up when she was in town. It’s in super bright springy colors, and I knew I needed a funky pattern. Through Ravelry I found the Socks of Kindness, and knew that they would fit the bill perfectly. Here are 2 pics of the first sock in progress – the first shows the color best, and the second shows the pattern best.

I also started a more mindless pair of socks today, and am surprised at how quickly these are going. They are yet another pair of Tidal Waves, in some really yummy Pagewood Farms merino/bamboo/nylon blend. The color is called Meadows, but it is really very aqua, and they are cute enough that Hayley has already threatened to steal them when they’re done.

I should have lots of knitting time this week, between a chorus concert and softball. Oh – and how could I forget this – the new MINI is here, and Mark is over the moon, and very busy making modifications! And yes, it looks very much like the last MINI, but we’re not allowed to say that.

I have decided to put a sock project in the car and leave it there, and only work on it when I’m riding. Since we go on lots of drives, it will be fun to see how many socks I manage to make “just” in the car. This one is an automatic, so it should be a little easier to knit while Mark’s driving. Unfortunately, I will be driving at least one way on an upcoming 4-hour trip, so there’s knitting time I’ll never get back.

Of course this much longed-for baby needed something special, and I decided to attempt a Baby Surprise Jacket.  It took some doing, and trusting, and a little ripping to get the striping just right.  Observant readers might recognize the colors – this is the leftover yarn from the Siena Fair Isle Hat that I did for a Fair Isle class.  Shea can be seen modeling the hat here.  I knitted and read instructions and knitted and read some more, and came up with this amorphous blob.

I spent at least half an hour looking for buttons for this last Wednesday, and the jacket hibernated until I finally got up the nerve picked it up last night to sew it up.  I tried 2 different techniques to sew up the sleeve seam (horizontal garter to vertical garter – not as easy as it sounds), and ended up going with kind of an overcast stitch that looked decorative, instead of trying to hide it.

Here are the final pictures once it was all sewn and buttoned up:

 While I was riding home from button-shopping, it occurred to me that this much-loved baby will have her own “Coat of Many Colors”, just like a much-loved child from long ago.  Welcome to the world, Meredith!

Kim found the manager, who assured us that the event would go on as planned, gave us 2 orange wristbands for the signing (meaning we were in the first 50), and told us they would set up at 3:00.  We wandered around for a while, and decided to go upstairs to hang out in the coffee bar, where we would be sure to see when they started setting up, then go downstairs to snag seats. In the coffee bar we found Charlotte knitters – from the left, Jan, Cristi (Turtlegirl) and Corey (KnitDiva), then Kim of course.  Funny note on Jan – I noticed her socks (we saw lots of great socks last night) were Lorna’s Laces Tuscany – the same ones I was wearing!

We claimed our corner, and waited and waited.  The 3:00 setup time had come and gone.  We found the manager again and offered to help set up, as we were sure they had no clue what they were in for.  She calmly told us that she knew – there were at least 4 buses coming from Atlanta, Raleigh, Myrtle Beach, and somewhere else.  They were expecting 300 people, but they could not set up until 2 hours before the event.  She had 5 people coming in at 5:00 to set up, but they would not do it before 5:00.  In the meantime, several more knitters had come in and tried to tell her the same thing.  They staked out the benches near what was to be “the front” and were in for the long haul.  We decided to go back upstairs and grab our comfy chairs, and that we could watch just as well (and more comfortably) from up there.  About 4:15 I guess the manager had had enough.  She pulled a few people and they started setting up.  130 chairs – all that they had.  We decided we were glad to stay upstairs.  In the meantime we had fun chatting with the Charlotte knitters, and a few more showed up.  Including - Dani!  Dani and I have been online buds for a few years – before she even moved to NC.  We’ve talked about meeting up but it has never happened.  It was good to finally meet her in person, though she was “gimpified” (not my word, I promise) and couldn’t even knit.  It turns out that the gang we had been hanging out with were Dani’s knitting peeps in Charlotte.  Here they are, waiting for 7:00.

(From the left, clockwise): Erin (from Wilkesboro), Dani, Aimee, May, Cristi, and Corey.  We had great fun hanging out with them and being a bit snarky (ok, maybe more than a bit) about the Borders people, some of the other knitters we knew, and just the situation in general.  We also met Jan, Rachel, Stacey and Davey (sorry, no pics) who was hilarious, and I helped him tack down a long-ago dropped stitch.  We waited and waited to see buses arrive, but NONE showed up.  We’re not sure whether they were a myth, or they went to the wrong Borders, but we never saw a bus.  By 6:00 it looked like this, and we were feeling a little sad – we wanted to represent, and show those Borders folks that they were idiots.

By 7:00 the seats had mostly filled up – only a few empties.  Stephanie came on at about 7:15, and it was so much fun listening to her.  She of course started off by taking a picture of the crowd with the sock:

We hollered that she missed us, so she did it again (though my shot was blurry, I hope hers isn’t!):

We knitted and listened, and laughed and hollered a good bit.  The listening was made difficult by Borders employees who thought that the coffee bar would be a good place to stand around and talk to each other while Stephanie was talking, so we missed a bit here or there.  I still laughed until my sides hurt!  This was our view for the whole thing – not too bad!

When she was done, they called groups up for the signing by wristband color.  We were the first group, though by the time we got downstairs we were at the end of the line.  No big deal, more time to laugh with new friends.  When it was our turn to meet Stephanie, we got our books signed (one for Sarah too!), and she commented on how gorgeous Kim’s sweater was.  Kim blushed and said thanks.  We all got together for a picture, and she noticed my shawl and commented on it.  I told her it was an Alison Hyde pattern, and she said, “Alison is so lovely!”  I had to agree.  (BTW, Alison, I had several people asking for the pattern last night – perhaps there was a slight jump in book sales at Borders!)  We posed for a picture together and I held “the sock” – I hope Kim’s picture of this is better than mine.  This is my hair and makeup 12 hours after it was done – needless to say there was nothing good left of either!

Behind us in line was Cristi, who was hoping to have Stephanie cut her first steek.  Stephanie politely refused, saying that everyone had to cut their own, but that she would hold her hand and get her through it.  Stephanie held apart the layers of the sweater while Cristi shook and shook, then cut.  She managed just fine.  Then Stephanie said, “Let’s go ahead and cut the back one.”  It wasn’t reinforced yet, but they did it!  Here’s Cristi during and after:

We had such a great time, and I’m so happy that I finally got to meet Stephanie.  And Cristi and Corey and Davey and Dani and May and Aimee and Erin and Jan…  You get the picture.  And next time we’re in Charlotte, we’re definitely hitting Charlotte Yarns.  If they had been open at 10:00 last night, we would have gone then.  It’s probably good they weren’t – I was on such a knitting high there’s no telling what I would have bought!

All of my normal “time off” buddies are out of town this week – no Sarah or Kim to hang out with (Sarah’s cruising and Kim’s visiting family), and even The Queen is out of town, so no Thursday night phone date! I was worried I’d be lonely, but thus far I have survived, and Cindy came over Tuesday to keep me company and give me my first spinning lesson. I’d say it was a disaster, though not the fault of the teacher. It was horribly overspun (The Queen said, “Of course it was. You’re a tight knitter too!”) and really resembled rodent intestines more than yarn. I will have to practice – and read a bit – and watch some videos. Just when you think you’re somewhat coordinated… Cindy promises it will get better.

So #1 is that I spun. Sort of.

2. Had a lovely anniversary (#18!) day trip with my husband.

3. Finished and blocked the shawl.

4. Started and finished 1.5 socks or so.

5. Bought Easter basket stuff for the kids.

6. Had a lovely Easter dinner with family and saw some people I hadn’t seen in 12 years! And made a rockin’ pan of au gratin potatoes!

7. Paid bills.

8. Filled out financial aid application for school – much harder and more painful than it sounds. The FAFSA is a cakewalk compared to this one.

9. Blogged! And learned how to use the new software – mostly.

10. Actually posted something to Ravelry, and pulled a whole bunch of FO pictures to upload when I find time.

11. Made a Sam’s Club run by myself (yes that’s a big deal – it’s very difficult for me to push a 100 lb. cart around and load all that heavy stuff into the car!).

12. Had a long catch-up lunch with a friend – we’ve honestly been trying to get together for lunch or coffee for 4 years now.

13. Caught up on my sleep.

14. Took H to the doctor for a shot.

15. Read 3 books.

16. Finally caught up through the current season of The Office.

When I look at that, it almost looks like I’ve been busy this week. OK, maybe not busy, but certainly not sitting around on my butt the whole time.

What I failed to mention before all of this was that the prior 2 weeks are my worst weeks of the entire year at work – just surviving them without going off the deep end is enough, but having a week off afterwards is priceless!

I tried diligently on Wednesday to move an old post from the old site to the new, and spent over 2 hours trying to make WP understand a paragraph break. I would put them in there, look at the preview, realize I’d missed one, and go back, only to find that it had deleted all of the breaks I had just put in there. Multiply times 6, carry the 1, get the square root and multiply by pi, and you’ll understand why I nearly ripped my hair out, and finally gave up in frustration. Last night I tried again, for at least an hour, before calling in Mark to look at it. He tried, got the same results (I could say I told him but I’ll refrain), and eventually decided it was a Safari problem, and we should try again in Firefox. Which we did, and which worked, but after all of this time, I finished up the one post (picture-intense, of course) and gave up for the night. Eventually I’ll move all of the old posts over, but for now they are just dandy where they are.

So, as previously mentioned, there has been a lot of crap this month. You don’t want to hear about it, I promise. But there has been good as well, so I shall share. We had a visit from Mama E to our LYS for a dyeing workshop. I was graciously invited to dinner Friday night with Mama E, Jo (LYS owner), Kim, and Laura, and we had loads of food, fun, and drinks. I presented Erin with the super-secret socks I had made for her (size 11 – I deserve a prize!), and she was kind enough to get a pic for me.

Saturday was the workshop, and 5 of us learned several different dyeing techniques. Here’s Kim painting one of my favorites.

I was on a pink and brown kick, since I’ve been unable to get different intensities of those colors before, so I dyed one sock yarn in 2 pinks, 2 browns, 2 whites, one sock yarn in 4 pinks, and one skein of laceweight in various browns. I love them all, though the brown does remind me a bit of hair.

We of course had to gather outside (and man was it cold!) for class photos afterward. L to R – Carl, me, Ann, Keri, Erin, and Kim. Then of course there’s the gratuitous “me and Mama E” photo – I had to have one. Of course, she looks great, and I just look like I have no eyes and 3 chins.

We had so much fun. Jo has promised a bus up to MD Sheep and Wool next year so we can visit Erin, who has promised to host us in her studio – I can’t wait!

Other knitting going on – I finally finished the shawl for the school auction (with 2 weeks to spare – yay me!). It’s blocked (the new wires were great, thanks Mom!), the ends are woven in, pictures are taken, and it’s awesome, even if it’s not my colors. Some fair-skinned, blue-eyed blonde is going to look fabulous in it!

L to R – Unblocked, blocking, blocked

The purple and green yarn has been named Grape Ape, and the socks are finished (I couldn’t resist). The base is Knitpicks Merino/Silk Bare, and they feel so good. I wore them 2 days in a row and they didn’t even get baggy.

Good news – the Artfibers Golden Chai has finally decided that it wants to be Artisokka Rose (you can see it on Ravelry). Her site, however, seems to be permanently down, so I emailed her, and she graciously sent me the pattern. It’s the same top as Soleil, but with sleeves (I need sleeves – you do not want to see these upper arms, believe me), and it’s started here.

I’m also working on Mark’s Big BrownSocks, which are finally showing progress. This pic is from yesterday – I’ve done probably 2 more inches since then.

The mitts are stalled for now – I finished up the fingers on #1, but they are too tight. Besides, we’re in the 70′s most days now. The other project currently OTN is the “Mardi Gras” sock yarn that I dyed – it striped up in a very cool manner, and I’m really enjoying watching it develop.

OK, I’m off to shower and enjoy the last day of Spring Break by having lunch with a friend. Have a great week!

Prepster Camouflage – well, the name was obvious. This is prettier balled up than it was in the skein, but it remains to be seen how it looks knitted up.

Unnamed 1 – I should have left more blank space on this. I have a problem leaving negative space, but this yarn would have been so much prettier with a little more white.

Unnamed 2 – This one was an attempt to mimic a colorway I saw named Mississippi Queen. I think we came close, though our chartreuse could have been a little lighter to make it perfect. I let Chemist Kim paint this one, and one of hers, to match. She wants to call it Grapevine, but I’m looking for another name.

Unnamed 3 – This is the kettle-dyed one, which Hayley promptly claimed as her own. This surprised me, as it’s not a color she’d usually choose. It’s slightly darker in person.

Unnamed 4 – This was the last skein of the day, and the colors were chosen by holding together parts of already-dyed skeins to see how the colors went together. We browned up the chartreuse just a bit (a good plan – we loved the result) and went for it. The colorway is one I know Mom would love – it’s definitely got her bright pinks and purples – I’m just not sure how she’d feel about the chartreuse. Kim threatened to hide this one – “yarn? what yarn? I don’t see any yarn!”

A better blogger would run a contest for names, and maybe give away a few skeins, but I don’t think I can part with any of these. I’ll still gladly take suggestions for names though – someone out there has to be more creative than I am!

Here’s Sarah on her second skein – a gorgeous mixed berries-type blend. Sarah was quick to find great color combos that Kim and I hadn’t even dreamed of.

This is Kim on her second skein – purples, vermillion, blue. Kim was once again in her element with the mixing, weighing, cooking – all the chemistry fun!

This is (I think) my second skein. Unfortunately the pink was a seriously hot pink, and the chartreuse was anything but – it was a seriously neon hot lime green. Following the yarn pic is a picture of the colorway I was going for – ended up not even close, but could still be cute. I may call it “Preppy Camouflage”.

Here you can see the wonderful help we received from Bugga and Jammer. Bugga is looking (but not touching in this pic), and Jammer is being somehow held down by Hayley (in the chair). The girls were great, but could not stand having to keep away from the fun.

We wrapped up our yarn into cute little yarn sushi rolls. We steamed some and microwaved others, and in the end really didn’t determine which was better, though the steamed rolls didn’t have to sit in the yucky runoff.

Much of our colorway plan went out the window – the vermillion was so pretty that Kim decided to boil a pot of it, twist up her yarn, and throw it in. I liked the idea too, so I put mine in without quite as much twist. They are the nearly solids that you see at the far right – very yummy, and much easier and less messy than the painting we did the rest of the day.

One of my favorites was the autumn colors you see in the center here – pink, orange, yellow and brown. And then there’s the model – again, not even close.

I’m waiting for all of mine to dry so I can ball it up – or maybe reskein it first to see the gorgeous-ness, then ball it up. I just wish it would hurry up. I can’t wait to do this again – but next time we definitely want to find some lighter colors. Suggestions, anyone?I’ll leave you with a picture of us – I’m calling it “Dyeing Divas”.

Fast forward to 5:41 a.m., when the phone rang and the nice lady on the message told us that school would open at 10:00, but they would evaluate road conditions and make a final call between 8:00 and 8:30. I got up at 8:00, figuring it was time to start getting ready. At about 8:10 the call came – school was closed. I checked the website and saw this message:

OK, maybe I’d better go outside and see how bad this really is – before it all melts.

Oh my – we may need the National Guard. Hopefully they will bring hot chocolate. The best part of all of this is that this is scheduled to be a 4-day weekend – Monday and Tuesday off. I think I can handle going to work tomorrow when I know I’ll have the next 4 days off.

I was wondering what all the noise was, but I wasn’t about to go look.

We have gotten completely back in to crazy, busy life, and I can tell that I’m burning the candle at both ends again – my body is complaining and not cooperating with me. I need to baby it a bit, but I doubt that will happen! Here’s a picture of the ottoman at my “knitting nest” – it will give you an idea of the insanity that is my life.

I got a belated birthday/Christmas package from the Queen, which of course contained yarn, but it also contained a cute felted purse, and it had 2 awfully cute critters to add to my collection – a Navajo sheep, and a qiviut musk ox from Alaska!

I did manage 3 pair of socks in January – one for me, from the Lime & Coconut Bubble Tea in the City Online (yes, that’s really the name),

and matching socks for Kim and Vanna for their birthdays in Aracaunia Ranco – Sweetpea socks for Kim, and similar non-lace for Vanna. I had taken these pics of the socks both naked and in their sock sleeves:

but those just could not hold a candle to the finished socks on their happy recipients:

As Kim is known to frequently say, “Too stinkin’ cute!”

We went on our annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day yarn expedition – this year to Davidson and Matthews, where we visited the Needlework Center and Peace of Yarn. At POY, we had a celebrity-spotting:

Alison’s book! I asked if it was okay to take a picture in the store – the employee wasn’t sure, so Sarah told her, “She knows the author!” and I was allowed to snap the picture. It was very cool to see it in the wild.

Though I certainly didn’t need any yarn, these expeditions as well as my package from Tricia made my January and February acquisition pile look like this:

Out of that, I started a pair of socks with another ball of Ranco, but they quickly became the perfect example of pooling. There was a wide light stripe that would just not move, even after 2″ of sock, so I gave up and ripped it out.

Other current projects include brown socks for Mark, purple/pink Trekking socks for ???, fingerless gloves for Mark, the SeaSilk Michelle shawl for the auction, and a pair of socks for someone visiting next month.

OK, I think that’s nearly everything. I’m off to get the last few drips of hot water (oh, a house full of girls!) and then on to a family shindig.

P.S. – I found a better picture of the Lorna’s Laces sweater. Of course, I didn’t pose for a picture, so it’s not horrible!