Snow Day

Sunday, February 25, 2007

It snowed so much last night. Holy crap! At least 5-6 inches though I haven't been outside to check it out firsthand. Today I'm staying in and working on homework... right after I finish procrastinating and posting here.

I finished Kurt's socks last night!


Specs:
Yarn: Some superwash wool stuff that Jenna gave Kurt to dye when we did our Kool-aid dying. Thanks Jenna!
Needles: Takumi Clover's size US 2.
Pattern: Top-down, french heel, 2x2 ribbing on leg and top of foot.
Gauge: Eh, I don't know. I had a hard time getting the right size on these even though I did two gauge swatches! I ended up with 60 stitches but probably could have gone with 56. They fit nicely because of the rib and it'll allow Kurt to grow into them a little bit.
Notes: Can you see the size of the foot on them!? Kurt's feet are just about the size of mine and very similar: long and narrow. Can't wait to knit him socks when he gets to about a size 10 like his dad was! (Not.)

Oh and here's a picture of one on his foot. He insisted I take it so I'll post it too.




Next project up is the Japanese Feather Socks for me with my Kool-aid dyed yarn. I wrapped it up into a giganto yarn cake last night during Star Wars III. Kurt timed me and said it took an hour and 15 minutes. I thought it was more like 20 minutes! There's just something about winding yarn that's so relaxing, I guess. I know I'm in the minority with my manual-winding but there's just something so satisfying about winding it all up and then pulling that yarn from the middle at first. You know, the whole accomplishment of making something that works. Anyway, here it is with my 7" double-points on top for scale.

Pretty shiny and new in here...

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

So I updated to the new blogger today. So far, so good but my font looks really funky in here so we'll see what it looks like on the page.

Today is going to be my short "love of wool" post. You know, every knit blogger has at least one post where they marvel at the awesome qualities of wool: this is mine.

Kurt and I recently went "camping" with Cub Scouts (don't worry we had nice cozy cabins) and we spent an entire afternoon outdoors the first day we got there. We're talking 3+ hours here when the actual temp. was probably right around 0 degrees and the wind chill at the top of the sledding hill late in the afternoon was definitely below the donut. I had bought us both new snowpants and we both had nice thick wool socks and boots but it's those not-completely-covered areas you worry about: the cheeks, the hands because they're getting snow all over them which melts with your hand warmth and ugh, I was expecting to be freezing my ass off. Not so. My wool socks and boots kept my feet toasty and my down coat kept my body cozy and, surprising the hell out of even wool-lover me, my hands were warm even when the gloves were soaking wet. Wool is so awesome! A couple times I had to unflip my mitten flap to buckle a ski-boot or something for one of the boys and the flap would freeze solid in a couple of minutes but once I popped it back up and my hand warmed the wool it would feel completely cozy again. Whoa. To be a sheep. They must never get cold!

So that's my wool-loving story. It's my attempt to get back into this knit-blogging thing. I have been knitting, of course, just haven't had (made) the time to blog about it.

• I finished the first of Kurt's socks that I'm knitting with his own hand-dyed with Kool-aid yarn and am up to the heel on the second.
  
• I knit almost that whole green sweater in DK weight yarn but I'm going to rip it out. The more I knit it, the more perturbed I am that it IS DK and that I couldn't get gauge for the Gatsby Girl with it. I'll figure something else out. (But the design I made up for the sweater as I went along will probably come back in a worsted incarnation.)
• This weekend I swatched for (aren't you proud, Jenna?) and started Twinkletoes from Knitty. Only in a different gauge, yarn, and color. Hah. Just watch me not follow patterns lately.

Hopefully I'll have (make) some time to post pictures of these projects this weekend. Who knows though, my second round of tests is coming up for this semester. Oy.