Of Mice and Knits

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Mice in the kitchen this week at work. Can you come in on a Monday morning to anything more gross? Well yes, if it had been cockroaches I would have turned around and walked right out. But still, mice. Ew.

The semester is over and there is much rejoicing! Including a dinner out and a trip to the yarn store with Jenna last night! But neither of us found anything we wanted to buy despite the immense amount of time we tried and the sales. The sales are good but not good enough to buy yarn we don't need. Gasp, I know.

With the semester over though (and tests completed, I think I got two B's and two A's for my four classes) I've already gotten a chunk of knitting time in. Tuesday evening I finished my mom's Christmas socks...



and started my sister's socks.



The yarn I was so desperately hoping to find last night was sock yarn for my Grandma's Christmas socks. This is the Grandma that buys all the kids and grandkids socks every year for Christmas and she totally deserves a pair of handknit socks every year for Christmas. Even though she's using the ones I knit her last year as slippers. I think it's because they're wool and so warm. So I was on the lookout for some cotton sock yarn but it was all ugly. Then I would have given up and bought some Mountain Colors Bearfoot for her but they didn't have any in colors she would like, just reds, which I had to restrain myself from buying because I love it.

Jenna even offered up anything from her stash but I couldn't decide and wasn't sure what would be best and then I got all indecision-like about what pattern to use. So I decided to just hand dye the dye-your-own yarn I still have laying around from Knitpicks. I got some Kool-aid from the store, Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, and I dunked the wool in some water and prepared to start tearing open Kool-aid packets when I remembered: it's hand wash only. Shit! I don't want to do that to my Grandma. She needs the ease of wash n' go. So I hopped on the internet and ended up ordering some Regia Cotton Plus in a jeans colorway and next-day shipped it. Or I think I next-day shipped it and we'll find out if it doesn't show up in the next few days.

So post-purchase, tell me: is Regia Cotton Plus any good? I've never felt it so I don't know if it's as soft as I've been reading and I've never heard of anyone using it but it seems like a good deal: it has wool and it has cotton and I like that idea. If it sucks I might have to take Jenna up on the offer of buying her Cherry Tree Hill and get knitting.

Last weekend I also overdyed my other Kool-aid dyed yarn but I'll show pictures of that later on rather than make one gigantic post today.