Knitamazoo(tm)

Well I think I finally have my new blog up and running. It’s been driving me totally insane. I just hope when I import my stuff from Blogger I don’t blow this one up. Of course, since I’ve installed it 50 million times twice now I should be an expert.

And here is the promised picture of my latest pair of socks. These were done in Grignasco Strong Print on size 2 Addi Turbos. The yarn is quite soft and feels wonderful as you’re knitting it. If I used this yarn again I would use a smaller needle size for a tighter fabric. But they are quite comfy and don’t they match my sweatpants quite well?

So I’m off to try importing my old blog. I’ve got my toes crossed!

So I have no creative or even vaguely descriptive title for this post. Brain. Fried. Too much studying for my A+ certification. But I won’t bore you with all of that.

I finished another pair of socks over the weekend. No, I don’t have a picture yet. I was going to do it last night but not only did I manage to forget to do that, I also managed to forget that the knitting guild was meeting as well. You see, I had to pick my brother up at the airport and his flight kept getting delayed. So I was a little distracted. Really. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

In other knitting news, I cast on with my new Koigu KPPPM Sunday night for what I’m calling my Mystery Socks. I’m actually trying to figure out how to use a particular lace pattern for these socks and it’s driving me batty. Maybe I should rename them the lunatic socks or something. I’m thinking that if I can get this to work I may submit the pattern to Knitty. If not, I will offer the pattern here for sure. But I have to get it to work first. (And at the rate I’m going I may be dead before I figure it out.) If you see the guys carrying the straight jacket and keys to the padded room, send them my way. Thanks.

They gave me another laptop that needed the motherboard replaced yesterday. I had the thing broken down, installed and put back together in an hour and a half. A huge improvement in time over the first one I did. Plugged it in and booted it up . . . and walla . . . it worked! It didn’t fix the problem we were hoping it would fix but at least I swapped out the motherboard successfully for a second time.

Now that I’ve impressed you with my technical skills let me unimpress you with my everyday living skills. Yesterday morning I was on my way out the door to go to work. I grabbed my purse, knitting bag, put on my coat, walked out the door, stepped off the stoop and realized . . . my keys were still hanging on the wall by the door. DOH! I had opened the garage so I was able to put my stuff in the car and I tried calling hubby’s cell phone. No answer (apparently he doesn’t get a signal in his office . . . the jury’s still out on whether that’s true or not) so I had to call one of my co-workers to look up his office number since it wasn’t programmed into my cell phone. So 5 minutes later I get hubby on the phone and tell him he has to come home to let me in to get my keys. Another 25 minutes goes by before he gets home and I’m a frozen popsicle. So now I have a spare key in my purse so as long as I remember to take that with me I’m golden.

In knitting news, I went to knitting group last night and there were only four of us. We had strong winds, thunderstorms and were under a tornado watch so I think people just decided to stay at home. But we had a good time and I got almost done with the heel flap on my disco sock. I signed up for our instructor’s toe up class last night. She was so nice and only charged me for 2 sessions since I’ll be at Phantom the night of the last class. She said I would only need the 2 classes anyway. And of course I couldn’t walk out of there without buying more sock yarn. First we have this lovely Mountain Colors in the Painted Rock colorway. I can’t wait to see how this knits up! The colors are so luscious and the yarn is soft! I also broke down and bought some more Koigu. This time I picked a much brighter color than I have in the past and I’m really excited about it. I love blue and I think this will look great with jeans.

Have a fantabulous Friday and a wonderful weekend whatever you may be doing! I’m sure I’ll be cranking out more socks.

What a day it’s been. They handed me an IBM Thinkpad T40 laptop and asked me to replace the motherboard. YIKES! I’ve built a couple of desktop computers but have never done anything hardware related on a laptop. So I sat down, got out cups to hold all the little screws, set out the screwdrivers, took a deep breath and dove in. An hour an a half later I had about 12 cups with little screws in them and a completely dismantled laptop. I took a short lunch break and came back to put in the new motherboard and put it all back together. After 2 hours I had it all put back together with no extra screws. Now for the big test . . . will it boot up. I took it to the bench, plugged it in, took another deep breath and turned it on. AND IT BOOTED UP!! I about screamed. So I’m pretty proud of myself right now.

In knitting news, here is the long promised picture of the finished felted booga bag. The colors in this picture are pretty close seeing as there was no good natural light available. I love this bag and it’s become my newest bag to carry around my socks in progress.

Speaking of socks, I’ve got two pair going. One pair is a little over half done. I haven’t decided what to call them yet but here they are. The yarn (which I can’t remember what it is) is very soft. These will be nice warm, comfy socks.

I’m also working on my disco socks. I really like the subtle sparkles in the yarn. So I continue on in my sock knitting madness.

They are calling for an ice storm, snow and high winds here tomorrow. Too bad that I live so close to work. If I lived a little farther away I could call in and say I can’t make it and knit all day. But maybe that will mean it will be a slow day. I just hope that things clear up so we don’t have to cancel our knitting group tomorrow night. I had to miss last week due to a migraine.

Well that’s about all from my little corner of the mitten. Here’s a really cute kitty for you to ohh and ahh over.

I’ve been so busy this week that I haven’t had a chance to breathe let alone post on my blog. I feel terrible that I haven’t gotten around to boasting about how wonderful my SP is so here we go!

I got my first SP package this past Saturday and all I can say is WOW! She blew me away with her first package. There was a lovely letter explaining everything in the package, Spongebob stickers, hot chocolate, point protectors, folding scissors, gorgeous buttons, a lovely heart shaped box, dark chocolate Kisses, Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls and yummy yarn!

My SP’s 79 year old mother handmade the dolls and I absolutely adore them! I’m not sure where I will display them yet but I want it to be someplace special. Right now they are sitting right next to my knitting chair so I see them everytime I knit.

She also sent some wonderful yarn. I’m excited to try the Andean Silk Twist from KnitPicks. I’ve looked at this yarn online but just haven’t gotten around to trying it yet so now’s my chance. The red brushed alpaca is so very soft. I just want to cuddle with it all the time. And the sock yarn . . . oh the sock yarn! It’s Trekking and it’s so gorgous I can hardly stand it! I’ve been toying with the idea of putting the socks I’m working on now on holders and knitting this stuff up. Decisions, decisions . . . what’s a girl to do? And then to make matters even worse, there’s the sock yarn that I bought last week at my class. This sparkly disco yarn is just taunting me from my basket. But I can’t seem to get it to shut-up. It just keeps calling me. I can’t get the voices out of my head.

So . . . to try to quiet the sock monster I knit up another booga bag this weekend. The picture I have here is the almost finished bag. I finished knitting it Sunday night and felted it Monday night. It is now dry and I’m using it today. No picture of the completed bag yet but hopefully soon. In the meantime here is the semi-finished bag. I can’t remember which Noro Kureyon color this is but I’ll try to post that info when I put up the new picture.

Well kids, it’s time for me to shut down the computer and go home for the day. Knit on!

I’m finally done with all the moves/removes at work! YIPPEE!! Now I don’t have to worry about that again until the end of March. Hopefully by then most of the moves will be handled by the techs on the different campuses (our company is really spread out here) and we will only have to be responsible for moves between campuses which don’t happen as often. So we shall see.

I’m in a quandary with my socks right now. I started one with some lovely Lang Jawoll that my first SP sent me. I was doing a plain sock and it just looked, well, boring. It didn’t excite me in the least. So I ripped it back to the ribbing and started these Jaywalker socks from MagKnits. I like the pattern but just not in the yarn I’m using. So now I’m thinking of totally frogging them and doing the Lava Socks (or maybe even the Sheri’s Lace socks) from Sockbug. I love this yarn but it seems to need some kind of pattern to really show it off. Maybe I’ll just try ripping back to the ribbing (again) and then decreasing to the amount of stitches I need. I’m going to have to ruminate on this for awhile I think.

At our last class on Wednesday night, our teacher tempted us by tossing out several 100g skeins of Schoeller and Stahl Fortissima Colori Disco in various shades. The yarn has sparkles in it! Who can resist something that sparkles? I couldn’t and picked up a skein for myself. I haven’t taken a picture yet, but maybe I’ll get to it this weekend and post a little Monday yarn pr0n.

Well that’s it from my little corner of the universe. Happy knitting!