Knitamazoo(tm)

It totally amazes me how one day you can be perfectly fine, going about your business and then the next . . . whamo! you have a major allergy attack. This is the story of my life. I was doing fine this past weekend except for a sinus headache. That should have been my first clue. Monday morning dawned like any other day but by the time I got to work my allergies had hit with a vengence. My nose is so red from blowing it yesterday that I look like Bozo the clown. At least I remembered to bring in more Puffs Plus to work with me this morning.

Well, Clapotis II is now the bane of my existence. I was working on it Sunday getting very excited that I was getting so close to the end when I realized that I was not going to have enough yarn. Since I purchased said yarn over 2 years ago, my chances of securing another hank of the same color in the same dye lot are about 1 in a bajillion. When I purchased the yarn I noticed that I had way more yardage than the pattern called for. I figured I could add some length to my Clapotis and happily set off. Now I’m short and will have to frog the entire thing. It’s been shoved into a plastic grocery bag I’m so mad at it right now. (I don’t want to hear how it was my fault that I misjudged the amount of yarn I had and not the fault of the Clapotis . . . it will always be the knitting’s fault!)

In other knitting news, I was so mad Sunday that I wound up my Socks that Rock and started some Coriolis socks for myself. I am totally in love with this yarn! It really does rock! My only issue right now is that I didn’t realize I needed to do a different toe if I wanted the Coriolis to spiral all the way up the leg of the sock. So I have to rip back the toe and start again. At least I know my stitch and row gauge, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Now for the turkey. The hubster decided that he wanted to try some turkey burgers (eating healthier, less fat, blah, blah, blah) so he bought some at the store. He took them out of the freezer on Saturday and wrapped up two to put back in and wrapped two to defrost. He set them on the counter for about half an hour to get the defrosting started before putting them in the fridge. When he went back to the kitchen, he found them on the floor and one of them was more than half eaten. There were only two suspects and one was eliminated when he was the only cat begging to be fed at dinner time. Here is the mug shot of the infamous Turkey Burgler.

Well I managed to take some quick pictures this morning and get them uploaded so I could post them as promised. Aren’t you proud of me??

First up, Clappy 2. I can’t believe that it’s been almost 2 years since I started this! It has sat in my knitting basket for such a long time it must have felt so unloved. Well no longer! I just keep knitting and knitting and knitting on it. I’ve got this great urge to finish it for some reason. Here it is reclining on my kitchen counter. (Hey I just cleaned it last night and I have decent lighting in the kitchen.) I think I’ve dropped about 8 or 9 stitches so far. I was cruising along last night and was about to drop another stitch when I discovered that I have messed up the end of row 6. So tonight I’ll be tinking back row 7 so I can fix the very end of row 6. I just didn’t feel like dealing with it last night.

Next up are the socks I finished for the hubster. He says they are a little short in the foot and I’m hoping that they stretch out a bit. I don’t remember what yarn I used for these and I can’t find the ball band. He says they are really soft though and he is happy to have 2 pairs of socks to wear when he watches football.

I also went ahead and cast on for another pair of socks for him. (I don’t know what he did to deserve so many hand knit socks from me.) For these I am using Lana Grossa Meilenweit Tweed and following Cat Bordhi’s master Sidestream pattern from her new book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters. I did my Stitch ‘n Pitch socks in this pattern and love them! Here are the hubster’s socks in their infancy.

Again, I fail at blogging. It has been over a month now since my last post. Well let’s see if I can get caught up.

September 3, 2007 - Labor Day. Finally a day off of work! We didn’t go camping this weekend either which was nice. I had grand plans of knitting all day on Monday to finish my socks for the Detroit Stitch ‘n Pitch the following Sunday. One sock was complete and the second one was started. Hubby and I had decided to torture bathe the cats that morning in an effort to improve my allergy situation. We grabbed fatty first and made it all the way through to the final rinse before he became cranky. So cranky in fact that as soon as my hand got a little too close to his mouth . . . he bit. Not just a little bite to let me know he was unhappy . . . but a bite that made me scream. Loud. Very loud. So loud, I’m surprised that neighbors didn’t call 911. I cleaned the wounds really, really well and began to ice it down as it swelled up considerably. I probably should have gone to the ER but . . . I’m stubborn and figured I’d watch it for signs of infection. The wounds never did get infected and the swelling finally went down but about 2 weeks after the fact my finger swelled up again and I ended up going to the doctor on my anniversary. So now I’m on giant antibiotic pills and it has really improved. The doctor said the tendon was infected. Stupid cat!

So we did nothing special for our 11th anniversary except spend over $100 on doctors and drugs. I didn’t get to knit on Labor Day but I did manage to finish my socks for the Stitch ‘n Pitch. I had a lot of fun! We made one stop on the way over to Detroit and I figured that it was a good time to snap a picture of our bus. I took out my camera, turned it on and . . . no memory card! So I have no pictures of that trip at all.

This past weekend I finally finished up another pair of socks for the hubster. I haven’t snapped a pic yet. I’ve also started searching through my basket and pulling out things that have been languishing forever. I’ve picked up my second Clapotis and have made great strides in finishing it. I have 4 more 12 row repeats for the third section and then the final section. I’m well over 1/2 way and hope to finish it soon.

I did start another pair of socks for the hubster using Cat Bordhi’s Sidestream sockitecture from her new book. I love this book! I used this same master pattern to do my Stitch ‘n Pitch socks and they are so comfortable! I’m trying not to start too many things right now. I seem to be on a finishing kick. Hopefully this will last awhile and I can clear out my basket and save a little money in not buying yarn for new projects.

Well that’s pretty much it. I’ll try to get pictures taken soon and posted up so you can see my projects. Happy knitting!