Knitamazoo(tm)

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last blogged. I’ve just been so busy with work and biking lately that the computer has moved lower on the list of priorities. So what have I been up to? Let’s see . . . biking! As of today, we have biked 16.7 miles for the week and 28.4 for the year. Not bad for two novice riders. We did 6.7 this afternoon as it was sunny, warm and just perfect! Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain so that will be a knitting day.

Speaking of knitting, I’m sure I’ve finished up some stuff since I last posted. Let’s see, I finished the mate to my ankle socks and that’s about it. I started my toe-up sock class this past Tuesday. The figure 8 cast-on tried to kick my butt, but (heehee!) I finally conquered it and here is the result of my perserverance. I used Schaffer yarn’s Lola on size 5 circs. The color is accurate here and you can see my perrenials coming up in the background. Hooray for spring! I’ll be casting on for the second sock tonight so I can work on it during the hockey game tonight. (Go Wings!)

I love this yarn so much (it’s 100% merino wool - superwash!) that I just had to add another hank to my growing stash. Since it’s a DK weight these socks knit up super fast. Gotta love that instant gratification! I also went out and bought a 3-drawer plastic bin on wheels to help store my growing yarn collection. (I think the yarn multiplies on it’s own but my wallet says otherwise.)

So I emptied out a basket that had yarn in it and now it’s filled with something else. He’s just too cute!

(Now if he would only stay in the basket and off my chair I’d be super happy. Bad kitty!)

Not sure if those two things go together or not but here goes. First the whineing. I’m back on moves/removes at work (til the end of this week thank goodness!). This morning when I get to work at 8:30 I open up my inbox and notice two moves for today that weren’t there on Friday. These moves were from the farms (about 15 minutes away) to our downtown campus and were scheduled to start at 9am. Since the move coordinator was so on the ball, I had to print out my tickets quickly and hit the road to get there in time. I found the building without too much trouble and was pleased to see that I only had to move two laptops and two flat-panel monitors (much better than the 21″ monitors I had to move last week, but that’s another whine). I get the stuff downtown and get in the vomit inducing elevator. I find the new office easily and start hooking everything up. First workstation went great. Second one was fine until I went to plug the power strip in. Can’t find the outlet, it must be behind the desk. So I call the move coordinator. She says to hang on she’ll make a call. She calls me back and tells me to wait for someone to come move the desk for me. Wait? Is she kidding? I have better things to do than to wait for someone to come and move a desk. Besides all they have to do is move the desk and plug in the power strip. Hardly something they would need my technological savvy for. But she insists that I wait. So I wait for 5 minutes. Noone has shown up yet (but I didn’t really expect anyone so soon) so I go over and yank really hard on the desk and it moves. Cool! I get it about 10″ from the wall and then I lay across the desk and reach down and plug in the power strip. I pushed the desk back into place and left. Just call me She-Ra or Xena or some other powerful superwoman!

In sock news, I’ve been working on socks for my hubby’s birthday which is next month this Wednesday. I may have one done if I’m lucky. I’ve tried a couple of different heels on it and have ripped it out several times. I’ve finally settled on a traditional heel flap and am working on the gusset decreases. I’ve been more interested in working on the ankle socks I’m making with Cascade Fixation. They are quick and comfortable. I did a short row heel and toe ala Wendy Johnson. She so kindly gave me permission to post my pattern using her heel and toe directions which I re-worded a bit. So if you’d like to knit these fun ankle socks, click the Free Patterns link on the sidebar. Right now they are the only free pattern but I’d like to put more up in the future. (It’s a pdf file so you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it.)

That’s it from my little corner of the world I like to call Eternally Winter. (It better warm up soon so I can ride my bike!)

I’m such a bad blogger. Let me count the ways.

One - It’s been entirely too long since I last blogged. But I do have an excuse. I’m usually pretty busy most evenings so I would use some of my down time at work to update the blog. I used to have a lot more down time than I do now but that is not the problem. We were told last Thursday that our internet usage is being monitored to be sure there isn’t too much downtime. If they find we’re surfing too much then they figure there isn’t enough work and people will be let go. So no more blogging, no more knitty chat, no more surfing when I have down time. One nice thing . . . my cubicle is the last one and well hidden from most everything else in the shop so I get to knit a little on my downtime!

Two - My SP sent me a lovely package over a week ago and I haven’t blogged about it yet. I uploaded the picture but haven’t said a word about it. I am so sorry my wonderful SP. She/he has been a wonderful SP! There was an adorable decorative plate with kittens on it, sock patterns, coffee, a kitty picture frame, very cute bunny spikes for my garden and two skeins of wool for felting. Oh how spoiled I am! And my SP claims that my last package is even better. I don’t know if I can wait!

No bike riding for us lately. It’s been way too cold and it doesn’t seem to be getting any warmer either. But that means more time to knit. I’m working on a pair of socks for my hubby’s birthday next week. I also have a pair of lace socks of my own design on the needles. I’m going to submit that pattern to be published as well if I ever get it finished. Speaking of my pattern, I gave my final approval yesterday so it should be in my LYS by the end of the week. I will be providing a link on my sidebar to my LYS’s webpage where you will be able to use PayPal and download a PDF of the pattern. So stay tuned!

Wow! I haven’t had this much to say in quite a long time. I have no idea where to even start. I guess maybe I should start with the most awesome news I received today. My very first pattern ever is going to be published!! It’s all rather surreal right now. I’m so excited about it! It’s a sock pattern done on 2 circs called Carribbean Twist. I used Koigu KPPPM in this lucious blue that just made me think of the warm, blue Carribbean waters. Kelly at the LYS did the test knit for me and we’ve tweaked the pattern just a bit. I’ll let you all know when it actually gets published and printed.

We did quite a bit this weekend. Saturday afternoon was sunny and warm so we packed up the bikes and headed for the Celery Flats. (Kalamazoo was the place to grow celery back in the day.) Before we knew it we were approaching the bridge that goes up and over one of the roads here in town about 1.5 miles from where we started. I was behind my hubby and started to build up some speed to make it up the hill when he takes a sharp right down a little trail that goes to the creek. I manage to follow him but the trail makes another very sharp right and I lost it. I went right off the trail and fell over. I’m still sore from that fall and I totally blame hubby. (I’m sure he’s trying to kill me.) We ended up turning around anyway as the trail was flooded a little further along. We had to backtrack a bit to get the speed up to go over the bridge. All in all, we ended up riding 7 miles Saturday afternoon. (I didn’t think I had any bones in my butt, but I found them on this ride!)

Sunday we took a trip to Lansing. We stopped in at Moosejaw which is a sporting goods store. We ordered the bike rack for our SUV through them so we had to take a little trip over to check them out. The store in Lansing is small but was pretty nice. We ended up buying 2 camel packs for the longer bike trips we plan on taking. (Like 7 miles isn’t far enough.) We also stopped in at Threadbear’s. Yarn overload! This store was the largest yarn store I’ve ever been in. I ended up walking out with 2 hanks of Koigu KPM and that was it. It was so overwhelming! (Pictures to be included in this weekend’s Flash Your Stash.)

And finally, yesterday. My mental health day. I got 3 loads of laundry done in the morning and then spent the afternoon knitting and chatting at my LYS. I’ve never been able to do that and it was a lot of fun. I think I need more mental health days. (Especially now that the cold and snow are back. Yuck!)

In fact I’m almost sure of it. As you may (or may not) know, hubby and I purchased bikes a week ago. It’s been blasted cold ever since we bought them so riding has been out of the question. Yesterday wasn’t too bad though. Temps were hovering around 50F and the sun was in and out. So when we got home from work we saddled up and took our first real ride. Now I haven’t been on a bike since I was oh, I don’t know, let’s just say it’s been a mighty long time. Hubby has been telling me that he isn’t out of shape, he just doesn’t have any shape. So I’m thinking maybe we’ll go around the block a couple of times, one maybe one and a half miles max. Oh no, hubby keeps going down other streets and leading me further and further from home. By the time we got back, we had gone 100 3 miles!! Our first ride! My legs were like jello, I had to blow my nose so bad, and I could have sworn I was never going to get my underwear out of places it should not be. After I got inside, blew my nose and manged to extract said underwear, I felt pretty good. It’s supposed to be really nice this weekend so we plan on doing some more riding. But I’ve warned hubby that we need to build up our butt leg muscles slowly and not try to bike across the state quite yet.

No ride tonight though, it’s knit night for me. I’m excited because I’ve finished writing out my sock pattern and sock #1 is all knitted. I am in love with how this Koigu KPPPM colorway (P850) knitted up. I hope to have a picture up soon. It was so much fun to watch how the blues and purples all swirled together as I knit. I can’t wait to show it off tonight. I’m going to wait to do sock number 2 for a little bit yet. I spent so much time knitting and re-knitting this one that I need a break from it. So this morning I cast on 2 socks on 2 circs and am going to try my hand at some short-row heels on this pair. I was able to get the cast on before I had to leave for work but they’re not even joined yet. Of course I blame that on the fact that I had to wind both hanks of yarn before I could cast on. I just don’t understand why my cats couldn’t have had that all done for me. They knew I wanted to do this and the least they could do was get everything ready for me so I could start right away. Lazy critters!

and it’s leaving me behind. Things can get so busy at work that I barely have time to breathe let alone add a post to my blog. And then when I get home I have no desire to even look at my computer. I’ve been doing it all day long for crying out loud. And besides, I want to knit. So while I have a quick moment of quiet at work I’ll try to update you all on what’s happening in my small corner of the world.

Not much actually. I was sick all weekend so I really didn’t do all that much. I did work on my sock pattern for awhile and actually did a little something with my genealogy (my other passion that has dimmed since I learned to knit). I did end up ripping my sock out at knit group. Kelly was a little disappointed but she didn’t give me quite the reaction I thought she would. I’m now right back where I was on Thursday night and might even be a little further. I have a few more gusset decreases and then it’s on down the foot.

It’s starting to warm up a little around here. They are calling for a high of 45F today and the sun is shining. We should be in the 60’s by the weekend and I’m hoping the rain will hold off so we can ride our bikes a little.

I’ve also taken this coming Monday off from work for a “mental health” day. I really need it. I thought hard about taking this Friday off, but Friday’s are generally slow and I get to wear jeans and be comfortable. I’d rather take off on Monday when it’s usually busier. I plan on hanging out at my LYS and knitting for several hours. I’ve not done that yet and I’m really looking forward to just hanging out.

Well that’s it. My life is so boring.

I can’t wait for spring to get here! What I’m really looking for is the warmer temperatures. You see we just purchased brand new bikes, helmets and a bike rack for our SUV and I’m dying to ride. In fact I want to ride so badly that when we brought them home last night, we donned our helmets and took a spin around the block despite the freezing temps. They were calling for ice and snow last night but we got pretty lucky. Last night that is. As I walked out of the building to go to lunch, it was snowing (mixed with a little freezing rain for good measure.) But I was just looking at next week’s forcast and they are calling for temps in the 50’s. So maybe, just maybe we’ll be able to get out and ride a little. I choose the Trek 7300 with the lowbar in a really nice blue. Sorry the picture quality isn’t better. I wish I had taken pictures outside but I was frozen. So here is a picture of my bike in my living room. And no, I didn’t get a picture of hubby’s bike. I promise better pictures when the sun is out and we can ride.

Let’s see . . . this is a knitting blog, last I checked anyway, so I suppose I should include some knitting content. I actually haven’t been doing a whole lot of knitting lately. In fact last night I sat down and started typing up the sock pattern I’m designing. I’m almost done with the gusset on the sock but I think I’m going to rip it out and make the smaller size for myself. But at least I know the larger size works in some crazy, odd sort of way. (Don’t ask.) I’ve even come up with a name for the socks, but my lips are sealed. It will probably kill Kelly (she taught our socks on circs class) when I rip this sock out tonight at knit group. Maybe I should swing by home first so I can grab my camera to get the look on her face when she sees me frogging it. She just might croak!

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.

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.