Camp Loopy

 

The fourth year of Camp Loopy kicks off June 1.  The project for this first month has to be based on a favorite book, movie or TV show.  I will be knitting Sweet Dreams out of this Hand Maiden Mini Maiden in Ivory with silver lined, clear beads.  My inspiration is Sleeping Beauty, although the dreaming theme could easily work with many different movies and books I’ve enjoyed.  I can start knitting Sunday, so I’ll be winding yarn, getting everything together, and putting the pattern into Knit Companion over the next couple of days.

I know I mentioned that I was going to show you something new yesterday, but it went terribly, terribly wrong.  There was a yarn issue.  The kind of yarn issue that is only whispered about in the back rooms of yarn shops.  I think things are sorted out now, but I’ve got to restart when it’s quiet around here so I don’t make the same bone headed mistake twice.

Have a great weekend!

Yep, It’s Another Pair of Footie Socks

 

Actually it’s just most of the first one so far, it will be a pair though.  I grabbed another stray 50 gram* skein of fingering yarn from my stash and got started on these over the weekend.  All I’ve got left on this one is the heel rise and the ribbing.  These are my mindless, autopilot knitting for now.

Tomorrow I hope to have something new and interesting to show you.  I’ve already had to frog my first attempt at starting it, hopefully things will go better tonight.

*A full pair of socks (regular socks with legs, not footies) takes about 100 grams of fingering weight yarn (men’s socks and larger women’s take more).  Most sock yarn is sold in 100 gram skeins, but some is sold in 50 gram skeins.  The smaller skeins are great for color work or accents, but for some reason, I have several and they don’t really go together, so I don’t think I bought them for color work.  They can be footies.

All Finished!

 

I finished up my Katama Tank the other night and yesterday I got all the ends woven in!  I started this on April Fools’ Day and got a big portion of it finished pretty quickly, but then we had a cold snap and I put it away for a bit.  Now that we’re warming up again, I’ll be able to wear it.

I made the high front version with the racer back. There’s another version also included in the pattern with a more traditional tank shape.  There are also directions for using a second color for the yoke portion.  All the variations can be seen on the Katama Tank pattern page, just scroll down through the pictures.  The pattern was well written and easy to knit and I could see myself doing this one again.  Here’s my project page on Ravelry.

On a completely different topic, Max continues to sleep in his trick bed during the day, and fall off the table every few hours.  He is mostly rolling off the table top, not sliding, which is why I haven’t attempted drawer liner or some other no slip material between him and the bed.  I think I need to tie the bed to the top of the table, but I’m partially afraid that if I take away the element of danger, he might not like the bed anymore.  Cats look for different things in their beds than humans do.  The only thing in his landing zone is a small pile of Vera Bradley bags, and they’re quilted, so he’s got a nice place to land when he does fall.  I figure if he’s that disturbed by the falling bed issue, he would stop sleeping in it.

I got a picture of him last night, sitting in the bed, not falling off.

Resistance is Still Futile

(Just in case you were thinking it wasn’t futile, anymore.)

Yep, more aliens!  Last night I realized that so far, this year’s knitting has been all about repetition.  First there were the Peppercorn bracelets, then came the octopi, now it’s footie socks and aliens.  Oh well, at least I’m amused, right?

In other news, Max has been interesting.  Remember this bed that I made for him?  (The picture is pre-felting.)  I made it before he came to our house so that he wouldn’t see me make it.  (If you’re not familiar with cats, if they realize that you’ve spent time, effort, or money on something for them, they will ignore it and play with the box it came in or something else that was essentially free.)  When he moved in and became our cat I put the bed on our bed.  I figured a king size bed was a nice place for it and he could play in it safely there.  He would occasionally play in it, but he only slept in it once or twice over the last two and a half years.  I tried moving it around some because I figured that he just didn’t like it there.  Well, I was right.  I had set it on a little table next to my knitting chair while I was making the bed and he promptly jumped in it, curled up and went to sleep.  Apparently, he really likes the bed on that table and he naps there every day.

Here’s the interesting part.  Because the bed fits just about perfectly on the top of the table, if Max gets a little roly-poly in the bed, or stretches wrong, or moves around funny, the bed falls off the table.  Max also falls off the table, of course.  Now if you or I were happily asleep in bed and all of a sudden found ourselves laying on the floor with the mattress on top of us, we might consider getting a new bed after the second time it happens.  (I’m willing to count the first instance as user error.)  Max doesn’t think like this though.  Apparently if you’re asleep, and all of a sudden you fall on the floor and your bed falls on top of you, once your mom puts your bed back on the table it sits on, you should climb back in and just go right back to sleep.  This happens at least once a day, every day, and sometimes more than that.  He doesn’t get upset, he doesn’t question whether the bed might be more stable if I put it back on the big bed, he just assumes that this is normal.  Falling out of bed and having the bed fall on top of you is just part of napping and there’s no reason to get upset in his mind.   I appreciate his determination to sleep in the bed and it does make me happy to see him there, but his logic escapes me.  I wouldn’t be sleeping in a bed that dumps me out randomly.  He says it’s no big deal.  I’m thinking of adding some sort of tie so I can attach the bed to the table top, but I’m so impressed with his determination to sleep there and his patience with falling (which is kind of funny), I haven’t decided yet.

I hope you have a great weekend and your bed doesn’t dump you on the floor.  If you serve or served in the armed forces, thank you for your service.  It’s easy to take our rights for granted, but it’s important to remember that people have died to protect them.  Remember our troops.

Socks Done

 

I’ve gotten another pair of footie socks done!  These are knit in Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply in some kind of wasabi green color.  For such cute socks when they’re being worn, they look very funny when they’re flat.  I decided not to get an action shot this morning because I need to shave my legs.  You’re welcome.  These are taking less than 175 yards of fingering weight for my foot size.  I think I could probably take a full sized skein of sock yarn (100 grams), and make a pair of mitts and a pair of footies from the single skein.  Or, I could get a pair of footies out of a single 50 gram skein of sock yarn.  This pattern is going to help me bust some stash!

Resistance is Futile!

 

Mini aliens!  It’s a free pattern and they work up quickly with just a tiny bit of yarn!  I used fingering weight leftovers, doubled for mine.  I’m preparing for the imminent invasion of mini aliens around here!

Another Footie Sock

 

I’ve started another pair of footie socks!  I have a few single 50 gram skeins of fingering weight yarn that I bought for one reason or another (that never happened), and these will be perfect for footie socks.  This yarn is Debbie Bliss Rialto 4 ply.  Here’s the project page.

I might be only blogging sporadically over the next couple of weeks because I have a shawl design on the needles and I’d really like to get the pattern all finished before June.  If I commit to getting it finished, I won’t have as much knitting time for blog-able things so there won’t be very much to feed the blog.  I’ll pop in now and then and show you things when I have them to show, but I don’t want anyone to worry if things go a little quiet around here in the near future.

Oh, and apparently this is the first year that Camp Loopy will have a sewing side.  Details about the sewing version of Camp Loopy will be out today on their blog, if you’re interested.  I don’t know if I will do the sewing and the knitting (and I’m already in on the knitting Camp Loopy), but I am curious how the sewing side of things will go.

Another Pair of Socks!

Friday afternoon I cast on for a pair of Footie Socks.  Yesterday, I finished them!

As a runner, my feet take a lot of abuse.  I also like to run around the house barefoot.  This time of year though, is all about sandals and flip flops, which require a certain level of foot maintenance.  So every night I cover my feet in moisturizers and lotions when I climb into bed.  Then I stick my feet under the covers and get them all over Maximus.  (He’s very soft.)  It occurred to me that if I popped on some footie socks, the lotion would stay where it’s supposed to and not get all over the cat.

I like this footie sock pattern because it doesn’t come up too high on the top of the foot/ankle area, and it has short row shaping to stay on your foot.  (They do stay on, I tested them last night and didn’t have a bit of trouble with them.)  It’s also written for a range of gauges and foot sizes.  Obviously, they also work up pretty quickly!

Here’s my project page if you want more details.  Also, this is what I’m currently using as a foot (and hand) moisturizer before bed and it’s doing an amazing job of making my feet look good.  I’m using the lavender version at night.

Finished!

I finished my stripy socks with the Fish Lips Kiss Heels!  They came out almost totally identical, but the toes didn’t quite match up.  I’m pretty impressed with how similar they did work out, being hand dyed, self striping yarn that was then hand knitted.

I really do like the way the heel worked out, and I will definitely use this one again when I use a short row heel.  I’m not writing any sock patterns at the moment, so I don’t have to figure out whether or not to use this heel or just keep writing with the traditional heel flap at the moment.  If you’d like any other details about these socks (yarn, needle, etc.), here are my Rav notes.

I hope you have a great weekend!

The Katama Tank

 

After last week’s freak cold snap around here, the temps have been much more May-like for the area. It’s time to get my Katama Tank finished up!  I’m just about to divide the front from the back in the next round or two!

This project does move quickly, but I had set it aside while it got cold around here.  Now that I’m almost to the lace section, it should get more fun to knit than the stockinette was.  I don’t mind a project like this (and I do like stockinette stitch), because I can get through the stockinette section while I’m excited about the new project.  Then, when I settle down into the project and it’s a little less exciting, it changes and becomes interesting again (in this case, with the lace yoke section).  I’m easily amused enough that little changes keep me interested in a project!

Stripes!

There are more of them!

 

In other news, if you’re interested in participating in Camp Loopy this summer, the information will be going up on The Loopy Ewe blog later today.  I’ve done this every year they’ve had it and I’m planning on doing it again this year!

One Sock Done!

 

I’ve finished my first sock using the Fish Lips Kiss Heel and as requested, have modeled it on my own foot.  This heel probably fits more like a commercial sock heel than any other hand knit sock heel I’ve made.  I like the heel, it was easy to work and it does fit well and I can see myself using it in my own knitting, but I don’t know that I would design a sock pattern with it.  The designer encourages sock designers to use the heel, but by getting them to the heel portion and then telling them to work the Fish Lips Kiss Heel.  Which means they have to buy the Fish Lips Kiss Heel to work it.  It’s only $1.00 and once you have it, you can use it on thousands of socks.  I have no problem at all paying the designer for figuring this heel out.  What I do have a problem with is selling a sock pattern of my own and then asking the knitter to buy a separate set of directions in order to knit the pattern, even a $1.00 separate set of directions.  I feel, when I buy a pattern, that I should get all the directions required within that pattern.  I’ll have to give it some thought.

In the meantime, I am enjoying the heel, and have started the second sock at the same place in the stripe as the first sock, so hopefully they will match.

Field Trip!

 

Last Friday we took a Field Trip to the Fort Worth Zoo!  Caleb didn’t know about it until Friday morning because Mickael and I wanted to surprise him.  It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed walking around looking at the animals.  I won’t bore you with all the pictures I took, but I will show some of my favorites.

This is one of the baby elephants they have (they have a couple of babies right now).  I think this was Bluebelle.  I just love baby elephants - they’re so cute!  Her mother was doing a good job staying close to her and taking care of her.

These two cracked me up. When we were watching them a helicopter flew over and just as soon as we could hear it, both lions immediately looked up in the sky to find it. Obviously they know where to look for helicopters, it just made me laugh.

This is a salt water crocodile and he just had a great smile. He was also huge and I was glad he couldn’t get to us.

This morning, just to remind me that dangerous animals aren’t only at the zoo, this mama duck and her tiny babies waddled across the sidewalk in front of me on my run. I figured taking a picture would help the authorities identify them when they start causing mayhem and mischief and vandalizing the golf course.  There were at least ten or a dozen babies (I didn’t get a good count), and while they were super cute, we all know ducks aren’t up to any good.

The Babette in Action!

 

Just a quick, drive by blog post today!  It was cold (for April) here yesterday and last night we actually had a frost warning!  Max responded appropriately and bundled up.

Off to the orthodontist this morning!