FO: March Socks

A little late posting these, but yes, I did finish a pair of socks for March.

Pattern: None. Simple stockinette stitch.
Yarn: Elann Espirit (mostly cotton with a little bit of elasticity.) This yarn has been in my stash for a very long time.
Date Started: March 14, 2009
Date Finished: March 31, 2009
Made For: Cheyenne, my niece.

I had other patterns in mind for this month, but they didn’t seem quite right. Since Chey had a birthday coming up in April I decided to knit her a pair of socks.

FO: February Lady Sweater

As mentioned in my previous post, this sweater is finally done. I was waiting on some really beautiful buttons from an Etsy seller before posting pics (thanks Dad for taking the pics!)

The buttons came from Etsy seller Beadfreaky

Pattern: February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Frost, 4 skeins.
Date Started: September 24, 2008
Date Finished: February 28, 2009 (just made my goal of finishing the February Lady Sweater in February! There was also a long time in between where I didn’t work on it at all.)
Mods: I didn’t include the eyelet round and I made the sleeves longer.
Notes: If I were to make this again, I think I would use a lighter yarn. The Malabrigo is gorgeous but may weigh down a little over time. I also made it a little big, blocking it like crazy to fit over my top half. The sleeves are a bit wide and I have a bit of bunching, but I like it.

Time for a blog post

I guess it’s time for a blog update. I have considered getting rid of this blog entirely or just using it for posting finished objects (which is kind of what I’ve been doing for the last few months), but for now it’s staying. A big remodel might be in order though. Most of my problem with posting doesn’t come from having nothing to say – I have lots to say. I’m just not sure it’s stuff I should put out there in the blog world.

Knitting
I have finished objects to post about. I finally finished my February Lady Sweater in February, which was my goal. I started it last September, but there was a big chunk of time in there that I didn’t work on it at all. I got a little bored with the sleeves, which held me up. Now I’ve picked up another sweater I let languish – my Hourglass Sweater. Funnily enough, it is the sleeves on this one that made me put it down. My gauge was correct, but using the needles called for in the pattern produced a really WIDE sleeve. I’m a little person, having sleeves like that would’ve looked ridiculous. So I went down a couple of needle sizes – like four! Plus I’m not going with the bell sleeves because I don’t really like the look of them either. The first sleeve is going okay so far.

Personal Sock Club
I’ve been doing well so far with this. I did knit a pair of socks for January and February. March’s socks have given me some problems. The original plan was to do a pair of socks on two circs, but my friend thought I was taking about Magic Loop so when I asked to borrow size two circs she only gave me one. So Magic Loop it is! Unfortunately this concept is difficult for me. The plan is to knit these socks…but I anticipate it to be a long-term project…so I’m going to cast on for a different pair of socks to finish in March.

RYOB 2009
I signed up for the Read Your Own Books challenge. My goal is to read a total of 35 books this year since last year I read about 27. Well I’ve all ready read 10 books this year so I will probably have to adjust my goal for the year since I seem to be making more of an effort to read and have a bit more time to read.

But the RYOB challenge means reading books I all ready own. I decided I didn’t want to buy any new books this year. Not included in this is any book I get from BookMooch.com since I don’t pay for them or books I buy using Borders Bucks and Gift Cards. And I’ve done well with this. I I bought one or two of the Twilight Series books (hey, I got a brand new copy of the first book from BookMooch!) I just have SO many books though it’s ridiculous. I need to get reading.

I hope you’ve enjoyed that wrap up. I’ll be back soon to post a finished object.

FO: February Rainbow Brite Socks

My goal of a pair of socks each month is going well. Okay, so it’s only February…but still!

Progress Shot.

They look really funny and long because I stuffed them with plastic bags so I could photograph them. They’re for a friend who has much bigger feet than me so I didn’t want to try them on to photograph.

Pattern: A basic, toe-up stockinette stitch. I used the stitch count and instructions for toe and heel from the pattern Express Lane.
Yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Firestorm
Date Started: January 31, 2009
Date Finished: February 19, 2009
Notes: This was my first completed toe-up sock (one of the techniques I wanted to try this year) with a short row toe and heel. So I can cross those techniques off the list too. I named these socks “Rainbow Brite” socks because they reminded me of the colors of my old Rainbow Brite doll when I was a little girl.

FO: January’s Magic Socks

Pattern: Waving Lace Socks from Interweave Knits Favorite Socks.
Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in Blue Parrot colorway.
Date Started:December 31, 2008 (a little bit of a cheat, starting them before January)
Date Finished:January 11, 2008
Notes: This pattern was very easy to knit up and the yarn nice and springy, probably the reason why I had them finished so quickly.

The colors of the yarn are so vibrant and beautiful and I got it into my head that they reminded me of tropical fish. So I went searching for images of tropical fish, but none struck my fancy as coming close to this yarn because it had so many colors. Then I went about looking for something else I could compare my sock colors too and turned to art. I found this wonderful painting, which is how I named my socks. The colors aren’t exactly the same as my sock…but they’re close.

Yarn Eye-Candy Part 2

And here is the yarn from my Webs order.

Blue Sky Alpaca Duotones in Orange on Orange. This is a nice bulky yarn that is probably going to grow up to be a knitted vest. I have this in Green on Green as well, but it didn’t photograph well.

Louisa Harding Grace Hand-dyed in Azure.

Fiesta Pearl Drops in Misty Morning colorway. I’m thinking this will grow up to be a scarf. It’s 100% silk and the yarn has some texture so it can’t be anything too busy.

Yarn Eye Candy – Part 1

It’s been a while since I talked about any yarn purchases – probably because I hadn’t bought any yarn. Well…in the last couple of weeks I placed two orders, one with Little Knits and one with Webs. I had a couple of disappointing days last week so the yarn goodies helped to put a smile on my face.

First up, the Little Knits order. I had a store credit to use and added to my sock yarn stash.

Malabrigo Sock in colorway Ochre. Now, I had a hard time photographing this – it’s more of a mustard color than light yellow shown in the photo. It is, however, so lovely and soft. I can’t wait to knit with it.

Malabrigo Sock in colorway Chocolate Armago.

Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet in Olive in the Garden. I haven’t used this yarn before (or the Malabrigo sock yarn) but I like the feel of it. I really want to cast on with the Malabrigo sock yarn, but have decided to make myself use some of my older sock yarn first. Oh the temptation!

My BookMooch Rant

First, let me say that my rant has nothing to do with the site itself. I love the idea of BookMooch and will continue to use it.

Okay…those of you who know about and use BookMooch – what are acceptable reasons to post negative feedback. For me, the only reason I would post negative feedback (at this point because I guess this is the only scenario I can imagine would annoy me so much) when I get a book that is in worse condition than the sender specifically told me; i.e. I asked them what was wrong with the book and they said it was in good condition and when I get it, it’s all torn up (and not from coming through the post) etc. And yes, I might give negative feedback if someone didn’t answer a gazillion emails – but I can figure one or two might go astray and never make it to the recipient. It would have to be months first though before I would consider this agregious because of the nature of the site. I could just get the book from someone else.

I didn’t get a negative feedback score from someone today (although since the situation has escalated I might have by now), but they did put in the comments that I was a poor communicator who hadn’t answered any of their emails about the condition of the book. When I responded that I didn’t receive any emails inquiring about this my feedback score from this person went down to 0 and they commented that even if I hadn’t gotten the emails, they asked in the original request.

Well I can’t go back and see their original request, but fair enough – I missed it on there. People make mistakes…things get looked over. But I felt like the attitude I was getting from this person was far worse than just a matter of my not telling her the book was in good condition. #1, all of my books are in pretty good condition. I only make a note if there is something wrong with them. #2, why didn’t they cancel the request if they didn’t feel I was giving them the proper attention. And #3 – I found the attitude from the moocher pretty full-on considering the BOOK IS FREE!!! (And it was in good condition.)

I must admit, that I got snarky with my response and it has likely come to negative feedback situation…but frankly, I don’t care. It’s a site where the name of the game is “give and take.” You send books, you request books. Will I accept mooches from this person again – probably not!

January Socks

Okay, so I’m back on the bandwagon with my personal sock club…and I have extra motivation. My friend Michelle (who hasn’t updated her blog for a long time so I’m linking to her Ravelry page instead) is joining me so I have incentive to complete my socks because I see her every week at knit group.

Pattern for January: Waving Lace Socks from IK Favorite Socks
Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in Blue Parrot

Sock #1 is done!

2009 Read Down

The idea is to read books you all ready own. The “rules” can be found over at MizB’s blog.

I want to try and save more money this year and I think this will help since I do buy a lot of my books. The only books that will not count are the ones I get from Book Mooch since I’m not paying for them. I realized that I read 27 books in 2008 so I’m setting my goal at 35 books at least for 2009.