From socks to novels...

So, you already know that October was Socktoberfest, and I was big into the sock knitting. Not only did I finish a pair I'd started in September as well as started AND finished the Socktoberfest Mystery Sock pair all in the self-same month, but I also started a pair of Halloween Riffs, which I finished just under the wire on Sunday night:

Woolen Mill St. Yarns, Superwash Merino, "Jack the Pumpkin King" colorway.

Sadly, they ended up being a bit too big for me, mostly in the heel (which is not snug like a normal slipped stitch heel, as they zigzag pattern is worked on the heel itself as well). But, as it turns out, they fit Emma perfectly, so she got an "accidental" new pair of socks!

I not only finished the month with three pair of socks, but the kids threw a wonderful Halloween party Saturday night for a bunch of their friends. It was great. My kids' friends are a really nice bunch, and though it was L-O-U-D here for several hours, they had a terrific time! So did I, because I dressed up, too.

My punk rocker look. ;) (And, yo, the purple highlights in the hair? F'real. I got them the day before because I've always wanted purple highlights and I figured if not now, when? LOL I love them!)

And I made cookies! I think decorating cookies for Halloween may be even more fun than my usual Christmas cookies.

And so now we usher in November, going from manically knitting socks to manically writing words. It is National Novel Writing Month, after all. This is the fifth time I've given NaNoWriMo a try. The goal is to complete a 50,000 word rough draft of a novel in a month. I've succeeded twice before. We'll see how I fare this year. Emma is doing it again this year too, so we're encouraging each along. Happily, I report that as of the end of Day 2, we are both on track with our words per day goals. (I've got my little word count calendar up at the top of the blog there...you can follow along and see how I'm doing. As long as no red days show up, any other color means I'm doing well!)

In addition to writing, though, I'm going to be in full on gift knitting mode this month. I started a new pair of gift socks yesterday...

This is the Spring Wind pattern, by Laura Linneman. It's written for a sport weight yarn, which means it is going to be a fairly quick knit. I'm using Enchanted Knoll Farms sport weight in the "Red Dirt Girl" colorway.

I'm also working away at my hand spun test knit sweater. It's going well, except for the fact that it is being knit on US 10.5 needles, which feel like tree trunks in my hands. But it should go fairly quickly since it is such a large gauge. So far, I'm happy with how my handspun is looking. Still crossing my fingers and hoping I have enough to finish it!

I haven't had time to work on my Caldavos anymore, and the other pair of socks I have on the needles were supposed to be for Emma, but since she just got those Riffs, I told her she was going to wait a bit for the purple ones. I'm going to focus on Christmas knitting for now. I really need to make a list of what all I need to knit for gifts. I know what they all are in my head, but somehow seeing them on paper always works out better.

And just for fun, let me share some recent yarn-y goodness I've gotten...

Some limited edition Briar Rose Fibers 100% cashmere, colorway #101. Oh my...this is so, so soft and yummy. It is going to be something pretty for me as soon as I have time to knit for myself. Probably a cowl, I'm thinking.

And here is something fun...

...some Twisted Limone Spicy self-striping sock yarn in the Sizzle colorway. Laura and Leslie -- The Knitgirllls -- have turned me on to this yarn. It's become one of those hard-to-get yarns that a lot of people are stalking. I'm happy to have snagged this ball at all, and check it out...

...it comes all the way from the UK! How fun is that to get a delivery with a "Royal Mail" postage mark on it??

Finished Mystery Socks

It's as the title states, so you've been warned. If you're knitting them and don't want to see what they look like when they're done, skip this post.

/spoiler alert

Ok, so the last clue came out last night shortly after midnight. I printed it out directly, with plans to take the socks with me to my hair appointment today and finish them there. Inexplicably, the next thing I knew, I was sitting in the living room at 1:30 a.m., kitchenering the toe of the second sock. I couldn't not finish them last night. And so they are done! Before the end of Socktober! I'm way more pleased about that than I should be, I think. :}

2010 Soctoberfest Mystery Sock; pattern by Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loops; yarn by Needle Food, merino/nylon, Berry Fruits colorway.

Here's my project page on Rav, though I made no modifications to the pattern, which is rather odd for me.

Photos cropped in such a way as to minimize, as much as possible, the amount of late-fall pastiness visible on my legs. :P And thank you, depth of field, for adequately camouflaging the fact that I really should have shaved my legs before this photo shoot. (Sorry. TMI? LOL)

It's a shame that Needle Food, which was based in New Zealand, is no longer in operation. Their colorways were fabulous. I have one more skein of their sock yarn in my stash in Plumberry Ambrosia (a purple/green/blue colorway). I think I will hold onto it and savor it for a while.

Down to the wire...

Socktoberfest is quickly coming to a close, and as I'm waiting for the last clue for the Mystery Sock to be posted at (or around?) midnight Friday, I thought I'd take these moments to post a catch-up blog entry. I'll start with my mystery sock progress...

This is what it looks like after Clue #4. I've since finished the second sock up to this point as well. This marks a coup for me in this Socktoberfest Mystery Sock knitting challenge. In both of the past two years, I went gung ho on clues 1 - 3, but then when I got to the foot clue -- which always feels like the longest part of the sock to me -- I've petered out completely. I didn't finish my 2008 mystery socks until March 2009, and I didn't finish the 2009 pair until February of 2010. That I am on track to finish the 2010 pair not only IN 2010, but within the month of (S)ocktober, well, it's just a miracle! It's a Socktoberfest miracle! ;)

In other sock knitting, I'm still on the gusset increases on my second Riff sock, but I remain optimistic that I will also finish that sock before midnight on Sunday as well.

All of this tiny sock needle knitting is starting to get to my hands a little (ever since I've learned to knit continental when doing socks, I find my hands stay very tense as I knit, I think due to the tensioning needs of the finer gauge yarn), so I decided to cast on another project using US8s.

This is the start of the Caldavos cardigan, pattern by Thea Colman. Can I say that Thea is quickly becoming one of my favorite designers? I loved working on her Nantucket Red design earlier this year, and this pattern promises to be as enjoyable, as far as I can see. Her patterns are very well written, nicely detailed, and I love how she includes notes on how each person can best customize the garments to her own body. I know that is something a lot of us try to do anyway, but if you're a less adventurous knitter, or just aren't confident enough to make your own modifications to a pattern, having those notes within the pattern is a really nice feature. I'll keep you posted on my love affair with Thea and her Caldavos pattern as I progress through it. Right now, my focus remains on these two pair of socks, so it will still be a few days before I made major headway on this project.

And soon there will be another sweater in the works. I can't say a lot about it right now, as it is a test knit, but I will say it will be made from handspun...

This shot represents approximately 24 oz of BFL from Briar Rose Fibers that I (mostly) woolen spun to a heavy worsted weight. The yarn at the back half of the shot is all for the main body of the sweater. The foreground yarn in the rather mustardy shade is, tentatively, set to be the contrast. I'm conflicted, though. Something about the shade of that contrasting yarn just does not jive with the main colors. My other option is to use some Plymouth Tweed in a dark brown, which, colorwise, works much more to my liking, but the spin of the Plymouth yarn is very different than that of my handspun, so I'm not sure how it will look. I'm still toying with the configuration of colors for this project. I know the answer is there. I just need to wait for it to show itself to me. (The answer will not involve either over-dyeing nor buying and spinning yet more fiber, even though both of those options have popped into my brain.)

I will add that this spinning project has taught me one thing: I do not enjoy spinning heavier weight yarns nearly as much as I do lighter weight. DK, fingering...those I truly enjoy. Worsted, I don't mind. This heavier worsted? Meh. Not so much. And I'm just not sure why. I think part of it is because it seemed to take forEVer to spin enough to get the yardage I needed for this project. Granted, spinning finer yarns take a while too, but at least there is more yardage for the effort.

Lastly, a whim...

...crocheted spiral hexagons from leftover sock yarn. As evidenced in my yarn room pictures recently, I have a lot of little leftover balls of sock yarn. I've been hoarding them not only as decorative items, but ultimately to be used for this sock yarn blanket. Now, I love making mitred squares. Honestly, I do. That's often my go-to pattern if I have to make an afghan square or a dishcloth. However, the thought of knitting several hundred of those puppies out of sock yarn just really hasn't excited me, thus I never bothered to start the project. (Well, that and the fact that I already have an afghan WIP that I swore I'd finish before I started any more blankets, however I have this sneaking suspicion that I'm going to run out of yarn before the afghan reaches it's target size, so I've been ignoring it. Plus it's being knit on US11s, which pretty much feel like tree trunks in my hands. I'm not a big needle kinda girl.)

However, I started watching the Round the Twist videocast several months ago, and Carin often shows her little crocheted hexagons that she's making, presumably for a blanket (I'm honestly not sure, but that's my guess). I thought that was a fantastic idea! I'm not a very experienced crocheter, but I do enjoy crocheting on occasion. It's a nice change from knitting. So after the last RtT videocast, I pulled out my Crochet Stitch Bible, found a pattern for a hexagon that looked like I could handle and gave it a go. The next day, I made another one and seamed it to the first. Oh my goodness! These are too much fun to make! I can do them while I'm sitting here at the computer reading or watching something. Easy peasy.

After making the second one, I went and measured my bed, then I came back and did the math. I would need to crochet 1190 of these hexagons to make a coverlet for my queen-sized bed. If I make four hexagons a day, seaming as I go, I could have a coverlet completed in under a year. For whatever reason, that strikes me as incredibly doable. I know, logistically speaking, I won't make four a day, but it's still a goal to work with.

The biggest catch to this theory is that I know I do not have enough sock yarn leftovers to accommodate an entire coverlet. Each of my hexagons have used about 2 grams of yarn, which means I'd need the equivalent of nearly 24 100-gram skeins of sock yarn to finish the project. I'm quite sure my leftovers don't come to anywhere near that. Will need to consider how to beg, borrow, or trade for more, I suppose. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

The irony of it...

The other day, the Yarn Harlot wrote a post about how her sock yarn was pooling on a second sock instead of striping like it did on the first. She narrowed the possible reasons for this phenomenon down to: change in stitch pattern, gauge or stitch number. It turned out that she'd cast on a different number of stitches for the second sock than she had the first, thus the difference in how the yarn colors were behaving. She ripped it and started over.

When I read her post, at first I kind of chuckled because I thought, yep, I could see how that might happen, and then I felt her pain at having to rip back a half-finished sock. I mean, that's a lot of time spent and a lot of tiny stitches that are being undone.

Now, it is Socktoberfest, and I've been doing a lot of sock knitting. Finished one pair, working on three others. I finished the first Riff sock earlier this week, and it turned out really cute...

Note how nicely the yarn striped. (If this was a movie, the creepy foreshadowing music would kick in about here.)

I cast on for the second Riff two days ago and got about two inches into the toe. It looked different to me, but it was just the toe, and I figured it was plausible that the colors could play differently through the toe increase section. Tonight I continued on another couple inches and it was clear that the striping of the first sock was not happening. In fact, what I was getting was pooling.

Pooling instead of striping. This seemed so strangely...familiar.

Then I remembered...the Yarn Harlot's sock. So I thought about her reasons...pattern, gauge...nope not issues for me. Stitch count? I stopped and counted. I was successfully knitting 32 stitches per needle, for a total of 64. OK. I usually knit 60 or 64 stitch socks, so that seemed right. I knit a few more rounds. And then it hit me. I rifled back through the pattern to where it specified total stitch count after the toe increases for my size: 68.

Damn.

With a sigh, I ripped back to the toe, did one more round of increases and set off again. Voila! I've got striping as I did in the first sock. All I can say is thank God this is an easy pattern that I'm enjoying.

I can't help but marvel at how four little stitches can cause such a huge difference in the behavior of the yarn!

It struck me that perhaps I'd been subconsciously influenced by YH's post and that was why I made the same mistake she'd made. But then I realized, no. I made the mistake the day before I read her post. The mistake was mine alone. Still, it's so freaky that I made the same mistake to the same end that she did. Just so weird!

Double Digit October Update

It's unfathomable to me that we've already reached October 11th. This month is flying by, and I'd really like it to sloooooow dooooown now, please.

If I thought September was crazy-busy, October has been (and will continue to be) no less so. Especially our weekends. I can't remember the last time I had a relaxing, quiet, laid-back weekend, and I'd really like one...soon! The first weekend of the month was the local Apple & Arts Festival. Kevin and the kids take part in that, Kevin running the antique shingle mill and the kids working in the cider booth. I spent time there on Saturday, which turned out to be a good choice because the weather turned nasty by Sunday. I had my camera along but didn't take one picture. Oh well. Imagine throngs of people, lots of craft and food booths, apples and apple-themed things everywhere and an abundance of tractors and you've pretty much got it. (Honestly, I've taken pictures in past years, and aside from the age of my kids, they often turn out looking the same from year to year. LOL) :}

This weekend, our oldest son (the Marine) and his son came to visit. We've enjoyed having them here.

Zach and Kevin were doing manly-men things with chainsaws this past weekend.

Our grandson started kindergarten this fall. So hard to believe how much he's seemed to have grown up just in the few months since we saw him last! Today we hit the pumpkin patch, which was followed by pumpkin carving. Hopefully he realizes he won't be able to take his jack-o-lantern home with him on the plane.

This coming weekend I will most likely be laying low caring for Christopher, who is having his wisdom teeth removed on Thursday. I suppose this might count as a laid-back weekend, though I'm not sure how relaxing or quiet it will be depending on how much pain he is in. Then the following week, my mom and step dad will be arriving for a week's visit...we're very excited to be seeing them, as they only get up here once a year, at best. Not sure what all of the specific plans will be while they're here, but I imagine it will be kind of busy. The last weekend of the month is Halloween weekend, and I told the kids they could have a party. I think I may have been insane at that moment, but I'm remaining optimistic. It won't be a huge party, but it should be fun. Their friends are all nice kids.

In the mean time, knitting is taking place. I am still in the throes of Socktoberfest knitting. I finished my first pair for the month, the Ampersands I started last month. They're a gift pair, though I'd love them for myself! LOL

I've finished Clue #2 (the leg portion) of one of my Mystery Socks...need to get the second one caught up yet, so I haven't taken any more pictures of them yet. In the mean time, I decided I needed a pair of Halloween-ish socks for myself (I apparently forgot about my Zombie socks from last year...hmmm...), so I ordered a skein of yarn from Woolen Mill St. Yarns on Etsy, in the Jack the Pumpkin King colorway. I wanted to do something a little more challenging than a plain stockinette sock but not so challenging than I couldn't do it while watching TV. I opted for Riff from the latest issue of Knitty.

The twisted stitch pattern isn't showing up as clearly as it would in a solid or semi-solid yarn, but I still like it. It's been a fast knit to this point (despite the fact I misread the instructions for starting the gusset increases and had to rip back over an inch to rectify the situation). I'm now to the heel flap on the first sock though, and I've already tinked back a couple rows because I don't think I'm doing it correctly. The zigzag pattern goes up the heel and is supposed to meet the pattern on the front, and...well...I'm just not sure about it. I need to read comments from others on Ravelry and see if they have any insights. So, stay tuned!

I've made no progress on the one shawl that is on the needles, as I've been pretty dedicated to socks lately. I think once I finish the Riffs, I'll move on to shawl knitting since I'll still have the mystery socks to work on for Socktoberfest. Of course, I still also have at least one more pair of Christmas gift socks to knit up, so we'll see!

Oh, and lastly, have you heard about the new yarn by Jared Flood? I have to admit, I'm not as huge a Jared fan as some people -- nothing against him, his designs just don't always resonate that much with me. However, I venture to his blog occasionally, and when I did so last week, right after he introduced Shelter, I immediately fell for it. I love, love, love rustic farm yarns, and the colors Shelter came in made me giddy. It took a lot of self control not to order one of each, but instead I ordered three skeins of the Tent colorway just so I could check it out.

At first glance, it reminded me of Plymouth Tweed in appearance. However, this yarn has a sproingyness than Plymouth Tweed does not have. It is full of squish and loveliness and again, the colors are ridiculously awesome. I wore skein #3 around my neck for about 20 minutes to check out the itch factor...

I would not classify this as a "soft" yarn, but it was not at all itchy or scratchy. I wouldn't hesitate to use it for a scarf or mittens that would be directly on my skin. I'm not sure if I'd like it for a pullover that was going to have direct contact with a larger surface area of my body, but honestly...I've felt far less skin-friendly yarns. I'm really excited about this yarn and cannot wait to give it a try.

As a bonus, I love the fact that it's being spun in the US from American grown wool from American bred sheep. I also love that Jared has had such a hands-on role in its creation. (You can read his story about it in several recent posts on his blog. Clara Parkes also did an in depth review of Shelter last week.)

Now we're reallllly into it!

(Head's up...spoiler ahead...I'm posting a picture of my Soctoberfest Mystery Socks at the first clue stage later in this post. If you're doing them too and don't want to see, scroll ahead really fast when you get to that part!)

Fall, that is. The definite drop in temperatures, especially at night, is a sure sign that we are fully entrenched in fall. And I LOVE IT!!! It actually went down into the high 30s the other night. Awesome! :)

The daytime can still get a little warm, if the sun is out and cooperating, but I've worn a sweater nearly every day this week, so that says something because I usually run warm. I was very happy to finish this sweater the other day (please bypass the rain-frizzed hair and jump on down to the knitted yumminess)...

This is my finished random cardigan (I really need to think of a better name for it now that it's done). I'm really pleased with it. It fits well, and it is very soft and squishy. I know I'm going to get a ton of wear from this sweater. All those colors go with so many things! And I had the most PERFECT buttons for it in my stash! Seriously, it's like they were made specifically to go with this yarn.

I love when things happen like that. :)

In other knitting news, yesterday ushered in SOCKTOBERFEST! Woohoo!! This is my third year of celebrating Socktoberfest, and I'm very much looking forward to a month full of sock knitting (though there will be some other items worked on too, I'm sure...but mostly socks!) I'm almost done with the first Ampersand sock that I showed you in the last post. I'm planning to cast on #2 right away instead of one of any number of other sock patterns I'd really like to start. Must stay focused on these gift socks for now!

I did, however, cast on for the 2010 Socktoberfest Mystery Sock KAL. This is also a Kirsten Kapur pattern, as she graciously has designed a mystery sock pattern for several years now to celebrate Socktoberfest. I'm using some Needle Food sock yarn, the Berry Fruits colorway. Needle Food is no longer in business, which makes the two skeins of their yarn that I have in my stash very special to me because they are just awesome colors. Kirsten recommended using a solid or semi-solid for the mystery sock. Berry Fruits is more of a variegated yarn, but I'm hoping it will work out because I really like the colors. The first clue was the cuff. I cast on and knit both cuffs for the pair the other night as soon as the clue was released...I was excited to get started!

Picture...

coming...

now...

The color variegation definitely hides the stitch pattern a bit, but I'm going to continue on and see how it goes.

The other celebration coming up is, of course, Halloween! I'm not usually one to go all out to decorate for Halloween, but this year I just got the bug to do it up. I made the mistake of going into Pat Catan's yesterday looking for just the cobwebby stuff and a new scarecrow, and I came out with a buttload of other fun Halloweeny things. :}Even as teens, the kids are quite excited that I decorated. Heck, my oldest who is in his mid-20s still loves Halloween, so I guess you're never really too old, eh?

Not sure if I've complained about the stink bug problem we've had this year -- they've been everywhere! And now it's pesky fall gnat season too. But those are NOTHING compared to the spider problem that has developed...yeesh!!

BAHAHAhahaha!!! Ahem. ;)

And just for the record? That cobwebby stuff is WAY FUN to play with and put up on the bushes because it clings and sticks to everything and really does look like cobwebs. However, in a month, when I'm ready to undecorate, it will be a major pain in the arse because it clings and sticks to everything.

And as a side note...those orange twinkle lights that you can't see very well? I forgot we had them from a past year until AFTER I put up the cobwebs. So today, I decided to retrofit them under the already in-place cobwebs. Heh. Yeah, that worked great. Oh well. They may not be on the bushes as nicely as I'd like, but they add color nonetheless!

And September quickly zips to a close...

...and I'm trying to catch up! I don't feel like I'm doing a very good job. There are always more things on my to-do list than I have time...to do. Sigh. :}

So, looking back at the month, it's been a full one. We started the school year, which has been mostly painless, so that's a good thing. It's been a month full of extra activities, like check-ups and such that always seem to come due in the fall. Hoping there will be fewer of them in October.

Knitting-wise, there've only been two FO's...my Nantucket Red, which I already shared, and this pair of socks, which I knit for a friend. They were originally going to be for Christmas, but I ended up giving them to her for her birthday instead.

I knit them toe-up using Zitron Trekking XXL for the main color and Mondial Ciao for the afterthought heels and the cuff. These were generic stockinette toe-up socks, but they were my first pair of afterthought heel socks, and I'm really happy with how they turned out.I did a pretty decent job of making the stripes all matchy-matchy, too. :)

I've done a fair amount of casting on for other projects this month. Well, technically I cast on this, my Random Cardi, at the end of August, but I've been knitting it consistently all month.

I named it the "Random" cardigan because it truly is random. I had no pattern in mind when I started it. I mainly wanted to see how this yarn (Lorna's Laces Swirl DK in the Tuscany colorway) would knit up. I've had this yarn in my stash for ages...love, love, love the colors...and decided the only way to really see what it would look like in a garment was to knit a garment-sized swatch. So, I cast on enough stitches to accommodate the back of a sweater and off I went. I've basically been winging it ever since. The back and fronts turned out just fine. My first attempt at a sleeve, however, was not good. Had I been knitting, say, I leotard, it would have been GREAT, because that's how snugly it fit. Ahem. So, I ripped it out and started again, this time using the numbers in Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns as a general guide. Miraculously, the finished sleeve turned out as close to perfect as it could have, especially considering I hadn't knitted the rest of the sweater to the corresponding pattern numbers. However, I'm not questioning it. LOL I'm just working feverishly to try and finish it up by this Friday -- the start of Socktoberfest -- so I can both enjoy wearing it now that the weather is turning cooler, and I can focus my October knitting efforts on SOCKS, and a couple other projects.

Speaking of socks, I also cast on these...

This is Kirsten Kapur's Ampersand pattern, which was one of the patterns in one of my Mystery Bags. The yarn, however, was not the yarn I originally put in the bag. Because these are going to be a gift, I opted to change out the yarn to a color that is more suited to the intended recipient. This is JulieSpins M370 Superwash Merino in the Jasper colorway. I love how they're turning out.  The pattern is a cuff down pattern but I'm working it toe-up, as it was an easy conversion. The heel, however...argh, toe-up heels continue to be a challenge to me! I'm substituting Wendy Johnson's basic toe-up slip stitch heel, which is working fine, but man, I still cannot envision it intuitively the way I can when working the other direction. I have to say, I think I may prefer gusset heels better for toe-ups.

I also cast on for another Traveling Woman shawl, this one to be another gift. I've gotten as far as the stockinette top of it. It's stalled there until I finish my cardigan. I'm hoping to have it finished by the time I see the recipient in late October. I'm using Misty Mountain Farm Highlight yarn, a merino-tencel blend, in the Evergreen colorway.

I also cast on for another shawl, a Haruni, which was going to be a gift for my MIL for Christmas. I may have mentioned her desire for an all-white shawl before, and my extreme hesitation in trying to knit one, mainly because white is booorrriinnngg. I had some Suri Alpaca laceweight here in white, and so I started it in that. It was going fine, but I have an inclination that though it will undoubtedly be both pretty and warm, it is not what my MIL had in mind. I can't bear knitting yet another thing for her that she is not excited about (whole other issue there), so I instead have ordered some white fingering weight yarn from The Loopy Ewe and will either start this over or I may do Bitterroot instead.

OK...I have more to say, but no time to say it! Story of my month. So, until next time, let me leave you with this:

Only THREE DAYS until SOCKTOBERFEST! Woohoo!!! =)

Mysterious bags...

A couple of posts ago, I ended with a picture of a line up of mystery bags...

...and I intended to share the story behind them in my last post, but I forgot, and apparently some people really, really want to know! LOL So, my dear Rav friend, Ohgrumpy, here's my explanation! ;)

If you've read the Yarn Harlot's blog this year, you might know about her self-imposed sock club. It was her way of using some of her sock yarn stash and knitting patterns she's wanted to knit. Seemed like an ingenious idea. I too have a massive sock yarn stash -- enough to fill two large Sterlite bins -- and my Rav queue and pattern stash is full of lovely sock patterns I'd love to try, since I often default to my generic stockinette or ribbed socks.

I've read YH's blog this year, watching the success of her self-imposed sock club, as she's churned out pair after pair of beautiful socks. Granted, she's a fast sock knitter by my usual standards, but still. The idea remained in the middle of my brain (not the front, not the back...middle ;) ). Finally, as I was moving yarn and patterns and all my other knitterly goods up to their new home last month, I decided to follow in YH's footsteps and create my own self-imposed sock club. And that is what is in the bags. One skein of yarn matched with one pattern, the goal of which is to choose one at random each month over the next 12 months and knit a pair of socks.

Since I'm currently working on a pair of socks already -- the gift socks -- I haven't picked a bag for this month. I may wait until October to start, because that would give me time to finish the gift socks as well as the second Norwegian Rose sock. October is also Soctoberfest, so it seems appropriate to begin such an endeavor at that time, right?

So...mystery revealed! :)

Life has been busy...

...and it is totally inconceivable to me that it is already mid-March! As my friend Gina observed tonight on my Facebook page, I always seem to be traveling lately. Indeed, I seem to be in a season of road trips. Scranton (for a kickboxing match) a few weeks ago, Columbus (for the Arnold Sport's Festival) last weekend (seems like so much longer ago than that!) and Chattanooga (for a Disaster Response Training) this past week. Thankfully, I have no more travel plans in the near future until late April when I head off to St. Louis for Spring Fling. I'm looking forward to being home for a while! I need to get back into a normal routine.

In the midst of all the travel, I have been knitting. A couple finished objects for your viewing pleasure...

These are my Socktoberfest Mystery Socks from last October, which I finally finished during Ravelympics, one of my WIP projects. Sorry, it's not a great photo, but I was trying to show how pretty they are from both the front and the side. The pattern was from Kirsten Kapur, and the yarn is Schaefer Nichole.

This is one of my Waterfall socks. They were my February KAL project for the Spring Fling group, the focus of which was Wendy Johnson patterns. I did get both socks done by the end of February, but this is the only good picture I got, so just image a second one that looks just like this one. And I'll point out that I just got the second one done! It wouldn't have been a big deal had I not made the Feb. 28th deadline, but I felt a little crazy that day and opted to see if I could knit an entire sock in a day. And I did! I literally bound off that puppy at 11:50 p.m. A sock in 10 hours. Definitely a new record for me, and not one I'm feeling the need to repeat (let alone break) anytime soon! My hands were dead by the time I was done. LOL Anyway, as I said, it is a Wendy pattern (free!), and the yarn was Araucania Itata...really lovely yarn!

The other evening, I finished a scarf I was test knitting for Cosy. It needs to be soaked and blocked and then I'll put a picture up of it. It was for her Marian Seaman Scarf (which she does have posted on her blog and on Ravelry, but has not yet released the pattern), and it was a really fun project that moved along quickly.

My current knitting focus is the March KAL project for the Fling group. It needed to be a Jared Flood pattern, so I chose the Hemlock Ring blanket, which I'm knitting out of some stashed Queensland Kathmandu Aran in a nice, natural, tweedy color. I'm in the feather-and-fan part now, but oh my gosh, it gave me fits up to that point. At one point I had to rip out 20 rounds because I'd gotten it so messed up! But it's going along swimmingly now, so I'm not feeling frustrated with it anymore. ;)

Pictures forthcoming for Marian and Hemlock!

A whole new month...

So...it's November already. Huh.

I'm sorry...I wish I had something more riveting to post about than the ridiculously obvious pronouncement of the date. However. I don't.

Well, wait. Maybe...

....

Um...nope.

Maybe just a few random notes...

Random Note #1: I may be too old to do road trips across the state and back, within 24 hours, that involve staying awake the whole time and driving through the night. In fact, this could account for my current lack of focus in this blog post.

Random Note #2: The oldest child, our son in the Marines, was just home to visit the past nine days. He hasn't lived here in over five years, so it is always startling to me how much fuller the house feels when he IS here and then again how there suddenly feels like there is a huge, quiet void when he's gone.

Random Note #3: Sunday afternoon naps are one of life's treasures. Seven-hour long Sunday afternoon naps are probably too much of a good thing and likely will not bode well for going to bed tonight. (Why did I take a seven hour nap? See RN #1)

Random Note #4: I wish I could read the minds of my teenagers sometimes. It is likely good that I can't, but still, it might make things easier on occasion if I could.

Random Note #5: Socktoberfest came and went without me finishing either of my pairs of socks I was working on. Zombie sock #2 will likely be finished soon, but this year's Mystery Sock pair came to a grinding halt at the same point as last year's pair...in the foot section of the first sock. Gah. Hopefully I'll manage to finish them up by the end of November, though, and not wait until next year, like I did with last year's pair. I really could use a couple pair of new socks!

Random Note #6: I have to have surgery in a couple of weeks. Really, it is more of a procedure than actual surgery to my way of thinking, but the doctor keeps referring to it as surgery. And I have to have pre-op blood work and tests done. So I guess it is surgery. I wasn't all that freaked out about it until they started calling it surgery, but now I would like to just ignore it and hope it goes away. And, while I'm not an overly superstitious person, I have to wonder what I was thinking to have scheduled it for Friday the 13th. :::sigh::: What is irking me more than anything about the whole thing, though, is that I've been informed I'll need to take at least two weeks off from the gym afterward. Not happy about that. At all. :P

Random Note #7: I am tired, in every sense of the word. The past couple weeks have just sapped me, though I'm not entirely sure why. Too many things to do and too many things on my mind. But hey! It is November! A new month! My calendar is blessedly open compared to the past two months, so I'm really hoping for some time of rejuvenation. I could use it.

Fast week...

I'll tell you what...time needs to slow down just a tad! September flew by, and now October is following suit! What's the hurry??

Last week was a blur of good things. My mom and step-dad were in town for a week, and while I didn't get to spend nearly as much time with my mom as I'd have liked, it was nice to get to visit with them here for a change (instead of us going to Florida).

Sadly, I took very few photos from my mom's visit. This is one of them. Mom, Ralph and Emma.

Last weekend was also the local Apple & Arts Festival, which Kevin and the kids always take part in (I go up for a few hours and walk around...they do the work!).

The shingle mill, where Kevin (on the right) spends most of his time at the festival.

Amid the visiting and the fall festivities, I tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy with regard to our school work, the gym and our fencing/climbing days, though everything got modified to accommodate the extra activities. One thing that was a constant throughout, though, was the knitting. I am working away on my socks, both the Zombies and the Mystery Socks for the Soctoberfest KAL. Also making some progress on the girlie's sweater, but mostly it's the socks that have my attention right now.

Lest I bore you with any more chatter, how about some pictures? (And warning -- there will be another picture of the mystery sock in this bunch, so don't look at the last photo if you don't want to see it!)

Apple & Arts Festival purchase #1: apples. Half of this bag has already been cooked and used in a pie. Yum.

Apple & Arts Festival purchase #2: freshly ground grains; in the jars there is whole wheat flour, buckwheat flour and cornmeal. I love using this stuff! So fresh and good! It all needs to be kept refrigerated or frozen since there are no preservatives in any of it, thus I put some in the jars and some in vacuum packages to use over time.

Apple & Arts Festival purchase #3: I usually don't purchase much in the line of the "arts" that are offered at these festivals anymore, both because I don't really need any more crap in my life and also because most of it is pretty country-themed, and I am not much of a country-themed person at this point in my life. Pottery, however, always calls to me. I found these buttons at the only pottery vendor at the festival...they're kind of quirky. Bigger than buttons I'd usually buy, but I thought they'd be neat to use one at a time for buttoned neck warmers or something. More than that and they'd get pretty heavy.

The Zombie lives and is coming along quite nicely! It's actually a couple more inches up the leg at this point. And look! I turned my first toe-up heel...

A gusset heel, it was very easy to do. I ended up with a little gap at the top of each heel where I rejoined the stitches in the round to the instep, but I think I know how to avoid that on the second sock. I'll just stitch these up to close them when I'm done.

And finally...the mystery sock. Clue #2 finished on the first one...

What a crazy-pretty sock this is turning out to be! It looks even lovelier from the side view, but both of those that I look on the sock blocker turned out blurry. Will try again later.

Oh, and though I have no pictures of the evening (or at least none that turned out well on my cell phone), my friend Angela and I spent a very loud night last Saturday at the Social Distortion concert, which was awesome. Totally love their music. (I will say, though, either I'm getting old, the acoustics of the Ches-a-rena leave something to be desired, or the people working the sound for the two opening bands were on crack because it was painfully loud at points, like I thought my ear drums might explode -- and that's saying something, live music lover that I am, the louder the better. But not so much in this case.)

Lastly...our VoaT photoblog is focusing on the theme "Small" this week. Tomorrow is the last day for it, as a new theme will start on Sunday. Stop by and visit! :)