Shut Up, Oh My God ShutupShutupShutup!

Thus spake my inner monologue all afternoon.

I have two modes around new people: Shy and Eerily Quiet, and Shy and Verbal Diarrhea (the shy's not as obvious in that one, but it's there.) If I'm fortunate enough to have something major in common with the new people, I'm more likely to be in Mode #2. And Mode #2 was in full force today, because I Could. Not. Be. Quiet. What amuses me to no end is how I can in fact recognize my jabberiness, but I can't seem to stop it. And there's no filter, really. Maybe that's why I don't go to meetups much - because I know I may find myself wishing I had a backspace key. After all, did Phoebe and Christine really NEED to hear about the time our pup Brodie got all excited during a Game Night at my house and started humping my friend Steven's arm and wouldn't stop? For that matter, did YOU need to hear it?? (They weren't really given a choice, so it's only fair.) And every time there was a long pause in the conversation, I did my best not to be the first one to speak again, just in case they were secretly terribly thankful for the break.

In any event, today's meetup was very fun - thank you for having me along, ladies, and I'm sorry if I interrupted you endlessly. I did have a wonderful time! (Er, not with the interrupting - that I kind of just do without so much being aware of it until later.) Next time I'll lay off the caffeine a bit....

We knitted for .... well, about four hours! Whee, four hours with like-minded knitters! That's much more fulfilling than four hours on the sofa knitting and watching Airplane! on Comedy Central and....whatever schlock comes on after Airplane! because by that time I'm not even cognizant of the world around me and I can't be bothered to change the channel.

I'm pleased with my Bellocq progress - I have officially started the thigh shaping, and I've moved off of my DPNs and onto a 16" circular!

The astute among you will note that there are still DPNs and this is still only upper-calf height. True - this photo is a cheat. I took it this morning before leaving for Tampa - now it's up to the knee and on a circ. (Yes, only up to the knee in four hours. It's a lot more stitches to the end of the round now.) I should take an updated photo, but - just picture the same sock a bit taller. Oooooh, aaaahhhhhh, right?

Sidebar: I find it interesting how people regard someone out by themselves in the evening. On the way home, I stopped by Chipotle for a bite, and when I placed my order at the counter, the young man preparing it declared (not inquired), "To go," despite the fact that I had a book in my hand (found the new Yarn Harlot in a store, finally!) and looked prepared for a sit-down. I find it interesting how it seems I am expected to gather my supper and scurry home to hide behind the sofa in shame for spending a Saturday night alone. No thank you - I rather enjoy my own company most of the time, and I see nothing wrong with being alone in public. (God knows it's one of the few times I'm likely to be found keeping quiet and relatively still.)

Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the purchase of our home. Aww, look at it.


Oh, that's not quite what it looks like now. Now it looks like that, but with slightly more raggedy looking plants in front. (I'm not capable of maintaining green stuff.) And we upgraded the wiring. (Rewiring not pictured. Sad how the changes that take the most work are often invisible.)

We celebrated by having a snack and a glass of wine on the front porch yesterday after work - the weather's been so beautiful - blue and breezy, cooler than usual...delightful! Fortunately, a glass of wine is all it really takes to get to Happy Town.


Right as I was about to take a picture, Travis burst into peals of laughter and started exclaiming, "Pink monkey!" I thought he'd finally gone off his head, but there was just a girl crossing the street a half-block down, and she was carrying a pink stuffed monkey (bag?). He was endlessly amused by the pink monkey. Immediately after this, I thought it best to pour the last bit of wine in his glass into the shrubbery. We had planned to fire up some barbecue for dinner - ribs for him, tofu for me - and I didn't think it wise for him to dangle over a propane grill in the state he had appeared to be rapidly approaching...

(All's well - turned out he was perfectly fine, though maybe a little miffed at me for tossing his Malbec into the hedge.)

Happy Easter, if that's your thing, or Happy Sunday, if it's not! Hope you get time to knit - and if you're hosting a gathering, best of luck!

Subtle Variations in Gauge (Yeahhhh...)

I tugged tried on my Bellocq last night when I finished the second repeat of the calf shaping - even unfinished, this is now officially the tallest sock I've ever knit! My goal is to finish one stocking every three weeks, so I won't be working on these right down to the wire. Tomorrow is two weeks - hopefully I'll be doing a LOT of work on these this weekend.

Sidebar: I get to knit with real live people this weekend! I don't go to the stitch-and-bitch at my LYS because I can't seem to get into it, and there are meetup groups around, but for some reason I've never done that either. But there's a group of ladies who are in the Rockin' Sock Club who get together occasionally, and this weekend I'm actually free when they've scheduled their gathering! So I'm going to drive to Tampa to meet up with them - it's only about a 90 minute drive. Well worth it to knit with other STR fans! I think there will be about five or six of us, and I'm so excited I'm actually making plans in my head. Travis is amused.

Me: I need to put different stitchmarkers on my socks.
Travis: Is something wrong with those?
Me: No...but they're kind of plain. If I'm going to be knitting with people, I want my sock to have her pretty jewelry on.
Travis: (sound of a head dropping and shaking slowly side to side)

I don't think that's crazy. Whatever.

Okay, here we are:

It's about three inches to my knee, I think, and I'm still very pleased with it. I pulled this on upstairs, then had to come downstairs to get the camera and try to locate decent light in my house at 11:30 at night (dining room + heavy Photoshop edits). Then I had to climb back up the stairs and into the bedroom, where I finally removed the sock. I'm proud to report that I only jabbed myself in the other leg with one of the needles once! But I had to walk very carefully, and I felt a little like a first draft of a character from Grindhouse. ("You know, Quentin, I like the needles sticking out of her leg, but wool and bamboo aren't very menacing. Maybe....I don't know, a machine gun would be better?")


I wanted you to see the calf shaping, and this is about the best I could do with getting a photo of the back of my own leg. (The stitch markers are the new pretty ones I used to replace the plain ones - they're Aija's garnet-and-freshwater-pearl markers, and they're so preeetty.)

I had mentioned that I changed needles shortly into the calf shaping - while the socks aren't completely uncomfortable, I don't think I should have trusted my gauge swatch, and I'm going to knit the second sock on the size 2 the pattern calls for rather than the size 1 needles I (thought I) got gauge with. But the good news is that you can barely tell where I changed needles. (Snort.)


As if I needed to point it out. Hear that deep sigh of relief my calf is taking? I could pretend that it occurred to me to start them over - but no way. Not even if I had all the time in the world. I'm not enough of a perfectionist to really care - they fit well enough and are only just a tiny bit snug, and I'll give a prize to anyone at the wedding who peers at them and declares, "Say, looks like you changed needles right there." (Except you, Susan - that would be cheating!)

I'm off to cross-post at the knitalong!

Want To See Another Three Inches Of Stocking Progress?

No, you don't. It's the same stocking, only a little taller. I'll spare you. (I will mention that I blocked it to try to get it to fit a bit more comfortably around the ankle, and it's still a hair snug. I switched from a size 1 to a size 2 needle after the first calf shaping repeat, and I think I'll knit the second one entirely on a size 2.)

I do hate not having anything to write about, though. I wrote a few things on this post and got some really lovely comments (thank you!)....and then I was reminded of why I had decided it best to avoid talking about the wedding as much as possible - to avoid awkward situations. In my excitement, I've violated that decision, and I shouldn't have. So I'll try to keep it out of here as much as possible. But stockings don't count!! :-D

This thing is starting to freak me out:

Travis bought me that balloon on Valentine's Day. And it is STILL fully inflated in the corner of the living room, seven weeks later. I don't think it's ever going to die on its own. I may have to commit heliucide...but then I think Travis will give me a hard time for killing our Love Balloon.

I'm Not The Only One With Projects

Travis has been hard at work staining some unfinished wood furniture we bought at least *coughcough* months ago - he's working on the enormous dresser now, and we have determined that unfinished wood furniture is Not. Worth. It. ('Cuz it turns out that "all you have to do is stain it!" translates to "all you have to do is sand it, pre-treat it, apply two or three coats of stain to it, polyurethane it, sand it lightly, and polyurethane it again!")

But they ARE turning out beautifully:

(Which you're just going to have to trust me on, since I can't take a decent photo.)

And it'll look beautiful with our NEW DINING ROOM SET! We picked up a gorgeous table, six chairs, and buffet server on Sunday. The table and chairs were a mad deal because they were floor sample (a little Murphy's Oil should take care of that.) I'm so thrilled - we've lived together for about 18 months, and been in this house for a year, and we've been eating off plates perched on our laps on the sofa for alllll that time. (I am so excruciatingly picky about dining room sets, and I hate spending that kind of money so I'm reeeeally slow to commit - but I have finally had enough and want a place to EAT!)

Oh, wait, back to that little end table. We found the neatest little drawer pulls at Anthropologie.


I'm not sure if they actually are flowers, but they look like roses or carnations in resin. I love them. And since this table only needed two, we splurged a bit. I don't think the dresser, with its twelve knobs, will be blessed with six-dollar drawer pulls.

Now all he has to do is finish the dresser and then it's just a chest, a side table, and two nightstands. Hurray! It's starting to look like a real home! And it only took us a year! (I acknowledge that it would help if I did something besides sit around and knit all the time.)

Bellocq progress update:


There are three 36-row pattern repeats for the (ingenious!) calf shaping, and I'm 12 rows into the second repeat. It doesn't look particularly tall yet. But it's getting there. I would be much further along, perhaps into the thigh shaping already, if I hadn't screwed up something (I still haven't figured out what or where) in the shaping. So yeah - Aimee, thank you so much for being worried for me, but unfortunately, I have to confess that no, I wasn't joking. (Oh, how I wish I was.) I ended up having to rip back to the lifeline, about 24 rows down. I did try ripping back to just a few rows down, and then to a few rows down below that, but .... what a mess.

And yes, you should place the lifeline every 12 rows at the most. Don't ask me why I didn't. It's too painful. Okay, it was something about how long it takes to thread the lifeline through. (Yes, I see the irony now.)

Since it doesn't look very tall all there by itself, here it is with one of my Embossed Leaves socks for scale:

Eh, I'm not sure it looks all that tall with it, either, but hey, isn't that Embossed Leaves sock (Embossed Leaf?) pretty? Yeah, still haven't worn them. They're just too pretty to put on feet. I'm concerned I'll also feel that way about the Bellocq when I'm finished and end up wearing them on my arms or something.

Stash Flash '07....

Okay, kinda. As much as I'd love to show all my yarn at once....not gonna. Because while I love my yarn, I can't reconcile that with being terribly lazy. And I admire people who exhaustively catalog their stash....but I'm not gonna.

This is random stuff - bags of yarn lots, fiber, and leftover bits from projects. Travis is working on staining all the bare wood furniture we have, so when he gets to this trunk, I'll have to empty it, and I'll show everything then. You'll note there's no longer enough room in there for all my spinning fiber. Oops.... And the basket to the bottom left is my WIP basket. It's full of things that need to be frogged.


Also on Travis' list of things to do - build me another one of these. There's some rhyme and reason to these shelves...but not much. All my handspun is on the top. The three top cubbies and one below are sock yarn. There's some notions, some yarn dyeing equipment - just a bunch of stuff. You may note my Knit Happens sale stash bag at the bottom - there's also two brown bags and a box filled with yarn lots. (I might need another trunk, too.)


Sock yarn, up close - the three on top and the one on the right in the bottom row. I had to expand into the fourth cubbie. Umm. Yeah. (The cubbie that doesn't have much in it is all non-wool. I try to keep them separate for allergy reasons.) Can you believe my sock stash looked like this in May??

It starts to get a little disjointed from there...


The bag I found on the back of the door, stuffed with mercerized cotton intended for baby items.


There's random balls of stuff in here - but they didn't want to be photographed.


Pattern stash. Interweaves, Vogues, books, binders of patterns printed off the 'net, so on, favorite photos of my dad and mum, and my poor llama, Harry, positioned to not show the damage from his horrible accident.


In case you wanted a better look at the titles I have...

Ooh, and look - YoYos on TV!!


Lookit 'em all! Hee!

Oh, and for the record, that high school production of Little Women? Yeah. It was the musical version after all. *clears throat, looks around room* So. Yeah. *cough* But his little sister was really good. And I got a few inches done on the Groom's Socks.

Bellocq stocking update later. And maybe I'll talk about how I ended up having to frog about twenty rounds yesterday, though I may just choose to pretend it never happened - points for me for placing a lifeline, points taken away for not moving it more frequently.

I'm going to go enjoy my day - I'm still thrilled it turned out to be Sunday. I launched out of bed this morning at 7:40, panicking, screaming at Travis to get up and ranting about how we forgot to turn the alarm back on, turning on the shower and jamming my toothbrush in my mouth...Travis dutifully got up as instructed (he's going to be such a good husband) and asked what we were supposed to be doing today that required him to be so forcefully dragged out of bed. When he heard my frantic long-winded response, he sweetly reminded me that it was not, in fact, Monday, I had not missed the bus, we were not going to be late for work, we still had the whole day to do laundry and I'd have something to wear to work when necessary, and I could return to bed.

Ahhhhhhh.