Knit Once, Purl Forever

Whatever

I have no idea what this entry is going to be about. I've started and stopped so many times tonight that it isn't funny. I thought I knew what I wanted to say, but the words are just not flowing tonight. I find that I'm unable to communicate in the manner that meets the vision in my head. So whatever.

Instead I decided to say whatever comes to mind so this might be of very little interest to anyone.

Whatever. That happens sometimes.

I really haven't been in the mood to write lately, which is a stark contrast to all those NaBloPoMoers out there. Maybe they've been saying so much that my silence has gone unnoticed. One can only hope.

Or one can just say whatever.

Knit me, knit me!

Every project  or knit along out there seems to be calling me. There's a knit along for knitting a sweater in November (sorry, I can't recall the name or where I found it) and I've been tempted to join. My new office is extremely cold and I've been contemplating knitting a pair of fingerless mitts. Socks always seem to call my name.  Countless other projects, as seen on various blogs, chime in here and there with the call to knit.

Knit me! Knit meeeeeeeeee!

So far I've resisted the pleas to knit because I really want to get all my projects off the needles by the end of the year. I haven't managed to find the time to round them all up, but there are many. So many that it's difficult to locate an empty set of needles when the aforementioned projects call my name. The lack of empty needles has restrained me more than once.

That brings me to my latest idea: Would anyone be interested in joining me in a knit along geared towards finishing up those WIPs before the end of the year? I'm thinking we could call it "Clean Slate by 2008" and I could design a button and award a few prizes. Maybe one for the person who completes the most WIPs between now and the end of the year and a couple randomly drawn prizes to even it all out.

Anyone interested? Want to knit WIPs for a Clean Slate in 2008 with me? If so, drop me a note in the comments.

Any Day Now

Wooooohoooooo! Only 364 people stand between me and my invite to Ravelry! And thanks to all your responses to this post, I really am a little excited about that! Maybe I've truly earned the "antsy" title now. Maybe.

The reason I say that I'm only a little excited is that it still sounds like a lot of work. For the whole thing to work people have to enter their information into the database. Of course, good things usually are a lot of work. I've just never been good at the keeping track of stuff in the form of a database thing and it's hard to imagine that a new community or a new tool would change that.

I'll know more about this soon. Should be any day now...

Knitting Obsessions

In addition to obsessing about germs and horrible thoughts, I sometimes obsess about my knitting. Today has been rife with the obsessing. There's a lot to obsess about.

First of all, tomorrow is the beginning of Soctoberfest and I have decided to knit one new pair of socks in a fall colorway. I browsed through my stash and actually had several yarns to choose from, but finally selected the Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in the Indian Summer colorway.

(right color, wrong yarn)

I'm going to use the Pomatomus sock pattern from Knitty.

(Photo borrowed from Knitty)

My next obsession is something new that caught my eye while flipping through a knitting magazine. It wasn't a pattern that was featured in the magazine, it was a Bernat ad for this Fair Isle Yoke Pullover:

And while looking for the pattern on Bernat's site, I found this lovely:

I'm obsessing about knitting both of those sweaters in cashmere. Yummmmm.

Maybe my knitting mojo has returned.

So, what knits have you been obsessing about?

Boston Yarn

When the Hubby and I were a few doors down from the Windsor Button Shop in Boston, I casually mentioned that I thought we just might be passing by a yarn store soon. You know, if we were lucky we might happen upon one. I'm pretty sure our finding the store had nothing to do with the MapQuest directions in our suitcase.

Surprisingly, he wasn't opposed to going into the store. I think he was curious as he mentioned that this was his first visit to a yarn store. And while they had a lot of yarn, they also had a lot of other crafty stuff as well, so I think it was a good first yarn store adventure for him because he could see first hand that knitting is not the only expensive hobby. I must say that he did seem rather relieved when I only gravitated toward the yarn portion of the store.

It was fun to point out the yarns that are also available at home and to single out the new yarns as well. Of course, I might have gone a little overboard with the pointing out of yarns that I currently have in my stash as this included most of the yarns found in the store. Luckily, I caught myself before I revealed how much of each yarn exists in my stash so I think he thinks that I only possess one or two balls/skeins of each. Little does he know....

I did add a little sock yarn to the stash:

I managed to find two socks yarns that I have never found at any of my local yarn stores. I purchased two skeins of Claudia Hand Painted Yarns in Poppy and one skein of Marathon Socks - San Francisco in color 206.

Here's a close up of the Claudia yarn in the colorway that reminded me most of the real Claudia.

Here's a closeup of the San Francisco yarn in the purple colorway.

This self-striping pattern totally intrigues me.

Not bad for just happening upon a yarn store by accident and all.

Happyness is...

Yeah, I feel bad for the negative tone of my last post. Of course, things are not all that bad at all. Here are a few of the things that made me happy today:

Peonies from the garden make me happy. This is the first time I've ever picked any to enjoy in the house because I always get freaked out by all the ants and bugs that live in the fragrant petals. Before I brought them inside, I set them out on the deck and went through each flower one by one releasing as many of the bugs as I could. The BIG white spider I found hiding inside on of the blooms (sorry no pictures of that as I was too busy freaking out) was the scariest.

We've finally had enough sun for my flowers to bloom. I was starting to wonder if they would make it.

After getting over the initial shock, I particularly love the red flowers that found their way into the flat of all purple flowers.

My new favorite knitting spot makes me happy. We finally got patio furniture for the deck that we built three years ago. If I had realized that it would make such a great spot to knit I would have acted sooner.

And the final bit of happyness: Monkey socks in Lightweight Socks That Rock yarn in the Ruby Slippers colorway.

Pretty Knitting

Here's the latest Twizler sock, complete with yarn jewelry in the form of a beautiful stitch marker:

I love Ms. Calamknitty's stitch markers so much that I snatched up as many as I could during my last visit to the yarn store. Here's the lot of them. Almost makes me want to cast on another dozen projects or so just so I can see them all in action.

Not that I ever need an excuse to cast on for another project, but if I did need an excuse I'm sure that the prospect of getting to use these adorable sheep would fit the bill.

And if you think those are cute, check out the ladybugs. They are my absolute favorite. LOVE them.

More Diet Stuff:

Thanks for all the supportive comments in the last post. Dieting sucks of course, but being in shape and feeling healthier is great. I do feel a lot better than I did last summer before I embarked on my weight loss journey, but I know I will feel even better when I finally meet my goal.

What I didn't mention was that I've been stuck on this plateau before. The last time I was stuck at this weight I ended up giving up on my diet and regaining all the weight plus an extra 15 pounds. I'm determined that won't be the case this time.

And, yes, the advice to drink more water is excellent advice because, while I drink a lot of water, until today I probably haven't been drinking as much as I should as I've been slacking in that department as well.

The other thing I need to work on is going to bed at a decent hour. I tend to stay up until all hours of the night and then I'm tired during the day and I use that as an excuse to skip my workout. And we all know that skipping workouts leads you down a slippery slope...

That said, it's off to bed for me. Good night, everyone!

Cable Diet

Actually, this post is mostly about the diet. I haven't mentioned anything about my progress toward meeting my fitness goals because I really haven't made any progress lately. I've been on a plateau since the beginning of March. The sad thing is that I'm sooooooo close to meeting my goal. I only have eight pounds to go.

I really want to meet my goal soon, so I've decided to make some changes starting this week.

For one thing, I will weigh myself everyday again. I tend to stick to my meal plan more when I know where I stand with the scale. When I know that I'm up a pound or two, it's easy to channel that knowledge into better eating habits. I tend to relax and reach for things I shouldn't when I don't know where I stand. It's as simple as that.

Next, I will kick up my fitness goals by increasing my workouts. Since I've been working at the office so much for the last month or so, I've really slacked off at the gym. In fact, I haven't worked out since the beginning of March either. Bad, I know. I'm committed to hitting the gym 6 days a week from now until the end of May. I'm toying with the idea of shooting for running/walking 100 miles by that same time frame, but I don't know that I want to limit myself to the running/walking as long as I'm working out.

The last part of my plan involves sticking to my meal plan and recording everything I eat each day as I eat it. When I bite it, I will write it. This is hard for me as I tend to write in my journal every other day or sometimes every two or three days. It's difficult to remember and record everything when I wait, so I know this is one of the things that is preventing me from meeting my goal.

I would like to meet my goal by the end of May or sooner. The sooner the better.

As for the knitting...

I've been working on the second Twizler sock. This photo is actually from a couple days ago. I've actually knit the heel flap and I'm now rounding the heel and advancing toward the foot. And I've cast on for the Sirdar jacket. There's not enough progress for a photo yet, but I'm working on it.

Besides the cable project and three different pairs of socks, other projects on the needles include the fair isle hoodie and the Icarus Shawl and more. Ordinarily, this would bother me to no end, but the ADD has been worse than usual this year. ADD is the new black.

Just Alright

The lady handed me an empty shopping bag (extra large) and a Popsicle stick (extra licked) marked 40% off. And while I was armed with a plan and knew precisely what I wanted to purchase, it still wasn't that easy. First of all, I browsed through the Inspired Cable Knits books ahead of time and found a couple potential cable projects, but I didn't write anything down. I was able to reference the store's copy of the book, but I couldn't really concentrate or calculate any yardage equations in my head because we really were shoulder to shoulder--constantly bumping into each other and all that. Plus, I haven't shared just how much NOISE a bunch of excited knitters can make. WOW! Just so you know.

It really wouldn't have paid to have done all the math anyway. They didn't have more than 10 balls of any one color of the Felted Tweed. (Teeehee! I just typed "Feltweed" by mistake, but I think that's a better name for this yarn!)

From left, I was able to find nine balls of the gray (159), 10 balls of the plum (145), and 3 balls of the dark blue (133).

The colors are most accurate in this photo from the last post:

Now, which cable sweater do I knit? I've seen and touched finished prototypes of all of the sweaters below and they are all simply beautiful. Breathtakingly so. That's why what you're going to see/read next, might surprise you...

I first considered knitting Gathering Intentions, until I decided that I'm just not feeling it.

Then I looked at Putting Down Roots, but I decided it was just alright for me.

And there's just no "Yo-factor"* in Celtic Icon. The more I look at it, the more I decide that it's just another hooded sweater. I actually cast on for this and knit three rows before I pushed it into the project basket.

I really can't explain it. They're all very fine projects--they're just not what I visualize when I close my eyes and see the Feltweed FO of my dreams.

Sirdar #8445 just might be the perfect cable project though! I just can't decide if I should knit it in the gray or in the plum. Do you think the cables will show if I use the plum? Is that colorway too dark for cables?

I guess there's only one way to find out...

*I might be watching a bit too much American Idol this season.

Here and There

In my world of here and there, "here" is where the knitting occurs sporadically. In fact most of the knitting that has taken place recently has occurred at either the weight loss center or on the soccer field. (Yes, it's soccer season AGAIN!)

All this knitting while waiting equates to one completed Twizzler sock and the beginning of another.  Again, this is the Knit Picks yarn that the YS and I dyed with Kool-Aid long ago. I'm not usually a fan of the color-pooling look, but I so love these socks and the pooling doesn't bother me one little bit. I think the pooling adds character.

I've already worn the one sock all over the house. I forced myself to take it off lest I wear it out before I manage to complete the pair, which might take a while as I expect the second sock will be knit at the WL center, the soccer field, and wherever else I end up as well.

Now for the "there" portion of this entry, as promised in the title. The "there" is the office, where things have slowed down slightly. Hopefully, this will enable more knitting and more knit blogging around these parts.

I took this photo while my camera was set to some random setting, but I like the end results. I'm guilty of leaving my camera on the "auto" setting and never straying. Maybe I'll have to change it up sometimes!