TaaaaDaaaaa


Pair #3 for the year - another pair of the crazy 'Nations' socks from Regia! These will be off to their new home on Wednesday. I used a slightly smaller needle this time around & I quite like the thicker fabric that .25 of a mm makes. This pair were knit on my new 2mm Harmony DPs until I ran out of needle & then switched to the 2mm circs. I was very happy I had them! I don't think I'd want to knit a Man's size 13 on these but I may use them for the next pair for myself for those dark, cold, wintry days when the mercury is heading down instead of up the thermometer!! Today, I wished for long underwear & blanket jammies to hang out in. The landlord cranked up the furnace overnight & turned it down once again, when the kids left for school!!

Just to make you jealous, here's a pic of all three pairs of socks knit since January 1!! That's two pairs on the bottom for MY sock basket & the wild one on top will be traveling. The gloves are still on the needles but I've been too busy to finish them - lucky I got the last pair of socks done!

I do have a plan to knit something else for myself but I have to figure out the math since I don't have the yarn specified & take a size larger than the largest in the pattern. Since I now have Sweater Wizard, Math Wizard, Sock Wizard & Print-a-Grid, I figure it should be a lot easier. There's also this crazy crisscross crocheted sweater that caught my eye but I may have to make it up for a kid just to see how it goes together . . .

Complaints Complaints

I've been whining lately about people who have blogs but rarely update them! I have a couple of favs that I've followed for years who just stopped blogging! How could they?? Or there's the ones who leave little hints & never get back to tell you what happened - they're probably the worst. And then there's me, I notice I haven't blogged for a couple of weeks . . . well, what can I say? It's February. The month that no one pays the book keeper. I've worked double the hours I normally work to get paid half the money. Every February I think about changing careers but get caught up in the backlog & suddenly, it's Tax Time. My favorite time of the year!! So, here we go again!!

I admit, I haven't done a lot lately. Steve, my techie buddy, tore the guts out of my computer & refurbished it so I haven't had a computer for a few days. I'm still on soft food & getting mighty tired of it! And I haven't vacuumed or cleaned out a closet yet this year! I haven't finished the latest pair of socks but they are ready for the toe shaping. Haven't finished Kyler's Kardigan in the purple Marble yarn but it's back in the car as Car Knitting! Coffeed with my adopted Niece on Friday & came away with an order for arm warmers & a hoodie in wool! I feel a Wonderful Wallaby coming on! Can't decide between the remains of the Briggs & Little Anniversary yarn I bought on sale - barber pole of two shades of blue or the multiple skeins of Briggs & Little Heritage & Regal in every shade of blue they make & one skein of cherry. I bought them at Knitopia when they were clearing out the storage bin in Langley. I was thinking about an Adult Surprise sweater at the time & I didn't want it to be too boring . . . I'd really love to do a Wonderful Wallaby in red or emerald for her but Sapphire blue is her color - a true WINTER child. She's training to apply to ERT - Emergency Response Team - & I've never seen her so thin & muscular! She's 42, in better shape than she was at 22! She rides horses & motorcycles, shoots & builds dragons in modeling clay. And wants a hoodie with a 'Lord of the Rings' hood. She'll probably wear it with lace underwear. . .

Eating & Drinking Again

The mouth is improving day by day although I liked it better when the Silly Putty bandage covered everything!! I'm supposed to brush gently with a very soft brush - doesn't matter how gently you brush, you make it sore, dammit!! And I can't chew on that side either but I managed to scarf down two whole bags of baby bok choy with Chinese sausage & six red grapefruit in two days!! I have missed all the green veggies & citrus fruit I normally eat!! Nothing like a trip to the Chinese grocery store to whet the appetite for Lettuce Rolls with hot sauce, BBQ Pork, Chinese Sausage & my favorite Pu-erh tea!! I think about moving away from the Rat Race in the Lower Mainland & then remember my tea, the Lettuce Rolls, BBQ pork, Sushi & Goat Curry . . .

I HAVE been doing other things besides eating. I promised a pair of wild socks to a second Motorcycling Mama with small feet so I cast on when I got my new Harmony DPs. Good thing this MM has SMALL feet because those needles are also short - not as short as the full set I bought but a little too short for me to work my magic with FOUR needles!! I now know why they include SIX to the set. It isn't to cover breakage, it's so you can knit a full sock. Here's an example - I'm about halfway into the increases for the heel shaping & there's just too many stitches for one needle! Since my heel is K1, S1, I can't break that part up onto two needles easily, I could put each one of the gusset increases onto it's own needle I suppose or do what I did on the other sock & just use a circ. I love the feel & look of the Harmony sock needles but they just aren't long enough for me to work with. I just don't find them comfortable & I'd never be able to knit a man's sock with them, that's for sure. Too bad because they're really nice.

The second sock is on two circs - not my preferred method of sock knitting but I can work with it. I had to put the stitches on the circs in order to finish the gussets & turn the heel since it was just too awkward to use THREE needles for the heel shaping. I don't have any other needles in this size so I had only the two options. I wish the Harmony needles came about 2 inches longer - 4 inches longer & I'd buy a whole set!!!! I'll probably end up making some more bamboo skewer needles in the 2 & 2.25mm size this summer. I have a 2.50mm set that I use constantly for men's socks. The whole bag was in the 2.50mm size - just lightly sanded them & rubbed them with greasy fleece! I've never broken one - I probably will now that I mentioned it!! But, I prefer the 2.25 for my socks. It's amazing, but that little .25mm does make a big difference!!

And then there's my gloves! I've been having fun with the gloves. I decided some of the wild colors looked too garish in the middle of them so I yanked it out & found other colors that looked nicer. I've finished the second finger & my only problem has been the hole at the base of the finger where you cast on a few stitches between picking up the front stitches & the back ones. I've messed with the cast-on a little but still have a hole. So, before I do any more fingers, I have to figure out how to get rid of that hole. It makes me crazy! Other than that, Gloves are easy & fun to make!! By the time I figure out the hole problem, it will probably be too warm for gloves . . . .

I found two boxes & one big bag of sock yarn leftovers - I'm sure there's even more lurking in the bags, boxes & bins around here too. I found a couple of pictures of afghans made up of leftovers but I sure don't have the patience to sew up a bunch of tiny mitred squares - hell, I don't even want to sew up the big ones!!! I am thinking about a Log Cabin style afghan with very large squares - less sewing - or starting a rectangle for the centre & then rotating it 90 degrees, picking up stitches and knitting another. Each rectangle is built upon the one preceding it & spirals slowly to the outside as it gets bigger with NO SEWING. You can end it at any point or keep on adding to it for years. Might be the ideal way to use up those constant leftovers.

Recovering

I postponed, put off, procrastinated & generally avoided doing something about a little problem I had with a spongey gum which my Periodontist wanted to fix. I had the same type of little spot (it wasn't so little but easy to fix) near a lower eye-tooth years ago - a popcorn hull had lodged in both places & been overlooked by all my Dentists till I got a new one who promptly sent me to the Gum Guy. The Gum Guy finds all kinds of things stuck under gums - popcorn hulls are common by the way, so are toothpick pieces! My Gum Guy made me promise never to eat popcorn again! Years ago he talked me into having ALL my lower gums trimmed so he could hide the big hole he was carving where the popcorn hull did the damage. I was so sick, sore & mad that I wanted to tear him limb from limb the second day after . . . I swore he was never, ever doing that to me again. So, fast forward 15 years, having tried everything from Witchcraft to Begging, I'm having another surgical intervention. I allowed him to have TWO TEETH on either side of the problem. I don't give a damn if I have a big hole!! Turns out I had a big abscess in my jaw instead & from the way he was digging, scraping & sanding - it was a bit of an emergency. I heard the Assistant murmur BONE GRAFT??!! Gasp! but he said we didn't need one! phew! To make this long story shorter - he packed it with some sort of antibiotic foam, stitched what he could & plastered the whole area with a Silly Putty-like goop that seals & covers the whole thing with just my tooth bottoms sticking out! Nice. Feels weird but it makes a great dressing! I did as I was told for a change, went home, took Advil & went to bed with a cold gel pack on my face. No food for 24 hours unless I could suck it through a straw. Drank lots, took C, B & zinc. I had some soft mac & cheese late last night - yummy!! And oatmeal today. The Silly Putty bandage is still in place & I have no pain - well, when the Advil's wearing off I feel throbbing but no nasty pain at all. I think the Silly Putty has magic in it!!! What a change from last time!! Dentistry sure has come a long way - even gum trimming!!! I plan on doing all the right things so that this heals well & quickly. And this is why I haven't been knitting much this week.

But - I have been experimenting with my first pair of gloves. I've treated them like a Frankensock - a little bit of this & a little of that & found that Gloves are easier to knit than socks!! The only problem I've had is trying NOT to get a hole in the first cast-on when I separate the stitches for the fingers. That one's tough & I may have to adjust everything after the fingers are actually knit. Gloves are fun. I've always thought they were complicated & hard to knit so I never bothered with them - I've only knit mittens once or twice!! But Gloves are fun to knit! And now that I know that, well, there's all those patterns to try!