Cricket Returns!

Actually, I've not been away....just awfully busy! *LOL* That's no excuse for my lack of bloggage, though, and I apologize. September has just kind of slipped away from me somehow!

I've been knitting lots of goodies, though. Did I tell you that I joined a local knitting guild? We meet once a month, and I've now attended two meetings. I'm enjoying it a LOT! It's good to sit with like-minded knitters and learn things.

During our last meeting, one of the members asked if anyone would be interested in knitting a scarf for charity. Just a simple garter-stitch scarf, nothing fancy. She supplied the volunteers with the necessary yarn, and I knitted the scarf during my last camping trip of the season. It took no time at all, and I hope it will be useful to someone.

I'm also knitting up several Regular Guy Beanies to take to a local shelter so that they can distribute them to anyone in need of something to help keep warm this winter. If you have a Ravelry account, you can click here to see the pattern. It's simple, quick, and doesn't use much yarn. When I mentioned in my guild meeting that I was knitting these, the owner of my LYS gave me some yarn from her yarn amnesty stash to use for the beanies. Wasn't that sweet of her? (Shameless plug for my LYS: if you're ever in Abingdon, Virginia, be sure to stop by A Likely Yarn. You'll enjoy it, I promise!)

Let's see, what else have I been knitting? Spa mitts and soap sacks for Christmas gifts, started a pair of socks, started a TARDIS (you Doctor Who fans will know what I mean), and I started a Scrunchable Scarf as a gift for my great-aunt's 100th birthday in November. She's a gifted crafter, crochets and knits and sews and does just about anything you can imagine.

So, you can see that I've been a busy girl. Still, that's no excuse for not blogging, so I promise I'll try to do better. :-) Hope you're all having a great week!

"Egg-stra" Special Sock Kit

When I checked my mail yesterday afternoon, I found the that "Eggstra" Special Sock Kit I won in IdaW's contest on her blog, The Evolving Sock Knitter, had arrived. Such beautiful yarn! As I ran my fingers over it and squeezed it gently, I thought of the Yarn Harlot saying that when someone insensitively comments on your yarn stash you should say (while stroking the yarn), "Yarn? This isn't yarn. These are my kittens." *LOL*

The pattern is written top-down, and I've been knitting toe-up two-at-a-time for a good while now. When I checked my needle stash I found that the last time I'd knit top-down using DPNs, I was still using size 2 or 3 needles. With time I've drifted down to a size 1, so I'm going to treat myself to a set of size 1 DPNs before I start knitting the kit.

I don't mind using DPNs at all; in fact, it kind of gives me a feeling of reconnecting to my ancestors. I imagine them knitting away with a hand-wound ball of yarn and a porcupine of needles sticking out of a half-completed woolen sock. I don't even mind closing the toe with the much-maligned Kitchener stitch. I think it's magical to watch that opening close up without a trace!

The only reason I usually knit socks using Magic Loop, two-at-a-time, toe up is so that I can finish both socks at the same time. I also enjoy knitting on one long circular needle so that if I drop my work I don't have to worry about losing one of my double-point needles.

But because this pattern is written top-down, I'll knit them on DPNs and enjoy the experience. Of course, to prevent myself from going nuts at my local yarn shop, A Likely Yarn, or online at KnitPicks, I'll have to hope that WalMart has a set of size 1 DPNs hanging on the rack!

Knitting Therapy

Today is a bad day. We all have them, and some are definitely worse than others. I know it will get better, but trust me, this is just a bad, awful day.

Bad days make me appreciate the lovely soothing repetitive motion of knitting. There's something about the rhythm that you develop with sticks and string that settles the mind and centers your emotions.

Can knitting make bad situations better? No....at least not usually. Can knitting make you calmer and more emotionally able to deal with bad situations? It works for me, thank goodness.

So off I go to knit through the rest of my lunch break and center myself. Tomorrow will be better.

Swiffer Cloth Success!

I finally managed to knit a Swiffer floor cloth with the shape and size I wanted! Only took me five tries. *LOL* This final version is a slight variation on the "Purly Lace Swiffer Cover" available on Ravelry. I put the instructions for my variation over in my "Freebies" patterns (see link at the right of this page). I have a couple more of these to knit for little gifts, then I can get back to my other projects. In fact, I'm already halfway through the next Swiffer cloth. Once I figured out what to do, they go really quickly!

Oho, the Wells Fargo Wagon is A-Comin' Down the Street

Oh please let it be for meeeeeeeeee! (If you don't understand that reference, you need to watch "The Music Man". *LOL*)

The FedEx tracking site says that my KnitPicks order is "out for delivery". So, this means I might or might not get it today. Here's why: the final leg of the FedEx delivery is passed off to the local post office. Depending on which mail carrier is delivering mail in my neck of the woods today, he or she will either 1) leave the package on my doorstep (which I requested in writing long ago) or 2) take it back to the post office and leave a little note in my mailbox telling me that I can pick up the package after 8:00 tomorrow morning.

The suspense would be maddening if I wasn't so terribly busy today. *L*

Oh, I must tell you about my latest knitting disaster. Well, not really a disaster, I guess since it's not of earth-shattering importance, but a GOOF all the same! Last night I finished my latest incarnation of the knitted Swiffer cloth. It was looking really, really great, and I was happier than I'd been with any of the previous versions I'd knitted (this was the fourth one in the series). I finished it up while watching TV, hid the ends, and happily slipped it on my Swiffer.

It was too long. *beating head on monitor* WHY didn't I check it before I sewed up the pocket seams and hid the ends? Dunce. Total dunce. I checked the width, but not the length.

Soooooooooo....last night I cast on the fifth one, making adjustments that I think will work. You can bet, though, that after a reasonable number of rows have been completed I'll be holding the next one against the Swiffer to see if I'm on the right track. Dunce.

I brought my little gray socks to work with me today so I can knit a bit on them while munching my lunch. So, I'll cut this entry short so I can hopefully finish reknitting the toes today!

Waiting for Yarn

How insane is it that I'm waiting for yarn to be delivered before starting my next sizable project? I have BASKETS full of yarn. There's a term for this that I read on the Yarn Harlot's blog called "SABLE": Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.

And, even though my stash has come dangerously near SABLE status, I find myself checking online to see when my next KnitPicks order is due to arrive. Hopeless, I tell you, I'm just plain hopeless. Oh well. A yarn addiction is a relatively harmless one.

The yarn I'm waiting for is to knit a TARDIS. For those of you uninitiated into the world of Doctor Who, a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space) is a time machine used by Doctor Who and his companion(s) to travel through time and space to provide assistance to others. The TARDIS looks like a 1950's London police box; if you've never seen a photo of one of those, it looks something like a large-ish blue old-style telephone booth. You know, the kind that Superman used to change into his tights and cape back in the day.

Back to the knitting issue: I HAD some worsted yarn on hand that I thought would work, but this proved to be problematic on a couple of counts. First of all, it really wasn't the right color. I needed some dark blue yarn and some darker blue yarn, along with a small bit of white. As it turns out, the yarn I thought would work was MUCH too light, and it just didn't look right at all. Additionally, the worsted weight yarn was going to make this a BIG ol' TARDIS, much larger than I'd intended. So, KnitPicks to the rescue. I went online and selected some fingering weight yarn that I thought would be a better color. As always, the price was very reasonable and I had enough stashed on my Wish List there to bring my order up to the minimum order for free shipping. (I ALWAYS have something on my Wish List there....*LOL*)

And now I'm waiting. I have plenty to keep me busy until the new yarn arrives, of course. Actually I guess I SHOULD be working on some decluttering I'd promised myself I'd get finished.

But then again, there's a pair of socks I want to start.....

I Won Again!

I can't believe it, but I've won another contest! *happy dance* IdaW of The Evolving Sock Knitter ran a contest on her wonderful blog to give away two Trekking "Egg-stra" Special Sock Kits. This sock was designed by Rosemary “Chappy” Chapman in honor of Susanne Skacel, a three-year survivor of ovarian cancer. The yarn in the kit is a glorious shade of teal that was dyed to match the color of the ribbons used to represent support for the fight against ovarian cancer.

WEBS and Skacel Collection, Inc. are both donating the entire proceeds of the sale of these kits ($25 per kit) to the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research. I know that lately it seems like everyone's been asking for donations, but if you have any funds left in your yarn stash, maybe you'd like to have a look at this beautiful sock kit by clicking HERE and considering placing an order.

Thanks so much, IdaW, for giving me the opportunity to put my name "in the hat" for this terrific giveaway!