Spice this

I finally finished those damn Spice Socks from "2-at-a-Time Socks." I started them in early March and have had nothing but trouble. These socks make me want to curse wildly, but T-Shirt Face reads this, and I still can't drop F-bombs in front of my dad.

See this post for details on the misery of it all.

I don't think I'll give them to my mom after all because there are too many imperfections. They may not be obvious from the photos, but they aren't my best work. I'll try to make it up to her with something better.




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Mark wants me to make clear that he did not like the look of the turquoise toenail polish and promptly took it off. He wanted you all to know that. But he also said it wasn't that it wasn't manly enough, but that his feet needed a better tan.

Spice Socks

Since February, I have been planning and working on these Spice Socks from "2-at-a-Time Socks."
Here's why: I wanted this book, so my mom got it for me for Christmas. A few months later, I was flipping through it looking for a project when I came across a sticky note with my mom's writing saying, "I want these." So I decided to make them for her for Mother's Day. Mother's Day seemed like a long time away, so I thought I had plenty of time to finish them.

They still aren't done.

I ran into several roadblocks. First off was learning this technique of knitting two socks at once on one circular needle. But I grasped that quickly enough. Second was doing the colorwork at the top of the leg. I had done just a little colorwork before, but this was four colors, and since I had two socks on one needle, that meant I had 8 balls of yarn tangling around each other. What a mess.



After that was done, it was smooth sailing. Until I finished the heel and had to pick up stitches and reconnect the insole. I didn't do it right and ended up with the socks on the needle in a very messed up manner that was impossible to work with. So I had to run a yarn through and take them off the needles and then put them back on. This seems simple enough, but I think it took me two hours.

From there, I knitted for a while and was partway down the foot when I decided to try them on. This is when I realized that the colorwork part was really tight and wouldn't fit over a foot. This miserable piece of news came to me simultaneously with Adam Lambert's "bottom two" announcement on "American Idol." I just felt sick. I wanted to cry. It was all too much.

I had a co-worker with size 2.5 feet try them on, and she couldn't fit them over her feet, either. So I finished the socks and decided to undo them from the top and work that part over on bigger needles.

Fun fact: frogging ribbing from the cast-on edge is, well, a gigantic nightmare. It doesn't just pull out. It has to be unwound by hand every few stitches. So, another several hours just undoing it and getting the stitches back on the needles. I then went up from the size 2s I used to size 5s.



I finished one sock, and the good news is that it fits over a foot. The bad news is that it is ugly. But it does seem to be OK when worn. The stitches are just too loose, and I guess I should have used a four, though they are not that different in size.



Now I have to do the other one, and I'm really not that motivated.

Here's the real kicker (and Mom, I'm not mad): my mom didn't even remember seeing or wanting those socks in the first place. Oh, man. All that for nothing! Well, she's getting them, and she is required to wear them in all their goofy glory because her kid made them. That is part of being a mom.

Finished! October socks, just in time for their namesake month

I've been working on these a while, but kept setting them aside. I hand-painted the yarn myself. The pattern is Campfire Socks, and it's available free HERE.

Socks and paint

I finished my first pair of socks. They are quite ugly, thanks to the yarn I chose, but I was determined to see them through.

Here they are on my new, homemade sock blockers. You dampen the socks and let them dry on the blockers for optimum shape-age.



I made these blockers with a $2 plastic place mat, saving myself a good $20-$30. I used the instructions found at Little Sesame Knits, but I was lazy and took shortcuts. Notice my cat is a running theme in these photos. She is everywhere it all times.


The other thing I did this weekend (my weekend, which does not coincide with everybody else's) was paint one of the spare bedrooms. It was really hard for several reasons, one of which is that painting is really hard. People act like it's fun, but there is not one fun thing about it. Another reason it was hard was because it was like 100% humidity the last few days here, and therefore the swamp coolers are rather ineffective. I'm not one to exaggerate, but I think it was hundreds of degrees in there. The final reason it was so hard is because it's a smallish room with BIG furniture. So it was kind of like a puzzle to move it a little this way and a little that way while I painted. Here is an example of the mess. In order for a small lady to move that big ol' bed, I had to take the mattress off.:



(another kitty)


In a few days, I'll present before and after pics! Stay tuned.

New things

I made the most of my one day off yesterday. I made three bags, got my oil changed, got my wheels rotated and balanced at Costco and shopped there, bought an air filter, got my brother to remotely work on my computer, which was acting like a nightmare, opened the computer and blew out a pound of dust, checked paint prices, finished my sock and started a new one. Phew!

This bag is a custom order for my friend's mom. Sorry for the tiny pic:



These two are just for fun. I had only been making custom items lately for sale, so with an upcoming show, I decided to add a few pieces. These are both new styles:





I am working on these socks, just for me, but I'm kind of over the yarn at this point. I'm just trying to get the second sock done so I can move on to a yarn I like. They are wool, yellow and gray. This is my first pair. There are a few itty-bitty mistakes on the first sock, but nothing too noticeable. Mark wonders why I don't just buy socks instead of spending weeks making them. Well, I DO buy socks. But there's just something special about having hand-knit wool socks, and the yarns available are so pretty, you can't buy socks like those. That's why, silly.