I got a picture !!11one!

As you can see, some of the socks are inside out. Yeah. That's because I had to tuck in the ends but I haven't snipped them yet because you're supposed to do that after you wash them, so I decided to wash them inside-out, then snip them, then right them. To save myself some trouble. Because turning socks inside-out is so hard.

It is just now occurring to me (not for the first time) that I may have some sort of psychological problem.

the problem is getting the pictures

Literally. That's the actual reason why I haven't blogged in nearly four weeks. Because night is when I think "ooo - I should blog, oh but I can't because I don't have pictures" but I can't take pictures of my knitting at night because my camera is kinda crappy and learning teh mad photography skillz will take up valuable knitting time. Maybe writing this will remind me to take the dratted pictures tomorrow morning? Though the next three months will probably be sucky photo-months because of the winter light.

I'm still in sock-nirvana, with nine socks in some stage of development but not sure how many I can count as finished. Ends are tucked in four socks, three are still pending, two are on the needles and none have been washed yet. So what counts as done?

Other Knitting News:
Gave up on various original designy-type things for the lavender silk and am settling for another Featherweight. Miles of plain stockinette, enabling me to read The Left Hand of Darkness on my computer.

Aliénor: the second sleeve is about 7/8 done and I am stalled, Stalled, STALLED. I've been revising the pattern and I'm at the proofreading stage, which is why I haven't even opened the file in maybe four months. Because I do not love proofreading, especially my own stuff.

Also stalled on another design that was rejected by Twist so I decided to self-publish, and I must say, it's a good thing they rejected me because I would nevar have gotten this done by the deadline. So yay them, right?

Stalled on the Rosita Mittens.

I need gloves. I bought three patterns by Laris. I have the yarn for all of them. Still have not cast on.

I designed some nifty stripey fingerless mitts and wrote up the pattern, it can be published as soon as I can get it tested! I have a potential testing crew on hand, and even a forum that I can use. I could start this up like flipping a switch. Am I making any move toward that switch? Um, no...

And Cassandra says I should open an Etsy shop! And she is absolutely right. Uh. Yeah, about that...

But! I gotta lotta socks!

sock obsession, probably temporary

Three weeks? Wow, it seems like I would've gotten more done in that time, since I've been neglecting every other project, even The Fat Squirrel's Squirrel It Away Knitalong which was SUCH a great idea and I signed onto it with immense enthusiasm, only to drop it like a hot rock when the grocery store stocked some cheap yarn. I am... a unique and special snowflake, I suppose, as long as you understand that to mean "bat-crap crazy."

The socks are a great accompaniment to listening to Mark read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and watching football. Not to mention a super-awesome way to stall on some jobs I should be applying for.

(Side note, I really don't like Blogger's options for placing pictures. It shouldn't be that hard, folks.) Anyway, brown socks for Secondborn, nearly done. Teal/purple socks for MEMEME! Done! Started teal/green socks recently and have already turned the heel on the first one and started the toe on the second one. I think these are my favorite so far.

 

So yeah. We'll see how long it takes this one to wear off. And how many unfinished socks I have on the needles when the "meh" takes me. My prediction: seven. 

N K Jemisin socks

Augh, it is a struggle to put down my knitting to blog about my knitting. Is there irony in that? Nah, probably not.

So since my last post I have MOVED TO ANOTHER COUNTRY, which is only part of why the not-blogging. One of the ways in which I procrastinate is to involve every action in a complicated ritual which begins with a step that I can't take right now, e.g: before I get dressed I have to take a shower but first I should probably get on the exercise bike which means I need to summon the motivation to be bored and sweaty for 20 minutes OR I need to admit that that's not gonna happen today because I am a wuss. Both options take a long time to work up to, which is why I'm still in my PJs at 4pm some days.

The knitblog equivalent of this is "I can't post (or list the project on Ravelry) without pictures, and my camera sucks and it's dark out." Also, taking pictures with my phone, bluetoothing them to my computer, resizing in IrfanView and then cropping in MS Paint and then sharpening, resizing and fixing the colors in IrfanView again, takes up valuable time that I could spend working on my spiffy new project which I am so excited about that I had to cast on even though I have 8 WIPs already. I tell you, I am a deeply flawed human being.

Anyway.

Now that we're back in Germany we can shop at Aldi again, with their semi-weekly theme events (we are so stocked up on pasta after Italian Food Week we'll have no trouble surviving the Barilla boycott, I tell you what). And Aldi has noticed that knitting is hip again (as the magazines have been telling us for lo, these ten years now), so they had SOCK YARN last week. And there was great rejoicing (me) and rolling of eyes (Mr Husband) at casa alala.

I think I was very restrained. Sixteen skeins isn't much when you realize it comes in packs of four (two colors per pack), and there were two whole color pairings that I didn't actually buy. There would have been three, but Secondborn has recently decided he likes brown. Ooo, I wonder if he knows about Steampunk yet...

And here they are, in the pairs they were packaged in:
Yes. I bought yarn from the grocery store. We are living in amazing times.

And I've already knit almost half a sock, so I'm naming the project after author N K Jemisin. Today while knitting I watched Mark read Valedictorian, and read Mark's response to the first few chapters of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and also caught up on her blog, so now every time I wear these socks I'll think of her. Which is fine. I really like this author. She totally deserves some socks.

This is what I get for procrastinating on the blog

Hi, yeah, sorry about that. I've been doing lots of things, and managing to document most of them on Ravelry, anyway.

I'm on a secret test-knit right now, so I can't tell you anything about it except that I'm using this Tosh Merino Light I bought at the grand opening of Penelope Craft's new premises (EPIC cupcakes were had, you really shouldn't have missed it). The colorway is called Mineral, it was the last of its kind in the shop, and it just happened to be a perfect match for some beads I've had since... oo, probably 2005 or so. You see, if you just hold on to things for long enough, eventually they'll tell you what their purpose is.

I've also made it to the sleeves on Aliénor II, but apparently the last picture I took (that wasn't a super close-up detail of a gusset or dart) was this one. Maybe I should do something about that...

I finally managed to struggle through the Knotty gloves. I love the pattern, they fit perfectly and are beautiful, but dang that's a lot of fingers. I hate knitting tiny tubes almost as much as I hate tucking in ends. And I still have about a squillion ends to tuck, so I'm not listing the project as finished yet.

No progress on Namarië. Because I am the worst friend ever.

And finally, there was another test-knit, which is done so I can write about it. Adri from http://adriprints.blogspot.com designed this neato lace cowl and loop and I tested the cowl but loved the fabric so much that I frogged it and bought another skein so I could make the loop. That's it on the left - the Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend is a joy to work with, and I'd been wanting an excuse to buy the Wildflowers colorway since Harlequin first opened. So I worked on it until it was really wide enough, and I still had some yarn left over.

These make me ridiculously happy.

And yes I have to republish Aliénor (I've told too many people I'm doing it now) and I'm also working on a new pattern plus the aforementioned super secret test knit, but there was that extra yarn, so I picked up some needles and started noodling around and came up with matching mitts.

I'll fill you in on the new pattern soon, but first I have to take some pictures. I've just checked the folder and all I have is a couple of sketches and a scan of the swatch. How did I forget to take pictures of this? Duh.

Stripety Mitts

So here's what I made with that yarn I picked up at the Handwerkbeurs from Zeven Katten. I'm still trying to decide whether and how to publish the pattern. Probably should be free, since it's so simple. Do I need to find test-knitters for a free simple pattern? Meh, probably. This business of needing other people can be problematic.

and this also happened

 ... like, aaaaaages ago, before the bag from Petra even, Arja made me a yarn bowl in her pottery class. I think this is the first thing I've ever commissioned; she showed me some bowls and I said "One like this please," and I chose the colors, inside and out. And I paid her in yarn, but still! Real (functional) art! And I love it, even with a center-pull ball which should render such things unnecessary, this bowl is still the shizzle. The photos don't really do it justice. I'll try to add more, but dang, it took me weeks just to get these taken and uploaded. Probably because I was too busy oohing and aahing over my fab new awesome YARN BOWL, Y'ALL!

'Twas een mooie dag!

So I went to the Handwerkbeurs in Zwolle with my friend Patricia today! And it was fun, and all y'all who didn't come with us? You totally missed out.

For not intending to buy anything, I think I did fairly well - I really did need the beading wire, and here was a chance to look at it in person instead of buying from the internet. But then I got to the Zeven Katten stand, which was imperative, since we had to say hi to Arja (who wasn't there), and well. It's a single-ply! In semi-solid colors! With long repeats! Talk about your triple whammy. 

In order to justify the purchase I came up with a plan for the yarn right there on the spot, and I still like my plan, hours later. I will even publish the pattern, just to make it extra-justified. Because the world totally needs another wristwarmer pattern. Yes it does.

Look what Petra made me !♥!

Totally unsolicited! I have the awesome friends. The outside fabric? Is from Senegal. SENEGAL. Okay, I have a new mission and that is to buy fabric in every country I visit. You read it here first.

Outside

Inside