CupTeaLuv?

Monday night Mom and I went to Temptations (yarn shop here in Dublin) for their newly-starting free(!) sock group — the Mystery Sock Group…. I saw about it in their email newsletter, and of course called up and got signed up that morning. I called Beth and told her and Kay to get signed up and Mom too. I didn’t know Gerald had signed up until a couple of days before it! Added Bonus!!
So I got there really early (they actually said to me “you do realize that you’re almost an hour early, right??”) and I had to explain that I had come early b/c I live nearby and I knew others were coming early to hang out/pick yarn etc. — and to my credit Beth arrived within minutes of me saying that… and a few minutes after that, Gerald arrived and the party began!!
We had a blast — Michelle (the lovely instructor) gave us a number for casting on and then gave us the first couple of rows… then gave us a couple more rows at a time… the “Mystery” being that the sock we were making was hiding in the treasure chest on the table and she would only reveal a few rows at a time until we got a section done, then she revealed all — including the sample sock — and we saw that we’re doing a lacy zigzag sock!
It was great fun — despite the fact that I had to frog everything I’d done — with each project I start, I try and do something new/different… with this one there were 2 things I tried… 1.) using the new noro sock yarn… and 2.) using size 1 needles…. (b/c the new noro sock yarn is TINY!!!!!!) and it was dark on the needles and they were flimsy and I dropped a stitch and that was the end of it… frog city!!
Gerald had a few gems of quotes… the one that made me giggle for several hours I will share… at the end when they were passing around the sample sock, I said “oooh I want to touch it!!” and Gerald murmurs under his breath “if I had a dollar for every time I have heard that…” and I feigned shock and horror went into hysterical giggles… we both did… it might have been the dark chocolate talking at that point though….
and it makes me most upset because I cannot remember Kay’s gems — I must write them down!!!!!!

started 1/9/08 and finished this afternoon 1/17/08

and this second photo I left slightly larger to show more of the detail of my new favorite stitch (Eye of Partridge…. it’s not just for heels anymore!!!!)

with all this frogging going on I mean….
Ok. So I think I told you about frogging the rainy day socks, right? They are completely frogged back to square one (ball of yarn). And then I recently frogged (yet again) the reverse stockinette socks aka stripey socks — because that just wasn’t working out. I really need Beth to teach me how to properly trail the second yarn so that it doesn’t look like a long loop on the back (and so that it doesn’t show from the front when you kind of knit it in!!!!). So I have frogged that back to the start, cast it on again and knit up to the end of the cuff — I figured that I can either wait until the Mystery Sock Group begins (Jan. 28) or I can restart it once I get a lesson from Beth about trailing yarn (which I imagine will be a part of our “Get Started on the Shawl” lesson coming up next friday evening). Either way, it’s in a spot where it’s ready to get going again when I’m ready to pick it up.
So what’s on my needles you ask?? Very good question — I was thinking I was playing with the big girls now by having more than one project on needles, but as you can see above, that didn’t exactly work out for me. So I finished the secret project (that I can’t tell you about now because the person for whom the project is for might somehow read this blog!) in a couple of days, and then I cast on stitches to do my Eye of Partridge socks (the socks that I made for Mom for Christmas, I had yarn leftover so I’m doing an anklets pair for myself). So I’m up to the foot part on those… finished the heel and the gusset decreases today, and started in on the foot section. Hopefully I have plenty of yarn for that — it looks like I will. And unless it takes me all of 4 days to tidy up my craft room, I should have those done by the time we cast on for the shawl (although I do have to do a gauge swatch for the shawl by next friday). I picked up my yarn for that yesterday — so it’s ready and waiting. And hopefully my circ cables that I ordered with the money Andy’s parents gave me for Christmas will arrive any day now. I got the email that says they have been shipped.
So I guess I’m just good at having one project on the go at a time… which is fine with me, because it means that I will be a good finisher-upper. *thumbs up*

Miss Kay — I did not switch to circs… I merely moved the stitches over so that the repeat in the lace pattern falls on the changing of the needles in a way that there is a knit stitch instead of a yarnover or ssk!! Please do not worry about me going over to the “dark side”… haha!!!
*curtsey* I remain your SockPrincessInTraining always…..

with the lovely China Blue (Lorna’s Lace) yarn that I got from Temptations in their big sale — 40% off!!!
I just got one repetition of the lace pattern done, so I cannot tell yet how it really looks. I’m wondering if it might be better on circs… (because of the ssk and yarnovers)?? We’ll see…
Love that yarn though… it’s so pretty. Pictures soon…

Just before talking to my Mom on the phone today (she’s so sweet — called me to find out how I was feeling!) — I had an idea… a solution to my issues with the socks that I’m about to frog for the gazillionth time…
I’m going to get a dark/black yarn of the same weight and do 2 or 3 rows of the dark and 2 or 3 rows of the primary colors and then knit it all up like that!! Stripey like. MMMmmmm I love stripes.
Still feeling absolutely miserable with this cold… *sniff* wah. Feel so miserable that yesterday I didn’t even knit one stitch… that’s bad, folks. real bad.

I finished my candy cane socks this afternoon!!! YAYYYYY!! pictures to follow… also I mailed out Ry and Dash’s socks! Big accomplishments today.

This is the heel flap — the leg is complete and you do the flap for the heel before picking up stitches to go into the foot part…

Beth taught us that the best way to do a pair of socks is on two sets of needles, to do the leg of one sock, then the leg of the other, then the heel of one sock then the heel of the other, so that when you get to the exciting part (the toe!!) because you’re almost done that you do the toe of one and then the toe of the other and you have a finished pair! Rather than doing the toe and then realizing that you have to start the other sock from scratch — apparently some people have lots of socks where they have only the one sock knit because they never cast on the second one…
So here’s both pairs ready for the last class where we learned to do the toe…

And lastly here’s the finished product — the toes are a bit wonky because of my twisted stitch — but I soon learned how to correct that — and in the second pair where I was still working in my twisted stitch (before Beth re-taught me how to knit) Beth helped me figure out that I just needed to slide several stitches from one needle to the next before starting the toe to have a straight toe even with the twisted knitting…

So now you can see why I am obsessed — how COOL are these socks!!! Don’t even ask how much they cost — it’s like those MasterCard commercials… Cider Moon hand-dyed yarn… $$$, two sets Ebony double pointed needles (the Cadillac of needles)… $$$$, Basic Socks class…. $$$ …. Kristen’s happiness… PRICELESS.