Sock Pal questionnaire.......

1.Are you sensitive to any fibres? Any you don't like? Any you need to take private time with? LOL, nope I'm not sensitive to anything as far as finding yarns scratchy or anything, I'm no princess. I need to stay away from Tofutsies because of the shellfish thing though.

2.What colors do you prefer? I'm pretty open with colour, I'm not a huge fan of yellow and I prefer strong colours to pastels though. My sock yarn stash is pretty diverse colourwise.

3. Variegated, striped, plain with texture, plain and silky?variegated that pools?
I do knit with a lot of vareigateds because that's what I have in my stash but lately I haven't been really enamoured with them, I really prefer solids and semi solids. I have a deep and unabiding love for self striping and faux fair isle sock yarns though. Pooling makes me crazy.

4.Where do you normally wear your hand-made socks? Around the house?
To work with comfy sensible shoes? Out with pumps and minis?
Anywhere with any shoes, to work, hanging around the house...

5.If you could leave your partner and run off with only one sock yarn, which would it be and why? Lorna's Laces semi solids, squishy but tough at the same time.

6.What are your foot measurements? And what height do you like your socks to be? I wear a size 38 shoe (US 7.5?) so my feet are about 9.5" long, 9" around and I generally knit my socks to about 7" from the top of the cuff to the bottom of the heel.

7.Who is your favorite sock designer? Who's patterns do you knit the most??
Favorite designer would probably be Cookie A, thinking about it though I've probably knit more Nancy Bush socks than anyone else.

8.what weight of sock do you like, fine, medium, or thick? I usually knit and wear mostly fingering weight socks but I do have the odd dk and worsted pair that I love.

Ugh, the STR hates me again. With our torrid past I decided it was time to destash this so I popped it in the mail to a happy knitter this morning. It didn't want to be Charade socks any more than it wanted to be Jaywalkers or any of the other patterns I've tried with it. I did shop the stash and find a skein of Trekking XXL #100 that seems more than happy to be jaywalking so that's what I'm up to now as far as knitting goes. (Pic is from yesterday, almost at the toe as of writing.)

Far more interesting is new stuff that's been occupying my brain. Lots of downtime at work leads to lots of blog surfing to keep things interesting and I seem to be stumbling upon more and more bloggers who cross craft, those knitters who crochet and such but it's the knitter's that quilt that are getting to me. I've started to lust after fabric the way I haven't lusted about yarn for a while. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not about to quit knitting (perish the thought!) but I am probably headed towards obsession preoccupation with fabrics and quilts. I've added some sewers/quilters/fabric designers to my daily blog roll and held out as long as I could. I was NOT going to start quilting, it's expensive, it's old ladyish (yeah, funny says the knitter), I'm terrible with colour....


Anyway, a trip to visit friends on the weekend and a grandmother who's destashing and I come home with this: perfect, lovely, droolworthy perhaps fabrics to start my own quilting obsession and nearly enough to make a queen size quilt top at that. Turns out I can put colours together after all and the expense excuse just dissapeared (all this, there's more coming, for the price of some handknit socks for the loverly grandma in question). I'll have to post pics of the rest when I get it, it's for M and you'll laugh your arse off.

Yay, another pair down. I finished the Lombard Street socks last night save for snugging up the kitchenering on the second toe and weaving in the ends so I left them at home today so I could start another pair. Charade socks in STR lightweight in "crazy lace agate", the yarn that didn't want to be Jaywalkers way back when. So far so good as far as the yarn goes, it's not pooling yet so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

In other news the building I work in has been on the news. On Tuesday chunks of marble were falling off the tower and onto (and through) the third floor roof. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about being here....

I'm not even going to appologize for being awol for so long, suffice it to say that things have been too stressful and busy to get here to show anything off. Seems we've all been suffering from "daycare disease" the last month and a half.

I've been knitting socks on the commute to work and back which has been nice. I'd love the time to knit something more substantial but as I'm travelling during rush hour times there's barely room for me to knit a sock on the subway some days. So far I've completed a pair of Monkey socks form Knitty and a plain no-pattern pair. The second Lombard Street sock is approaching the toe too.

Other knitting hasn't been getting much attention, the CPH just needs a few more hood rows then the buttonbands but I did pick up some really nice buttons for it at the Knitter's Frolic the other weekend. Hopefully it'll be done sometime soon so I can still wear it a few times before packing it away for the summer.

M got a spring gift a couple of weekends ago, a "bika".

He also really loves his rain boots.

I got to work on M's nap quilt shortly after he went to bed last night and when he woke up from his nap just now he sat under it for a bit watching tv. I did the cutting and basting last night and the actual quilting over the past few hours while he slept and I'm pretty pleased with it so far. I've decided that the blanket binding I bought isn't going to work as nicely as I'd like it to so I'm going to have a peek for something else when we run out to Walmart tonight so with luck I should have this done tonight or tomorrow sometime. I'm also thinking that a quilt like this might make a really good on-the-fly baby gift. When I haven't sewn for a while I always forget how quickly you can have an FO, it's a great break from knitting where it can takes weeks to months to have something completed.

Not much knitting has been happening outside of the CPH. Right now the back and both fronts are done as is the first sleeve. The second sleeve is on the needles and should be finished tonight and tomorrow. It's so pleasing to look over at a pile of finished pieces and know you're in the home stretch, I'm keeping the pile handy for inspiration. I am, of course, suffering from a bit of second sleeve syndrome. The back is unique and each front a bit different given the "reverse the shaping" instruction but sleeves being identical you can easily fall into the same slump as with second socks, the second is identical to the first therefore you feel like you've been here before but not in an exciting kind of way.

For a break I sat at the sewing machine for a while last night and got some bags churned out so I was able to hit the post office this morning to get them on their way. The sewing bug seems to hit me intermittently from time to time it seems and I'm having more interest again all of a sudden. I have a terrible time convincing myself to get off my rear and get started but as soon as I do I find I can't get up. I have two more projects planned for the very near future: a little M sized backpack and a second crib sized quilt, also for M (more about the reason for these later).

The quilt fabric is flanelette in two adorable boyish prints, bugs and zoo animals. I'm just going to put one fabric on each side and bind them with some satin blanket edging with just a thin sheet of batting in between so the blanket is warm but not stifling. I'll machine quilt it somehow I haven't thought about just yet. The little backpack will be blue courdoroy outside but the lining is the cutest cotton print of bugs and leaves with "I'm an expolorer" written on it here and there. Both will be for M to take when he starts daycare next week.


I finally, at long last, got a full time job so M will be starting daycare fulltime next Monday. I took him for the morning yesterday and after about an hour of being a bit hesitant and nervous he was in there playing with the kids, making animal noises and fingerpainting with the others. We're going for another visit tomorrow (O is coming too) and possibly one more on Friday so he's really comfortable when he's dropped off for a full day. He didn't want to get his coat on to leave yesterday.


I'll still be working my weekend job at least for a bit so the knitting and sewing time will be almost non-existant at least for a while. At least the commute into downtown on transit every day will be some dedicated knitting time.

The secret baby thingy is plugging along and I managed to pick up some trimmings for it yesterday while I was downtown. The knitting is flying by, so much so that I've managed to knit past key sections a few times now and had to frog back to put in what I had forgotten. I tried knitting surgery but I just ended up with a bigger mess than I started with so frogging really is the answer. Luckily I love the yarn and the pattern so it's not too upsetting to have to rip back.


Swatching is finished on the Central Park Hoodie so I cast on for the back on the subway yesterday. I've decided the only way I ever want to knit 4" of 2x2 ribbing is with the girls at SnB, they were a good distraction and I managed to get all of the ribbing and two cable pattern repeats out of the way yesterday. So far it's going along at a pretty good pace that I hope to keep up by taking it as my work knitting this weekend. The pattern is pretty intuitive, as long as you can remember when to cable and you can remember to knit the knits and purl the purls you're laughing.

I'm using the yarn the pattern calls for, some Tahki Donegal Tweed from the stash (yay for stashbusting!). I love the colour and the tweediness of it but it's a bit rough on the hands so far, it's not the softest yarn out there by a long way but it should soften some with a few washings. I'm using my new Denise needles for the first time and really liking them so far, I got them in trade for some stuff I wasn't using and I'm glad I took a chance on the set.

I've made myself a knitting resolution over the past few days (yes, I'm aware new year's was months ago), I can work on my main projects in the mornings and evenings (before noon and after five) and I can only knit on a UFO during the afternoon. So right now afternoons are for dad's socks, O's sweater and Lady E and mornings and nights are for the baby something and the CPH. I'm still getting lots of main project time but it means that I'm also moving some longstanding WIPs in the right direction too.

And here's a pic to cute up the blog today.