holiday wrapup

Greetings! Hope everyone had a nice holiday!

Everyone liked the socks - Ash wore hers around the house from the time she opened them until she went to bed 8 hours later! This is a good sign, considering she is always barefoot at home. I finished D's Twinkle Toes on Saturday but forgot to take a pic of the completed pair. Oh well.

I gave my grandparents the crocheted 'sampler' afghan (yes, I do hook!) in the neutrals that was my spring project this past year, and the red/white/blue ripple went to my uncle. He's got long legs and was very happy with the extra long lap robe! Now I have requests for three more...eep! Lancer wants a baby blanket, so I started a pastel Rambling Rows on Christmas Day while watching the Bourne series - all three movies - at my brother's house. I have some time *cough*, as the baby's due in June. Sis-in-law wants one for the upstairs living room, which I have a feeling will be in cream or a very light sage, and I haven't nailed the pattern yet. L&R's will be another Rambling Rows, but in the medium size and in brown shades. She told me her accent was ORANGE! No no no. I refuse to make an orange afghan. Way too 70's for me.

Still working on the yellow and blue Jaywalkers for me. I have been instructed to wear them to the hockey game in Feb - my nephews (and their mom and dad) gave me a Blues 'Away' jersey (!!!!) and two tickets to the game on Feb 17. Jamboy is playing on the Scottrade Center ice before the Blues game, so I'll get to see the Mites as well as the Big Guys. LOL! Roo said the colors in the Jaywalkers were in 'Blues Colors' and that I must wear them to the games. So I must!

Yarn! I did get a ball before Christmas from Weaving Dept and yesterday's present from Dharmafey was in the mail :)

• A 150g (420m) ball of Opal 6-fach "Blues" superwash wool/nylon in color 2020 (blue, yellow, pink, aqua, black, white). It's supposed to be a sportweight, but it seems thin for that. It's a self-striping as pictured.
• A 100g ball of superwash merino/nylon sock yarn in the colorway Goblet of Fire (orange sherbet, light brown, tan, cream, lime green).

The little 'extra' that Carrie added in the Potter Covers shipment was a puzzle at first - but I guessed what they were. They are two tilted 'spikes' threaded onto a black elastic cord. The spikes are about three inches long. At first, I thought they were supposed to be dragon teeth, but they're HORNS! LOL!! They're tilted so that they lean forward on your head. Very funny!!! They'll help keep my halo in place. ;) I'm not certain about the pattern - I think I'll need to knit up a repeat or two to see if the 'scales' are supposed to be pointing up or pointing down. I'm liking the toe-up method at the moment.

The second half of the Jo Rowling interview is up on PotterCast - very interesting stuff!

I WANT HAVE TO GO TO THE THEME PARK.

Nuff said. Also, lots of new songs and stuff on the SwishandFilk site, and you should check out the Christmas Music Extravaganza on Lime & Violet's blog/site/podcast. The Fanboy Christmas II is an absolute laugh riot.

Not much else going on here - we're supposed to go see National Treasure 2 on Sunday, and then do something on NYE. PK says she's off work on NYD, but I may be heading out to see Roo or Jamboy play hockey in Chesterfield. No funky-tasting champagne this year!

Off to do paperwork - we've been having some trouble with one of the programs here, and we're stuck till it's fixed, so we've been doing catch-up on everything else. Yay!

Cheers!

d's twinkles and jkr

Here are some in-process pics for D's Twinkle Toes socks.

These are amethyst. Actually, they're the same purple color as the Big Blue pattern - but as you know, my camera phone apparently doesn't like that color. They look blue! They're not!! ack!

They are about size 8, because they are short on my size 11.5 feet. They look very narrow - it's the lace! They stretch a lot. I did add 4 stitches to either side - that's the ribbing line you see on the side - as the Cherry Tree Hill yarn was a lot thinner than the STR heavyweight that the pattern called for. I was almost 3 stitches smaller than gauge, and if I'd tried to take the needle size up to gauge, it would have been bad. It only took me three days to make the first one - and I had to rip and re-knit the entire heel because I missed a row in the lace pattern, which lost me about 6 hours - and I'm almost 3 inches into the second sock. Yay! Must have these done by Sunday.

On Pottercast news *ducks flying tomatoes*, the PC Trio managed to interview JK Rowling for this week's podcast. Wow. Part 2 is next week. What a great Christmas present!! And I can't wait for The Scottish Book. ;) You know it's got you hooked when you say "wow" at the same time as one of the interviewers...it was a 'wow' moment. Go listen.

I bought Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters - Book One and my head is spinning. I'm going to have to try one of these mind-boggling patterns. They really are amazing.

Okay, that's all from me - minipost! lol

Cheers!

yarn and snow

Just a quickie - I managed to make it over to Knitty Couture on the way home in the snow last night and of course I got yarn:

• 2 50g balls of Interlacements Yarns "Tiny Toes" 100% superwash merino in Stained Glass (burgundy, chocolate brown, dark green, navy, dark yellow, wine)
• 4oz hank of Cherry Tree Hill "Supersock Solids" 100% superwash merino in Amethyst for D. She wasn't too - well, enthused about the light color of the other purple yarn I bought, and so this is PURPLE. The pic shows a very blue yarn, but trust me, it itsn't.

It snowed until about 2 I think (I was asleep) but we ended up with 8 inches of the white stuff! Take a look:

I took Plu for a walk, and ran into 2 other dog-walkers, over across the street in the field, so we let them all loose to chase around in the snow. He lasted about 5 minutes with Chloe and Francesco and then decided enough was enough and took off for home. At least I know he knows where he lives! He was waiting for me at the back gate. LOL!

Thi over at Knitty Couture has a Sunday knit-gather group - I told her I'd come on Sundays after the holidays. I didn't want to go out today because of the roads (would you believe the sun is shining brightly? oi.) and next week is Christmas at D & Co.'s house. I like that shop - and Thi (the owner) is really cheery. :) They have a newsletter out now - it's linked on her blog over at her website. I've got it linked in the sidebar.

PotterCast has a 'blog' contest going on - if you put the player/banner on your blog and then talk about the podcast IN your blog, you can win stuff. So, click on my banner! At the time of this post, they have the Fan Film Commentary for Order of the Phoenix up for download. I haven't had a chance to listen/watch it yet, but that's on the agenda in the next few days. I did post some thoughts about PotterCast #128 over on the Leaky Cauldron forum if anyone is interested.

I've managed to get sucked into the Back To The Future trilogy that's airing on HBO this afternoon - I loved the first one, didn't like the second one, and loved the third one. My mom's favorite line is from the end of the first movie: "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads." She likes Doc Brown! Great Scott! That's heavy. ;-)

I'm gonna go before I sit here and type lines from the movies. Cheers!!

sock pics!

Well, I finally got around to taking pictures. Yay! It's snowing like crazy outside, we're falling asleep here at work, and so here ya go. Eye candy except for the secret socks. I'll post those after the recipient gets them!

First off: Kesh's Socks

Blurry close up of Twinkle Toes stitches:

Next: Ash's Socks

Blurry close up of Zephyr stitch pattern:

Next up, PK's socks:

and a blurry heel and lace pattern:

Tada!!

I'm currently working on some Jaywalkers for myself out of the TeamFeet (Pinkwool) Oops colorway (yellow, dark blue, green inclusions) and so here's the leg so far:

Magic loop, cuff-down, yadda yadda.

Not much else going on here - I did manage to finally mail off the OMG scarf, so L will be getting that hopefully before the next blizzard ;-)

On the Cardinals front, Jim Edmonds was traded this morning to the Padres for a minor leaguer and cash. Ouch. We also lost Eckstein a few days ago to the Blue Jays. Can you say "reconstruction"? I thought so.

Back to work...cheers!!

2 more weeks

Less than 2 weeks to Christmas. Yikes!

I finished Kesh's socks - wow, that was fast. I actually did one sock start-to-finish in less than 24 hours. OKay, it was a short sock. Still! I like the pattern - I think I'm going to use the same pattern for D's socks, but hers will be full-sized socks. She likes the crew socks that you fold over but she doesn't fold 'em over - so she's a mid-calf-sock person. Works for me.

We went to Scottrade Center on Sunday to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra -it was awesome! We had some trouble getting there - the traffic was horrid, and there was no VIP parking for this event. We did get into the suite before it started (it started a little late) and got to eat a late lunch while they did welcomes and announcements. We were in the penthouse! The only thing we couldn't see after they raised the light framework/rig was the drums. It was an amazing show! They got started a little late - about 3:15 - and ran over more than a half hour. It finally ended about 5:45, and they had another show at 7! It was way cool with the light show, the snow (!!), the lasers, the fireworks, and the fireballs.

I totally forgot to bring any sock yarn to work with me today, and so I started a Kureopatora's Snake scarf with some Bernat Softee Chunky in Carnival that I had in my bag. I thought the color repeat was longer than it's turning out to be, but it'll still work. It's a little frenetic!

I am now on Ravelry! Yay! It's still in Beta, which means that if you don't have a Ravelry account, you can't see the site yet, but I'm here if you do have the access. I'll still be posting here - don't worry - but the blog is linked over there as well.

My thrill of the day was going to a short Q&A session (along with 90% of the corporate employees) with Paul Allen. For those of you who don't know, I work for Charter Communications, which is owned by Mr. Allen. It's just really ...well, odd to be in the same room with the guy who is the 6th richest man on the planet. We were standing room only, and so I was one person away from the door that they all came in for the presentation. Mostly, it was a rah-rah session - yesterday was the annual board meeting, which is why they were all in town - but it was still pretty cool.

I think that's all from me today. PK managed to give me a slight version of her cold, so I spent most of the day yesterday in bed with a stuffy nose and aches. Meh. I did manage to get up and catalog my DVDs - I have more than 90 movies! Ack! That wasn't counting the boxes of VHS tapes that are up in the storage room. Let's not think about those. Besides, I think they're buried under all the yarn.

Must...finish...Christmas...presents.

Cheers!

PS: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DVD came out today - guess what's on the schedule for viewing tonight? Yep! Heee.

PPS: 2 new banners on the sidebar: Fight Evil: Knit Socks is a MySpace group for knitting socks for charity and the PotterCast podcast banner is for...well, PotterCast!! Check them out!

tgi....saturday

Almost to the end of another week. I'm so tired!! I even had a vacation day this week and I'm still pooped.

I finished up the sekret socks and started a pair for L here at work. I've discovered I've become a fiber snob. I had some worsted variegated acrylic (ducks) in a bright colorway for her, and it actually hurt my hands to knit with it. I'm going to have to find something else to use for her socks! I have several bright yellow-orange yarns that I've picked up lately in my search for a good Fawkes sock, so that may be an option. I also could not make socks out of this yarn and make bonafide slippers instead. *ponders this*

I started Kesh's socks - I was going to use the Jaywalker pattern, but since she wants short socks, I didn't like how the heel looked. Soooo....went with a pattern I found on the DIY site from Cookie A. called "Twinkle Toes". It's toe up, and I've not done toe-up for a very long time, so it's interesting. I did do a figure 8 cast-on too - that was new for me. I'm not going to carry the pattern up the leg, or, if I do, it'll just be one pattern repeat (6 rows). This will give me an opportunity to work on my short-row heels, too. Cookie A.'s socks rock. She has several sock patterns published in Knitty, so you should go there now and check them out :)

I did find some pretty purple-y yarn for D's socks at Kirkwood Knittery:

• 4oz (450yd! woot!) hank of Pagewood Farms superwash merino/nylon/bamboo in colorway Grape Juice (purple/pink shades)

I need to find out if she wants short socks or long socks. If she wants short ones, I may be able to squeeze a few pairs out of this one hank! Maybe some more "Breeze" socks...

My biggest squee this week was winning 4 tickets for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert on Sunday! *jumps up and down!* They're in the Charter executive suite! I called D and asked her what she was doing on Sunday...and when I asked if she wanted to go to see TSO, she shouted "YES!! Oh my god, YES!" into my ear. LOL! Since PK has to work *grumps* it looks like it'll be me, D, Kesh, and possibly Ash. Not sure if Ash will really like this...she's more into country right now. *rolls eyes* [Edit: PK's officially....'sick' tomorrow per her supervisor. heee! So the Fab Four will be me, D, PK, and Ash.]

Not much else happening here - we had a mini-snow/ice event earlier this week, and now it's really foggy and chilly outside. Looks like a good night to curl up on the sofa and knit and listen to wizard rock! ;-) Seriously, I've been listening to Amy's podcast and it's....well, let's just say I'm not into punk, but it's got enough non-punk to keep me listening. LOL! I can't get to her MySpace from work (erm, firewall) but you can get info on this music genre from Google or sites like WizardRock.org and the like. From what I understand, the Wizrocklopedia (say THAT 10 times fast. Yikes!) was mentioned in Entertainment Weekly and had a pic of Harry and the Potters. Check it out!

Okay, all done. Cheers!

welcome to december

OMG, less than 4 weeks to Christmas.

Got your attention? Heheheh.

Well, Mom and J got married on Friday, and I sang and all was good. I'm ignoring the fact that I was nervous enough not to eat anything all day, and had a glass of wine upon arriving at the house. It was a very nice wedding, but I think we scared the best man's wife later at dinner - about the time that my aunt drank the champagne out of the bottle. ;-) She was...getting into the spirit of things a wee bit. LOL! Besides, it was almost empty. At least that's what she told me...

I went to Knitty Couture again on Saturday, and even though I said I wasn't gonna buy any more Jitterbug, well - you know how I get.

• A 110g hank of Colinette "Jitterbug" 100% superwash merino in colorway Vatican Pie (reds, semi-solid)
• 2 50g hanks of Interlacements Yarns "Tiny Toes" 100% superwash merino in colorway Turkish Carpet #207 (amethyst, wine, olive, yellow-brown, navy). It's darker than the picture on the link.
• A 100g hank of 100% merino from KnittyKnitter on Etsy in coloway Flamin' Hot! (red, pink, yellow, orange) - this will probably be another pair of "Fawkes" ;)

We went to see August Rush on Sunday - I don't go to the movies much, you know, but this was a must see. Very good. Need the soundtrack. Unfortunately, Borders' was sold out. Seems that I wasn't the only one who needed the soundtrack! This one will be one that I'm going to need the DVD of, as well. The next 'movie date' will be for National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets which opens on the 21st. We're planning on going to see it on the 30th, since that's when everyone is off work.

Missouri lost to Oklahoma on Saturday 38-17 in the Big 12 championship game. It wasn't a shocker, as Oklahoma was actually favored to win, but it knocked us out of contention for a title game. Ohio State and LSU are headed to that, while Missouri is going to play Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl. What irks me the most is that Kansas is going to the Orange Bowl. A team that we beat. Stupid BCS. I hope they get their butts kicked back to Lawrence. *mutter*

I think I'm done - not much else going on besides the fact that my big TV decided to flip out 2 weeks after I get cable back. Wouldn't you know it?? I'm watching digital cable on my little 13 inch TV. Oh, the torture! I may be getting Mom's old 35 inch TV later this week, but that means I'll need a bigger TV stand. Sigh.

Cheers!

PS: The newest MagKnits is up! Click on the link on the sidebar to see the new issue!