Fluffy Activity

It's been a couple of days, but there's lots of stuff to see here. Gather round while I share my knitting progress and new spinning toy!

As you may remember, I'm on a yarn diet. This time, I'm taking it very seriously. This is the Cabled Headband from The Knitter's Book of Yarn, and I'm using the leftovers from the Fetchings I made for a friend. My leftovers were beginning to turn into a stash all their own. No more! I only hope I don't run out of yarn...


One of the entrelac socks is done. Except for the afterthought heel, but I want to knit both when the rest of the socks is done. I don't think these will be ready by the end of January so they won't count for the December Sock Knitters Anonymous challenge, though.


Finally, I've been spinning. These are 4 oz of merino in blacks and grays, which I received during an SP round on knitty a while ago. I need to wind off the singles from the spindle, and then I can start plying. And I have just the right tool for that.


Look! New Tabachek spindle! 1.5 ounces, perfect for plying. Merlin thinks it's a cat toy, but for once, I have to contradict him.


The idea is to take the little balls of singles, put them in mugs, wrap yarn around handles once for tension, then 3-ply. We'll see how that goes. I may change my mind and only ply 2 singles together. We'll see.

Selfish Knitting

I have several projects going. A pair of socks for my sister, a (very late) birthday knit for my sister, a nearly-finished headband for myself. So what do I do? I pick up the latest issue of Knitscene, Take one look at the Geodesic Cardigan, and start winding yarn.

In all fairness, this is part of my stash reduction project. I have two of these large hanks of Morehouse Merino laceweight. I bought them years ago, when they still had a brick-and-mortar store in Red Hook, NY.


And here it is, all wound up. I had some yarn breakage, hence the two balls, but I'll use the little one to swatch. The colors are closer to the real thing in the top picture. But I wanted to show off those balls. I wound them by hand. 880 yards of laceweight. Took over an hour. Now the swatching. I love this pattern!


In other news, my mother send us a box from Germany. No food, per my request (it's wintertime, and all I want to do is eat, eat, eat). Some sweaters for me, a nice sweater for Mr. Batty... and this box. The cat loves this box.


German box, with flap. Perfect size for a cat. It has been claimed.

On a roll!

Dude, I'm on a roll! I signed up for the Sole Mates sock club... the patterns only option! New patterns to help me knit up the sock yarn I already have. Patting myself on the back here, because clicking on the pattern-and-yarn option sure was tempting.

Thank you!

I just wanted to say thank you for your input on my knitterly moral dilemma. I am going to search my stash for suitable black Fetching yarn, I seem to remember some leftover Aurora8 after I finished Mr. Batty's hat. If there isn't enough, or if I really can't find it... I'm getting a ball of black Lamb's Pride Superwash. I think it's my new favorite superwash worsted weight. Lovely stuff.

And... to follow up a question with a question: When you undo a provisional caston, which side do you start on? The side with the knot, which is essentially the beginning of a long-tail caston, or the side with the leftover yarn and the working yarn? I know I've done this successfully in the past, but the last time around, I fouled it up. I don't want to frog again!

Yarn Diet Ethics

We all know I'm on a yarn diet. No yarn for a year. And I've been doing well. Granted, it's only been 13 days of new year, but still...

Fast forward to yesterday. A co-worker has seen the Fetchings and asked me to make some for her daughter. She's in her college's marching band, her hands get cold, and the Fetchings would have to be black to blend in with her uniform.
I think I have the yarn to make them, but I'm not sure. I'll turn my stash upside down. But... if I don't... do you think it really counts as buying yarn? She said she'd pay for it (which I don't want her to do). And I wouldn't use this as an excuse to start buying yarn because of a 'failed resolution.'

So... what should I do? Buy the yarn if I don't have it? I don't want to say no.

Fetchings

First FO of the new year! I started and finished this pair of Fetchings in about a week. One of my work friends lost all of her fingerless gloves, so I made her some. Here's the right Fetching:


And here's the left Fetching.


Boring Details:
Pattern: Fetching
Needles: US #4
Yarn: Lambs Pride Superwash Worsted -- my favorite of their yarns so far!
Color: Frosted Fuchsia
Comments: I added a row of cables both at the wrist and at the finger section for a more covered look. Bound off in pattern, not in picots, but didn't block to get a similar rolly effect.

Coming up: Batty tries to spin thicker-than-usual yarn. Who'd have thought spinning thick yarn could be difficult? My first attempt with a spindle certainly didn't point in that direction.

Frog Hair

Have you seen fleegle's hilarious post about frog hair yarn? No? Go check it out, it's really funny. And... I have some! It doesn't have a lable, but I'm convinced that this is the genuine article, straight off the back of the notorious Psychedelic Frog. Proximity to this yarn has mind-altering effects on humans. Want proof? I think it's a great idea to knit socks out of the yarn on the right and finish the cuff with some of the yarn on the left.


No, I don't know why. It's one of those urges.
For something a bit tamer, a picture of a Fetching. I'm almost done with the second one, and they are going to a friend from work who has misplaced all of her fingerless gloves. It's cold at the office. These should help.


As soon as the Fetchings are done, I'm either going to knit a headband with the leftover yarn or, if there isn't enough, I'm casting on the Shipwreck Shawl. Maybe by then, the effects of the frog hair yarn will have worn off...

Cupcakes etc.

Wow. I knew that, collectively, knitters knew everything! Thank you for the cupcake frosting advice, I'll be on the lookout for a large nozzle.
The vegan cupcake and buttercream recipes are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World (amazon link). Check out the book if you're vegan. Check out the book if you're not vegan. The cupcakes are very yummy, and so is the buttercream. I use almond milk instead of soy milk because the thicker, fattier, nuttier texture of almond milk is closer to soy milk than thinner alternatives like rice milk. The results are fabulous, and even people who do the moo will happily eat these.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, the train had switching problems, I just finished prepping tomorrow's dinner, and the laundry is going... I'm beat.

Sugar Buzz

Weeee!
I've baked cupcakes two days in a row, and we just got back from Mr. Batty's co-worker's house... I'm high on sugar. I brought cupcakes, and they had several kinds of cake. Bounce, bounce, bounce!

Ahem. Look, entrelac! I like how this sock is coming along. Except for the in-between-stripe stripes, which are pooling and turning into undefined blobs in the entrelac pattern. A straightforward self-striping yarn would have been better. But this isn't bad enough to rip. Overall, I think these socks will be OK. I'm almost down to the toe. The heel is an afterthought heel, so no heel yet.


As I said, cupcakes. I made some, with chocolate buttercream frosting. Except it's not butter, they're vegan. But they're very good.


I had some... swirling difficulties. They make it look so easy on TV! Me, I end up with turd-shaped swirly brown blobs. I guess I don't have a bright future in cake decorating ahead of me. Oh, well.

New Year's Resolutions

It's that time of the year again! Before I go on to this year's, let's review how much of last year's resolutions I kept.

• Entrelac: Just finished the entrelac portion of a pair of socks. That counts. Yay, I got one!
• Two at a time socks: No, didn't do it.
• Knitting more non-sock objects: Some were knit, but more than the year before? No. Too preoccupied with socks, I guess.
• Shrink the stash: Uh... didn't happen, in spite of yarn diet. Stash actually grew. I swear I didn't buy that much yarn! Now, if I could only figure out why there's reddish light coming from my stash closet at night... and I swear there's some giggling, rustling, and I can faintly hear Barry White playing in the background... Hmmm. Mysterious.
• Sell non-fitting clothes on eBay: That one's a yes. Anything that wasn't insanely expensive got donated to charity. I only have one more box of clothes left to sell on eBay, and that's it.
• Work out regularly: Uh... well, I've been walking more, 3-6 miles a day. But I still have to get my butt to the gym.
• Spend more time running games: Didn't happen. Got sidetracked by other stuff.
• Start my holiday knitting early: Kind of did that. Then ended up with last-minute orders, went from done to not done. So... this one sort of worked, then didn't.
• Cross stitch and do some spinning: I've been doing both. So this one's a yes.

So, some of these I did, but most of them, I didn't. I think this year, I have only one resolution. But it's a big one.

No Yarn. January 1, 2010 till January 1, 2011. No sock clubs. No sock yarn. No yarn purchases. Not for gifts, not for projects, not for any reason. No get out of jail free card. It easily turns into excuses.
Needles are OK, patterns and books are OK, fiber is OK if I run out.
No yarn. For an entire year. There, I've said it. It's official. Now, excuse me, I have to lie down.

FO's, WIP, and a New Toy!

I'm taking a week off from work, and it's 20 F outside -- and windy. We decided to stay inside, rather than go out there and... well, not be sticks in the mud. But on the bright side, lots of knitting is getting done.

The Cowgirl Slipper Socks, which were supposed to be a Christmas gift, are finally done and blocking. Here is a pre-blocking picture -- they're dark, purply fuchsia in real life, not washed-out red.


Details:
Pattern: Cowgirl Slipper Socks
Needles: US #5
Yarn: Frog Tree Superwash Worsted... something
Color: Frosted Fuchsia
Comments: These can be knit in a few hours. Not when you're sick and end up ripping back 3 times, then frogging back the toe of the first slipper sock... but in general, it's possible. They are cute and comfy. I think I'll make myself a pair too.

In other knitting news: How many times have I said I'd try entrelac? Look, I'm actually doing it! This closeup makes it look all bad and holey, but really, it's quite pretty, and I'm happy. It's loads of fun. If the socks turn out pretty, they're for my sister. If they turn out hideous, I'm keeping them.


Speaking of hideous, please ignore the green fiber with orange, yellow, and pink slubs. Focus instead on my new toy, my new spindle! The fiber is less than an ounce of free fluff that came with it so you can try it out right away. They know their customers.
This is Maggie. She is made of maple and weighs 4.6 grams/1.6 ounces, and she spins like a dream. Around and around and around. Doesn't want to stop. I bought a smaller version from Carolina Homespun and fell in love. I just had to have the bigger one... so here she is.


Merlin also has a new toy: His cat fountain. He now takes it apart for fun. Look at the basin and the top part... they are completely crooked, and no water is flowing. Poor Morgana doesn't know when she's going to find it in working condition, and when it will have been disassembled by her fuzzy brother.


I'm starting to think Mr. Engineering Cat has fuzz on the inside of his head, not just the outside!

Christmas Fun with Cats

Yesterday, we had Christmas fun with the cats. Merlin had his eyes on the package from Mr. Batty's mom ever since it came in the door. We were joking that it was catnipped. This is him digging through packages to get at the cat stocking.


They found it. Cats with new cat toys, happy, happy, happy. Morgana in particular is a toy cat -- when she has a toy, she zooms all over the place. Hence the tail shot, she's too fast. The combination of black and incredibly fast, therefore hard to see, has gotten her in trouble more than once.


There was some unwrapping of human presents, which included bat stuff (hmmm... I guess I'm a bit obvious about the bat thing, they've started showing up at work too).


This one had me laughing. On Wednesday, I was making egg nog, lamenting its grainy consistency, and blaming it on my bent whisk. And in my stocking, I find... a pasta server, which we don't have, a brand-new whisk, and a potato masher you can use in a nonstick pan if needed because it's plastic. Yay!


I also got an all-purpose knitting book that has fabulous illustrated instructions for entrelac. And then, there was the package of baklava from Mr. Batty's Dad... combine this with the pumpkin pie and egg nog, and I'll be rolling to work.
Or getting a gym membership. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do -- as soon as my cold goes away, I'll get my butt back into shape.
In the meantime... I hope you have lots of rest and fun and knitting. It's what I'm about to do.

Merry Christmas!

To all who celebrate, I wish a merry Christmas! At our house, this is another occasion for playing console games, petting the cats, and cooking. Look, pumpkin pie! And this time, I didn't accidentally fry the crust!


And... Quorn (myco-protein turkey replacement... tastes better than it sounds), cranberry sauce, little potatoes, and stuffing. Yummmm, stuffing.


Not pictured: egg nog. Lots of it. I made a whole bucket. Also not pictured: The slipper socks I didn't finish because I was sick. I'll finish them tomorrow or Saturday -- have to finish the toe on one and rip back the toe on the other. It came out too big.

Wishing you all happy, peaceful holidays. I'm going to bed now... it's the season of love and sharing and all that, but I'm guessing everyone at church would appreciate it if I kept this nasty cold bug to myself...

Snow and Cookies!

By popular request, I am putting up a picture of Sunday's snow. I've seen so many lovely pictures on people's blogs, but I didn't really want to go outside to take my own, so here is a shot from our bedroom door. Yes, our balcony goes off of the master bedroom. I think it's a New England thing. By the time all was said and done, we had snow up to my thigh on our deck, which I shoveled because Mr. Batty was coughing like crazy and I don't want him catching pneumonia.


I hadn't been feeling particularly Christmassy this year, but the snow did the trick. Here is the result: Egg nog cookies! Recipe below.


Egg Nog Cookies

Dough:
2 sticks butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp nutmeg (the fresher, the better)
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla extract (or more... experiment!)
1 egg

Icing:
2 cups confectioner's sugar
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 tablespoon flavorful light rum (or 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon rum aroma)

Cream together butter and sugar until smooth -- I use a hand mixer, but if you have the fancy standing kind... yeah, that works too. Add vanilla and egg, beat until incorporated. In another bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and nutmeg, then add to the butter mixture. Mix until just incorporated. It's better to undermix a bit than to overmix. Roll dough into a ball in your mixing bowl, cover, and stick in the fridge for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.

When you're ready to bake the cookies, preheat oven to 350 F/180 C, put racks in lower third and upper third of oven. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Let the dough sit at room temperature for 10-20 minutes so it softens up a bit. Then, take a small ice cream scoop (80) or a tablespoon measure and make balls about the size of 2 tablespoon measures held together to form a ball. Put on baking sheets, leaving space for the cookies to spread.
Bake one tray on the lower rack, one on the higher rack, for 10 minutes or until the edges just begin to brown. Rotate the trays halfway through baking.
When they are done, transfer cookies onto cooling rack. Wait to cool before putting on the icing.

For the icing, mix confectioner's sugar, rum, melted butter, and milk in a bowl. Beat with mixer until thick and creamy, around 4 minutes or so. Spread onto cookies. Wait for icing to set before putting in a container -- the icing becomes harder as it sets and won't make a mess.

Have fun eating cookies. Take some to the office or you'll eat them all.

Morgana watched the baking efforts from her comfy spot amid the blankets. Yesterday, I was right there with her. Apparently, a round of snow shoveling was exactly what I needed to come down with Mr. Batty's sore throat disease.


Feeling better enough to do work, so I'll go do that now.

Still Knitting

It seems it has been forever since my last post! 2 weeks, or thereabouts... I bet you thought I'd abandoned this blog. But not to worry, I'm still here. I have been busy and work, and busy knitting. The socks below took forever. They are man-sized. They are almost exclusively knit in twisted stitches. They hurt.


A closeup of the little cable detail, and of the fancy ribbed gusset.

Now to finish one more pair, ship them off, and that's it for this year. Then, I can finish and send off my sister's birthday gift, which is over a month late. I feel really, really bad about that. But I expect to have plenty of knitting time tomorrow -- we're supposed to get hit with a major snow storm. I've seen what it has done to other parts of the country. We're ready for the big fluff of 09!

Weird Weather Saturday

I swear, it just gets weirder. Thursday, we had 68 F, which is about 20 C. Too warm for November. Oh, and winds so bad, I almost couldn't get near the building to get to work. Which then swayed until I turned green in the face.
Then, on Saturday, it got colder. I didn't think much of it until later in the evening, when there was... snow. Yup. From short sleeves to snow in 2 days. Weird, huh?

Also weird is the sock that just won't fit. I've knit the cuff for Ann Budd's Cowgirl Slipper Socks twice now, and both times, it came out ginormous. I ripped the attempt below last night. Today, I try again. On needles 2 sizes smaller than the ones called for.


The rest of the day, we watched The Fiddler on the Roof and played Arkham Horror. It's a fun board game about -- you guessed it -- the Cthulhu mythos. You're an investigator trying to close the gates that are popping up all over town and releasing foul cultists and dreadful monstrosities into the streets of Arkham. If you don't... worse things happen.
There are a lot of little chits and cards, but though it looks incredibly complex, it's actually fun and pretty easy once you get the hang of it. And there are expansions!


Of course, you can't play a board game with lots of little bits and pieces without feline interference. So we cat-nipped their scratcher, and they were pretty much busy the rest of the evening. Here's a picture of both of them having fun with a box.


Merlin sticks out because he's gray and white, but Morgana is quite the camouflage kitty. We've accidentally locked her in closets and other dark spaces because she blends in perfectly. Sometimes, this is great, other times... not so good. Fortunately, her brother meows until we let her out.

Gothic Charm School!

Jillian Venters is awesome. She is classy, she is witty, she is goth -- she is the gothic Miss Manners. She has offering friendly advice to goths and those who love them for years. Check out her awesome site here. The lessons are awesome.
And... now she has a book! I bought it today and can't wait to read it. Sure, I've been goth for... well, a significant number of years, but I still enjoy her insight. Because goths and regular people alike can always use that extra bit of advice on how to be a nice person.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody who celebrates! The annual cook-a-thon has come and gone, and we are still not hungry a day later. Not in the picture: Mount Aetna, the amazing exploding apple pie. I made it, it exploded. All is as it should be.


Also not in the picture above: Merlin, trying to figure out if there's any chance the humans won't notice if he sneaks up on the stuffing. Or the buttermilk mashed potatoes. He really seemed... interested in those.


In spite of the tough economy, there is much to be grateful for this year. We have a place to live. We have jobs. We have food. We have cats. We have family and friends, though they can't be with us for the holidays. Still, that's a lot of Good Stuff.

Klutz...

Yesterday, I squished my finger in the door but good. It's better today, but that means I lost a whole day of holiday knitting. It's the end of November, aaaaaaah! I hope everything gets done by the ship-by date, preferably without sore tendons.

In other news, I just found a tub of Crisco at a grocery store along the way. I know, exciting, right? It means all non-alcoholic ingredients for our Thanksgiving dinner are accounted for (there's a bottle of Calvados for the gravy and another bottle of something for... I forget, one of the other dishes). Tomorrow, we start cooking!

Feminism Fail

Yesterday, I got a little brochure from Dell. Hey, computers, cool! After all, they sell the awesome Alienware gaming computers that you can trick out until they cost several thousand dollars more than you can afford. I'll never buy one, but I sure like to drool over them. So I opened the brochure and found...

"Now you can customize your Dell laptop with your favorite OPI Nail Lacquer shade!" I'm not making this up. It comes in lovely colors like "Princesses Rule!" -- and if you don't believe me, here's the link to their website.
Because this is what I really, truly care about when buying a new machine: Will it match my nail polish? Will I look cute holding the laptop? Will all my co-workers die of jealousy because they wish they had this pearlescent pink piece of technology?

Women don't want technical specifications. Women don't want to... you know, do stuff with their computers. They want them to match their nail polish. Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh. I thought we were further along.

Gearing Up For The Holidays

At Casa Batty, we are gearing up for the holidays. I'm not crazy about Christmas decorations, gift-giving, and all of that stuff. But I love Thanksgiving. It may even be my favorite holiday of all -- it combines two of my favorite things: Spending a whole day in the kitchen with Mr. Batty and eating.

The tradition around our house involves getting a copy of every single Thanksgiving magazines I can get my hands on. I'm a vegetarian, but Mr. Batty isn't, so we make one turkey and one Quorn.


We spend time with the magazines... then, we usually make the same recipes we first made in 2001, our first Thanksgiving together. But the process of looking, daydreaming, and choosing is fun.

Speaking of holidays... look, socks, not for me.


'nuff said.

Stash! Eeeep!

I just went stash diving. Needed some yarn for the SKA November mystery sock. And took a good look at my stash. Wow, it has grown!
I've been on a yarn diet, more or less, and it has slowed down the rate of growth. But that's not the same as stash reduction. And I really, really need the stash to shrink.

So: 2010 is going to be the year of no yarn. None at all. January 1 to January 1, no excuses, no pretexts, no nothing. No yarn.

Grateful Dead Archivist???

Dude! The University of California, Santa Cruz is looking for... a Grateful Dead Archivist! Imagine having that one on your resume. Apparently, they got a grant to digitize a bunch of Grateful Dead stuff.

Think I'm making this up? Go look for yourself, here's a link to the job description in Higher Ed Jobs.

Weekend

This week went by in a blur. First, we were preparing for 2 days of meetings, then, we had two days of meetings, and now, I need a break. I've been too tired to knit, so I've been spinning. Finally, I'm getting around to this lovely roving. Different shades of gray, a bit of black, pretty squishy merino.


I'm spinning from the fold, so it already looks plied even though it's singles... I'm not sure if I want to ply it or leave it like this. It's very pretty.
I'm tired. I'll take a look around the knittyverse to see what everybody is up to, and then, I'll flop on the couch and watch something stupid.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, all! It's been a lovely day at Casa Batty. Even if the weather didn't quite cooperate. You see, I was going to go as a novice knitter. Wear my ill-fitting Banff sweater and carry US #17 needles and Fun Fur. See the picture below?


That was not today. That was 2 weeks ago. Today, the temperature outside was over 70 degrees F. Not good for thick wool sweaters. So I wore one of my regular bat shirts... and bought some bat earrings while we were out.

Then, there were the cookies. I bought some awesome cookie shapes and made cutouts. Lovely, aren't they?


They looked fabulous after I baked them. We ate some and threw out the rest -- they burned. The recipe didn't say how long to bake them... just "bake until the edges are brown." Uh... dude, the freaking cookies are brown! How am I supposed to know when the edges are brown? By the time I see them, they're burned. So... yeah. Lesson learned.


But we did go down to Porter Square today, where I sat in a cafe, ate a yummy oatmeal raisin cookie, did some spinning... and then, Mr. Batty and I stopped by Mind's Eye Yarns, and I bought some pretty purple/burgundy roving.

No Halloween post would be complete without a picture of my very own Helloween kitty. Poor Morgana went to the vet today... only to find out he'd looked at her tooth when we took her in a month ago and didn't have to go in at all.


But she's happy now. He just looked in her mouth, and that was it. She wasn't there long enough to pick up that vet smell... her brother didn't even hiss at her. So, all things considered, Halloween worked out pretty well.

Mojo?

Wow, it seems like I ripped out my knitting mojo along with that sweater! If anyone finds it, could you please tell it to come back? The holidays are drawing near. I need it!

Ribbit

Today was a not-so-good knitting day. For the first time ever, I messed up undoing a provisional caston. It was done right, but somehow, I started from the wrong end, and that was that. I ended up ripping 7 inches of Manos Silk Blend, which, it turns out, doesn't like the rough treatment. With any luck, I won't need that partial ball to finish my project. After I start it again, which is not happening today.

I'm doing a whole bunch of gift knitting, but can't show that off yet either... I'll have something interesting soon, I promise!

Rainy Sunday Morning

It's a lazy morning for me, that is. My food consultant, Merlin J. Fuzzbutt, CPA (yes, he also does our taxes) is working hard on Sunday morning recipe selection. Or he's trying to squeeze himself into that tiny spot on the bookshelf. If the head fits, the entire cat fits, right?


Following Mr. Fuzzbutt's culinary advice, I decided to make apple pie pancakes. Pancakes, with apples and raisins. Very yummy, and they're sweet enough even without syrup. The unsweetened almond milk I used is perfect -- with added sugar of any kind, these would have been cloying. As it is, they are just right.


In addition to my culinary exploits, there has also been some knitting progress. I won't say too much about it as it might reveal more than I want to... it's that time of the year. So: Here's my portable project. Yes, a sock. No, it's not for me. 'nuff said.


This one I can show off because you really can't tell what it is. Could be a scarf. Could be a sleeve. Could be a hat that gets sewn up. If it weren't rainy out, I'd turn off the flash so you could see the amazing color variations in the Manos Silk Blend. They are lovely deep chocolate browns, except cool-toned.


The burgundy stuff on the bottom is a provisional caston. For more information, check my rav page... I'm not going to say more here.

Snow!

There was snow this morning! It wasn't a lot, it was mixed in with rain, but still. This is Massachusetts, not upstate New York. I guess sweater season has officially arrived. Perfect weather for staying in and knitting.

Flash, Aaaah!

Not the Flash Gordon theme from the movie, but rather, taking pictures of a bulky knit with the flash going. I swear, it's not see-through, and I'm ever-so-happy I wore a shirt under Abrazo, or this pic wouldn't have made it on here.


It's cold enough for knits, and I remembered I never gave you a modeled shot of Abrazo. From the look of things, I should have waited until the sun came out! Oh, well.

Long Time No Blog...

It's mid-October already? Where did September go?
Time flies when you're trying to get things done in time for the holidays! I've suddenly realized that Christmas is closer than I thought, and that there is a whole bunch of gift knitting to be done. But first, I have to get some WIP's off the needles.

These are the October mystery socks for SKA 09, designed by Nancy Bush. The month's challenge was "yellow" -- and boy, was it ever! I'm not much of a yellow person, but the deep, gold tones really spoke to me. Must be an autumn thing.


I had to contort myself considerably to get this picture. And yes, those are big full moons with witches and bats flying through them on my pj's. Because... well, there are bats.


Boring details:
Pattern: Fox Faces by Nancy Bush, SKA 09 October mystery sock
Yarn: Fleece Artist Merino sock yarn in Saffron
Needles: US #0/2mm
Comments: Knit exactly as written. At first, they were a bit loose in the ankle, but now that they're finished, they fit very well. The Dutch heel fits my skinny heel beautifully, but the toe, while pretty, is better for people with narrow toes (which I don't have -- I have duck feet).

And, because I can never be without at least one pair of socks on the needles: the beginning of some men's socks. Yet another try at toe-up, we'll see how it goes.


I actually have some non-socks on the needles right now, but as I said, we're getting into the holiday season, and showing what I'm up to will get a bit more difficult.
I'll try to make up for it with spinning and baked goods!

Anniversary Weekend

Mr. Batty had the fireplace checked. Turns out there was some faulty wiring and some other issue. The developer sent his fireplace people and will be sending over an electrician to cap the live wires properly. Until then, this thing stays turned off. Thanks everyone for your concern, we're all doing much, much better. I was even able to knit a little last night! Not much, nothing exciting to show yet, but I got to knit.
I think I'll be starting another project just for myself. Best way to cheer myself up. I just got a few of the new Classic Elite pattern books in, and I love many of the patterns. Hmmm... maybe use some of the yarn my sister sent for my birthday?

Anyway, knitting content to follow. This weekend is our 6th wedding anniversary, so Mr. Batty and I will be out and about doing anniversary stuff. He's taking me bat shopping! I do most of my shopping for decor around Halloween. It'll be fun. The rest... we'll just see what we feel like doing. Spontaneity is a good thing. Plenty of planning at work.

...and then, it exploded

The fireplace, to be exact.
Yesterday, I did some grocery shopping after work, went home, put the food away, said hello to the cats, settled down on the couch... and noticed the smell of gas. Not just a bit, either.
So I get up, pick up my bag, head out the door, turn around... and there is an incredibly loud BAM! WHOOSH!, a huge flash of orange in the fireplace, smoke, and bits of metal and insulation flying.
So I run out, get a neighbor, call 911. While waiting for the fire department to show, I touch the door to make sure it isn't hot, peer in a bit... no fire. So we go in, get the cats, and put them in the neighbor's apartment. Then, the fire department showed up.
We still don't know what happened -- maybe the pilot went out and I accidentally turned on the gas (on switch for our fireplace is next to a light switch). Maybe the wiring was wrong. I'm just glad I'm OK and the cats are OK and our condo didn't catch fire.
Gas and power to the fireplace are now turned off, and I intend to keep them that way. At least until an installation person licensed by the manufacturer of the fireplace can have a look and make sure everything is working properly.

It was quite a shock. I'll need some quiet knitting time tonight after work. Just some calming routine thing that makes me feel safe in my own home again.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon at our house. The laundry is laudering, Mr. Batty is doing homework for a class, I'm dabbling in Java programming, the cats are sleeping... there's going to be some baking later on, I'm sure, but for now, it's quiet time.

I am fresh out of clues for the SKA mystery sock. Here's the result so far. The color in the first picture is closer to the real thing, though the pattern is hard to see. I'm really liking these socks, which is saying something, considering they're yellow...


Here's the side view. Ribbing in the back, honeycomb heel, and this sock is pretty darn tall. Nancy Bush socks are usually designed with a really long shaft, and these are no exception.


Speaking of lazy... it's hard to learn more about computer networks when the cat decides to fall asleep on your textbook. No wonder thinkgeek.com sells everything from caffeinated soap to pixie sticks with caffeinated colorful sugar stuff.


Cat over IP. Snore.