Pulling it Together

A few things have happened to bring my scattered "ADHD" knitting back into some sembalance of order. I wrote to Peace Fleece to see if they had any more Zarya Fog Worsted in the dye lot that I needed, and in fact they said they had plenty. When I estimated in my last post that I would be "a skein or two" short to do the Central Park Hoodie, I grossly underestimated. In fact, I will need 5 skeins to safely complete that project. But I have quite settled on it, and so, my decision is made. I have ordered the yarn from Peace Fleece, but I have yet to order the PDF, although I'm feeling there is really no big hurry there. It's only $5 and can be sent via email, so it's not as though I have shipping time to worry about.

I'm not sure why I'm procrastinating about ordering it. I suppose it's because I reckon if I get the pattern in my hands, I will want to start right away with the Peace Fleece I already have, and really I had rather get started when I: a.)have finished a couple of my WIP's currently on the needles; and b.)have all the Peace Fleece required safely in my hands.

I started a pair of baby socks for Micheal Ralph, my newest grandson over the past week. I'm at the point of turning the heel on the second sock. It's silly. I could have finished the both of them in a day or two easy, but there really isn't any large enough areas of "mindless knitting" so I can only devote the time when I can pay strict attention to detail...and for me...that isn't much. Even when I find I have a few minutes...it just seems too hard to pull it all out and work on it. But I need to get it done soon. I have Tuesday and Wednesday off next week, and I plan on getting them done then.




I ordered and recieved some soft grey English Leichester wool tops to spin up, and some gorgeous teal green sock yarn, from my buddy Jane at Moseley Park online shop. She's a great gal that I met on Ravelry who lives over in Kimba, SA, and her shop is something special. To check it out, see my links.




I also went to Spotlight this week. I didn't really have anything specific knitting wise I wanted to look at, but I was curious about "pattern designing" paper. That is, paper with HUGE grids like mega graph paper. I had seen before, in the quilters section, a green cutting mat type thing with a graph on it for some incredible price ($100 or something like that for the largest size), but never the paper. Instead, I found something in between those two. It's cardboard, it's huge, and since I don't need to do any cutting on it, it's perfect for my needs. Best of all, it was only fifteen bucks. So I grabbed it up. Now, I can use it for designing, or just to lay finished peices of jumpers, cardis and the like on it to make sure that gauge is good and the peice is the size it should be. I can see myself getting good use out of this new "toy".



There is some BIG news. Finally, after what seems decades, but in fact was only a bit over a month, I finished the "Sacrifice Socks", the jet black Patonyle socks I was making for Chris. I still need to block them, but otherwise, they are looking pretty good, or at least as good as solid black men's socks CAN look.



I want to get another pair of socks on the needles, but I don't plan on getting in any sort of hurry to finish them. It's just neat to have a sock project handy for travel purposes. Most likely I will start making my "boat socks" with the Patonyle I dyed red and white on my last dyeing expidition. I think I'll use a pattern out of Bordhi's "Socks that Soar on Two Circular Needles" book called "Cable Top Socks". It uses the turned toe, which I've never tried before, and the foot and leg parts are stockingnet, with a nifty little cable at the top of the leg. I don't want to use this yarn for anything lacy, and don't want lacy "boat socks" either, so it works for me.

But I'm being strong, and I'm NOT going to start on the "boat socks" just yet. I really need to get the baby's stuff finished. I may do a hat to match the socks, or a baby blanket with my blue and white Wendy's Velvet Flake. I am definately going to do SOMETHING else as soon as I finish the baby socks.

This weekend, however, is not a good time for either. In a couple of hours we are going to leave to go over to the Two Wells area (Northwest of Adelaide) and get a cabin for tonight (Friday) and Saturday night. Saturday and Sunday the Adelaide Pistol Club hosts the "Winter Roundup", arguably the largest Western Action Shooting event in Australia. I've described Western Action Shooting before, so I won't go into details here, but suffice it to say it requires you to don circa 1800's garb and shoot at targets following a set scenerio.

It ALL takes place out of doors, and this weekend it is supposed to be raining buckets. Now we need the rain, but I'm not all that fond of the idea of standing around in it. They will, I'm told, make some concessions for the weather, but these generally make the day longer (and standing in high heeled western boots, longer isn't good for me), but they will not cancel.

So, it appears, I'm to be looking forward to two days of soggy misery. The knitting I'm taking along to console me is "The Fringe" (which desperately needs my attention at any rate) and "Hirohitos Revenge" the Short row scarf I'm doing with the Noro. Both have been on the back burner while I worked desperately on those damnable black socks, so I'm glad to be getting them out and hopefully will have some progress to show for my efforts when next I post.

Till then...