Marnie, speak! Good girl.

Given my druthers, I'd gladly work 3 - 13 hour days a week to have 4 day weekends. Alas, that probably isn't going to happen for me so I'll just have to enjoy the long weekends bestowed upon us by federal holidays.

Leo's sweater is nearing the finish line. All the big pieces are done and assembled. It's still damp here and in need of some final blocking. The wash was just to get all the commuter grime off of it, but I'll do a proper steam block when it's dry. It'd probably be better to wet block it, since it's already wet and all, but I'm a strange girl.

This is the back view. The front is largely the same but the neck is a little lower.

While I'm waiting for the sweater to dry so I can start the neck, I've been knitting some socks. I'm one of those people who is more than happy to knit on DPNs. I have absolutely no aversion to them and find that socks zip along just merrily on them. However, I have some concern that I may not be able to take metal DPNs on the plane with me to India (nationally, it's not a problem, but internationally, there may be some issues). So I'm attempting the socks on two circulars method.

I have to admit, I don't care for it. To me, this method is slow and clumsy. I've improved the process for myself by clipping the two socks together, which resolves some of the issues I had with the socks constantly migrating away from each other and increasing the time it takes to go from knitting one sock to the other.

Even though I really do not like this method, now, I feel obligated to try to knit a whole pair in this manner. It may simply be a matter of acclimating to the technique. Even so, I'm not sure why this method is so popular amongst the DPN averse. In truth, the circulars simply act as two very long DPNs, so I'd think anyone who could master this technique, could certainly master the use of DPNs.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox here. It's true that there are merits to being able to knit two socks at once, and the circulars fold up more compactly than DPNs, so I still feel this endeavor is worthwhile.

I'm not sure what the yarn is, I've long lost the label. It looks a lot like Opal but it's not, it's some other, less known, self striping sock yarn.

You may have noticed that the underside is slightly different than the top, at least down at the toes. This is because I worked a short row toe, so I started from the ball of the foot, working flat to the toe then back down to the top of the foot before joining in the round. Personally, I prefer the idea of a bright red toe, so that's going to be the top.

But I have decided to whip through these socks for a little while.

I'm not sure if it's by design or by luck, but it just so happens that I was able to knit the toe and the heel in the same colors without cutting the yarn. I'd like to believe that the yarn manufacturer was brilliant enough to plan it that way, but it's hard to say. From toe to the start of the heel is exactly one repeat in their colorway.

Tell me that isn't cool.

Tomorrow is my sweet Leo's 40th birthday so we'll be spending most of the weekend celebrating in excess. May my waistline and liver recover quickly.

You guys really make a 40 year old guy feel good. I, of course, tell Leo he's a youthful looking and damn fine looking man, pretty much every day, but he considers my opinion to be biased. Sheesh, like that matters. But who can argue with comments from relatively anonymous sources?

I have knit the mock turtleneck of his sweater and finally got him around to trying it on again and it looks great on him, absolutely delicious. I can't say I'm excited to knit several turtlenecks in the round now, but since it's all I have left to do, I hope to get at least one cranked out this weekend.

In the mean time, I've been doing two things.
Knitting some silly socks on the bus:

This has been the first week that I'm back to working in my LA office and I've forgotten how relaxing it is to be able to take the bus. I usually only knit a few rounds, since I'm generally too tired to deal with 2 circs and 2 balls of yarn (I like the yarn well enough, but it's like velcro to itself. Has anyone else had that problem with sock yarns?) I'm about 2 inches up the leg. I don't know how long I want these socks to be. I'll probably just knit for a while until I pretty much use up the yarn, or maybe I'll get bored, do some ribbing and bind off. We'll see.

The last thing I've been doing is swatching. It's my unfaithful little heart. I should be finishing, not starting, but what's the harm in a little swatching, right?

It's some beautiful Silky Wool that I bought from a destashing effort. It's been a while that it's been sitting in my own stash, and I've been reserving a little corner of my brain for ideas. They are still evolving, but I'm pretty sure I want to go with some sort of diamond all-over pattern.
After this shot was taken, I finished the lacy diamond motif that is partially knit by the needles and I worked a more vertically elongated knit and purl diamond motif. I then bound off, washed the swatch and am letting it dry flat. I would show you, but it is dark and I still have much getting ready for work to be doing.

The socks have been my mindless diversion lately. They get knit on the bus or in waiting rooms, where the balls are tucked away in my knitting bag. Since I have a handy dandy cooking scale, I was able to divide the original skein of yarn evenly into two separate balls. After that, it was a matter of cutting of a couple grams of yarn on one ball to get them both started in the same spot (in this case, at the beginning of a brown stripe. The smaller of the two balls ends with a complete red stripe and a little bit of yellow, so it means I can have socks that have red toes, red heals and a red cuff. YAY.

What I hadn't noticed until recently, was how many repeats I actually had. I'm about to complete the second repeat, and it's already past my ankle, and then I have 2 more full repeats plus a couple stripes after that. That means my socks can be twice as long (from toe to cuff) as they are already.

I'm torn though. If the sock doesn't reach to my knee, and I'm not quite sure it will, will it just become a slouchy mess? Am I better off making a shorter sock?

I plan to do quite a bit of ribbing at the top of the sock (maybe 2-3 inches) but if it's mid-calf, I'm not sure that will help.

Anyone with sockspertise should feel free to chime in.

So I am weak. I had every intention of knitting a whole pair of socks on 2-circulars needles. I was going to force myself to become a skilled practitioner of the technique. I said to myself, "Marnie, you cannot judge a method until you have really learned it, so do a whole pair of socks this way."

But it's all I can take. The socks have gone their separate ways and are now to be knit on DPNs alone. In my defense, I did move them well after the production of both heels, so I certainly knit a full sock's worth of sock, these are just going to be particularly long socks.

And on the topic of long socks, my most current measuring efforts suggest that I should have no trouble reaching my knees with this babies. I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing. This may be a case of You Knit What? But I'm proceeding ahead regardless.

From what I can see, I am nearly doubling my knitting production, now that I'm back to knitting socks on DPNs (and yes, I am accounting for the fact that I was knitting twice the number of socks before). What really slowed me down was the pushing and pulling of socks and needles to get started on a new row. In general, I find it inefficient, but on a bus, it's nearly exasperating, as I contort to move everything around without touching my bussly neighbor. I'm as much of a process as product knitter, finding my fingers antsy when I have no knitting to do, but my process needs to be product oriented. Does that even make sense?

On a different topic, now that I'm back to spinning more regularly, here's some more Almost Solid Roving, this time in Corriedale in colorway, Pine.

For those of you for whom my ability to describe a technique, has let you down, here's what I meant by the thigh roll. I haven't been able to find a good example of the cabling method I described for both my hair and for the spinning.

They've got HUGE socks.

Well, my feet are pretty average, but check out this sock, baby. I've just started the ribbing portion which will run three color stripes deep, ending in a red stripe.

I don't know, maybe I'm getting subliminal messages about stripes but I'm really smitten with these socks. I should note that I own no (appropriate) skirts or shorts with which I could wear these and display them to best advantage, and yet I simply cannot wait to finish knitting both socks so I can wear them. There's a little twisted part of me that thinks I should wear them with one of my official work outfits, you know blazer, long trousers, ankle length boots, and the most crazy arse socks ever. The likelihood is that no one would know I had on my peppy long stockings, but if someone did catch a glimpse it'd definitely confirm my "not quite right in the head" status with them.

I've got some new handspun too.

Same technique as the redwood colorway, but in pine instead. This particular batch of roving has tended to leave a little dye on my fingers, and lost a bit of blue in the bath, but is otherwise lovely and really does spin up to look like a pine forest.

As I knit away on sock number two, the question arises, can a knee length sock with no shaping, whatsoever, possibly fit a relatively shapely leg?

All signs point to yes! Sock number two is actually a bit further along than shown in the pic. These socks will be perplexing passersby in no time.

Oh and thank you to everyone who left my blog a happy birthday note. It's so sweet to hear from first time commenter, old friends and everyone in between. Being the insanely shy person I am, I know I'd never have gotten to meet you all (even if it's only virtually) without this glorious interweb thingy.

For any of you that feared I might be wracked with malaria or some other such disease, fear not. I've been fighting a fever, cough and general run down feeling which may possibly be strep throat, but I've been taking it easy and getting lots of rest, and am already starting to feel better. Saw the doctor on Friday and will know on Monday if it's strep. As a side note, does anyone else have the hardest time with those giant q-tips being jammed down their throat? Man alive!

Between vegging out on the couch watching cartoons, and sleeping, I was able to snap a few photos of my Peppy Long Stockings in all their glory. Here are the pattern notes as well.
Pattern: Peppy Long Stockings
Designer: Me (but based on your every day toe up sock with short row toe and heel)
Yarn: Unknown. It's a self striping sock yarn but I've long ago lost the label. It came in a 100 gram skein, 94 grams of which were used to make the pair of socks. If anyone recognizes the yarn, please let me know.
Needles: Started as 2 socks on 2 circs, switched to DPNs, all in size US #2

I didn't do any shaping in these socks and they fit fairly well. They are a touch baggy at the ankle if I stand on tip toe, but otherwise look pretty cute.

It managed to work out pretty well with the toe, heal and top of the socks coming out in red. It wasn't planned, but it is exactly what I'd want to happen.

And what's a photo shoot without my little glammor girl?

Given my druthers, I'd gladly work 3 - 13 hour days a week to have 4 day weekends. Alas, that probably isn't going to happen for me so I'll just have to enjoy the long weekends bestowed upon us by federal holidays.

Leo's sweater is nearing the finish line. All the big pieces are done and assembled. It's still damp here and in need of some final blocking. The wash was just to get all the commuter grime off of it, but I'll do a proper steam block when it's dry. It'd probably be better to wet block it, since it's already wet and all, but I'm a strange girl.

This is the back view. The front is largely the same but the neck is a little lower.

While I'm waiting for the sweater to dry so I can start the neck, I've been knitting some socks. I'm one of those people who is more than happy to knit on DPNs. I have absolutely no aversion to them and find that socks zip along just merrily on them. However, I have some concern that I may not be able to take metal DPNs on the plane with me to India (nationally, it's not a problem, but internationally, there may be some issues). So I'm attempting the socks on two circulars method.

I have to admit, I don't care for it. To me, this method is slow and clumsy. I've improved the process for myself by clipping the two socks together, which resolves some of the issues I had with the socks constantly migrating away from each other and increasing the time it takes to go from knitting one sock to the other.

Even though I really do not like this method, now, I feel obligated to try to knit a whole pair in this manner. It may simply be a matter of acclimating to the technique. Even so, I'm not sure why this method is so popular amongst the DPN averse. In truth, the circulars simply act as two very long DPNs, so I'd think anyone who could master this technique, could certainly master the use of DPNs.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox here. It's true that there are merits to being able to knit two socks at once, and the circulars fold up more compactly than DPNs, so I still feel this endeavor is worthwhile.

I'm not sure what the yarn is, I've long lost the label. It looks a lot like Opal but it's not, it's some other, less known, self striping sock yarn.

You may have noticed that the underside is slightly different than the top, at least down at the toes. This is because I worked a short row toe, so I started from the ball of the foot, working flat to the toe then back down to the top of the foot before joining in the round. Personally, I prefer the idea of a bright red toe, so that's going to be the top.

The socks have been my mindless diversion lately. They get knit on the bus or in waiting rooms, where the balls are tucked away in my knitting bag. Since I have a handy dandy cooking scale, I was able to divide the original skein of yarn evenly into two separate balls. After that, it was a matter of cutting of a couple grams of yarn on one ball to get them both started in the same spot (in this case, at the beginning of a brown stripe. The smaller of the two balls ends with a complete red stripe and a little bit of yellow, so it means I can have socks that have red toes, red heals and a red cuff. YAY.

What I hadn't noticed until recently, was how many repeats I actually had. I'm about to complete the second repeat, and it's already past my ankle, and then I have 2 more full repeats plus a couple stripes after that. That means my socks can be twice as long (from toe to cuff) as they are already.

I'm torn though. If the sock doesn't reach to my knee, and I'm not quite sure it will, will it just become a slouchy mess? Am I better off making a shorter sock?

I plan to do quite a bit of ribbing at the top of the sock (maybe 2-3 inches) but if it's mid-calf, I'm not sure that will help.

Anyone with sockspertise should feel free to chime in.

You guys really make a 40 year old guy feel good. I, of course, tell Leo he's a youthful looking and damn fine looking man, pretty much every day, but he considers my opinion to be biased. Sheesh, like that matters. But who can argue with comments from relatively anonymous sources?

I have knit the mock turtleneck of his sweater and finally got him around to trying it on again and it looks great on him, absolutely delicious. I can't say I'm excited to knit several turtlenecks in the round now, but since it's all I have left to do, I hope to get at least one cranked out this weekend.

In the mean time, I've been doing two things.
Knitting some silly socks on the bus:

This has been the first week that I'm back to working in my LA office and I've forgotten how relaxing it is to be able to take the bus. I usually only knit a few rounds, since I'm generally too tired to deal with 2 circs and 2 balls of yarn (I like the yarn well enough, but it's like velcro to itself. Has anyone else had that problem with sock yarns?) I'm about 2 inches up the leg. I don't know how long I want these socks to be. I'll probably just knit for a while until I pretty much use up the yarn, or maybe I'll get bored, do some ribbing and bind off. We'll see.

The last thing I've been doing is swatching. It's my unfaithful little heart. I should be finishing, not starting, but what's the harm in a little swatching, right?

It's some beautiful Silky Wool that I bought from a destashing effort. It's been a while that it's been sitting in my own stash, and I've been reserving a little corner of my brain for ideas. They are still evolving, but I'm pretty sure I want to go with some sort of diamond all-over pattern.
After this shot was taken, I finished the lacy diamond motif that is partially knit by the needles and I worked a more vertically elongated knit and purl diamond motif. I then bound off, washed the swatch and am letting it dry flat. I would show you, but it is dark and I still have much getting ready for work to be doing.

But I have decided to whip through these socks for a little while.

I'm not sure if it's by design or by luck, but it just so happens that I was able to knit the toe and the heel in the same colors without cutting the yarn. I'd like to believe that the yarn manufacturer was brilliant enough to plan it that way, but it's hard to say. From toe to the start of the heel is exactly one repeat in their colorway.

Tell me that isn't cool.

Tomorrow is my sweet Leo's 40th birthday so we'll be spending most of the weekend celebrating in excess. May my waistline and liver recover quickly.

They've got HUGE socks.

Well, my feet are pretty average, but check out this sock, baby. I've just started the ribbing portion which will run three color stripes deep, ending in a red stripe.

I don't know, maybe I'm getting subliminal messages about stripes but I'm really smitten with these socks. I should note that I own no (appropriate) skirts or shorts with which I could wear these and display them to best advantage, and yet I simply cannot wait to finish knitting both socks so I can wear them. There's a little twisted part of me that thinks I should wear them with one of my official work outfits, you know blazer, long trousers, ankle length boots, and the most crazy arse socks ever. The likelihood is that no one would know I had on my peppy long stockings, but if someone did catch a glimpse it'd definitely confirm my "not quite right in the head" status with them.

I've got some new handspun too.

Same technique as the redwood colorway, but in pine instead. This particular batch of roving has tended to leave a little dye on my fingers, and lost a bit of blue in the bath, but is otherwise lovely and really does spin up to look like a pine forest.

So I am weak. I had every intention of knitting a whole pair of socks on 2-circulars needles. I was going to force myself to become a skilled practitioner of the technique. I said to myself, "Marnie, you cannot judge a method until you have really learned it, so do a whole pair of socks this way."

But it's all I can take. The socks have gone their separate ways and are now to be knit on DPNs alone. In my defense, I did move them well after the production of both heels, so I certainly knit a full sock's worth of sock, these are just going to be particularly long socks.

And on the topic of long socks, my most current measuring efforts suggest that I should have no trouble reaching my knees with this babies. I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing. This may be a case of You Knit What? But I'm proceeding ahead regardless.

From what I can see, I am nearly doubling my knitting production, now that I'm back to knitting socks on DPNs (and yes, I am accounting for the fact that I was knitting twice the number of socks before). What really slowed me down was the pushing and pulling of socks and needles to get started on a new row. In general, I find it inefficient, but on a bus, it's nearly exasperating, as I contort to move everything around without touching my bussly neighbor. I'm as much of a process as product knitter, finding my fingers antsy when I have no knitting to do, but my process needs to be product oriented. Does that even make sense?

On a different topic, now that I'm back to spinning more regularly, here's some more Almost Solid Roving, this time in Corriedale in colorway, Pine.

For those of you for whom my ability to describe a technique, has let you down, here's what I meant by the thigh roll. I haven't been able to find a good example of the cabling method I described for both my hair and for the spinning.

As I knit away on sock number two, the question arises, can a knee length sock with no shaping, whatsoever, possibly fit a relatively shapely leg?

All signs point to yes! Sock number two is actually a bit further along than shown in the pic. These socks will be perplexing passersby in no time.

Oh and thank you to everyone who left my blog a happy birthday note. It's so sweet to hear from first time commenter, old friends and everyone in between. Being the insanely shy person I am, I know I'd never have gotten to meet you all (even if it's only virtually) without this glorious interweb thingy.

For any of you that feared I might be wracked with malaria or some other such disease, fear not. I've been fighting a fever, cough and general run down feeling which may possibly be strep throat, but I've been taking it easy and getting lots of rest, and am already starting to feel better. Saw the doctor on Friday and will know on Monday if it's strep. As a side note, does anyone else have the hardest time with those giant q-tips being jammed down their throat? Man alive!

Between vegging out on the couch watching cartoons, and sleeping, I was able to snap a few photos of my Peppy Long Stockings in all their glory. Here are the pattern notes as well.
Pattern: Peppy Long Stockings
Designer: Me (but based on your every day toe up sock with short row toe and heel)
Yarn: Unknown. It's a self striping sock yarn but I've long ago lost the label. It came in a 100 gram skein, 94 grams of which were used to make the pair of socks. If anyone recognizes the yarn, please let me know.
Needles: Started as 2 socks on 2 circs, switched to DPNs, all in size US #2

I didn't do any shaping in these socks and they fit fairly well. They are a touch baggy at the ankle if I stand on tip toe, but otherwise look pretty cute.

It managed to work out pretty well with the toe, heal and top of the socks coming out in red. It wasn't planned, but it is exactly what I'd want to happen.

And what's a photo shoot without my little glammor girl?