Spirals to Snakes

My son decided he wanted snakes in his hat, so I searched Ravely for spirals and this is the chart I'll be basing the color work on.

And here's my variation on it. All the kids think it's "AWESOME" =) At least I can still impress them, wonder how long that will last? hahaha

Not the greatest picture ever, but it IS past 1am, so I had to use the flash. The color that looks reddish orange is actually going to be tan.

I always have to do at least part of the next repeat of the chart when I'm drawing it out because it's not always easy understand how the next part goes with the first. I should be more trusting, I know, but... sometimes you just have to see something to understand it.

What do you think?

The Planning Stages of Planning

Paging through books and books of Fair Isle charts can get to be somewhat overstimulating. (for me anyway - it's like shopping, too much input) Everything is either too girly or too... I don't know, I think I don't have the right books. Which means, as usual, I'll just make something up with my own colors and graph paper. I'm sure it won't be anything ground breaking or original, I doubt there is anything out there that is. However, I can't find it among my sources.

While I think and plan and stuff, I'll be finishing up Wuthering Heights. It's my first time reading it (I think) it seems oddly familiar, and not in the "I saw the movie" sense. I used to read all the time, so it's possible I read it when I was in high school and just don't remember. Anyway, it's made me cry a couple of times, which doesn't happen that often in books.

Well... my ADD kicked in and I started looking through Ravelry (which I should have done before I started this post) and I think I have found something I can use with some alteration. Yaaay - stay tuned for updates soon =))

And the Mind Goes Blank

For some weird reason, I didn't remember that I posted my finished socks. WHA? I guess I didn't really feel they were finished until I weaved in all the ends. I must be growing up as a knitter. I vaguely recall mentioning that I didn't weave in the ends because my tiny crochet hook has gone missing. I finally got to the store and purchased a package of them. (naturally, I blindly picked up a package that had one stolen out of it - duh)

ANYway, I weaved in the ends, wore the socks to work yesterday, and they were very comfy. I took pictures of all the ends still sticking out everywhere, but... it looks much less dramatic in the picture than it felt like in my head, and it didn't really take long to do it. Although I stretched it out over an evening and the next morning. (exciting stuff, right? ha)

One interesting thing this year, the Autumn leaves have really held on, and they keep changing and changing, so it's been a really pretty experience. I took a few pictures of my Crepe Myrtle against the clear blue sky. Otherwise, I've been completely remiss in taking Fall pictures. Just enjoying them with my eyes.

Random Sock FO

I finally broke down and grabbed some random yarn and finished the socks. However, I seem to have misplaced my tiny crochet hook, so the dozens of ends to weaved in are waiting.

The fit is very nice on these, I seem to have issues with getting that right for some reason, but these are perfect.

With my shoes on they'll look remarkably like the last pair, which was the basic idea. The last pair being just a smidge too short.

This one is the one with the different yarn to finish the cast off, oddly, it blends just fine. yaay I'm chomping at the bit to start charting what to do for the hat, while putting off the lace. hahaha

I'm doing much better health-wise, finally. I'm very thankful that only 1 of the kids got it, a rarity when you're dealing with strepp! Very very thankful.

See ya in a few days when I have something to show for all my planning and procrastination =)

Sometimes I Wonder ....

... if the endorphins associated with getting new yarn in the mail clouds a person's perception to the point where they think a nice forrest green can by any stretch of the imagination coordinate with a very dark teal?

The brown you see there, that's really the green - my poor mac's webcam doesn't do so great with the colors - but at least you can see it doesn't clash.

Here... is the offending teal. (Yes it doesn't look teal in the picture, but it really is - just like the background isn't really purple, but navy blue) On it's own it's fine, even pleasant, but with the other two, it's just awful. When I first got it though, apparently I didn't notice the obvious clash. The yarn was ordered to make a sweater for my oldest boy. Again, there is an obvious error. There is NO way that's enough yarn for a sweater for my gangly child - I rather doubt it's enough for a sweater for a baby. VERY odd - and it makes me wonder, what was I about. For the record, there is more than what you see, a few more in the back, but it's still no where near enough.

Fortunately, I really owe my youngest child a better hat, and I'm itching to do some nicer Fair Isle. If I have a decent amount left, I'll make him a better scarf than the last one - he likes it ok, but I'm sorta on the bleh side of the fence about it.

You can sorta see the clash a little better in this picture, and my possible solution. The lighter blue actually coordinates decently, and since I'm wanting to branch out into a more complicated Fair Isle, I do want the 3 colors.

As for the socks in my last post, I'm nearly done casting off, but (once again) miscalculated and ran out of yarn during the cast off, so, I'm currently letting it sit a couple of days to make a decision. Rip back and cast off earlier ... or use a random scrap to finish. It doesn't matter too much, they're already pretty random.

Hopefully, I'll have my camera's memory back soon and can at least take real pictures again soon. And if this post is a blah as it sounds in my head, it's probably because I'm just getting over a nasty bout of strepp throat and suddenly feeling the need for a nap. It was bad enough that I was actually too sick to go to the doctor. Anyway, I'm feeling lots better compared to that. By the time I got to see a doctor, she looked at my throat and said "OH MY! That's really bad. I'm going to give you two shots today." And I said, "Good! Because I feel like crap." So I'm a bit off my game. I should be back to my normal (well.... that's debatable) self by next time.

Choices

I fully planned to choose the 4th option from the bulleted list last post way back on the 3rd of November:

1. Jump right in and knit another pair of socks with new yarn
2. Gather up all my left over sock yarn bits and make a pair of motley socks
3. Forget socks for a time and start on the practice shawl/stole thing with the Jagger Spun
4. Start a pair of socks AND start the shawl/stole thing so that I can have the relief of stockinette waiting when I have to tink for 10 hours on the lace

What actually happened is I tricked myself into only doing option 2 and gathered up the remainder yarn from 2 pairs of socks and got to work on my next pair of socks. I had every intention (don't you hate the word intention? It covers a multitude of no one taking any responsibility) oh yeah, every intention of starting the practice stole with my giant cone of Jagger Spun wonderfulness. In spite of my intentions, reality played it's favorite trump card over my free will card and allowed my semi-migraine status to fluctuate from dull threatening migraine to sharp, hateful, full on nausea/incapacitation horror show migraine. In spite of my issues with using the word intention and the fact I can't quite take responsibility for something I have zero control over, I'm glad that I at least started the sock to fill the hours of time that I could only just keep my eyes open and flick my hands back and forth. (yes I use italics when I feel put out)

Of course since it's 7:32pm and completely dark, the photography is probably going to really stink. In fact, it's going to be really awful because I loaned my memory card out to my sister and now I have to use my web cam thing - this should be pretty weird.

Sorta grainy, I guess, it's my first try with 'Photo Booth' - it's fun, actually, the screen goes all white and makes a pseudo flash thing. Pretty cool.

ANYway ..... I'm trying to use up the rest of this yarn, knitting from both ends, one by one ribbing for miles and miles and trying to work out just when to start binding off to use maximum yarn without misjudging and running out too soon. Hopefully I can estimate close enough that I don't end up with that odd amount of yarn that you can't really use or throw away without twitching a bit.

So... I'm back to the same options from before, and I'll probably do the same thing again.

Note to Self

The next time I consider modifying how closely I follow a pattern - think again, self!

It seems that my recent sock project is just a bit too small - the toe to heel length is just the tiniest bit too short. So I shall be giving these socks to my sister - the one with slightly smaller feet than me. This is the second time I have accidentally made a pair of socks for her =) It's fine, she deserves socks made for her, even if it was a subconscious act on my part.

Now I am indecisive, too many options are before me:

1. Jump right in and knit another pair of socks with new yarn
2. Gather up all my left over sock yarn bits and make a pair of motley socks
3. Forget socks for time and start on the practice shawl/stole thing with the Jagger Spun
4. Start a pair of socks AND start the shawl/stole thing so that I can have the relief of stockinette waiting when I have to tink for 10 hours on the lace.

I think I'm leaning towards 4 with the subtext of 2. ( I know it's grammatically wrong - but I have a slight migrainish thing going on )

Considering the migraine thing, I should probably start the socks first - RIGHT after my coffee.

Have you ever subconsciously made something for someone else?