DONE!

I am finally done with my Such a Slytherin socks; and only after a few threats and banishment into dark corners of the room. I feel accomplished. Now I'm working on a pair of for my sister. This pair is not only slightly smaller (I've taken out 4 stitches), but because I don't have enough for an identical pair, she'll get what is basically the negative of the sock (mainly silver, with the 'S' and Snake in green). Also, I didn't do the snake in intarsia...I realized that I'm not that insane after all.

Argh!

I am so ready to set these stupid socks on fire. Just a quick incendio, and I won't even have to worry about them. Then I'll find something else to wear on July 15th, and Katie can just knit her own Gryffindor house socks. I'm still not even sure why she would want a pair...oh wait...

I've been sitting here with a little black cloud over my head for the last two hours, working on these damned heels, on these damned socks, using this thrice-damned pattern!! (Don't get me wrong, that pattern is great, I'm just too stupid to read it.) No one has even attempted to want to get close to me, as I glare daggers of death at anyone that is within five feet of my personal bubble.

And just now I realize that I have gotten the Heel turn totally wrong, so now I have to un-knit the whole thing, figure out where I went wrong and re-knit it. Remember how I said that I would use intarsia on both the 'S' on the heel and the Snake on the foot? I don't think that will happen anymore. I am so done with these stupid stupid sock. (Again this is not that patterns fault, nor Lykkefanten's fault, but my own, since I apparently can't even turn a heel when there are suddenly two colors and a pretty 'S' to work withl.)

OH! Did I mention that sock number 2 had to be moved to a completely different set of needles to be froggen and then knitted up again 4 times before I relized why I was inverting the second 'S'? I didn't?! Well let's just say that the whole thing was a very scary experience for everyone in the house and anyone who dared call me at such a moment. Horrible, horrible experience.

On the bright side -- yes, there is a bright side -- I got all the supplies I need to make some great looking , IMHO, stitch markers. First attempt too! I'm pretty thrilled.



Edit: After being threatened to be thrown into the trash and then run over by the hubbies Van repeatedly, the socks are behaving, and actually knitting up the way they are supposed to. Who ever said threats solved nothing?

Because I'm crazy like that

Finished with the leg portion of my Slytherin socks. On to the heel! Aaaas soon as I get an e-mail back from the creator of the pattern, Lykkefanten, explaining the pattern to me. It's not that I don't get it, I'm just wondering if it's a typo, or if my brain is having a dead moment.

The heel is worked over half the stitches (32), with two picked up along the side as a base for the heel stitches (makes it 34)...but then I'm supposed to knit 36 on the first row? I'm thinking it's a typo, but because I'm not sure, and I don't want to mess the whole thing up because I was being stupid and couldn't read right, I asked her.

Here is the crazy part I was talking about: Lykkenfante states in her pattern that both the 'S' on the heel and the Snake on the top of the foot can be added after the sock is done with duplicate stitch, although she also said that one could intarsia the 'S' if one really wants to do that. And guess what? I'm going to intarsia both!

So that's my laps in sanity, and I'm going to keep blindly skipping down the path of selfinduced knit-trauma until the snake hits the fan. Wish me luck.

Finally!

I received and Owl today with the information of my spoilee and my spoiler. I'm not sure the Owl was very happy when he didn't get a treat, but honestly I have more important things to do then feed a stray bird. And there was toast of the table...it was more then welcome to take some.

Anyways, my spoilee is Emma Scamander, and my Spoiler is Piper...something or other. God, I'm horrible with names. Note to self, send for sticky notes. Not that I would ever admit it out loud, but they are rather great muggle inventions.

I thought I would have at the third part of the games the camp staff have posted. Part II is a game of Wingo, and I'm not sure if I want to play that...I've never been good at hunting things down...although since everyone has already given their answers I might just browse through the posts and take what I need. *evil chuckle*.

Part III asked us to go to our spoilee and and spoilers project page on rav, and find one to write something nice about. So here it goes! If I can find both of them that is. Where did I put that owl with their Rav ID's? Ah ha! There it is.

So for shelbyknits (spoilee) I picked her Monkey #2 socks.
I love the color that she picked, since blue is my favorite color, but the fact that it isn't just a solid blue - but variegated - makes all the difference. It gives her sock such a different look from the one the designer made. And I love that the blue does this ripply effect thing, kind of like water. Just beautiful.

For Calysobard (spoiler) I picked her Daisy Afghan.
It's Crochet, and made for her. *giggles* It's a plain black background, with dozens of color full Daisy's in the middle of each square. It's so attention grabbing, since the flowers just pop out at you. And the fact that it's a friggen afghan is impressive in itself. I was done after making Ben's baby blanket, I could never sit down and make an afghan.
I like the bright pink boarder she put around it, and my favorite color by far on this afghan is the orange. It's just so bright and in your face.
...I totally want one now. >.>

In other news, I already know what I want to make to put all the stuff for my spoilee into, and thanks to Sonya from Yorkshire, and her awesome 'Thank-you' gift for having me help her in the store, I can buy the yarn for it! Although I'm torn between two different options, I'll either make both and say "fudge it" or I'll have people at the shop help me pick.

All in all I'm loving camp so far. Although no one thought to bring a small army of house elves, and I'm about to send for one of my own. I'm so not digging this get out of bed and get my own coffee thing.

Of finished things, cakes, and civil war

First off, Maggie's twilight socks are done and she is proudly wearing them. When I had first finished them I had seriously considered not giving them to her for a few days/weeks, but figured she would catch on sooner rather then later when I was working on something else during knit night.


The pattern is a simple knit 4 rows, knit1 purl3 for 2 rows, repeat. And the cuff is knit1 purl3 for about 2". Totally simple and would have been rather boring otherwise but the yarn was pooling so nicely. There are even some sports were it was doing this cool zigzag effect. I should have my sister pick yarn more often.

On Friday we went to her annual school carnival. It was fun as always. Although this year it was even better for her since she was able to go into the dunk tank, now that she is a 5th grader. Mom and I got bored standing around to wait her turn so we played the silly little games they had for kids (I won a magnifying glass, a whale, a pink fuzzy pen, and a sticky hand) and even got our faces painted to kill some time.

This time I even got to see the "please bring us cakes" flier the school hands out every year so there are enough cakes and other goodies available for the cake walk (like musical chairs but when the music stops and you're on the numbered square they call out you get a ticket to pick a cake or cupcakes, etc.). It made no sense to me and my sister however since not 3 weeks prior to the carnival they had to cancel their bake sale in fear of children getting the swine flu from the home make goodies. So we thought it would be hilarious to make a piggy cake with buggers coming out of it's nose, bags under its eyes and a tissue by its side. We had the cake all backed up and were ready to frost when our mother told us that wouldn't be such a good idea since some people wouldn't find it as funny. So instead we made this.


I would have still preferred the sick piggy.










We also managed to go to the civil war re-enactment that was going on in our park on the weekend. Having never seen on before I was rather surprised that the people go into such depth with the whole thing. There were camps set up with people walking around in period clothing (I loved the dresses the woman were wearing), making fires, yelling orders at under ranking "soldiers" and answering any questions that you could throw at them. I was a little surprised that there were so many knitters among the women there and even two spinners.

Although they were all totally cheating by using pretty non-period yarns; I'm sure getting your hands on aqua colored silk was pretty damn hard in 1861.

A frog I didn't mind

The Kermit the frog socks I've been making for Will are finally done. It only took me forever and a day. I call them Kermit socks because when he first saw me knitting the pair previously shown he said, "I want a pair of socks too. A bright green pair." "What, like Kermit the frog?" I asked. "Yeah, like that."

They don't look very green but that's because of the horrible light, and the crappy camera on my phone (the only one at hand for the moment), and I know they look kinda big, but they are on my hubbies feet which are a size or two smaller then Wills.

On the needles right now are socks for my sister Maggie, inspired by her love for the Twilight book series. It's the Twilight sock pattern from 2-at-a-time socks. This is actually the fourth time I'm attempting to make these socks. The first time they laddered horribly, the second time I made them on one circular needle at one time and couldn't find instructions on what to do after the leg, the third time I was doing them both on a really long needle, ended up dropping like 10 stitches and really couldn't be bothered to pick them all up when I knew it was just going to get worst if I tried. So here we are...at try number 4. Hopefully this will be the one that actually goes somewhere.












After that I'm not sure what I'll work on. Maybe that orange scarf for Chama-chan. Or maybe I'll go find that pattern for the little red cardigan that is floating around here somewhere and I'll finally knit something for myself that isn't a hat...or scarf. OH! I still have to work on my mothers Christmas present. Damn...