As Good As EMS Socks! One Down, One to Go

After this first sock was completed, I promised myself I would one day learn how to do two socks at once. The worst thing is finishing one and falling completely in love with it and then having to WAIT while you knit the other one. Ah well.

This is my first blog post from New Orleans, by the by... Mom and I drove 1300 miles from CT to LA in three days, staying with friends in Virginia the first night and at a hotel in Chattanooga TN the second night. Now we're in Harvey, I think, and I have a guest room in the home of someone I met through the church I'll be checking out down here. It's a very nice room and I really don't have that much stuff so it suits me fine. It's hot but I'm hoping I'll get used to it. And when I say hot I mean 80 and high humidity. Thank goodness for the breeze, though.

Anyways, pictures:

Here is the sock right before I completed the toe. I wasn't sure if it was going to be long enough, and now the hope is that I will have enough yarn for the second sock to have such a long leg (7"). 

The FO 

 And my other foot is cold, dangit! 

So now I'm working on the second sock and it's slow going. My shawl is coming along beautifully, though. I've used one complete skein and have started a second. More pictures to come! 

Knitting in NOLA here goes! 

I Can Lace!

Hello everyone! I am very excited to say that I can lace - as in, I can haz cheezburger. I have never done lace or shawls before, so taking on Christy Verity's 198 Yards of Heaven as a first lace shawl project was a challenge. It is going BEAUTIFULLY! I'm using Knit Picks Comfy Sport Cotton in Lilac, as you can see below. 

It's also going very quickly. Yesterday I started at about row 15 out of my first 22-row repeat, and finished the first 22-row repeat and got halfway through the second repeat in about 5 hours.

I still haven't quite figured out how the shawl is being constructed as I knit it, and I'm nervous about "aggressively blocking" it at the end, but I'm sure having a good time while knitting it!

The yarn is SO soft and nice feeling in my hands. I highly recommend it. I think it's going to drape nicely too. Still haven't decided who this is going to be for, but we'll see...

=)

Will Need Photos but Oh Well...

Amidst (wait - amidst isn't a word? amist? a midst? how is that spelled?) all of the moving craziness, I'm not sure when I'll have time to blog until I get settled in New Orleans. Hopefully I'll be settled by mid-May. Nonetheless, I wanted to write a quick note about what I'm currently working on.

I like to hike and camp occasionally and have one pair of wool hiking socks that I inherited from my dad. His knees won't let him hike anymore, despite how much he loves the White Mountains. That's my only pair and I realized that with all my handknitting talents, I should be able to create a pair of hiking socks as good as any from EMS (Eastern Mountain Sports - it's a New England thing).

I have a Ravelry account but unfortunately if you don't have a Ravelry account you can't see my projects. Eventually I'd like to add my previous projects (there are over 50 yay!) but for now you can usually see pictures of what I've made in my Facebook photos because I wear my handknits ALL THE TIME. But really - what self-respecting knitter doesn't?

More later...

Don't Stop Me Now

Apparently I'm all about cliches and puns this morning, but when you're travelling on a train with Internet access and no Hulu, what else are you going to do but start a blog?

I've been knitting for five years now and have always said to myself, gee, I should write a blog. Now that I'm taking my knitting to New Orleans, why not try? A friend from church said to me, with a distressed look on her face, "What are you going to do about your knitting?" What, I'm going to stop because it's hot out? Oh no. I have a $50 gift card to The Tangled Web in Philadelphia and will buy lots and lots of beautiful cotton yarn so that I can knit in comfort while I'm sweating my eyeballs out. Also, I should add that when it is raining and 50 degrees outside in New Orleans, it is bone chillingly cold. Some of my favorite cowls will be joining me on the trip.

Heat will not stop me! Hence - Knit's Hot in Here. The title also brings to mind another favorite quote of mine from my favorite angry person: "This is when the left side of your brain looks at the right side of your brain and says, 'It's dark in here and we may die.'" Thank you, Lewis Black. Knit's hot outside and we may die.

I have to make sure this isn't just me word-vomiting on paper.