Massacre Monkeys

The yarn is from the first shipment in the 2009 Cables & Lace Sock Club. The colorway is called Valentine's Day Massacre. The pattern is Monkey from Knitty.com. Thus, Massacre Monkeys. I made a pair of Monkeys last year, but they shrank in the wash and I gave them to Erika, who has smaller feet. These Monkeys will never shrink in the wash because I am only going to hand wash them. Ever.



Sorry for the poor quality of the photo. The sun is shining, and I'm not used to that. Here's a close-up.

Leftovers

These are the Leftovers socks, because I made them with the yarn I had leftover from my knee-high lacy socks from a couple of years ago. There was more than enough for a regular pair of socks and I could have even made these a little taller, but I was ready to be done with them. The Leftovers socks were supposed to be plain and quick, like their namesake. Instead they have taken me forever which is mostly because of my failure to focus. But they're done now. Plain stockinette with a picot cuff and bind-off. The yarn was from Fearless Fibers, Kildare colorway. They are sooo soft and comfy. In the few short hours I have worn them they have become my favorite socks. Yum.

2.5 Months

It's been a while since I've posted. I've had a lot to post about, a lot of things rolling around in my head, but I've just been too tired to sit down and type anything out. The truth is I've been a little depressed.

Part of it is my job. I never intended to stay at this job very long. Aberdeen was supposed to be a stepping stone. The plan was to get my foot in the door, get a little experience under my belt and then find a better job in a large city. The economy was not supposed to collapse and trap me in Aberdeen. I know it's not forever and that things might be very different in a different setting and different library. But it's still very disappointing to find yourself so unhappy with the job you studied so hard for, the job you thought you'd love.

And part of it is just the usual holiday sadness. I miss my parents. My dad loved Christmas - loved it - and that makes this time of year especially hard. Thanks to Nico I am learning to love this holiday again but it's a slow process.

So here is a short recap of what the last 2.5 months have meant to me:

Pumpkin Pie Socks



I finished the socks in the Pumpkin Pie colorway from Handspun and Dyed Too. I knit the cuff in a sort of triangular stitch pattern to look like slices of pie. They're good socks, only they've been shrinking as I wash them so I have to be careful.

Wedding Stuff
We reserved our venue and set our date for the wedding next year. We also ordered our save the date cards and I bought my dress (more on that later).

Beer
Our pumpkin beer actually turned out OK. I used brown sugar as the priming sugar and was disappointed with the level of carbonation that provided, so perhaps next time I'll stick to corn sugar or maybe I'll try molasses. The pumpkin beer wasn't terribly spicy but it did have a pumpkininy taste. It also came out a little sweet, which is probably a good thing. It wasn't the best pumpkin beer I've had, but it wasn't too bad. I'm looking forward to trying a pumpkin porter next.

Halloween
I did absolutely nothing for Halloween. No costume, no parties, nothing. How disappointing.

The Election
Wow. Just, wow. This election went the way I hoped it would, but it's all uphill from here.

Seattle
The weekend before Thanksgiving both my sisters and I took a trip to Seattle. We stayed at the W Hotel, went shopping and generally had a fantastic time. We also stopped by the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery.



And we went to David's Bridal so I could try on awful wedding dresses. I had an idea of the kind of dress I wanted and was surprised to find that style of dress looked really horrible on me. And I was even more surprised to find a dress I really liked that was nothing like what I thought I was going to get. So I ended up buying the dress. Huh.

Thanksgiving
I met my future in-laws when Nico and I flew to Oklahoma to spend the holiday with his parents. He hadn't seen them in about three years so this was very special for him. They were very nice people and they showed us a lot of hospitality. I still don't feel that I know them very well but we seem to be off to a pretty good start.

Snow



These are my potted chile pepper plants, almost completely covered in snow. Olympia and Western Washington in general have gotten a lot of the white shit over the last week or so. The driving is awful, no one's prepared, there aren't enough plows to go around, and today even work was cancelled. I love it!



Look how covered these cars are! People have been snowed in! Nico and I spent most of today getting chains for my tires. We tried buying chains at a couple of different places but it seemed like everyone was out of the kind we'd need for my car. As we were leaving one place, though, the guy parked next to us asked us if we wanted to buy the chains he'd bought previously that were the wrong size for his tires. Well, they were the right size for my tires, so I got a set of chains for $25! We took them over to a tire place to have them installed and drove around enjoying our new-found traction. They really do seem to make a difference. This means I will have no trouble getting to work tomorrow. Um. Yay.

Cookies



And finally I spent tonight making Christmas cookies. I had already made Nico's favorite, the Goddamn Blackened Elf Balls, and tonight I made my favorites. These are Krumkake, but I also made spritz and oatmeal-cranberry cookies. My family has these recipes for krumkake and spritz that we've used forever, but this year I couldn't find them so I used a couple of recipes I found on the internet. Well, the krumkake came out alright in the end, but the spritz? Let's just say I've learned a valuable lesson: No matter what the Food Network tells you, if your family has a recipe they've used forever, there's probably a good reason for it. The spritz didn't hold their shape once baked and they don't taste the same as I'm used to. I need to find the family recipes, because these just aren't good enough.

Upside-Down Blue Monkey

That's the name of the new socks I just finished knitting this week:




That's Cookie A.'s Monkey worked toe-up with an eye of partridge heel. I did the foot on a half-size smaller needle than the pattern calls for, then switched to a larger needle after the ankle. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, colorway Tropical Storm. I'm pretty pleased with them, and they're a bit lighter than the other socks I've made so I can wear them in slightly warmer weather.

It's been a while since I mentioned my chile plants. Well, those that were eaten by beasts of the forest have recovered quite well. They are all flowering and they all have peppers growing. I had to pick 3 off one of the mystery plants because they have some spectacular blossom-end rot going on:



I've run into this once or twice before while growing peppers and tomatoes. It has something to do with the amount of moisture and calcium the plant is getting. Sad. Hopefully this won't be too big a problem. I'm really hoping to make some home-grown hot sauce this year.

Progress in Sweaterville

There has been some progress in Sweaterville. I am speaking of that sweater I began back in January, my very first sweater ever, that took forever with the shoulder increases and where I thought I was going to run out of yarn. That sweater. Well, it's coming along. I'm not crazy about the way the yarn is knitting up, and it's just a bit too big on me, and I think I should've done fewer of those shoulder increases because the neckline doesn't fall where I'd like it to. Ahem.

Here's the sweater from over a month ago:



And here's the sweater where it stands today:



Sexy, no? Bleah! But it'll look better when it's done. I hope. And if it doesn't, well, it's my very first sweater and it's allowed to be a little sucky. I can always just wear it at home. I already know a few things I'll do differently if I knit the pattern again.

I also went out and bought the yarn for my next sweater, which I'm thinking will be a sort of cropped cardigan. I love the color of this yarn, although it will look awful with my coloring. Oh well. Acid green cardigan, you're next!



And let's not forget that there's also been some progress in Sock Town:



This is an upside-down version of the Monkey pattern done in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in the Tropical Storm colorway. Upside-down Blue Monkey.

Also, next month Nico and I are moving to Olympia (I will still commute to work every day). Also we're engaged. Hot cha!

Spring? Sucker!

So for a while there it seemed like spring was in the air, what with all the daffodils and sunshine we were getting. I took these pics a little over a week ago in our side yard on a bright Saturday morning:







Daffodils, somethin' pink, and more daffodils. Really the damn things are everywhere. I'm more of a tulip girl, myself.

So then what happens? A week of nasty, windy, snowy-rainy-sleet-and-hail hellish weather. At the end of March. Ick.

Is it over yet? I'm afraid to look. Yesterday it was nice, but cold and a little breezy. Today it looks nice too: sun, blue sky. But it's April Fools Day. It could be snowing by noon.

I've got some finished socks to show off. First are the Red Whale socks I made from Mountain Colors Bearfoot in the Rosehips colorway. The pattern is Azure from the winter issue of Knitty.



Next are the socks I made from some self-striping DK weight yarn I bought from Lovesticks Sock Yarn, a seller on Etsy. It's just plain stockinette stitch with a toe-up heel flap. The colorway is called Green Tea, and it was a lot of fun to knit with.



Other than that I've started another pair of socks and made some progress on my sweater. More on that soon.

Today's Yarn

Two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Icehouse colorway. I got these while visiting MN over Christmas last year, from the Yarn Garage (!) in Rosemount. At the time I had only completed a single sock but I was beginning to appreciate the beauty of sock yarn, and I had big plans. I was also beguiled by the name of the colorway and the general magic of being in a colder climate. Bev offered to buy them for me and I tried to imagine the finished socks on my feet, in a drawer, or posing on top of a pile of huge iceblocks while a pleasantly muscled man, an icehouse worker, labors and sweats nearby.

Today the Icehouse yarn waits patiently in the center of the stash. It's not the oldest sock yarn I have, and certainly not the youngest. Someday I will sit down and make a bunch of socks just for me, and I imagine that this yarn will be first on the list.