Mikknit

I received my package a few days ago, but I’ve been a terrible Secret Pal and haven’t yet blogged about it. I’ll go line up for my flogging in a bit…

My secret pal is pretty swell! She sent me a July 4th-themed package!

A red, white, & blue beach ball, matching Uncle Sam rubber duckies for the beasties, a US flag pen, some stickers, and red, white, and blue sock yarn! One of my favorite brands, too!

I decided I had to do this tonight as I’m about to rip into the sock yarn. I’m not finished with my second spiral rib sock, but I can’t find the first one to make sure I make the cuff the same length. I don’t know where it could’ve gone off to - it’s not under the couch or my chair or in one of the 92367 bags of assorted knitting stuff formerly hanging on the dining room chairs. Dangit, I knew I shouldn’t have cleaned!

In other news, we have a new family member. Meet Wally:

His official name is Wally the Six-Legged Tako, but since we’re pretty informal here he goes by Wally or Wally the Octopus. Nevermind the six-legged business (that’s all that would fit)… I think he turned out pretty great. He was for Arlo, but Arlo isn’t exactly into playing with stuffed critters that are smaller than him (he prefers to play with a large stuffed leopard and a 4′ long snake from IKEA), so Grace has claimed it. I designed him myself and have a little proofing to do on the pattern. I’ll put it up if there’s interest.

I’ve been suffereng from a bit of disinterest in stuff lately. I can’t be bothered to get out the spinning wheel though I’m in the middle of plying some great apple-green wool. I can’t be bothered to finish sorting and washing my giant fleece. I can’t find the dang spiral rib sock so I can finish its mate. I had to rip out the cotton tank dress I’d started for Grace because I don’t remember what I did on the first two straps and I wasn’t able to figure it out by looking at the fabric (take notes next time, dummy!). I’ve neared the top of the second chopper liner for my grandpa, but I want to have him try the first one on before I finish the second one. I already need to fix the thumb on #1 but I don’t want to have to fix more than I have to.

Obviously, the answer to all this is to start more projects. I dyed yarn for a secret baby gift for a friend, I’ll be working on that project this weekend. I also got the pattern for a Mother Bear Project bear, thanks to Chris. It looks simple enough and will be a good use for the bins full of acrylic yarn I have taking up space in the attic (the bears need to be washable). Add that to the weekend’s list. Plus, I have to start a sock! Must always have socks in progress. Right?

Goodness, it’s late. I suppose maybe if I got some sleep I wouldn’t be so apathetic about it all. Maybe?

And yes, that would be a terrible pun.

The other day, Julie made a post about amigurumi and posted a link to a crocheted cat (Amineko) that she was working on. I thought “Oh, that’s cute! I should bookmark that for the future.” Then my friend Helen linked me to Avocadolite Farm’s Farm Hustle game (WARNING: THIS GAME IS EXTREMELY ADDICTIVE). Once I tore myself away from the game, I found their albums of farm members and ex-farm members. OMG the cute! That was it - I had to make some amigurumi.

I went back to that link that Julie posted, grabbed some acrylic yarn from the attic, and found a crochet hook. A couple evenings, a couple naptimes, and here’s what I have:

He still needs his eyes, nose, and mouth, as well as a name. Grace claimed him immediately after I trimmed the last yarn tail, but if I let her name him we’d have another baby named Arlo. Cute, yes, but there are already 293762 babies named Arlo in this house.

Does anyone have another suggestion?

He’s upstairs now, snuggled up to Grace. She loves him!

I’ve joined the Knit Sock Kit Swap hosted by Scout and Bev! My answers to the questionnaire can be found here - I put them on a separate page so as not to bore you all with my answers. Of course, if you want to read it you should feel free.

I’m enjoying thinking about what sort of bag I’ll make for my swap partner and what kind of yarn she’ll be receiving. Not to mention I get to come up with a pattern for her! Excellent!

I am going to go get out the wheel now. I’ve got some minty-green wool on it right now and it’s quite fun to work with, a far cry from the lumpy bumpy yarn I made with the last batch.

Thanks to a comment by Deb (no blog given), I believe that the sock in the last post is knit from Socka. That makes sense now, as I worked at Three Kittens Yarn Shoppe when I was pregnant with Grace, and I was constantly drooling over the Socka yarn. It would definitely make sense for me to have bought a bunch of it to stash!

Not much progress on sock #2, I think I’m 1/2″ or so into the ribbing. I did a little spinning last night, finished up the wool I’d been working with and started plying. I just am not thrilled with this yarn, but the plied stuff on the bobbin looks okay. I’m just looking forward to spinning something easy and soft next!

Although I won’t be doing much today - the boy is teething hard, running a temperature, and practicing his pterodactyl screeching. I’ll be busy with him all day, I can see. Maybe it’s time for him to get a dose of valerian root tincture and take a nap - he was twitchy and whimpering all night long, poor boy.

There really hasn’t been much of note going on around here in the last week. I hurt my right elbow when I mowed the lawn last (stupid hill!), so I haven’t really felt like knitting much. It’s not a serious injury, but if I could keep from re-injuring it, it’d help. But I have these two kids who need to be held and played with and have doors opened for them (which seems to be the biggest culprit for re-injury), so it’s slow going. Lots of ibuprofen, I guess.

I did manage to finish a sock, at least. I’m almost to the heel on the mate, but I didn’t bother to show it since it’s just a sock foot. Not too exciting.

It looks a lot like Trekking, though it came in 50g balls - I haven’t seen Trekking in 50g balls recently, but this has been aging in the stash for 3 years or so. The specs on the sock: Knit toe-up over 68 stitches on size 1 Addi Turbos (2 circ method), short row heel. The cuff is a simple spiral rib that I snagged from someone on the LJ sock knitters community - K2P3 around for two rounds, then move it all over one stitch and repeat. The ribbing at the top is a continuation of the K2P3 rib, I just stopped moving it over. I love the way this sock fits! It’s nice and comfortable, snug but not too tight on the calf. Too bad it’s way too warm here for wool socks now!

I also did some spinning last night, on some blue wool with flecks of green in it that I got at Yarnover. The first batch of wool I bought from this vendor spun up quite nicely, but this one isn’t going so well. It’s full of some sort of grit, doesn’t draft smoothly, and just irritates me. This yarn isn’t going to be an entry into the State Fair, not by a long shot. But it’s a learning experience, right? I also washed another batch of my gigantic fleece last night. I’ve lost track of how many batches I’ve washed so far, but I’m not even halfway through it and I’ve got 1.5 garbage bags full of washed fleece already. Wow! I wonder how much yarn I’ll end up with from this. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to sort the rest of it this weekend, or maybe the kids will cooperate in the evenings and go to bed at a reasonable time (i.e. before dark) so I can go outside and play with wool.

So today is my 6-month blogiversary. I was hoping to make it to 100 comments by today, but we’re a few shy. However, I’ve picked a random comment from May 23 (when I announced the comment contest) to today. Well, I numbered them and DH chose a number at random for me, I should say. Nikki is the winner of my blogiversary/comment contest. There will be a skein of handspun or a skein of sock yarn, your choice, heading up to you as soon as you email me your address and info. jess at mikk dot net

There hasn’t been much actual knitting going on, bits and bobs on various projects. I’m working on the prototype for a felted camera bag, a tank dress for Grace, and a sock for myself out of something that *might* be Trekking. I can’t say for sure, since it’s been floating around in the stash for 2-3 years and the labels from both balls are AWOL. Also, I’ve never seen Trekking in 50g balls. Has anyone?

I’ll post some pictures tomorrow. Right now, I need to get the short one to bed. He’s an early riser and has trouble staying asleep for a good nap, and now he’s up way too late despite his papa’s best efforts and my taking him for a nice drive this evening. Ugh.

I finished my mom’s socks last night. I did the toe during a meeting I had to attend last night, then discovered that I’d started it about 6-8 rows too early. Whoops! So I got to do that twice, lucky me. They’re all done & blocked now, ready to be delivered. I found the ball band, so here’s the yarn info: Opal Magic, color 1041. I did 72 stitches for the leg and then decreased down to 64 for the foot. Man, my mom has narrow feet!

And a little handspun. It’s (probably) 100% wool that I bought at Yarnover. I somehow managed to get the contents of a gallon-size ziploc bag onto one bobbin, just barely:

And once it was plied, not all of it fit back on the bobbin. Funny. I have no idea on weight or yardage, I haven’t had the time/energy/interest to go do that. But it sure it pretty and soft!

It looks like it’s heavy worsted or more. I think this might be a hat and possibly mittens for Grace for next winter. Or it might be a gift for the winner of the comment contest - we’ve still got a bit more to go to comment #100.

I cast on for a new toe-up sock at the park this morning. I found both balls of the yarn in my stash, neither with a ball band. I think there may be some fun googling this afternoon to figure out what the heck I have!