What are the chances?

What are the chances that I would finish my daughter’s socks (I know!  I’ve had so much going on!  I should have been done a long time ago!) yesterday.  Get up this morning and do all my e-mail checking, then go blog cruising.  I was reading Yarn Harlot (That’s Stephanie Pearl McPhee’s blog) and decided that I wanted to watch the Knitty Gritty episode on my DVR from last Friday.  I look at the ‘info’ for the episode….Knitting Socks.  Wow, I’ve been wanting to do this.  Terrified of dpns, but I want to try it on two circular needles.  Sooooo, coincidence #1. Just finished loomed socks, casted on for another pair of loomed socks (for myself this time), and the Knitty Gritty episode is on needle knitting socks. 
What is coincidence #2, you ask?  Well, as I am finishing up reading the latest blog post on Yarn Harlot, (oh, and I had been by Vickie Howell’s blog right before that, by the way!) Vickie Howell announces that their guest is none other than….yep, you guessed it, Stephanie Pearl McPhee! 
Like REALLY!  What are the odds?  What are they?!  I mean, seeing Vickie Howell on her own show right after I read over her blog?  That ain’t much of a coincidence.  But it is a big one that right after Vickie’s blog, I went to Yarn Harlot and then turned on Knitty Gritty and there…she….is! 
Ok, I’m gonna go learn me some stuff about needle knitting socks, folks!

OH!  And Little Lady Tru loves her sockies so much that she squealed when she saw me hold up TWO completed socks, said, “MY SOCKS?!  YOU KNIT MY SOCKS?!”  We put them on her and she ran around all afternoon with them on….wouldn’t take them off when she went to bed either.  So, she is still wearing them.  I’ll have to get them off her feet soon though.  Icky sweaty feet!
She immediately told me, after showing off her socks to Tah (that is the nickname she gave Sir Thade), that now I have to make ‘BIIIIIIIIIG Mommy socks!’  Yeah, Mommy’s size 10 feet might take a little longer than her teeny tiny size 6.5 toddler feet.  :-O

Will I finally make quilts?

This morning I learned about a brand new website in the works.  www.YouCanQuiltThis.com   I can’t wait for this site to be finished (it officially opens in April) so that I can finally figure out how to quilt.  My Grandma and Great Aunt Flora are the only quilters I know, but they live so far away.  Add that both are getting on up there in age and quilt less and less.  Time is running out for them to teach me.  But maybe with this website, I’ll finally learn and be able to carry on the legacy of quilt making.  I want to make baby quilts for when I have grandkids, then make them toddler quilts when they outgrow the baby ones, pre-teen quilts when they reach the pre-teen age, Sweet Sixteen quilts, Graduation quilts, Wedding quilts…and then the cycle will start over when they have children.  😀  Wouldn’t that be lovely.
Not only am I excited about this new website, but I am excited about the contest they are having to win a Marie Osmond 200 Quilter’s Companion machine.  😀  Who wouldn’t want such a lovely machine?  You can see what it looks like on their blog post here: http://www.youcanmakethis.com/blog/329/announcing-a-new-siteand-you-can-win.html/comment-page-16#comment-1010
I hope that all of you that are interested in it, enter yourself in the contest.  How often does something like this come around?  ‘Good Luck!’ (though secretly I just want it all for myself….I would feel guilty if I didn’t at least wish you good luck.  :D)

Long time, no post

I think I am just settling down from Christmas Season.  Goodness.  😛 
I was helping a fellow loom knitter with a project that I can’t talk about right now during January and February.  Believe me when I say it was all consuming.  I can probably count on one hand just how many times I cooked a meal in the past two months.  And you don’t wanna see my house!  The only chore I think that I did was dishes and that was after about 4 days worth of them piled up in the sink and on the counters.  FlyLady would be soooo ashamed of me.  😦  I’m ashamed of me.
So, for the past few weeks I’ve been working on finishing up the LAL pattern I am creating for DaLooms for the month of April.  And as I was working on that pattern I had a small epiphany on short rows.  Caused me to snatch up a smaller loom real quick and try out the technique in my head.  The end result is this beauty:

It also caused me to pick up my KISS Sock Loom and work on a sock for Stephanie, even though I had sworn off socks for a while.  😛  She picked out this yarn (RH Heart and Sole with Aloe in ‘Green Envy’ colorway) way back in October, I believe.  I didn’t have a sock loom at the moment that would fit her, but our KISS sock loom soon arrived.  But since that was smack in the middle of Christmas Season I didn’t have time to do anything but admire Cliff’s handy work on it.  😦  This week I picked it up, measured the ball and the length of Steph’s foot, did a swatch on the loom and deducted how many pegs needed to be used, set it up, and then got to looming.  I give up on toe up socks on the loom though.  I just can’t get the tiny stitches across the loom.  I guess I am uncoordinated.  But since I am pretty good at the Kitchener stitch, I don’t mind doing socks cuff-down.  🙂  All I’ve heard from her in the past few days is, “You knit my sock?  My sock?  I wear my sock?”  Now that I have finished one of her socks last night, she wants to wear that lone sock around.  I won’t let her though and now I have a slightly upset 2 year old Drama Queen.  😛  I am wondering to myself that since this is 70% superwash wool and it has aloe infused if it will help her feet.  She has this condition that makes her feet peel and it makes me so sad for her because if it doesn’t go away on it’s own, she’ll have it forever and never be able to wear sandals around her friends and show off her feet.  😦  But, if this type of yarn can help with that condition then Mommy will always be busy making pretty, one of a kind socks for her.  🙂  I know that wool is supposed to pull moisture away from the foot and believe me she has SWEATY feet.  So at least I can use that excuse right?  LOL!

I’ll be ‘hosting’ the Kiss Loom Chat this Saturday evening.  We’ll be focusing on this new method of short rows I figured out.  I’m excited and nervous at the same time.  LOL!  I have only made a tutorial on the Kiss Loom so far, but plan on showing the method on a plain loom as well.  You will be able to find the tutorial on my ‘Tutorials’ page when it is ready.  😀

Besides looming, I’ve been busy making lessons on looming for the LKNB-Class (a classroom group of the Loom Knitting Newbies Beginnings Yahoo group.)  I just started our first class this week.  It begins with the very basics, like what kind of materials you need to get started with loom knitting.  Next week’s lesson will be cast ons, bind offs, and weaving in tails.  Writing up these lessons feels like I am writing a book, chapter for chapter.  🙂  And I hope that I am able to teach new loomers a thing or two and to help more advanced loomers understand and learn a few more things themselves. 

On the crochet front…..I haven’t done much.  A few dishcloths.  I find that I like to make simple round ones.  And what I mean by simple is:
-Ch 3, join in beginning ch with sl st.
-Sc 6 into center of ring, join to beg sc with sl st
-2 sc in each sc around, join to beg sc with sl st
– *2 sc in first sc, 1 sc in next stitch, repeat from * and join with sl st to beg.
– *2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in each of next two stitches, repeat from *, join with sl st to beg.
– * 2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in each of next three stitches, repeat from *, join with sl st to beg.

Can you see the pattern?  It keeps going until you’ve done a row with 1 sc in each of next ten stitches.  That is the last row then I finish it off and weave in tails.  I usually use a G to an I hook.  and it is quick, easy, and just the right size.  Or at least the size I like it.  😀

I’ve learned how to do the Norwegian Purl stitch in needle knitting.  I’m not too fast at it yet….still in that manual thinking process of how it is made.  But I am sure that once I can do it without consciously thinking about it, I’ll be speeding along.  LOL!  I haven’t quite figure out how to do it while knitting with the English (throwers) Method, but since I am faster with Continental (pickers) Method, it doesn’t matter that much.  I just want to be able to teach my girl, Jenny, how to do it once she can take a breather from being busy.  She is a glutton for punishment.  😛  Love ya, gal!