Sock Woman

It’s a bird, it’s a plane… it’s Sock Woman!

She hides in the most unlikely of places, amongst the detritus of a University student.

She only comes out in the wee hours of the night, when the roommates are asleep and reruns of the Bachelor are on.

No one knows if she is real, or if she is just a midterm-crazed student with a bad case of “just one more row” syndrome.

The doings of Sock Woman

Last night she paid a visit to the third house on the left. She left the evidence of her progress strewn among genetics assignments and grocery lists.

She finished the heel flap. Turned the heel. Most of the gusset.

Only you can guess when and where Sock Woman will strike again.

A note from the socks

Today we have a guest post, in the form of a letter, from the Zoomobile socks. It’s addressed to me, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it none-the-less.

Dear travellingsock,

After a long dry spell, in which the first of our pair was trapped inside the knitting bag, we’re pleased that you’ve finally been working on us. We’re glad that the weather was nice this weekend and you took us outside to work on… You’re deck is lovely. Even though our yarn fell onto the bricks and got moss on it, we forgive you. Feeling the fresh air was worth it.

Watching the Calgary Stampede with you last night was also wonderful. When you got out the beer, we were a little concerned; seriously, knitting a heel flap while drinking? Not your strong suit. Still, you managed to finish more than half of the heel flap, so we’re very pleased. Sock #2 is coming along nicely.

We would appreciated it if you used a row counter once and a while though. We don’t appreciate being poked and prodded while you try to count out what you have and have not finished. It hinders your progress, and we’ve seen you looking longingly at the stash… We would like to be finished as soon as possible, lest you start something else before we’re done. You are prone to that; you have fickle fingers.

We would also appreciate some photographs. We had to endure the teasing as you photographed the Sampler Texture Socks over and over. We feel unloved. Do you not want to share our beauty with your blog readers? We know you’ve been promising them pictures for days, so get us  outside and take some pictures!

We do love the effort you’ve been putting in on us lately though. Giving up your reading time for knitting really means a lot to us. We’re glad you’re so committed to us. We can’t wait to warm your toes this fall.

With love,

The Zoomobiles

Catch up

So I’ve noticed significantly less viewers on this blog… Probably since I’m an awful blogger and I never have any good pictures for you guys!

But here I am to fix that…

As promised, weekend photos!

This sunset was on Sunday night, just after the rain stopped. You can’t tell from the trees, but if you look in the lower left corner, you can see the lake from my house (its a twenty minute drive, but we are high enough that we can see it).

There it is again… You can kind of see the rain sparkling on the corn in the field, but only sort of. Unfortunately, photos don’t do it justice.

As mentioned, there was a tractor pull. Those wristbands are worth their weight in gold… The red one cost $10, and the yellow cost $15! I thought they were totally overpriced, but I’m sure some of the money went to supporting the village, so I can’t complain too much. It the closest village to me.

Now. Onto the knitting. Here we go:

Taken with my phone as I was running out the door, so it’s not the best quality… But that is the Eye of Partridge Heel Flap! Conquered. Yes.

Both of those photos are awful, I’ll have to make sure that I use an actual camera when they’re finished and I take photos. The colour difference is shocking, but that’s all from a difference in light. In person, I think they look more like the first photo.

And here are the socks, wanting to go outside in the heat and be finished. It was 30 degrees Celsius out this morning (which is 86 degrees Fahrenheit for my American readers) at 7 am. 7 am!! It’s only going to get hotter!

My sock progress is extremely slow. These ones should be finished this weekend though… I have a long car trip ahead of me, in which I’m not driving (perfect!). Socks, you will be conquered…

Rainy Day Sunday

Apparently I’m awful at posting on the weekends.

So this was yesterday… It threatened rain all day long, and the heavens finally opened around dinner time. The grass will grow again! Hurray!

I’ll have more photos of the weekend up tomorrow. Here it is in a list.

1. There was a tractor pull. You know you’re from the country when the closest village has a tractor pull (who can pull a certain weight the furthest, basically), with a beer tent and a band. I had a great time!

2. I have conquered the Eye of Partridge Heel Flap. And it looks perfect this time. I’m just a nob and I don’t read directions properly.

3. My dad and I have been painting jump poles… Trying to spruce up the jumps my coach brought over. They look great so far. Domino has been doing much better over her little jumps too. Even my dad noticed a difference! It’s so exciting!

4. I haven’t started training for my half marathon yet…. It’s on July 29…. Uh oh.

5. The writing just continues to flow out of me. It’s crazy. I have to stop myself from continuing to start new stories though; it’s a disease.

6. I read a great book this weekend. The author is also the author of The Pioneer Woman blog. The book that I read was called “The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels”, and for those of you who prefer not to scroll through her blog, the author’s name is Ree Drummond. The book documents her love story; how she (the city girl) fell in love with a cowboy. It was so well written and engaging that I couldn’t put it down. Read it. Seriously.

7. It makes me want to write about my own love story… Or at least use it in my own stories. I mean, its suitably dramatic.

All this love stuff has got my head in the clouds. Time to come back to earth and put in some work on that novel.

Do you have a great love story? I’d love to read about it in the comments.

Let’s go to the zoo!

1. Knitting progress: Sampler Texture Socks: only one more section of that stupid chart to go before I’m onto the #%$@&^$ Eye of Partridge heel flap. I really think it’s going to work out this time. I really do. Think positive.

2. Last night, the Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup. For those of you who aren’t Canadian, you won’t understand the fascination with watching a team that I don’t normally cheer for… It’s a Canadian thing. We watch a lot of hockey. That’s just how it goes. So, with hockey season officially over, I’m going to have to start renting movies. I mean, I watch hockey, and I knit. That’s how it is, from September until June. 

3. Horses: I got a new coach (as I mentioned a little while ago) and she’s fabulous. But she says no more showing for this year, at least not at the level I had planned on. This sucks. For anyone who plays sports, this is like practising and practising and never getting to play the game. I mean, I get why. My horse isn’t far enough along in her training to show successfully at that level. But still. 

4. Zoo pictures! (I have to stop making lists… each number is a paragraph).

   

Peacock… all fluffed up!

Grizzly bear

Giraffe… I loved them

Hippos… The boyfriend’s favourite!

This warthog was all tuckered out.

The new polar bear cub, born in January.

This is the mother polar bear, angry to have been separated from her cub.

Penguins, enjoying the water on a hot day.

Zebra… My favourite!

This is us touching sting rays. They loved to be petted. We also got to touch some sharks!

All in all, an excellent trip to the Toronto Zoo. If you haven’t been… Get there. Giant Pandas are coming in 2013. I think I may have to go back to see them.

Yarn Shortage

This weekend was gorgeous here in Ontario! It was pretty rainy when I woke up on Saturday, but by the time I got to Toronto it had stopped.

Oh, didn’t I mention? I went away for the weekend with my boyfriend. We had a wonderful time; on Saturday, visiting the Ontario Science Centre, and on Sunday, visiting the Toronto Zoo.

I managed to get some work done on the stripy socks during some of our driving time, and while relaxing at the hotel on Saturday evening. I still need a name for those little things… I think they should be called Zoomobile. They have zebra striped sections and everything!

I’m now finished the gussets and I’m onto the foot!

But you know that feeling? The feeling when you look down at your project and think “I’m not going to have enough yarn”? Yes, that feeling. I just push it aside and keep knitting. I’m starting to be concerned about the Zoomobiles… I mean, its going to be close. On the other SIPs, however, I have resigned myself. The ball of yarn is dwindling, and I’m not even on the heel flap yet. That’s what I get for using leftover yarn with unknown yardage.

Never fear though! I have a solution… I have MORE leftover yarn (shocking, I know), and its pink… Which is going to have to match well enough. After all, I never make two socks (or anything really) the same.

I must say… There are a lot of factors here convincing me that maybe I shouldn’t knit a sweater. I mean, I can’t even do a small heel flap with some ridiculous Eye of Partridge pattern (I’m still bitter about that. I mean really. Who names it something like that, then doesn’t give clear instructions as to what it is supposed to look like?). I also can’t make anything the same… And I’m pretty sure you need to make two sleeves the same. I’m also on a University students’ budget, so its pretty hard to justify buying 57813057890 balls of yarn just to make one simple garment.

Humph. I’m going to add some zoo photos tomorrow, as well as some of the Zoomobiles (and maybe the Sampler Texture socks too, depending on how far I get on them tonight).

 

Hello my name is… Photo Journalist

See, I wasn’t fooling you all along. I have a real camera, I promise. And I do know how to use it (pretty well, actually). It just seems that my camera is never where I need it, but my phone is. Phones take substandard pictures of kniting, I am aware. But they get the point across.

The above is a picture of my mom’s vegetable garden this morning. We have had an uncharacteristically dry spring, but the weekend rain (plus yesterday’s) has helped a lot. I can’t wait to eat all of that stuff!

This morning I decided to do some real photography. Look!

These are the first socks I made for myself. They are the second socks I ever made. The heel flap was a little strange (don’t ask what pattern, I’ve forgotten), but they have served me well for the past two years. I put them on today and they made me smile, so I thought I would share.

Ta-da! The first of the Sampler Texture Socks, finished! I’ve never done a star toe before, but its so simple! I liked it, but we’ll see how it feels when I’m wearing them.

This right here is the heel flap. Remember that, the Eye of Partridge one? As you can see, mine seems to start with some type of ribbing, go to something else, then end as the ribbing. Does anyone know what it’s supposed to look like? Obviously I don’t care too much, since this sock is finished; I’m just curious. Eye of Patridge…. maybe I should have paid more attention, but I was tired and the %$@#$^* thing should have worked itself out, like every other stitch pattern.

…I don’t think I should try lace if I can’t do a lousy heel flap properly.

Absent

What a weekend! Yes, I was absent all weekend, I’m sorry about that.

Saturday was crazy. I left my house at 5:20 am with my horse. We travelled 2.5 hours to our first horse show of the season. Since it’s our second year doing this, I had hoped that my horse would be great, and we would get over all of our jumps well. Instead, she went totally crazy, we managed to get over one jump all day, and she spooked at every car that went by (there were many). It was awful. I was so annoyed with her, but we have another one this coming Saturday, so hopefully she will be better behaved. We have already been out practising lots!

When I got home (another 2.5 hour drive home, and I forgot my knitting), my dad called me. He’s a vet, and he had to do a couple of calls, so I went with him. Most people don’t know, but when you apply to vet school you must have experience in the field, so this was a perfect opportunity.

Needless to say, I was exhausted when I got home, but I managed to get some knitting time in.

Sunday was recovery day. It rained on and off all day, so it was tough to get anything done outside.

Last night, I finished the heel flap and gusset of the Sampler Texture Socks.

I’m not sure how I feel about the gussets on these ones. You only pick up 11 stitches on each side… To me that’s not enough. It means that the shaping takes only a few rounds, but I would rather the shaping take longer and the heel and foot be joined more securely. I may change this in the next sock…

I also messed up the heel flap. It was supposed to be Eye of Partridge, but mine has 3 distinctly different looking sections… I don’t even know what Eye of Partridge looks like, so who knows.

Who names a stitch pattern Eye of Partridge anyways?

I also may have started another pair of socks. The yarn is this super bright self-patterning stuff, and I’m just making plain old vanilla socks. I needed something to knit up that was just plain old stockinette stitch, so I could do it without concentrating. Voila!

So exciting. I’m in love, and I have to make myself work on the Sampler Texture Socks, which don’t look near as exciting.

Here they are, in all their glory. Names anyone?