Gimme and "S"...YAY, Stress!

I had a craptastic weekend.

It started on Friday with a call from my mom. There was an incident at the daycare. This is a very long story that I still haven't gotten to the bottom of yet. No one was hurt, but the story isn't very clear, and I was not personally notified, nor was my X.

So, I wandered home and I found Smooshy in my mailbox, and well, yarn always makes me feel a tiny bit better. Yellow, blue, and purple colors. Beautiful.

I'll tell you, I am completely a Noob at this whole "luxury" sock yarn thing, but I can't tell the difference between the mediumweight STR and the lightweight. Of course I don't have any lightweight. So I ordered some. I agree that the mediumweight is thicker than Koigu, but it appears to be of similar weight to Shibui. It's soft.

I went to Fontana Sushi in Littleton and Abe's Cafe in downtown Littleton on Friday. I had cheesecake. It was nice. I'm good at the description, huh? They had these cute little miniture snapdragons out front and the gentleman working called me "Carolyn" with his accent. I was amused.

The next day I received my order from Fearless Fibers. I've been impressed with what people have knitted with this yarn as it supposedly doesn't pool. Also, it's the 7 deadly spins sock yarn club, at least I think so. Either way, I like the colors, the prices are good, and the shipping is quick.

I met up with a friend on Saturday night and we went to Vines in Parker. I highly recommend this place. It's a tapas bar. I had some sort of filet migion wrapped in pastry and brie. Drool. It was good. I also had the bruschetta, I have to admit I like mine with chunked mozzerella, this one wasn't too bad. More of a cream cheese with tomatos and balsamic on top. The wines they serve in glasses, bottles or basically half bottles. They also have "flights" where you can try 3 types of wine. I thought that was kind of clever. The prices are from $3 - $15 for the tapas. They have a patio or a dining area. I'd post a picture except my phone won't allow me to email pictures to myself anymore. Another lesson learned, take the camera stupid.

That night too, my friend and I talked about the supernatural. So, let me start with this. My experience with people, in general, is that often I find myself talking about stuff with people, and I find that people seem to tell me all sorts of things without any sort of filters, for whatever reason. Also, I get creeped out very very easily. My X always found this mildly amusing and would like to scare me just to see my reaction. I hated this. Lastly, I do think that there are things that cannot be explained. So, here it is about 10:30 pm or so, and she's relating her story to me. I told her, that I'd be more happy to talk with her about it, but it needed to be during the day, this was after about 30 minutes of conversation. She said she understood, but how conversation often goes, she kept going. I then sort of shuffled her out of my place then. Blah, blah, blah, tired, etc, etc.

Well, the next day, I had had my phone on silent because I had been up until 5:30 am watching Star Trek, partially due to stress, partially due to a little creeped out. When I finally check the phone around 11 am, here is this voicemail... "I think you were rude, my feelings were hurt, I was trying to tell you a story, etc etc." Then an hour later, another voicemail... "I'm sorry, I know your under a lot of stress, just forget my prior voicemail."

sigh

I have drama. I'm so normal it's painful I think. Maybe it's because I don't know what I think.

Sunday I went to Michaels to find a cross stitch frame holder. I found one, and I like it, I think it will work with my frame, but...I also picked up a 50% coupon for next week. Rats. I think I'm going to get another one using that coupon. Why, oh why, do I find out about sales when I'm AT the store.

Anyway, my long winded weekend came down to this. Did you know that stress causes you to knit tighter, which causes your gauge to be thrown all to pieces? I know, redundant. :) Sarcasm is my friend. So, my sock, my loved little sock, the first one came out so perfect. The second one came out at least an inch shorter. The YO look way smaller. I almost frogged them both. Dang. I've decided just to finish them up. Chalk it up to a learning experience, otherwise I will be knitting these same socks forever.

I don't think I'm a great knitter. I don't even think of myself to be an expert. I do find people asking me questions. I know quite a bit about knitting and I haven't ever knit anything yet, that I wasn't able to interpret, eventually. One knitter I met not too long ago told me I must just be good. Knitting, it just makes sense to me, now if only the rest of the world did.

Lessons learned from the Noro sock.

1. Stress effects gauge.
2. Try counting rows.
3. Try knitting both at the same time on 2 different needle sets.
4. Don't be afraid to pull enough out so the socks can kind of match, if that's what you want.
5. If making your own pattern...WRITE IT DOWN...more is better than less...