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Not Friday Yet

I did nothing today when I got home. Too much stress. I couldn't even bring myself to finish my sock. It could also be contributed to the mass amount of frusteration I have over the second sock.

I checked the mail. My Simply Socks order came in the mail today. Black Opal, 75% superwash wool, 25% Polymyde. It will go well with the orange skein of the same. Shibui, Sky Blue, a color I didn't have, and it helped to get the order above the free shipping amount requirement. Can't argue with an extra skein or two. Lastly, Farmhouse yarn, it's pretty in person. Sort of this crazy clash of colors. It should be fun to knit up.

I just don't know what to knit next. Or for that matter when I will find the time. I guess that's good news for my shoulder.

I fed the children leftovers. I learned that they like leftovers as much as I do. We went for ice cream. The thing we didn't know was that it was some local elementary school's fundraiser night. At least we got there "early," I don't like crowds.

I think I'm looking forward to the weekend. I'm just looking forward to the warm. I hope to have a *much* more relaxing weekend than last weekend of worry and drama.

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...

Due to happen again

It's official...per me...I have too many projects going on at one time and none really reaching a state of completion.

1. Noro Silk Garden Scarf
2. Scarf for friend
3. Noro socks
4. Granny square blanket
5. Blanket for son
6. Socks for family member

Not to mention all of the other projects of non-yarn nature.

A gripe

It's occurred to me in recent months, I need to make some more friends. It's partially I think because some of the people I have known now, I have known for 10 some odd years. There can be some old drama that just doesn't heal in time. I'm glad to say that a lot has, but with some, the some I don't really talk to, it hasn't.

This occurred to me at a gathering that happened with people I don't always see on a regular basis. Apparently some of the group was pre-asked to give advice. I had no idea, I wasn't asked, I figured it was because I don't really get along with the host. We're sort of distanced acquaintenaces. However, I noticed that another newly divorced person there also mumbled about how she meant to give to this as well, but the way she mumbled it made me wonder if she had even been given notice. We were the only two non-married people there in that particular circle of friends.

So, it made me wonder, there were some rifts made when my X and I split. Not that he kept up with any of those friends we had had. I had the opinion that he had done something wrong in my opinion, and he had the opinion that he was doing the right thing. That in itself is neither here nor there. It was important to me at one point in time, now it just makes me think that it must be very hard to be friends with a person whom you know is actively cheating/lying/etc on their spouse.

It also made me wonder if there are any single women, who knit, have kids, like games, and are happily divorced. I only seem to run into mostly happy married people or singles who have never been married and who don't have kids. If there's anyone out there who fits the first category, please say hi.

I love my friends. They are very important to me in whatever capacity they are able to spend time with me or I with them. The constraints of my life however, seem to hinder a lot of the time I wish I could spend with them too. I wish too that I knew of more people who have had similiar life experiences like I have...ugh, I don't know, it's all just this sort of weird lonliness I think, where I realize sock yarn and the internet won't necessarily make up for real live people. Realizing too, that some of the interests I had, that kept me in constant contact with people, were not really mine, but my X's.

I'm over-sensitive, but I won't admit that to you.

In need of advice, or maybe just encouragement

Let's first talk about dp ladders from hell. They look SO big to me. Poo.

Ladders happen with dp right? They just do. No matter how hard you tug at the yarn between the switch, they just happen. Do they ever correct themselves? I've never really asked anyone I've knitted socks for. Besides the people I have knitted socks for are not knitters, and most certainly they would look at me as though I had lost my mind talking about the ladder in the garage.

Second, how important is it to count rows? I know that tension and gauge can often vary slightly from day to day, and mood to mood. I've always just measured. I'm sure my inner perfectionist is just having a hay day with my brain. Poking at the little worrier child in my head.

I'm using this cast on for my toe. I like it. It's less likely to need tightening. Although the first stitch seems to always be loose. On the first sock I just tightened it and left the little loop it left, the second sock I tightened and then knit it with another knit stitch. This I think may have left a tiny hole, so I may have to rethink my thoughts about that loose first stitch. I may just try the Knitty version of the figure 8 again. It's been so long I really don't remember.

On a side note...I'm so ready for it to be Friday.

It's always seems like I get home at night and all I want to do is sit down, read some blogs, and go to bed. It's not that I forget to take the pictures, I just seem to run out of time.

Today I had a first. I took back sock yarn to an LYS. I'd link you to their website but String, A Knitting Boutique seems to have had it deleted. I don't know what is going on there, but it remains at my least favorite. I'm grateful that they took back the 2 skeins I had. One was a Fortissma, and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't convince myself that the cotton/wool/nylon blend was going to work with the wool/poly blend of the Opal skein I have to go with it. So I ordered a solid Opal skein instead, and opted to take this one back. I also took back a skein of Noro, not because I didn't like it, but I had 2 of them. I decided I only needed one. Instead for their store credit, I picked up Jitterbug and Koigu. A much better idea in my stash.

I'm still not crazy about this store. I went up to the counter and let the person at the register know I wanted to do a return, she informed me of the store credit thing. I said that was fine and I just thought I'd pick out my new selections now. She nosed through my bag and picked out the solid color Fortissma and said, "Are you sure you bought this here?" I replied, "Yes, here's my receipt." sigh. For that reason alone I don't think I'd really want to be a shop keeper. Maybe I'm a crappy customer having the expectation that you ought to have a basic idea of what is in your store.

I also went to Knitty Cat. Ann has Flat Feet in bright colors. She says she's going to order more. Yay, because the stuff she had, I don't think will last through the weekend. I hope she gets in some of the Noro Silk Garden Sock Yarn too when it comes out. She said she'd ask her rep. I went for Flat Feet and a Jitterbug followed me home.

The Jitterbug has so many colors in it. It's like a crayon box that tastifully threw up.

I also came to the conclusion today that I need to have yarn at my desk...on my desk as a display. For some reason it kind of just makes me feel good.

A little bit of Monday, a little bit of Tuesday

It never fails me. "Cycle" at work comes around, and I can't sleep at night. I hate that. So, the time when I need to be most awake comes at the time when I'm the most exhausted because I can't sleep. Goody. I also start falling behind in every other aspect of my life, blogging, bills, eating, etc. I've done this for 5 years. Oh, how I need a change.

I finished my first sock. Yay. Noro is nice. It can be rough on your hands. My skein had 2 knots, hopefully no more. The colorway looks great on the skein, but can be troublesome because of the knots. It has slubs and sticks. However, it keeps my foot warm. It feels soft to me. I didn't have any problems with breakage, although I have heard others who have had issues with that. I'll be interested in seeing how it handles washing.

Have I ever mentioned I hate feet? I think they're sort of odd looking. I don't paint my toenails and I don't like pedicures. I do like to knit socks.

My second sock has begun, and well, I've miscalculated the colorway. Poo. I thought about frogging and pulling until it matched closer...but...nah...forget it. It's my first set of my socks. I'm sure it will be fine. Yes. Fine. No frogging.

This of course is not the second sock. I haven't had the time to take a picture of the second sock, or post pictures of flowers from mother's day.

This is a picture of my "design," the one that made me slightly batshit insane. It's cute though.
Needless to say, I did nothing last night. I fed the kids, read, and went to bed. My cloud of fogginess is better today and my shoulder doesn't seem to ache, which I am sure is a direct result of work and not from knitting too much. *cough*

I ordered some Smooshy. Seems interesting enough, stupid sock yarn habit. The worst thing about this habit...is when I send my order to my PO box instead of my home address. Duh. Now I have to wait until Friday instead of stalking my mailbox.

I need to figure out how to wear my socks. This I can sense is going to involve a new pair of shoes. I'll have to ponder this. I don't like women's shoes much. I always like to tell the men I've dated, "Slow down. Next time you get to wear the heels." I normally wear some type of boot, heeled usually, looks sort of professional with my slacks. However, this does not bode well for socks. I think my Teva's will work well, but I can't wear those to work or in the winter. I did see some Mary Janes that seem sort of cute, heeled, and in an elderly sort of fashion. No offense to anyone, really, but I remember my father's aunt wearing those shoes. So, it's hard for me not to imagine a 90 year old German woman in association with those shoes, but I still like em. One day I'll even have a link so you can see.