Look What I can Do!

TOE UP SOCKS!!!!

My Lucy socks are done... Lucy yarn, Lucy pattern... for me!

These are the quickest socks that I have ever knit! I did the second sock in a total of 2 days and a few hours for the cuff and bind off! Really I am so excited by these. I wore them to work today... No one coud see them b/c they were in my shoes but it made me damn giddy all day knowing they were on my feet. :D I think I'm a toe-up convert now.. I don't even want to lookat a top-down sock pattern anymore.

My Toe Up Adventure

I have started on my second shawl, "Percy." It was part of a KAL with some fellow HSKSers. I'm using my Sweeney Todd yarn from the Nefarious club. The project got named "Ozymandias, King of Kings" from Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias. It's really VERY VERY pretty so far. The charts are in tiny print and one is patterned on both the RS and the WS so I'm moving a lot slower through that chart than I normally would, but I have really flew through most of it and, I think, that it's looking beautiful. In addition to starting another shawl, (I am now a lace and shawl addict!) I decided to attempt my first pair of toe up socks, encouraged by Ronni. This is my progress since Monday night. I am pretty thrilled with the socks. And I was surprisingly shocked at how amazingly easy toe-up is! WOW! Thankfully Ronni was able to give me some tips and links to help me get started. Where would I be with out my best friend? (((Awwwwww....)))

Yarn balled, Pattern Printed

Cast-on and the first few rows

Progressing up the foot

Pattern: Sprucey Lucy by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts STR
Colorway: Lucy
I named them "Pork and Beans" after one of my favorite Weezer songs... I promise if you read or just know the lyrics you'll see why. Also the song has been stuck in my head ALL WEEK. ;)

Dry Ishbel Pictures, Titania Progress, and What's Next

Here is my finished, dry and blocked Ishbel... It's beautiful and I LOVE it!!! :D I am still not over the EVIL EVIL pins but I like my finished result. And I have ordered wires and better pins for my blocking future.

Here are the pictures of my Titania's Revenge progress. In the pictures they are about 3 1/2 repeats of the leg pattern done. I've now finished 4. The flash on the camera really caught all of the colors really well. When there isn't direct light the yarn looks like a tonal dark maroon/purple. The colors are really beautiful though. :)

Up next (now that I'm lace and shawl obsessed) is Percy. I'm going to use some Malabrigo lace in indigo that I just ordered from the Loopy Ewe this weekend. It'll be a KAL with Ronni and Sarah. :) I'm excited to get started. That'll be my first lace project with lace weight yarn. My first lace weight yarn at all!

Finished Ishbel!!!

Right now it's blocking... And I'm buying wires on payday. Because pins are evil... They are evil time consuming tedious evil little bastards. I'm happy for my shawl though!!! :)

BTW: This was a 16 day project from start to finish, I amaze myself sometimes. I've never knit so fast ever.

Ishbel progress Day 1

I've got 123 stitches on the needle and no mistakes. :) I SHOULD finish the stockinette portion this week. It's very pretty so far. Plus this yarn is so soft and so pretty. I need my new addi turbos to get here soon though because I'm pretty much at the end of space on my 16" circular... They should be here tuesday. If not I've got some scarves (actually 1 scarf, and my own starter that I'm re-starting) from scarf travels to work on.

It's a Miracle!!!!

I finished a scarf in less than 2 months! That's a record for me. Usually I get bored and the project gets too redundant and I quit. I actually probably knit most of this in about a months time, but there were about 3 weeks after I came back from vacation that I never touched it because I was either tired or busy or sick or wallowing in my own misery because I hated my job so much. (Have I mentioned that I quit, and got a new job and I'm THRILLED!) .... Moving On ... Rosalie Bay is completed! I LOVE this scarf! It's so soft and so pretty and really very beautiful in person. I love the colors. I love the yarn. It's just beautiful.

The next project that I'm going to attempt is my very own Ishbel. I'm going to cast-on tomorrow because this is my first time doing a shawl and I'm too tired to attemt it at the moment. Plus, all of my late night cast ons are generally disasters. So I'll wait until I'm refreshed tomorrow. LOL I'm using my Cosmic Fiber Aquila in Other Mother from the nefarious club. The plan is to do the stockinette portion for the small shawl and the lace portion for the large shawl and get sort of a medium size. Ronni is going to KAL with me. She'll probably kick my @$ at it, but it's not a contest. I'm hoping to be able to use her to help me. ;) I've ordered some new Addi Lace needles that shoud be here soon, but I'm impatient so I'm starting on a 16" circular. I already added all the details to ravelry because I'm THAT excited and ready to go. (This also motivated me to finish the scarf much quicker.)

Crazy Times

Due to unforeseen circumstances involving work, family, Mauricio, Rocky and internet usage I've not been able to blog much.

In the area concerning my knitting, I've not got much to show, or talk about for that matter. The only thing I've really worked on is my Rosalie Bay. It's coming along rather well. I'm in love with it. :) It's pretty mindless so I can work on it while I watch tv or am talking to someone or am so tired I can't really concentrate much.

I had to re-cast-on Titania. She was going to end up much much too small if I kept on the way that I was. I've not gotten past the ribbing yet on the new sock, but hopefully this on will fit.

For scarf travels (which is what I've been spending most of what free time I've had for knitting to work on) I've done 3 sections for each group, since I've last updated with any photos. I've also completed the entire round of sending and receiving for group 5. YAY!

Here are pictures of my newest knitted sections:

(Ones for group 3 are in the top row, ones for group 5 are in the bottom row0

For more information on whose is whose or patterns see: Group 3 Spoiler Photos and Group 5 Spoiler Photos

This is a mosaic of my scarf that has come back to me and all of the individual sections of it:

(For more see Scarf Travels - Group 5)

Here is a mosaic of all (minus on I didn't snap a picture of) the sections of scarves that I knit for group 5. (For more information see Group 5 Spoiler Photos)

I've also gotten some (more) new sock yarns. Claudine (black/teal/green/purple) and Pam (pinks) came for the August shipment of the VSC. I also bought some new handdyed yarn at Knit Las Vegas when I went there with Aynsley. I love how bright that one is! :) I need to get to the sock knitting!

In HSKS8 news:
Last week I received an awesome WWW! It really made me laugh, which was greatly appreciated in a stressful time. :) Thanks! Cassie C. :)
(See below, you can click on it to get a better look)
The day that it arrived in the mail Luke happened to be over. Mauricio came home and brought the mail with him and said, "Who's Fluer Sweeting?" And when I answered, "Me. That's my Harry Potter name." Both he and my brother cracked up. Apparently it's that funny. :) LOL I put on my new curse free ring on a certain finger and showed it to them both. ;)

(I almost think I'd rather have the diamond and 100 years of sleep, especially if I don't have to age in that sleep... and Maybe I'll just make Rocky sleep too, that way when i wake up I won't be lonely. LOL)

That's it for now. I should be blogging more regularly with any luck.