Sunday, May 6, 2007

Part I –Socks and Age and just thoughts

Well, here I am again. Today is my little sister’s birthday – she’s 50 today, and since I won’t be 51 until the 29th, we’re the same age for about 3 weeks. Mom called us “Irish twins” – no slur intended as I am Irish (and French and probably lots more, but mostly Irish and French). It kind of makes me feel old today that my “little” sister is 50; half a century, and I’m there, too, and soon I’ll be past that. I’m the oldest of three; my brother is younger than my sister by about 15 months. I never thought I’d get to be this “old”. I can remember telling my uncle when he turned 30 that “I could never trust anyone over 30”. He brings it up every one of my birthdays since I turned 30. Anyway, this is supposed to be a knitting blog, so I better get to some knitting content.

Drum roll and fanfare, please!!! I just finished my socks! I finished them during the hockey game this afternoon. My beloved NY Rangers went down in the second round in 6 games to the Buffalo Sabres and today was the last game of the series. Now the Sabres will be going to the Conference Finals, playing against the Ottawa Senators. I suppose I shouldn’t feel so bad; nearly everyone thought the Rangers wouldn’t get this far at all, so every game past the first round was great. Anyway, back to the socks: I’ve been working on them for about 2 weeks now, since I got the “Crazy Toes and Heels” book by Mary Ann Beattie. I must say that I enjoyed doing them and though there are some things I would change, I enjoyed it enough that I have actually cast on another pair already. I need to pay more attention to the length of the foot; mine are just a little too long, but I think that may change a bit once I wash them once or twice.

I’ve posted pictures so you can see how they turned out. I used Lion Brand Magic Stripes for the first pair and I’ve cast on Cascade Fixation for my next pair in a mint green variegated colorway. This is a cotton yarn with some elastic built into the yarn for a bit of stretch. It’s kind of like knitting with rubber bands, but very soft and I think it will make a nice pair of summery socks. I forgot to take pictures of them before I downloaded my pictures into my computer so I won’t be posting anything until next time. I’ll try to remember to take “in-progress” pictures so I can post them when I write again. I’m very proud of the first socks, though. Fun stuff, and I never thought I’d say that about socks!

I’ve also posted some pictures of my stash cubes now that they are all filled up with goodies. I opened up the canvas “drawers” and took photos looking down into them. They are 9-inch square canvas cloth cubes that fit into the storage cubes and have handles on the front so you can use them like drawers in a dresser. I also have some pix of my book, though not all of them, as they won’t all fit on top of the cubes. My latest find is my “Stash” jar. We went garage saling last week and one of the places listed in the paper said they had “contents of a former craft store.” Well, I missed the yarn and needles, but I found the little jar and thought it would be perfect for the top of my stash cubes. I didn’t do as well that week as I did this weekend, though…

Yesterday we went to the local public library’s used book sale. Jackpot! Even if I missed some, I still got lots. I got a whole sack full of knitting books and magazines for $5! I mean a grocery bag full of them, and even if some of them are a little bit dated, they still have bunches of “classic” patterns for men and women. I got some kid’s patterns, too, though I don’t knit for kids because my family’s kids are all grown up. I’ll probably just give those away to someone that I know will use them. I also got a bunch of magazines from another garage sale; they are all Pingouin books, which is a yarn brand I’ve never heard of. They are not dated, but have numbers in the lower right corner of the covers. They were apparently given free with the purchase of that brand of yarn.

You should see some of the patterns in these Pingouin “magazines.” They are just beautiful and the magazine contains foldout charts and some very high-end pattern goodies. I picked up about 20 of them, all they had, for $1.50! I think the luck was with me yesterday, as I don’t usually see anything related to knitting. Some stuff was stamped with the name of a knitting store that I didn’t know existed in my area. It must have been closed quite a while ago, because I pretty much know the address and there’s nothing there now. Pretty good haul, wouldn’t you say?

I almost forgot: I got 3 huge cones of cotton yarn (one may be acrylic, but I'll figure out what to do with it) at Goodwill for less than $10 and 3 wool sweaters at the Salvation Army (affectionately known as "Sally's Boutique") to felt for about $12. I'm feeling pretty rich in projects these days....all I need to do now is find the time to do them all. These have been stored in a giant Ziploc bag and will probably wait for colder weather when I can't or don't want to go out and need something to do, probably while watching hockey. ;o)

Part II – Me
Still doing pretty well, even though I’m still having med issues, I think. I may have to change up some of the supplements I take for something that is absorbed easier or just works out better for me. Keep your fingers crossed. Even though I’m still having depression issues, I think that I’m getting by for now and that’s pretty good for me.

Remember, until next time, wear natural fibers; hug your cat!
Ellen