Something to Show For It

C'mon...admit it...you missed me! I am back for the moment with new and exciting things to share, or at least some knitting anyway. And some news - Webs is asking people who are coming to the launch party to register - please click here and sign up if you're coming. This is going to be huge fun, I think. They've even slapped me on the front page of the website, which is very exciting and just a little intimidating. As are the really, really beautiful signs Katy made to hang around the store. I can't look them in the eye, it's all so surreal still. I went to North Adams and saw Amy and Jayme and Stephanie (not the author one. the other one.) and a host of other people who's names I forget too easily (Margaret, Pam, Deborah, Gwen, and more and more and more). Best of all I saw finished shiny pages and it made me cry. Not a whole book, but enough to make me get chills. It's so amazing what they did with my words. You know, you hand off a CD and a hard copy of a black and white word document, and you hope it turns out pretty in the end. Then it comes back, and this time it's not just pretty, it totally outstrips anything I imagined and I adore it. Even though I have not yet held it in my hands. (By the way, I feel not so much excited, as 42 weeks pregnant with a doctor who refuses to induce...I wanna SEE it already!!)
First I have a pair of Frog in a Party Dress, new Franklin color, 2-at-a-Time Socks for the store to advertise the workshops I'll be giving in the spring. They're a pattern from the book, but I'm dipped if I can remember what they're called. Twilight?? I think? Anyway, they'll be knitted up past the heel and still on needles for display for interested parties. The workshop will be a one-day class in which folks can create a small sample pair of 2-at-a-Time Socks all their own.
Next, there's this toe-up pair I started with scraps from the Maine Woods socks...also Franklin, colorway Pinecone. I did not have enough to make a whole pair, so added Regia 4-ply brown (10) to compliment. They're actually done, though this is in progress. I am loving toe-ups. I've been working on heels and casting on, and getting a little fun with it. From this picture, you'd think the addition of a second color made them a little odd. It didn't. I used the remainder scraps of the Pinecone to make random stripes in a couple of places along the leg and top cuff, so really it all blends together beautifully when finished. I love them. Well, love socks period, really. And I love that toe-ups seem to fit so perfectly, because I can try them on as I go and make adjustments as needed. But I still like a heel flap, so I've been experimenting with various ways to get a turned heel and a heel flap on a toe-up. Fun.
Still not done is my Radiance for myself. The yarn is, of course, Colrain, and the color is Chestnut. The body is completed as is the shawl collar. All it needs are sleeves. You'd think I was asking myself to knit them in fingering weight yarn on size 0's with a book balanced on my head in less than one day the way I am dragging my feet over silly simple sleeves. It's why I rarely knit anything twice. Once, fine. Twice? Yawn. It's just the way I am. Give me six or so months, maybe longer, between and I can do it. But drum up enthusiasm to reknit something I just knitted, when there's a million other things in my head that want to be knitted?? It kills me. When I started to make the 2-at-a-times for the store, I intended to use a pattern from the book. But I knit half of them. My mind wanted to do something DIFFERENT. I started designing on the needles, and halfway to Manchester, NH for Christmas shopping I had to rip back 2 inches when I realized I was not sticking to the plan.
I made a Koolhaas, which I love. I did it because Katy said I should. She was right. It was good. Cunning decreases, obviously the man spends a lot of time with EZ. It was quick and a nice palate cleanser. Now I just need a head for it. My head does not look well in anything without a brim. I stuck it on the headgehog...but it really doesn't look great on him either. Oooo!! CHRISTMAS! The yarn is Williamstown in color 14, aka "same as the squid". I needed only one ball although the pattern calls for 190 yards. I've been considering a scarf or ascot-ty thing in the same yarn and color using the same pattern. Then it could really be a Christmas gift! it really looks much better on a people. The hog does not do it justice, and really you don't want to see it on me. I just can't wear non-cowgirl hats, plain and simple.
Hmmm..lemme see..what else...oh. Last week after my 10 - 12 and 12-2 classes - socks from measurements and mittens from measurements, I went to lunch with Katy at Bueno y Sano. Lunch is safe. And I am always up for really good, low-cost Mexican. Then Katy says - she says oh-so-innocently - "I need some REAL dutch-process cocoa." The next thing you know I am in a kitchen store - always a dangerous place - with a sign that says "Culinary Specialties: Cooks Shop Here". You know how some people have little falling down accidents with their credit cards around yarn?? I am generally pretty controlled around yarn. But kitchen stuff? Tea? Chocolate? A million olive oils? REAL balsamic?? I am weak. I managed to escape only $40 in the hole. Not bad for a first visit. I got two teas - a chai and an herbal called Good Morning Sunshine. They're now replacing my morning decaf. I also got an adorable little tea basket that fits into my single mug. I love it. The tea can really bloom and is not constrained by a gadgety flip-top thing like the one I already own for loose leaf tea. It's never made me happy. It came free with coffee mugs at EMS about ten Christmases ago. I got two bars of chocolate - Dolfin Pink Peppercorn (uuuhhh...oooohhhh...mmmmmm...) and some Cluizel cocoa powder. That was it. Considering the offerings, and my weakness where Real Food is concerned I did amazingly well. I tried to remind myself that if I overshop too much with Katy, Mr. W will put the Ky-bosh on my Wednesday afternoon lunches, and really - that would be very very detrimental to my mental health.
Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers, may you be reminded of why we're thankful to live where we do and how we do, and have the freedom denied to so many others around the world. Only in America can a troubled teen high school drop-out divorced single mom bust her butt and become a Registered Nurse, then 360 around and write a bestselling (there ya go, Amy, game on!!) book about socks and start teaching knitting as a career path. I am so very, very thankful.