Today I am linking up with Freshly Pieced

I can hardly believe it, but Sockdown 6 has totally lit a fire under me for finishing socks within a respectable time frame!

I cast on for this pair on October 3 and I am about 10 minutes from finished – and that’s with two days of not knitting because I was doing homeschool prep one night and Halloweeny stuff with the kids the other night. Which means I managed a pair of socks in 5 days! What?! I’m going to cast on for another pair tonight! Officially that’s two pairs of socks in September and so far one in October.

The pattern is called Summer Lovin and I used Knit Picks’ Felici Fingering Self Striping Sock Yarn in ‘Mixed Berries’. I made them as a birthday gift for one of the kids’ godmothers (which totally gives it away since only one has an autumn birthday and her favorite color is purple, however she almost never reads my blog anyway 😛). Anyhoo….these will be finished up today and popped in the mail this week!

These are the beauties I finished up last week, the pattern is called Maidenhair Fern and it was a fun knit. I am totally in love with this yarn, Nova Sock that I picked up in the woods before we moved. It’s pretty and soft without being so soft it slips off the needles. My only issue with this yarn, and yes it is an issue, is that the colors are always just numbers. Pfft. Part of the love of yarn are skeins with names like Whitewater or Black Purl or Greenling, and even names that don’t sound like colors at all like Juice Box and Tree Fort and Hayride. Not numbers. Ugh.

These little beauties are going in the mail today as a treat for an unsuspecting friend – an unsuspecting friend that reads my blog! Just you wait! Haha. 🙂

I mentioned yesterday that I’m knitting furiously for the 2012 Knitting Olympics and promised a little background. So here goes. In 2006, one of my long time favorite knitting bloggers, The Yarn Harlot, had this crazy idea that we (‘we’ being readers of her blog) challenge ourselves to knit something personally ambitious during that year’s Olympic games. Her official post with all of our names and projects listed (scroll down, I’m there!) is here. Since it was the Yarn Harlot’s love of the winter Olympics specifically, she didn’t host again until 2010 and given that this year is a summer year, she’s not doing any crazy marathon knitting right now, she’s on the Friends for Life Bike Rally. Anyhoo, so Ravelry was born in 2007 and every Olympic year since then, there have been Ravelympics groups ranging from the standard ‘official’ group, to teams for different countries, to teams for different projects (like fingerless gloves, socks, etc).

It remained a relatively small thing, I say relatively because almost every knitter I know at least knows about it, but the only non-knitters who know about it seem to live with knitters. Last month, the United States Olympics Committee discovered the existence of this little event, and instead of reading up on it, they got really upset at the general idea of it and sent a good, old fashioned angry letter to Ravelry. Of course this letter made it’s rounds on the internet and a whole lot of Olympics-loving knitters read it.

This part of the letter was a little insulting:

We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games. In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work

So, long story short, they apologized and while people are still irritated, I think it’s pretty amazing that an organization as huge as this would issue anyone an apology, let alone 7500 knitters. LOVE this.

This year, I have joined the Ravellenic Games 2012 group. I’m focusing on the Modular Relay event and I’m on Team Knit Picks Lovers, since I probably buy more Knit Picks yarn than any other.

I’m attempting to knit 100 puffs! Wish me luck!!

I have been knitting a lot more lately, and I even managed to finish sock one and get about 1/4 of the way done sock two on this pair – let’s ignore that it’s been two weeks since my last WIP Wednesday. Homeschooling and visitors and exploring and all that good stuff gets in the way of knitting, you know! Also, I had to rip the first sock back 3 or 4 times after I turned the heel. Total Nightmare. However, this second sock is well on it’s way to being done by next Wednesday so I can finally send it off to the birthday girl (whose birthday was in April)!

Do you love my new knitting basket and the so cute it hurts notebook? I know, right? I go the basket when I was out thrifting with Vanessa and the kids on the weekend (I should do a post on their haul they made it home with, I’m impressed with their choices), and the lovely notebook was a gift from my girl Emerald. She picked it up for me when she was in Hong Kong (ooooh, fancy pants – thanks Em)! The pages are lovely and each section is done in a different color, the best part though is the back cover, it says ‘where troubles melt like lemon drops’. Ha! I love random stuff from Hong Kong (that’s another post I should do soon, she brought back a lot of cool stuff).

Annnnyhoo, I sincerely hope these socks are done by next Wednesday and I’ve casted on for my fifth pair of socks for the year. With a goal of 12 pairs of socks this year, I’m already a pair behind if I want to knit one per month. Maybe I’ll knit a pair of ankle socks in there somewhere!

In this post, I’m participating in three WIP Wednesdays; Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl.

I’m really loving this whole WIP Wednesday thing. It’s been a month now that I’ve been participating in these three link ups and it’s been a fun and motivating way to keep up with my ideas.

Work in Progress Wednesday is supposed to be just that, works in progress! However, since this is generally the only day I post about my projects, I’m posting my finished objects too! You’ll live, right? Great!

My No Tears Socks (pattern on Posh Yarn) are finally finished!!! Just in time too! Wee One #2’s Godparents will be here this weekend. I think he’ll really like the cable and that it’s not too fussy for a man’s sock but it’s not so boring either because he appreciates the work that goes into a nice sock. 🙂 We’re all really excited to see them and I’m excited to show you what we’ve cooking and baking for their visit. Fun!!

Since I just finished his sock last night, I’ve only just cast on today for my new sock, Knit Picks’ Palette in Navy.

My new Knit Picks order came in at the end of last week and I’m so excited to dive into it. Wanna see? Of course you do!!

I piled it onto the kid’s easel to show it off! This pile (3 balls of Knit Picks Palette in Navy for the socks I just mentioned are not pictured) will be knitted into; 3 pairs of socks, 1 hat, 12 facecloths, and a pair of mittens! I can hardly wait to get them all knitted up.

There is one other work in progress I don’t have good photos of! Hopefully by July, it’ll look like this! My sister made one for our parents and I looooove it. I’m making it as a wedding turned happy first anniversary gift! Mine is coming together in a green apple colour. Its made in triangles, you need 49 squares to make a decent blanket, and there are four triangles per square (duh) – so yes that’s 196 triangles! Whaaaaat?! My first triangle took a whole day (it’s pathetic I know, but I’ve got three wee ones running around and a kitchen calling my name lol), and my first triangle had a glaring error in it. Awful, glaring, beacon of light style error. I trucked on with the next triangle and made the same error – always towards the end where the bigger leaves are. Originally, I thought of just making smaller triangles, up to the point where I wasn’t messing up, but then my dear friend Talea (who I can’t link to because she is ‘between blogs’ right now) pointed out that the smaller triangles wont make a perfect square (sigh) and I’d need approximately eleventy million more triangles to complete the blanket (double sigh).

Sooooo, after I’ve finished a few months of birthday knitting, I’m going to attack this blanket head on and find the error in the pattern (maybe I wrote it down wrong??). If I want it finished for the middle of July (let’s set a July 15 deadline), and it takes me a day per triangle, that’s July 15 minus 196 days is 19 days ago. Hmm. Hahaha, so maybe I’ll make a smaller blanket! I will do some math and try to bend the time-space continuum and get back to you next Wednesday!

I know they’ll love it though, and my husband spent a lot of time with this cousin growing up and I’m especially fond of her parents so we do spend a lot of time together. 🙂

I’m still waiting on the skully fabric to make curtains for Wee One #1, and since his room is currently green and white with a weird brown border I have no doubt those curtains are going to set off a desire to paint the room. We’ve been here for 4 and a half months and while everything has a place and our routines are pretty firm in this new life, other things (like decor) are still coming together!

I wish I could crank out knitting as quickly as baking! Ha! I tend to let baking get in the way of my knitting, which at this time of the year is as hard to avoid as it is necessary to avoid! Between that dilemma and being on Time of Use pricing for our hydro consumption, I only bake on the weekends now, so knitting should pick up. I’m posting these finished objects knowing that the recipients may be reading this so I wont say who they’re for!

First up are these Wickerware Socks. They’re knit in Knit Picks Palette in Delta, two skeins and a bit and while my official time on them is November 9 to November 15, if I hadn’t taken two nights off for sketching up Christmas lists and baking brownies they would have come together even faster. Lovely!

The person I made them for had commented on my knitted socks last time we hung out and I know he really wants a pair. He’s the sort of person knitters love to knit for. He’ll be careful with them, he’ll wear them often and when he does, he’ll tell people I made them for him. I know they wont end up at the back of his closet. I never knit for people like that anymore, that’s one of the forces behind the sweater curse, dontcha know. 😉

Now, I couldn’t possibly knit up a paid of socks for this man and not knit up a pair for his wife, who is equally delightful. Really. We are so lucky to have these people in our life. This sounds like Gill and Andrew doesn’t it (minus the wife part)? It’s not you guys, even though you are delightful! Just FYI, I’m not knitting anyone a second pair of socks until everyone I love has a single pair – they got socks for Christmas last year!

These lovelies were knit in Knit Picks Stroll in Sprinkle Heather and I adore them. When Talea saw how fast they were coming together for me (I did the entire leg of the first one in a single day), she casted on immediately too! The pattern is called Duckies, and according to my Ravelry queue, I’ve wanted to knit them since Christmas two years ago!

My official time on these socks was horrible (November 16 – December 8) because I hosted a Gothy Tea Party for my sister’s 22nd birthday, and then I got obsessed with Christmas baking. Ahem. This yarn is delicious. Delicious. I loooooooved knitting with it and I will buy more in as many colours as possible this coming year. It’s my new go-to sock yarn. Ok, maybe Lorna’s Laces is still my top, but this is right up there.

Then this week, I’ve been dividing my time between Christmas crafts with the kids, baking, knitting and the usual to do’s of daily life. Facecloths are the perfect way to feel like you’re accomplishing a whole lot in a short time! Hooray!

I wanted to get as much as I could out of the yarn I bought from Knit Picks, so instead of the size 6s the pattern calls for, I used size 4s and squeezed out two facecloths from a single skein of Knit Picks Shine in Worsted – these green ones in Green Apple. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until my husband pointed out that they look ‘mini’. Hmm. I can either block them and pray they’ll grow a little OR I can leave them as is and call them makeup remover cloths. Yes? You don’t need a whole facecloth to do the job, but you do need more than those little pads from the drug store. I haven’t decided yet, but they are lovely and fast and look great in green! Four more to go! Two in Clementine and two in Wisteria!

I will, at least, be posting my knitting on Wednesdays and just found these WIP Wednesday link ups at – Freshly Pieced, Tami Amis and Musings From The Fishbowl. Fun!