Sock frustration, part two

Well, the era of sweats didn't last long. Back into the 90s today and closing the house up and putting the a/c back on. Waaa. I was so enjoying the nice, cool nights.

After casting on socks 3 times this past weekend. And ripping out as many times. I am frustrated beyond belief. I can't understand what is so complicated about knitting a pair of socks. Something about the DPNs just isn't clicking for me. Maybe a sock class is in order.

I tried 2 different patterns for basic socks, and I even tried a circ pattern. No luck. I figure I'll give it one last try today, if I can find some quiet time.

Daypack complete!

Finished!!! The felted daypack is finished and stuffed and in use. I'm very proud of my bag, even though at times it was frustrating as all get out. Even the felting was a challenge. But now that it's assembled (with loads of changes to the original pattern) I'm very happy to be using it.

Have moved on to new and exciting projects from here. Frogged the socks I'd started. Found a single strand pattern, using worsted, that I will be casting on this weekend.

Am in the midst of doing a swiffer cover, in moss stitch, to wrap from front to back on the swiffer, rather than side to side. Will post when it's finished, I'm about 1/4 there right now.

It's been raining here since yesterday morning. Kyle had 8th grade promotion ceremonies at 8:30am yesterday, and the rain was kind enough to hold off until they were done. He is now officially finished with 8th grade. He did very well on all his finals and finished up with a high B average. Next stop, high school. Eeek.

So now we're on summer break. No early mornings (unless we want.) No schedule. He'll be off to summer camp at Woodward West in just a couple of weeks.

Nana's house should close escrow on 6/5, which means she's moving in here on 5/30 when the movers come to take all her stuff to storage. They still haven't broken ground on her new house, so it's unknown how long she's be "homeless" right now. She has plans to head out to Palm Springs as soon as she can, to stay with Aunt Shirley for the duration of the building process.

I'm just glad it's May & I'm in sweats. It's the little things I enjoy.

Knitting socks & other frustrations

Before I get out my sock frustrations, let me say that Kyle had hockey tryouts last weekend, and yes he made the team again. No extra yarn money for me, but another exciting season of Bantam hockey down the road.

Now on to socks. Last weekend I braved it and started a pair of socks (Joan's Socks from the Lion Brand website.) After a time knitting, I noticed something looked wrong, and Kristin, bless her heart, took the time to figure out my mess & fix it.

So today Val & I went knitting (crocheting for Val) at the Agritopia Coffee House (if you haven't been there, you must. It's cute & has great food.) I worked on my socks. I finally got finished with the ribbing and was on to the stockinette. Figured out a few rows into it that I was inside out on the stitching. After some frustration, I also figured out that not only was I knitting in the wrong direction, but was holding the knitting wrong, hence the inside out. Not a problem, I could always turn them at some point, right? Then I remembered that I still had to decrease (since somehow I had ended up with too many stitches.) Somehow in the decrease I ended up with too many stitches on the wrong needles, etc etc. At that point it was time to come home.

Here I am with my sock nightmare, trying to decide whether to rip & start again with a different pattern, or to simply figure out where I went wrong and go on. Such decisions.

Pseudo-Swiffer Cover finished!

Finished my pseudo-swiffer (my swiffer is not really a swiffer) cover yesterday. It was a fairly easy pattern to follow. I like the way it turned out, though one will never be enough. I bought some yarn yesterday during hockey to knit another two (still have yarn left from the first to knit another in the opposite pattern.) If you try it, let me know what you think!

(if you click on the word pattern above, it will take you directly to the pattern for this cover)

Going green, a bit at a time

So I swore off plastic grocery bags last week. No more. I bought a set of bags at Costco to add to my set from Trader Joes, and I am trying to remember to bring my bags in to every store. Problem is I keep forgetting. I guess in some ways this is good, as the exercise of walking back to my car to get them is always helpful. But in some it's bad, because if I'm in Petco for one or two little things, I'm not going back to my car to get a huge grocery bag. There's the dilemma. When do you accept the awful plastic bag and when do you walk?

I'm in Safeway yesterday and I've forgotten my bags. Which means I have a cart full of groceries about to be taken home in plastic (the horror!!!) or I can walk back to my car to get my bags. I chose the second option. Would you believe the store clerk gave me hell because they weren't the SAFEWAY brand bags? I know he was only kidding around, but really. Here I am trying to do my part, he could at least be supportive. I guess it didn't help that the woman behind me was enraptured with my Costco generic bags. He told her where the Safeway ones were and she told him she wanted the Costco ones. oops.

I survived a bout with some sort of stomach virus this week. 3 days of hell, but 6 pounds lost! I'm trying to find the silver lining. I also decided to turn over a new leaf with the new stomach lining and try to eat better. Cook dinner every night and no more salami sandwiches (the last thing eaten prior to the virus taking hold.) Any good, healthy, easy recipes? Shove them my way.

Joe got his teeth cleaned and they are spectacular. Shiny and white and his breath even smells good. Not dog like at all. I highly recommend this procedure for happy companionship. Except now Snoopy's teeth look like hell in comparison and his breath is less than pleasant. Guess he's next.

Kyle has two more weeks of school. Then he's off to high school. When did this happen?

Have a great weekend.