Thanks for voting in my sock poll last week! The Rainy Day socks won in a landslide, so that’s what I’m working on now that I’ve finished the Clapotis!

Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert

Yarn: Sheep 3 by Sheep Shop Yarn, 70% merino/30% silk, color G043, 1.66 skeins

Needles: US 7, 4.5 mm KnitPicks circs

Notes: I’m really, really proud of this. Not because it was a difficult pattern at all (I am kind of amazed at how simple and intuitive it is), but because it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever knit. Being a product knitter and not a process knitter, I don’t usually knit large projects because large projects take a bunch of time and I want it NOW. But I really, really wanted a Clapotis and it was actually a fairly quick and fun knit so I managed to plow through it. When I started, I honestly thought I’d probably give up halfway through. It’s mostly stockinette so I thought I would be so bored with it, but those drop stitch rows really kept me motivated to keep going! I didn’t use stitch markers after the first few rows and purled the stitches to be dropped - so, so much easier than dealing with a zillion stitch markers. It took about a month from start to finish.

The colorway I chose to knit this in, while very pretty, doesn’t read “dressy” to me, so I’ll probably be wearing this more as a scarf than a wrap. For this reason, I omitted 2 repeats during the straight rows to make it a little smaller, and I’m glad I did because it blocked out to be even bigger than the pattern called for. It measures about 23″ wide and 60″ long.

The yarn is lovely, it’s incredibly soft without a trace of itch, and because it’s plied I don’t think it will pill as much as a single-ply merino/silk. It seems pretty strong. It definitely did stick to itself though, so dropping all those columns of stitches took forever as I had to pry every single one apart. The yardage is fantastic too; at 325 yards each, I was able to get the whole thing out of 1 and 2/3rds skeins.

I know that there’s some interwebs backlash against this pattern, due to it’s incredible popularity, but…I really don’t give a shit. If it makes me a sheep to knit something so beautiful, useful, and versatile, then I’m pretty happy being a sheep.

We’re off to the Cape, so I’ll see you in a couple weeks! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

I’ve nearly finished the straight rows on the Clapotis, so I just have the decrease rows and final rows left. Which means I should be able to finish it this weekend in time for the June 21st kickoff to Summer of Socks! The orange socks are on hold until I’m done with SoS since I can’t participate with socks started before 6/21. As I’ve mentioned, my goal is to knit 3 pairs by September 1st. In order to give myself a little bit of a boost, I’m going to make the 1st pair in sport weight yarn.

One of the “problems” that comes with having quite a nice bit of yarn in one’s possession and an overwhelming availability of sock patterns, is that I’m often paralyzed with indecision about what to knit.

Enter you, my faithful homies.

Which socks to knit first?

Rainy Day Socks in Mama Blue Troika, color “Trifle”:

Citrine Socklets in Pigeonroof Studios Sport Merino, color “Green Ocean” :

Quill Lace Socks in Union Center Knits Sport Merino, color “Plum-Delicious”

Make your vote count in this crucial election year! Thank you!

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk stitch markers! I love pretty stitch markers as much as the next person, but I’m not usually a fan of stitch markers made with standard jump rings. I find that no matter how tightly you close the ring, at some point, the ring comes apart slightly and starts snagging on the knitting. I still use ‘em, but I’m always looking for a better (and still pretty!) solution.

I recently purchased some sock yarn from a fellow Raveler and when she sent it, she included a sample of a new style stitch marker she was making. The stitch markers are made with Swarovski crystals (sparkly!) and soft flexible jewelry wire instead of jump rings so they don’t snag! Brilliant!

I loved the one she sent so much that I bought some more from her store…

…but mentioned that it would also be cool if she made ones with smaller loops for socks. She said that was in the works, and included some with my purchase (shown here on a US 2 needle)…

…but explained that the reason the others came with larger loops was so that you could use them to mark individual stitches. You just pinch the ends of the loop and thread the wire through a stitch, then pull the bead through to secure it! Super brilliant!!

So much prettier than using safety pins or split ring markers! These kind of markers would be perfect for crochet too! Thanks Stacy! I love these!

And finally, I was tagged by my friend Emily for this meme:

What were you doing 10 years ago?

In the summer of 1998 I was living with my parents (I graduated high school in 1997), dating my ex-boyfriend, and working at an art gallery in Rockport, MA. I had to pre-screen artists for display in the gallery, manage gallery openings, train new hires, sell, sell, sell, and other filing/office type duties. This was my first non-restaurant job and while I loved it at first (ooh, commission! Fancy cheese and wine parties!) the owner of the gallery was a real piece of work (aka DOUCHEBAG EXTRAORDINAIRE). The owner (who also owns a gallery on Newbury Street in Boston) wasn’t there often, but when she was, she was a micromanaging, snobby, catty nightmare. She thought I was too young to be working there, didn’t know enough about art, didn’t sell enough, and constantly asked my boss (who ran the gallery from day to day) why she hired me.

I left there in the fall and started my new career in the illustrious field of t-shirt sales! I worked in one of the little tourist t-shirt shops, also in Rockport. Since it was the off-season, we weren’t very busy so I was always there alone. The owner owned a million other stores and was never there, but was very particular about the music playing in the store. He’d call at random times and make sure that the store CD was playing (Negotiations & Love Songs - Paul Simon) instead of my own CDs or the radio or whatever. So of course I just always made sure to turn on the Paul Simon CD anytime the phone rang. While this was the boringest job ever, I got to read all day and was paid under the table in cash, so it was also the best job ever. Funny story: One day a woman came in and asked if she could use the bathroom. We didn’t allow people to use the bathroom because it wasn’t part of the main store, it was upstairs in an apartment/storage area and there are a lot of public restrooms around anyway. The woman pleaded with me and told me she was pregnant and REALLY had to go. So I said fine. She was up there for a few minutes and left. About 20 minutes later, water started POURING through the ceiling, all over the clothes in the store! I ran upstairs and found the toilet completely overflowing EVERYWHERE. I got the plunger out and finally the source of the clog cleared….IT WAS A TAMPON! She wasn’t even pregnant! GAH! It took hours to clean up the gross toilet water, I was so mad! But not as mad as my boss who lost a few hundred dollars worth of toilet watered merchandise.

I left that job in the spring and went to work at my first REAL job, at a software company, where I later met Matt.

What are 5 things on my to-do list?

I actually have a to-do list today! Non work related items:

- June - Doc 9:00 (just a checkup)
- blog
- Pay car insurance
- post office
- check on matt’s b-day gift (his birthday is tomorrow)

Where have I lived?

Beverly, MA, Merrimack, NH, Gloucester, MA, Salem, MA, Danvers, MA

What would I do if I was a billionaire?

Pay off my debts, buy a house, buy a summer house on Fire Island, buy a couple new cars, quit my job, buy our parents new houses, give money to children’s hospitals and animal shelters, buy some yarn, visit the west coast, visit the UK, bank the rest.

I should be back next week with a finished Clapotis! Hopefully that billion will arrive soon.

I’ve already reached the summer blogging doldrums and it’s not even summer yet! This does not bode well. I’m gonna blame it on this:

That was the temperature when I left my office on Tuesday. It’s cooled off slightly since then, but I am still totally over summer and setting my sights on fall.

The heat also means I haven’t really had the desire to hang out with wool, so my knitting progress has been slow, and neither of my current projects make for exciting WIPs as they are both mostly stockinette. Nevertheless, here’s the progress on my orange sock:

I’m just about to turn the heel and then begin my most hated part of sock knitting, the gusset. I really am not a fan of the gusset. Do short-row heels eliminate the gusset? If so, I’m definitely trying that next time. Hate you picking up stitches and decreasing forever!

Here is the progress on the Clapotis:

I’m 1/3rd of the way through the straight rows. I was hoping to finish this before we go away on vacation at the end of the month, but I don’t know if it will happen. Maybe if it cools off a little I’ll be more inspired to work on it!

In that vein, it’s time for Ali’s annual summer knitting goals contest! I actually won a prize in this last year, so here’s hoping I do again this year! I have my eye on that delicious orange raglan kit! All you need to do to enter is post your list of summer knitting goals on your blog and then leave a comment & link yourself on her contest page. Easy!

My summer knitting goals are as follows:

1. Finish Clapotis

2. Knit 3 full pairs of socks between 6/21 - 9/1 for Summer of Socks (and the orange socks don’t count since I already started them so it’s going to be hard!

3. Knit some sort of market-type bag like Everlasting bagstopper or Saturday Market Bag

4. Start a February Lady Sweater in the hopes of it being finished for early fall

5. Something for myself to wear this summer like a shrug or tank

6. Something for June. Cardigan? Dress?

That’s about it!

In closing, random crappy cell phone picture of June from last weekend.

Blogging will probably be a little lighter this summer, but I’ll try to update at least every 2 weeks, even if I have absolutely nothing interesting to say, because that’s just how I roll. You’re welcome!

1. Finished June’s shrug:

Pattern: One Skein Wonder by Stefanie Japel
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca Dyed Cotton in Azul, 3/4 of 1 skein
Needles: US 8

This was like the quickest knit ever! I easily could have banged it out in a day if I had nothing else to do. Thanks to some help from Stacee, I was able to modify this to be baby sized, as she had made one for her young daughter too. I think it will be perfect for chillier spring and summer evenings. Here’s a size comparison with my OSW:

2. Got some great mail from Heather! She had sent out a request around Christmastime for people to brighten her daughter’s day by sending a little mail-love to her and I put together a very small package of crap and sent it along. Heather repaid me by sending me Koigu (not worthy!) and making this adorable kitty for June!

Even though she looks terribly bored here, she loves this kitty:

Thanks Heather!!

(and an aside about that afghan…Matt’s grandmother crocheted it in the 70s, out of the nastiest, squeekiest acrylic known to man. I’ve got pictures of Matt as a baby sitting on it. When Matt’s grandfather moved to a nursing home a few months ago, the family was going to throw it away, and I rescued it. I am charmed by it’s hideousness).

3. Went to Vermont:

That’s the view from our hotel room, Lake Champlain. June was EXTREMELY impressed with the hotel, especially with the quality of the beds for jumping:

We also visited my grandma, June’s great-grandma!

4. And what would the unofficial first weekend of summer be without some trips to the beach?

(the water was FRIGID. She didn’t care)

5. Annnnd bringing it all back around to the knitting again:

Sock progress:

(Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop in Spirit in the Sky)

And the humble beginnings of my Clapotis:

Phew! After all that, what will I have to talk about next week?! I don’t know!

Pattern: Gloria Cowl
Yarn: Handmaiden Casbah in Ivory, double stranded
Needles: size 8 16″ circ.

Inspired by Ashley, Megan, Julie, and Melissa I finished my cowl! I know, it’s not that exciting, just a plain stockinette tube, but this yarn is so, so lovely. It’s hard to accurately capture the colors in this yarn, but it’s a subtle peachy-pinky-greeny-bluey-ivory delight. They only mod I made was to garter stitch the edges instead of seed stitch because seed stitch is my arch-nemesis in life. I should have done a few more rows of garter since the edges curl like whoa, but that’s OK, I love it anyway.

Not much else to report on the knitting front. I ripped my Sand & Sea sock because I was all but finished with one when I tried it on and couldn’t even get it on my foot. STUPID GAUGE, I HATE IT. I have cast on for 2 other projects though! One is a summer shrug for June in some Blue Sky Cotton and the other is a Clapotis for me in Sheep Shop 3 (finally!).

Before I get too into the Clapotis though, I need to learn continental purling. I FINALLY taught myself how to knit continentally on the cowl (there’s a few spots of the cowl knit in continental which I made sure to exclude from the picture because my gauge was so crazily loose, which is odd since my English gauge is death-grippedly tight) and dudes. I cannot believe how much faster it is! SO MUCH FASTER. So much less wrist strain! So awesome! But I haven’t quite figured out the purling part and I want to do that before I get into the long slog of Clapotis straight rows.

I’ve also signed up for Summer of Socks. My personal goal is 3 pairs of socks which is not going to break any records, but which I think is doable for me. That begins on June 21st and ends on September 1st.

Finally, I want to send out a big thank you to Adriana! She sent me yarn for my birthday last week! Including sock yarn that she dyed herself, especially for me! She knows I love Terry Pratchett so she created this colorway called “Death by Pratchett,” inspired by my favorite character! It was much appreciated since I was having an especially crappy birthday due to Matt being super sick (for the second year in a row on my birthday!) which turned into June getting sick for the first time which made for a not so enjoyable Mother’s Day either! Thanks so much for cheering me up and thinking of me Adriana, I LOVE it!

I’m on vacation next week so I don’t know if I’ll find the time to post. I have the whole week off, but Matt’s only got Thursday-Monday, so not sure what we’re doing. We’re planning to go to Vermont over that weekend for our anniversary to try June out on her first overnight trip (and swing by my grandparents who haven’t gotten to see her since last summer). She’s never slept away from home, so I want to see if she can handle sleeping in a hotel room with us before booking summer vacation plans that we’ll regret later! She generally won’t sleep if she can see us, which is why I think hotel travel is going to be difficult, she really needs her own space to sleep. We’re thinking of making her sleep in the bathroom (seriously) but we’ll have to see how it goes! Hopefully I’ll be back from all my time off with some finished knitting!

It’s been a while since I did a June picture post, so I thought it would appropriate to do one today. Here are some random pics from the last couple months.

Lookin’ pretty.

Rocks and seaweed are two of the many treasures you can find at the beach.

She’s pretty much obsessed with spoons.

And figuring out how to blow bubbles.

She LOVES the see-saw.

And swimming.

Fun with doggies!

And kitties.

“I laugh at your cabinet opening prevention devices!”

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommas, and children of mommas!

OK, I know it’s proper blogging etiquette to post one’s works-in-progress on Wednesday, but always one to fly in the face of tradition, I’m posting them today. UnFinished Friday? Yeah, let’s go with that.

WIP # 1: This is the Gloria cowl that’s sweeping the internets. This yarn is heavenly. Handmaiden Casbah in Ivory.

WIP # 2: Socks for meeeeee! I’ve never knit a pair of socks for myself! I’m rectifying that now. The variegated yarn is Hello Yarn Fat Sock in Sand & Sea. I’d heartbreakingly missed out on this color when it was released, but was able to get 1 skein via a swap on Ravelry. Normally you’d need 2 skeins to make a pair of adult socks, so I’m attempting to squeak out a pair of anklets with contrasting heels and toes (Koigu Kersti in a slate blue color). Hopefully I’ll have enough! The pattern is Afterthought Socks by Amy of MadelineTosh.

And finally….

I know! I can’t believe it either! Please don’t laugh at my sadly misshapen granny square, I’m so proud of it! You have no idea how long it took me to do this.

I’m normally not a big fan of teh crochetz, but I’ve recently been wooed by the likes of Babette, Larger than Life, and most recently, Butterscotch. Which is especially odd since I am usually not at all drawn to crocheted garments. I think I like this because it uses sock yarn, so it’s done at a really fine gauge and I think it will be more flattering. I first saw this cardigan when Brainylady queued it on Ravelry, and didn’t even realize it *was* crochet! When I looked closer and realized it was, I was totally bummed! But I picked up a copy of the magazine and noticed it was listed as an “easy” pattern. So I decided to take the hook by the horns and give crochet a shot!

Note that some people will try to tell you that crochet is easier than knitting. These people are filthy, rotten liars of the worst kind. This crap is hard, dudes. I was expecting it to be a lot more similar to knitting (and maybe it is if you’re a continental knitter) but it’s totally not and my hands keep wanting to do knitting type things when I’m trying to do crochet type things, and it’s totally frustrating! I don’t think crochet is going to be something I do super often, but I think it will be a good skill to have in my crafty repertoire.

OK, that’s all I’ve got! Hopefully a couple of these WIPS will be FOs by the end of next week and I’ll have some Juney pics soon too!

I don’t have any Fluvogs so my old Docs will have to do.

Pattern: Vog On - Summer 2007 Knitty

Yarn: Mama Blue Sea Merino in ‘Girl’

Needles: 12″ addi turbo US 2

I had been secretly planning to knit a pair of socks for Sarah’s birthday when she asked me if would knit her a pair of pink socks someday. I decided to let her in on the plan so that I could be sure to pick a pattern she’d really like and this is what she chose! I’m glad she did because I really liked this pattern! The picot cast on is different from other picot cast-ons I’ve used and I found it super pain-in-the-assy & fiddly. But once I got past that, these were a breeze! The 4 row lace pattern was super easy to memorize and the fact that they are ankle socks made them go pretty quickly! The lace pattern is also pretty stretchy, I made these to fit Sarah’s wee little feet, but they stretch enough to fit on my feet fairly comfortably. Since Sarah’s feet are shorter than mine, the cuff will probably come up a little higher when she wears them, allowing them to peek cutely out of her shoes.

I’ve expressed my love of Mama Blue yarns before and I’ll do it again: I loved working with this Mama Blue Sea Merino. It’s super squishy and shiny and gets even lovelier after a wash. And I have enough leftover to make something pretty & pink for June. I also liked using the 12″ Addi. I normally knit socks Magic Loop style or with 2 circs, but Phoe recommended the 1 short circ method so I thought I’d give it a try. It took a little while to get used to knitting with such a short needle; my hands were kind of cramping up at first because I couldn’t figure out the best way to hold them. But eventually I got used to it and these seemed to fly off the needles. I didn’t have to add a second needle to the mix until it was time for the toe decreases! I don’t know that I’d knit complicated socks with a short needle like this (something with twisted stitches or lots of cables), but for plain stockinette or other simple socks, I don’t think I’ll go back! Thanks Phoe!
Happy birthday Sari! I hope you love the socks as much as I loved knitting them for you!

Thanks so much to all of you who left such nice comments about my sweater! Unfortunately Wordpress rudely didn’t send any of them to me so I was unable to respond to them individually. I’m looking forward to finishing it, hopefully in enough time to wear it this summer!

Since I’ve been laid up at home most of the week with strep throat (oh dudes, the pain, it is incredible) I managed to get a little sewing done!

In the hopes of encouraging spring to hurry the F up, I thought June could use a couple summer dresses.

This orange fabric is some Heather Ross that I’ve had in my stash a couple years. The pattern is McCalls M5562 which is super easy for an inexperienced garment sewer such as myself.

I made these in a size 3 and the tie shoulders allow for some size adjusting so these should hopefully fit for a while!

This fabric was leftover from the backing of our friend’s baby quilt.

I was inspired to use it when I saw Beatrix’s lovely dress!

It only took about 45 minutes each to make these, so I’ll probably make a couple more before the summer is over (if spring ever decides to arrive!)