What's it gonna be when it grows up?

About a year ago, one of my LYS had a 40% off sale. About 6 skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca jumped off the shelf and into my arms. Colors were chocolate brown, taupe, and green. I didn't have a project in mind when I bought them, and I've since learned that some alpaca is just too fuzzy for me. Kinda like knitting with a kitten around your neck or something.

Did that stop me from adding to the stash? Hell no! I've now got 5 skeins of taupe, 3 skeins of chocolate brown, and 4 skeins of green. I've been mulling these colors around for a while and all I can come up with is color blocks in a sweater.

This morning it came to me. This



is going to be an Adult Surprise Jacket when it grows up. Now to figure out how to do the striping. This catches my eye, but do I do the stripes in big blocks or thin blocks? I'm also thinking of doing the body in two colors and then the border in the third color.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Insanity followed by stupidity

I pretty much checked out on April 12 when I had a long torrid love affair with Berrocco's Pure Merino Heathers and Stephanie Japel's Boatneck Bluebell. It fell off the needles into this magical pool of plum goodness that had me over the edge. I finished it Saturday (May 3). I wore it yesterday (May 4), and then.......

.........I felted it.

Like I said, insanity followed by stupidity.

My XL sweater is now sitting in the closet of a size S friend waiting for another cool day to be cherished and worn by someone who is smart enough not to felt her handknits.

Whacked out dream!

So I had a dream last night that I was in some sort of bad accident that crushed my wrist. I had to have the entire wrist and most of my hand reconstructed with pins. The hitch, the pins were magnetic and every time I picked up my Knit Picks dpn's, they stuck to my wrist and hand like super magnets! Yeah, I know, whacky eh? Really more of a nightmare!

So check out my latest Smooshy creation:



The color is (translated) In Wine - Truth. The colors are every bit as enchanting as the last colorway, Cocoa Kisses. Between the two pairs of Smooshy, I had 52 grams of yarn left over. I gave them to my friend who wears a size 7 shoe since there's no way in hell I'd be able to get a pair of ankle socks out of that for my size 10 feet!

In the meantime, anyone recognize this guy?



Dream on!

Rambling needles

I finished a pair of socks, and am 3/4th's done with another pair -- another pair worked in Dream in Color Smooshy -- unfortunately my camera has yet to take a picture that does the colorway justice. It's amazing.

When I was organizing my knitting life last week, I renewed my love affair with my modern log cabin blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting:



When I bit into this project last summer (gasp!!) I chose every solid color of Berocco's Love It -- and I'm LOVING IT! I may not be done for another year, but it is so fun...mindless beautiful garter stitch.

The blanket has been a nice for a change of pace while trying to outsmart a 5 year old who decided to "move out" to the back yard last week. tee hee!!! It's obvious that I'm completely irrational for not letting him print page after page after page from the computer.



That's him, shortly after he moved out to the backyard. He was there 10 minutes. Don't worry, I made him clean up his room before he left.

Spring Cleaning

I got a burr under my saddle last week and decided one of our closets needed to be reorganized. The previous owner had installed some nice enamel-covered wire shelving in the closet.



However, this particular system was too small for the closet, and it didn't work effectively. I took out the shelving, harnessed the husband to his power tools, and installed this:



Nice eh? Not sexy like enamel shelving, but much more functional and inviting. What was I to do but this:



The green and white bag on the bottom far right was my grandmother's knitting bag from the 70's. The rest of the bags are testimony to my bag fetish, while the yarn -- well, that's mostly my bulk yarn storage -- you know, yarns for sweaters and stuff mostly. The sock yarn, since it doesn't technically count as stash, is still stashed in the vintage trunk/coffee table. ;-)



Shhhhh don't tell anyone.

I think my scrapbooking supplies will be on the bottom shelves and my knitting books somewhere in between.

I feel so RICH with all these shelves!

Fantasy land

I'm ignoring the booties. I find myself thinking that they'll finish themselves out of obligation and guilt for all they've put me through. Nice fantasy of mine, eh?

And while I've been in fantasy land, I've discovered the magic that is Dream in Color Smooshy:



The colorway is Cocoa Kisses, and it's much much more decadent than the picture shows. The most amazing part is that the cuff is 9.5 in. long and fits my size 10 foot quite well, although I'm making them for someone else. Think about it -- 9.5 in. cuff on women's size 10 foot with ample yarn left over to repairs, etc. This has so much yardage!!!!!!

And then yesterday while at L & B, some CoolSpun Cotton by Kertzer jumped into my hands and at $1.99 a ball, I knew it was destined to become the potholders I so desperately need.



I'm using EZ's potholder pattern from Knitter's Almanac page 20 (using double-knitting). Just another example of her fine fine genius. How did her mind dream this stuff up????

Ducks suck!

Of the last 17 days, 15 have been spent knitting stubbornly on these:



I've knit one set of I-cord for faux laces and finished 1 and 1/3 of a duck (see the black booties above) when I decided enough was enough. I had become a slave to the pattern and it wasn't fun. Really, what's fun about size 0 needles, endless seed stitch, finishing and decorations? I'm instant-gratification girl -- I'm the one who wants it mindless and in the round and done. now. Cute is cute but not fun is NOT FUN!

With that in mind, I cast on for a reward sock



Cherry Tree Hill DK in Java. Lovely colors and absolutely deliciously soft soft soft to work with.

Oh and the sock monkey hat? Finished in just 2-3 hours, worn to school, and waiting to be blocked:





There's something enchanting about sock monkeys. I may have to knit sock monkey inspired socks (there's some on Ravelry -- go look).

Oh and for those of you curious about the aforementioned moth crisis at casa de knitting madre, the moths are gone, but most of all, they weren't the WOOL EATING moths. Thankfully it seems that the moth crisis is over.

Back to socks -- I say the baby bootie ducks SUCK!