storm preparedness

It's just a little tropical storm.  And I have all my supplies: yarn, needles, six simultaneous projects, and my new knitting chair. No batteries, candles, bottled water or canned goods, though.  Only one tragedy has befallen us so far  (and by "us" I mean me since Steve is happily watching the weather channel and ESPN).  I find I am about 20 yards short of two of three colors of yarn required to finish the last sleeve of the destash special.  Fortunately, the internet is still working so I was able to place an emergency order with Artfibers for Toto.


And fear not - we have plenty of wine.

holy mackerel

Not only did we catch Spanish mackerel yesterday, but I also have a few finished projects.

The socks are Helix knit in Koigu that Pam picked out a long long time ago.  I finally got them done after a long hiatus.  I am really pleased even though I am almost sure they will be too big for her.  I like the toe-up-two-at-a-time technique.  But I would be kidding myself to think that knitting socks is a fast project compared to, say, knitting a sweater.  There are a shit-ton of little tiny stitches on little tiny needles in each sock.

The baby blanket is for the latest niece. It is knit in Toto from Artfibers.  According to their website (today) Toto is supposed to be a "chunky" weight yarn that can be knit at 15 stitches = 4 inches on size 9 needles.  What I received was a barely worsted weight yarn that I had to knit up with size 7 needles just to get a decent heft fabric. So much for a fast knit baby project.

The pattern was from Purl for a chunky weight cotton yarn. The border is sewn on.  There has got to be  a better way to do this but I tried and could not pickup just one stitch while knitting the border to attach it at the same time.  A better knitter than me has probably got that all worked out.  Anyway, all of that border sewing and fussing around with how many peaks to make for each side of the border was a pain in the ass.

The finished blanket is adorable though so I suppose it was worth it.

yes I have a lot of catching up to do

But I decided to just skip it and start posting.

There has been tons of knitting going on and my Ravelry project page is fairly up to date with a few exceptions like a baby blanket I finished from my queue but don't have a baby to give it to. Yet.

Instead of rehashing right now, I want to post about my very first Wollmeise purchase.  I can't believe I got sucked into the madness.  I think my curiosity and inner competitor got the best of me.  I bought two Kunterbunt We're Different packages of two semisolid skeins in the 100% merino superwash.

I don't know what the colors are called but I really like them. 575 yards per skein means I can make a pair of large socks with a single.  Nice.

I like the green color the best:

I think I will try to trade maroon:

The bags they came in with German translations of English knitting terms are a nice touch:

 The other night I couldn't sleep and found myself awake at the computer at 2 am.  I conveniently remembered that was exactly the time when the Wollmeise shop gets updated (7 hour time difference and the shop updates happen at 8 AM Berlin time).  I think I have four more skeins coming but I may have dreamed it....


Birdwatching has also been happening.  I put up new feeders in New Orleans and Alabama and I hope to have some good feeder pictures soon.  In  the mean time here is a shot of a Great Horned Owl in a nest with two babies.

The shot is pretty bad because, as usual, I did not have my long lens with me.  I am going to go back next weekend to reshoot, if the babies are still there. There is actually another nest near by with two more owlets. They looked a little smaller so maybe I can geta  shot at them. Here are some lovely Cedar Waxwings on a grey day: