The stupidest looking thing I've ever knit!

After a request for a pair of socks from the BF, and some hemming and hawing on my part (mostly debating whether I can take the abuse he'll give them!) I finally gave in - probably because he's been sick half the week and I always get sappy when he's sick!  Well, you know how handknit socks always look insanely long because they aren't half made of elastic like store bought socks?  Imagine knitting a sock for a size 12 foot.  It's ridiculous looking!  I just turned the heel last night and I just keep thinking "this can't possibly be right!"  Add to that the fact that I ribbed the top of the foot - which makes it very drawn in and skinny - and very un-foot-like looking!  I'm not even sure this picture fully conveys the hilarity! I should have put a quarter next to it for reference.  He had his legs propped up on my lap last night, and I talked him into letting me take his sock off to try this one on so I could know when to start the heel - he was screaming "aaa! cold! cold! cold!  you're trying to kill me!" until I put the handknit one on, then he said "aaaaah! luxurious!"  It was so cute.  And luxurious it is not - just Woolease - because it'll be thick and warm (or as warm as something mostly acrylic can be) and can be easily washed - and fast to make (but he doesn't need to know any of that!)  

Buttony Goodness

Over the past couple trips to the Treasure Barn, I picked up some mighty swell buttons that I haven't raved about yet.  why?  who knows!  Because they're rave worthy - and on top of that they were super cheap - I think $2 was the highest price per bag.  Here's the collection:

Some pearly ones with shank backs:

 Some really cool ones that look like metal sprinkles to me:

Another bag of metal ones - smaller and slightly more brassy or something:

And some fun yellow ones! :

Seems like I'd best be gettin' to sewing or knitting up something with button holes, eh?  I do have the Amelia cardigan on the needles, and my vest that I was designing for Vestuary (but clearly isn't going to be finished in February since I haven't really picked it up since the beginning of the month!)  

Dear Socks,

I love you.  No, I don't say that to all the new socks.  (yes I do.)

Child's French Socks, Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino.  

I got sunshine, on a cloudy day!

I don't know how long it's been since Ikea opened a store only 40 minutes from my house, but it's been quite a while.  Until yesterday, I still hadn't gone.  I was afraid I wasn't strong enough.  I was terrified of Ikea.  Because I knew I'd want everything there.  And, as you may know, I'm not so great in the self-control department sometimes.  However, yesterday I steeled myself and drove down.  And I didn't do that bad!  I came out with a couple bright red trash cans for my sewing room ($1.99!!), a plant stand that I plan to spray paint red (because I like to spray paint things red!), some great little juice glasses, some kitchen towels, a fun apron, and 3 cuts of fabric (I'll admit - that might have been my biggest reason for wanting to go!)  It's surprisingly heavy nice stuff for the price - $5.99  - $8.99/yd!  I decided that one piece needed to be a new curtain for my dining room.  

Note the adorable little pincushion wrist-y made from wool felt by my friend Catherine!  I was afraid that it would make the room dark because it was such a heavy fabric, but quite the contrary:
It's like a self-illuminating curtain!  Faaaanastic!  I love it.

I also got a couple yards of this:
It's thinner, and honestly I kind of want to make a pinafore-ish dress with it.  Not a frilly thing, but sort of a dress layering piece - sort of like a tunic is sometimes a layering piece for another shirt.  I don't know how to explain it, and honestly it'll probably just sit in my fabric stash for 5 years until I decide to use it for something entirely different!

I also got a few yards of this:

Don't know what I'll do with it, but it sure is fun!  I think it might be a wall hanging to cover an odd plumbing access door.  I'll probably make a big wooden frame and stretch the fabric around the edges like a canvas.  Yeah, I conquered Ikea and had fun at the same time!  Oh, I also got some lingonberry jam - mmmm!

Today, because it's President's day and I didn't have to work, I ran over to the Corner Cupboard - an odd little thrift shop plunked in the middle of a neighborhood (I suppose that shouldn't seem odd - in old neighborhoods like mine, that was the way business often were - a little grocery on the corner, a barbershop in the middle of other houses.  Very mixed use.  We're just so used to strip malls now, I guess, that such things seem weird.)  Anyway, it's very tiny, but there was a whole section with cuts of fabric (lots of stretch polyester!) bins of old zippers, ribbon, craft supplies, etc.  There were a couple bags of yarn, but most were acrylics.  I did find a bag, however, with a big mess of grey fingering weight wool (no ball band - just a "mess" of it, which I realized was still in hanks after I took it out of the bag and twisted it up, and also found one ball that someone had already wound up), one skein of tan-ish vintage Bernat fingering weight, and one unlabeled skein of green mystery stuff (which, after I took it out of the bag, appeared to have either been randomly snipped up, or had been attacked by moths, though I wasn't sure it really felt like wool.  Either way, I decided it wasn't worth the trouble/risk, and threw it out.)  Get this - all that for 69 cents!  

I'm not super crazy about either color, but they're both light enough that they could be easily overdyed.  The hanks of grey wool are a little coarse and shetland-ish so I think they'll be great for some colorwork - maybe a pair of Selbuvotter gloves or something!  I'm pretty jazzed!  

I had to do it!

For the safety of my friends, I had to buy some Malabrigo sock yarn. It seems that people keep showing up with this stuff and I find it infuriating because I don't have any! Like, fists-balled-up sort of infuriating. I may have lashed out with some threats too, I can't quite remember. However, the last person I might have threatened for showing off her new orange malabrigo was Kamile, who may not have been the best person to threaten since she's military and probably knows 50 ways to kill me before I'd even see it coming - and certainly before my hand could get halfway to her sock yarn! Little Knits has it right now for 20% off, which brings it down a little, but of course the shipping cost bumps it back up - in the end, it was about a buck cheaper than the usual price, which is all the incentive I need. Well, that and the feelings of violence when I see other people with it!

I got lettuce:

Ochre:

and Tiziano Red:

And I also grabbed up some of this: How fun is that stuff?

Ahh, I feel better now! :)

Success - more or less!

Alright, so I think I've dyed my farm fresh egg yarn as best as I'm going to get it! 

 I think most of them turned out pretty well.  The darkest one gave me the most trouble because it was actually a bit of a yellow/orange-ish brown so I ended up using (brace yourself!) 3 bags of black indian tea, two bags of apple cinnamon herbal tea, some tumeric, and a bit of brown, yellow, and red Wilton gel icing coloring!  I have no idea what actually did the work and what was just there at the party, but it came out like this. 

 I like how it looks like the speckles are in the yarn, but unfortunately that's just bits of tea that escaped the bag and stuck to the yarn!  I think when it's dry they'll fall out.  Or rather, I hope they will!  One of the eggs had a bit of a pink tinge and it's not really showing well in the photo, but I used tea and a drop of red food coloring which sort of gave it pinkish tinges here and there, which I really like.  This one is the worst match of the bunch, but it was just straight tea, as best I can remember.  

Or maybe this was the coffee.  It's all a blur now!  The blue will be my main color to replicate the lovely background of the Styrofoam carton.  I think I might have to design my own pattern for either a hat or mittens to showcase these lovelies!  

On a more successful note - a knitting buddy, Ginny, left me a PM yesterday that she'd been to the Treasure Barn, a great antique mall at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, which is like 2 minutes from my house that I don't visit nearly often enough, and spotted a couple pieces of Pyrex, which she kindly even gave me rough coordinates to locate - something like, "in the back of the 1st floor, with lids, and another upstairs without."  It was 4:30 when I read it and they close at 5pm.  Still, I threw on my coat and ran out the door shouting "Pyrex spotting at the Treasure Barn - gotta go!"  Well let me tell you, there was more Pyrex there than I could handle!  It was everywhere and I tried to compose myself and be selective - there are some patterns I like much more than others and I tried to convince myself to be a little picky.  I was hoping they only took cash, because that would limit me to the small bit I had in my purse.  Unfortunately they were all modern and offered to take plastic.  Aaaand there was a leak in the roof, which the lady at the counter needed to do something about before leaving, so I got to shop longer while she worked (I think that just amounted to mopping up and finding something to catch the drips unfortunately.  Had she actually climbed on the roof to really "take care of it" I could have shopped much longer!  again, probably for the best since Ginny also told me there were a lot of old cookbooks and I never even had a chance to get to those.)  So here's my haul:

A 1.5 liter refrigerator dish! 

Two casseroles that were in a 1/2 price booth!  I did find these exact ones in another booth, with lids, but I really don't use lids that much when I bake casseroles so I decided I'd rather get the 1/2 price ones!  I'm not that kind of collector - I'm going to use the stuff!

A lovely 1.5 liter casserole - there are some super cupcake-cute pink and blue pyrex things that I just love!  I need more!

This, which turns out to be a hostess set - thanks to the foks at the Pyrex Love Flickr group!  I thought maybe it was a salad bowl set.  This is a color that I refer to as "happy yellow!" and I needed it!  The big bowl is really big and I think the yellow is even sunnier in real life!

That Treasure Barn is one dangerous place!  It's not incredibly expensive, and they have a bit of everything!  I walked around wanting everything - a little ceramic poodle, a lamp shaped like a mariachi guy, you get the idea! 

Oh, one more success, which I should probably mention since I did intend for this to be a world-famous knitting blog, didn't I?  Or rather, just a place where I could talk about knitting to someone other than the BF, who honestly tries his best, but can only muster so much interest!  (about as much as I can muster when he starts talking about T-85 tubes vs. KT88s in amps or something like that.)  You can't expect the one you love to be everything for you!  So, I choose to talk about things like how much I love these socks here on my blog.  And man, do I love these socks!  Whoa - I shouldn't get ahead of myself - I really mean "sock" - this is just the first one!  It fits like a dream - it's a 63 stitch sock, which is think is pretty typical of what I've done in the past, but there's no tightness at all, just perfectness!  Well, perfectness in the pattern, but not so much in my execution - this shot is unfortunate because it shows all my screwups!  The second shot is a bit too over exposed to show the mermaid tail-like lace pattern, but I'll assure you, it's great!  No SSS here - I'll be casting on #2 tonight because I certainly want two of these puppies!  

  

absurdly obsessed with...

these eggs: 

 I always try to buy farm eggs - or you know, free range deals instead of the chicken factory kind, but I haven't been to the market much this winter, and the guy at work who used to bring them in to sell transferred.  Maybe it's the fact that I haven't had a carton of these in a while that's making me crazy obsessed with them!  One of my coworkers got two dozen eggs from a guy he traded some venison to and he gave me a carton because he didn't think he'd use two - so nice of him!  it feels kind of pioneer-ish, except that I didn't do anything to earn them!  Because the BF and I love eggs nearly as much as Edie, we had breakfast-for-dinner two nights in a row, then finished them off in a fritata this morning!  It's not just the deliciousness that has me obsessed, it's the COLOR!  I mean geez - just look at that!  The shades of brown/pink/tan against the blue of the carton - it's making me crazy!  I took a picture because as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to knit something with those colors!  So this morning I divided a skein of natural Cascade 220 into 4 balls and put them in to dye.  I'm not sure how it'll work, but I used coffee for one, a bag of tea w/ a drop of red food coloring for another, 2 bags of tea for the third, and some loose black tea for the last - I'm hoping that the contact with the actual tea bits on the last one might give some speckles. 

 It might all not work at all, but I can always overdye.  It'll be interesting at least!  Oh, I added a little shot of vinegar to each, even though I think both coffee and tea might be acidic enough to not need it.  Results forthcoming!