Holy Knit One Purl Two!

My sockpal socks are done. Both of them. Holy knit one purl two speedy knitting, Batman! (The blog post title refers to this lovely little snippet that Peggers e-mailed me earlier this week while I was home on full-time mommy duty. Amusing to see how we knitters are shown as total psychopaths, huh?) They are currently at home, washed and blocking. The second cuff was snipped, the top cast-on edge taken off, and then I did a horridly inexpert job of picking up the stitches. Well, I picked up the k2 stitches easily, but I'll be damned if I could find the purl stitches - so I kind of had to make it up as I went along - which took me two separate attempts - and even then I knit it once, cast off, and then glared at it, as it looked so half-assed'ly done. So I undid the cast-off, ripped it back down, and tried picking up the stitches again, doing a better job this time with the cabled stitches and did the cast-off with EZ's sewn cast-off to make sure that the edge was nice and stretchy. They still don't match perfectly, but they're much better than they were before I tried, so that's a good thing. Otherwise I think they're near twins which is always a nice thing in socks. And appropriate, seeing as how my lovely sockpal is mommy to twin girls herself!

I immediately pulled out some stash yarn and started knitting away on a new WIP - but one that I can't post about here as it is ultimately destined to be a gift knit for someone that I know reads the blog. For those of you in Ravelry (and said gift recipient is currently NOT yet in Ravelry) take a peek in my projects notebook to see it - my Ravelry username is susanb.............. However the knitting of these is going so quickly that I'm guessing I'll be finished in the next two weeks and so they will be unveiled quite quickly. So for those of you that are impatient and not yet in Ravelry, there won't be much waiting.

I am half done with the First Clue on my Mystery Stole. I'm somewhere around Row 56. I think. The First Clue goes all the way up to Row 100 - and Clue #2 comes out tomorrow. I obviously won't be ready to start the Second Clue tomorrow, but that's okay. I'm still having loads of fun with this and am just in seventh heaven with the softness and colour of the yarn.

Happily enough, the chart has also been kindly posted in written-out form - BUT - it was written out (for the first time that I've ever seen!) in the way that I write out charts - in column form instead of lengthwise. I cannot tell you how lovely this is going to be - to be able to have someone else write out these charts for me! I can most certainly work from charts - I just prefer not to. Finding this out today and seeing other folks' finished Chart 1 work in the Yahoo Group for the project has totally spurred me on to work on this tonight, if I'm able. Go on and join - you've only got until tomorrow to add you name to the group before Melanie shuts the group to all other joiners!

Other than my finished Sockpal socks, my new secret WIP, and my Mystery Stole 3 progress my other Big News is along the finishing school line of thought. I've seen several knitters out there who have spent some major money buying their own custom name tags to sew into their pieces of handknit. One of my absolute favorites, hands down, is Caro's. However while I'd love to have something similar, not only am I currently trying to pay off my current yarn bill but I'm also not sure that I really and truly know what I'd like to have on this ol' name tag. And while the name tags aren't like buying a car or anything - they're not exactly cheap. Well, once again thank goodness for the collective knowledge of knitters and crafters out there. Parikha of The Brown Sheep is both a knitter and a crafter - so she keeps her eyes on blogs that would otherwise go totally unread by yours truly.........and while reading a Shim + sons blog post from last fall she read about the option of using a custom-designed stamp (less than $5, generally), some heat-set ink pads, and twill tape and making your own............

Photo used with extremely kind permission.

Doesn't it look fantastic? I ordered the heat-set ink pads in both black and a chocolate brown, and my stamp is identical to Parikha's - { by susan}. I know - not terribly original - but I tried loads of variations - *astericks*, ::colons::, carrots>< - you name it - and nothing looked good. So I went with what I liked.

Now I just have to be patient and wait for everything to arrive in the mail.

So if you'll excuse me, I have to leave work now and go check my mailbox.

;>