wee tiny followup

My Wee Tiny swapper received her sock, and happily enough really liked it.

Felicia blogs over at Felicia Knits (and purls) where I have had a fun time reading through her old posts - including one where she talks about how quickly she used to type and how she's slowed down a bit now that she no longer has to do it all the time. I myself had a blast trying out the typing test - as I'm always mocked (at home) for my flying fingers......

92 words

Guess that typing class back in high school came in handy after all, Mom! (Don't you just hate it when they're right????)

Edited 4 hours later: I just finished my extremely boring reference desk shift, and see what trouble my web surfing just got me in? [drool, drool, drool, drool]

MamaBlue's Sea Merino (70% superwash merino wool, 30% seacell) fingering-weight yarn in her 'Beekeeper' colourway. [................sigh.................]

A Belated (& whispered) Messy Tuesday

Whatever viral nastiness is going around, it has decided to temporarily house itself in my throat, and I've essentially lost my voice. This has proven interesting, as I've had to sit desk (i.e. work at the reference desk in the library, providing research assistance to any student or faculty member who needs help) for upwards of 8 hours so far this week. Since this has struck, by the end of each night, my husband has had some relief from my typical barrage of information, queries, and anecdotes that typically fly his way over dinner and after the Munch's bedtime!

I took some Messy Tuesday pictures but was a bit slack in getting them uploaded. So - in typical messy fashion, here they are on Friday! And I have to admit, I was a bit wary of posting these as-is, so what I've chosen to do is post my Messy Tuesday shots, but with a few in 'before' and 'after' format - both so that people can see that I actually can and do clean up my (sometimes) filthy house and also so that when I feel horrible and guilty and troubled over the slovenly state of my abode, I can take a look at these pictures and realize that things can and do improve with a little elbow grease and a whole lot of tidying and recycling.

Before

After

Before

After

There is no 'after' picture for my front porch - it is still in this state of total disrepair & chaos.

Mess? What mess? I see reading material & knitting supplies - no problems here!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone - mine will involve 4 hours of working desk on Saturday (UGH!), a baseball game on Sunday (sock knitting!!!), and a day at home w/ the Munch on Monday as daycare is closed. Here's hoping I can do some major frogging & re-knitting of one of my projects, plus a bit of finishing on two other projects in that given timeframe! I shall re-emerge from my home-cocoon on Tuesday with a Wee Tiny sock post (mine came yesterday, but hasn't had it's photo shoot yet) and maybe a few FO's to chat about as well.

Wish me luck!

A Wee Tiny Post

I mailed my Wee Tiny package this morning, and despite the fact that my swap person **could** read this & by my use of her first name figure out what she's getting befo-re her package actually arrives, the chances of this are extremely slim. Mostly because there are upwards of 275 folks in this swap, and I seriously doubt that any swapper is rabid enough to go through each & every person's blog in the hopes of finding a clue as to who pulled their name.

You know?

So, here, in a hugely daring risk, is my Wee Tiny Sock Swap package of 2008!



I had loads of fun making up this little package - last year I simply went the 'overstuffed envelope' route, but this year I had the time and the energy (and the cabin fever - that comes after being home for several days with a no-long-sick-enough-to-hang-on-the-couch-all-day, but too-sick-to-go-back-to-daycare 3 year old) to gussy it up a bit. So tissue paper, pretty little tags, and a funky little box from our local (chain) craft shop to dress it all up a bit.

Yeah, it's a flip-flop. The closest thing to a sock I could find!

In the flip-flop box itself I tucked in a little wooden 'treat' as well. I saw it on one of the end-cap displays and couldn't resist.


And the sock itself?
How kind of you to ask!

Voila:

Pattern: Toe-up construction found here
Stitch Pattern: Divided Boxes ( Knit & Purl Harmony Guide)
Materials: Sundara Sock Yarn
Colour: 'Green Tea' colourway
Needles: US0/2.0mm KnitPicks circulars
Dimensions: leg - 2" heel to toe - 1.5"

This project was fantastic on a number of levels. Not only did I discover that I really liked the Divided Boxes stitch pattern, but I also realized during the wrapping and the packaging of said wee sock that my craft organization area - as tiny as it is - could use some serious help. So I thought back to all of those Martha Stewart organization tips I always read but never use, and did some tidying. I don't have a 'before' shot, but here is a greatly, greatly improved 'after' view:

The fact that this little area of mine is so neat and tidy is highly ironic, because in the craft/knitting armoire that is indeed mine & all mine, this area is the one that.......

Closes. Heck - it locks, even! It closes tightly shut so that nobody can see the extremely tidy & organized space inside. Which is totally unlike the rest of the armoire, which is wide open so that anyone and everyone can see the jumble and chaos inside and on top of and around it......

On top. My dye things and my spinning/winding equipment.

Piled next to the armoire: my loaned drum carder, my mill-end (machine oiled) tweed, and lots of fleece that needs to be carded & some pre-carded fleece that needs to be spun. And a periwinkle blue shirt that needs to be patched & mended.

And the worst offender - inside the main body of the armoire. A hanging sweater-holder with far too much jumble piled in there. Sturdy shelves would be much better - with much less wasted space! - but unfortunately the armoire walls are extremely thin veneer sort of things, that a thumbtack would easily pierce through, so screwing in shelves and whatnot isn't any sort of an option.

However I do remind myself whenever I get upset by this mess and jumble that what I'm really looking at here is a ton of potential. Tons of future projects, just waiting to be knitted. Sweaters waiting to emerge. Socks waiting to be fitted for length. Scarves poised to be wrapped around someone's neck. Gloves ready to warm someone's fingers.

I'll have you know that this sort of logic only works on such knitting/spinning/crafting type jumbles. The other normal household jumbles (the dirty/clean laundry pile, the piled papers and books, the tangle of dirty dishes in the sink, the discarded toys in the middle of the living room floor) - that's just mess.

Thank goodness, then, tomorrow is Messy Tuesday!

Wee Tiny

It's that time of year again!



Emily is once again running the Wee Tiny Sock Swap - and this time it's open to everyone who'd like to participate!

I had a good time doing the W.T.S.S. last year - it really is a fantastic way to "break into" the swap world. One teeny weeny sock - and just one! - and an envelope and a regular ol' stamp. Can't get much easier than that!

In fact, I still have my official W.T.S. posted on my bulletin board next to my desk...


I'm afraid that I don't have any knitting to show you. I *have* been doing lots of knitting - I finished my dad's boring grey engineer sock and am casting-on for the second one tonight. I'm churning away at full speed on the silk tank top I'm designing for Gryphon - last night I pinned out the front piece & lightly spritzed it to block it so that I could get a better sense of where & when I want to start one of the larger design elements, and I'm starting on a Inga hat for my brother out of some Malabrigo that I've got. However I'm not too certain which colour of the Malabrigo should be the design and which should be the background, so I'm swatching a small hat with only two pattern repeats - one colour dominant on one side of the hat, and the other colour dominant on the other side of the hat. I'll finish a full chart repeat then pin, lightly block, and then photograph and get lots and lots of feedback from everyone to help me decide!

But of course, I have no pictures of any of this, so sadly I am a Very Very Bad Blogger so far this week. Can we blame it on a Crazy Monday & a slightly less Insane Tuesday?

;)

Wee Tiny

My sock is done! I knitted it last night while watching about 1/2 of The Holiday (Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, & Jack Black). I'd only give this movie a B - and that's because Kate Winslet is in it - - otherwise I'd give it a C. Jude Law does okay - but it's a role that I just can't get my head around him in because in the movie he's actually a decent guy - and his escapades in the Real World suggest otherwise! Cameron Diaz is ditzy and far too cookie-cutter stereotypical - annoying, almost. Jack Black is Jack Black - not given enough screen time to actually become the character in the actual movie - and while I like Jack Black well enough, he can be annoying in large doses. Kate Winslet is lovely as always - I wish that she lived in town so that she and I could go for coffee and chat, and I could hang out at her house & try and figure out how she brushes/styles her hair so that it always looks so good without actually looking like she spent too much time on it (in my world, spending more than 5 minutes on your hair is Too Much Time) - and maybe even raid her closet.........you know?

But anyway - I digress.

I knitted the sock first on size 1 dpns, then after wrestling with them for about 10 minutes (keeping in mind the entire time that the whole knitting exercise was only supposed to take about 60 minutes!) I ripped them out & off and re-did the whole thing on two circs and was much much happier. I did a basic k1tbl,p1 ribbing for the top then did the leg plain then switched back to dpns and did a garter-stitch heel then turned the heel then used the dpns to pick up the stitches for the gussets (and here I probably would change the pattern for myself and next time pick up 7 instead of 6 stitches, as I had a hole at the top of the gusset which I can sometimes kinda' avoid by picking up an extra stitch just to be extra careful at that super-tricky spot) but then switched back to circs to finish off the foot and the toe.

I used some leftover hand-dyed Sundara sock yarn in Dusk. Hey, if you're going to do a swap, better do it w/ the good stuff, right?



Then this morning I came to work and wrote a nice little letter to my swap pal and addressed the envelope and sealed it and then spent an hour out at the reference desk where I actually had a chance to look at blogs again for the first time since last Friday............and when I got to Emily's blog I realized that -DUH!- I had totally forgotten to take pictures of it. So I went back to my desk, hauled out my letter opener, and staged a few photos, then tucked the sock back away yet again and sealed the huge slice in the envelope with some good old sticking tape!

Man O Man O Man but this week has been a brain-frying sort of a time.................

I shall mail the wee tiny package off to it's intended pal tomorrow - oh what fun what fun what fun - and what a lovely lovely lovely Emily to come up and then also be willing to coordinate all of this!

I'm going to go now and post my picture to her Flickr group - and then go home and start watching my mailbox!

:)

I really should be working.......

.....but I'm not.



Today is the Munchkins' birthday - it is so so so hard to believe that my little colic-ridden bundle is 2 years old! Old enough to demand birthday cake at the merest hint of a icing-laden sugary slice! Old enough to sleep through the night - even if he chooses not to on an almost-nightly basis. Old enough to try to put his own socks & shoes on. (He doesn't succeed at it, though.) Old enough to pretend that the rolled-up bamboo place mat is a sandwich and the coaster is a pancake.

This was maybe, oh, at 4 days old.
Never, ever since has he again been this quiet.

So this afternoon I'm not working. I'm catching up on major, major blog reading after an insanely busy week & an insanely busy morning. I have pushed so much work around and finally off of my desk today plus done so much online grading & reading that now my eyes actually hurt. So what I'm going to do is post here, then leave work a bit early so that I can hit the health-food store and then go and get the little wee one - if you can call a 2-year old (who is both so tall & so verbal that he is routinely mistaken for a 4-year old child, even by those who have children themselves) 'wee' and take him home & play with him & read to him to his heart's content because it is - you know - his birthday. And if you can't have a fairly decent day on your birthday - particularly at this young an age! - when can you????

But first, I post.

I post of All Things Heather & her drive for donations to raise money to buy books for a South African school. As both a reading freak in my own right plus a militant mommy who makes the Munch read (not that I have to make this child read - he demands it on a nonstop basis!) plus a librarian plus someone who used to live in Botswana for a bit (the country above South Africa) - this donation was a no-brainer. And getting yarn as a result? A total bonus - but I would have done it w/out the yarn.........

Next I post of Emily.

Who sent me a lovely little wee-est treasure in the mail. I was overwhelmed last night when I got home from work (the Munch was still sleeping when I went to get him at his daycare provider's house - yesterday was Dance Day for the kids at daycare who are old enough, which correspondingly meant a very very late nap for the little guy and not nearly enough sleep!) with temper tantrums and making dinner and just being exhausted in general, so I didn't open Emily's padded envelope until today. I made myself wait and let the excitement build - plus I wanted to open it in an environment where it was nice and quiet and I could actually read Emily's letter and understand it instead of being interrupted every other word with requests for reading yet another Maisie story, more milk, dump truck location clarifications, or comments about the dog barking.

My sock. My lovely, soft sock that is knitted so

well - even at this small size - that it has no holes in the gusset!!!

It is lovely and beautiful and too cute for words - and this from someone who is most certainly not a fan of things generally considered twee. I have it currently very very carefully tucked in my front pocket - both because I like to reach in my pocket and feel that it is there, and also because I am showing it to - generally - every single person I see today. I ran to E's blog and read all of the posts of hers lately that I had missed and signed right up for her Wee Tiny Sock Swap. I am so excited, I can hardly wait. I'm hoping to get an International Swap Pal. Just because I love those funky stamps & foreign accents are just SO cool, are they not??????

So now I have posted. So now I go. This weekend should be just lovely - warm warm warm (well, warm considering what we've been putting up with lately!) and time alone w/ the Peggers and time to garden and time to knit and maybe even some time to throw open the windows and doors and air out the house and let in the Fresh Spring Air!

(a girl can always hope, can't she?)