And, of course, not one to leave well enough alone… I give you more random pictures from my morning commute! I know you were waiting breathlessly for them.

The view from my bus stop on the way to work:

One of the meadowy places at the new Olympic Sculpture Garden has, in the last couple of weeks, completely BLOOMED. From above the whole thing is PINK! with these flowers. I’m not sure what they are, but I love them.

And the metal tree in the sculpture garden, which I totally didn’t realize was metal until the morning I took this picture and the sun was making it sooper shiny. Who knew?

There are a few more BSG pics on my phone yet to be downloaded, and I think a couple more Lusty Lady marquees, so those will be coming in the days to come, as it were.

Ooh! And the seagull (possibly even the same one as in the masthead) is back on the nest on the piling, so within the next 20 days I should have baby seagull pix. Newly hatched seagulls are REALLY cute. Almost as cute as the baby bunnies I got to play with yesterday. They were cute enough that CritterBoy, who is horribly allergic to bunnies, couldn’t resist petting them. It was like some sort of freaky magnetic field that just sucked him right in.

There’s been work. And a (not very) Random Stranger From The Internets (ok, so maybe not really a *stranger* – we’ve “known” him for about 3 years, but this was the first time we’d actually met him all in person like). And a wedding (not mine). And some more work. And Very Little Knitting. But hey! I have pictures, so it’s all good, right?

There was a gigantic shawl knit for Melissa of Peace Weavers (which I swear I have a picture of, but I can’t find it to save my own life. Ang? Help?) edit! Found it! (It’s the Lady Of The Forest shawl from Ilga Leja)

And then there was the RSFTI, who we adored before we met, and are utterly smitten with now. (Along with most of the bride’s female relatives…)
This one being my favorite pic of him from the weekend – he’s the one on the left, the guy on the right being another one of Critter Boy’s imaginary friends, who flew in from Hawaii for the meetup (on his way to somewhere else I think).

Lastly, the “what I did with my summer weekend” series… The label on the roving claimed it to be biffle from Dicentra in the Eomund colorway. I believe the biffle and Dicentra bits, but from the pics I’ve seen online, I’m not buying that it’s the Eomund colorway. No clue which one it is, but probably not what it was labeled as. Whatever, though. It’s purty.
Pre-drafted goodness:

Not just one, but three pairs of socks! Three!

In absolutely no particular order:
Manly brown socks in my favorite sock yarn of all time, Socks That Rock medium weight, in Obsidian

Another pair of the Leaf Lace socks from some back issue of Interweave Knits, done in Regia Silk:

And a pair of slightly too tall Opal socks, in one of those make-it-up-as-you-go-along patterns that’s pretty much my standard, except that I got a bit carried away with the tops. They’d be perfect if I’d started them out a bit larger and decreased for the calf, but, alas, I wasn’t paying that kind of mind to the whole thing, and I didn’t, so they’re the same width all the way up, so they tend to squinch themselves down below the getting-fatter part of my calf, and often fall down. Whatever. I love them anyway.

AND! Because I’ve actually be REALLY productive, here’s the back of the O sweater (B&B Pullover from IK), done in the omfg yummy soft Beaverslide fisherman’s yarn. It seemed like it was going to be a might on the heavy side, but O reminded me of just how damn cold it gets on the island, and insisted that it was going to be the perfect weight, so I have soldiered on with it. The picture looks much greyer than the sweater actually is. The body is woodviolet and the trim is shooting star. See?

Then, just for good measure…
FINALLY, the picture of the lovely skein of handspun from my Spin To Knit Pal. I did a crap job of coming anywhere near capturing the actual color (and you know if I can tell that with a red skein of yarn, I really really did a crap job of it). But it’s really nicely spun, and soft. It’s 280 yards, somewhere between sport and dk weight. Project ideas? Bring ‘em on!

(enclicken to see it close up)

There you go. Proof that I haven’t been a total slacker.

Thank you all for your comments about the Highland Chunky and the suggestions. I’m torn between doing it as written, using the Beaverslide yarn, or doing it in something lighter and doing a buttload of math (in which case I’d probably also end up adding another narrow cable on either side of the main cable, and changing the neckline a wee bit, and well… then we get into ‘entirely different sweater’ territory, which wouldn’t be a bad thing, I don’t think). Maybe I’ll just have to do both. Yes, an arctic weight sweater may not be the most practical thing, but the Booger? She lives in a cold, wet place, and she loves her some arctic weight stuff (and she’s a wee bitty little thing with absolutely no body fat). I’ve been jonesing to order some Beaverslide yarns anyway, so I’m definitely going to do that. And I’ve got some lighter stuff on hand that I might just have enough of, so I’ll swatch for that too, and see where that takes me.

I will, of course, keep all y’all posted.

In other, completely unrelated news, I just got home from the doctor. It was one of those lovely bad news/good news things. My back? It’s horked. I knew that. I just didn’t know exactly *how* horked it was. Now I know. My L5S1 disk is blown. I will be going to see a surgeon in the next couple of weeks to find out if I have to have surgery (I’m voting no on that front). I get to go to physical therapy (and maybe accupuncture if my insurance will cover it). I think the worst bit about this whole thing is that the initial injury to my back happened, what, a year ago? Year and a half? It’s been a long damn while. I’ve seen three doctors about it. The first two decided that even xrays were unwarranted and that I was fine. The first one treated me like I was just another middle-class painkiller junkie seeking more drugs (and completely ignored both my statements to the contrary and the endless list of drugs I’m violently allergic to in my charts), and basically blew me off with nothing more than a cursory battery of “can you feel your feet” type things. The second did the same battery of poking at my feet and making me push up and down with my toes and concluded that it couldn’t be a disk issue because I didn’t have any nerve damage. Alas. I have no nerve damage (yet), but I do have one fewer intact disk than I should. So yeah, I’m a bit pissy about it all. But The Doctor’s Clinic folks? They get the bonus points for a)listening, b)thinking outside the box, and c)always being really freakin’ decent to deal with. I hate doctors (hoo-ee! the understatement of the year, right there, just for you!), and will avoid them at great lengths, but I have willingly gone back to this place a few times now, and always had a good experience. Surprising, really, for a walk-in clinic in Bummertown.

Oh yeah, and while laying flat on my back all last weekend I knit a pair of socks. Pictures forthcoming.

HA! Seems that yarn in that gauge is a might tricky to find (well, yarn that doesn’t SUCK at any rate), unless you’re willing to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for enough to make a sweater out of. GRRR.

After much searching, I ended up ordering some Peruvian Highland Chunky from Elann. Great color selection, crazy good price, and fast fast fast shipping. All well and good. The yarn showed up yesterday, and I busted out a skein to swatch.

Soft! Nice! Hmmm… Maybe not so wonderful.

For starters, it untwists as I knit, so I have to keep remembering to check and adjust the twist, which is a pain in the arse. Fine. Swatch done. Soft, nice. Into the basin to soak, onto the blocking foamy thing to block. I got up this morning and checked on it, and it was all dry, so I unpinned it and walked from the living room to the computer room, which is all of… 30 feet? And that includes a detour into the kitchen to pick up my coffee cup. While I walked that short short distance, I had folded the swatch in half and was rubbing it against itself to see how the abrasion resistance was.

30 feet, 90 seconds, GIANT SWATCH EATING PILLS. Almost as bad as the DB Cashmerino (and by this point, y’all *know* how I feel about Debbie Bliss yarns). See?

I have said many bad words, which I will not include here.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?
GRRRRRRR. I really really really was hoping to not have to spend $120 on yarn for this project. Really I was.

So, back in… February? At Madrona, I saw this hank of Dicentra targhee that for whatever reason I couldn’t resist. It made no sense at the time. NONE. It was ORANGE! and MAGENTA!, two colors which, honestly, I CAN’T STAND. But I couldn’t walk away from it. It exerted some sort of freaky fiber-power over me, and I had to buy it. The look on Angela’s face spoke volumes, since she knows the colors I like and these? Not on that list. Anywhere.

It took me a while to spin it up, but the Reeves 19″ saxony did a lovely job with it, and I ended up plying it from a center pull ball, and it came out soooo beautifully. And it has languished on top of the basket o’ fiber ever since.

I saw it sitting up there the other night and thought ooh! that would make a lovely panta! So I pulled it down, and got out some needles, and waffled for a bit between making a panta or seeing if I could get a pair of fingerless mitts out of it. I opted, finally, for the panta.

Not only is the panta SOO perfect – it starts orange, and fades gently to MAGENTA at the center, and then, amazingly, PERFECTLY back to orange! Like I planned it that way. And on top of that little bit of joy? I found another skein of it, having totally forgotten that I ended up with two skeins, so I still have plenty for a pair of fingerless mitts! Hooray!

Musta been meant to be…
(batteries are dead, pics to follow)

EDIT: For those that don’t know, a panta is a headband. The pattern that I used was the translation from Crafster, but I think this one might be a better version of it.

I set Sunday aside to find out. And now I know. I now know that it takes me 9.5 hours to crank out a basic sock. I now know that I am even more easily distracted than I thought I was. And I now know that if I sit in one place and knit with 2.25mm needles for 9.5 hours straight that I will a)lose the feeling in my arse and b)not be able to move my fingers the next day.

Today is Wednesday. My hands still hurt. Me am dumb.

But hey! Now I know. And if you want to see a basic sock progress in half hour increments from start to finish, click here. (bump up the pic size and set it for a 1-3 second delay between pictures. – I’m working on getting it animated so it will just run with a timeline at the bottom, but I haven’t gotten that done yet). (and yeah, some of those pics are mighty blurry. sorry.)

The finished sock, with 25% more Hugo!

In my ongoing quest to have every skein of sock yarn I have on the needles (ha!), here are three of my most current socky projects (These are the travelling socks. There are several others that live at the house in various rooms, so that I always have a project at hand):

The third incarnation of the Lisa Souza Sock! in Pacific. First it was an ill-fated slip stitch rib, then it made a valliant attempt to be potamawhateverthehelltheywerecalled, and now Diamond Patch socks from… Heartland Knits? I think that’s it. They’re in the car or I’d go check.

I tried and tried and tried and tried to get the damn camera to pick up the actual colors in this yarn. It’s SOOOO much prettier than what you’re seeing here. Lots of purple in it that doesn’t show up at all. Stupid camera.

Moving on. Here we have the Japanese Feather sock designed for me by my KSKS pal, Jess. I’m digging this pattern and the yarn. This was where I was at with them yesterday morning on the ferry (note the bitchin’ car-interior-photo-studio action I’ve got going), at this point the heel has been turned and I’m almost to the end of the gusset. Woot! Go me.

And, lastly in the sock category, we have the stripey super-plain sock that I work on when there isn’t enough light to do anything else. The lovely wooden sock-in-progress-holder came from John and Dee. I have the rest of their info on a different computer, so if you need one of these (and you KNOW you do), leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll hook you up. They’re VERY sweet people, and the sock holders are soooooo wonderful. I won’t tell you how many of them I have now…

Yes, it’s a sleeve. This is another piece for Melissa – this time the Must Have Cardi in Shaba Green Peace Fleece. I’ll definitely be knitting one of these for myself. It’s about the most mindless pattern, and I really like it. Both knitting it and the way it looks.

And, finally, I’m going to totally break my own rule and talk about something work related. Just because this one had to be shared.

We ordered some new laptops from Dell a few weeks ago, and they showed up yesterday. I had to go out to my car and get my camera just to show you how totally over the top and ridiculous the packaging on these were. Four lappys, four boxes. Gigantic warehouse guy included for scale (he’s standing several feet behind the boxes).

I think that one gives overkill new meaning. At least they weren’t full of styrofoam…

First, and most importantly, the goodies from my Secret Pal:

The finished Booger Socks (pattern to be posted soonish)

The blue stripey socks (yarn from Lara’s bottomless pit of self-striping sock yarn)(and yeah, my legs really are that color – gonna make something of it?):

And, lastly, more Trekking XXL (it’s color 109 for those of you who need to track down the elusive purple Trekking), being turned into a pair of Jaywalkers for my friend Barb:

So there you go.

And no, no pictures yet, but I should be home tonight at a reasonable hour, and will take a picture of (what’s left of) it. There was chocolate (Lindor truffles, which I am powerless to resist, and Hershey’s kisses mmmm), COFFEE (the elixer of life), and, get this, four skeins of Rowan Kidsilk Spray. Four skeins, y’all. Four! And coffee! And chocolate!

On top of that I managed to finish TWO pairs of socks in the last two days. The Booger’s socks are done, I just have to block the second one, and the blue-stripey cotton/wool socks are also done (and comfy! Thanks Lara!).

I’ll take pics of the stuff tonight and get that posted when I get home. Yes indeedy!