this evening, or whenever I pick up the sock again. If you look closely, you will see I've completed one more color repeat.
Yeah, I bought more blue sockyarn. For some reason I was expecting the cascade to be fixation, although, it's clear from the site that it's not. Oh well. It's not quite what I wanted for Yankee socks, but it will make someone nice socks someday. In the upper-right is Regia Surf cotton. That will now be Yankee socks (and I have enough for lots of pairs). The Lily Chin Gramercy is going to be dyed and a lovely pair of DK socks. May wait to see what my KSKS partner likes before final disposition is made.
Still chugging along. Got about one inch to go till I start the toe decreases. Cece is getting about 4 rows longer everyday (each row is nearly 200 stitches). Soon, I will be starting the sleeves. I'll post a pic of that.
I'm so excited. My mom and dad are visiting this weekend. They haven't been down since April. Can't wait for them to see our little man. Wouldn't you want to share this?
Cygknit was my swapper. Didn't she do a great job? Perfect colors for me. Plus, she included some Lindt chocolates. Little sheepy-shaped milk chocolates and one of my favorite white chocolate truffles. No, they didn't make it to the pic. You know you're swapper's been reading your blog when she can tell you what the answer to a meme was from ages ago (I was a tequila sunrise on that cocktail meme way back when).
These skeins went out to my swappee on Saturday. Colors seem pretty accurate. Hope she likes them! I also (well, Hubby and B) mailed out the stockings which I seemed to have neglected to photograph.
My newest sock is going along. I'm in the middle of the slog to the toe. And I did manage a couple of more rows on Cece. I've started the v-neck shaping. A lot of housework was done this weekend (my parents are visiting and we'd reached our dirt-threshold anyway), so not much knitting.
I extended my lunch hour by a few minutes so I could finish up the heel. (Hey, if I'm taking home 2+ hours of work, I can take 10 minutes for a sock.) I've got a little round candle stuck in the heel. Kind of feels like it's looking at you, huh?
Today, after lots of commuter knitting (Cece is my at home knitting), they look like this. Tonight, I start the heel. New technique alert, in-place afterthought heel. (The pattern is the welt chevron sock, sans welts, from Sensational Knitted Socks.)
I can't believe I've not blogged since May 26. Over a week.
Let's see if I can sum up:
Had a great time with the in-laws
Spent a haggard three-day week at work
Fun, baseball-filled weekend in Baltimore with the Hubby
Back to the haggard work thing
However, my last Herrschners order arrived. The colors are a bit wilder on the fluo (white with neon ribbon wrapped around is best way to describe) and the peach cotton cashmere is a bit more khaki. But I'll use them, eventually. I may wait until I know a baby girl before I do anything with the fluo.
Hubby's father's day gift also arrived. That was quick I only ordered it Thursday.
Billy broke my heart this morning. He woke up and cried and cried for Grammy. I think it's the first time I've not been able to comfort him (except, obviously, when I've pissed him off). I nearly cried myself. Guess Hubby and I need to be home a bit, hmmm?
I know it's June and it's supposed to be about blue, but I took this back and May and just took it off my camera today. I'm so glad we bought those washable markers.
Actually, I'll have some blue this week. I need to re-skein my dyeorama yarn and get that out. I'll also be FO'ing a couple of non-blue things. Including stockings (finished the knitting last night) and the beach jacket.
I dyed my last two dye your own skeins last night. Here's a sneak peek. The one on the left is the self-striping. The one on the right I hand painted after I realized how much green and purple I had left and just had to dye. The colors are kool-aid hit with a bit of food color for depth. My grocery store didn't have any green kool-aid left so the green is 1 packet lemonade with about 1/2 packet blue lemonade and a squirt of green food color. Me likey. The blue one the left is two and a half packets of blue lemonade with a couple of drops of food color for depth. The blue on the right is blue food coloring mixed with equal parts water and vinegar. I'm going to overdye the hand painted one tonight. Too much white. I'm going to make a lighter blue and just microwave the whole thing in a dish.
I have decided to work exclusively on the stockings, just to get them done. I'm at the last set of increases before I do the top band. Whew. This has taken a while. I hope to cast on for the second on this week and make some progress over the long weekend. I still might make my goal of mailing by 5/31 (shh, don't disrupt the delusion).
We had a great weekend. I did much knitting on CeCe. I'm really enjoying it. She was great company on the beach Saturday and didn't get nearly as sunburned as I did. I have since realized that I misread the chart. In row 6, I've been K2tog when I'm supposed to be ssk and vice versa. Oh well.
Starting in the upper right and moving clockwise:
This lovely skein was my Mother's Day gift to myself. I've been wanting to start my dyeorama project, but hadn't had the chance. I went with an extremely low-tech warping solution (three dining room chairs lined up) and used three shades of kool-aid. I've got a few things to work on. I was going for a solid stripe (immersed) followed by a more splotchy stripe (painted) then the solid and a different splotch. The purple splotches broke into pink, blue and some purple. The green splotches barely show and my blue solid is way lighter than I had hoped for. Obviously, I really screwed up the purple (was the yarn too wet or too dry). I used too much water on the green stripes and should have made a more concentrated dye bath for the blue (which was immersed not painted). It's pretty, but not what I was expecting. Can't wait to try again.
So, I took Yarngirl's advice from yesterday's comments and bought a pattern to jump start the knitting mojo. I'm going to knit ChicKnit's CeCe in some TLC Cotton Plus I've had in my desk for a while. I was going to use it for The Perfect Sweater that was being Future Searched over at Mason Dixon, but that pattern hasn't come along, yet. I've got 12 balls, which is enough yardage for a CeCe and a Chickami (12 x 186 = 2232 yards). I will be lengthening the body some. The current length is just enough to highlight one of my figure flaws. Now, to find the needles.
So, I didn't touch the green aran all weekend. But, I have done a few rows. You can definitely see progress on the second repeat.
night, but the gauge was tighter than I had calculated for, so I ripped and re-started Saturday. I got it finished Saturday night. The second's been lollygagging around since Sunday morning.
Not much knitting done yesterday. I spent a lot of my commute ripping out a row
and a half because I thought I knew what the next row of the pattern was going to be and I was wrong. Oh well. I don't think I'll get much done this weekend. I'm not really feeling the love for this thing. I'm nearly done the first repeat of the large motif and the picture on the model shows I only have to do five more. I need to check the body length to see if it will be okay for Hubby's disproportionately long torso. Good thing I don't have to finish this in May.
Here's my progress on the green aran. All those cables cables crossing every right-side row sure slows me down. But, so far Hubby's very pleased with it. He wasn't quite sure why I was working on that when his mom's birthday is coming before St. Paddy's day (we won't 
mention that I've never been late with a knitted gift for his parents). I explained that May is Green and that's why. Here's a closer look at some of the cables.
last night after I ironed some shirts for Hubby and while watching NCIS and Blow Out. No, I don't usually watch those two things. I don't have regular Tuesday viewing, but the Yankees were rained out in Boston.
Here is the first two inches of ribbing for Hubby's Green Aran. Yeah, I know, very original. I'll start the cabling tonight. I worked a little bit on the boy's beach jacket, but still a ways to go. I'm still not 100% sure what the edging is going to be. Great thing about top-down, it's easy to replace the edging.
I finished the broadripples last night. I'm wearing them today. They're very snuggly and bright. I think I need to go down a size and cast on more stitches in the future. I also need to figure out how to eliminate ladders when working on DPNs. Any suggestions? (I keep meaning to look in my sock books, but I'm so brain fried when I get off the bus that it doesn't happen.) I definitely recommend the Cascade fixation. Next time, I'm going even shorter on the leg. I like little crew socks for the summer.
I'm thinking Kelly). I might be crazy, though, knitting a seed stitch and cabled sweater in 100% cotton. My hands might hate me before I finish. Or maybe not, swatching wasn't a problem yesterday and I'll have to knit on the wedding stockings anyway. And maybe some other socks.
So, the broadripples have become the commute knitting of choice.
We're knitting in Father Fagan Park this afternoon (so long as it's warm enough), so I should be able to get from here (posing with it's completed, fraternal twin) to finished by the end of April.
I did separate out for the sleeves of the beach jacket on Friday's ride home. I finished up the body yesterday and my Devils game knitting was the first sleeve. I'm about three inches in and it's a pain! I wish I knew where my US7 DPNs were. This two circs things not cutting it for me with this yarn at this gauge and diameter. Oh well, the good thing is the sleeves keep getting smaller when knit from the top down.
So, I guess a joiner bug hit me. Not only did I formalize my participation in Project Spectrum, I signed up for Scout's Dye-O-Rama. I think it was just an excuse to buy more Kool-Aid and plain sock yarn. Yep, first thing this morning I placed an order at Knitpicks.com. I was thinking of going elsewhere, but I'm not sure of the deadlines and stuff and I figured they'd get me my order faster than some other places.
I've signed up for Project Spectrum. I figured since I've done the orange-overload this month and am planning on following the colors through the end of the project, I should sign up. (I got a nice nudge from Anny Purls about it, too. I think that's my longest comment ever!)
Speaking of orange overload, I've been working on this since Wednesday night. Nice little raglan jacket, knitted from the top down in that Portofino Souffle I ordered last week. It arrived on my desk Tuesday and I couldn't wait to get started. Only a couple more rows and I separate out for the sleeves. Good thing, too. This is getting way too long for the needle. I'm up in the air about how I'm going to finish it, ribbing, zipper, hood?
I finished the first broadripple over the weekend. I think I kitchenered the toe Friday night. What a fun little sock. I cast on for number toe yesterday. 
I've been stashing a bit of fabric. I'm a sucker for the remnants pile at Joann's and usually grab something everytime I'm there. These happy stripes were from my last trip. I just loved all the printed grosgrain ribbons they had, too. I thought the daisies and stripes were just fun together.
In other orange news, I ordered some of this from Elann yesterday. In parrot orange of course. It's going to be a little raglan cardi for the B for the spring/summer/hot early fall whilst he can't wear his Ronan. It looks snoogly.
finished the knitting of the first stocking. I'm going to wash it, lace it, and send it up to the bride-to-be for a try on. No sense in knitting two that don't fit!
Of course I got the usual "I thought you weren't going to buy anymore yarn" comment from the Hubby last night when he saw the Herrschner's box. Of course, as soon as he saw it was inexpensive cotton yarn for his sweater, he changed his tune.
I've reached the leg portion on the stockings. I can't believe I'm posting a picture of my unshaved leg on the Internet. Please don't look too closely at the exposed calf. Good thing no one else is here when I get in.
I've knitted pattern 2 to 3" as the instructions specify. I guess that means I'm past the ankle. Now, I start to knit flat. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my US4 circs with me today. Oh dear, I guess that means it's a trip to Purl at lunch for some clover circs (if they have them). I don't think addis will work (too slippery for the soft cotton and not pointed enough for the k2tog and skp). I guess I could go with straights (ewwww, I haven't knitted with straights in years).
I did my first short-row heel last night, twice. Of course, it's not a true short-row heel. With the fishnets, you don't wrap the slipped stitches. The holes really are design elements. Tonight, I start the leg! I did it twice because I forgot to do the set-up rows (gives you stockinette before the short-rows start) and then I reversed a little incorrectly. A neat little trick. I must do it again (well, other than on the second stocking).
