Category Archives: aMusing Knits

Tales of my knitting projects

A Morning in the Life of a Well Traveled Sock

aMusing Knits

So here we are at our home away from home, the Hilton Grand Vacation Club on International Drive. We were up on the 8th floor in a 2 bedroom suite with an adjoining studio (total: 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room, dining area, 2 screened porches, and a full kitchen).

And by we, I mean Mom, Dad, Heather, Micah and myself. And the sock.

Wednesday morning, while Dad & Micah went to SeaWorld and Mom & Heather took a day off, the sock and I went to Disney World.

We drove to the Transportation and Ticket Center and caught a ferry over to the Magic Kingdom. The sock really appreciated the view of the Grand Floridian as we passed by.

Our first order of business? A photo op with The Poppins! She was quite taken with the two circs method and hoped to find a pair to add to her magical carpet bag.

After being fondled so gently, the sock was ready for fun. So off we went to Tomorrowland!

Our first ride of the day? We snagged a fast pass for Space Mountain and then trekked over to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin!

I’m afraid the sock didn’t score high enough to beat me though, but to boost its self esteem, I let it chose the next ride. It wanted to see how far we’ve come so off we went to the Carousel of Progress.

Ironically, we made no knitting progress but still enjoyed the show.

We still had time to spare before our Fast Pass for Space Mountain was good, so we padded over to Mike Wazowski’s newest enterprise, The Laughing Floor.

The wait was once again ridiculously short but we were able to pass the time visiting with this lovely tourist.

He wanted to take the sock with him, but I couldn’t let go. Perhaps I should have though, because the sock heard the siren call of Fantasyland and whirled me away to the teacups.

While trying to get a picture of the socks in the cup, I inadvertently took a video of the spinning.

Tea Cups

We staggered onward through Fantasyland towards my favorite ride Peter Pan and somehow ended up in a Small Small World (I blame the tea cups), but with a new Fast Pass for Peter Pan.

Having obtained a new fast pass, we doubled back towards Space Mountain, but we were seduced by the posted 20 minute wait time for Pooh’s Many Adventures. We hopped into line, tigger style. We were even given a red tag to measure our wait time.

Good thing too. The sock was thrilled to finally be in a slow moving line so I knit on it. We got all the way to the heel flap divide before getting into our car.

When we exited, we discovered that the posted wait was 50 minutes. Yep, we spent 50 minutes waiting for Pooh. We were too hungry to face Space Mountain so off to the Harbor House in Liberty Square.

Fish and apple chips, yum!

With a fully tummy, Space Mountain was once again off the table, but the Haunted Mansion was nearby so off we went.

We still had time until we could use our Peter Pan fast pass so we decided to wander over to Adventureland. When we passed the stocks, I just couldn’t resist.

to be continued…

Bring out your dead!

aMusing Knits, Sock Wars III

I came home from work today, confident that I had survived the day. After all, neither Mom nor Dad had called me to tell me a package awaited me.

Seems Mom had not called because she wanted to see my death. Sadistic, isn’t she? Proof indeed that I am my mother’s child. Muahahaa!

On to the package of doom:

Inside, fabulous green and white socks:

How pretty:

And the fit? Heavenly! I never knew death could feel so comfy:

Thank you ever so much, LinuxGurl! I shall package up my sock-in-progress and mail it to you ASAP. I hope you can elude the Knitting Pixie long enough to finish them!

I’m not dead…yet

Sock Wars III

I called home and according to Mom there is not a package of doom awaiting me there (I may live across the street, but I never bothered to change my snail mail so everything goes to my parent’s place). I survived the first Tuesday deaths. Woot, but I may not be long for this war, as I ‘m still on the first sock and the assassin 3 targets back has already sent her finished socks.

I hate the way the pattern is written. I was expecting a fully tested and proofread pattern. The Detonator pattern is not that, but now that I’m making it work, I do enjoy the zig zags it is producing. See for yourself:

sock wars III: sock a

I like this ball of Tofutsies much more than the pink tweedy one I bought so long ago when Peggy, Mary Ellen, Vin, and I met for tea in Cambria. It hasn’t been particularly splitty, and on a smaller needle, I would love the gauge. The colors have striped very well so far, no major pooling.

So I will soldier onward and take aim at The Sparrow!

Current Netflix: Fracture and waiting for Sense and Sensibility (the new BBC version)

Not your grandmother’s knitting

Sock Wars III, ,

Woo hoo! Tomorrow morning at 5am Pacific Time, Sock Wars III finally begins.

I’ll be getting up at 4:00 so I can shower, primp, dress, and log onto the Sock Wars site to print out the pattern and my target’s dossier. I will be knitting by 5:05 am hopefully.

I am not taking the day off work, but I will be knitting during carpool (no worries fellow SLO commuters, I’m not driving), through lunch, and for my 10 minute breaks during the day. I hope to run a few very complex queries that slog my machine so I can whip out the socks.

I’ve got plenty of fluffy movies ready for Saturday, and I’ve extricated myself from most obligations. I’m not planning to knit during church on Sunday morning, but if I’m really behind I might take myself to the AV room so as not to distract others. I think Mom has to work Sunday so no Mother’s Day celebrations to distract from the knitting.

In preparation for battle, I knit up a swatch and got gauge (16 stitches over 2 inches).  My ToFutsies yarn is ready to go. My addi turbo bamboo needles are cleaned and polished and ready to fight to the death!

May the best knitter win!

Dad’s Birthday Presents

aMusing Knits, , , , ,

So for my birthday back in January, Dad bought me some yarn.

birthday yarn from Dad

He then requested that I knit him a hat and scarf from it. Seems the yarn he bought me for Christmas wasn’t manly enough. Which was fine with me since I kept the scarf I knit from it, and I love it (thank you Brenda Dayne, for sharing the pattern)!

So for Dad’s birthday, I cast on for a scarf and a hat. The scarf went quickly thanks to the brilliant Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s One-row scarf pattern.

Dad's scarf

The hat on the other hand…well, I improvised the pattern and had to rip it back many times.

I wanted to give the hat some texture but also keep it simple enough that Dad would wear it with his scarf.

I started with a basic 2 by 2 rib. After an inch, I switched to k2, P2, K2tBL (knit through the back loop).

After 4 inches of knitting, I tried it on Dad’s head. Unfortunately the circumference was just too tight. So I ripped back and cast on with 4 more stitches.

I kept the 2×2 ribbing and decided to try some cables. D’uh! I’m such a blonde. Cables pull in and make things tighter. So once again after 4 inches the hat would not fit.

Back to the frog pond. But having not done cables in like a year, I was determined to cable. So after the 2×2 ribbing on size 8s, I jumped up to 10.5s and did a simple 4 stitch cable over 10 rows, and it finally fit! Cables and all.

Then as I was about to begin the crosses for the 3rd cabling, I noticed that I had mis-crossed a cable on the second crossing.

GGGGGGGRRRRRRRR!

Rather than frogggin’ all the way around, I dropped those 4 stitches, unraveled them to the cross, swapped the crossover and picked all the way back up.

When I was doing my crown decreases, I discovered that I had again mis-crossed a cable on the third cabling. This time, I let it be and called it my Quaker flaw. It’s likely no one will ever notice. Except me. And well, I’ve learned to live with my flaws.

And Dad seems to like it very much. He graciously modeled both the scarf and hat for me:

Dad's Birthday Presents

Dad's Birthday Hat

Current Netflix: Fracture & August Rush