Drive by...

This is going to be short and sweet....

Due to an abundance of fun stuff going on and the inspiring nature of last weeks knitting pilgrimage, I've been doing alot of running around and when I'm not running around I seem to be knitting. Believe it or not, I'd been slacking off on the knitting lately and several weeks have gone by with barely a sock knit. Shocking, I know.

So inspired by last weeks trek and what Emma and others in blogland are knitting, I cast on Icarus from Interweave Knits.

That's one repeat of the first chart, started this morning.. so far it's fun and seemed to fly by...

and I finished one trekking sock and cast on the second....

I've also finished Summer Crossing by Truman Capote. I thought the notes as interesting as this early look at Capote's writing. Just picked up Jpod by Douglas Coupland, so far it's like a dark Microserfs... very Douglas Coupland.

That's it for the drive by blogging, the grill is hot and it's dinner time.

Trek Along with Me!

When I joined the Trek Along With me KAL, I imagined myself taking the sock out to various beautiful parks and scenic spots around home and documenting my progress for the other Trekkers so see.

But then the actual reality of Oklahoma in the summer hit me. It's 105 degrees. It's humid. It's unpleasant in a way that makes the word unpleasant seem inadequate. I don't go trekking to local parks when it's 105 degrees, I stick fairly close to the A/C, being the wilting weenie yankee that I am.

There are exactly two pictures taken of the sock up to yesterday. Pretty, but less than 50 feet from my back door. The whole time I'm taking these I'm contemplating the total cop out that these pictures are and what in the world might have possessed me to consider joining a trek along KAL in Oklahoma in the summer, knowing full well I wouldn't want to trek anywhere in the heat. Until yesterday, yesterday there was a trekking opportunity not to be missed.


















Yesterday, Emma and I took a road trip to see the Yarn Harlot in Oklahoma City. We arrived just in time to get a ticket, so minimal standing in line. WooHoo. Here is a terrible picture of the sock waiting for the Yarn Harlot to arrived...... ( for better pictures hop over to the Prairie Knitter's blog... hers turned out great!)

Here is the Stephanie Pearl McPhee taking pictures or her sock and the crowd for her blog.

She was witty, she was funny, she was clever, she was charming, and she didn't freak out and run from the room when the entire audience broke into a broadway tune, which was a little frightening and funny at the same time.

After the talk she signed books at the Gourmet Yarn Company. ( A lovely shop, I'll have to visit again when it's not packed to the gills with knitters ) Where we chatted with the Prairie Knitter, saw Rosemary and Kay. It was fun to go to a book signing where you actually had something in common with all the other people there, other than an interest in the book someone wrote.

It was a fun evening, and I'm so glad that the OKC knitter's guild, Metropolitan Library system and Gourmet Yarn Co. together to bring Stephanie Pearl McPhee to Oklahoma!

Actual Knitting Content

I was in search of an instant gratification project and read this post by the Yarn Harlot about knitting hats for newborns. I was charmed by this pattern by Knit Chicks that the Harlot linked to and decided to give it a try.... Although I altered the pattern in every possible way.. ( I was determined to use yarn from my stash) I do love the resulting Tomato baby hat.

This was my first project using two colors (with the exception of my festival of trees tree, stripes don't count, and it was a felting project so the tidiness of the color changes was not so important) and I learned some things, both about knitting with two colors and about me as a knitter.

Lesson one is that I am an intuitive knitter. I should have already known that but this project made that very clear. By intuitive, I mean that I do much better when I look at the knitting and do what I think should come next. When I try to slavishly follow a pattern, counting stitches, counting rows, I will lose count. Every time. I finally just paid attention to the knitting and did what should come next. Ah, much better...

Lesson two is that color knitting is not that hard, I do better not trying to work from the whole skein but from smaller amounts of yarn, and that despite the messiness of the inside of the in progress hat, it will look fine once it's done and the ends are woven in. I'm guessing the second try will look even better than the first. No. I'm not going to show you the inside, it isn't perfect...it looks like a first try :)

In other knitting, I've almost finished a pair of Regia socks for my dad, and finished one traveling sock (seen below on vacation earlier this summer). Rogue is waiting patiently for one and 1/2 sleeves. I hope to work on that more when it gets a little cooler and have it ready to wear this fall.

I think there will be more instant gratification, mindless knitting coming up while I'm adjusting to some new changes. I am looking forward to more socks with yarn gifted me by the best group of co-workers ever. Thanks guys, for everything.