More happy stuff

Goodies in the mail
The Fall issue of Interweave Knits was waiting for me when I got home today. With the exception of the "Rule of Three" section, I loved just about every pattern. What a great issue!

Eyelet Socks
I had hoped to finish my 2nd sock by the end of the month (ahem, that would be tomorrow) but it's quite obvious that won't happen since I'm just a little into the leg of the toe-up sock. My new goal is to finish by August 7th because I want to use the needles to cast on for my...

European knitting!!
Ahh, can't wait! By the way, the yarn for my travel socks arrived last week and is fabulous. --> I can't decide if I want to make it into Hedgerow or Sunday Swing so have printed out both patterns to put in my suitcase. The second project will--as of now--be a "No-Daisy" Daisy cardigan for my little nephew Nicholas.

I've also checked out some guidebooks for Spain & France and have been perusing them a bit when I can. :D

Won something
I won the Bluebird shawl from Romi. It's so beautiful and I have to decide what yarn to use. Woo hoo!

Knitting for Europe

I'm going to Europe next month and am already starting to think what knitting I want to bring along.

Since my current sock project will be done by then, I'll need another small & portable project for my carry-on. I decided on Hedgerow and bought some Blue Label Fingering Weight yarn in the Peacock Colourway. That's a nice I'm-on-the-French-Riviera color, right?

I'll have to pack something else, too. Muir? A baby cardigan? A baby blanket? Hmmm...I'll try not to get carried away. ;)

Happy stuff

This is the little peanut who got my knitted baby blanket. Nicholas arrived yesterday and is absolutely perfect. :) I'm mildly obsessed with him already so I'm sure he'll be the recipient of many knits--I already have one as #1 in my queue.

In knitting news, I'm about 1/3 of the way through with the 2nd sock. We hit a ton of traffic going to see Nicholas today and I could have gotten about 4 hours (!) of knitting done in the car but was too excited to concentrate on the pattern. I'll knit on it some more over the weekend and will hopefully be done with it by the end of the month.

socks and rambling

The university where I work always closes for six Fridays during the summer. It's fabulous to have three-day weekends but you have to work four long days (with short lunches) in order to avoid taking vacation time. It's a pet peeve of mine that library faculty have to do this but subject faculty do not. Let's not go there. I'm telling you this because it means that I do very little knitting during "summer hours." I have just enough time to eat and do a little something--like listen to the radio or read a few pages of my book (which is, right now, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini rather than my thesis work. shh!).

Anyway, this week we don't have to make up Friday's hours because we have Friday off as a holiday. Ahh, the luxury of having a normal lunch, an extra hour of sleep, and a few more minutes to myself at the end of the day. I was hoping I'd make some good progress on my knitting but today was the first time in 1.5 weeks that I picked up my needles.*

I did the beginning of sock #2's toe before leaving SC and then avoided the project because I was unhappy with how loosely I'd knitted the four stockinette rows and didn't want to face the CO again. Today at lunch, I ripped out what I had, re-CO, and finished about 3/4 of the toe increases. Not bad. Tomorrow I should be able to start the foot.


Just so there are some pictures in this post: Hazel now (almost 6 mos) & then (just over 2 mos)

*Monday was a beautiful day so I read outside at lunch, successfully avoiding the second sock. At night, the neighborhood dogs had an impromptu play date and I spent the rest of the evening with Hazel, who was getting spayed the next day. On Tuesday I didn't do any lunchtime knitting because I was preparing for an important meeting and at night I sat around the living room watching Hazel spacily look around, fight off sleep, and sleep. I felt so bad for her and am glad she's pretty much herself today. Poor little thing.