I finished my first Pave Sock, so Anne was able to publish the pattern. It’s really a wonderful sock. It fits perfectly, in fact, I don’t think any of my socks fit as nicely as this one. I haven’t started on the second one yet because I thought I would give a few of my other projects a bit of love since they all were neglected while I worked on Pave. I really enjoyed test knitting for Anne, I hope she asks me to test knit something else soon.

I’m hoping to finish up a few projects soon. I’ve got my eye on a couple of patterns and would love to start on them. This is one of them, and this is another.

I’m beginning to get geared up for spring. We are reworking some of our flower beds, which I’m really excited about. I can’t wait to work on my herb garden.

We’ve watched a few really good movies recently. Here are the ones I recommend most (in no particular order):

The Namesake

Mr. Brooks (which I am proud to say was filmed in my city)

Notes on a Scandal

Stardust

Evan Almighty

Seriously…watch these movies.

I’m still working on my blog, but it’s getting to where I want it. There were a few glitches with my import from Blogger; some of my posts lost the pictures that went with them. I was a little miffed at first, but it really doesn’t matter because you can view all of my pictures on my flickr account.

I’ve been working really hard on my Pave Sock for Anne. It’s coming along really well, I’m 1 pattern repeat away from the heel. My picture is a bit out of date since it was taken when my Pave was a wee baby.

I’m working on Pave exclusively so I can get it done for Anne in a timely manner, but I do have several other projects on the back burner.

I really enjoyed making my Pomatomus mitts, so I decided that I would make a pair of Pomatomus socks. And, I just so happened to have the perfect yarn in my stash. You can also find Dani’s yarn at her new store: Sunshine Yarns. Her yarns are gorgeous, and really nice to knit with.

I bought some Dexter inspired sock yarns from dharmafey. I decided to use the Dexter colorway to make another pair of Bellatrix socks.

This one is hibernating until I finish the Pave Socks because I had to grab my US 0 needles off it. It’s currently too embarrassed of it’s needle nakedness to have a picture taken of it, so it is hiding shyly behind its ball of yarn.

In between all these socks, I’ve been working on a Chevron Scarf. It’s a mellow knit that is good for when I’m too tired to think about charts and lace, or for TV knitting.

And last but not least, my poor neglected Honeybee. This picture is proof that I have at least worked on it a little.

I have no idea what my hang up is on this one. I don’t have any problems with the pattern, and when I actually work on it, I enjoy it. I just don’t reach for it that much. Maybe I like the instant gratification of socks and mitts.

I dug up this picture of my cats.  It’s several years old now, but I still love it.

Phew…..I finally decided to move my blog into a new home. It’s been really confusing. I feel like I’ve searched through a thousand menus, but I’m getting there.

I did manage to take pictures yesterday, as promised, but I decided to wait to post them because of the move.

Now I’m exhausted, so I’m going to bed.

My plan this entire week was to take pictures of my knitting today, and wouldn’t you know it, I wake up this morning to rain. Not just sprinkling rain, it was torrential downpour type rain accompanied by house shaking thunder (our house is on pier and beam…so it’s a little bit easier to shake). There goes my lighting. But, I will take pictures today. I am tired of not having pictures of my knitting. I have 5 WIPs (yes 5, and yes, I have absolutely lost my mind), and all of them need pictures. I also have two FOs that need pictures, but I may wait until a sunny day to do that because lets face it, pictures of FOs need to be perfect. Its been a couple of hours since the rain has stopped, so I’m waiting to see if a little sunshine pokes through this afternoon. If not, you will have cloudy, poorly lit pictures of gorgeous knitting.

I’m going to wait until I have pictures to talk about most of my WIPs, but I have one that I can’t wait any longer to talk about. Since Anne linked to my blog when she was talking about it, I figured now would be a good time. So, here goes…
Tuesday the (12th) which just so happened to be my birthday, I checked my email to find one waiting from Anne asking me to test knit her new Pave Sock. This was one of the best birthday presents I could have gotten. I immediately replied that I would. Seriously, it’s one of Anne’s patterns, I would have said yes even if she emailed me asking if I would test knit a doggie doo themed sock (although I might knit that for the novelty of it). Fortunately the Pave Sock is far from doggie doo, it’s the same stitch pattern as her Paris-Roubaix set. I spent most of that day at work thinking about what yarn I would use. It was a toss up between two of Sunshine Yarns colorways: Gillyweed and Snape. I’m sorry I can’t give individual links to each of them, they are both sold out on her site, and you can’t click on the pictures of sold out items. They are both about halfway down on the first sold out page. I finally decided on Gillyweed because the waves in the pattern sort of reminded me of seaweed, and I love green. Plus, Anne was using a blackish color, so I wanted to use something completely different. When I’m looking for a pattern, I love seeing it knit in lots of different colors, it gives you a really good idea of what the pattern will be like. Anne started knitting it much quicker than I did (I swear, she must knit at the speed of light), and she realized that the stitch pattern turned out completely different than she thought, beautiful, but different. It really doesn’t look much like the Paris-Roubaix set at all. Its much tinier, which you wouldn’t think would make a difference, but it did. We both did some knitting and comparing. She ended up reworking the stitch pattern to get the same effect as the Paris-Roubaix set, and now there are two patterns. You can read more about it in her blog post for today (she even has pictures). I am knitting the reworked one that isn’t so tiny, and Anne is knitting the tinier version…..actually, she is probably knitting both. I will keep you updated (with pictures) on my progress. I promise, if I only take one picture today, it will be of the Pave Sock.

Now, for something completely new, I’ve decided to try my hand at spinning. I’ve been wanting to for a while, but I’ve been too intimidated. Mike got me a learn to spin kit with a drop spindle, roving, and a book on learning to spin for Christmas. It sat on my shelf taunting me for a month or so before I finally decided to just do it. It’s been….interesting. I’m really awkward and I get really frustrated, but I do have some some lumpy twisted up fiber on my spindle which I think counts as yarn, so I guess I’m learning. Of course awkward and frustrated did not stop me from buying these gorgeous spindles. And I joined Spunky Ecletic’s fiber club to keep myself inspired and stocked with roving. I’m having trouble with drafting. I feel like I’m doing it wrong, but I guess I could be doing it right and I’m just not used to it. Any advice or links are appreciated along with links to gorgeous roving.

I’m sure everyone has decided that I’ve disappeared forever, but I haven’t…..I promise. I just got back from a huge oil and gas convention that my company attended. It’s the biggest oil and gas convention all year. I took all my knitting with me in hopes of getting a ton done, but I didn’t get to knit at all while I was there. We worked so hard at the convention that I was absolutely exhausted in the evenings. I was too tired to even think about knitting….that’s really tired. It was fun, and we got to do a ton of marketing, but I am really glad to be home. It’s nice to relax. Hopefully now I will be able to post more. The convention was only a couple of days, but we have been preparing for it for months. My department hasn’t done much work on it, but my husband’s department (yes we work together) put pretty much everything together. Basically since Christmas my husband has been working late nights and weekends to get everything wrapped up. It’s been really stressful.

Hopefully you will get a knitting post out of me soon. Maybe even one with pictures!