Happy Halloween!

So tonight we attempted a redo of last year’s funtimes (scroll down to Nov. 1 if you're seriously interested)… grilling, trick-or-treators, and wine. It was a ball. The guys are still here playing Madden and I'm online procrastinating....

Although once again the trick-or-treating was less than steller (we had about 6 kids total) at least this year there was no homeless guy with a story about his grandma in a car under a bridge begging for five dolla. Jill and I did make a kick ass apple pie... and really if there's a pie involved goodtimes are sure to be had by all.



Anyways....I’m going to be MIA for awhile b/c tomorrow I leave for the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference in Pittsburgh. I won’t be back until Sunday (in time to watch football, of course) Hey, speaking of football… right now the Browns and the Steelers have the same record! It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. And actually it’s about the only thing that makes living with a Steelers fan during a losing season tolerable.

Ok. I seriously do have to pack now.

Happy Halloween!!!

Boring life = Boring blog

Well Life in Cleveland had been really boring for most of October… our trip to the Fingerlakes was wonderful but then we had to ground ourselves for awhile b/c we spent waaay too much money on wine. Then the next weekend we were both sick… so yeah….I hadn’t been out in forever. Like a month. That’s a really, really long time for us. Boring life, Boring blog.

So anyways I wanted to spice up the boring blog with some pictures from the costume party we went to Sat night… but sadly I took about two sips of a citron cosmo, remembered how much Jeanne likey the vodka and forgot about my camera (and about pretty much everything else in the world except for dancing to the kick-ass cover band). Hopefully Jennifer will post some pics soon (hint, hint)!

Instead I’ll just share with you some photos that my dad took of the lake on Saturday… apparently there were 4 ft. waves inside of Edgewater Marina. 4 footers are pretty common on the lake but inside the marina?! That’s insane. A lot of the boats were damaged but luckily my dad’s was ok.

Some Boring Math... and socks!

Ok so basically I found out that knee socks are knit like anything else with shaping… just increase until it’s big enough to fit. I did the math anyways 'cause I'm a little OCD like that.

The Boring Math:
The sock circumference at my ankle (meaning what I’ve already knit) is 8". My calf measures around 15"ish (told you it was freakish) but I need some negative ease so I’ll say 14"ish. So I need to increase 6" (14" – 8"). At a gauge of 8 st/inch that means that I need to increase 48 stitches (6" x 8).

I probably should have started the increases much, much earlier… but since I didn’t and I don’t want to rip back I just measured from the top of my current knitting until the widest part of the freakish calf. That measurement is 4". So if my row gauge is 12, that means I have 48 (4" x 12rows/inch) rows left.

This means that I have to increase by 48 stitches in 48 rows…. So I either increase once every row or twice every other row.


Now what does it mean for the ribbing? There is a purl ridge centered on the back of my sock so I first though I would increase on either side of that every other row…. which would looks something like this..

Increasing on either side of the center purl ridge

I like how I can just add in ribs when I’ve increased by enough stitches…but it seems like I’m doing a lot of increasing in one place… this could look really dramatic and the last thing I want to do is call attention to the freakish calf. Perhaps if it was spaced out over more rows.

So then I thought about pairing increases on either side of the leg… which would look like this...

Increasing on either side of the leg:
That I liked… not so dramatic but with the same amount of increase over the same amount of rows.

So here’s what it looks like in sock form:



Sweet. Now I just have to figure out the cuff!

Have a great weekend… and if you happen to be a Stampers for their Halloween party Sat. night I’ll probably see you there!

Knee highs?

So I’ve reached that magical point where my sock is as tall as the foot:


This is supposed to be where the sock is done… but I still have all of this yarn left:


Seriously.... waaay too much yarn to just leave:


So I’m thinking knee-highs…. All I have to do is increase to fit my freakishly large calves right? And then just continue as planned with the knitting until I run out of yarn? But I have to somehow increase within the ribbing pattern....Hmmm…. I think some googling and perhaps even a little sketching is in order. I’ll let you know what I find out.

In other news if you’re an Office fan like we are you can now watch every single episode online Here. Or you could watch Buffy or even the sadly cancelled Arrested Development. Goodstuff.

Strep.

So thanks so much for all of your nice comments on my Odessa! I’m sorry I’ve been MIA on returning the emails but I’ve been housebound with strep throat… Seriously. Haven’t had that since I was 10… ugh. I’ve spent the better part of four days now in a heap on the couch watching really, really bad tv (if there’s bad TRL on I have no will power… I haven’t seen Trading Spaces in years and it’s nice to know Hilde still sucks).

I’ve also been obsessing over this sock:


Knit out of Lorna’s Laces Shepard sock in Desert Flower on size 1 needles… toe up… using a heel flap and the rib pattern from Thuja.

I’m going to go take my antibiotic and go back to bed now… tomorrow I make my triumphant return to the world of the living (meaning work).

Hope you had a better weekend than I did!

Sunday in Odessa

K so after the sock issue I decided to go back to knitting something a little more flexible with the gauge thing…like a charity hat!
Pattern: Odessa from Magknits – I saw a super-cute one of these on In Knitting News a long, long time ago and have been wanting to knit one since then.

Timeline: I cast on a few weeks ago when I was going through a beading not blogging phase… and then didn’t really look at it much until yesterday.

Modifications: none, really (is this a first?)

Yarn: about half of a ball of Cotton Ease that the groups Caps for the Cure was kind enough to send me. I think I may even still have enough left to knit another hat out of the same ball!

The verdict: Knitting with beads is fun but a giant pain in the butt. Stringing them sucked a lot. But the hat is soooo worth it. I love it. It’s cute, it’s funky, it was a semi-mindless knit. Great pattern. It will be hard to send this one away!