I hope you’re all sitting down… oh wait, you’re at your computers. It should be ok.

Yay, KnittyMama! She actually got a decent picture of me from Wednesday night. 🙂 (Please note that I’ve been updating yesterday’s post with links to people’s pictures and tales as they’re available.)

Twitching about the upcoming Harry Potter book release? Maybe participating in the Hogwarts Sock Swap will help distract you for the next several months. You have until April 30 to join.

You can sign up for Jennie’s Sound Swap until April 11. However, number of participants is limited, so sign up early!

Julia is having a contest a day for the next week. Check in each day to see what the new contest is! Winners will be selected randomly on Friday, April 13.

Question for Those in the Twin Cities
Does anyone know where I could take an ASL class in the area?! The Minneapolis Community Ed class I was signed up for was canceled (even though it still appears on their website). I’m not interested in taking a college level course (even just auditing). Thanks for any leads!

Pet Food
Obsidian Kitten has some great posts about making your own pet food – definitely something to think about in the light of recent events.

Jeanne turned me on to a good blog for tracking the current pet food issue, as well as others that come up.

Knitting Update
Ready for a bit of color shock? I’ve been working on Project Spectrumesque socks that are a bit different than my usual colors, but this week has been so crazy, I haven’t had a chance to blog about them until now. You might’ve seen this first sock in some of the pictures from Wednesday night – it’s a plain stockinette sock, knit from Regia Crazy Colors. This sock has some black and purple in addition to the pink and red, so it isn’t too much of a stretch. (The purple bag with black cats on it was made by Trek!)

“I am much cuter than the kitties on the bag, of course. Oh, Addis – my favorite!” -M

The next sock is quite a bit further outside of my usual color range…

“Addis, Addis, tasty tasy Addis…” -M

That’s Sundara’s sock yarn in Bird of Paradise, the most recent colorway in the Petals Collection. Initially I tried a garter rib, because I wanted to avoid the less stretchy slip stitch rib in the pattern that came with the yarn. However, the garter stitch broke up the colors way too much. Here’s a shot of the sole (stockinette) – imagine this with much, much more color choppiness.

“Are you going to eat that entire Addi, May? Maybe you could save a little nibble for me?” -C

So I conceded that Sundara knew what she was doing, using slip stitches to pull the alternating rounds of color together. I didn’t use the same ribbing as in the pattern; instead, I decided to use R1: *K1, slip 1 (as if to purl), K1, P1*; R2: *K3 P1*. I like it. A lot. And I’ll probably try a variation of this ribbing on other socks in the future – as long as I remember to make my sock heel deeper to compensate for the slight loss in stretchiness.

34 thoughts on “I hope you’re all sitting down… oh wait, you’re at your computers. It should be ok.”

  1. Oooo, cool funky colours! I love it! Are those the socks you had Stephanie hold up in your pictures? I always say – go funky on the sock yarn, because most of the colours I could never wear. 😀

  2. What a fun evening with all of those knitters. Your socks are looking good and I took your advice on the slipped rib pattern too. Have a good weekend.

  3. I love the Regia socks! Of course you knew I would…. what number are they? I can dream.

    But those Sundara socks… yowza! Outside your range AND gorgeous to boot. Slipped stitch rib. I’ll have to try that.

  4. Chaos, are you going to let that little snip of an adolescent steal all your blog picture time and your Addis? Shame on you.

  5. Cooooool Sundara socks!!

    I learned a lesson with my current socks…I don’t like the addi natura as much for socks…the join seems rougher and I have to tug the yarn a bit to get it over…oh well, now I know!

  6. I love the Sundara yarn. Those are coming out so cool!

    I got sucked into the Hogwarts sock swap. What better way to spend the time before the book is released?

  7. Ooo, I like the sock a lot too. I know pooling usually is bad, but I really love the way Sundara’s colors are coming together. The slip stitch ribbing helps pull it together too. Nice job, can’t wait to see them finished!

  8. Wow that bird of paradise yarn really has an interesting stripe effect with that stitch pattern! Thanks for showing us (and making my head turn to the side as I looked at it and make Mark go ‘what are you doing?’)

  9. This last month or so, I’ve been SO glad that I make Chappy’s food already! What a nightmare . . .

    Not your sock, though. That looks fabulous!

  10. Sounds like you all had a fabulous time with Stephanie!! I heard her in MA at the last go-round and it was so fun to be around other people who *understand.* 🙂

    I love Sundara sock yarn — I’ve never had the privilege of knitting with it, but I love looking at it on the blogs and hope to have my own someday.

  11. Another St Paul knitter here. You might try St Kate’s. I know they teach ASL, and they let community members into some classes.

    Nice socks!

  12. Oooh I like the Bird of Paradise… it looks springy. Is that an oxymoron – springy socks? I guess not for Minnesota.

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