Half a bottle of super-concentrated dish soap + My living room carpet = The largest flooring mess I’ve seen since my sister and I spilled a large container of magenta tempra paint when we were in elementary school.
This would also be the day that I dropped 90% of a batch of cookie dough on the kitchen floor. Yesterday was definitely not a good day.
First, I am absolutely adoring the October Rockin’ Sock Club pattern, Lenore. Just take a look at this completely inadequate photo:
The lace is unblocked, and the colors are very difficult to capture with a photograph (especially with a cheap camera and a very very makeshift “studio”), but I have not loved a sock pattern this much…ever.
Casting on for this was my reward for finishing the unending Grasshopper socks, and it was worth it. The lace at the top of the sock was fun and not difficult at all, even when a YO fell at the end of the DPN, even though the author (Stephanie Pearl McPhee, the Yarn Harlot!) notes that it may be. The colors of the yarn are gorgeous and subtly shift from black to red with occasional ventures into plum. There will definitely be more of the Raven line in my future.
Second, a podcast I’ve had in iTunes forever but have just started listening to: Escape Pod. Excellent science fiction delivered to your podcatcher of choice weekly.
I may not mention it often, but I really love podcast novels. I grew up reading voraciously, but physical books don’t mesh well with knitting (unless it’s textbook sized, or I figure out a really clever way to keep it open) or housework, or a great many other things. In the next few days (I hope), look for a sidebar list of some of the ‘casts I’ve really enjoyed.
I’ve been meaning to post for a week or so, but unexpected bad news had me down for quite awhile.
Springwater Fiber Workshop, in Alexandria, is closing, unless they can gather enough in pledges to stay open. This breaks my heart, as it’s an organization that’s grown important to me over my short acquaintance with them. I learned to spin there, and I’ve been working on my agoraphobia, going to some of the knitting and spinning group meetings there. I really hope they manage to find a way to stay around.
In actual Tina-knitting activity, there are two projects that have been finished for a great deal of time that need blogged, and one I just finished. First, my favorite:
The Imperial knit hat for TD-0013. This was a fun project, and I got some practice in knitting in the English fashion – I’m usually a continental knitter. I wasn’t completely happy with the finished product, however. It’s too tall, and I’m thinking of reknitting it in a fingering weight on smaller needles. It would change the charts, but I could compensate for that, and I think it would look better overall.
I also wish I had a better photo, but I mailed this out in October (yeah, I’m a bad blogger), so all I have is a blocking shot. I need to work out a better way to block hats, but I so rarely knit them. I seem to be a sock girl, through and through.
Next we have a pair of socks I finished last month, the Summer of Love 
Lace socks from Blue Moon Fiber Art’s Rockin’ Sock club. I accidentally “modified” the first sock and left out the inch of plain stockinette after the ribbing, so I matched it on the second sock, so I didn’t have to rip out the first sock.
Incidentally enough, the third (and just finished) project is the April sock from the club, Knee High to a Grasshopper.
This was not my favorite knitting. I will admit it now. It was at times tedious and frustrating, and only stubbornness got me through the first sock. After that…well, one sock isn’t very useful, so more stubbornness got me through the second. I’m not a fan of toe-up socks, and learned with this one that I’m also not a fan of socks knitted on two circulars. But trying new things is why I joined the club in the first place, so I have another pair of socks that I wouldn’t normally have chosen to knit. I can’t love them all.
So…now I can start on the October sock. I’m actually…*gasp*…more or less caught up with the club. I know, we’re all amazed.