SOCKS, SOCKS, SOCKS!

I have decided to spend this year working mainly on my sock techniques and using sock yarns that I have never used before. We all get stuck using the same yarns and patterns over and over again - I certainly have.
My family loves my homemade socks and every year they expect socks galore for Christmas! So I have plenty of feet to cover with my sock knitting. There are only so many sweaters and afghans that this family wants or needs - so sock it will be. I am very fortunate that all the women in my family wear a size 10 shoe and all the men wear a 12.5. I knit male or female socks and at Christmas go through my sock stash and decide who gets which socks! So here I go with my experiment and will let you know which books, sock yarn, and needles have made a successful or unsuccessful pair of socks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARLING DAUGHTER....

I remember bringing this darling little baby girl home from the hospital. An armful of joy and the sweetest baby ever! During one of our middle of the night feedings, I was listening to the radio and Stevie Wonder's song "Isn't She Lovely" came on. I cried like a baby because she was the most beautiful thing I could ever have imaginged. Now look at her - successful businesswoman, almost through her masters degree, happily married, home owner, and about to be the mother of her very own beautiful baby girl.
Dear Lyndsay,
Of all the dreams I dreamed for you - you have far exceeded them all. You are my pride and joy and I could not have a better friend and daughter. So many great things will come your way and this year, Ruby Grace, will fill your life with love and happiness.
Love Mom

MEET RUBY GRACE!

Darling Daughter had her ultrasound last week and we are having a grandaughter! Oh how joyful - I can hardly wait to meet her! She is due on June 16 and I am knitting and sewing as quick as possible so that I can spend all my time with her.

A DREAM COME TRUE!

I can't believe it!

It is just too good to be true!

The news is just too much for one person to handle!

I'M GOING TO BE A GRAMMY!!!!!!!!

SOOOOO MUCH SNOW!

We still have tons of snow here in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire - some of the snow banks in our front yard are over 10 feet high! All this snow has left me feeling that spring will never come and feeling like tomorrow is April Fools day instead of the first day of spring!


Girl's Best Friend Anklets from Knit Picks was a great sock to knit. I used Essential yarn from Knit Picks, a smooth rich yarn that was a nice tight guage on size 1 needles. Also a great pick for some plain old straight knitting without having to follow a fancy pattern all the way to the toe.
This picture does not do these gorgeous socks justice. The blue is a deep luxurious steel blue and the pattern is so pretty!








These socks are Fiber Trends Angel's Rest Socks. I used Tofutsies bamboo yarn on size 1 needles. A simple repeat pattern with a fair outcome.
I am not too sure about the bamboo yarn.. I have another skein from a different brand that I am working on right now. I hope they turn out better than these. This bamboo yarn is rough on the hands and not particularly soft to the toes. Oh well - live and learn!







The good old Thuja pattern from Knitty.com made from a KnitPicks yarn for darling son. I made him a great pair for Christmas and gave him directions on how to wash them by hand but somehow they ended up felted after being thrown in with his regular laundry! I finally get him to wear hand made socks and he felts them! Hope he likes these

Okay....... so in the knitting scheme of things I am unable to part with any decent piece of yarn - no matter how small. I was organizing my stash and kept coming across all of these little balls of sock yarn - guess darling grandbabies will have plenty of matching socks with Grandma!! HEE HEE!

These are size 6 months baby socks made from some leftover Lorna's Lace sock yarn. OOOOOH so soft and sweet!

For those of you who have e-mailed me about my lack of posts - I am sorry. My mom suffered a stroke at the end of Janruary and driving back and forth to her Neuro Rehab Center and taking care of her needs has left me without much time for anything except migraines and work. I really should be working on a work related project right now but my head just isn't in the game. No migraine today and it is snowing again - maybe I will stay in my jammies and knit all day!

LOTS OF WINTER KNITTING GOING ON!

I am so glad to finally be done with all of the Christmas knitting -- I can finally get back to knitting for the grandbaby trousseau and pick projects out of the blue to keep my lap warm on a cold winters night! We have had so much snow this last month, I think that we won't see the gardens until July!
In my typical yarn-aholic fashion, I have amassed great quantities of Encore Worsted yarn. I don't know how it happened but it did. So I have set out to find patterns for kids and babies using my stash. I found this great pattern called "Grandma's Raglan" at The Elegant Ewe in Concord, NH. It has sizes children's 1 thru adult size XXL. So I dug into my stash of Encore and pulled out some plum and white to knit up this adorable size 2 kids sweater with stars. Cute sweater, easy to follow directions, and a way to use up some of my Encore stash - What more could a gal want?
I visited a specialty yarn store last summer and found this gorgeous hand spun silk. I bought the last 2 skeins with no idea what would become of it but just had to have it!
Lucky for me, as I was going through my Christmas knit list (those people that I love very much and appreciate the fact that these items took me days to make) I thought that this would be perfect for a scarf for my good friend, Gloria. She loved it! It is just her style and she wears scarves every day.
I used a pattern from the Yarn Harlots blog from October of 2006. I had used this pattern once before and had fallen in love with it!

IT WAS A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS!

It was a wonderful Christmas after all. December was an awful month with the death of my father and our son being hospitalized. It turned out that by Christmas our son was home and we were all ready to have a very merry day. All of the turmoil and grief was placed aside and we followed through on all of our usual family traditions with much joy.
Hubby fell in love with a sweater that I had knit for myself a year ago and just had to have one for himself. He even wanted the same exact yarn!- only he chose a different color. (This was the hardest knit I have ever done because I hated the colors and the whole thing was just knitting with size 6 needles!) He loved it and has been wearing it nonstop since he opened it on Christmas day.
A Kangaroo pouch sweater from The Purl Stitch book. A simple in the round knit with this great pocket for keeping hands warm. Made from a cotton blend yarn - Sirdar Aran. Too much straight knitting for me - I am back to cables and fair isle for a while to hold my interest!
This is the Kangaroo pocket sweater that I made for myself a year ago. I love it and wear it all the time!

Thuja socks from Knitty.com. My favorite pattern for men's socks! A simple knit with just a little design to them. These are for my Therapeutic Touch Therapist. Yes, the vertigonous migraines go on and on and on but I am willing to try anything to get rid of them or make them a little less troublesome. So far the Therapeutic Touch sessions have helped a lot. I don't know exactly how but the vertigo is much less for a week or so after the treatments. Michael, my Therapeutic Touch Therapist, deserves a pair of beautiful hand knit socks. He is trying to teach me about "grounding" in which you imagine that you are like a tree, with roots growing into the ground - therfor the beautiful tones of brown for these socks! I have a session this morning - here's hoping he likes them!

I knit 14 pair of socks last year! Everyone loved their handmade socks this year that were lovingly wrapped and placed under the tree. My mother was a little miffed that I had made her a hat instead of socks. She said that next year she wants socks too!