Slow Camp Recovery

At least I got 90% of the laundry done (still need to hang Monkey1's remaining clothes) and some house cleaning done. Otherwise, the only thing I got done was Cat's baby Coriolis socks. Unfortunately, the garter stitch box toes are skewed and one's shifted 90 degrees of the other. Oops.


I haven't cast on for the unofficial Monkey Kaw Kaw KAL, but I did open up my skein...


...and wound it up into a yummy cake. Love this colorway. Tina had a work cut out for her when she did her Raven series and then had to come up with a crow-themed colorway for sock camp:


I also opened up my skein of Lucky from our March Rockin' Sock Club kit...


...and wound it up too. As my makeup buddies know, I have a thing for green and so this colorway is just fab. I'm excited to cast on for my Leafling socks after I took the sock camp class with JC Briar who designed the sock pattern. Her class on different cast-on's just warmed my engineering-geek soul:


But first, I'm being a good mommy and working on Monkey1's second Dublin Bay sock and working a bit more than a couple rows of my Marilinda sock that was my Scout's Indie Swag kit from last year. It's so much easier to manipulate this BFL yarn now that I have my Knit Picks Harmony dpn's. What a difference the right tools can make.

Cedar Creeks

I'm still recovering from Sock Camp, so instead of folding my laundry I worked on my second Cedar Creeks sock instead. But at least the laundry's been washed & dried.


Cedar Creeks KAL
yarn: Socks that Rock lightweight in Braun's Woods
needles: Knit Picks - metal dpns in 2.25 mm (picot cuff) & 2.50 mm (most of the sock) and 2.75 mm circ (heel flap)
other mods:
64 st for the foot
less pointy toe

Love, love, love how the Braun's Woods knit up in this pattern. Love how it feels on the feet too once I used the correct size needles for the socks to fit my feet.

Now on to my other WIP's including a couple from Sock Camp. Gotta finish that second baby Coriolis sock from Cat Bordhi's Insouciant Socks class. I'll have to re-do the bind-off on the first sock with the EZ sewn bind off though. I was playing around with the bind off I had used for my stole (the k2tog, place back on left needle, k2tog, etc), but I think it's too tight.

I don't know who this pair will be for since Monkey1's teacher will be having a girl, not a boy, and I feel she's a bit too traditional to go blue for a girl.


And my "mindless" knitting from Tina's & Stephanie's class:


This first half is done on size 1 (2.50 mm) KP Harmony dpns and the second half will be on size 0 (2.00 mm) KP metal dpns. To be more correct, I should be using the size 0 Harmony dpns, but that small diameter in wood with medium weight STR and my death grip makes for a snapped dpn waiting to happen.

Tina dyed 5 colorways for this class:
- white/teal (halves)
- white/teal/wisteria (thirds)
- white/teal/wisteria/shamrock (etc)
- white/teal/wisteria/shamrock/baby blue
- caramel/teal/wisteria/shamrock/baby blue

When done, this scarf will be a great visual lesson on how gauge/needle size will affect color pooling in STR yarn w/differing number of colors. (Hint - pooling is not Tina's fault.)

Random Sock Camp pics (Part 2)

My Sock Camp toilet paper roll cover/cozy (our homework) cobbled from a bunch of different crochet patterns. At some point I'll list all the pattern pieces I ended up using on my Rav project page.


Stariel's TP TeePee (hee!) that I ended up with after the hysterical tp cover passing game. Like the chicken passing game from last year's sock camp, Cockeyed would tell a story and every time she said right or left we would pass whatever we had in our hands in the appropriate direction. Or not as the case would be when we were laughing so hard some would miss a particular direction. I don't remember what tapmouse told me about last year, but this year, we had Cat & Stephanie do an interpretive "tree" dance while Cockeyed told the story.


Tapmouse showing off her tp roll cover and her Ribby Pulli!:


Edward is still in need of his sweater. Monkey1 is playing Project Manager and has been on me to get it done. As if I didn't have enough of project managers at work. ;) BMFA gave us 2 little yarn balls to make these small monkeys, but they had kits for the bigger monkeys for sale (both sizes included in the pattern). I bought a monkey kit to make Monkey2 a blue monkey sometime soon-ish.


The new colorways debuted at Camp - Knitters without Borders, Kaw Kaw (the Sock Campers exclusive for awhile) and Eggplanted. Knitters without Borders was only available in lightweight at Camp but once it goes up on the website, I assume it'll be available in other weights. Same for Kaw Kaw when it eventually goes up. Eggplanted, on the other hand, was available in other weights and fibers and looked fabulous in all of them. (Of course, I bought more than this, but it ain't all going up on Rav anytime soon.)


Our own yodelling Sock Camp knitter who shares my RL name:


Stephen leading us in the Camp song, "Addicted to Yarn" sung Robert Palmer-style complete with the sock puppet & knitterly backup dancers:


Cat getting a win over Stephanie (I think) in the turkey baster knit off contest:


Our wonderful Sock Camp teachers! They totally rocked:


Our beloved Sockateers! Unfortunately, I was sitting too close to get a good shot of the rest of the BMFA staff without other knitterly digital cameras popping up on my screen:

All of this wouldn't have been possible without the forebearance of my lovely family. DH & I decided that he would come up with me and watch the kids while I was at Camp. The girls had fun most of the time ('cept when the stars aligned and they were both in Grouchy & Crabby Patty mode at the same time - that being Wed when Monkey1 wanted DH to take them home). DH thought the trip wasn't too bad 'cept for the price of food at the resort ($8 Kraft mac&cheese - ugh!) and for stuff the monkeys effectively twisted his arm to buy in the biggest town on the island.

Random pics of Sock Camp - Part 1 (I think)

The sight that greeted us at the conference center at Sock Camp - BMFA staff, Sockateers, and a few of our kick-ass teachers:

Sorry, too lazy to do the merge thing with the pics. (The overlap is w/Lara, Hot Flash, JC Briar, and Rosie):


BMFA's version of the color wheel:


Some our our monkey peeps! Monkey1 named mine Edward and that piece of paper behind the monkeys is her list of things I *must* knit for him. Oh, Edward is the one sitting slightly to the right of the wine bottle.


The Steph & Cat show. Let's have Stephanie explain this one:


Cockeyed - mother of all (STR) monkeys:


The snow that greeted us at the end of camp:


More soon with a little more text hopefully. Must do laundry and finish checking Monkey1's independent study homework.

Packing for Sock Camp

The homework's done for Sock Camp and all I need to do is pack. Below are the scraps I got sent to use in my homework assignment. I ended up using all the Mustang Sally and Dragon Dance, and partials of the off-white, green and blue Sock Candies. I don't think it came out great (my embroidery skills suck), but I do think I have enough leftover to make a 2nd plain homework assignment if I, for some reason, do a complete freak out (as if I hadn't already) and decide to plug away at a second one.


Because of the homework and birthday celebrations for DH & Monkey1, I haven't done much knitting. I did however finally finish my first Cedar Creek Sock in the lightweight STR in Braun's Woods.


After reading about pointy toe issues on the Ravelry Cedar Creek KAL thread and talking to tapmouse about hers, I decided to start the toe decrease a little early and stopped when I had 12 sts left.


I love how this turned out. I'm bringing the rest of the skein just in case I will actually have time to work on the second sock (along w/Monkey1's second Dublin Bay sock) during Camp.

Since Internet connection is rather minimal/restricted (cell phone too), I'm not bringing my laptop. With around 100 Campers (participants & staff), some of whom blog practically professionally, I'm not even going to try to snag some air time at all during the week.

See you all in a week or so!

Secret of the Stole ii - Savannah

I really should be working on my Sock Camp homework, but at least my Secret of the Stole ii (SotSii) now called the Savannah stole is done. Not the best job in the world blocking it so I'll need to reblock a few spots. The cotton thread I was using slipped/loosened off the pins here & there so I've got some pointy spots and slight undulations on the edges. But I don't expect the 21" x 62" size I got with this blocking to change.


I was a bit anxious to take a picture outside before the light faded so I didn't realize the railing & sloped vegetation didn't help the clarity issue. But you can see the difference in the two Malabrigo skeins bought at the same time bracketing the partial 3rd skein I later bought online (colorway Marron Oscuro). So the biggest lesson for me would be that even if I had bought enough yarn the first time around, I should still expect some variation from a kettle-dyed yarn like Malabrigo.


The nice thing about finishing the stole is that I am caught back up on my Cedar Creek sock in STR Braun's Woods. The majority of the sock is knit on 2.50 mm dpns while the heel was done on 2.75 mm circs to account for the uber snugness of the heel pattern. I really do need to do my sock camp homework this weekend, so I probably won't finish this sock 'til the end of next week.


But what I did finish is Monkey 1's Dublin Bay sock. She picked out the Lorna's Laces Uptown and I will admit it's a really cute colorway. She's very happy that I finally got at least half of this pair done, abeit a year later. So happy in fact that she started her own WIP while I was finishing up the foot.


Just in time for her birthday.