Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  One of the fun things about my job is that since children are involved we get to wear crazy outfits sometimes and we are all required to dress in costume for Halloween.  My mitts are all blocked and ready to go, but more on that Friday.  I am the only one home because Chris has started his new job (yay!) and leaves before I get going in the morning, so I have no costumed photos to share.

Is it cold where you are? It is suddenly and ferociously cold here.  We appear to have caught the edge of Sandy's wake. She did not make landfall here (for once), but the dramatic cold and snow was our trade off. Minus the snow.  All of this cold has me thinking about knitting more.  I cannot knit fast enough!  I have a swatch started for a cabled sweater that I would really like to get going on, and I am dying to cast on the Palomino Mittens from November Knits.  Super chart heavy but they look fun.  And warm!  Which, after all, really is the point of wool.

In the meantime I am knitting furiously on my Sock the Vote socks.  They need to be done and photographed by Monday, but my personal goal is to wear them to vote.  That might not be until Election Day, but I may yet manage to hit up an early voting location.

I am really enjoying learning how to knit a Star Toe on these socks.  I personally love a good kitchener session, but it was really cool last time to just pull the yarn through the stitches and be done.  Maybe I will start introducing this into more of my sock knitting.  Only time (and wearing) shall tell!

To check out more works in progress, head on over to Tami's Amis!

Pride Goeth (And Goeth, And Goeth)

When I started Sock the Vote I may have expressed some concern that I would not be able to finish all of the requirements on time.  And then when I started Liz Abenathy's sOcktober KAL I may have been very hesitant to tell anyone for fear I would fall into serious disaster that would leave me hating the best month of the year.  Well, they say pride goeth before the fall, but it's my birthday, so maybe they'll let it slide just this once?

I already showed you my Neon Neelys on Monday.  That single sock was all I needed to submit for the pattern prize on the 16th.  I would have knit both but I had a slight malfunction.

Yep, you are seeing that right.  Brand new Knitter's Pride needles snapped in half because of an enthusiastic SSK.  Fortunately this was after I finished Neon Neely #1 and before I cast on the second, so I subbed out the needles and have already finished the week 2 requirements for Sock the Vote.

Part of me wishes that the requirements were more challenging, but we don't listen to that part.  Plus, my sock knitting mojo is never as present as it is now.  So I should go back to working on that dreadfully boring stockinette sweater.

For more WIPs, check out Tami's Amis!

Watching Cast On Dates Pass Me By

Yesterday was the cast-on day for Sock the Vote, but I have not cast on yet.  Instead I have been furiously knitting away on my Holla Back Tank in an effort to get it done before my self-imposed, unannounced deadline of my birthday.  Don't you just love self-imposed deadlines?  No one but me cares if I have the tank done by then, and realistically I should not be wearing a tank top in October, but I am still suffering under the stress and fury of finishing it in time.  

I think I can make it.  Whether or not I get it done in time to have help getting pictures this weekend is another story.  I could have finished it yesterday but then I went to the laundromat, took a nap, and swatched for another sweater.

I did at least take my supplies photo for Sock the Vote, thus officially declaring myself part of yet another knitalong (what was that I said about not jumping in on any more KALs?).

I have had this pattern (Lindsay by Liz Abinante) for a year, but never knew what I wanted to knit it with.  You may recognize the yarn as my Yarn Pirate from the Ravellenics.  I decided that I would never wear a shawl that reminded me of camouflage. and so I frogged that puppy.  I know the color choice may seem a little unorthodox for Lindsay Funke, but one of my favorite Lindsay moments is when she goes to protest the war and ends up dancing in a cage wearing a rather wet and revealing camouflage outfit.  Plus I am hoping that in socks the yarn pools up a bit and brings more of the neon to the foreground. 

I know that this is a 100% superwash merino and I am totally breaking my no nylon no socks rule, but Lindsay is a decadent, fickle creature and she won't take no for an answer.