Negative Progress, and then Positive Progress

I can't believe it's September 5th already. Where did the time go? Oh yeah, it's been sucked up by the sock. When last we left our story, the sock was seeming "a little loose". It turned out to be a lot loose and took another trip to the frog pond. I restarted the darn thing and finally got the size around my foot to be OK. For anyone counting this would be the second trip to the pond. The first trip was ripping two socks that were done up to the heel.

I was making great progress up the foot and around the short row heel. Looks good, right? And remember that this year was the year to try socks all different ways, toe up, cuff down, lots of kinds of toes and heels. You know, try to find the way I like to knit socks best...Well, apparently I can scratch off "short row heels" as a good way to make socks for me because the darn things did not fit! My feet are too, as Ann said on Monday at the bonus knit, "fat". The short row heel just does not have enough material to go around my heel angling up toward my instep. So it's now three trips to the pond, but this time only a short dip back down below the heel. Good thing I had my new best friend Charlene's book with me. I stuck in a heel gusset, and I've worked one full pattern repeat up past the heel. I have tried it on, and it fits OK. It's a little tighter than I would like, but I'm going to go with it and not rip out any more. This is not because I do not have the willpower to rip again, or that my self-imposed deadline is upon us, but because in a fit of full-blown, heavy-duty denial: I believe that the sock will fit well, once I lose enough weight. Try hard not to fall out of your chairs laughing and be grateful that you have a friend that wants to make sure your life is lightened by this moment of craziness enough to actually write that bit of insanity down for all to read.

On to more positive things. I did go to Greeley to take Megan her stuff including her pet, Hypnotic. Here's a picture of the little thing. Why yes, it is a rat. It shared my biscuit on the ride up. Megan likes her a lot, and I think she's OK, but I'm glad she is out of my house. The rat, not Megan.

I was going to stop and visit Cathy, but when I got there the girls had a list of stores that needed visiting, and a literal car load of stuff that needed buying. And please remember, I have a full size Bronco, it was stuffed full. I didn't leave there until after 4 in the afternoon. I was exhausted, but took the scenic road home through Loveland and Big Thompson Canyon. In Loveland I stopped at Woolen Treasures and picked up some books and patterns I have been looking for. The drive through the canyon was peaceful but rainy, so I did not stop to take pictures until I was past Estes Park. This picture really doesn't do justice to the view.And here is a close up of one of the plants in my new garden. I am really liking the way it looks. It's so nice and cheerful, much better than the bunch of weeds we had before.I have also made progress on the photo project. I have all of the scanning I wanted to get done finished. Now it's a matter of organizing the files. This is what the room looks like now, nice and empty of boxes and albums. The pictures are in nicely labeled boxes, sorted by date, and in albums that are more or less in order, and placed neatly in the closet. I took the picture at 1:30 in the morning and didn't feel much like folding up the ironing board, so ignore that, would ya?In the little basket on the floor, under the green pillows is where I am stashing my fiber to be spun. I think it's a manageable size. I might need more soon.

At knit group on Saturday, it was so obviously a hand-knit sock day, both Lisa and I had to take a picture. The people at the coffee shop think we are nuts.Too bad for them, we have a lot of fun. That's one of my trekking socks on the left, Ann's socks in the middle, and Lisa's jay walking trekkers on the right. It's funny that her blue trekking and mine are both jaywalkers. OK, maybe not hilariously funny, but amusing to me. Notice the "fat" feet in my sock and the graceful skinny feet on my friends. I am not jealous at all, no, not me. That green sweater Darci's knitting, her own design. Talent there ladies and gentlemen.

On the trip to Greeley, one of the stops the girls and I made was at Wal-Mart. They picked up plenty of stuff, including some dish towels that are hot pink, orange, lemon yellow and lime green. They did not pick up any dish rags, or warshrags, whatever you call them. I don't know why, it seemed strange to me also. But the next store we went to was Hobby Lobby, so you all know what I got there. Yep, 5 balls of Sugar'n Cream cotton in the above mentioned 4 colors, plus a variegated pink, orange, and yellow. So I have been knitting on those at work and at my son's football game, which was Saturday after knit group. He did quite well, and the Palmer Terrors beat Chatfield 29-19. You will be getting updates on the season as it goes along, because I am a mom. Ignore it if you wish.

Here is how much dish rag I can knit during a game:Several people were giving me odd looks, but really, there is a lot of time not much is going on at a football game. I am not a bad mother because I need something to occupy my hands while watching a game. I'm glad it was a day game, because I can see that night games might be a little more challenging for me.

Here's a picture of the dish rag I finished at work, lounging in the traveling studio with the other yarn and the rag in progress. It sounds odd to think I'm knitting a "rag". But that's what we call them at our house, we have dish towels and dish rags.This is really a long post, but I found a couple of things I thought were interesting, and since it's my blog, I decided to throw it in. Someone once asked how long I've been knitting, and I thought since I was about 10 or so. I know Barbie has a couple of stunning knitted tube-shaped evening gowns I made. Here though is proof I knitted more than I thought. For Christmas in 1981, I knit 3 sweaters, one for each of my sisters, and one for my niece Melissa. Remember it was the 80's, so be nice about the pictures. I also did some remarkable knitted yoked sweatshirts in 1987, and my daughters Christening gown in 1988. I might post a picture of that later. OK, the pictures will be on the finished object page, since I'm having technical difficulties getting them from the files.

that catches me up for now. Talk to you later!