22 January 2010

a flower and some ugly socks

thank you all for the comments - i'm glad you kept me in your feed readers. 2009 was a busy year, just a lot happening, and while i don't think of it as a bad year, i don't think it was a favorite. although the hard bits tend to fall out of memory with time, so maybe i'll just remember it as the year my brother graduated college, i got to know my stepson better, and my frog nephew was born.

one thing i forgot to put in my bullet post was this horrible illness i battled the whole time i worked in delta, for six long months: internet deprivation. oh, it was scary. i couldn't check emails, my feed reader was so full it deleted blog posts unread, and of course, writing my own blog posts was well-nigh impossible. bills did manage to get paid on the weekends, but that was about it. since i stopped working i've been going through a recovery program and am almost back to full internet working speed. i'm only a week behind on reading blogs, so i may even start commenting again! emails will be written! (och du står först på listan Lasse!) it's a beautiful thing.

and most importantly (because there's a good chance of working in delta again this coming summer) i've got something on hand to cure any internet deprivation that may pop up: an iphone. it replaced a phone that was 4 years old and i'm loving it. easy to use and more intuitive than the other touch screens i looked at (the full keyboards didn't appeal to me). my very favoritest thing though, was discovering i could set the whole system to swedish. talk about options. for now, i'll stick to blogging from the computer, but having a backup option feels great.

being home has given me more time to focus on knitting projects, and i'm actually making progress. 2009 did not see the completion of very much, maybe because i worked on a couple sweaters but mostly because there just wasn't that much time for knitting. it feels great to see something grow in weeks rather than months. one project i've been focusing on is a doily pattern turned blanket, from the second book of modern lace knitting. it's called daffodil, and i couldn't resist knitting it in yellow.
daffodil center motifthe first rows flew by (it's knit from the center out) with all the changes. watching the pattern develop really keeps me knitting, i want to see the next bit take shape. now i'm less than 20 rows from finishing, and each round takes almost an hour. ugh. it's much harder to see progress, but i'm plugging along. the daffodil motif is actually visible now.daffodil motifluckily, the other project i'd been focused on got finished last week! there's almost nothing like the exhilaration of completing a project - except maybe picking what to start next. this project was a pair of socks for chuck. amazingly, i started them way back in december of 2008. i switch off sock projects to keep myself engaged and my gauge constant (if i knit 2 socks in a row, the second is always slightly larger for some reason). the first sock was finished sometime in the spring, i think. then i knit a sock for myself and finally got around to starting the second sock in december - almost a year after starting the first one.herringbone stitchthe stitch pattern is a herringbone stitch from one of the walker treasuries, done more for my sake than chuck's. he likes his socks pretty plain but i wanted something to make them interesting to knit. the herringbone worked well with the color changes. speaking of color, chuck picked out the yarn (online supersocke) and he's very satisfied with the socks. however, the overall brown tweediness of the yarn with the black and grey stripes is about the ugliest combination i've ever seen, which prompted me to dub them ugly socks. luckily chuck isn't offended by that, and was just happy to see them finished.ugly socksin the meantime, some malabrigo that i was gifted in my local knitting group's christmas swap was begging to be made into a hat...............

2 comments:

AfternoonMoon said...

which hat are you knitting from your FF anniversary gift? Inquiring minds want to know! oh, and download "bump" for the iPhone. Ginny and I were having a blast with it!

Lynleigh said...

Congrats on finishing your knitting projects- they look awesome. I don't think the socks are ugly...maybe if they were meant for a girl, but the colors seem pretty manly to me (not saying manly=ugly...). :)