Variations in Red

The Papal Conclave socks in Vatican Pie are coming along.  In fact, I can truly use the plural form of the word sock as one is now complete and the second is on the needles.  There will be SOCKS!  I may not beat the Conclave to the finish, but this is a good development toward completion of a pair, which is nice because I have two feet.

Last night, as I was coming to the toe of my sock, I veered away from the normal Kitchener stitch toe for a bit of flash.  I consulted my Nancy Bush book, Folk Socks, and put a star on the tip of the sock.  I tried to take a picture of the toe bling I created, but instead of showing off my stitch work, the sock looks like a snake.

I like it.  If I ever give up nursing for a living, I can become a sock puppeteer.

Over the past week I've shown you a couple of pictures of my socks and yarn that show off that rich red color.  What appears to be a completely saturated and solid red clearly is not once it's knit up.  This was such a surprise to me, but I'm enjoying my many faceted Papal socks.

I'm a little uncertain about yardage.  I wasn't worried until I started the foot of the sock, which seemed to go on forever.  I have big feet.  US size 10.  About 2/3 of the way through the foot, I took out my scale and weighed all of the yarn.  First I weighed the sock alone and then I threw the ball of yarn on the scale with it.  Together it came to 110 grams, including the needles, which don't weigh much at all.  The ball alone weighed  74 grams and I convinced myself I shouldn't worried.  There would be a pair of matching completed socks.  After the sock was done and I'd taken pictures of the snake, I weighed the finished sock alone at 54 grams and the remainder of the ball of yarn weighs 62 grams.  Combined they weigh 116 grams and no needles were weighed.  Apparently something is off and it may be the scale!

There are only two things to do...Pray for the Conclave and knit faster!

Simply Red

I won't say balance is completely restored, but I'm getting there.  I wound the sock yarn last night and was pleased I didn't feel or see any weak spots, holes or splits...a harbinger of moths.  It is old. So far, so good.  The next issue was to settle on a pattern.  And I did.  Wayward, by Cookie A.  I bought the pattern, downloaded it into my Goodreader App and began looking at other Wayward projects on Ravelry.

I got a little worried that it was totally the wrong pattern for my cluttered mind.  I needed a simple--knit with my eyes closed--pattern.  Wayward is anything but.  The second issue that bothered me is that the pattern calls for about 400 yards and while new hanks of Jitterbug may come with that yardage, my semi-vintage Jitterbug does not.  It has around 300 yards.  I didn't want to throw caution to the wind and come up short on a yarn I can't find to supplement.  Instead I went with a plain sock, which is really OK since the yarn is certainly loud enough without suddenly sprouting peacock feathers to show off even more.

With luck, I'll finish the first papal sock before the conclave even begins.

And, yes, my yarn is really all that red and more!

Question of the day:

How does a white man from England sing soul so well?  While I still prefer Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes singing this song, Simply Red produces a more than acceptable version.

Spam and change

Not the stuff in a can, though that's just wrong, too, but the comments in my blogger spam folder, comments awaiting moderation and comments that slip through.

To my spammers, I'm truly not interested in seeing pictures of naked teens, better blog platforms, your discounted gucci purses or allowing a total stranger with a questionable website to write a guest post on my blog.  Go the hell away.  Because of you, I am, sadly, considering making this a fully moderated site. 

I'm this >|< close!  Seriously.  

To ward off these persistent cockroaches of the blogging world, I've changed my settings to moderate all posts older than a week and have eliminated anonymous comments.  I try to be careful when going through comments to ascertain I've deleted only the spam, but I'm fairly sure I've deleted a legitimate comment or two here and there.  I'm sorry for that if I've accidentally deleted what any reader here has had to say because I do care and I do read and appreciate all of your comments.

OK, I think I'm done ranting now, though suggestions to foil this slime are truly welcome.

Please forgive my absence.  I've been in a bit of a funk since returning home from California.  At first I thought it was a minor case of fatigue.  We did so much in such a little amount of time and I thought all the running around finally caught up with me.  Now I know it isn't the fatigue since I've made up for my sleep deprivation.

I think I've got a case of the blues.

I wouldn't call it depression, per se, but instead, a bit of sadness or melancholy.  Change will do that, I guess, and I'm surrounded by considerable change, both at home and professionally.  It's the double whammy.  I've paid the price in losing interest in pretty much everything that brings me joy: cooking, cleaning, shopping, knitting, socializing, blogging and my ridiculous dog.

One change I would welcome, would be a break in the weather, but that lying groundhog has not delivered in the prognostication department.  Winter is clinging to southeastern Michigan with a tenacity that only serves to annoy and make me moody.  The winter weather skipped us last year  and we suffered for it in terms of our apple, cherry and peach crops, not to mention other produce.  We can't have it both ways, can we?  Spring can't be far off though and this is the weekend we fast forward one hour to prepare. Even though I'll lose an hour, I do have a 3 day stretch off so it shouldn't be too much of a hardship to adjust. To celebrate the coming of more daylight, I set aside the drab blue yarn that's followed me all winter and went hunting for something bright to welcome this change.

I discovered the perfect foil to what's been boring me to tears. Is there anything more suitable than this find?  It's Jitterbug, by Colinette.  The color?  Vatican Pie.  How fitting in terms of timing, retiring popes, and conclaves.  This yarn has been in my stash for 9 years.  NINE! I don't even know if Colinette makes it anymore.  It's time for Vatican Pie to meet a pair of size 1 double points and become an outrageous pair of bright red socks.

Wouldn't you agree?

So much to do, so little time

As I boarded Delta's flight out of San Diego yesterday, I had a plan to use my 4 hours in captivity catching up on all of your blog posts I've missed.  I never got to it and today there are 286 posts I haven't read.  Oy. Goodness knows I didn't have time while I ran all over San Diego finding first an apartment, then moving in, waiting for ATT-Uverse, buying furniture, buying essentials like food, cleaning supplies, uniforms and doing the backflips the DMV makes one do when moving to another state.  You get the picture--we had full dance cards daily.  The problem with my plan to catch up when in the air is that while planes do have wifi now, it's not that good.  In total frustration, I gave up.  Instead I read, The Last Man, by, Vince Flynn, while knitting a square on the roll.  I have each square down to about 3 to 4 hours now.  Still, it'll take a good 200 hours of work to make enough for a blanket.

I cried about 4 times yesterday.  Once in the airport, twice on the plane, and once when my husband met me at the gate when I landed (he works in the airport so he can meet me there).  When I think about it, for all of my blathering on to others about how important it is to embrace change, I'm not at that good about doing it myself.  I don't plan to do anything about this little character issue, except to accept that this is who I am and find a healthy way to channel the anxiety this creates.

He's moved on and I either accept and find ways to accumulate frequent flyer miles or sit around moping.  Kicking, screaming and tantrums really won't work to fix the way I feel on the inside.

While we didn't really have an opportunity to site-see, we did take time to go for a drive or two along the coast.   He's living on the edge of La Jolla, just a few miles from the beach, so we drove there and to Pacific Beach for an early dinner.  That was right before that front moved through that ultimately became the storm that hit the midsection and dumped all that snow.

This photo was not eye level.  It was taken looking down from a second story perch.  Those waves were high and there were many surfers braving the chilly ocean temperatures.

 The waves were impressive as the front approached, though we didn't really see them at their peak.  The rain that followed conveniently did so during the night and was equally impressive.  We did make it to Coronado for lunch one day.  The weather was glorious, if not a little cool.  Still, even though it was chilly, the sun was shining, which is more than I can say for Detroit.  Old Town San Diego and The Gas Lamp will have to wait for our next visit in August when we visit for his graduation from the academy.

I hope you're all well and I promise, I plan on catching up today.

FYI, we flew over that front that's headed this way.  Let me just say for those in the path:  get thee to the grocer and also make sure there's fuel for the snowblower.

From the road's end

My son and I took off late on Wednesday and arrived in San Diego today only slightly worse for the wear. We checked into our hotel after an afternoon of apartment hunting, and now I find myself wondering if I'm going to be able to bear the loud mouthed teenager in the pool all night long. It's around 80 degrees here and will be cooler tomorrow. With luck, the loud mouth will be out of the pool soon, isn't in an adjacent room tonight and will find the high temp of 65 degrees tomorrow to be too cold for the pool.

Tomorrow we will resume apartment hunting, though it's all obscenely expensive and we should just get it over with and make a decision. There is one strong contender.  It's a wee little apartment and I'm deep in shock over what you don't get for the money here, but it's in a nice area within walking distance of shops, restaurants and is near the ocean.

Posting from my iPad could be fussy, but I thought you'd like to know where we've been. We drove from Michigan, through Illinois & Indiana and have seen parts of The Mother Road in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.  We have run over tumbleweed, seen more trains than we could count, and ate the best chicken fried steak in a Route 66 diner in Oklahoma.  I had my doubts when the waitress brought me a plate of beige food covered in white gravy, but take my word, it was delicious. I think it was called Clayton's, or some such thing. I will also forever dream of the fresh potato chips I inhaled in a steakhouse in Amarillo. They were sublime. Last night we had dinner in Sedona after a white knuckled rim drive down a mountain and while it was delicious, I was too exhausted to really appreciate the food.

Pictures later, as I really don't have the energy to fight with this device, and I left my laptop behind.  Hope you're all well. I might have a chance to catch up a bit tomorrow.

Any way the wind blows

I'm a little winter weary, though I'm not complaining. We do need the snow for our summer crops.  I just wish it would fall all at once and be done with it.  Instead we're getting those little Alberta Clippers that blow through town leaving a few inches of snow in their wake.  One. Right. After. The. Other.  Every other day brings a couple of fresh inches of snow that seems to have an affinity for beginning right during the morning rush, or if that's not possible, then the evening rush hour.  It's so convenient!  Not!

The beach is sounding particularly good to me right now.

But one should always take care when wishing right?  A beach will indeed be in my near future as Brian will be leaving Michigan sooner than later.  The bad thing is we'll be traveling by car 2, 700 miles to get there (35 hours of driving).  I think the recruiter's mind is finally made up and hopefully he won't change it again.  At least I hope not as I'm booking my return flight tonight.  It's non-refundable and costing a king's ransom since it's such short notice.  If I want refundable, it would cost me an extra $645, which is kind of crazy.  And while I'm on the subject of airway robbery, why is a one way trip home $400, but a round trip is $437?  I'm perplexed.

We'll leave the middle of next week so he has time to take care of business, like getting a California driver's license and plates for his car, uniforms, a place to live and furniture to sit and sleep on.

I'm taking stock, trying to stay calm and considering what knitting I'll need for this long, long ride.

Socks.
The never ending sweater.
My Downton Abbey gauntlets
My Squares on the Roll blanket
Something different in case I'm bored with the above.

And lots and lots of tissues.  Tears will be involved with this adventure.  We haven't left yet and I'm already feeling verklempt.

Where I actually talk about knitting

Well I'm not on the road to California quite yet.  While we thought we'd have to leave sometime soon, he isn't due to start his new job now until May.  That means our grueling road trip can wait until April, and we can make the journey during tornado season instead of the snowy one.  Hmmm.  Somehow I think I prefer slippery conditions to traversing Tornado Alley, Oklahoma.  How do people live with that every year?

I've not been knitting a lot lately, or at least it hasn't seemed like a lot, but maybe it really is.  I'm participating in the Ravelry KAL in the Jimmy Beans Wool group.  We're knitting gauntlets for the Downton Abbey knit along.  We're halfway through season 3 of Downton Abbey and halfway through the project.  I have one mitt to show for it and I'm hoping I took good enough notes.  I knit as directed for the arm, but once I got to the wrist, I thought it too loose and made decreases to fit my hand.  I did not use the Lorna's Laces specially died yarn, but chose instead some Madelinetosh Pashmina from the stash.  It's beautiful, and if I may say so myself, a little better suited to lace.  The striped Downton Abbey yarn seemed a little busy.

I'm also still working on that never ending sweater from late last year.  Every day, I knit a repeat of the cabled hem.  It's boring, monotonous, mundane, but, oh, it's pretty and clever.  Someday I'll finish.  Just in time for warm weather, I'm sure.

In the middle of all of that, the remnants of some Blue Moon Fiber Arts BFL sport yarn in Ravenscroft was calling my name.  I had 80 grams left after knitting a shawl, but just let it sit until it spoke to me.  That was Monday night.  I read a recent Yarn Harlot post about her knitting her daughter a Wurm hat.  I have one myself already and it's my go-to hat all winter long.  It felt right.  That's what that yarn wanted to be.  I cast on with abandon and prayed there would be enough.  I'm two repeats away from casting off and I have 24 grams of yarn left.  Wish me luck.  I'll be heartbroken if there isn't enough.

That's it from Detroit where once again, it's snowing. Shocking, I know.  It's been warm, cold, rainy, blustery, snowy,windy and bitterly cold here, all in the span of a week.  Since that rodent in Pennsylvania did not see his shadow,  maybe we will get a reprieve from this whacky winter weather soon.  I'll not hold my breath.