Yikes another hole!

So today was a busy day for me. Heavy work day, lots of people in and out of my workspace. After work a two cat annual vet visit. Busy but not terribly challenging.

Till I was on my way to the vet's office with two extremely vocal cats. That is when the low tire pressure light came on. Now I've never had one of these personally before, but coworkers have, usually they're nothing to worry about. But I was reasonably close to my destination, as a precaution I called the Hubby to make him aware that I might need rescuing. I checked all my tires when I arrived and maybe one looked a little low I was not sure but I knew I would look again before I left.

While I was in the waiting room I pull out my knitting and start waiting, knitter style. One of the office ladies asks me what I am making, to which you all know the reply was socks. D's new socks were just finishing their first cuff, so I showed her one of Mom's completed socks. When she says I've always wanted to learn how to do that. You know my reply was, I'll teach you!

Now on a side note here I must point out this is the first time I've ever looked like a unselfish knitter, usually when people as who the sock is for, it's almost always for me. Take that universe. one time I looked generous.

The boys and I get called in and Dr B is thrilled with how my Gus looks. Jack is told he looks much younger than his real age. I blame Jack's eternal younger brother-ness. All in all we have a good visit but hey I am not the one who had blood samples taken either.

I pay the bill and tell the lady-who-wishes-she-could-learn-to-knit, that my offer was real. She can call me if she wants to learn, even if she tries it once and decides it is not for her. I think it is nice to give someone an easy out too.

I buckle the kids in and check the tire. It is not flat-flat but it is not holding a heck of a lot of air at this point. D and I converse for a game plan. I call our roadside assistance number and settle in for a bit more knitting with a touch of chill too.

G talks me into letting him out of the carrier while we're waiting. Yeah I know I could see him bolting for the door as soon as I opened it too, but my G he is too cool for that.

My service guy shows up and makes it so I can get home. There was much rejoicing. My tire? It has a nail in it. So I am off to the auto shop in the am. Yahoo!

Yikes a hole!

Recently D and I were sitting home one night talking when he stopped mid sentence and started feeling around on his sock. You know his favorite socks? Well he does have two favorite pairs, but still. Then he said the dreaded phrase, uh-oh I have a hole.

Makes a knitter's heart skip a beat. The weird thing? It was not on the sole where holes normally form, but on the top of the heel, right above where the stronger, more protective heel stitches start. And it is worn through, this is not a snag or snipped thread. The fibers are much thinner here and the hole takes up about four rows of work. There is no simple grafting things back together. 

Sigh, how do I fix this for him? One of his favorite pairs of socks!

Go stash diving for a similar funky colored yarn and knit new socks!

I knew there was a reason I bought this yarn while we were home in South Dakota, I just thought it was to make socks for me. Of course that is what I thought about the other yarn too. D loved the color so much that I just had to make them for him. And wow he has enjoyed them more than I would have. The sad part is I don't think they lasted a year. Nope a quick check of Ravelry tells me, I finished them the day after Christmas, last year. He did tend to pick them first out of the sock drawer, so they did see a lot of wear.

Don't worry I will try to repair the old ones too, most likely by sewing the hole closed. We will see if a small seam at the heel bothers him. Since he is not walking directly on the seem, it should not bother so much.

Well I should get back to my knitting, I've got a pair of socks to knit by Christmas.

New Socks Tuesday

Whew! I finally finished some socks. With winter bearing down on us it is good to have new socks. I had to put away my summer socks, you know my pretty lace ones and light weight wool. What do you mean you don't wear colorful light weight wool in the summer?

This leaves me with only 15-20 pair to choose from. Poor me. That is not counting the socks that have gone to sock hole heaven. I tried repairing a sock once but I don't like it. Of course I picked my least favorite holy pair too, socks that I never really liked. That may have something to do with not liking the repair either.

Anyways back to the socks at hand, ahem, I mean on foot. These guys tried to do me in, the top of the second sock made me think that it was pooling differently than the first sock, so I kept frogging and knitting. I must have cast it on three or four times. Finally I just gave in and said fine, look all fraternal twins-ish, I am going to keep on knitting!

Now of course I can not tell the difference. Sometimes I think I should not even look at the second sock, if it looks different I won't know.

These are Socks that Rock, lightweight, Rare Gems that I call Fall Colors. The yarn was bought at Rhinebeck in 2011. Is a year long enough to be considered stash?

I started them in September hoping to have new fall colored socks in the fall but they tricked me. Socks what are you going to do with them? Oh that is right wear them!

Turkeydilla

What do you do with left over turkey? I found out tonight that I make turkeydillas. What do you mean turkeydilla is not a real word? I will explain.

Turkey + quesadilla = Turkeydilla

I heated a can of summer crisp corn, with a can of black beans, rinsed. I think black beans are my ketchup, they make everything taste better. To that I added the cut up left over turkey breast, cumin, garlic and onion powder, and whatever salsa I could find in the refrigerator, maybe 3/4 of a cup. D loves his salsa. Quite frankly I am surprised we had any left I have not yet made the salsa purchase this week.

Once all that was warm I scooped it into a tortilla, tossed on some cheese and another tortilla and microwaved it for a couple of minutes or so. I repeated the process for my dinner and viola. We had dinner. 

Plus there is some left over for tomorrow night so D is even off the dinner hook for a night too. See what a good wife I am. 

Plus mealtime is just more fun when you're surrounded by Christmas lights. The cats are enjoying having something dangling from a tree to swat at. Christmas is indeed the most wonderful time of the year for them. 

Yarn Swapping

Yarn swapping or why having internet friends is a good thing.

I've told you all about the swap remember? Well good things come to those who wait. We had to wait out super storm Sandy. Thank God it did not hit us, but waiting for yarn is hard!

Yarn, tea and hand made truffles, oh my! Believe me there was more chocolate, but they're just the right size for the just one more scenario. I was waiting to take an artistic picture but time keeps marching on and the days just keep growing shorter...

First up we have Dragonfly Dyewerx Smooshy Sock, 80/10/10 SW Merino/Cashmere/Nylon blend. This skein is 435 yards/100 grams of 4 ply yarny goodness called Spellbound. Hey wait a minute, Canadians use yards? I thought it would be in meters. It must be to sell to us weird non-metric Americans. (Having been trained as an engineer, I think the metric system is better, but hey old dog new tricks and all that.)

I can not believe Adriene sent me a second skein of yarn! (Tara, I hope you made her buy you lunch for the discount you had to have given her. Again, good friends are an awesome thing to have.)

Back to the yarn, Twisted Smooshy Sock 80/10/10 SW Merino/Cashmere/Nylon blend. In the Inky colorway. Hey I just figured out what the little checked box next to OOAK means. I have two different One Of A Kind colorways from Dragonfly Dyewerx! (Yes I can be a bit dense sometimes.)

Now a question for the audience, I can make socks from these, right? Normally I would not think twice but since they're a gift that contains Cashmere, does that change the rules? Help me out people, I can feel the urge to cast on creeping up on me! Socks or shawls?

And back to the tasty portion of the package. Handmade truffles? Wow. Adriene has a talent that I just don't. I do however make a wicked good cheesecake, but that is awful hard to ship to Canada by an amateur.

The teas are Wild Strawberry Green Tea, After 8 Rooibos and Possibilitea Cream Earl Grey. D is very excited to have some new tea to try. I made him wait till I had a picture before we can open them. Waiting for tea is hard too!

So there we have my definition of a successful swap. I got to send my first package to Canada. I got over worrying about making the perfect choices and decided to send things that I myself love. If we share the same sense of humor, love of yarn and tea, how could I go wrong? I tried to box up a small portion of the Rhinebeck experience, I hope you enjoyed it Adriene.

If you want to see the other side of the swap, pop on over to Adriene's Couch, I hear you can sit a spell over there. Her pictures are better too.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Ah Thanksgiving, a day to enjoy family and food. D and I did our own Turkey trot around the neighborhood. The good news is that we came in first, the bad news is we came in last. And our prize? We got to cook and extra special meal together. Well that and the six cents I found in the road while trotting.

I am I the only one that still gets excited when money is found in the road? To me it is totally free money, it does not matter if it is a penny or a quarter. But today I found a nickel and a penny, Wahoo!

Gus passed the turkey smelling test but his Mom was strong and did not submit to his pleas for food that we all know would upset his stomach. Boo strong Mom. I am sure his belly is happier than he is but so be it.

It was close to this time last year that he started getting so sick so I am overjoyed that he is still with us and almost as sassy as ever. I truly believed that he would not be with us much longer this spring and it is amazing what medicine can do.

So this year I am thankful for everything that I still have, a loving husband that is learning to cook, two cats to snuggle with, a warm and comfortable home, our families, good friends, a good job, dependable vehicles and an abundance of yarn to play with.

Life is good and I am happy to be able to share it with ya'll too.

My best socks

If you will recall I finally found Icelandic sock yarn at the SADK Fiber Festival this year. I was very excited because I had heard great things about this particular breed making the best sock yarn. I had been looking for this breed for a few years now but this was the first time I found it.

It was from Icy Acres Farm in Galway NY. I bought a skein for a great price. I could not wait to finally try it so I cast on and played with it a bit trying different needle sizes. Finally I settled on a 3 mm needle which is quite a bit larger than my 2.25 mm normal sock knitting needles. OK maybe not quite a bit bigger to anyone else but to me there's a difference. 

I knit some, ripped back some, and knit some more. I enjoyed having a no frills yarn in my hands. One that may have lacked glamour but made up heaps in character. Something I had never knit before...

Now that I have the socks I may just buy all the sock yarn next year. They are fuzzy and warm and cozy and a bunches of wonderful. I can not describe what makes them different and better, I just know that they are. 

These are what I put on when I came home sick. These are a warm cup of tea just the way you like it, for your feet. These are what I imagine walking around heaven will feel like, not too cold, not too warm, just right.

They're never going to be my best looking socks but they are on their way to being my favorite socks.

Who knew wool could make you feel so good?

On color

You ever knit different things in the same color at the same time? I tend to do it quite a bit. I go through color phases, I've knit purple socks, a purple shawl and a purplish sweater at the same time. I finished the socks and sweater but the shawl went into time out for misbehavior. Maybe that is why I have not really picked it up again, I'm not knitting anything purple right now. 

I'm going through a green phase right now. I'm taking a new method class (toe up magic loop socks) and chose some green Cascade sock yarn. These will be for the hubby, since his hand knit sock drawer ran out of socks the other day. Oh the horror!

He walked out to breakfast today and said the world is just better with wool on your feet. Then he suggested the middle east conflict might be better if I knit socks for a few world leaders. Kisknit says it would be wool peace instead of world peace (trademark).  I think that would be a lot of knitting for other people and then my feet would be cold. And we all know a knitter with cold feet is not a happy knitter!

I recently realized that a bag of yarn would not work for me as a sweater and I am starting to knit it up into accessories for me. This is a hat I've finished now.

I'm working on a lace stitch cowl now. And up next is a nice long pair of fingerless mitts, most likely with cables. So really not a matched set design-wise but hey I am eclectic why shouldn't my knitwear be too?

So it looks like I will be knitting up a green streak for a time. What is your color of choice right now?

Hubby

Work is hectic, ASL class is taking time away from home, and my migraine kicked my butt. So last week as we were sitting down to dinner, and by dinner I mean oh crap-we're-out-of-everthing-what-can-I-make? It was "nachos" and I use the quotes because corn chips and beef were the only two things that we had on hand that make real nachos.

That evening's interpretation? Ground beef, a mix of spices that resembled taco seasoning, the only can of beans in the house (kidney), corn chips and frozen Mexican blend cheese. While it turned out better than I thought it would, highly edible, I looked at my husband and told him since the next night was class night, I needed his help for dinner. And by help I meant I needed him to provide something better than I just created, still highly edible though.

Now I had envisioned him picking up dinner but I don't really know how that was going to work since I get home way later than him on class nights. Maybe pizza twice in one week was not so bad? A frozen skillet type meal had already been played that week but come on I was desperate!

I called him after class on my way home because I had a story to tell him and I was feeling guilty for making him do dinner on such short notice. I asked if I needed to stop on my way home but he cheerfully told me dinner was covered.

I thought to myself pizza it is, won't it be nice to get home and have a nice hot pizza waiting for me that I did not have to cook. Yeah we found a nice take and bake kind that is cheaper than delivery.

When I walked in the door I was greeted with the smell of onions and garlic. D loves coming home to that smell and I truly understand why now. Upstairs waiting for me is fettuccine alfredo. Now I've always wanted to learn to make it but have always been intimidated.

For the twist, it is fettuccine alfredo made a different way with a you'll-never-guess-it special ingredient. Now I am thinking tofu as I sit down and start to eat. It tastes great, maybe not authentic, but  I'm not authentic Italian either.

The secret ingredient? The alfredo is ground up cashews. No milk, cream or dairy, but cashews. He was right, I never would have guessed it.

He asked a coworker for advice and she sent him to this recipe. It is especially nice because the alfredo does not separate when you reheat it.

D hit it out of the ballpark on his first two forays into the world of cooking. I may just be busy more nights of the week since I know I have a budding chef at home.

D you Rock!

Cat therapy

A week ago I had a migraine that would not let up. Finally after fighting it all week and feeling a tad better it hit me with an aura. Which I took as a sign to take meds and go to bed. The next day I went to work but decided to come home when it kept knocking on my head.

You know it was not pleasant when it took this to recover. Yep, I required a double cat dose to leach the migraine out. My boys they are such troopers, taking one for the team like that.

On the plus side I have a new winter hat to wear too. Because you know Malabrigo yarn running through your fingers is another form of pain med. You do have to make sure that Jack does not try to take it internally. That boy loves the taste of yarn, either that or he is trying to floss his tail.