Ding, Dong! The Witch is Dead!

BFF Socks by Cookie A. in
madelinetosh Sock "Whiskey Barrel".
Nice leg hair, eh?

And by "The Witch", I mean my "Manly Socks".  And by "Dead", I mean "gone-from-my-life-forever-thanks-be-to-god".  I officially finished them (meaning weaving in ends and blocking) this past Saturday (in plenty of time to give them to Andy before Game of Thrones Sunday).  But, the Thursday before was when I really felt like celebrating.  When I finished that lovely and magical Kitchener stitch (it never ceases to amaze me and I actually really enjoy doing it...provided no one tries to talk to me during the process) to close the toe, I could barely contain my joy.  I texted people who really could probably care less, I posted an announcement to Facebook...to be frank, I almost knocked on my neighbors' door just so they could celebrate with me.  I eventually got myself under control, tossed them in the sink for a good soak in Soak, then proceeded to start winding my Rockin' Sock Club April shipment of yarn.

Andy received his socks as soon as he got to my house on Sunday, and, yep, all the pain and anguish effort of knitting those giant socks was worth it.  He was so excited and kept telling me the entire night how soft and warm his feet were (it was snowing on Sunday....yes snowing in May....not that uncommon here but I'm still shocked and dismayed every time it happens).  I've already gotten requests from other guy friends for socks, but the experience of knitting those enormous brown things is still too raw....maybe someday I'll forget (kinda like childbirth...or so I hear).

Couple of self critiques on these.  They're slightly too big for him, wearable, but a little large...I was estimating as best I could and was maybe a 1/2 inch off.  I don't like the toe - I actually ended up doing my Kitchener with 12 sts on each side instead of 12 total so they look really flat and kinda weird.  They're the same colorway but very obviously a different dye lot.  I toyed with the idea of switching between the leftovers from my first hank and the new one for the second sock but decided that would 1.) kill me and 2.) not matter because they would still look different.  All in all though, I was OK enough with them to gift them and the recipient loved them (he doesn't know any better) so all's well that ends well, right?  Right.

In other news, I've been reading lots of other knitting blogs for awhile now and I'm always jealous of the gorgeous pictures of yarn, projects, and notions everyone seems to be able to take.  So, I started reading up on cameras and photography.  I almost convinced myself to buy a DSLR, but I got a hold of myself and instead went with a Canon Powershot S110.  It's not a DSLR by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a big improvement over my iPhone.  I can shoot in manual mode and control the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.

KnitPicks Hawthorne "Sunnyside"

 So, Friday after work, I had a little photo shoot with all the yarn mentioned from my previous blog post so I could get all that into my Ravelry stash.  These pictures make me so happy!  I still have a lot to learn about photography, but I just love that I got the background to blur without having to do any post processing.  Whoopee!

Araucania Huasco "#5 Green Brown Turquoise"
Much better picture than in the last post!

"Paua Socks" in Socks that Rock Lightweight
"Mad as a March Hare"

I started my Paua Socks for the Rockin' Sock Club.  These are going to one of my closest girlfriends, Kristina.  I cast on the first sock on Saturday morning and I'm already on the toe of that sucker.  That's pretty fast for me!  Should be done with that one tonight.

No real updates for theatre since I'm on my break.  Worked Debut Theatre's staff show last Wednesday which was a bit crazy since I was having to manually bounce between two of the cues programmed for the Debut Players' show and manually bring up one of the dimmers for blue lights.  Still, I had a good time and it was fun to watch.  Tricia from Bas Bleu sent an email asking if I could house manage The Woman in Black and I said I would if she couldn't find anyone to cover a couple of nights, but I really wanted to take full advantage of my break.  Plus, I loathe dislike house managing with the fire of a thousand suns quite a bit so probably a good thing to avoid if I can.

Phew!  That was long....but I guess it was a pretty exciting week!