Come Together

It's almost the beginning of a lovely, long holiday weekend, and I am having trouble focusing on anything remotely having to do with my actual work (testing software).  I'm muddling through it, but, then again, I'm also writing this blog entry while I'm waiting for things to load.  My college roommate is visiting me this weekend from out of state so I'm working from home for a half day today, and then I think we'll head out to one of the many microbreweries here in town.  I may bring a sock to knit on, just in case of an emergency.  You know how it is.

I finished off my Quite Contrary socks last Friday and I love them!  They ended up being a teeny bit tight on my feet, so I think I'm going to give them to my Grandmother for Christmas.  I'm pretty sure she's going to adore them.

Quite Contrary Socks in BMFA Socks that Rock Lightweight (Forget-Me-Knots)

I posted a few questions in the Ravelry Group forum for the Rockin' Sock Club about this pattern and then posted the above picture in the same forum.   The response that this photo got actually made me blush!  Everyone was so complimentary.  The pattern designer even decided to make it one of the featured pictures on the pattern page!  Squee!  

On that note, I have recently realized just how much I was missing out on by not being more involved in groups and forums on Ravelry.  I've been on Ravelry for years now but had really only used it to find patterns and keep track of my projects.  Now that I'm actually starting to get involved with the community, a whole new world has opened up to me.  I don't really have any knitter friends, so being able to talk and share with all the lovely knitters on these forums is truly a blessing.  Maybe a bit of a curse too as my queue continues to grow exponentially...

I joined in on another Sockdown in the Sock Knitter's Anonymous group.  One of this month's challenges is to knit a pair of socks with a pattern designed to show off self-striping yarn.  I've had some KnitPicks Felici (Splash) in my stash for a few months so this was the perfect time to try it out.  This is the first time that I've used self-striping yarn, and it's magical!  I don't understand how it works, but I am constantly thrilled every time a new stripe starts.  I keep talking about it to the aforementioned non-knitter friends, and they just smile and nod while looking at me like I might be safer in a padded room.

I decided on the pattern Down the Rabbit Hole and am loving it.  A few hours after the above photo was taken however, I realized that I had different numbers of stitches between my traveling stitches.  I couldn't figure out where I'd made the mistake so I had to rip back to the ribbing and start over.  I think this actually ended up being a good thing as I decided to try a different way of cabling without a cable needle for the traveling stitches, and I'm much happier with the way try #2 is looking.  In case anyone is interested, I'm using method D described in this article.

In non-knitting news, last weekend was full of festivals.  On Saturday, me and a bunch of friends headed down to the Colorado Renaissance Festival.  My parents started taking me to this festival when I was 3 years old.  I have gone every year since (save for one where I was stage managing a show out of state).  I look forward to it all year and it didn't disappoint!  It was a day full of friends, huzzahs, corsets, and beer.  

That's me in the front on the right....the short one.

On Sunday, I attended the Colorado Brewer's Festival where I sampled some very delicious microbrews.  Let me tell you, if you ever visit Fort Collins, aim for the Brewer's Festival weekend.  There were 100+ beers there from breweries all over the state.  There's also live music, shopping, games, and rides.  Makes for a truly wonderful day!

No real theater news to speak of this week, which is probably good as this is getting long (as usual).  We start choreography rehearsals for Journey to the West this next week so I'm sure I'll have more to talk about soon!

If anyone is reading this, I hope you have a wonderful Independence Day!

Everything's Alright

I'm going to change up my normal posting order this week and start off with a follow-up from my last post.  If you're reading this and you're not interested in theater drama, keep scrolling to find the knitting.  In that previous post, I described very vaguely that there was a situation going on with people involved in my next mainstage show, Journey to the West.  It's rather too long of a story and probably not that interesting of one to actually describe the events that led to said situation in detail.  We'll just leave it at "some guy" was dating "two other gals" (one of whom was me - we weren't exclusive so I did not care about the other gal) and a "different gal" found out and was hurt by that information.  Because she was hurt, that "different gal" was considering quitting working on Journey as she didn't think she could work with one of the "two other gals" (not me, the other one...for some reason).  However, after the "different gal" had a few days to calm down, she decided that she would be able to work with the two other gals as a professional and we're all moving on.  Phew!

In non-drama theater news, I finished running the Reader's Theatre production of Other Desert Cities.  It's a great show - if you ever have a chance to see it, I'd recommend it.  We're getting close to starting rehearsals for Journey so I started getting my SM book together and wrote the first draft of the props list last weekend.  I can tell you without a doubt that it is the weirdest props list I have ever written.  I actually had to include "Poles with babies in cages attached (9)" on there.  I'll give you a second to re-read that.  Yep, babies in cages....not my idea.

Ok, so on to knitting stuff.  I finally have a FO to show off - Liz's Rainbow Monkey Socks are cast off, finished, and blocked.  Since her feet are much larger than mine it was hard to get a good picture (her feet weren't available), but here's what I did get.

They are super soft and stretchy and I think she will really like them.  I did love working with the Araucania Huasco other than the fact that if it was warm, the yarn that was resting over my forefinger for tensioning was leaving a little blue stain-line.  When I washed the socks, the color didn't seem to bleed much either in the sink or on the towel, so hopefully she won't have a problem.

As soon as I cast those bad boys off, I immediately cast on for the May Rockin' Sock Club socks, Quite Contrary Socks.  They have a very different sort of construction from normal cuff-down socks so I had some trouble with misinterpreting a few instructions and got myself confused and frustrated.  Fortunately, the lovely ladies on the Ravelry RSC forum helped me out and I am now done with the first sock!

I also entered these into the Sock Knitter's Anonymous Ravelry Group's June 2014 Sockdown contest.  For anyone who doesn't know, they don't actually judge your socks other than to make sure they meet the criteria of the challenge and the general rules.  All you have to do is cast-on a sock that meets one of the month's challenges and then cast it off (and post photos) within the given time frame and then bada-bing bada-boom, you're entered into a drawing for a variety of prizes varying from yarn to stitch markers to patterns and more.  I've never done any sort of contest like this, but so far it's fun!  I added a ridiculous amount of patterns to my queue just because I made the mistake of looking through all the other entries - they're gorgeous!  Anyone else fall prey to this trap?

I have totally slacked on my Summer Breeze Pullover - I got past the raglan increases and separated the sleeves.  Then, I promptly set it down and have not picked it up since.  There are two reasons (I think) for this behavior.  First, I had to get Liz's socks done before this coming Saturday when I'll see her at the Renaissance Festival (and I really wanted to have a FO to show on here). Second, I am obsessed with getting these Quite Contrary socks completed.  I got the first one finished in 3 days which is a new record for me!

Lastly and briefly cause this is getting really long, I finally stopped by another LYS near me, The Loopy Ewe (also an online store) last Friday.  It's a lovely, bright, friendly store with a seriously huge amount of yarn.  I spent about 45 minutes petting all the yarn I could and finally forced myself to leave.  Surprisingly, I managed to escape with only 1 hank of yarn - Handmaiden Casbah Sock yarn in the Tourmaline colorway.  The picture makes it look slightly more blue and less green than it is in real life.  I think it's destined for some Christmas socks for my Mom (maybe Treebeard Socks?).

Okay, I think I've gone on enough for this week.  Hopefully, I won't be a slacker like last week and will actually post again within a week.  Then maybe I wouldn't have so much to say!  If anyone is reading this, I hope you have a lovely week full of yarn and/or theater!