So, as I hinted yesterday, I got an awesome order from The Loopy Ewe the other day:

The highlight was a hank of Wollmeise Lace yarn. Is that not stunning? The name of the color is “Pfauenauge”, which I think translates to”Peacock” in English. (Any German-speaking individuals want to confirm this?)

I’ve had quite a time winding it tonight though. There’s 1,740 yards on the hank and it was a bit tangled. UGH. I’ve managed to get most of it wound, though I broke it at one point so it’s in two center-pull balls.

I also got two hanks of Claudia Hand-Painted Yarns Fingering-weight in “Peppermint Mocha”. I thought it would be a fun color to use for some Christmas socks!

And…

I also got LOTS of new sock patterns. I ordered a few of them, but some were thrown in as “bonus” items, I guess! (It’s no wonder Sheri has so many loyal customers… she’s a-maz-ing!)

Here’s the new patterns I got (with links to Ravelry so you can see what they look like if you want):

• Asparagus Cable Socks by Wendy Johnson
• Garden Path Toe-Up Socks by Wendy Johnson (I’m in *love* with this pattern!)
• Snapdragon Toe-Up Socks by Wendy Johnson
• Loopy Laces Toe-Up Socks by Wendy Johnson
• Dancing Tulips by Monica Jines
• Karen’s Socks by Monica Jines
• Hearts-A-Plenty by Monica Jines
  
• Coins by Monica Jines
• Victorian Swag Socks by Monica Jines

… So I have plenty to keep me busy for a while (sock-knitting-wise anyway). I’m still looking for the “perfect” pattern to use for the Wollmeise. I want a BIG lace shawl of some sort, I think. But I just haven’t seen anything I really like yet. Any suggestions? (Nothing too difficult — though that may be impossible when talking about lace…)

So I got this freakin’ a-ma-zing order in the mail today from The Loopy Ewe. I was going to tell you all about that. But, believe it or not, something else came in the mail today that’s even better!

What, you ask, is better than a kick-ass order from The Loopy Ewe?

Our Wedding Photos!!

I uploaded my favorites here. Believe it or not, that’s only a small fraction of the photos we got. And lucky for us, rather than prints, we chose to go with a package where we received all the photos on disc (2 full DVDs) with a signed contract signing over all the rights to the photos to us. It was a great deal.

For friends and family members who are going to want to see every single photo, I created a whole other Flickr account and I’m working on uploading every one of the photos here.

I can’t wait to get prints made. We received quite a few photo frames as gifts and I’ve gotten quite tired of looking at strangers’ faces in the frames. Hehe.

Anyway, I promise tomorrow I’ll get back to the normal knitting/crafting related posts. I just had to share this today!

First, I wanted to say thank you to all the new visitors (& old!) who are leaving comments. I enjoy reading them so much, and it’s so nice to know people are finding my lil’ blog!

It appears my case of second sock syndrome is subsiding! This is another pair of socks that’s supposed to be a Christmas gift. I’d knitted the first one probably over a month ago, but it’s been sitting around since then waiting it’s mate. I cast on the second sock last night and worked on it a little last night and today. I turned the heel, picked up the stitches along the gusset, and now I’m starting to knit the foot. This one is knitting up fast because I’m using whopping size 5 needles.

You’ll notice in the picture, also, that I’m using the magic loop technique on these. The only reason I’m doing so is because that’s how I knit the first one (because I was just learning the technique then). The process has been so frustrating! I don’t know how people can stand it — all that excess cord seems to kink and twirl and constantly be in my way! Is it just me? I still love my DPNs best.

So today marked a new adventure for me: shopping in preparation for cooking a Thanksgiving dinner.

It honestly wasn’t something I thought I’d be doing. I figured for the next several years, Nick and I would still be spending Thanksgiving with our parents, and that I wouldn’t have to figure out this whole turkey-cooking thing. Unfortunately, with our work schedules, there’s no way we’ll be able to make it home for the holiday. But I wasn’t about to have a Thanksgiving without turkey, stuffing, and all the other goodies.

So today I braved the grocery store. Wow. It was pretty much a zoo. The baking aisle was particularly crowded, and pretty much impossible to navigate. I managed to get everything I needed (without being run over by any runaway shopping carts) except corn syrup. For some reason that eluded me. Apparently they were hiding it? I’m going to try a different grocery store (the one I usually shop at) tomorrow though, and I’m sure I’ll find it there.

The whole shopping experience was actually a little bit emotional for me. I guess I always imagined that the first time I’d be cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner, that my mom would be there helping me shop and teaching me what to get and how to prepare it. But I’m on my own. Sometimes I really, really hate living so far from home.

I’m doing a pretty simple turkey-day dinner: a turkey of course (I got a 13-pound one), stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, and crescent rolls. Then I’m planning to make pumpkin pie and chocolate bourbon pecan pie (a new recipe I’ve been dying to try) for dessert. I hope it all turns out well. I’m mostly excited about the pies. I love baking.

On another (random) note, I also picked up a pint of Häagen-Dazs today while I was shopping. Believe it or not, I’ve never in my life tried it. I got the Baily’s Irish Cream flavor. Oh.my.gosh. How the hell did I go through nearly 26 years of life with having never tried this stuff!?

I decided today that before the day was over I was going to finish this Christmas-gift sock. So FINALLY, it’s done. Too bad that’s only one.

The yarn is Knit Picks Felici in “Arugula”. It’s very nice to work with. I didn’t use a set pattern per-say. I mixed and matched some ribbing from Getting Started Knitting Socks to make it unique.

Now I’m swapping back to another pair of Christmas gift socks that I’ve been half-done with for quite a while. I’m basically alternating back and forth so that I don’t get bored. I may cast on one more pair of Christmas gift socks also. I just haven’t decided which pattern or which yarn from my stash to use yet.

I snapped this super cute picture of Gidget, fast asleep on an afghan. I must have 500 photos of Gidgy sleeping already. Cats just always look so adorable curled up, dreaming away.

(You can tell I’m a newbie to this whole cat ownership/being owned by a cat -thing.)

I had to order some more Wool of the Andes yarn from Knit Picks (because I decided to knit mittens to match my scarf) and when I did, I ran across Knit Picks Gossamer…

Isn’t it pretty? From left to right, the colorways are Trail, Blue Jeans, and Carribean.

I thought the “Trail” colorway might make a nice man’s sock — it’s nice manly colors like green, brown and gold with a slight bit of brick red thrown in. The “Blue Jeans” — well I thought that would just be nice to wear with jeans! And I’m always a sucker for bright colors, so that’s obviously why the “Carribean” colorway caught my eye.

The best part? It’s only $2.99 per hank. Check it out. The Gossamer also comes in undyed hanks for only $4.29/hank — perfect if you’d like to try your hand at dying your own yarn! (Tempting! Ha ha.)

… So that was my nice but not so “exciting” yarn pr0n for today. I should have some real goodies next Friday though. Hehe.

I loved my name. My full name: first, middle and last (maiden) name. It just flowed so well, and was so ME. But I guess that’s only natural when you’ve lived 25 years with that name. I’m really struggling to get used to my new (married) last name.

Case in point: in our office, when there’s a birthday or other special event, a card always gets passed around for everyone to sign. Paper-clipped to the front of the card, there’s always a list of everyones’ names to be checked off as you sign so no one gets missed. Well today a card came around and I signed it. Then I sat, puzzled, trying to locate my name on the checklist. Why was my name not on the list? Then I realized: I was looking at the bottom of the list. My maiden name started with a “W”, so I’ve been looking near the bottom of alphabetical lists for the my whole life. My new last name starts with a “C”, so it’s near the top. I had to laugh out loud at myself.

How long does it take to get used to a new name?!

I’ve only been married just less than 6 weeks, and I only “officially” changed my last name about a week ago (as far as actual legal documentation). But I’m just very uncomfortable with it. It’s not that I dislike my new last name. I just feel entirely disconnected from it. It’s not ME, in the least.

I actually didn’t want to change my last name when I got married. Not for feminist reasons or anything like that — but just because I was so fond of my maiden name. But it was extremely important to my new husband, and therefore it was important to me too. Does every newlywed woman go through this? How long will it take me to get used to this new name? Will there ever come a time when I see my new name written on paper and not think, “Who the heck is that?”

Anyway… exciting yarn news!

I managed to get my hands on some Wollmeise! LOOK! Is that not droolworthy?! And I had a $25 store credit from The Loopy Ewe, so that actually offset the cost quite a bit. I don’t have a particular pattern in mind really. I actually wanted to get Wollmeise sock yarn, but there was none of that to be had, so I snagged up the lace yarn instead. I’m extremely intimidated by knitting lace, though. But I’ve recently faced my fears of sock knitting and cables… so I suppose lace is next? Can anyone recommend a good pattern (a beginner-level lace shawl perhaps) that would be nice to use my lovely new Wollmeise in?

In her post today, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee talks about Cat Bordhi’s book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters. Specifically, she discusses Cat’s different, “outside the box” approach to knitting. The post is well worth the read.

Our sock club got a copy of New Pathways for Sock Knitters as a sort of guide for all the patterns we do. Admittedly, I haven’t had as much time or patience as I’d like to devote to studying it. I wrote it off as being too difficult. But as the Yarn Harlot explains in her post, it’s not “difficult” — it’s that we tend to be creatures of habit. At sock club the other night, one of the women was talking about how wonderful the formula explained in the book really IS, once you understand it — and how it can be applied to any pattern to make a much better fitting sock. It certainly piqued my interest. I think it’s time I gave the book another try.

Anyway, I hardly think it’s worth posting what’s on my needles this week because sadly, it hasn’t changed much since last week. I’m about 65%-ish of the way through my Irish Hiking Scarf. It’s turning out beautifully and I’m quite pleased with it. I have yet to cast on my second red/purple sock (which is supposed to be a Christmas gift). Then there’s the green socks that are also a Christmas gift — they were going great: I turned the heel, knitted the gusset, and was on to doing the foot… and I screwed up some of the stitches (purled where I should have knitted) so it needs to be fixed before I can go on.

Then there’s my sock club sock. It was going well. I was actually really impressed at how pretty the TOFUsies was knitting up.

However, I got to a part in the pattern where you’re supposed to do a left-twist.

I thought I knew what I was doing… but apparently not. ::sigh::

I knit the entire leg chart once through, and it looks nothing like the sock in the picture. So I got out some big needles and some bulky-weight yarn and tried to do the stitch pattern with that, just to see what I was doing wrong. Well I’m definitely not doing it right — but I have yet to have figured out exactly what I’m doing wrong. So tonight before I head to bed I’m going to try and re-read some different directions online and see if I can figure out where my problem is. It can’t be that difficult. (Right?)

Gidget says: “Dis knitting stuff makes me sleepy!”

I’ve had a nasty migrane headache half the day, so this is going to just be a quick update — ’cause now that I’ve shaken the migrane, I’m trying to catch up on all the things I didn’t get done earlier!

First, thank you — you know who you are. I don’t know why you do what you do… but thanks. You’re something else!

Look! Sensational Knited Socks AND Twinkle’s Big City Knits. A girl can’t ever have too many sock-knitting patterns to chose from. (Or, uhm… that’s my opinion anyway.) And I was just looking at the Twinkle’s Big City Knits book at Books-A-Million the other day and I was so tempted to buy it… there’s so many lovely things in there that I want to knit for myself SO badly. So now hopefully I can start on that after I get my Christmas knitting done.

OH! I just remembered: my LYS just got in this Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca Grande in stock that is… well it’s the most incredibly soft stuff ever. And I’m betting it would be perfect for things in that book. Oh man… heavenly! I’m thinking birthday present to myself!! Hehe.

Here’s the start of sock club sock # 2. It’s the Oc-Toe-ber FiddleSticks Socks by Deby Lake. The yarn is TOFUtsies in an exclusive colorway for sock clubs. Fun!I got through knitting a few rows of the cuff. Those first few rows are always the most difficult!

I’ve read a lot of complaints about TOFUtsies being very splitty. I had a lot of trouble with that the first few rows, but once I got going I didn’t find it to be a problem really.

Anyway, I’m off to get ready for tomorrow at work. I feel SO behind. (Sleeping half the day away in a dark room, trying to shake a headache will do that to you.) Hopefully I can ease back into the work week, and the Thanksgiving holiday is right around the corner. Yay!