Socks for girl child

Girl child loves hand knit socks, but sadly fitting her has been pretty hit and miss. I knit her up some lacy socks a while back and the lace was not stretchy (as lace should be), she likes those socks but it's hard for her to put them on. These are nice and stretchy and fit her quite well, should be no problems with putting them on! The 17 year old is asking for me to knit him some socks, methinks he should learn to knit. Besides I just knit him an earflap hat!

Busy days around here lately with parent teacher conferences, a jury summons, doctors appointments, optometrists appointment, karate lessons. It's been a while since I've looked at the calendar and told the kids "gosh we have nothing going on for a few days"!

Fires

My oldest son lives with his grandmother (his father's mom) in Pasadena. He's lived out in California with his father for the past little over 5 years. Every now and again he talks about moving back in with us, but I think that he likes the hustle and bustle of Southern California. I never grew to like the hustle and bustle growing up in California, and would rarely venture south of Santa Barbara, nor would I often go north of Paso Robles (actually my comfort range was fairly limited). But Colin has thrived living out there.

I talked to him this morning about how close the fires are to where he is. He assured me that the smoke isn't too bad and that the fires are still a ways away. He said that they're probably half an hour's drive from home (which given the tendencies of uncontrolled fires is far too close for his concerned mom). He promised that he would call me if they have to evacuate. I'm sure that his grandmother has places she can go to, and Colin's father lives in San Diego hopefully not in the path of the fire, tho Colin said that his dad's fiancee's school (she's a teacher) had classes cancelled due to the fire. But he knows that my family is to the North out of the reach of the fire and they are watching the fire and worrying too.

He mentioned when we were on evacuation alert during the Hayman fire here. How weird it felt to box up photographs and to try to figure out what we'd take. My mom was here visiting during that time and was terribly upset because I refused to hire a moving van and empty my house. We didn't have to evacuate so we still have out house and our belongings. I learned alot when Chris and I were first married and there was a terrible fire in Santa Barbara (1989ish). Chris was in Korea on business with his boss and called me because his boss had been unable to reach his wife. He gave me the address of his bosses house and I had to inform him that every house on that street had burned to the ground. His boss's wife had taken some relatives to the airport and could not get back to their house. They lost everything, their house, their horses, dogs, cats. Everything. So, had we had to evacuate during the Hayman fire, we still would have been blessed.

I am sure that my son will be safe. Hopefully soon the fires will be out.

The Cross Hatch lace sock and my favorite model

Here is my dear Stella holding Girl child's "Cross Hatch Lace" sock. I've just cast on the second sock and perhaps when I get it done I'll have girl child model both of them for me. Amelia mentioned my darling footrest and I thought perhaps I'd tell a little bit about my model/footrest. This picture (minus the sock) is pretty much what I see when I am sitting at the computer and look down. Miss Stella. Miss Stella was a gift from my husband a little more than 14 years ago after my first miscarriage (I've had 4). When she came to live with us she was a 6 week old ball of fluff. She's dried many a tear, and shared much much laughter and many many good times. Now she's 14 (she turned 14 in June), nearly blind, nearly deaf and quite stiff...tho she still plays and is just as sweet as can be. Because she is so calm and patient it is easy for me to toss my knitted goods on her and have her "hold" them for me to photograph. She never complains and will hold perfectly still for hours on end (sometimes prompting us to hold a mirror under her nose). She is in the twilight of her life and I simply can't bear to think of her no longer here to put up with my warming my feet on her, or perching my knitting goods on her. Jenny (the sawed off hound) just isn't the same.

It snowed last night and I need to shovel off the back deck. Old Stella can't navigate the stairs especially in the snow, so she has "deck potty privileges" when she was a young thing she got in trouble for pottying on the deck, but with age comes privileges. She's earned them. So perhaps I'll go and shovel off the deck for my dear little old lady, and then settle in with the mate to that sock.

Where did I learn to count?

So, I finished my mom's first sock. You know, I mentioned my mothers ridiculously small feet....she wears a woman's 4.5 (childrens 2) and I wear oh, say a 7.5 (or an 8 depending upon the shoe). I measured the sock as I knitted along. I put the sock on my 9 year old son's foot (since he wears a children's size 4 shoe, I figured that it should be in the right size ballpark, as I decreased the toe. I finished up that bad boy and looked at the lovely lovely sock..........

Lookie there, I think that my mom's lovely sock will fit my sister perfectly....think she'd like a pair of lovely blue socks for Christmas? I swear the toe must have added a foot in length to these. Because that foot in the picture is mine...my size 7.5 foot. Perhaps it's Karma, I kept saying that mom wouldn't like them, but I was going to knit her socks anyway because she keeps dropping hints. Methinks that the fact that these came out much much too large is a sign (of course it could be a sign that I should keep them and not gift them to my sister, but really if I do know one thing, I know that my sister loves her hand knit socks...especially if she doesn't have to knit them).

Another Friday

I'm sitting here balancing the checkbook, no...really I am toiling away at balancing the checkbook. Of course I do find balancing the check book to be less than thrilling so I do have to have a break to check ravelry (because I obviously have time to knit all of the projects I find. and it's fun to look at other people's projects), oh and perhaps a break to open and close the door a thousand times for the dog who feels it is her duty to go in and out like a yoyo (that will change when it snows, then I'll have to throw her out). Yep, I'm balancing the checkbook so that I can knit when I'm done...oh! Look! A cloud in the sky. Okay....focus (and finish my cup of coffee that should help with my focusing powers).

Okay, checkbook is balanced. Some of my yarn is photo graphed. Middle son just shook his head as I'm photographing sock yarn (he said I should dump out the garbage bag full of yarn our neighbor gifted to me and show that, but I'm not quite ready to do that. I told him to get back to school....he goes to online high school).

The only project I have on needles at the moment (for some reason I'm not one to have multiple projects going, sometimes I'll have a sweater AND socks, or a sweater AND a hat, but rarely do I have 5 or 6 things going at a time) is a pair of socks for my mom for Christmas. Since she wears a children's sized 2 shoe I'm anticipating a quick knit. The yarn is some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock I bought a ton of from ebay last year, the pattern is Twin rib from Charlene Schurch's "Sensational Sock" book. I hope that mom likes her socks since once they're done they won't fit anyone else in the family. The only person with feet smaller than my mom's is my 6 year old daughter. So if mom doesn't like the socks instead of strangling her with them we'll give them to girl child.

And now, enough with the rambling, I have things to do and some knitting to get done (and housework, always housework) before our Friday night racketball-a-thon.

Later gators!

I'm in!!

Got my invite into Ravelry yesterday and started looking around. I'm not terribly computer savvy so we'll see what I can do there, I know it shouldn't be hard but I don't spend all that much time on the computer (tho some days it feels like I never leave the computer).

In knitting news I am now the proud owner of both of Charlene Schurch's books "Sensational Socks" and "More Sensational Socks". Those socks in the picture aren't from either book, but are pretty much my basic sock with a gull stitch down the side. I knit them up in Colonette something wild (I have no idea what happened to the ball band, those things seem to disappear the moment I wind the hank of yarn, I think the kids take them). I had about 6 yards of yarn left when I finished the socks which amazed me because my feet are pretty much standard issue size (7.5 ish). Now that I've finished those socks I do have a pair from "Sensational Socks" in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock (a score from E-bay) for my mother for Christmas. She has exceptionally small feet (Children's size 2) so it will be a quick knit!