Here are a few pairs of socks with toes sewn up, washed, dried, and ready to go.

I hand painted this yarn 2 years ago during a project spectrum month.

This yarn was hand painted last month in my “Vashti” Colorway of purple, blue, and teal.  The yarn base is donegal tweed from Knitpicks so there are flecks of red, blue, and yellow in it as well.

This yarn is “Lemon Ice” from Claudia Handpaints.  Blogless Bonnie sent me this yarn in December.

And here are more socks that need toe stitching.

So stay tuned.  There’s more to come.

Yup, I admit it…I am obsessed.  There is no cure, there is no hope, so don’t even try to talk to me about a 12 step help program.

Monday Hank and I finished our second pair of socks.

Just a basic hemmed top and then stockinette sock.  Love em.  Wore them Tuesday.  So comfy.

By Monday afternoon, we figured out the ribber.  Yup…ribbed tubes….

Very cool!

Tuesday, well, that was a different story.  Only one pair done and I decided that the ribber and I need time alone with no kids and no interuptions.  Wednesday brought another single pair. But today.  Oh yeah.  By 2:00 I had 2 pair completed.

Green/purple are from Tuesday, yellow are from Wednesday and those on the machine are from today.  I still need to kitchener up the toes and hope to work on that this afternoon and show finished socks tomorrow or Saturday.

While I was busy cranking, kids were busy doing this….

Schoolwork…or at least what appears to be school work.  Off to grade papers and see how they really did

Oldest girl child turns 15 today.  Oh my, that means two 15 year olds in the house now.  We did cake and presents last night because tonight is church and Daddy-Man has a lunch time bible study so trying to get it done today was going to be rough.  She was given the option of waiting til Friday (a joke) or opening early.  She opted for opening early.

Grandpa brought her roses (on the right) and roses for the anniversary day too.

She picked out a chocolate mint cake and even though she decided she didn’t like the mint icing too much, it looked yummy anyway.

After the sugar coma was over, we moved to the living room for presents.  As you may know by now, Caleb LOVES helping open presents.  Any presents…..

She decided to do the same thing.

After all the gifts were open, she declared it the best birthday ever.  That made me smile.  I think, though, it was the make up that did it.  Several years ago, she asked when she could start wearing make up.  I threw out an answer of, “oh I don’t know…when you’re 15, I guess.”  (something along those lines at least).  She remembered and remembered well.  So a few months ago I told her for her birthday I would get her the make up.  Daddy man says he’s going to have a heart attack having her leave the house with it on, but mommy went VERY VERY conservative.  That’s a good thing.

I plan to take all the kiddos out to lunch this afternoon so that’s a nice change of pace for us.

The phone rang at around 3:30 this morning.  I didn’t realize it was the phone at first and couldn’t figure the annoying sound waking me from a sound sleep and a nice dream (which I can’t currently recall).  I heard Jim talking and realized he was getting recalled to work for an alert.  Boom!  Awake, start the coffee going and the day begins.  I did lay back down while he was getting ready and as I stared at the ceiling my gaze caught my wedding bouquet sitting on a shelf to my left.  Ahhhh…today is our 13th wedding anniversary.  As I thought about that very warm February morning in southern Ohio 13 years ago (we were actually afraid of snow storms after an extra snowy winter so far…but a warm front blew through to give us nearly 70 degree temps) I knew I was signing on for the “in sickness and in health” part.  (Funny…half the house is dealing with colds this week and some are worse off then others.)  And I sort of understood the alert thing…I mean he’d be shipping off two weeks after our wedding day.  Thirteen years, 3 duty stations (not sure how many actual houses at this point), countless of separations, 5 kids, a slew of pets, and lots of fibery therapy later, I’ve come to realize that it’s all just part of the package.  Happy Anniversary, Boo.  I love you!  At least this year, I got to give you a kiss as you rushed out the door and say happy anniversary in person.  That was pretty cool.

“My beloved is mine, and I am his…”  Song of Solomon 2:16

Yesterday after church, I decided to try an actual sock from beginning to end.  So around 2:00 I started cranking and had to stop at about 3:30 so we could head over to our Pastor’s house for dinner (waving to Pastor David and Kimberly…..we had a great time).  When we got home, I resumed the sock and finished around 9:00 pm.  So all in all, about 2 1/2 hours for the first sock.  Not too shabby.

What’s even better…it fit!

This morning after breakfast and after the kids started school, I began the second.  I did have interruptions due to laundry, questions, going over lessons, etc, but finished up around 10:45 or so.  Less then 2 hours on the second even with interruptions!!!!!!

I think I will be doing the happy dance in my new socks today.

I am hoping this will be a lesson for the kids and even again for myself.  I spent 4 days working on this and had lots and lots of mistakes.  Youngest boy child asked me if making the mistakes made me mad.  I had to stop and think and answer carefully.  No, making the mistakes didn’t make me mad.  Yes, I got frustrated, but I kept telling myself that each failure was one step closer to success.  Each time I did something wrong, I tried very hard not to make that mistake again.  Sometimes I did make the same mistake, but most of the time, I was able to learn from it and move forward.  Now…let’s see if we can apply the same principal to real life.

Today is a bright and sunny day here and we are expecting upper 70’s all week long.  Spring is here for us and I hope it’s coming for those of you who have had a hard winter this year.

Oh yes, we are making progress and heels.  Or would that progress on the heels?  Anyway, I got to spend a few hours all the myself yesterday while the hubster supervised the kidlets at their weekly bowling thing.  So I popped in a movie that I know pretty much by heart (It’s A Wonderful Life) for background sound and started cranking away.  Two hours later when the kids came home, I had what someone on the sock machine yahoo list as an “elephant man sock”  Just a bunch of heels.

But they are really starting to look like socks!!

Wee haa.

Hope your day is filled with SON-shine.

As in Hand Crank.  Hank and I spent most of Friday getting to know each other.  Hank can be quite cranky and cantankerous, but really once we got acquainted, he wasn’t so bad.  It took all day but by supper time, I was able to make two heels with no dropped stitches.  Wee haa.

And just a note to my honey.  Don’t be jealous of Hank.  He’s just cold hard metal.  You are the “real man” in my life and I adore you.

…sorta.  About 3:00 or so yesterday afternoon, I noticed I was tapping my foot furiously waiting to see if the mail man would drive by or stop at my house.  Since we have a community mail box down the street, he only stops if he has a package too big to fit in the “package box”.  My friend, Kelly, encouraged me, via email, to cast on for the vest (ravelry link) I was interested in making.  I decided that was the thing to do.  So, after casting on and knitting exactly half of the first row, I happened to look up and see the mail truck stop in front of our house.  I held my breath…..yes, he was indeed getting a LARGE package out of the back of the truck.  I had to suck in some air, the kids gathered round, and sure enough he started walking up our drive.  Youngest boy child started jumping up and down shouting, “It’s here!  It’s here!”  Youngest girl child did a twirl in front of me and I think even the dog started getting excited.  I met the mail man out on the front porch.  I smiled and said, “Please tell me this is from New Zealand.”  He smiled back and saw the kids jumping up and down through the storm door, and said “expecting something.”  I told him yes that I had been waiting a long time.  He asked how long.  I told him 2 years!  Thankfully, the mailman knows me well as we were in the same Sunday school class for nearly a year.  He asked really how long I was waiting.  I told him it shipped two weeks ago but honestly I’ve been waiting for this thing for 2 years (because that’s how long I’ve wanted one….ok probably longer).  He told me he hoped it was worth the wait.  I smiled, signed the delivery confirmation card and said, “You betcha!”  We said our goodbyes, and I headed into the house with this:

Even the outside of the box was wrapped in bubble wrap!  What could it be? Bear-kat and Caleb were eager to investigate as well.

It took awhile to cut away all the bubble wrap and get everything lined up and assembled.  But finally I did.  Then, I spent another 2 hours trying to figure the thing out.  But finally I got it and started knitting.

Yup, it’s a brand new New Zealand Auto Knitter Circular Sock Machine.  I am in LOVE.  By the time Jim came home from work, I had knit and ripped several tubes, but here’s a sample of what was left for him to see.

Oh yes!  Happy Valentine’s and Happy Anniversary from my beloved hubby!  I am so incredibly blessed.

I have been no so patiently waiting for a package from overseas.  There is no way to track this package but expected delivery is “any day” now.  The post office had to go and change our postal carrier’s route or something also.  Mail used to come first thing in the morning.  Now, it’s nearly the end of the day before it comes.  Sometimes waiting just stinks.

When I did my first Shibori Scarf last month, it turned out more black then either “C” or I wanted.  It took me awhile to get the weaving mojo to start again, but after starting and finishing the weaving yesterday (and putting Nora, the loom, back into storage) I painted the black dye on last night.  Here’s the result.  Sure hope you like this one as much as I do, C!

Specs:

Length: just under 60 inches with 3 3/4 inches of fringe on each side

Width 8 1/2 inches

Superwash wool for warp and weft.

Next one I make I plan to paint one side one color and the oposite a different color to see how that comes out.  But it might be a bit of time before I can do that as the “wedding shawl” is up next.