Wow.  Hard to believe that today is the last day of March.  Our “major” snowstorm last Friday never happened but we did end up with a dusting of snow on the ground Saturday morning.  By the time the sun woke up, the snow disappeared, though.  Now, just crazy weather.  Yesterday was 84 and wonderfully sunny and warm.  Today we are expecting 64.  Just not sure how to dress anymore.  But some things never change and here are some new socks for you.  Again, all Jojoland socks.

MS 20

MS 28

MS 08

BL 266

BL309

I, of course, have some toes to close up and then wash the socks and post them.  Yesterday afternoon, while the kids wrapped up placement testing, I played with color changes and have gotten them down to a much quicker time frame.  I really like splicing them together so I don’t have to sew in ends when the sock is off the machine.

Speaking of placement testing, we’ll be working on that all week and into next.  End of year testing and placement testing for next year.  Daddy-Man and I are thinking of changing the curriculum we are using so we are testing to see where the kids would place and which materials we would need to get.  So far, it’s going well.  We’ll be wrapping up our school year in April so we are all getting antsy to be done.

I continue to have problems with the blog thing as well as comments so I will  be looking to move the blog I guess.  I appreciate those who are trying to leave feedback and having problems as I am having problems posting messages to my own blog.  I get the same weird messages and stuff.  So hang in there while I decide what needs to be done.  I’ve been with wordpress now for over 3 years, but the last couple of months have been pretty rough.

I hear kidlets stirring, so I guess it must be time for me to start breakfast.  I hope your day is blessed with sun and warmth and laughter and love.

Please don’t mistake that for Cranky Fool, but I guess I could take on that title too this week.  However, I do have 6 more pairs to show off (with several more to come so I hope you all aren’t getting too bored).

All of these socks were made out of Jojoland sock yarn.

Melody Superwash

MS11

MS26

MS27

MS14

Ballad Wool

BL244

BL438

My first real attempt at lace.  What do you think?

Our weather is so crazy.  We are expecting snow/sleet tomorrow.  Perfect day to wear some warm wool socks. 

Bonnie granted me this award and I thank her for thinking of me.

Accepting this award means following some rules:

1. copy the Kreativ Blogger award to your blog
2. put a link to the person from whom you received the award
3. nominate 8 other blogs and
4. link to them
5. then leave a message on the blogs you nominated

Here are the eight bloggers I have selected in no particular order.

Yarn Tales

Serenity Farms

Stitches of Grace

Sunrise Lodge Fiber Studio (shame…she tagged me with a few things that I still have saved as drafts…shame on me)

Deborah’s Doings

Honeysuckle Loom

Dragon’s Lair

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (if only she’d blog more often)

And onto the socks!

Left over Vinca from the last pair.

Left over Jojoland Melody MS29

Salvia Yarn

Still more to post after I finish up sewing toes together and wash.

Ok, this is sort of a rant, so be warned.  Hubster and I have been talking about moving for awhile.  It’s normal in military life.  So we’ve talked about choices and wants and trying to figure out what God wants for us.  One of the things (and there are a few believe me) that we don’t like about here is the weather.  No real winter to speak of (80 degrees in the middle of winter just isn’t winter) and summers that are so hot (last year 120 degrees) and winds that really give the state song a new meaning. (The stanza about the winds whipping down the plains is sooooo true).  Anyway, after a long discussion and researching options, we decided to table the idea for a bit longer.  After all, due to stabilzation and whatnot, we’re here through November (unless the Army decides otherwise of course).  So after making this decision, and feeling a little less stressed, the winds kicked up and whipped down the plain again.  While just sitting down for dinner, we heard a loud crash.  Yes, the winds caused a ladder to crash into my van which will now need to go to the body shop for repair.  Joy.  I tried to have a good outlook.  I was upset, but it could have been worse.  We made it through dinner and clean up when the tornado sirens went off.  Into the hallway….yee haaa (not).  Looked like that storm had passed so we went to the living room only to have the power go out from another storm.  YEAH!  Glow sticks and flashlights for the kids and they were happy.  Daddy-man was also content as he sort of likes storms.  Me….oh yeah….I HATE storms.  But I clipped on my trusty coleman camp light to my head and closed the toes of socks to keep calm.  I did find an upside to all this.  I CAN crank out a sock on Hank in the dark if the situation warrants it.  The head lamp is sufficient lighting, however, momma wasn’t calm enough to do a whole sock so closing toes of already cranked out socks worked better.

At least it’s a new day, no storms predicted today, the power is on, and sleet is in the forcast for Friday.  Yes, it’ spring time in Oklahoma.

Is it time to move yet?

Whew…can’t believe it’s the last full week of this month already.  It’s a new week, the daddy man made it home safely LATE Saturday night, church was fun yesterday (I taught the 10-12 year olds…oh my!), and I got a great night of sleep.  YAY.

More socks of course.

Made out of a yarn called Vinca.  I had thought I matched up the colors but alas I didn’t.  But I still like them anyway.  I will be keeping these socks and trying out the yarn.  If it holds up, I do plan to buy more as it knit up nicely and feels soft to the touch.

My friend, Kelly, gifted me this sock yarn awhile ago.  I loved the overall purple with a slight teal backdrop.  Nice feel as well.  I called this the Dragon Yarn.

I am signing up for a sock machine Crank-in that will be happening in June.  I am really excited about going as I don’t get to do many fibery events.

This week it’s back to the old routine, wake up, school, and whatever else comes our way.

By the way, for those of you having problems leaving a comment on my blog, I am having similar issues writing to blog.  I get the database error too.  Honestly I am not sure how to correct it so if anyone out there with a self hosted word press blog can help me update, I’d appreciate it as truly I am clueless.  I’ve tried to do this before, but mess it up every time.

For now, I am off to oversee chores and get ready for our school day.

A Shawl

The wedding shawl is completed, washed, pressed, and ready to be mailed.

Can you see the snowflakes?

Wool/silk for warp Alpaca for weft

Some Socks

For youngest girl child

For oldest girl child

For me

The difference in lighting.  I posted this picture yesterday using light box and incandescent bulb.

Same socks using a day spectrum bulb.

Big difference don’t you think?  The second one really shows the true colors of the socks.  YAY!

A Gadget

I saw this sweater dryer rack in an advertisement in the box with our can opener a few months ago and scoffed at it.  I have a rack for my dryer and it does ok.  Then I saw it priced WAY cheaper at “stuff-mart” yesterday and picked it up.

This picture only shows 2 out of the 4 racks.  Cool air blows on top and below the shelves.  Each shelf would easily hold 3 (or more) pairs of socks.  I dried the above three pairs of family socks in less then 30 minutes.  Wee haa!

Hubby is on his way home today.  Yippy!!!!!

Yes, I am making lots of socks this week, but not just for feet either.  I made  a wine sock.  I love it.  I used some left over yarn from my Jojoland socks and basically made a sock with just a toe.  Fits the bottle like a glove (tee hee).

And now for the sock parade.

Jojoland Ballad #BL428

Jojoland #MS29

Socks That Rock wool/silk Grandma’s Garden (or something like that but I can’t find the name now)

And my own red hand painted.

The shawl needs a final pressing then I can show it off.  Hopefully tomorrow.

I finished another pair of socks for one of the kidlets.  This was a colorway I hand painted awhile ago called Autumn Harvest.  This colorway matches the scarf I wove for middle boy child for Christmas. Orange, green, and brown.

He was happy.

I made a mock rib on these, but should have just knit plain stockinette.

My new sock blockers arrived from Knit Picks.  They are nice.

I made my light box and am happy with it, for the most part.  Just need to get a day spectrum bulb rather then the incandescent bulb.

Youngest boy child has separation anxiety in a major major way.  While he’s slowly, over time getting better, he can’t stand to be apart from his dad.  Daddy-Man is TDY this week and in another state.  Youngest boy child started fretting about a week before daddy-man was due to leave.  Saturday night, said boy child started having nightmares.  But you know, who could blame him?  Come home from school one day and boom….your family is gone and you are in a foster home.  Stay with that family for a few years then boom, a new family picks you up from after school care and you go home with them (ok so there were visitations and he knew we were picking him up, but still….)  Last year while Daddy-Man was gone was hard.  I mean REALLY REALLY REALLY hard for youngest boy child.  We didn’t have much communication, phone calls few and far between, web cams didn’t always work, no text messages.  Just hard.  So, this week, youngest boy child is pretending daddy is at work.  He leaves really early in the morning and comes home really late at night.  Having nightly phone calls is helping.  Having a light week in school and then being able to play with friends all afternoon is helping.  What also helped was being able to choose colors for his socks and choose a pattern too!  I watched a tutorial from the Soxophone Player on how to splice colors and ended up with these.

Youngest boy child loves them.  Momma loved them too because with the splice technique…no ends to weave in.  Very cool.

The weaving is coming along on the wedding shawl.  I was able to finish weaving it yesterday afternoon and will tie all 1400 fringe ends (that’s 700 ends on each side….look Kelly….math!) . Here’s a picture in it’s unfinished state.

Can you see the little snowflakes?  They remind me of Norwegian snowflakes in a knitting pattern.

Hope Bonnie C likes it.

And moving on to how stupid I can be (like how can I survive in the world being this stupid….)  Bonnie T, your socks are going back out to you today.  Um…well, you see, I sort of sent them to myself.  How in the world I put both the mailing address and the return address to me is beyond me.  But what’s even worse?  It took the postal service a week to mail the package to me!

Can’t wait to see what today brings.  Oh wait….yes I can, unless it’s my sock blockers from Knit Picks.

Like most knitting machines, Hank likes an easy feeding yarn.  No snags, no glitches, nothing to hinder the easy glide of yarn into the yarn mast and guide.  Coned yarns work much better as opposed to yarn in center pull balls (or cakes as some people call them).  Problem being, I don’t have a cone winder and don’t want to shell out for another “toy”.  I do have a bobbin winder though.  However, a cone won’t fit on there. Argh!  what to do?

Ahhhh….buying a styrofoam cone flower thingy from “stuff mart” might do the trick.

Yup, sure did.

Wound my yarn onto the cone,

Showed it to Hank

And 40 minutes later, we had a pair of socks.

Still gotta close those toes though.

Happy St Patrick’s Day to all those who celebrate.  Today for the occassion, I am wearing my new green and purple JoJoland socks I showed off yesterday.  Yippee.  I have always managed to make something green for the kids to to eat that isn’t normally green on St Patrick’s Day.  I have added green food coloring to scrambled eggs, milk, cupcakes, mashed potatoes, and a few other things I can’t remember over the years.  They are already trying to guess what will be green today.  Shh, don’t tell them but green grits for breakfast and then green fettuccine (ok so it’s already green with the spinach pasta) but I will make green alfredo sauce along with a fresh loaf of home made green bread.  Should be interesting.  Do you make anything green for St Patrick’s Day?

Got quite a bit from my list done yesterday.  Grocery shopping (check), load of camping stuff to the new camper (check), changed insurance for camper (check), cleaned carpet (half a check because I ran out of cleaner half way through and the store was out as well.  Will pick up more at stuff mart tomorrow and finish it out), cleaned filter for range hood cover..ick (check), made it to the loom for the wedding shawl (check), three loads of laundry (check), three meals cooked (check), made a pair of socks (check) and received sweet text message from hubby (check check check).  Now to see what can be finished today.