November is not a good month for socks

Remember the Brainless Socks that I knit for my husband? He wore them and gave them back to me for laundering a few times and then he forgot and threw them in the regular wash and, well, felted them. They're much thicker and several sizes smaller than they were, too small for either of our feet. We need a 10yo child to wear them, on a cold day. He's absolutely heart broken about it but fortunately I picked up the yarn at the LYS in town so we went back and bought another skein (plus one for me!) and I'll knit up another pair.

In other news, my Purple Peace socks prooved too small to pull up past my ankle so, after redoing the heel 3 or 4 times, I frogged them and am now using the yarn for a pair of Brainless socks for me (72 stitches, 1.5mm needles). They're knitting up as quickly as one could expect at such a fine gauge. I'll use the (also purple - they only had the green/orange "fern" colourway and purple) yarn I picked up at the LYS for another run at Purple Peace in something resembling gauge. I'd already played with the pattern as much as I was comfortable with my limited (3 pairs finished) sock experience.

I finished my Sheep Heid and it was a joy to knit. I whipped it up in one weekend and could hardly stop myself from knitting one more row so I could watch the pattern progress. At the end I had 75 ends to weave in. Chris counted the cut off ends and gave me a smooch for each one. I was good and didn't cut the ends in half for extra smooches, though we disagreed about the smooch-count so, depending on who you ask, I may have got extras anyway. I apologize for the less-than-stellar photo. I wanted to take better pictures, outdoors and in sunshine, but haven't gotten around to it and I was holding up this post for waiting.

I also finished a Fair Isle hat with ear flaps for Chris. His ears get rather cold and hang out in the gap between his hats and scarves so I adapted a children's pattern for a large adult head. It's a wool/alpaca blend and quite itchy on his delicate skin so we bought a cotton head band for him to wear under the hat. I have one as well and they're perfect for wool-sensitive skin. I still need to knit a pair of convertible mittens for him, and then I will have secured my claim for the title of Best Wife Ever.

I started a scarf I'd been eyeing for years, as part of a scarf and tam set, and it has given me nothing but trouble. I re-knit each section twice to get them right and then realized it was supposed to be knit in garter stitch, not the stockingette I had defaulted to, so I had to frog the whole thing and start over. Now, past the point where I frogged it, I find I'm back to knitting a few rows and ripping back so I'll probably ditch the whole project. The phrase I'm looking for is "Meh.". I'm just not feeling the love, so I'm not really paying attention, and I keep making mistakes. Thus the progress on the Brainless Socks that I can knit while reading.

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In other news, our dishwasher is still broken. The repair man came back this morning with the parts he'd ordered last week and fixed the machine and announced that something else was broken and he'd have to order that. Chris, who has been washing dishes twice a day (I dry and put away) declared that if this doesn't do it, he's going to buy whatever washing machine is in stock and can be installed that day and be done with it.

We had Aged Parent*, Chris' father, over for Sunday Dinner last weekend. Oliver and Libby eventually warmed up to his being here and, while they stayed out of his reach, they forgot themselves enough to run around like mad things, much to Aged Parent's amusement. When we saw him yesterday he greeted us with, "how are the maniacs?" We get that a lot, from the very few people who see them with their guard down. We made an Asian-fusion beef and mushroom pie, served with mashed potatoes and buttered Brussel sprouts for dinner. We split the pie filling, freezing half and using the rest for the pie. Of the half we baked we dished out a third and served a third of that to each of us. Chris and I, in our very first forkful, each bit into one of the two star anise seed pods. It's not a very good telling of the story, but I continue to be bemused that, with 1/18th of the pie on our plates we got both seed pods in the first tasting.

After a fortnight of "warm" weather, it's started to be seasonably chilly (happily, given the woollen accessories I want to show off!). Aged Parent called on Sunday to tell us that it was too cold for us to walk over. It was cooler than it had been but still well above freezing. There was a time when I visited Aged Parent on alternate weeks so Chris could have some time with his father and, while Aged Parent would call for the least reason and tell Chris not to risk coming, on the weeks I was to visit, be it floods, fires, or blizzards, nothing would be said of staying home. Guess we know I'm family, now.

* Great Expectations reference

This is turning into a weekly update

First things first, Princess is doing much better. She's being anointed twice a day - a process she really doesn't like though it validates my daily corporate cuddling (I hold her like a baby and give her skritches until she purrs (and only then will I let her go if she wiggles)). In some ways, Princess is a lot easier with things like this than Ginger Kitty - he's a big scaredy cat and struggles desperately to escape from anything he perceives as threatening, which is pretty much everything*. Princess, otoh, will lie there passively until she thinks you've been lolled into complacency or are distracted and then she'll try and slink off. The ointment we were given (which is to say purchased at no small expense) is marketed for dogs and suggests application before feeding or going for a walk so the pup in question will be distracted from trying to scrape or lick it off. Eating holds very little appeal for our Princess but she's a huge fan of the Magic Red Dot so her evening applications happen immediately proceeding Red Dot Time. Her morning anointing is supposed to come before Treat Time but she's wise to us and has stopped showing up. Ginger Kitty thinks with his tummy and would fall for it every time and twice on Sundays.

~ * ~

My Jamesion & Smith Superior Jumper Weight Yarn finally arrived (though I still haven't received a reply to yesterday's, "You haven't fogotten my order, have you?" email), so I'm finally good to start on my Sheep Heid hat. In the meantime I'd cast on a Peruvian style Fair Isle cap for my Dear Husband but, even though I'm trying to keep the carrying strand loose, it's pulling too tight. Bugger. Mind you, if it's too loose than the stitches will sag and stretch and that's possibly worse. There's a golden tension - I just have to find it.

My Purple Peace socks are growing. I spent most of yesterday redoing the first heel only to rip it back to the gusset before bed. Each time I frog something and redo it I gain a greater understanding of what success - in this case defined as "things being the way I want them to be" - looks like, right?

My yarn swift arrived last week and I had to take it out and play with it right away, winding a skein of Malabrigo Sock Yarn. It works like a dream, though perhaps not a happy one for Ginger Kitty. He paced the perimeter of the room, unable to decide if he should flee or pounce. When I finished, he jumped up on my roll-top to investigate:

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Our dishwasher broke on Sunday and the earliest the repair man can make it out is Monday. We've been having a left-overs and take-away week and we're still doing at least two rounds of dishes-washing a day. Chris washes, I dry and put away. There was a small disaster yesterday as Chris, in his over-zealousness, dumped his half-drunk Gin & Tonic down the sink and washed the glass. The ice had melted and he thought it was an abandoned glass of water (forgetting that he'd set it there, on the other counter/worktop moments before). This overly-zealous approach to cleaning up while I'm cooking has often resulted in me exclaiming, "But I was still using that!" Now he knows how it feels.

In other news, Chris got both the new Steve Jobs' biography and his (Chris') new MacBook on Monday. I have a very happy husband - though he keeps the biography face down as the front cover picture is "Scary Steve" and the back cover picture is "Nice Steve". I can't make these things up. Chris has even read a (singular) chapter.

I stalled out on my aSoFaI reread (because I was watching telly while knitting, not because I wasn't interested) but I was able to get into a partial Hollows (by Kim Harrison) reread. I saw that book 9, Pale Demon, had come out in paperback and the kindle price dropped accordingly, so I reread books 5 through 8 and then read book 9 in its entirety on Tuesday. I started Pratchett's latest, Snuff (an ebook I'd pay HC prices for) that evening but decided I'm not yet ready to let go of Rachel Morgan so I've switched back to telly for the time being.

I'm catching up on (A Town Called) Eureka and am halfway through season 4. I didn't recognize Balthazar, from Battlestar Galactica, until he made the crack about hallucinating a "tall blonde in a slinky red dress" and then I could've believe I'd missed it. All I can really say in my defence is that it's been some time since I've seen BSG. I still haven't seen the second half of the fourth (and final) season of that series! I also acquired Castle with Nathan Fillian. I had seen an episode or two before I moved to the UK and have heard nothing but good things about it since. I tried showing an episode to Chris but he didn't seem interested, so I guess that's a "watch while he's at work" series, too.**

~ * ~

* he's actually getting better. Now, instead of bolting for a hiding place in a cupboard, he'll often bolt a few feet and then circle around to see if it was actually threatening or just startling. His orange coat is a Red Herring - this is the real reason he's known as Ginger Kitty.

** Our watch-together series are, currently, Hawaii 5-0, Star Trek TNG (we ran out of ripped Voyager and DS9 so those are paused, as is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, House and Numbers), Stargate:SG1, and The Big Bang Theory. We just watched the NYE and my husband is very sad that the Aquaman costume with sea horse steed doesn't actually exist. Someone get on that!

On Husbands, Socks, Steam and Swifts

Last night my husband came up to me as I was reading in bed, reported on The Paying of the Bills, and said, "send me the link for the wool for the sheep hat." And my little wifely heart did flip-flops of happiness beneath my breast*. Today, my little wifely hands added the appropriate skeins of Jamieson and Smith (1 ball in each colour) to a shopping cart and took the liberty of ordering them myself because A) it's easier than saving the shopping cart and emailing a link to my husband and then looking over his shoulder while he orders**, B) he defaults to ordering things in his name just as I default to ordering things in my name but I don't open things that arrive in his name unless I'm 100% certain I know what's inside and that it's for me and I like opening things so it needs to be in my name, and C) I still have the debit card from taking Princess to the vet***.

Is that not an amazing hat? I'm really hoping she'll chart matching mittens.

~ * ~

I finished the Brainless Socks (for Husband) - not to be confused with Brainless Husband Socks as that would be something else entirely. I mentioned them previously. They knit up very quickly, though I had to frog my first start after a few inches and switch to a smaller needle. That's my method of swatching for socks as it's no more effort than knitting a small square or tube and has the advantage that, if it's correct, you're already a few inches in. When I started over I decided to do the entire cable pattern with twisted stitches, though I did a straight rib and, if I did that over again I wouldn't. I hadn't done a lot of fibbing so I wasn't cognizant of how twisted verses non-twisted rib would look and I prefer twisted rib. But they look fine and Chris is completely in love with them, and that's what counts.

I didn't really touch my Zum Dirndle socks until yesterday. I twist the yarn as I knit and I can't dangle two-at-a-time socks to un-twist the yarn so I moved one sock to DPNs (bamboo - the only other needles I have in 2.0mm but I'm worried they'll snap if I actually knit on them) and am working on the other sock in magic loop. I'll just have to switch projects around frequently enough that my tension stays even.

I cast on a pair of Wendy D Johnson's A Finer Peace socks using Ripples Crafts BFL sock yarn in "plummy". To get the fabric I want I'm knitting the largest size on 1.5mm needles(!). They'll be amazingly warm but will probably take as many hours as the uber-complicated knee socks. I need to buy thicker sock yarn for faster socks.

~ * ~ We received an Amazon gift card from Shaun and Uli and I did a happy dance because it was a lot of money for spending on SF/F novels and, as my DH isn't much of a reader, that meant it was all for me. Chris insisted it was meant for wedding registry purchases (ignoring the fact that if they wanted to pick something off of our Amazon registry they could've done and the fact that Shaun confirmed it was intended as Book Money) so we each got to pick something "for the household" - a yarn swift for me and a milk steamer for him.

See, a certain fiancé-cum-husband had a very fancy, very expensive coffee machine that he'd had for years and loved. It was the kind that you fill with beans and then push one of a handful of buttons, letting it know if you'd like one or two shots and if they should be shots or Americano and I don't even know what all else, except it also had a milk steamer. Only it stopped working so my fiancé-cum-husband bought a new coffee machine, one that doesn't grind it's own beans but still has a milk steamer, packed up the broken one, and sent it off for repairs. Fast-forward about four months and his coffee machine is finally finished and eventually shipped back (with instructions to use filtered water and occasionally descale it) and my husband put the replacement unit in my office**** and set the original one up in his. All was once more perfect in his world except...Remember the new coffee machine? The cute little blue one? Well, it has a better milk steamer than the big expensive one and this occasionally causes husbands to pout and dream of better milk steamers. That's why we had to use my SF/F novel money to buy a milk steamer.

Obviously no explanation is needed for buying a yarn swift.

* I'm having a flowery kind of day. Aren't you?

** I trust my husband but I don't trust teh interwebs

*** She's been naughty and scratched all the fur off one spot under her chin. She did this last October and we took her to the vet and got some ointment and it healed and everything was fine and dandy. We noticed on Sunday that she'd done it again and told her that if she didn't leave it alone and let it heal she'd have to go to the vet and it was bleeding again yesterday (Wednesday) so the threatened trip to the vet happened and we once more have ointment and a dreaded Cone of Shame which is the current "if you don't leave it alone...!" threat. The vet says it's probably a seasonal dermatitis issue as she is otherwise the picture of health and I suspect it will be an annual pilgrimage. Or tri-annual as, this time, I'm not going to throw the ointment away until it expires (in 2014).

**** Originally he was going to keep the new one and sell the old one but he may need to establish an office in town so he's keeping the old one and keeping the new one for that eventual office. I occasionally ask, "are you sure?" but mostly just smile and nod.