gift-filled homecoming eases pain of epic frog

May 24th, 2007 pam Posted in despair, socks, swaps 31 Comments »

I’m home! Until January! I pulled into my Flint, Michigan driveway at 2:00 this morning, and spent all day writing to deadline (and unpacking during breaks). I then took a long bath with some of the lovely stuff I got from Megan in a recent swap, and I’m just now sitting down with a mug of tea, the lover and the kitty, catching up on comments and Bloglines and Flickr.

AND, I finally got to open all the great packages that were waiting for me when I got home.

First, my Secret Pal sent all sorts of fantastic goodies:

the cutest 3-piece travel set;
Sweet Feet sock yarn from Hill Country yarns in a yummy green called “Tadpole”;
sticky notes shaped like the letter P;
quilting pins; great-smelling room fragrance; a bag of dark chocolates;
and the summer issue of Rebecca.
I LOVE YOU, SECRET PAL!
Then, for Indieknits‘ Superfluous Sock Yarn Swap, Sarah sent me some hot pink Lorna’s Laces, and a really thoughtful personalized mix cd.
Thank you Sarah!

All this knitterly luv takes a bit of the edge off what I have to do next:
FROG THIS SOCK.



The pattern is from wolhalla, and I love it. But I used Lorna’s Laces and One Sheep Hill (both lighter fingering weight) on 2.25mm needles, and it came out way too snug for my high instep. I can’t even get it on my foot. (When will I learn?) I’ll have to try again with some big fat Colinette Jitterbug on US 2s.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

so it goes.

April 12th, 2007 pam Posted in despair, life No Comments »


“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies - ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ “

Kurt Vonnegut
1922-2007

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

can socks feel love? loneliness? pain?

March 7th, 2007 pam Posted in despair, socks No Comments »

I noticed that I have several items on the “in progress” list that are sitting at precisely 50% completion. This is because they all need mates. Three lone socks and a mitten are keeping each other company in my knitting bag. I hope they’re making friends.

Anyway, I’m taking them off the list. When they go from 50% to 100%, I’ll take pictures. In the meantime, I’m tired of seeing my commitment issues spelled out for me. :)

One sock has been taken off the half-done list because of fit issues. I have a high instep, and it had to be wrangled onto my foot. So this morning, my Baudelaire went from this:

to this:


I tore it stitch from stitch, then drowned it in the sink. There were little bubbles as it went down. I held it under until they stopped.

And now it’s just a soft, squishy lump of damp Koigu.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Minnesota ate my car.

February 25th, 2007 pam Posted in despair, friends, life No Comments »


This took a *really* long time to dig out.

We started out with shovels and a strategic battle plan, but after an hour things got desperate, and we just started pawing wildly at the heavy, cement-like snow with our hands. Listen, I did some things I’m not proud of. Things can get crazy in this part of the country, man.

Big thanks to my awesome housemates for not abandoning me in the field to grim snowy death. It was close there for a while.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Next Entries »