Baby Socks

It’s less than 5 weeks left until my due date. I can’t believe it. I have had baby on the mind. On my last midwife visit, she gave us a list of things to have on hand for when the baby comes. We washed the newborn size baby clothes that had survived the basement, and are getting the supplies ready. It’s fun to be able to pick out the first clothes that the baby can wear after it’s born.

I’m also frantically trying to finish up my baby knitting projects.

We had to switch midwives because my midwife’s daughter is due around the same time as me, and lives really far away. My midwife had been hoping she was going to come stay with her in February, but that looks really unlikely now. It’s really sad, because I think she’s great and was looking forward to having her at the birth. Her backup is a 45 minute drive away. So at least I get knitting time in the car on the way to and from appointments.

Inspired by the list of supplies, and Silja’s beautiful socks, I felt the need to make some baby socks with leftover sock yarn.

The pattern is Better Than Booties Baby Socks, and I did the Chevron Lace pattern. It was written a little confusingly, in the pattern photo, the lace pattern is on the sides on the top, maybe I misread something, but it’s cute as it is.

This week has been a little exciting/stressful. At my midwife visit Monday, it seemed the baby had turned itself wrong side up (which if it stayed that way means an automatic surgery delivery in my area), so I was stressing over that. Then I had a doctor visit today, and the baby seems to be back to the proper position, but it looked like things might be getting in place for the baby to want to be born… so we want it to stay in there a little longer. Nothing really drastic, I am just supposed to rest and get lots of water and protein. Maybe I will get some knitting done.

Well well

In case anyone was wondering, we did get our well fixed the next day. I had left a message with a local guy, but he never called me back, so I called a big company to come out and look at it. The next day, Ingi was home, and the local guy called and he just assumed it was the big company, gave directions, and the guy came. He had started fixing the well and left to get a part when the big company showed up. Ingi sent them away (I guess we will be blacklisted from using them ever again) and the local guy came back, and ended up fixing the well by just cleaning out some parts. So it wasn’t too expensive. We are sure those other guys would have charged us for all new parts.

Also, our living room wall is done, finally (both of these things were done in time for company on Thanksgiving). He did a really nice job.

The trim colour is the one B picked out for his room (that’s next). I also have a really great closet in my bathroom finally (the old owners had these flimsy metal racks that fell down all the time, and they finally ripped out of the wall and I’ve had my bath stuff in boxes in the hallway, and our towels in a basket in our room.

I finished my Big Basin socks with birthday present Hjertegarn a while ago, but now that I’ve worn them a few times, I finally got a picture:

It’s one of the Six Sox Knitalong patterns. They are peeking out from the bottom of the maternity corduroy pants that I sewed, but there is no photo of the pants since they are pretty basic. Still, they are more comfortable than most store-bought maternity pants. For some reason, the waist on those comes right to the wide part of my belly, which makes them slide down all day long and drive me crazy. I could have made the waist panel tighter on mine, but at least it’s high enough.

Big Basin Stuck

I am obviously a little further along than in the above picture.

I have never knitted a pair of toe up socks on 2 circulars before, and now I am STUCK. I finished turning the heel and am supposed to be picking gusset stitches up from the instep needle onto the sole needle. However, I can only seem to get one side, since the configuration of needles doesn’t let me get at the stitches from the other side. I’m not sure what to do, short of pulling the socks off the needles onto stitch holders and then getting them put onto the needles the right way.

Any suggestions?

Two Socks, Two Needles

I am still not sure how I feel about the two-socks-at-a-time-on-one-needle method, so I decided to try out the basic sock instructions for two socks on two circular needles from Knitting Circles Around Socks. I think I like this method better, although with worsted weight yarn it was a bit of a bulky project say to take on the bus. I do like having two socks finished though!

Yarn is called Moor Ragg (apparently no longer available, this was really old stash yarn) from Green Mountain Spinnery (in Putney, Vermont). (By the way, they have some really cool new sock yarn that I just noticed when finding the link.)

Roza ég prjóna lykkjurnar þínar

(Apologies to Megas)

How appropriate for Socktober than socks made out of corn. Only the first one is done (men’s socks seem to be very slow). I am using Grumperina’s pattern Roza socks from Interweave Knits, and the yarn is Maizey, which is made from corn fibre (for anyone who hasn’t been following along).

Guy Stuff

Seems like the guys have been picking some of the movies we watched lately, a real testosterone fest. (Maybe it’s revenge for that Brokeback Mountain? ) Surprisingly, they were much better than expected. We watched The Guardian the other night, which was selected while I waited outside the video store with the dog. And we watched Flyboys a while ago, which also surprised me. And of course James Bond the other day. Anyway, it must have rubbed off or something, because when Ingi and I went to pick out a movie for the two of us to watch, I suggested 1408, which is a thriller based on a Stephen King story, sort of like The Shining. That one was really fun.

My knitting is guy stuff too…. guy socks.

Also popular with the guys, Amy Karol’s amazing pumpkin muffins. I made these the other night with a pumpkin I bought at the farmers’ market.

A-maize-ing

I haven’t posted in a while because things have been insane busy at work.

I have been on the lookout for good non-wool sock yarns that don’t come in fancy pretty colours. Kind of a difficult search, isn’t it? Then the other week when I was getting a replacement needle for a sweater that I abandoned a long time ago, I found Crystal Palace Maizy, 82% corn fiber, 18% elastic nylon, per the label. It’s an interesting yarn to work with. It’s a little bit annoying, because the fibers are kind of loosely plied and they keep separating as I knit. And then, I am working on the apparent Cursed Sock which I have had to frog twice, and this yarn is not so forgiving about frogged and re-knit repeatedly.

But it does have kind of an interesting texture knit up. I think it would be very nice yarn for a baby garment; it has a slightly bumpy texture and it is very soft. So here is the sock in its first incarnation (now I have not quite re-knit to where it was at this point):

(If anyone notices, a lot of my pictures seem to have the same backdrop. That is because my house is surrounded by trees and there are only like 3 spots in my house where I can get decent enough natural light to take a decent photo.)