Sandy Updates

1- We still have no power at my house.  Though I'm hoping that will change soon.  A pair of guys came to fix the gas at the yarn shop today.  One had a hole in his pocket and he was looking at our notions display for a needle and thread.  I told him we wouldn't have anything appropriate there, but that we had an emergency sewing kit in the bathroom.  They went to get everything set and came back into the shop afterwards.  So picture it:  He's standing there pulling on the pocket and I'm leaning over doing the worst sewing job ever just to get the pocket lining reattached to the jeans (my boss at the costume shop would have been so embarrassed!).  The conversation went like this:
Gas Man:  "How are things by your house?"
Me:  "We have no power, but gas runs the hot water, stove and oven, and we have a wood stove for heat."
Gas Man:  "Where do you live?"
Me:  I tell him the name of my town and describe where my neighborhood is.
Gas Man:  Blank stare.
Me:  "Where are you from>"
Gas Man:  "Syracuse."
Me:  "I have family in Tully!"  (a small town 20 minutes or so south of Syracuse)
Gas Man:  "What's the name of your street?"
Me:  I tell him.
Gas Man:  "Well when I see the power guys I'll send them that way and make sure they get you fixed."

Cross your fingers for me...

2- Grandma is finally out of the hospital.  I don't know how she weaseled her way into 2 extra nights there.  She tried to protest when we were visiting her Friday because she had not lights or heat at home and a doctor aggravatingly told her, "This is a hospital, not a hotel!"  But her house got electric back at 4 am and she came home sometime today.

3-  Relief Counterpane Blanket has sold 32 patterns as of my last check.  And OMG THIS!  Fangirl moment :o)  It's very handy when your boss tweets your pattern, and Kay Gardiner just happens to retweet AND buy it.  I love it.  You guys rock.  Keep it going!  If you haven't gotten it yet, use that button just down there...

Relief Counterpane Blanket
size US 7 needles
approximately 150 yards of worsted weight yarn per square
9 squares makes a small blanket


All of the proceeds generated by the sales of this pattern will be donated to Long Island Cares.

Oh, Sandy

As I'm sure everyone out there knows already, Hurricane Sandy came through our area like a beast.  There's plenty of devastation- floods, trees on houses, power lines down, homes just swept away.  I was lucky- we lost power but have a gas stove, oven and hot water heater.  And hey, I can knit by candlelight :o)

Unfortunately, not everyone I know was as lucky.  Family and friends have homes in varying degrees of being destroyed.  My grandmother had heart surgery within days of the storm and has no heat (electricity) to go home to.  Every shelter in the area is filled but many are sleeping in homes with no heat, power, gas or even a ground floor in livable conditions.

Bring in the fundraiser!  I've pulled a Kay and designed a simple square motif pattern to sell to raise money for Long Island Cares, a local food bank working their butts off to provide supplies for those in need in Sandy's aftermath.  Special thanks to The Village Knitter in Babylon, NY for providing me the electricity, Internet access, and amazing community it took to make this pattern possible!

Once you've knit at least 9 squares, they can be sewn together to form a small baby or lap blanket.  Add more to make a larger blanket.

Each square uses approximately 150 yards of worsted weight yarn.  Use more than one color to destash some of those leftovers :o)

Relief Counterpane Blanket
$5.00 
All proceeds to benefit Long Island Cares

 

I'm A sock knitter!

So I knit a sock!  Like a real sock (not my mini KnitPicks anklets which I've knit 1 1/2 of).  I knit a Knitmore Girls Vanilla Sock which is just a basic plain top down stockinette stitch sock.  I decided to use the String Theory Caper Sock Yarn that I'd bought for one of Autumn's baby blankets that I started and frogged when I realized I only had half the amount of yarn I needed.

I did about half of the leg before deciding that since I had two balls of the yarn, I should make better use of it and make knee socks.  After lots of knitting, ripping, knitting, and resizing, I finally got the numbers worked out right for it to fit my calf.  I have pretty big calves since I'm short and always standing on my tippy toes so this pattern would probably work best for someone similar (or also with larger calves).

I love this yarn.  It's the same I used for my Grass Green Hat.  Just a bit of cashmere to soften it up.  My issue with this yarn (or at least this skein) was the knots and spinning explosions.  Both of my original tries prior to finally getting the right stitch count for knee socks were cut off instead of being ripped back because there were knots.  There were also a couple spots where the yarn had mini explosions in it.  You know, those random spots where the fiber wasn't spun right and there's a fluffy bulge in the yarn.  Yeah, a couple of those here and there.  I vaguely remember this happening also with the green yarn used for the hat.  But I love the yarn too much to not continue using it.  None of the explosions were bad enough to cause a big interference with the knitting.

I've posted the stitch counts I used on my pattern page of the blog (check it out up on the top!) so that if anyone else would like to try it out they can.  Please note, you will still need to use the Knitmore Girls' pattern for most of the sock.

Now I'm off to work on the second sock :o)