sock-er world cup

the knitting world cup kicked off over the weekend and i don’t know if i was clear about it in my post, but that white shawl is my project, since it has to be done for a wedding on july 16th (i think that’s right . . .). i will knit the shawl AND write the pattern in the allotted time—how’s that for a challenge? AND somehow i will figure out how to get the world knitting cup button on my sidebar!

there is still time to sign up at yarnmonkey; cast on was friday (so officially, i’m covered, having begun on time), and you can sign up until june 19th. the ending whistle blows on july 9th.

i won’t show a progress picture of the shawl today because it’s all squished onto a 24″ needle (that picture is from saturday). when i move it to the 32″ needle, i’ll be sure to snap some pix. it’s going very well; the first section of this piece is an easy 4-row repeat. this yarn is quite different than the one i used the first time i made the shawl, which was matchmaker merino 4-ply (the one i gave away without finalizing the pattern notes; yeah—don’t do that at home).

then, i started this shawl again in march with some alpaca, and i loved it, but decided the gauge needed to be tighter,

so i pulled it out, intending to start again, and i haven’t yet. i love that yarn, too! but since i needed a wedding gift AND i needed to test the pattern, white it is, this time!

no skirt progress to show today either!! i had planned 2 wonderful days of mostly spinning, knitting, and audiobooks over the weekend, having only about 8 hours of work to get through before today. but i forgot that my husband is training for his new job (with the same company i work for), and he really needed help all weekend getting familiar with our formats and process, and the product he was assigned.

so, i sat in the office instead, watching him work through things, and answering questions. david has been renovating our house full-time for several years and has been away from this work for a while, but he is picking it back up beautifully. still, i had to stay close by because there were tons of questions.

sigh.
i have such mixed feelings about david going back to work right now. he is doing it so that we can have a little more security—i worry about the status of my own job constantly, as well as the demand for my skills (a side effect of having been laid-off several times during the post-9/11 purge when we lived in NYC). it would be a crisis for us if i lost my job, or my hours were drastically reduced, and david was not working. plus, it would be good if we could put more money towards our retirement than we do now.
ALSO, my work in fiber-related avenues has been increasing, and though not as lucrative, i feel i absolutely MUST pursue anything of this type that comes my way. all of those things add up to the fact that i am at my limit, as far as hours i can possible work in a day (and still get anything personal done). yet, though i work an awful lot, our finances, while not precarious at the moment, could topple if anything changed.

this is a stressful situation that i’m sure all too many people are familiar with; in fact, i feel a little sheepish because i’m sure we are still better off than many, many other americans. for now, we are easing the stress by making this change. hopefully, he can keep his hours to a very part-time level.

it WILL slow down the progress on the house, which is also a project that impacts our financial status. i joke around a lot about the house being a money-pit, but the truth is, we have been incredibly creative in our choices during the renovation, and most of the investment so far has been david’s elbow grease. we are definitely improving the value of the property, but not spending nearly as much as one would think (we just can’t). we don’t want that to change! and we DON’T want the pace to slow down that much either—there is still a lot to do!

david’s job will also mean giving up the “extras” that having one person not working brings to a home. he always did daytime errands and most of the cleaning and laundry—he is a nester (and me, not so much . . .). he has been the one that keeps our home from spiralling into chaos.

hopefully this will all work out for the best—or maybe we will win the lottery this year!
(hey, you never know . . .)

back to this weekend, because he needed my input frequently, i did not want to work on anything that required me to even look at it, so i caught up on—you guessed it—socks! and guess what? these are almost done!

i know you are completely sick and tired of the hollySox, but seriously, they are quite nearly finished—i may have another hour or so of work on them and that’s IT! honestly, these are the slowest project i have worked on continuously in recent memory.

i also did some work on the briar rose socks i am naming “autumn spirals”

this sweet freedom sock yarn is really nice to knit with; i find it to be silky to the hand and the rich colors are a constant pleasure.

hopefully this week, we will have an in-depth review of some new yarn from debbieKnitter, our inveterate yarn shopper and fearless yarn sampler. i think this may become a regular feature, and when you read her style, you will see why!