The Saartje Booties,Bellatrix socks, & LOTR sock club!

Here are my finished Saartje booties. I tried to use a colorway that was neither feminine nor masculine, but had great color since it's knit in garter and that always showcases the color bumps. I can't get a good picture of the color, but they're blue, purple and green. They ended up being 3" in length, so they are totally newborn.

I did them the Bockstark way, so I could knit them in the round, but I did them two-at-a-time, so I changed a few things on them and ended up doing the straps completely seamless instead of the original way. I'll post the pattern of how I did them later on. I'm too....pregnant and tired to do it now :)

"One of the Black Sisters, her evilness grates on you like 1000 runs in your stockings"
Here are the toes and start of my Bellatrix socks. I'm actually up to the gusset right now, but I've had a few mishaps. First, my #1 bamboo circular broke (the cable where it connects). So...it was New Years Eve and I had to wait until yesterday to pick up a new needle. I got an Addi Turbo Lace for it. Then, I was just sitting down to knit last night after a long day of crazy kiddo-ness, and my #0 broke. It just broke off at the wooded part where the cable connects. OK. I get it. No more bamboo for socks. I'll use the damn Addi's for now. I'm also going to order the KnitPicks Harmony since they have metal connections and I think they will work with the tiny sizes just fine.

So, I'll be heading out to my LYS again today to pick up some Addi Turbos in #0. My Bellatrix socks are totally cursed, but I don't care. They are awesome and I'm going to finish them. I also had a casuality in the manner of my Brittany birch DPN's last night. Morgana was holding two of them pretending to knit and went to sit up off the couch and snapped one right in half. Luckily I had 6 in the set, so there's still 5 should I need them. I'm having a hell of a time with needles the past few days. I don't know what's up.


And to end this posting, I was clicking on my groups on Ravelry and I saw a new group "LOTR sock club". I clicked on it and found a cool yarn company called The Unique Sheep that was hosting a LOTR sock club. I was all excited about it as LOTR stuff is harder to find now as everyone in the mainstream is "over" it now. And I think there's only one sock pattern on Ravelry for it (Rivendell). And now, here is a whole club, 6 months long for 2009, with a monthly payment option (affordable!), and exclusive colorways and patterns that make sock clubs so much fun! All LOTR! Jim even seems to think this is a cool idea. Knitting is so much fun because of the entire Ravelry thing, I swear.

So, it looks like it's going to be a busy Spring for me with two sock clubs going on for the first part of 2009. And a new baby. Anyday now. 37 weeks and counting. This pregnancy is not bouncy and spritely like my others...it's wiping me out. I'm ready for the baby to come, I'm ready to have five children and be done with pregnancy in the future. I never knew when I'd hit this point, but I kept telling everyone that I would *know* when it hit. I would *know* when my family was complete (this is in response to the multitude of times I've been asked how many children I'm going to have). I wish I had more time to just sit and ponder over the baby, and enjoy this last little bit of time before they arrive.

P.S. Did I mention that I happened to find the LOTR sock club on the very last day of sign-ups? And signed up for it at nearly 9pm without even knowing it was the last day. I would've kicked myself if I had waited until the next day or pondered it a bit more.

Well, Jim is home from work, I'd like to snuggle him up a little bit, and then I have to head over and get my needle and a tiny hank of sock yarn for baby.

Socks complete! And new sock yarn

Arriving on xmas eve from the UK is my new sock yarn from Angels & Elephants. About 1600 total yards of hand dyed sockish deliciousness. From left to right they are: Polperro 100% British sock wool in colors of blue to green to deep purple (maybe for the Saartje booties or the Bellatrix socks), Zennor 100% blue faced leicester in colors of lavender to grey to blue to purple, Autumn Leaves 100% blue faced leicester in colors of pink to olive to browns and greens with a little mustard (I'm thinking of using this for either some Morgana socks or for the Ginny Weasley socks), and finally it's Damson Delight 100% British sock wool
in deep purple to medium purple to pale violet (maybe this for the Bellatrix socks?).

And here is a final shot of (and it's impossible to get the true color of the yarn which is a deep and bright garnet color) of my Baudelaire socks that I finished up. I can't get a good close-up of the lace pattern with my camera, but I got some fairly decent ones a few posts back. They are very comfy and snuggly! I love them!

So...I'm going to try to pick out my yarn and get started on the Saartje booties. They should be a very quick knit, and I'm thinking I can do both of them at the same time on the circulars. I have to wind my yarn into balls, so that will consume the first hour of my time right now at least...but at least the yarn came in 50 gram hanks so I can just wind them separately to use for two-at-a-time socks. That's my new goal. I'm even thinking that I can do four-at-a-time baby socks right? Yep, that sounds totally plausible. Someone has to have tried it. Just use lots of baggies to keep that yarn separate....


Jim had gone to Michaels and picked up a bunch of rolled casting to use for my belly mask. With how crampy and odd I've been feeling everyone is getting ready for this baby to come any day. I'm still at 36 weeks though and knowing that I've given birth with my other children anywhere from 39 to 42 weeks there's just no telling. But a nice glass of wine definitely calmed things down the other night. Sometimes I can't even figure out how to get into a comfortable position where it doesn't feel like the baby is trying to completely turn itself around or over, or where my stomach doesn't feel like it's pushing itself out into everything I get near. Other times it feels completely like it's a part of me that doesn't interfere with anything at all. This has been the most unique of my pregnancies, but Jim tells me that they all have had their own issues like this. I seem to be able to forget anything unpleasant then I guess.

I would love for Winter Break to go on, and I'm a little sad for there to be only one more week. I'm enjoying this break from routine and obligations so much. I always do. Summertime is too long of a break, but these small breaks really make it nice. Especially now when I'm physically uncomfortable for one reason or another lately and love not having to get up early, or run to ballet, or drive kids back and forth to schools and all the other stuff we have to do. I love being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Again, what I miss the most from homeschooling.

Well, time to wind the yarn and think about what I want to use to start those booties. Sometimes after it's wound into a ball it starts to look like something completely different than when you see it in a hank. It begins to take on a life of what it wants to be. When I have more time, I think I might even start dying my own yarns. I have so many ideas of what I want to do but I'm trying to just take things one day at a time, at least until after the baby comes and we are settled back into some sort of a routine.