Falling behind already

So the camera is officially broke. All I get when I snap the shutter is a pink screen of death and then no photo can be seen. It has to be the lens or some other digital contraption inside the shutter. BUGGAR!!! Until I can obtain a new one (and I am holding out for a really good one) or I can find my wonderful old Advantix and some film, I am completely hosed. 

I have lots of new and wonderful beautiful yarn that I wanted to show off, but alas, it will have to wait. The only good thing is the pile is in the middle of the room and so no one, and I do mean, NO ONE, gets to walk in that room in fear of touching my lovelies. My precious. Mine. All mine. Oops, sorry, got a bit carried away there.  ::wiping the drool from the side of my mouth::

The girls and I went and saw the new movie 'Confessions of a Shopaholic'. Can I just say the most humbling scene is when she finally retrieves the frozen credit card out of its block of ice? When the movie was over my youngest beauty looks at me and says, "Mom, she looked just like you do when you get a new yarn in the mail." For some it is the store, for others it is our yarn.

I am almost done with my socks for the month of February. I have made a goal to knit a pair of socks for myself a month. I completed January's with the last of the German socks. This month was a set of the Be Mine socks from Melissa Morgan-Oakes book 2 at a Time. I have wanted to do them for me for over two years. And with belonging to four sock clubs, I better get busy. I have more sock yarn than I think I care to admit. I am hoping that between now and when I leave for sock camp I will have a more clear understanding of how many pairs I really do have. 

I know that I am already behind with my goal to posting twice a month for this year. Since starting the HSKS again, I have been blogging on the 'secret identity' one. Couple more months and then I can truly be done with it. I have enjoyed most of it. But I really do enjoy posting here. Lots more fun. 

Okay, off to bed with me. O' dark thirty comes really early around here. 

Happy Knitting.

Working like a mad dog

I joined a new sock club, Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Rockin' Sock Club. I received my first installment and immediately fell in love. If I didn't already have in my 'Q' about four other pair and more than four times that waiting to be acknowledged I would have casted on immediately. But for now, I must just continue to pet it. It is really beautiful. I love the name of it as well, My Blue Heaven.

I also received in that package an invitation to a Sock Camp. Yes, I know you muggles are wondering what the heck a sock camp is, but for me, it is like being a kid all over again. Instructors that I would give up a trip to Scotland to learn from. And by the way, is exactly what I will be doing to go. Alas, I await the final decision from Dude to say, "Book it, babe." And then I will be truly off. It is held in this beautiful place. 

Otherwise, I have been extremely busy. Classes started up again at Liberty and will run until the first week of March. I am already behind in one. I have been teaching twice a week at the store with two new advance classes beginning the first part of March and running until the last week of April. Dude's traveling a bunch the next three months. We still haven't found a house yet. Yes, I know we are currently in one but it isn't ours. Our lease is up in May and we have to tell them what we are doing by March. So we begin the scramble again. 

I have managed to actually do a bit of knitting. I finished my pair of German socks. The kids have a pair. I have a fingerless mitt started because I casted on the wrong number of stitches but was knitting it in the pattern for Dude's pair. I was so frustrated with the point-blank- dumbness of myself that I went ahead and started my pair. It is now finished and I think I will wear them tomorrow to Knitting Guild and work. 

I have completed the Noro Daria Bag. I splurged on this yarn in November at Stitches East. Normally, this yarn in $15 a skein. There was a booth selling a bag of ten for $50. So another knitter and I split the bag. She took 5 and I took 5. I immediately started knitting with it and boy is it a buggar! It is a cotton core with rayon surrounding it. It is so incredibly slippery it slides out from itself. When joining rounds, almost impossible. I was so glad to be done with the bag, instead of making a second one I gave away the remaining 2.5 skeins. For free. 'Nuff said.  

And the first panel of the Shawl is complete. (More photos to come with that one.) I am hoping to have the second one done before Valentine's Day. I have 15 swatches to do before Saturday the 7th for a class I am taking with Melissa Leapman. I know how to cable, but I am interested in her teaching techniques. If nothing else, I can learn from that. 

I also managed to score big in the yarn enhancement department. I finally got my grubby paws on a skein of Wollenmise. I am not thrilled with the colorway but am so psyched to actually use it that I can over look the generic scheme and focus on the pattern. The hunt is now for a pattern that can really do it justice. 

I am trying to stay on top of this blog but will probably resort back to once a month. I had no intention of doing the Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap ever again because the moderator and now co-moderator are too flaky with their rules. (Read 'inconsistent') but my arm was pretty heavily twisted as it will be the last one. So, that starts this week. Lovely. 

More to post soon as the camera is fixed.