Knitter in Waiting

Tina of Blue Moon Fiber Arts has started teasing the members of the Socks that Rock Club with information about the coming March shipment.

1. They will start shipping next week.

In response to an I can't wait post:
2. Ditto, and I know what it is!

In response to a I hope it's green post:
3. Be careful what you ask for. Remember what Kermit the frog says. "It's not easy being green"
... or pink

I can barely stand the anticipation. There's much speculation out there. Will it be green, or will it be pink, or will it be pink and green? I imagine that Jeff will be less interested in having socks knit from pink and green yarn.

Either way I better get back to work on the Falling Leaves socks. I'm working on the foot of the sock now, and I have hopes that I'll finish sock #1 soon. I can't believe how slowly it's knitting up. I mean, I understood the fiddly bits taking time, but this is just a stockinette foot. I really should have been finished by now. I blame the elastic yarn. I think that although I've knit 3 inches on it each time it's shrinking back down to 1. (It's really not likely, but that's how I give myself a break.)

Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble

Our last weekend of scuba class was really fun. I feel confident in our scuba abilities thus far. In fact, we had such a great time that we've signed up to take a class for Advanced Open Water scuba. See currently we're only Open Water certified, meaning that we're qualified to dive to 60ft. If we complete the Advanced Open Water then we're cool to 100 ft. Woot!

Of course now we have a pile of supplies to acquire. We haven't set a date on when we'll take the class, but it will probably be after the wedding and before the end of the summer. The good news is that by the time we finish the Advanced class we'll have all the "cheap" gear that we need. There's always more to buy, but we'll have lights, watches, knives, fins, goggles, etc.

Diving at Aquarena Springs was really fun. I think it would be cool to go back there some time and get the Scientific diver qualification so that you can go in other parts of the spring. Since it's a protected area now you are only allowed to dive in a very small area. It was a lot of fun, for a beginner, but already I can imagine the other sights to see.

I'm looking forward to diving in Hawaii, but it's also one more challenge that we have to face. How do we plan our honeymoon so that we get to do all the cool shore stuff, and also get to be underwater, and not get big ol' Nitrogen bubbles, cause bubbs are bad m'kay.

NatCroMo (7)

Day 7 of the CAL and only 3 minutes of crocheting done today. ... There was a time limit. The instructions today were to change yarn or hook size and crochet a HDC/HTC for 3 minutes. (That's a halfdouble or halftriple for you all that would otherwise have to look that up - like I did yesterday.)

I only managed about 27 stitches, which pretty much goes half way around the flowery looking thing that I've currently got. It was really tempting to just ignore the instruction and go all the way around, but then I stopped. What would be the fun in going all the way around? What if the next instruction comes out all the more bizarre because I have less that a full round? Yeah, we'll see won't we?

I spent longer photographing and posting about this day's work than actually doing it. Crazy!

Now back to some knitting.

NatCroMo

Apparently March is National Crochet Month. Since I've been planning on learning crochet so that I can take advantage of books like the ones from Kyuuto! I thought I might join in on a CAL (crochet-a-long) for a free-form project where the number of stitches is determined by random number generators unique to each hooker.

So far I have a flower looking thing. I only found out about this today, so I plowed through the first 6 days worth of pattern. Even with having to reference books and About.Crochet it took less than 2 hours to do 6 days worth of the pattern. The plan is for each day of the deal to only take a few minutes of your time. Of course, that's assuming that you don't have to learn how to do each stitch as it comes up.

The thing I'm most excited about is that even if I'm doing it wrong, it'll come out okay. It's not supposed to make anything in particular, and it doesn't have to fit anyone, so I just go with the flow. What really worked for me with learning to knit was just doing the stitches over and over. Once you know how the stitches work, the rest of it kind of starts to fall together. I mean, until you make the stitch correctly it's barely worth figuring out what they look like, because your's won't look like anything much.

Hey, if you're a crocheter and you're interested in the Kyuuto! series you need to click that link up there. Chronicle books is having a sale where you get 25% off AND free shipping. I wish I hadn't just grabbed up the Lacy Crochet and Amigurumi books from Overstock. And just to reassure you, it's true, the books are in English.

Faucus is More Like It

Forgive for I have been tired and cranky all day. I'm not sure there is anything that could be said or done that would not result in my growling at you today.

I am cranky because over the last 4 days I have been getting less and less sleep. In part a cause, and in part as a result, I am experiencing increasing neck pain; neck pain always fouls my temper.

Last night really was the final straw. Jeff and I went to the Democratic caucus for our precinct. While I appreciated the fact that it was held within walking distance of our home, it was a bone headed move to have it at the Post Office. That building is tiny and narrow, and funneling people through to sign in was just a cluster f*#^.

We didn't get home until 11:30 pm. That means that I was at the post office for around 4 and a half hours. That's never a good thing... and there wasn't even free pie or beer. There were issues of having to photocopy additional sign in sheets, and then them spending a couple of hours verifying that those who caucused were eligible to have signed in at our precinct.

The only thing keeping me from becoming some sort of vicious hell beast, is that I feel like our fighting through it made a difference. We're both Obama supporters, and since Texas's system is all screwy, it's possible that our being part of the 60% caucusing for Obama in our precint last night will help him snag enough delegates to still net more delegates from Texas than Clinton does.

It's a strange feeling having what I do in Texas matter during a non-local/non-state election, but it's kind of cool.

Just for the record, we had around 360 people show up to caucus at the post office near Manchaca and Mathews. If you know the area, you know that those people didn't really fit. It was an interesting crowd, but I would have had more fun if we could have done it in half the time. Apparently the last Dem caucus there only drew around 16 folks.

Life was much simpler for the Republicans, but probably a lot less interesting.

Oh and Jeff is signed up to be a delegate, so we don't have to worry about him crashing the bridal shower. I leave you with a picture of me as I knit along trying not to stark raving mad in the face of a never ending night at the post office.

We're Still Breathing

Day 1 of 4 scuba classes has been successfully completed. We didn't drown, and I think we may have learned some things. There were some pretty funny moments, like when Jeff couldn't sink, and there was also the time when I was just rolling around all akimbo down at the bottom, because I just wasn't settling properly.

There are 4 of us in the class, and I think that everyone had a pretty good time. Our instructors are nice, and knowledgeable, and I can't wait for tomorrow. But before tomorrow there is tonight, and that means Mexican food and a margarita! I figure 3 hours in the pool is some serious "activity" and that I deserve a treat.

Falling Down

Falling Leaves Cuff,
originally uploaded by Tara DuBose.

We've been busy all week studying up for the start of our scuba class (which starts in about 30 minutes). I'll try to tell you what I think when we get back tonight, but we go again tomorrow at the same bat time, so we'll see if I get to it or not. (Two weekends of work and then we're certified!)

This is the cute little cuff for a pair of socks I'm knitting for Jeff. I've actually made it down the leg, but there's no time to get that picture today. So I elected to post the cuff. It's kind of cool, because it's doubled over so it's twice as thick as a plain knit cuff. Makes it all squishy feeling.

This is from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways sock book. Jeff picked the pattern himself, and it's been pretty fun to knit. The only issue is that his leg is much larger than the leg the pattern was written for. This is making the heel into some sort of math war that I'm waging. So progress is slow. I have lots of safety lines in so that I rip back at any moment without having to worry about unravelling the leg.

Okay, gotta go. Showers are nice, and I'm running out of time.