Rage socks. Done! Norberta. Done! New socks. Working on em.

This past weekend was pretty busy. I went to my cousin's house again. She's so great! She took me to the beach! It's been forever since I've been to the beach. And I think it's been a bit longer since I swam in the ocean. Here's my toes in the sand:



We broke out our knitting while the kids built sand castles:



I did get in the water for a bit too. Oh it was so wonderful! I can't wait to go back. :)

While I was there at her house, I finished my rage socks. They are done. I'm happy. They don't fit me in the slightest and make me cringe when I look at them because of how much effort it took to finish them, so I'm just going to donate them to a charity. Most likely Afghans for Afghans. I've sent them things before and I really like what they are doing. I plan to knit up a bunch of kids socks from some spare yarn a friend gave me. They can really use kids stuff if you have an inclination to knit anything for a child. Just check out their site and you can learn all about what they do and get a few free patterns too. :)

But here they are:



I also started on a pair of socks for myself out of some Dancing yarn from Knit Picks she gave me. (The stuff is awesome!) Check out the patterns it's making. Here's the instep:



And the sole:



I just love this yarn! I'd love to get some more of it sometime soon.

When I got home on Monday, I finished Norberta as well. :) Azuredrake gave birth to her little man on Wednesday. He's a cutie. I brought over Norberta today and she just loved him! I decided that once I was done, especially since I did a bunch of colors, it just felt more like a Norbert than a Norberta. A little boy dragon is a good dragon too! :)







Once again, the colors are not coming out well in the picture. The back is royal purple. The belly is Kelly Green. The spines and wings are fire engine red. The legs and arms are Carolina Blue. I'm so happy with the way it came out! Oh and if you ever want to get stopped and made late for work... walk with a dragon in your hand. It took me 10 minutes more to get to my office than normal because I kept getting stopped and asked about him. *laugh* I was glad to tell them about it though. Working attached to a hospital, I always see people with bears, bunnies, balloons and flowers. But never any dragons! Another reason to knit one. I think I'll do a few more over the next long while, for the Children's Hospital. :) It was a fun and quick knit. Even Trouble enjoyed my knitting Norbert(a):



Since it was going to be for a baby, she decided it would be best if it was sent pre-chewed on:



My crazy animals. ;)

In response to comments:

Kate said: Yep. Nuts. A whole big jar of honey-roasted macadamias, is what you are. Go for it.

Okay that got a big laugh from me! :P Then I thought.... macadamias? Nah! Almonds! They have big bottoms just like me. ;)

LaBean said: Intarsia in the round? I didn't think it was possible, let alone sane.

Oh I've heard it's possible. Sane though? I think you're right there... ;)

Kathryn said: from what I understand it's actually supposed to be easier to knit colour work in the round. You don't have as much to weave in cuz the colours continue around with you.

Sweet! I'm all about not having to weave anything in. Oh and thanks for the link you sent me. I'll check it out. ;)

I'm stark raving mad...

But then we all knew that. But why I am stark raving mad more than normal? Well because boys and girls, I'm gonna try intarsia. In the round!

:O

Yup, I'm part of Sockapalooza 4 and allegedly am also an expert sock knitter. So what's something I haven't tried? Intarsia. But let's kick it up a notch. Bam! In the round.

So, I've looked for articles on how to do it and I think I've got it.

But let's kick it up a notch again. Bam! I'm going to design my own socks too. Have I ever designed anything before? Nope.

Have I knit intarsia?

Nope.

Do most knitters, even experiences intarsia knitters, find knitting intarsia in the round easy?

Nope.

Yup, out of my flipping mind. But then, like a friend of mine says, if I didn't come up with some of the most ludicrous ideas, my knitting wouldn't be half as fun. :P

So now I just have to go buy some yarn...

Knitting a dragon and cross stitching a blinkdog.

Yeah I know... it's been a while. For all that's been going on in my life, I have very little to show for it, but whoo hoo, I've been busy!

So I decided it was time to get back to stuff for myself. Well, hobbies that were for me but things for others.

You know what I mean! :P

So what have I been up to? Work. What else? Seriously. Work has been so awful lately that it has pretty much consumed my brain. Sadly not in the most positive of ways. But that should be over with soon.

So back to the needles!

I'm working on a dragon, Norberta to be exact, for a friend of mine. She's due on the 31st of May (by way of C-section). You know her as the Azuredrake. So I thought it would be great to knit her (and her new little one) a dragon! Here's what I've got so far:



Sadly, the colors did not come out well in that shot. It's actually a royal purple, kelly green, fire engine red, and Carolina blue that I am working with. I think little Norberta is gonna be awesome! I started it this Satruday evening. I should be able to finish it tonight. I want to be able to bring it to her this week since I'm not sure when I'll see her again the closer she gets to her delivery date and of course, there after.

While knitting this, I tried to get into the mood... so I put in some Godzilla DVD's! What's more motivation for knitting dragons than a shot like this?:



or this:



or even this:



I love Godzilla. I really need more DVD's of Godzilla movies. :) I can watch them to the point of making Eric want to tear his hair out! :P

But back to toy knitting. I really have to knit Heather something too. She had her daughter on the 29th of January. I have all sorts of patterns... I just haven't gotten around to doing any knitting! I swear, I'll knit something up before her daughter is six months old. *looks at calendar* Okay maybe seven months... :P

So how are the rage socks coming you ask? Yeah right! They ain't. *grumble* But they will soon enough. *nod* Yes, soon enough.

As for cross stitching, I've been working on a blinkdog. Why you ask? Well we went to a camp set up by friends of ours the beginning of this month, and we stayed in Cabin Blinkdog. Oh yeah, I had some wild notion that I could stitch this up, complete with neat little Latin saying, by the time we got there. And I was on track to do it too! And then work got ugly. *grumblegrumble* But we'll be going again next year so we'll try to get in the same cabin so we can use it then. :) It should be easy since Eric is the organizer for it next yeat. ;) But here's what I have so far:



It's coming out a lot better than I had ever hoped. :)

What else is going on? Oh not a lot. Still looking for money for college. Still stressing about work. Still got more projects on the table than any sane woman should have. Am I gonna change that? Oh hell no. *looks for more patterns to knit and cross stitch*

;)