I guess it's about time for a blog update! :-)

I've started the Simply Lovely Lace Socks, but I really haven't made too much progress. I've done a few more rows then this picture, but I have it on hold right now because one of the lace patterns didn't come through for some reason, I'm thinking maybe I didn't psso properly, instead I may have passed the yarn over instead. There's a small hole, but it's not like all of the others (nice and lacey like).

I've also almost finished a UFO from before Christmas. It's an earflap hat for Paisley. This is my second hat from the same pattern except I made Paisley's bigger. The first hat I made for my best friend's little boy and he's just over a year. I have one small beef with the hats though. I made Paisley's the size bigger, followed the pattern properly but it still seems small. It still needs an edge around it and the earflaps sewn on, maybe that will make a difference?? I guess I'll find out when it's all finished, but compared to the first one it seems like almost the same size.
I can't wait to get the ball rolling again, but for now I have the knitting blahhhs. Speaking of ball though... Instead of knitting tonight, I had my good friend Becky over for dinner. I made us spaghetti & meatballs, one of my hubby's fabulous recipes. Before he left for work this afternoon, he left me a recipe for the meatballs titled "Ron's Balls", just goes to show you what a character (I mean pervert) he is! *LOL* It makes me love him more though.

As I was surfing the net tonight I came across a countdown for St. Patrick's Day. I had to slap it up on my blog right away so I could be reminded daily by a cute (no evil) little leprechaun that I will be turning 25 on the 17th of March. *LOL* Anyway...it seemed very appropriate that I have it up on my blog. :-)

We were all up at the crack of dawn this morning getting everything ready to take our little (10 lb) kitten to the vet to get neutered today. Even though he needed to have it done, I still felt a little guilty that my Deuce would have some slight dicomfort and be a very unhappy kitty for a few days. Here's a picture of Deuce Pre-Op :
My mother-in-law Rhonda was nice enough to take Paisley & I to pick him up later in the afternoon (as the hubby needed the car for work) because the animal hospital was in Brantford (not too far away from the Hammer, but you need a vehical to get there). On our way home we ended up missing the on ramp back onto the 403 Eastbound and fate some how lead us to Paris, ON (only 6km away from Brantford) and right to Mary Maxim. Srange eh?? This was my first visit to the store and I was so overwhelmed, I didn't even know where to look (actually everywhere I looked there was yarn). So, I just followed Rhonda around, right to the sock yarn. We eventually ended up over at the dk yarn section though because the pattern that she found for me to do gave me the option to do both sportweight & sock weight yarn and since I did my Olympic socks on worsted weight we thought that it would be a good idea to work up to sock weight yarn by doing the sport weight next. We didn't spend a whole lot of time in the store as the tempations were just too much for Rhonda to handle and we didn't need her to get into too much trouble on the home front!
So now I will be doing Simply Lovely Lace Socks by Karen Baumer from Interveave Knits on Sirdar Snuggly Fair Isle (dk) courtesy of my wonderful MIL! :-)
It was a lovely afternoon and poor sleepy Paisley missed it all. She slept though it and probably would have slept through dinner too if she could have. After we dropped little Deucey off at home we went over to Swiss Chalet for a nice dinner. I had a lot of fun today, it was really nice to have a girl's afternoon!
I can't wait to start on the new socks though, they're just sitting there in the bag, calling me.................................

With out any futher ado I present to you my finished Olympic Socks!

Wow, I've been really lacking in my blogging the last few days! No fun pictures to post this time around but I am nearly reaching the toe shaping on the second sock which is exciting because that means that I am almost finished. Whoo hoo! I'm really going to try and squeeze in another pair of socks in the 6 days and 18 hours left. I feel fairly confidant that I can do it. Now I'm just itching to try some cool sock yarn now that I've discovered I'm smitten4socks too! :-)

One sock down and one to go!! Whoo hoo. I finally got a chance to pick up and knit tonight for the first time since Sunday and finished up the rest of the sock. I took some pictures, but you'll have to excuse my feet because I truly believe I have the ugliest feet in the world (haha, well maybe not the ugliest but still nasty).

Not much to report for non-Olympic knitting, still struggling with the slipper for Paisley. I tried some worsted weight yarn and it still came out not proportioned quite right. Perhaps it's just not meant to be. :-(

Well, I'm going to cast on to the next sock now, I'm really enjoying knitting socks and I can't wait to graduate to cute sock yarn.

03Some pictures as promised from this morning's post

Friday January 10th @ 1:58pm

Approximately 1/2 an

hour later

I didn't really get a chance to knit too much until Saturday night.

The last two pictures are pretty much the sock as it is now, I've only done about an inch or two more of stockinette stitch since this morning.

Sunday January 12th @ 11pm

Despite the fact that I haven't had a whole lot of knitting time due to work and just doing family things this weekend I still managed to get quite a bit of the first Olympic sock completed. As of last night at 11pm I am done the decreases on the heel so it's just straight up knitting for 7" until I get to the toe shaping. All in all it's going great and seems fairly simple. The only thing I had problems with was picking up the stitches up the sides of the heel so I have a little gap where I've joined back up in the round and when I was shaping my heel it didn't work out exactly right with the decreases. I ended up having an extra stitch somewhere but it looks fine. If I have enough time (and I'm predicting that I will), I'll make another sock or maybe even another pair more....who knows how many I can get done. :-D
I would love to post some pictures now, but due to some weird blogger issues, I am unable to do it right now, so it will have to wait until next post.
I see others are making wicked progress on Team Canada, way to go everyone!

Although this is completely unrelated to knitting, I just had to post about it!
I was watching the news tonight and saw one of my old favourite bands were up for a Grammy. Who would have thought Death Cab for Cutie would be a nominee. It's been an awful long time since I've listened to them, so I looked though some old cd's and found some. Ahh, It takes me back, I'm talking 2000 (to anyone who's heard of this band) "forbidden love ep" and "we have the facts and we're voting yes". I'm listening right now and I'm suddenly feeling inspired and refreshed (lame but true). I really gotta check out their new stuff...I fogot how much I liked them.

Unfortunately, not too much knitting happening my way these days. I made one of the t-bar shoes for Paisley but it was way too big, so I started it again on worsted weight yarn instead and on smaller needles. I've got the sole finished but my pattern is missing for some reason(I guess the cat ate it???)...I've searched everywhere for it, so until I get a new one it's on hold and will probably be on hold until after the Olympics as it is getting pretty close to cast-on day and I can't wait! I'm eager to get going on the socks and I think I have it all figured out so I have high hopes that I will have the pair made in 16 days!

I guess I'll leave you with some pictures of my girl. We were playing around this morning with some cute dresses. She just loves to dress up and try on clothes and shoes (typical girl I guess). She's always gotta be so cheeezy!

The baby shoes are done!! The only problem is that the one that I just made seems bigger for some reason. I don't know why because I did everything exactly the same (except reverse) of the right shoe. I just had Rhonda confirm that they look fine so maybe I'm just being picky.
Paisley wants a pair now! She thinks they're cute and she's been trying to put them on. I've been messing around with some old Patons Astra yarn that I found in my stash, it's a really light purple colour. I just doubled it up to be a chunkier yarn and decided to use 6mm needles (I tried the 5's first but when I started the sole it just didn't look like it was going to fit her foot). Last night I whipped up the right sloe and part of the upper and measured it up to her foot. I think it's going to be about perfect!! I can't wait to get them done, I'm just anxious to see how they will turn out.
Look at me, I'm all gung ho on these shoes and I'm not working on my scarf again. Good thing these little babies don't take long to knit! I'm always getting side tracked speaking of which...
The Knitting Olympics is only 14 more days away! I'm all ready and rarin' to go. I've gotta get my urge to knit everything out of my system or I won't be able to finish my socks in time so no more starting any new projects!!