The Sweatshop of Love Blog

Finished Sock, and Pudge

I’ve had a rough weekend. I fled to Michigan where I finished these socks, which Pudge Rodriguez really likes. Actually I think they just smell like my mom’s house full of animals. So, she doesn’t like them. She is confused about how they smell. I’m often confused about how socks smell.

… what was I saying? Right; I had a rough weekend. Then I came home and PT and I broke up for realzies.

Blueberry Pancakes, and Potatoes

So we made blueberry pancakes and potatoes and onions. Because, well, you eat pancakes when you are sad. And my mom sent me home with a ton of blueberries. And blueberry pancakes are one of the best things ever. And we ate them.

Comfort Socks

Needless to say, we didn’t make it to Duck Soup. I was really bummed because I was looking forward to it. I love that movie, and I had the best time last week. But there would have been tears and crap. So I knit this sock, with the nice striping yarn, and watched the Tigers, who eked out a win for me. It’s really the least they could do.

I can’t stop knitting this sock. I’ve memorized my pattern so I’m just knitting and knitting. I’m just knitting and thinking and enjoying the quiet of the apartment. The Chicago quiet, so car alarms and people laughing and cars cars cars. If it were warmer, like it should be, there would be yelling and screaming and kids fighting in sprinklers, which I like. I miss being miserably warm.

I’m going to knit this sock some more. And make myself a dinner I will hopefully have an appetite for. I want zucchini pasta, with zucchini my mom sent me home with. The produce box just came so I can dig around in there, too.

Deep breath. Cooking for one.

Body Finished!

Between all the pie and traveling this weekend, I got a ton done on my sweater! I just kept it in my bag the whole time and pulled it out whenever I had a spare minute. Once I got past the shaping it was just knitting for many many inches, and that we can all do in our sleep.

I was feeling good about it, and knitting away, and in Sweater Club Sunday I picked up the sleeve stitches and was knitting away, and finished one sleeve! Then I picked up stitches on the second sleeve and was knitting away, knitting away, la la de da!

When I ran out of yarn.

Within 12 rounds of finishing the sleeve. I was so close I was looking at how much yarn was left hanging off the sweater at color changes. I was so close I knit myself right up to the end of the skein in disbelief. If I would have knit two fewer rounds of total sweater I would have had enough yarn to finish.

Can You Believe It?

It is ridiculously infuriating! I need like 4 yards! Gah! I looked all over my house for a leftover ball of it and of course found nothing. So, this afternoon I made my way over to Joann.

Stupid Skein

I know these Carron Simply Softs are only like $3, but it is the principle of the thing. I know I’ll use it, I use this yarn all the time.

Yeah, ok, I should stop complaining.

Velma is obviously not worried about it.

I’m still kind of irritated with it, though! I haven’t even finished the sweater yet. It will take me 10 minutes at most, I know it will. But I’ve got my sock in my lap (for picture uploading time). It can wait. It can wait until I’m not angry with it anymore.

Sock #1 Done

I finished sock one somewhere this weekend, too. I ended up cutting it off mid-calf, as you can see, and I’m happy with it. I want to start knitting socks with my new stripping yarn! I’m over this yarn.

Detox: Asparagus Pasta

After this weekend I’ve needed to chill in the eating department. I’ve been trying to stick to veggies, fruit, and wheat. Like this beautiful asparagus pasta with carrots and my tomato sauce.

Detox: Caramelized Onion Quesadillas

And these caramelized onion quesadillas with pepper jack cheese, tomatoes, and romaine.

Detox: Lots of Oats

And, of course, lots of oat bowls. This one has raspberries, apples, nutties, milk and cinnamon. With peanut butter toast. The tummy is slowly recovering.

A Little Bonus Shopping

So I’m almost finished with my sweater pattern, I’m on my second sock, and I’ve really had nothing else lined up! I recently had this tote pattern, the Elisa Nest Tote, sent to me, and since I have never knit a market bag, and since I’ve been complaining that I don’t have a summer shoulder bag good for biking, I thought, what the heck? I picked up this ball of Lion Brand cotton yarn with a 40% off coupon. The pattern says it should only take one ball, and in that case this is one economical project. And it’s cute, right?

I’ll keep you posted.

60 degrees and rainy? I’ve gotten a lot of knitting done these past couple days with absolutely no guilt about sitting inside watching baseball.

My Sweater Pattern!

I’m into the easy part of my sweater. I’ve figured out the sizing and the sleeve increases are correct. Now I’m just going. The stripes worked out perfectly at 20 rows per stripe? I have no idea how that happened. I ran out of the light blue at the perfect time to make my color change look normal! You can see a couple little brown rows started at the very bottom of the sweater. I knew I wanted to switch colors at some point, the amount of blue yarn I had just made it very easy. A couple brown stripes at the bottom? I’m digging it. I’m also digging how awesome my boobs look in this sweater. I think my boobs will be a great selling point for this sweater. I added some boob shaping (called ‘boob shaping’ in the sweater pattern, of course), and it helped. I was right about my boobs being 12 stitches big! What a fit.

Boob Increases, Waist Decreases

Here you can see, I increased two stitches each side every three rows three times, all in that top white stripe. Then I knit even for a while and decreased two stitches each side every inch and a half three times.

Sock Progress

Amazingly I even had a chance to work on my sock, though I can’t remember working on it at all. Somewhere within the last four days I’ve finished turning the heel, decreased back down to 64 stitches, knit even for a couple inches, and even started ribbing. The problem is that I have a ton of yarn left! It feels like well over half the skein. Usually I just keep ribbing until I finish the skein but if I do that I’m sure I’ll have thigh highs. I might just bind them off after a couple more rib inches and start sock two with the same skein, to see how far I get. This must be a different yarn than what I’m used to working with? Though I’m pretty sure this yarn is the exact same yarn that I knit my first pair of toe up socks with, when I established the one skein/one sock method.

In any case, I knit this sock without realizing it, and my sweater pattern is coming right along, too! You won’t hear me complaining about this weather.

While I’m coughing a lot still and can’t quite muster up my regular energy, I’m feeling much better. I went for an afternoon walk with my friend Rachel yesterday and by the end of it I was wiped. What normally would be an easy 2 hour stroll around the boulevards felt like a half marathon. I hate it. Of course I get sick four days into my gym membership! I haven’t been in a week.

Sick Person Food?

More like cold person food. It is 57 and rainy and all I wanted was soup when I clomped my way home from work in my rain boots. I stole a can of PT’s Progresso lentil soup, which was pretty good. I made an amazing grilled cheese to go with it, and have been drinking chamomile tea all afternoon.

Egg Sandwich and Potatoes

For dinner last night mixed four eggs, a couple spoonfuls of chunky salsa, some onion and a splash of milk together and poured it into two big muffin cups. I baked them, sliced them, melted some cheddar on them, and ate them as a sandwich with potatoes. This little improvised egg sandwich was great! So tasty with the salsa and cheddar. And you see how beautiful my bread looks? This was a really good batch.

Toe Up Sock

Tuesday was part one of my Toe Up Sock Class, so I got to start my next pair! Last night after dinner PT and I walked over to Streetside to watch the Tigers Sox game and I worked on this the whole time. I’m about an inch away from where I need to be for Toe Up Sock Class Part Two – The Heel.

Tonight is Sweater Club. I just ordered more yarn for my Summer Sweater, and a couple skeins of sock yarn, so I’ll be working on my sweater pattern tonight. I’ve gotten a few calls for sweater help, so I’m not expecting much knitting time for myself, however. I’ve got to make sure my ladies are on the right track!

I feel like I might ‘-apalooza’ too much. Not every post I write falls into the ‘an all out amazing party’ definition that ‘-apalooza’ brings to mind. In any case, Lots of Status Updates:

Loving Frank Status Update: Page 7. Vr Bad.

Toe Up Sock Status Update:

Vr Good

Finished them last night! …while I should have been reading but couldn’t pull my eyes/8 year old boy away from a most certain, and ultimately confirmed, Tigers loss. And now I’m not starting another project until tomorrow night’s Sweater Club. I will be starting my summer sweater in class, meaning I will be going the next 29 hours without knitting.

3.1 Pound Michigan Weight Gain Status Update:

Vr Good

PT and I threw together this cold pasta salad without ever having done it before! It turned out great. In fact, I made another one for lunch just now.

We also made some amazing corn, but I made an alarming discovery. I eat corn around, PT eats it type writer style, which I’m pretty sure means we aren’t meant to be. But I’m already down 2 Michigan pounds so I’m not worried about needing to find a non-type writer style corn eater.

High School Classmate Status Update Told Through Emails Between my Friend Susan and I:

Me: Jodi Bosch now Overweg something just friended me on facebook and is preggers with her THIRD child. She looks exactly the same. THREE. How fucked is that?

Susan: shut up. wow.  i feel so empty and unsuccessful now when i think of what might have been…. but seriously, did you think THAT girl was going to grow up to be anything besides a mom?

Me: I didn’t think she would grow up at all! She has to be the same retard we knew in high school, but now she has three kids. I was hoping she would just fall into a hole and wouldn’t be able to find her way out of it.

Susan: being 25 and a mother of three certainly sounds like falling into a hole to me.