Catching Up

I've noticed a trend in when I don't have a lot of time to knit, I stop blogging. For awhile there wasn't much to talk about in the way of knitting and not a lot has been going on in my life outside of that. It took me awhile but I finally finished Stacie's baby blanket and was able to give it to her before she had her daughter. Who is super adorable. Aside from the blanket, I've been working on WIPs to try and get some done before I go on my trip to see Jackie and go to WEBs. Because I will be bringing home yarn.

There was a period of time after I finished the blanket where I kept starting things. The first thing I started was a Torchic amigurumi for my Etsy store. And then not long after that, Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro. Neither are done yet and I'm pretty sure I haven't even finished the first piece on both. Totoro looks like it is going to be bigger than I want it to be but we'll see, since the pattern claims it will be 9" tall. Amigurumi are always hard to take pictures of when they're in progress because they don't really look like much of anything until you start putting them together. And the ones I'm working on currently have a ways to go before that point.

In April I decided, possibly against my better judgement, to test knit a sock pattern for someone. The sock was actually pretty easy but I just kept not working on it or being too tired that it took me longer than I wanted it to. What it also did was inspire me to start designing socks again. I have the first one charted but I don't know that I'll get to knitting it this month. I did finally finish the pair of socks for the test knit. The test only required the first sock. I was going to start my design sample after that but Tour de Sock is coming up and I want as few socks on my needles as possible before it started. I still have two socks on my needles, one of which has no chance of getting finished before June.

But I did start something. It, however, is more a bunch of small things instead of one finished things. As I have now listed my small amigurumi of Loki and Thor on etsy I wanted to restart my Avengers set and finish them this time. Two things got me inspired to do it. The first thing that got me inspired was Saint Seiya. I won't go into it too much because it is my current obsession. But, they're releasing a new series for it, 13 episodes long, called Soul of Gold and it brings back some of my favorite characters. When I saw the character designs for all of the Gold Saints, I immediately wanted amigurumi of them. Sadly, I don't have enough of the colors to really finish any of them. I thought about doing the Avengers again but wasn't sure I wanted to. And then I saw Rae's ami of Bucky and fell in love with him. I am very much a fan of Bucky so I knew who I would start the Avengers set with, as I was reinspired to do them, with Saint Seiya on the list to do when I can afford to buy more of the yarn I like to use for the amis.

Okay so, Tour de Sock. If you don't know what that is, each summer during the time frame of Tour de France, there are two competitions that happen on Ravelry - Tour de Sock and Tour de Fleece. Tour de Sock is sock knitting and Tour de Fleece is spinning. I don't know as much about Tour de Fleece even though I'm going to try and participate this year, just that it starts after I get back from my trip. Tour de Sock starts June 1st. There are 6 stages and it depends on how complex the socks are for how the stage is. I think 2 weeks was the longest I've seen it. I've done TdS for several years now, although I have very few of the socks actually knitted. You don't have to do the strict competition. You can either do a relaxed knitting or just cheer on the teams. At first I was just going to cheer others on and knit as I could, but decided I did want a team.

There are several yarn shops, like Alina Shea Creations, that puts up yarn for TdS and has a coupon code that puts the yarn on sale. I didn't go crazy buying yarn like I could have - I have to save that for WEBs. But I did get a few skeins. I'm super excited for the Tour this year. The supply list requires beads for one sock so I found a bead shop online (www.fusionbeads.com) and ordered enough to get free shipping. Until now I've not really had a bead supply for knitting so I'm happy that I was able to. One day, when it isn't time for TdS I will go back and knit the socks from previous years. I am sad though, I didn't think that I had lost the patterns for last year's TdS so didn't download them before they were taken off the website. Now I can't find them and I think they were lost when the harddrive on my desktop died. I still have a couple of them, I think.

In the time between now and when TdS starts, I'm focusing on trying to finish WIPs and get a few of the Avengers amigurumi done. Iron Man is half done now. I picked up my Tardis socks again, which will be listed on etsy when I am done with them. I may be able to get the first sock done tonight. This weekend is going to be a busy one for me because my friend is graduating college on Saturday so I need to drive out to Mom's so I can go see her graduate.

I hope everyone has a lovely rest of their week and happy knitting!