Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!

And I do mean that temperature-wise! We're having a heat wave here finally. It's a little too hot for my likings. My house is just like an oven, it's so hot in here, can't sleep nights. I don't sleep well anyways, and the heat doesn't help. The past couple of days the boys and I have headed for the beach. Today we couldn't as I had to take the Oldest One to the orthodontist, and this evening was the parents vs the kids soccer games for both of them. (The kids won both games.) The beach wasn't that much cooler than town, but the water sure was cold! The one we went to has an old train bridge at one end where a river runs out into the ocean. Usually its warmer water over there, but when we got there on Tuesday this is what it looked like.


Usually the water is reddish colored, but this was crystal clear and freezing cold. I managed to go out to my knees, but the kids went in. I swear kids have no feeling. I suppose I was the same when I was their age.


There were boaters both days. I decided that looked like fun, it'd be nice to have one.


There were crazy people jumping off the train bridge into the water. I don't like heights, so you wouldn't catch me doing that, especially not into that freezing cold water. I took the market bag with me that I was making for BF for her birthday, but it was way too hot to work on it much. I think I only did 30 rows or so.



But I did get it finished at home. Grrlfriend Market Bag, started August 15, finished the 18th. I used 4.5mm needles, did 30 repeats for the body of the bag, and did 8 rows of 1x1 rib for the top. Then I did the handle 1x1 over 11sts for about 100 rows. The cotton is stuff I picked up at WalMart called Georgia, and there should be enough left for another complete bag. Details are here.


The next day I took plain old vanilla socks to work on. This is the new Kroy FX in clover colors. I love it! I see Christmas gift socks with Kroy FX in the future. The recommended needle is 3.25mm, but I'm using 2.5mm. I forgot how much thicker Kroy is over the other sock yarns I've been using lately. I'm more of a middle-of-the-road/loose knitter, so it's producing a soft, cushy, thick fabric. I think these will be excellent cold weather socks, easily a favorite pair, I'm sure. This is what it looked like when we got to the beach.



By the time we got ready to leave I had the heel turned and was ready to pick up gusset stitches.


Just before bed last night I grafted the toe! First sock started on August 18, finished on the 19th. Details here. I'm making one pair for me, one pair for the store for display. The Boss Lady said she'd like me to make a pair for the store, so I'm happy to oblige. I am also breaking with my usual anal self and not matching them up. It's pretty damn hard to match this stuff up, especially where I chose to start the first sock - in a non-obvious place which didn't seem so non-obvious a the time. I tried and tried with the other three skeins to find where I had started but to no avail. Picture obviously not taken last night just before bedtime!

And you can see that there wasn't much left to work with! Having this little yarn left makes it difficult to be matchy-matchy. This sock is ladies size 8. Anyone making mens socks or large ladies would need a third skein. We get a lot of older ladies who come to the store for Kroy yarn and always buy three skeins for mens socks. They say years ago they could use two, it had more yardage. But now they need three. (Unless you're making lower cuffs, of course.) But I remember when I was in my late teens/early twenties one skein of Handicrafter made two good size dishcloths. Now two skeins make three dishcloths.

The afghan has been neglected yet again. I took it out today to take a picture of what is done so far. I've had things I have to get done by certain dates, so as soon as those are done I'll be back to work on this baby.

Hurricane Bill is due to pass through here on Sunday. Sounds like it is going to be a real mess. I have lots of candles in case of power failure. Luckily I'm right in town, and on the rare times we lose power it's usually back on within a couple of hours at the most. But this time of year no power is no big whoop (except when I wanna go on Ravelry!) I'll get Hubs' food for work next week all ready between tomorrow night and Saturday night (my weekend to work if anyone wants to visit). Think I'll take a ham I have in the freezer out and cook it Saturday night so it's all done for Sunday just in case the power goes out. I've got bread, peanut butter, and jam, so I'm set anyways.

Happy knitting!