Apparently there’s a hurricane coming.  (A-nother-one.  I’m sick of these.)  In addition to the standard emergency kit items, I have two crucial items that are not on most lists:

1) Toilet paper.  That one’s pretty self-explanatory, but yet not on many lists.
2) Yarn, needles, patterns.  Duh.  Have you ever been to a Red Cross shelter?  I have.  They’re boring.  So are zillion-hour car trips because the traffic is backed up.  So yarn, my friends, is mucho imporante!  I figure three balls of dishcloth cotton, a book of patterns, and dpns should last me awhile.  Plus I can always rip and re-knit. =)

Luckily, we probably won’t have to evacuate from BR.  But, if Gustav stays on course, New Orleans and surrounding areas will evacuate, and a lot of ‘em will come here.  Thus the most important preparation is to make sure that you have enough stuff in your house and kitchen that you don’t have to leave home for a week and a half.  No driving.  Certainly no shopping.  Staying at home. =)

Finished!  Hooray!  They are snug, but they fit, and I love ‘em.  All the details are in Ravelry. 
Hopefully they’ll get a proper FO photoshoot (in the sun!) one of these
days, but I wanted to take pics before the deadline, and we were in the
middle of a Tropical Storm.  So they’re a little dark, but hey, let’s
call it character.

I love this pattern.  If you’re looking for an easy, but still somewhat non-boring sock pattern, I highly recommend Charade.  I might make ‘em again with a solid or semi-solid yarn.  It would be a whole different look! =)

Look what came in the mail today:

Woohoo!  I was so excited when the Ravelry Store opened, but it was right around finals or the qualifier and I wasn’t on Rav much, so I missed out on the first round of things.  I liked the Ravelry Logo Totes, so I figured I’d wait around until they came in stock again and make a big order.  So then they finally came back in stock, but I didn’t have any discretionary money at the time, so I waited.  And then the Ravelympics Pins came out, limited edition, and as much effort as I’ve put into my socks, I knew I needed to have one!  So I said screw the totes, I’ll get the Organic Cotton Veggie Bag instead.  And it’s awesome.  So are the Magnets, and the Frogged/Ripped Shot Glasses.  Excellent.

And oh yeah.  The socks are done!!!!!!!!!  Photos to come in the morning, when the sun (hopefully) comes out! =)

One sock complete.  (And it fits!)  Another sock halfway through the foot.  I’ve been knitting for almost the whole evening the past few days.  Luckily, there have been some very exciting volleyball games running late into the night!  Tomorrow I’ve got to go to the market and then work on school stuff for the rest of the day, but I should have the evening free to (hopefully) finish these up.  *crosses fingers*

Also, since I typed the title, I’ve had this song stuck in my head.  Now you can too:

So y’all have seen Jennie’s stitch markers, now I have a great way to let other people see them:

ShannonAnn of RedStickKnits makes wonderful stitch markers and stitch marker jewelry, like this great keychain with markers, that I won in a contest:

Since I already had a bunch of markers from Jennie, Shannon made a blank necklace for me, that I can add to as desired.  (See how it’s easy to get the stitch markers on and off of both pieces?  Then you can use one if you need it!)  I got it at Knit Night last night and had the perfect marker to match my outfit.  It’s customizable, functional jewelry.  Excellent. =)

The Olympics are more than halfway over.  The socks are not more than halfway done:

Crud.  Underneath the sock is a great book that I’ve been combing through for information for my research.  It’s by an early female astronomer, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who was pretty much awesome.  Unfortunately, she is stealing my knitting time.

Starting to look pretty good!  Between Knit Night and the Women’s Gym Team Finals (ugh, USA, just ugh), these are actually about halfway through the heel-flap now.  (Perfectly matching stitch marker courtesy of Jennie, natch.)

There are new people moving into my complex with the new semester.  I hope they saw me outside taking pictures of my sock-in-progress (the only grass is out between the condos, none on the patios) and thought “Wow, that girl is really weird” or something to that effect. =)

I’m spending this afternoon alternating between working on schoolwork and working on my Ravelympics sock while I watch the real Olympics:

I’ve started trying to do a 365-type daily photo, split between this blog and my other one.  So far, I’ve managed to do eight days in a row – woo!  Let’s see how long it lasts.

The Ravelympics start in a few hours (and so do the regular Olympics, of course!), so today I did some training:

Got my yarn wound and all the knots out, so I’m ready to go.  I will not, however, be getting up an hour early to cast on as the opening ceremony starts…but I’ll start as soon as I get up, when the ceremony will undoubtedly still be going on! =)

Some sock issues:

They have since been ripped back to the leg (before the heel flap) to be redone.  (I blame some of the problems on issues with the pattern, but mostly they are my own dang fault.)  They’re in a little bit of time-out right now.

These ones are not in time-out…because they are finished!

Earlier today I ripped out the toe of the first one and re-knit it to match the second one, as per the notes I took when I was doing the second one.  (And since I’m classy, I took the notes on a knitting club subscription card, haha.)  The two socks don’t match perfectly – one has more stripey and less blue, and the other is vice-versa, but they both fit, and I have literally only a few inches of each color left.  The yarn is Dez‘s hand-spun, hand-dyed merino and super soft, but not wonderful for lots of ripping and re-knitting, so they’re going to stay slightly antisymmetric.  I’m working hard on being ok with this.

And why all this focus on socks?  Because the Ravelympics start on Friday and I’m entered in the Sockput!  Woo!  I’m going to make the Charade socks with some of the yarn I brought back from Germany, and I needed to free up at least one of these sets of needles, or buy a third set of US 1 dpns, and that was not gonna happen.  So, Pacific Sunrise Socks are done!  FO pics to come sometime soon, when there is light and I have some time.

Oh, and of course, the most important part of the Ravelympics:

My awesome team. =)