Candied Orange Peels and Knitting Fun

     While meandering through Safeway last Friday, I found some rather large,rather lovely navel oranges on sale. This gave me an idea to do candied orange peels. I’d done them once before around Christmas, but they just sounded great then. I didn’t get the chance to do them last weekend, but I did get them done this time around. :) They’re not hard to do, just a bit time consuming with the boiling and rinsing three times, candying them, then letting them air dry. It’s worth the effort though!  The hardest part has to be letting them dry. They look so tasty and inviting that you can’t help but sneak a few now and then.

     Sometime back,  Citron caught my eye when I saw it on Yarn on the House's blog. It’s simple, vibrant, and  still incredibly elegant. I ordered the yarn last week, figuring that I’d pick up the needles at my local craft shop. No luck on getting the needles there, so I ordered them. However, that means that I have to find something small to keep me occupied while I wait for the needles.    

     After digging through my yarn stash, I got the idea to make a matching serviette type napkin to go with a tea cozy I made about a year ago. I  still had plenty of yarn left from the project to use up anyway. After combing through Ravelry, I found a pretty washcloth pattern that suited my needs. It’s my first attempt with yarn overs and this was an excellent way to fiddle with them. :D

My First Socks

   I just finished my first big knitted project besides washcloths-- socks. They're a gorgeous green/blue Knit Picks Gloss yarn in the Kenai colorway. I decided to for for a simple sock and try Silver's Toe-Up Sock on Two Circular Needles pattern. It's a great tutorial, especially for an adventurous newbie such as myself.  :) It's well explained and has pictures, which for me is great. If you're uncertain about knitting socks, this is a great place to start.

   Now the question is-- What sock pattern do I want to try next?

Adventures in Knitting

   Sometimes the office gets slow. No phone calls, no emails received or to send, no computer work, etc. So, I needed to find something to do with my hands when I’m done with everything else. I’ve crocheted a few things on and off throughout the past decade, but never really decided to do much with it. Most of the patterns for the cute things I see online are knitted. So after crocheting a rather large, gorgeous Claudia Scarf, I decided to give knitting a whirl. I tried knitting about a year or two ago (for the same dang reason too), but I got frustrated with trying to cast on, knit, purl, etc. so I set it aside kind-of-but-not-really-intending-to, pick it up again at a later date. Well, that later day came…with a vengeance.

   A few of the plurkers I follow are knitters. So I hear about these awesome socks (I love socks), gorgeous shawls, the fantastic yarns (I really like seeing all the colors!) they found, and so on. Well, I decided, “What the heck? Might as well give it another try.”  So I dug out what few knitting accouterments I had, discovered KnittingHelp.com, and gave it another try. After a while of cursing and frustrated sighs, I finally cast on some stitches and knit my first row. After that, it wasn’t too bad. “I can do this,” I thought. After I got about halfway done I was sidetracked by gaming on the XBox 360 and set the knitting aside (I’m easily sidetracked at times). I did pick it up again a month or so later and finished my first washcloth. :) And boy was I proud of that! I then started another washcloth. And another. Woohoo! I was making some progress.

   Well, after those first few washcloths I decided it was time to do what my little heart really desired—socks. I searched around Ravelry and found what looked like a fairly simple to understand sock pattern searched around online for some sock yarn—since we only have a WalMart with a small selection of yarn—and went for it. I’ve had some good learning experiences from it, like “Make sure you read the directions correctly” and “Oh, look! Tink it back about 10 rows because you misread the directions,” but I guess that’s something one needs to experience once in awhile. ::lol:: I’ve managed to finish one sock and start the next in the pair. Not a bad start I think.  Now to finish this last sock, so I can start the Citron Shawl…