A swim in the near future?

Hi again.

Well the Bergkirchweih is over and Erlangen is returning to normal. Here are a few last photos from the festival before I get into the knitting content.

A sign telling you about the ox on the spit (this one is named Max VII) and me with our last meal at the Berg (ox roast, kloss, apfelrotkohl, and of course a giant pretzel)

The Berg the last night and the ferris wheel coming down the next day.

Now on to knitting. I've been working on various projects since my last post. Mostly on the Snicket Socks.

I had some issues with doing the heel as written (including losing a needle full of stitches with yarn overs about 4 times) and had to frog it twice.

This side of the heel turned out nice (correct)

This side of the heel turned out weird. It was the purl side... maybe I was doing the yarn overs wrong.

But that is not the big problem. The big problem came when I tried them on (well, attempted to). They were WAY too small. They had looked kind of skinny all along, but the stretched a lot and I could get it over my foot, so I figured it'd be ok. But it wasn't. Sigh. I must have some bad sock-size juju or something because the Jaywalkers I had started, as seen here, were too small too. I don't know what to do. So I'm turning to you...

For now I'll just let them sit on the needles (but I only have the one set of 2.5 mm metal dpns, so I need to decide soon!).

Because I was so frustrated with the Snickets, I decided I needed to start on another pair of socks. I've had some DK weight yarn sitting around to make some socks for C's giant size 13 wide (that's size 47.5 for those of you in Europe) feet. So I had him look through my stitch dictionary (Harmony Guides Vol. 2), knit a swatch, and cast on.

Yeah, I've already turned the heel... they're going suprisingly quick!

Stitch pattern: Triangle Ribs (page 27 of Harmony Guides Vol. 2)

Eye of Partridge Heel

iPod nano for scale

They seem really big, but they fit on his foot (almost) perfectly so I'm really happy with them.

No real progress has been made on Tubey. I've knit a few rows, but that doesn't make for very exciting pictures.

Wow....

So I joined the knitting blogs web ring thinking I might have a chance at having a few more people visit my blog. In the last 2.5 days I have tripled the number of visitors to my blog (and the first stuff included several visits by me before I figured out how to block myself)! Over 150 new visits since June 1. WOW.

Anyways, on to some knitting content.

My good friend Jenny (Hi Jenny!) came to visit me this weekend in order to go to the beer festival. We studied abroad together in this town 2+ year ago, but were back in the States before the festival came around. Anyways, knitting. So when I went to visit her earlier this year (she's currently studying on the other side of Germany), I brought some knitting with me because she likes to knit as well. Up to that point though, she had only done scarves (correct me if this is wrong Jenny!). She saw my socks and wanted me to show her how to do them. So we went to the store and bought her some dpns and sock yarn and the rest is history! We had a great time knitting together this weekend between the beer and wine drinking and I even made some progress on Tubey! We also spent part of the afternoon looking at EVERY SINGLE PATTERN in the archives at Knitty! There are now lots more patterns bookmarked for future use. Needless to say a great time was had and her socks are looking great!

Jenny (right) and I working on our knitting.

Tubey progress (I've knit about 6-7 inches on the body)

Close-up of the progress.

I didn't have a chance to work on any other knitting projects due to large amounts of beer and other alcohol consumption. The Bergkirchweih beer festival is still going on after all! Here is another small sampling of photos for your viewing pleasure:

Waitress with a lot of beer steins! and A view of the festival.

Scary, scary, scary high up swings. SCARY! and a view of the festival from the ferris wheel.

C and I on the ferris wheel and me with a view of the town

My apartment from the ferris wheel! and an ox on a spit... yum.

Getting ready to go out (it's a LOT cheaper to bring your own beer...) and Jenny and I the first night szhe was in town.

Me in a cool Bavarian hat and Jenny drinking lots of beer. (these were both taken after we had only drank 1 liter of beer..)

Beer bottles! (only about 12 are ours.. the rest were found on the street. Yarn money!) and me attempting to make a carrot cake after 2 liters of beer and half a bottle of wine. It turned out pretty good...

Nothing's better at curing Homesickness than....

A beer festival! (and some knitting.)

Sorry that I haven't written in a while and that the last time I wrote it was a depressing note about how I wasn't enjoying being in Germany and didn't really have anything to do about knitting. At all. Hopefully this entry will have more knitting content, but of course there has to be some beer!

Ok, so I'll get the knitting stuff in first. Tubey is coming along nicely. I finished the sleeves!

Now just to do the body. I think I've calculated that I'm halfway done now though. Yay! It's a little looser in the sleeves than I would have liked. And I'm not liking the colors (the green) as much as I did when I bought it and it was separate from the black. And those dang color changes look like crap. Sigh. Well, if nothing else I'll have a warm comfy sweater for those days I just want to stay inside.

The Snicket Socks are coming along rather slowly (I've been working on Tubey!) but I'm not half a repeat away from starting the heel.

I think I've figured out what to do about the pattern and the instep. We'll see how it turns out.

The lace scarf for my mom is also coming along. I have 1.5-2 feet of it done (I've been working on Tubey!)

I'm not a huge fan of the lace pattern. Especially in the dark yarn. But she chose them both. So I'll do it for her.

Well. Umm. That's all the knitting content. Ha. Now for the beer!

So there's a local beer festival going on right now called the Bergkirchweih. Apparently it's the 3rd largest beer festival in Bavaria. And it's about a 2 minute walk from my apartment. So C and I have been going up there every night and getting dinner or a beer or both. Here are some pictures from it.

An oompa band and Miss Bergkirchweih 2007

The first beer from the "first" keg of the festival and C and I sharing a "Mass" (1 L of beer)

Sauerkraut, Bratwurst, and an Ox sandwich. Yum! and 2 "Krugs" to hold all of our beer

Lots of People!