I have a light up pen too, but I like it beacuse I think it looks like a lightsabre.

Even if the yarn store is the same it's a new location which makes it feel like visiting a new yarn store and that just always goes to your head -- you probably left all your pens there too.

I'm liking the cable on the socks. Is that a hole(on purpose, I don't see a mistake) in the open part of the cable, or just the way the picture looks? Would make a nice peek-a-boo pattern.

It's just an odd time of year... everything feels topsy turvy and is in a state of flux.

I love that green yarn... to the point of considering buying it and then dying my hair (red headed irish here.. unable to wear a lot of colors) just so I can wear whatever I'd make with it.

I knew I wouldn't be the first commenter by the time I got to this page. Oh well. the socks look lovely; I like the pattern in the semi-solid more than the variagated in the original. I hate to break this to you, but the Donegal Tweed *looks* lovely but it can be a bear to knit with. I made a Koolhaas with it for Christmas and it split 3-4 times in one ball. Admittedly, a lot of cables, but still, I was disappointed and frustrated. It's a common complaint about the yarn on ravelry, I found. Jolie is, indeed, pretty, but I fear it would like quite horrid on me.

I'm sorry, was there something you wrote after "light up pens"? Cuz I sorta got distracted.

Because settled moods DON'T end with yarn purchases?

I think my son needs a light-up pen now, especially if it looks like a light saber.

I also am unsettled, to the extent that I'm having trouble breathing. I'd go buy yarn, but considering this spell of unsettled is going to cost us new flooring in one room, $200 so far at the vet's, and lab test fees for three children (god help me no meds, please please please) maybe I'll wait on the yarn.

I hope you feel better soon, when we don't feel good is when we get frustrated the most easily.

I loved both projects and the yarns.

My favorite yarn store recently moved across the parking lot, to a store that is more then three times the size of the old one.

I wish I could afford really nice yarn, but then I could knit one item a year. So I settle for a better acrylic. The needles they sell are so much nicer then those in the big box stores and they have sizes they don't. So I do buy my needles there.

Really love the colour you're using for Jolie.

I have a headache and four 12y/o girls at my house. Odd how those go together. Gotta say, love the mitt designer's work (new to me), and the sock designer (see her latest on Knitty?). The knitting world is full of such creative people. I hope you feel better basking in the warmth of tea, a quiet house, and your knitting.

Perhaps the thing with the pens is the universe making fun of you because it was the topic of your page a day calendar for 9/8. Was Wednesday a particularly bad day for pens?

Wow a light up pen would be awesome, have to look for one.

Unexpected big yarn purchase leaves me unsetteled also :)

The blue sock looks great! I love that yarn - don't rip it - it goes with the pattern very nicely.

Anyway, surely it's beer o'clock, so cheers to a better evening!

Hey! I hate to be one to say "me too" but, ME TOO! I don't have the sweater pattern you reference and I'm not working in Debbie Bliss... but out of nowhere I finally found a copy of the urban aran pattern (and will likely be the last knitter in the known world to achieve a copy) and was so gleeful that I bought a bunch of surprisingly green yarn to make it in.

Given that I'm usually a sock-weight/lace-weight sucker, this was a yarn sneak attack in bulky.

Plus, light up pens? Brilliant!

I wonder... If you got a ring as big as Natalie's would the mitten would look smaller against your diminutive hand?

Yep, you kinda lost me after the mention of "light-up pen". Got to go google that right now....

It's a very you sort of colourway, so understandable, really. Nothing you could have done about it.

I'd like to be of help, so I'll let you know that I have biggish hands and would be a greatful recipient of too-big mittens if the current plan doesn't work out.

"I told you. I'm a little unsettled. Odd that always ends with a yarn purchase though. Damned weird."

Weird? Yes. Unusual? No. Happens to me all the time . . .

Well, obviously, in the latter case of the new sweater, wool fumes are to blame as you were clearly in a peculiarly susceptible state for some reason. As for pens? I seem to collect them rather spontaneously for awhile in my purse. Then, they seem to disperse on their own and I leave them all over the place. I think they are really a species just using me as a dispersal agent (like birds eating fruits and pooping seeds somewhere further away). The sock? well, let's see how it turns out. You usually have wonderful judgement so when you put the packs together, you probably knew what you were doing, eh?

Have you seen the fighting frogs light-up pens on Amazon? You and Tina might just need a set along with an endless supply of post-its for SS2011!

Light up pens are a wonder, aren't they? As a chronic journal-er, they sure are handy on camping trips, car trips, late nights at home when turning on a bright light would most certainly flash a brilliant idea right out of your head.
Since you can still see the pattern of the sock through the color changes of the yarn, my vote is to keep on knitting! But the mittens? Well, I have a daughter who's fingers are a full knuckle length longer than mine. She has wound up with some pretty nifty stuff over the years. I have no answer. The best plans and patterns just don't always work out to fit my boxy hands.
The sweater, on the other hand - well - it's completly understandable. I mean, it IS green after all, and if it is green, it IS God's will.

Holy tadpole, Batman! I searched Amazon for fighting frog light up pens and actually found them! Not only that, but some company will personalize strange light up pens. Steph, you gotta see these! And they're green, they match your sweater.

My son-in-law took some light-up pens and made them into light-up knitting needles, before those other ones came on the market. Pretty cool.

I LOVE that green, and I'm usually more a bluesy-green type. Enjoy!

If you ever feel too guilty about the yarn you buy, feel free to send some my way.

Where did Natalie get her ring????

Never mind light-up pens, what about the light-up knitting needles?
http://www.herrschners.com/product/Knit+Lite+Light+Up+Knitting+Needles.aspx

Hey!! Yarn Harlot! WAVING WILDLY HOPING STEPHANIE SEES THIS, YARN HARLOT
my day took a weird turn when I JUST received an email from YOU thanking me for my donation I made in Jan 09 --uh, that is like more than a year and a half ago. and the WEIRD part--you already thanked me for it like over a year ago.
Please tell me that it was really you and that your server has not gone all spammy and is resending emails from long ago or something waaaay weird like that.
and yes MERCURY IS RETROGRADE FOR A FEW MORE DAYS

Where does one find a light-up pen? Not that I feel the immediate, irrepressible urge to go purchase one, or two, or a few dozen... No, not that mind you. I'm just... curious, yeah, that's it! I'm curious.

But it is VERY nice yarn. There's nothing wrong with green tweed.

I love that sock, and I love even more that it's a free download. My machine just finished printing it.

The sweater is a perfect color for you. You'll look lovely in it when it's done, and the weather will be turning any day now. It'll stay warm in California for another two months yet, so I'll keep a candle in the window for you, if you want some supplemental summer.

Don't worry about your cold making you ding-y. We like you ding-y. Just get some rest, and get well.

That is a nice green, so I see how that could happen.

Speaking of loosing things - does anyone know the number of knitting needles and crochet hooks that can become lost in the recesses of an easy chair before they start jabbing unsuspecting guests? I'm guessing its a fairly large number, but feel I may be reaching critical mass.

Well, give yourself extra points for swatching the yarn first thing when you got home. My favorite color is green, but wool itches so knit it sw we can all enjoy it! Many thanks!

Ha ha- pen repellant- I like that.Just like my house. Although if I can't find a pen (or a pencil or even a crayon for that fact), I know it is time to clean out the toy box. I must have found about a hundred of them about a month ago. LOVE tweed yarn. I have KP City Tweed on my needles right now. It's amazing how fast yarn you love knits up.

Light up pen??? I. Must. Get. Some!!!

Lovely knits. I've got that book... going to go check out the pattern for Jolie. You're an enabler!

I have a light up pen too! it even changes color in a sequence. I don't keep it near my bed though because I am still under the delusion that "Oh, I don't need to sit up and write it down, I'll remember" and of course I never do.

I may have just decided that I am going to do nothing but knit this weekend. an hour ago I had decided I was going to totally purge the basement of clutter (that's a lot of clutter) thanks to Empress of Dirt's recent Simplicity posts... it's only 6:30 on Friday, I still have time to change my mind a couple more times, but I have a feeling that the knitting will win.

Still LOVE those mittens! and what great colors you picked out too! Very classy.

Forgive me if this pattern is old hat (so to speak), but I just came across these very pretty Drops fancy mittens and I thought of you:
http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/visoppskrift.php?d_nr=126&d_id=5&lang=us

Well, it could be worse - you could have had a slight yarn accident and wake up tomorrow with a slinky ribbon yarn that's mostly nylon and a low-cut top pattern that's you've knit four inches of. Instead, you have a great pattern and great yarn. This is a Good Thing. Plus, it's fall all of a sudden; you're supposed to be unsettled and go around casting on for sweaters and mittens and giant afghans and such.

In fact, shouldn't you be drafting your Christmas knitting list this very weekend?

I love your comment that your mittens are continuing "apace." You don't find just everyone using "apace" ... but I use it too and have had fairly well educated people scratch their head over it!

Jolly good show!

ok, seriously - I have NEVER heard of a light up pen and I am determined that this lack of knowledge is what has kept me from being the writer I want to be. I get 99% of my ideas just after I turn off the lights, put the knitting down (yes . . . in that order) and close my eyes. And my light switch is all the way over there by the door, so I can't possibly turn it on to write stuff down. This is brilliant. I'm so excited that I didn't finish reading your post, so now I'm going back to find out the exciting climax of the giant mitten. Then I'm going to order some pens.

There is a place where one can knit . . . and drink wine? Will the wonders of this day never cease.

LOVE, love LOVE the ring! So beautiful!

My favourite light up pen has a Santa at the end and is used only for writing my Christmas list. :)

Now I want a light up pen!

I know the sick has been going through my neck of the woods and the allergies which can be a lot like being sick. Despite all of that, I've been on a yarn buying bender for about a week now. It's been a bit of something at a pace that is making me start to feel woozy. I think it is the last hurrah before I have a self-imposed yarn moratorium, so I can knit some of the stash up before Christmas.

Where do you get the light-up pens?!? (I'm assuming somewhere in the GTA, and yes, now that I know of their existance I need them.)

I hope the unsettled-ness clears up for you (as well as your cold), but think that that yarn might go a long way to making things better!

Just enjoy the beautiful green yarn and call it your New Year's gift to yourself. You definitely deserve it!

I have a pen that is "sonic" a la the Adipose episode of Doctor Who. (I also have a sonic screwdriver that is not a pen but proudly sits in my china cabinet just in front of my great-grandmother's tea cups.) Also, nice green!

Knitting the same mitts (aren't they wonderful?) and having the same problem. You must be 5'2"!

Ooh, I love that Luxury Tweed Aran stuff! It's so much softer than it looks.

Good colour, too :-)

Bet my hands are smaller than your hands. :D Love the green yarn -- makes sense to me....

I have to remember that "unsettling odd feeling" the next time I need a hubby excuse for why the yarn skein count in our home is expanding.

That yarn is GORGEOUS.

I need a light up pen!!!! Hope your are feeling more like yourself real soon!

Sneak attacks of yarn are the WORST! Especially if there is a brilliant pattern to go along with them. I also suffered a sneak attack, but not of spic proportions... I was that the LYS and the owner put some yarn down next to New England Knits. I have a signed copy and am a sucker for a mohair-blend; next thing I knew I was on my way home with a bag full of Lamb's Pride Worsted to knit the Montague Vest as a store sample. Sneak attack - yes, wallet attack - no. ;)

Love the color for the Jolie, though not surprised you chose green. I do like the yarn and pattern together for the socks, so if they're for me keep knitting! ;) Also, the mittens are lovely!

I got some light-up pens when I took a film class as an undergrad so I could take notes while we were watching movies. They're so great! I'm glad I'm not the only one!

And wow...Natalie's ring is so pretty!

Watch out for that Yarn Bus! ;)

Probably a shift in the weather causing the unsettledness(is that a word?) Nice that it caused a pleasant yarn/pattern accident and not something worse.

Your friend Natalie has the most gorgeous ring!

You are completely right. I had no idea there were light up pens until I read that. Now I must find some. Anyone know if they are at regular office supply stores or are they only at Amazon.com?

KW show tomorrow...bound to make you feel better!!

Light-up pens would be wonderful. Except that I lose every pen except the plain old Bic cheapies.

I have "size small" hands. Every single charted colorwork mitten requires that I do the math and alter the chart because going down a needle size does not take a mitten from a Medium to a Small. WHY do I like colorwork so much???

Can I just tell you how impressed I am that you are 9 successful months into your sock of the month routine? I am guessing the secret is NOT having 3 young children running circles around you. ;-)

I use NiteNotes, which are great. A little pad with a light that holds your pen. The light turns on as long as the pen is out. http://www.nitenote.com/

I love light up pens, sad at the fact that mine recently grew legs & ran away... had never given the "repellant" theory any thought. I like the theory though, it explains so much!
Hope you feel better soon. I'm sure some time with the new yarn will help!

Light up pens are the epitome of awesomeness! I have absolutely NO use for them as I don't write in the dark, ever. But they make me feel all kinds of cool!

Steph, you're not the only one to get hit by the yarn bus... Especially with gorgeous yarn like that!!! I wants it.

I love light-up pens, and I find them extremely useful, as I work in the theatre, where we are often sitting around in the dark and needing to write things down. Sadly, other theatre people (actors mostly, damn them) keep stealing my light-up pens. You just reminded me I need to get a new one before my next contract in October. Thanks!

Love the sweater pattern and the purty green yarn!

What your day is like, is like what my year has been.

If you'd like proof I have x-rays.
I am now in the stage of "maybe if I lie still the universe won't see me." mode. Along with the tea, tv, & lots of knitting.

Perhaps I need a light up pen.

Light up pen: check
Mittens not quite the right size: check
Sock kit started and not really sure about: check
New location for LYS: glad you mentioned it or I might have missed is when I visit in Oct.
Disjointed feeling that ends/starts with yarn/pattern purchase: when is this not true?
Hope you feel better soon and the new sweater is ready for furnace wars.

I hope your spirit gives the malaise short shrift and you feel much stronger soon. I DO have light up pens and I do write at night...sometimes I write on my hand (arghgh), but most of the time I have my paper very close. I am gob-smacked over that tweedy green, wowowow.

I think I read somewhere that originally Norweigan mittens were made to fit with at least two inches longer than the actual hand so that it would trap air and thus keep the hand of the wearer that much warmer, so your mittens aren't really too big at all. :)

I have a light up pen too. It also doesn't light up anymore because it needs new batteries. Sigh! So, you're not as odd as you might think. Either that or I'm odder than I think.
Hmmm...............That's a disturbing thought!
LOL!
I have the occasional day, or days, like the one your currently experiencing and the only thing that works for me is to just give in and be a vegetable for a few days until I feel better and my brain clears. Since I'm a slow and not very good knitter, I pick out really easy knitting projects to work on while my brain is mushy so I don't spend days in the Frog Pond. You know, the kind of project that would bore you to tears. Hope you feel better soon. Have Joe get you some new batteries for your light pens.

Oooooo! Triplet sweaters AND light up pens. Thanks for the inspiration, I think.

I have a light up pen but am not able to use it because I only find it when the batteries are dead. That's when my kids share.
Really lovely mitts. Lucky Natalie!
The month has officially begun now that the sock of the month has been shown.

I am the one who just found out about the light-up pens and now need a few of them myself. :) Thank you! Your new green yarn is gorgeous.

A light up pen with the same logo but with SS2011 on it would be really cool, hmmm a fun idea for the first 100 thru the door or something?

Gasp! Light-up pens! Not only do I now need some, but all my friends need them for Christmas too. Where do you get yours at?

Also, my sympathies; I have very wee hands as well. I keep making everyone else's mittens too small as a result.

NYPhoenix, what on earth makes you think green yarn wouldn't go with red hair?? I LOVE green on redheads.

If it helps, I've been resorting to lists for weeks and my pregnancy craving yesterday? Ice cream and a trip to my LYS (no, I didn't want to eat the yarn, but I decided it would make me happy to have new yarn)

Wait, they make light-up pens? I, who have pens and pencils and paper tucked in every nook, corner, and crevice in my room...and I've never heard of them?

*sighs*

My office supply pimps are totally letting me down :(

"I told you. I'm a little unsettled. Odd that always ends with a yarn purchase though. Damned weird."

How totally unlike you. I would see a doctor.

Well, if the mitts are too big and normal-sized-Natalie decides that she doesn't need them.... you could always send them to me. I think they are really beautiful... more beautiful that the lace shawl I've just spent hours dressing.

Time to think of creating a sock calendar!!!!!
I would buy it.

That tweed yarn? Gorgeous. I would take a weird day if I could end up with it afterwards.

I had the weird experience of the yarn shop moving, a few months ago. It threw me off so bad, I just walked in with a list and told her what was required... But I've recovered my equilibrium, and it's nice to know she has missed all the construction, and I don't have to walk five blocks to get there (but the problem is getting home, two blankets and four sweaters' worth of wool are heavy). As for your pens, I bet they've decided to marry your tape measures, or your darning needles, and they've gone off on their honeymoon. But they'll return, after you replace them. Good luck.

Funny thing that, eh? I seem to have the same sort of problem. A really bad week invariably ends with me, a glass of wine, and a newly-cast-on project. Ooops.

I love light up pens! I have a bunch in various stages of brightness.

"The yarn bus hit me"....I am going to use that from now on when my husband asks me why I got so much yarn. Yup. Love it. :)

I KNEW IT! I thought it had to be Mercury in retrograde. The other day I could do NOTHING right. I drove by my stop TWICE. I screwed up two checks before I could write one correctly. There were so many little incidents I got scared I wouldn't make the drive home in one piece. Yup, been feeling off for days.

And the thing about wee hands? With me it means I have ended up giving away all my attempts at fingerless mitts, because no matter how I try to adapt a pattern, I can't seem to make them the right size for me! It looks like I will have to buckle down and try to make some small enough pretty soon, as I have a couple trips planned to cool weather locales this year.

Stephanie,
I accidentally found that green debbie Bliss yarn in the spring and bought some to make a vest. The vest is about 1/3 done because I needed to make aome things for the church holiday fair and if I didn't get started they wouldn't happen. Hopefully I will get back to the vest in the near future. Catherine

If you wear the lovely little Claddagh ring form Ireland when you knit the Donegal yarn, you should have no problem with the yarn!

Oh, that just happened to me. During my lunch break yesterdat a co-worker who saw me knitting asked if I could take her to "my yarn store." She bought several pretty skeins and before I knew it so did I. I didn't NEED it or the new Debbie Bliss the-new-mistress-of -darkness magazine, but they apparently needed to come home with me. Love it!

that green yarn is BEAUTIFUL!!!! i love it.
i just showed my husband your knitting pics & he was so impressed & taken aback- he was amazed by your work. you truly are an amazing knitters.
knitting vicarously through you!

It's been a bit frazzled around here, too. I made an upside down pear cake and forgot to put the brown sugar on the bottom. Decided to mix it with lots of butter and pour on after baking; it came out fine. I made the cake for guests and promptly forgot to serve it. Had many dinner-related errors tonight (despite that, it still came out OK). I'm thinking it's time to curl up in a corner with a bit of something soothing...both fibery and liquid!

AAUUGHHH!!! THAT'S MY GREEN! my green. WANT. can't find it online.... WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? want it. now.

Just back from the Kitchener Fair. Totally understand about the yarn bus.

I'd blame it on the 'short' week. Yes, the holiday Monday is great but everyone goes around for the rest of the week out of synch. Almost ruins the effect of the holiday.

To Diane with Pear upside down cake. Once made beautiful cheese souffle... only to turn and see the grated cheese in the bowl on the counter five minutes after the souffle went into the oven.

As they say in the Hitchhiker series, (and I probably am misquoting somewhat) "6x8 is 48 but it was supposed to be 42 and THAT is why the Universe is the way it is.... "

Ooooh, that green looks so pretty. You smell nice, I wouldn't worry.

That's a really nice yarn bus to be hit with.

NOTE TO LIGHT UP PEN LOVERS: THere is a kitchen store near me that sells light up pens... pigs with lights in their mouths, sort of like flash light pens. They had several animal pens that doubled as flashlights. I know there are other kinds of pens, but these are in the store near me. I would be willing to give out the number of the store via private email and maybe they can send you a pen if you give a credit card number? I think they're around 3 dollars... Kathleen

I have very short fingers but very wide hands, and I think I'll have to frog the stranded mittens I started a while back because they're too tight. So I'm in your club.

Myabe yes, maybe not, but was that Kim Hargraves "Jolie"? i checked Ravelry & found Hargraves pattern that looks like your swatch. Very pretty, I'm sure it will be.

And with those wee little hands you knit like the wind.

Well, it was green. That couldn't be helped. Really. :D

"I'm a little unsettled. Odd that always ends with a yarn purchase though."

But you're going to get a very nice looking sweater out of it at least.

And at for budgetary concerns it wasn't cashmere. When it is it can be a bit of a shock. Ask me how I know.

That's a gorgeous blue sock. If you don't know anyone who would like it, you can always ship it to Massachusetts. :)

PS -- womens size 10 ;)

Most of my unsettled moments end with yarn purchases as well. I don't think it's weird at all. We just prefer yarn to shoes, which is what all my muggle friends buy when they're unsettled.

It is a very nice green. Personally, if I were there, there was a nice mens sweater pattern and some wine, I would wind up at home with a yarn purchase, new pattern and a swatch as well.

I was at the Kitchener Waterloo Knitter Fair yesterday and surprisingly came home with only 8 skeins of yarn. Somehow I was able to pass up the hand-painted Tencel at 50% off. The colors were pretty, the price was awesome, but seriously I wouldn't wear it or want to knit with it. Though it could have gone in the swap package I'm working on.

...menapause....

@Heather in 1st comment, you are awesome. And right.

Hee, hee, hee...love it! (The tale of your week, that is, but I hope the "feeling unsettled" thing passes very quickly.) Here's hoping that this next week your pens will show up, you will look for things you then immediately find, and that the beautiful green yarn will knit up in a quick and lovely way. :)

I don't have any light up pens, but my friend just bought me light up knitting needles last week - itching to try them!

You ended up with a yarn purchase and you think that's weird?

I think it's weird that you think that's weird....I mean, how long have you been living with Stephanie McPhee now? WE all knew what was going to happen. Why didn't you? >:-)

I had a somewhat similar experience with mittens I knitted from the Terri Shea Sulbuvotter book except my first mitten was perfect. Perfect size, everything. Then I knitted the second one with the very same needles, same yarn, same everything and it came out the correct size for a 5 year old. I have no idea what happened. Same number of stitches, same everything and 2 completely different mittens. Weird.

I wish my LYS's would do a wine and cheese evening - maybe the USA isn't as relaxed about that stuff as Canada?

My hair finally got long enough for putting up, and I sometimes shove a pen in there, and then forget where it is. So I go looking for another.

My teenage son thinks this is hysterical, but he may find a light-up pen in his stocking this year just to even things up a bit!

I didn't know they have light-up pens. I must buy one!

Love my light-up pens -- found one at a science museum store (probably in Toronto)and another at an annual Engineering event on the University of Illinois campus! At that point, they were just additions to my "cool science toys" collection used for teaching, but one ended up permanently by the bed, and I use it sparingly (so as to conserve the batteries!).

Fall sunshine should help you out of the funk!

I hope you are feeling better. I hate being sick, too. But it seems like it's the only time I don't feel guilty about resting. A week ago, I was flying steerage on a low-fare airline behind a hacking man who sounded like he had a disease from the Dark Ages. So far, I have not come down with anything that involves coughing or spittal. Maybe you picked up a nasty bug on your many travels.
take care, Nora

Just what I need, another type of pen - but I'll have to get some, even though I never really write in the dark.

If it's any comfort, I'm suffering from yarn store deprivation. I'm tracking expenses this month and am appalled by what I have already spent, and it's not even NEAR the end of the month. Also, I've been crocheting baby afghans, and when I went hunting for yarn in my stash found some beautiful stuff I'd completely forgotten about, only now I'm not sure it will be enough for the stitch I'm working (and of course I bought it elsewhere; you warned me in your books, so I should have known that would happen). Whimper.

What is that diamond thingie in your swatch? Are you swatching in pattern or is it a totally clever swatch-measuring device?

OMG, how wonderfully weird! I was talking to my friend a few days ago about my beloved light-up pen (which quit on me and I can't seem to find a new one in any store!) It's lovely to know that you find them invaluable, too.

The "Betty Boop Blue" is so pretty! and I'm quite impressed by the Joie du Printemps mittens, particularly since I'm a wee newbie knitty myself. Looking forward to more delightful posts! :)