When the cat's away...

... the mice eat Greek takeout, apparently. Rob's been skiing for a couple days. Tuesday was my third night of Greek takeaway:



Just thought you should know.

Fraternal twins!

Well, one way to deal with the who's-this-sock-for problem is to stop working on one and start the other. After 52 rows of 'foot', I transferred sock #1 to some other size-0 dpns (my Susan Bates ones that I don't like so much, just so they had somewhere to sit) and started sock #2 on my Inoxes (Inoxi?).

Even though I attempted to start sock #2 at the same color point on the repeat, I guess there is more than one place where gold goes into magenta, because these are clearly going to be fraternal socks:



I don't think anyone's going to notice the color alignment differences with these except me, though. It's not like an intentionally self-striping sock, where the difference in start point kind of glares out at you.

Just a leetle progress...

Remember how I said "this sock is gonna go slow"? Yeah, right.

So I cast on for Sixth Sense on Thursday night. Friday evening, I accomplished a lot:


Saturday I knit a bit during the day between chores, and then again in the evening, and got to here:


Sunday I knit a little in the morning, and then Rob went to Mammoth to ski (lucky bastard), and then I knit a bunch in the evening when my friend Christine came over for a bachelorette night:


Now I really have a dilemma.
I can pull on these socks, now. They would, in fact, probably fit my mother. I think. They are a little snug, but not uncomfortably so.
But I'm not sure my mother would really like them or the way they fit.
Mind you, I'm not sure Pat would either. She liked my green ones. These are way different.
Do I finish them at size 7 and give them to Pat (or at least ask her if she wants 'em)? Pat's not in the country right now.
Do I see if my friend Karen likes them and, if she does, finish them for her (also a smaller size, maybe 7.5)?
Do I finish them for my mom at size 9.5?
They're too narrow to fit most of my friends who wear larger sizes, though they could maybe fit Colleen if made long enough, because they're narrow. Do I see if Colleen likes them and finish them for her?

I don't want them myself. I like the yarn better on the spool, I think, plus I think I am more a single-color-sock-kinda-gal. Other friends of mine might feel that way too.
Hrm.

Socky dilemma.

Knitting and Dr. Who don't mix?

So I cast on (using the very nice twisted German cast-on) for the Sixth Sense socks last night and knit a bit, but it's seeming really tight when I try to pull it on my ankle. Could this be the result of knitting while watching a particularly tense episode of the new Doctor Who?


But perhaps no. I'm making gauge, I checked this morning. So maybe it'll fit okay once I get a few more inches on it. OR maybe it won't be socks for my mom, maybe it'll be socks for my friend Pat or someone else with slender ankles...

I must say that I think this simple pattern works very well for yarn as variegated as this Lorna's Laces Watercolor. It's also nicely rhythmic, great for television knitting.

Mm, pears.

Just a little digression while I mull the beauty of Bosc pears. This was yesterday's, and delicious.

Watch that swatch!

I've decided to (gamely) join the Six Sox Knitalong. These guys (well, mostly gals) knit six socks per year to specified (and generally lovely) patterns, with cool contests to encourage you. My first Six Sox attempt will be their latest, the Sixth Sense (a picture from that Group at right — I didn't make this).

I'm going to try to do it for my mom for Mother's Day, but we'll see!

My plan is to use the Lorna's Laces in Watercolor whose cake I showed you yesterday. I'm also going to use the ribbing top, not the hemmed top shown ("more decorative than functional" was I think how they described it).

Of course, I swatched:

I need 8.5-9 stitches per inch. I got 8 with the #1s. So... what you see here is me realizing I'm going to have to use #0 dpns on this one. Ooh. There's a first time for everything. But this sock is going to go slow.

Ahhh... socky gratification.

I am really trying to ignore the pasty whiteness of my sun-starved legs ...



...and concentrate instead on the greeny goodness of Sundara Yarn sock heaven.

Mm, socks.



Final stats:
Used: Much of 2 hanks of Sundara Yarn in Seaweed colorway.
Pattern: Cascading Leaves from Townsend Socks Knitalong.
Needles: Size 1, 8" Inox dpns from Two Swans Yarn (great service!). Why 8"? I dunno... 5" make me nervous still.

Froggy!

I frogged the short toe last night. I slipped these blue size 000 or so needles into the loops for the last row of ST, and pulled the string... voila! Magic! Perfect frogification.

Sock #2 was kind of sad, though.

Oops.

Even the great and miraculous beauty of CAKE — and your kind comments about sock #1 — cannot prevent vast stupidity.

Er. Or booboos:
Yep. 5 rows of stockinette short in that toe, there. (I know it looks shrimpier overall, but that's just blocking.)

Normally I mark off my rows with hashmarks |||| . For some reason on this toe, on the sticky note for sock #1, I'd written ST 5 ||||\ (you have to imagine that last \ going through the ||s). Apparently what I meant was "5+||||\", or 10.

Dur. And of course I didn't try the sock on until AFTER I wove the ends in.

I wove them in so beautifully that when I finished this sock, late last night while watching The Bourne Identity, I was unable to find the tail to frog it back to the beginning of the round toe so I could add the 5 ST rows. I'll try again tonight with a little less sleepiness!

CAKE!!!!!

What it has in its pocketses are...

THIS

(a wooden swift)

... and THIS

(a ball winder)

Sorry about the blurry pictures. It was kind of early this morning when I took them and I wasn't very clear myself!

I am very excited! I've wanted these for a while, because winding balls by hand from a hank of yarn is tiring, and, worse, I tend to wind balls that tangle up right when you're 2" from the end of a pair of socks. And then (after hours of tearing your hear out trying to untangle), you have to cut the yarn, untangle a few yards, and reconnect. UGH. So I really wanted to make some nice balls of yarn. And my Bubby gave me birthday money! Yahoo, I got to get my swift and ball winder!!

But when you make balls of yarn with a ball winder, you don't call them balls. You call them...


CAKE!

These yummy cakes are made of Manos del Uruguay in the Wildflowers colorway (ahhhhhhh it is so beautiful!) and Lorna's Laces in Watercolor. The cake on the cakemaker, I mean ball winder, is Lorna's Laces in Sand Ridge.

Mmm, cake. Thanks Bubby!

What has it got in its pocketses?

A new yarn swift and ball winder!! More in an hour or two when I'm out of this meeting...

Third set of socks in process...

Actually I have a few sets of socks started (one frogged so many times it could start its own amphibian institute), but this one is the bestest and getting close to done. Here is sock #1:
It's Sundara Yarn's fabulous, mind-blowingly great sock yarn in "Seaweed," using as a pattern Townsend's Cascading Leaves, with Nancy Bush's Round Toe. I am so in love with this sock. You can't buy this colorway anymore, but go see Sundara's latest. She is a color genius and her yarn is the best, just the best.

Here's another picture without flash, in late-afternoon light, to try to show off the color:

I've just turned the heel on sock #2, so I'm on the home stretch!

Bay Window Bears

I finished my knitted bear (made of scrap yarn using an antique pattern) for the Bay Window Bears project (now over with) on March 27th and shipped him off to the Bay Window proprieters, and they let me know it went off to Jamaica with the rest. The bears will go to an orphanage in Jamaica where the children have really got nothing — certainly no toys or possessions of their own. The Bay Window folks were able to take over 150 bears!

The bear looked like some kind of dead withered lizard when I finished it, but then I stuffed it!


Voila! A fully unwithered non-lizard :-)

My first sock.. finished in March

I was so excited about my first sock, I had to photograph it with whatever was at hand — in this case, my cell phone:


It's Rick's Sock from The AntiCraft (excellent site), done in Patons Classic Wool merino. I did make two, though I muddled the gusset a bit so one is a little longer than the other. Fortunately, so is one of my feet.



After hand-washing, it felted a bit, blurring the stitches. But they are very cozy. They even fit inside some of my shoes! (Mostly I use them as slipper-socks, though.)








Here, Laila demonstrates that she is quite interested in knitting issues: