Three Cheers!!!

Found myself suddenly quite annoyed by all the almost finished socks in my basket, so dropped the ones I was working on and added the final touches to the following:My favorite and most successful socks to date
Brigit by Gigi Silva
Wollmeise in RakuRegenbogen
2,50mm & 2,25mm

Also very nice socks. Haven't worn them yet so can't be sure of the "droop" problem, but for now, they fit great and the yarn is lovely and cushy and they are fun.

Bellatrix by Gigi Silva

Monarch Fly Dye in Hott

2,50mm & 2,25mm And still another pair, this time toe up and they came out too long in the foot. I still haven't made toe up work for me. I am aware that many of you would knit your socks no other way, but the vote is still out for me. Although I do plan to work on it, perhaps with Firestarter or the Boyfriend Socks. If I knew mid sole how tall I needed to make the heel of that particular pattern for my arch, it might be possible to accurately calculate the increases.

Baudelaire by CookieA

STR midweight in a Rare Gems colorway with the cuffs knitted in Mustang Sally lightweight since I ran out of yarn.

2,25mm & 2,50mm

Now for a pictorial explanation of why I need more yardage in my sock yarns. The blue sock is Rebecca's, knit for herself, and yes, she is a grown woman. Red sock is my size 10 Bellatrix. Duh! Now I know I knit tight and I don't like to use larger needles and I have to deepen the heel and gusset to accommodate a freakishly high arch, but still, my foot is reasonably normal. This was just amazing to me to see the literal difference in volumne. Thanks to Bea for the photo.

And since I'm always whinging to Jo about running out of sock yarn and needing more yardage, she pointed me to Knitivity, where Ray's yardage is more generous, and he even sells cones of some of the stuff. Well worth a visit. I liked Etouffé and Jambalaya, but there are lots and lots of blues for those of you blue lovers. Jo of course picked those. Ray started dyeing yarns professionally when he was chased out of New Orleans by Katrina and started a new life in Houston.

Submitted my October Sockdown, the Brigits, and am knitting away on my Novembers, using Gigi Silva (again) for a homegrown designer with Eleanor done in Sock Hop's Big Yellow Taxi. Increased from 60 to 66 stitches by adding a stitch to each motif. But knitted on 2.25s in the handspun, they are quite snug. Will show them off next time, hopefully finished.

I'm beginning to burn out a bit on all the socks. Well, I say that, but although the passion may be waning, the obsession isn't. It seems if there is a choice to pick up a large project or a sock, the sock always wins. If you count stitches, I could probably knit a sweater in the same time as a pair of socks. Does this make sense? And those of you with high arches will understand the difficulty of shoving a handknit sock clad foot into any pair of shoes on the market. Sort of like Cinderella's stepsisters must have felt with that glass slipper. My only choice is sandals with an adjustable strap, let out to the max. So why am I churning out those exquisite little socklets in a veritable assembly line? Beats me, but I can't stop.

This cold rainy week-end inspired me to clean out one of my closets, well, at least the summer shoes. The ones that have been breeding in the dark recesses of my closet for years, since my foot was a size smaller. I threw out as many as I kept and still the closet is crowded. Memo to self...no more shoes for ten years. Although most of these are at least five years old. Since I am not hard on my shoes, they never die a natural death, which leaves me to make the decision to euthanise them at some point and until then, they are shoved to the back of the stacks. Where they reproduce. Ran out of steam before I got to the winter shoes.

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. We certainly did. And I had a long list of things to be thankful for. I've decided to start every day by thinking of one of them and saying a quiet word of appreciation to the powers that be.

Sock Status and Knitting in Public

Just to inform, a representive group from Sisters of the Wool KNITTED IN PUBLIC yesterday. Well, we knitted at the bookstore where we normally meet, but since it was Saturday, more people saw us. Although if you check Jeri's blog, you will see just how much attention they paid us. Jeri wandered the store in a barely whipped together sweater with lots of strings and only one sleeve and absolutely NO ONE so much as looked at her. Amazing!!! Our new meeting place at the bookstore instead of Starbucks is costing me a fortune. I can resist almost anything but yarn and books. I keep the book and yarn purchasing down by avoiding bookstores and LYS at all costs. I skipped all the excellent LYS sales the last couple of weeks, but succombed to Patternworks half priced Koigu, well, only bits and pieces in colors I had so that I can make a Koigu coat, someday, hope someday soon.

For those of you who keep asking about my CookieAs, here is a status report...

Baudelaire, As you can see, close to the finish. Done in STR midweight, Rare Gems on Addi 1s. I ran out of yarn before finishing the top motifs and ribbing.

Here is the predicament, with possible choices for finishing. I tried another midweight I had in Fred Flintstone, which had some red in it. Once caked, the red looked much more orange. I "feathered" it in with alternating rows of the last of my main color, but am not very fond of it. Darling G (go check out her alien invasion) from Sisters of the Wool volunteered her Rare Gems leftovers (thank goodness she has tiny feet) which I think will look better, but is certainly rustier than my main color. Here's hoping no one ever sees my ribbing.
And here are the Monkeys, in a lovely Rare Gems colorway in STR lightweight. Jeri the marvelous mathematician worked out an 8 stitch enlargement chart so they would fit over my arches. It seems I will run out of yarn lacking both the toes and the ribbing. I did a provisional cast-on, so will have to go back to knit ribbing and toes in a different color, which at this point, I have no clue as to what it will be. These are done to the pattern in leg length, 6 repeats, so I really don't know why I always run out of yarn so soon.
And here is a close-up! I used Addi 1s in hopes of using the least yarn possible.
And here are Ann Budd's Flame Wave Socks from IK Favorite Socks. Done in Elann Esprit Olive. Since I bought 3 balls, I don't even have to think about yardage and finishing them, which is such a relief. And I LOVE these socks. Addi 1s.

My theory is that the leg should be the same length as the foot for proportion. And before you ask, the sock blockers are the genuine man in the moon Blue Moon model made by Chappy Woman.

Besides being a bit ADD when it comes to socks, I have a strange version of Second Sock Syndrome. The first sock knits up like a dream, no problems, no mistakes, smooth sailing. On the second sock I start getting distracted. I get off on the counts, drop stitches, frog, frog, frog or reknit twenty rows down with a crochet hook because something bothers me. May I say that one of the qualities of STR is that it frogs like a dream, over and over and over without showing abuse! Just what I need for second socks.

Here is a very clever row counter that Turtlegirl has designed. And she is so generous, she tells you how to make one of your very own. Quite an elegant solution. I'm planning to make a few. Thank you Turtlegirl.

http://turtlegirl76.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-make-pattern-row-counter.html

Ughhhh. Guess what I had on my doorstep yesterday morning? A possum, in fact a dead possum. I waited for quite a while since possums are known for playing dead, but no such luck. He was truly and completely dead. Several of my neighbors called to ask if I had seen what was in front of my house. I called animal control and they don't pick up on the week-end. In fact, they won't even pick up on private property, only if you leave it in a bag at the street. Next week, of course. So, armed with rubber gloves, two very large plastic bags and a newspaper, I had to take care of the situation before I could leave to "knit in public". Plus I had to wash down the spot since a bit of possum juice was really drawing the flies. My neighbors all cheered my bravery and competence. I just felt sorry for the little guy, a young and quite fat little possum, who didn't deserve his fate. I LIKE possums. The only North American marsupial, least likely animal on the planet to have rabies, they eat all sorts of things you are glad not to have in the garden, and we have lived together peacefully for quite a while. Now they can put up a good fight with a cat or a dog if cornered, but my cats never leave the house, so not my problem. Pretty sure someone poisoned it. In fact, pretty sure it was my new strange neighbors to the west, probably trying to kill the feral cats in the neighborhood. It had yellow powder all over its stomach. Sigh, sometimes I have quite had enough with being so competent. I exude competence. Which means no one volunteers to take care of me. I end up taking care of them. And disposing of poor little possums. I will spare my gentle readers any photos of this.

Today's Yarn Pron is Handmaiden silks...SeaSilk in BlackBerry and Midnight and a silk bouclé in Paris and ????? The SeaSilk is from Nancy at Colorsongyarn and it is in 150 gr instead of 100gr so 50% more yarn at only a slightly higher price. One skein will make a nice shawl.

With the next post, I will start flashing UFOs, perhaps to shame myself into finishing a few instead of knitting still more socks.

Summer goals and a contest heads up

Ali's having a contest. You can go to her blog and read all about it. She wants to know where you first read about her contest and a list of your summer knitting goals . It would be nice if I knew what mine were, but this will make me put them into words and on paper and perhaps I will actually accomplish them.

The plans in my head were a summer of socks, a pair every couple of weeks. I've got gorgeous yarns (Sock Hop Handspun, STR, Wollmeise, Jitterbug, Koigu, etc.), lots of patterns I want to do, most of them CookieA's, but there's a couple of Jeanie Townsend's in there, plus Sock Club from STR. There is a wonderful cotton/rayon nubby tunic that I almost finished last year, missing a couple of inches on the sleeves, a Fiddlesticks lace shawl in Sari Silk that lacks less than two rows, a ruana in Noro that only needs a billion ends worked in, a Sunburst Sari Silk purse that just needs the lining cut, a Clapotis in EL Silky Tweed that's half knitted, five or six pair of socks in various stages of knitting. It would really feel good to finish up a lot of UFOs before fall, clearing out the famous UFO chair.

So here is the famous chair, home to many, but not all, UFOs
Here is one of the unfinished socks, Ann Budd's pattern in Elann Esprit, and I love it. It's mate is missing an inch and a toe.
And here are several pairs at different points of completion. The STR Twin Rib socks on the right are actually finished and worn. We have STR, Koigu and Fleece Artist represented here.
And this beauty is a CookieA Baudelaire done in STR midweight, Rare Gems colorway. There are actually two of these at the same point. I ran out of yarn as usual (what fun to have size 10, high arched, long heeled feet) and had to scramble to find something with which to finish them that didn't look too awful. Darling G from our Sisters of the Wool offered up the remainders of a Rare Gem she had knitted up in order to finish, it's rustier, but should work fine. These will be done soon.

So head on over to Ali's, make your list, and good luck to you.