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.

And more champagne, please!

Drum roll, please! Finished up still another pair of socks. Monkeys this time. They were sitting waiting for a complementary yarn to finish up the toes and a bit of cuff. Both of these colors are Socks that Rock Rare Gems. I tried about five colors, and frogged all five until I threw this one into the mix and I like it. There are absolutely no colors in common in the two skeins, which somehow made it work better. This running short of yarn on a regular basis is really affecting my knitting mojo. The socks are put aside waiting for another yarn to add in, and then they languish in their basket for far too long. I can live with the size 10s, but it does drive me crazy when knitting socks.
CookieA's Monkey from Knitty.com
Blue Moon Socks That Rock lightweight
Size 2.5 and 2.25 needles
Added 1 stitch to each side of the stitch pattern to bring the count up to 72 and then knit it tightly. Worked fine.
I love this pattern. I could happily knit all Monkeys, all the time.
Well, I was feeling so smug at finishing still another pair of socks out of the WIPs, that I allowed myself to cake up some Wollmeise and start a new pair. I had researched and actually bought several patterns to find something worthy of my Wollmeise, and ended up tripping over Momma Monkey's Brigit at the last minute, and just picked up the needles and started. Oooooh, I love this yarn, and the colors just glow. Quite a bit further along now and love both pattern and yarn. I love STR yarns and have used them a lot since I love Tina's color sense and yarn quality, but always run out of yarn before finishing due to tight knitting and big feet. Well, with something like 580 yards per skein, I don't anticipate that problem with Wollmeise.
And this, dear friends, is sheer yarn gluttony (and I know you all understand the syndrome). This is beautiful Brooks Farm Fourplay, Acero and Mas Acero. The Bookgrump from the Sisters talked the Brooks Farm ladies, Sherri and Dena, into visiting our weekly knitting group. They brought along Alissa, the Knitting Fairy, with some of her patterns knitted up to show off. They had planned to come for a show and tell, but we had been saving our lunch money up to do some damage and we managed to convince them to come prepared. Well friends, it was a bit of a free for all, everyone clutching yarn to their chests. I was standing near a basked, pulling out the skeins I liked and putting them down on the table hidden under the basket's edge between all the baskets. TxKnitter was across the table from me and kept pulling up skeins of yarn and oohing and aahing. It took some minutes to realize that she was pulling out my hidden skeins, thinking they had just spilled out of the baskets. Hilarious. It was a treat to finally see these yarns in person and they are much more beautiful than you can tell from their website. I came, I saw, I stashed!!! Plans for everything. Socks and scarves and shawls so far. Think I see another Clapotis in there. And one of KnitSpot's beautiful shawls.

The last two weeks have been a complete fiber overdose. Dyeing at Heritage Arts, receiving our much awaited orders from Some Assembly Required and then Brooks Farm coming to visit. Not to mention I'm still waiting for a couple of Sock Hop goodies from Teyani at Crown Mountain Farms. And am dyeing to order some more Wollmeise soon. Whew, I'm already calculating my Christmas checks and allocating them to yarn purchases. Must knit from stash, must knit from stash, must knit from stash. Repeat that 10,000 times. So why am I making plans to vist the Kid and Ewe Fiber Fest in Boerne? Just because it's in the beautiful Hill Country? Just because Brooks Farm will be there? Sure, right. CelticMemory, do you see what you are missing? Over in cool, green Ireland knitting away on 99 projects at a time? Chasing the elusive vest? When you could be revelling in the heat, adding to your stash???

Socks just a rollin' along

It just keeps raining! The amazing thing is that Canadian friends are talking about the roasting 100+ temperatures, while Texas is in the lower 80s and nonstop rain. Who turned the world upside down?? The Tuesday night meeting of the Sisters of the Wool had scarce attendance. Just before we meet, the heavens had opened and the rain came down so fast, there was lots of flooding and streets blocked. Some of our most die-hard knitters didn't come. I mean we've knitted through tornadoes in the bathroom at Starbucks before, no sissies here! So they asked for a rain check meeting and we are having an extra on Sunday. It's always fun if I can get away from the family.

So instead of activities in the great outdoors (where we would be drowned or hunted by mega mosquitoes), knitting is looking like a good activity. First, a lovely little flash of a colorway that Tina, the color wizard, just dyed up over at Blue Moon. Metamorphic was my pseudonym at Sock Camp, and let me tell you this colorway knits up beautifully. I had asked about its availability and Tina made sure I got enough from the next batch to make any old sock pattern I wanted to! Luxe! She had some other new colorways on the site that I am already studying.
Here is progress on the Solstice Slips, the June installment of Rockin' Sock Club. As you can see, those alarming rectangular pools finally started to spiral, no needle or stitch change, just relentless tugging.
And here is the reverse side of the leg. I am liking this stitch pattern, although I will have to change everything else on them, different heel, probably add some sort of ribbing. It is very stretchy and solid, knitted on Addi 1s in lightweight STR. I'm taking a brief breather before starting a flap heel here, in order to knit on these...Sock Hop Handspun in Wild Thing colorway. Bless Teyani who said that if I ran short, they could scrounge some short skeins to finish things up. Teyani, I can't tell you how that eased my mind. Thank you.
I'm really liking these. The pattern is from IKs Favorite Socks and it is the Undulating Rib sock. So far, it's doing all the right things. Knitting on Addi 1s, but as soon as I can get it over my arch, I will go down to 1s or 0s to give a firm fabric for the foot.

There are a couple of other stash yarns tempting me, but I have no more needles for the moment, they are all busy. Now, I can either finish me some socks, or order me some needles. Hmmmmm.

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.