Making Progress

Slightly Interesting School Colors Socks
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Yes, these are the same socks as yesterday, just a better photo. You can see both the side and front view on this one. Since they are in the process of being worn and I hope worn a lot, I thought I should memorialize them now!!

I made good progress yesterday in knitting, and managed to finish the acres and acres of stockinette that constitutes the back of the cardigan, plus two pocket liners. It's off to knit the fronts now!

It probably was not brilliant of me to go to the LYS while they are having their inventory reduction sale...hard to resist getting yarn! But I didn't get too much. I just got two skeins of Noro Iroha in black to use with all my leftover Kureyon or Silk Garden (can't decide) for one of those extra-popular Brooklyn Tweed Noro scarves. Why? I need a plain ole workaday scarf and only have fancy ones and that big one with the pattern in the sidebar (which did keep cold wind off me yesterday!). I also got three balls of Mili Colori, which is a single ply random-striping yarn I just love to look at, to make a second Shag scarf as a gift for someone. I just enjoy doing it! All that was less than $30, so not too bad.

I needed to see other humans anyway, so it was nice to hang out with the friendly yarn shop patrons and chat a while. Mostly I bragged about my son's Christmas gift, which was a really touching plaque thanking me for being a good mom to him...this from the easiest child to parent on the face of the earth--but I sure appreciated it.

Not much knitting in the evening, because we went to see Juno, an excellent movie that was perfect for a family with teens. The vocabulary was dead on accurate--and the subject matter really good.

That's it for today. I hope to have some cardigan photos tomorrow.

Gifts Received and Revealed

Slightly Interesting School Color Socks from the side
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Yay, I can finally show you the socks I made for my fiance for Christmas (though I am sure he saw them in my knitting bag). I call them the Slightly Interesting School Color Socks on Ravelry, because they are the colors of St. Edward's University, and I just couldn't knit them plain, so I made them slant in the center. What looks like a seam down the side is where I increased every other row.

On the second picture you can see that I did a centered double decrease (my new fave stitch) in the middle, which makes a sort of strange, yet pleasing effect. The socks have a solid blue cuff because I was worried that I would not be able to get full socks out of the skein. I probably could have, but I like the cuff.

There's a string showing, because I didn't weave in the top end--I wanted to be sure Lee was OK with the length, so I thought I might be needing to take off the cuff and add some of the remaining body yarn to lengthen them. HE liked them as is. The yarn is Hill Country Yarns Instant Gratification Sock Yarn, which is sport or DK weight. I knit the socks at 55 stitches around, which yes, is a weird number. Lee liked the fit (a little tight). I was happy that I figured out how to make my favorite toe-up flapped heel with 25 stitches. Go me. And the short rows look marvy.

My other gifts were all received with great gusto. My older son wants the Half Pipe hat blocked a bit, because the top seems a little pointy. Lucha Libre went over extremely well, as one can see. And all the relatives I sent gifts to in North Carolina raved about them as well. All in all, my holiday knitting was a success. Maybe I will do more next year!

I am into the third ball of blue Ultra Alpaca on Lee's cardigan, and I held it up to him--what a relief that the width seems good and he liked how long it was from armhole down. I hope to finish the back today. It is a LOT of knitting, but I only have a couple more inches of back, which goes faster after the armhole decreases. Every so often I knit another unit onto the Shag Scarf. It's a reward!

Happy knitting to all!