Daily Adventures

Uhm.. yeah... so since the Phoenix sweater, I pretty much dropped the ball so far as knitting was concerned.  I think I was a little burnt out, and so the two projects I now, finally, have actually started making progress on again aren't particularly huge or super spectacular or anything, but they're satisfying at the moment.

One is a prayer shawl for a person whose partner has been partially disabled by illness and who may or may not be bale to recover.  The other is a pair of Knitty Pomatomus socks for myself, just because I needed them.

Oh, and calmingeffects, would you want your socks to be kinda like those Pomatomus ones? But brighter colors and an anklet cuff?

( Pictures behind the cut... )

These are my Construction Site Socks... actually Jaywalkers, but I, once again, munged the pattern to the point of no return by using US 2's instead of 1's, so only had 60 stitches, and four panels of 15 stitches instead of whatever was in the pattern. I turned my own heel and did my own toes, with a three stitch side with decreases.

I love how the pattern turned out and how they give that distinctive pattern. Jet wants a pair, now, too. I'm going to have to figure out how to make them his size. Maybe just three panels of 15?

A picture of the full sock can be seen here. This close up does a better job of showing the actual texture and color play on the sock, though the brown turned out more red in these pictures than I liked. Ah well. But this is prety good picture of how the lace texture shows 3D.

It's stretched over my hand.

This was done on US 2's in KnitPick's Dancing in the "Square Dance" colorway. It's a 5-hole, 56 stitch, gusstted heel variation off of the ridged feather and fan socks in Sensational Socks. Made for more medium-sized women's feet. A little too small for me, but they're good and stretchy.

I am working on the very lacy feather and fan socks, kind of in a women's medium size for a normal sock.

Jet came by last evening and said, "Who are those socks for, Mom?"

"I don't know yet." I answered as I put a few more stitches in.

"Are they for you?"

"I don't think so."

"Are they for Granny or Poa Poa?"

"Nope."

"Why aren't you making socks for me or... hey, they could be for Sadie!"

"I don't know, Jet. I'm not sure if they're exactly for anyone yet. And they're a bit too big for Sadie (who is three)." I'd been thinking about putting them in a charity auction as they're kind of turning into Fabrege egg type socks, all kinds of soft Mediterranean country-side colors in mosaic-type dots with a deep blue-purple and a brown streak of zigzags through it, almost like the ceramic colors for the border tiling there. They have the three-D aspect of the ridged lace, and they're certainly not knock-about socks...

Jet laughed at that, "They can't be socks for Nobody! You can't make socks that aren't for anyone, Mom."

I had to laugh then, too. He's likely right in a way. And, up to now, pretty much every single sock I've made have been for someone very specific. But, for now, I baffled him by saying, "Well, for now I just don't know who they're for."

So this is the resulting yarn from trying to spin like Crown Mountain Farm's Sock Hop sock yarn. It's really nice stuff, springy and silky and solid as a rock but not nearly as hard.

The best thing is that I'm finally knitting some of my handspuns and there's nothing nearly as critical as going, centimeter by centimeter through a skein of yarn while knitting it on US #1 needles. Each tiny blemish is nearly a whole stitch at that scale. Nice thing is that after so many years of practice, I can honestly say I don't have the thicks and thins the way I used to. And this yarn makes for extremely springy, solid socks.

Jet put on the first one before I had the toe all in, yet, and he said, "It's hugging my foot, Mom!" Hee.