Socks

Like I said in my last post, it is mittens and socks.

I finished a pair that I had started a long time ago for M in time for Father's Day and presented them to him yesterday. I told him they were Father's Day socks because the one had been sitting on the floor by his closet when E was born. We brought it out early on in active labor so I could do something to keep calm and my blood pressure down but I never really got to knit it because my contractions were too regular and strong to think about knitting.

Then I resurrected another pair I had started while pregnant. These were for myself out of leftover yarn I had used to knit my mom a pair of socks. Word to the wise- don't knit a second pair of socks out of yarn unless you really love it.

The yarn is OK, but the colors don't thrill me and I find the yarn split and difficult sometimes. I had finished that first sock awhile ago. Amelia had made a huge mess of the yarn one night. I stuffed it all in a bag to worry about later.

So then I got that finishing bug. I must have spend AT LEAST two hours untangling that damned yarn, but I did it, only to find that I couldn't find the first sock which I had to use to figure out how many stitches I had used. Of course once I finally found it I also found it was the very rare 64 stitches on size 1 needles. Arrgh. I blame the pregnancy for making me do something silly like that. I have now cast on that second sock and am chugging away at it. I only have about another inch until I can turn the heel. At least they are short socks, so once I do that it won't be too long before I'll be done with those too. Once I am done I am sure I'll appreciate the socks, but they are definitely a bit tedious.

When I finished my last pair of lace socks I decided to cast on another pair. This pair will be out of a silk/wool blend I bought two years ago from Creatively Dyed. Last summer I tried to knit a shawl out of it (my original intention for the yarn) but it just wasn't working out so I frogged it.

Well now the toe of sock #1 is finished and that is it. This is mostly because I need the chart for the lace on this sock and didn't get it printed out until today. I'll come back to this eventually or it will be frogged. At this point, who knows.

The big reason: I distracted myself with a new pair of socks.

We were at Chatauqua this past weekend with M's family for father's day and probably the closest store to us was a craft store advertising knitting supplies. I wasn't sure exactly what I was in store for, but when I walked up the steps and saw a sign on the door advertising them as an authorized Addi dealer, I figured it had to be decent!

It was. The selection wasn't too big, but what they had was nice. This was perfect for me because I'm not really a t-shirt/mug/etc. souvenir sort of person. My idea of a perfect souvenir is yarn. I picked out a couple of balls of Mini Mochi. I have heard a lot of praise for this yarn so I wanted to try it out. I like the long Noro-like repeats and the colorway I chose is kind of similar to some Noro I once used to knit a felted bag. I am a little concerned about how it is going to wear, the yarn is so soft and not tightly spun, but it is 20% nylon so I guess I'll take my chances.

Anyway, I couldn't resist casting on yesterday before we left. I should have knit the other socks on the way back, but I have a hard time doing heels on two circs and didn't have the right DPNs with me to do the heel and really I can only work on those socks so long, so I knit for awhile on the old socks and then went into knitting the new ones.

If I keep up at this rate I am going to have a nice hand knit sock selection this winter!