sock-on

(flower of the day, squash blossom . . . with beetle)
while i appreciate the fact that the beetle’s dapper outfit (i loves me some snappy stripes) coordinates so smashingly with the squash flower’s color, i do not appreciate its cheeky little way of traipsing across the petals as if it owns the them.

but i’ll let it have its moment . . . i’ll take more of that saturated autumn light, please.

this week has been filled with sock and mitt knitting (always good after getting a big project or two off the needles) and sock pattern writing. still working away on one last deadline, which seems to be under control . . . which makes me nervous.
i am not the best judge of what i can reasonably get done in a specified amount of time.

i mean, it all always gets done, but not always reasonably.
with a quiet work front though, this week has been manageable and lots of knitting is getting done. david is making grand headway on the house during this time too, so we are both feeling pretty good about how we’re spending our time (gotta grab that satisfaction when you can . . . it tends to ebb and flow).

the mitt is progressing nicely

but it looks pretty much the same as the other day. what’s up with that?
heh. well, after looking at the photos i took and trying it on a couple of times i decided it needs to be knit on needles one size smaller. so i ripped the whole thing out and started again.

this time, it’s a perfect fit. the motifs open up better and the outlines are crisper.
it can be blocked out a bit without becoming too large, and that will make the fabric look smooth, as in the swatches (instead of having those bumps between the trees as it does now).
i’m just lovin’ the color here . . it has the beautiful shades that you see in snow shadows, and the frosty gleam in the yarn enhances the effect, lighting up all the edges of the motifs. the yarn is soft and there is zero itch factor . . great for anything with cuffs that you might want to wear over an extended time period.

i stayed with this project all day yesterday because it requires several reorganizations of the stitches and i wanted to keep the architecture straight in my head. i’m taking copious notes on these maneuvers, but they are the kind of thing that, when completed, if i think about them i get all mixed up again (did i move those sts left or right?). it’s easy to knit, but requires a lot of mental gymnastics to design and write in a way that makes sense and flows well.

last night i switched to a secret project that i want so bad to show you cuz it is SO cute. but i’m being good. back at the beginning of this one it was really hard not to blab about it, but now that i am an nth of the way from completion, blowing the whistle on it would be kinda stupid.

i really thought i would break down and cast on some sweater swatches with the red briar rose yarn, but i didn’t. i am being sooo disciplined . . maybe i’m coming down with something?

instead, i revisited the yarn that deb sent me for the fearless fibers sock club finale. i have the final deadly sin—greed—and i thought i would work with a motif that signifies one of the greediest creatures i know of

can you see the acorns hidden between the ribs here?
i dunno about where you live, but where we are, squirrels are furiously racing from one acorn to another right now, taking one bite to put their mark on them, then running off to find good places to hide them all. in the process, they fight hand-to-mouth combat with each other over them, tear up electric wires, break branches . . and basically terrorize every living thing that is in range. and heaven help us if they manage to squeeze through david’s maze of wire mesh into the eaves.

(we have a lot of oak trees on our property; therefore we have a LOT of squirrels—big ugly ones, ones with tails torn off, ones with a single eye or a ripped foot, even some brass knuckles i think. we moved into the squirrels’ house five years ago, and they still commit violent acts of gang rage on us every time we do anything that disturbs their territory. like walk to the garage. they literally sit on the roof and throw sharp chips of slate at david when he cleans the gutters—no lie.)

and i know that other people we know have similar problems with these creatures. so here’s my thought: if a whole sock club of people and maybe some others will knit acorn socks at the same time, it could maybe be a sort of voodoo dance on bad squirrel behavior. if we can just knit enough acorns, round and round, it might keep them spinning in one place til they learn to be civil.
waddaya think?

hmm, maybe we should move on.

lis at one planet yarns and fibers sent me some gorgeous yarn the other day . . . i’m going to design something with it that she and jodi can feature in their wonderful global shop, which sprang out of yarn botanika.

ok, pick your jaw up off the desk . . isn’t that something?
it is their lanas puras fingering weight yarn in the eggplant colorway (and we all know i love eggplant).
this is a soft, kettle-dyed singles and oh man, i can just feel this stuff wrapping me warm on a chilly february night—it has a cozy feeling without much weight—just what i look for at night in winter while i knit. and fingering weight will be a welcome change from all the laceweight i’ve been using (not that i don’t love that too . . i didn’t say that!).

and with that, i think i’ll hit the books for a bit to search for the perfect stitches to do it justice. just curious though, triangle or rectangle—what’s your vote?