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Holy crap. I just counted the remaining weeks before my sister's wedding, and there are 17 1/2 weeks left. 17 1/2 weeks in which to knit three more shawls, thirteen afghan squares (each about a square foot), sew the twenty squares together and knit a border around the whole thing.
Clearly I have no business knitting all these socks.
Which is too bad, because my latest one is Hedera from Knitty, and it's just so pretty!
What is it with this sock thing? Why are so many of us so enamoured of knitting them? I went two or three years without knitting a single sock, and now I can't imagine not having at least one on the needles. They're incredibly addictive. A little while back I taught a sock making workshop at Three Bags Full and a few days later one of the participants called us saying "I can't stop thinking about knitting socks!"
It's hard to explain their appeal to the uninitiated. Hannah, the store owner, doesn't see why anyone would spend so much time knitting on tiny needles to make something that will just go on your feet. Fortunately, she's a fine businesswoman so she has stocked the store recently with a large array of sock yarn in spite of her skepticism.
It's even harder to explain to a non-knitter. Just the other day I was trying to explain the joy and beauty of hand-knit socks to my dear friend Sara, who was making fun of me about it. She is into poetry, maybe Pablo Neruda's Ode to a Pair of Socks would help sway her. (Or maybe I'll just have to knit her some.)
Here's my latest finished pair:
Yarn: J.Knits Superwash Me Light Sock in Massachusetts; Needles: 2.25mm Double-Points; Pattern: my own design.
You can sort of see in the picture that the two socks are really different colors. I was originally alternating skeins, but found that too annoying for socks and had to start over because they didn't fit well, so I resigned myself to having them different colors. Julie, the dyer, was in my Toe-Up Socks on Two Circulars class on Saturday, and I brought them to show her. She figured out why these two hanks, which were actually dyed as one big hank, came out so different and has ideas about how to fix it. But frankly, I don't really care that they're different because I looooooove them.
And I want more. More sock yarn. More socks. More time to knit socks. More more more.
Sorry for my even worse than usual lack of posting. It's been a challenging week. We were fortunate to avoid the massive flooding the plagued our area, and I'm thankful for that. But I've had a number of personal and professional challenges and disappointments which, coupled with eight days of heavy rain and PMS, made blogging the last thing I wanted to do. (Crawling in bed and not getting up, flinging myself off a tall building, or charging a plane ticket to a sunny locale were high on my list, but I didn't do any of those things, which I think shows a lot of fortitude.)
But I live my life by Elizabeth Zimmerman's wise instruction to "knit on through all crises," so I've done just that. And I've continued to acquire sock yarn. It's really a sickness. Here's what I've bought over the last several weeks:
Left to right: black cherry Koigu, lilac solid from Sundara Yarn, blue/purple/turquoise Cherry Tree Hill, blue with purple from Sundara, and variegated green J.Knits.
And the Lorna's should be arriving at the store any day now. It's really a problem.
The sock in progress is Pomatomus from Knitty, and I'm loving the marriage of yarn and pattern. The pattern is actually quite ingenious, and I'll certainly make another pair with some future acquisition. The yarn is dyed with an overdye technique, so a little bit of purple shows through but it's mostly a deep aqua blue. Very lovely.
I've also been working on another shawl for my sister's wedding - the Diamond Fantasy Shawl by Sivia Harding. It's also a really wonderful pattern that I highly recommend; I especially like how the elegant border is knit along with the main body. Photos of that and my most recently completed socks to come soon.
The sun is now shining brightly, and I'm telling myself it will all be okay.
This weekend I visited NYC for the first time since I moved (last summer). It was a whirlwind, and I'm still recovering, so for now just a few highlights:
There was lots more... it was a nearly perfect weekend, if hurried. But it also confirmed what I already know: that I have no desire to ever live there again. It's nice to want what you have.
I've been on a bit of a sock yarn buying binge this week. First, I ordered some from Sundara Yarn, a hand-dyer that Grumperina recommended a while back. But that yarn won't be here for another week or so, as she has to actually dye it. I needed some instant gratification.
So I gave into temptation and bought some new sock yarn that we just got in at Three Bags Full, from a new local dyer Julie of J. Knits. She has more than just sock yarn - but it was the sock yarn that was singing to me. All of the colorways are named after states or cities. I snatched up Massachusetts (so named, I believe, for our native cranberries.)
Two skeins for a pair of socks, this is both twisted together. The two are actually rather different from each other, one much light than the other, so I'm alternating them every two rows. It's a bit of a pain. I'm going to suggest to Julie (the dyer) that she dye the sock yarn in larger skeins for a whole pair if she can.
I tried to take a picture of my new socks in progress (another design of my own), but the photo was too dark. Will try again on a sunnier day.
And I'll leave you today with this photo of my cats, who have taken to hanging out with George, our skeleton. (What? You don't have a skeleton at your house? How sad for you.)
