Done Pinwheel, Diamond Patch Socks

Done!



Pattern: Pinwheel Blanket (Rav link)
Yarn: KP Shine Sport, about 7-ish skeins
Needles: size 6, one set DPNs, two sets DPNs, Inox circ, Addi Turbo circ

I'm very happy with this. I wove in the ends and secured them with sewing thread at our Knit Night, grousing all the way. But it gives me peace of mind, and when you knit something that you hope will be used for years, you need peace of mind.

I joke about having so many cousins and innocently having knit a blanket for the first child without realizing that it was going to obligate me to knit one for so many others, but really, I very much like doing this. I believe in handknits the way that some people believe in... I don't know, sacraments? (Without being as important as all that, of course.) What I mean is that I believe that this gesture means something. One ought to welcome new beings with things one has made by hand, just for them. And I feel like things that are easy replace things that are meaningful too often.

Bah.


I was poking through my queue on Ravelry, and came across the Diamond Patch Socks (Rav link) sitting so calmly in my queue, so I thought I'd write about them. My awesome, indulgent mom got the pattern for me for Christmas, and I eagerly sat down to look it over after the yarn buzz had worn off a bit. And it is 12 pages long, and each and every page hurts my head in a unique way. I've not done miters before, though I want to do a sockyarn blanket using mitered squares and understand the basic technique that that will use. Can't uncross my eyes long enough to figure out if it's the same as the one being used here.

I can and have enjoyed healthy, stimulating challenges. But this time, I took some self-protective action:



I put this tiny little book in a page protector and buried it under a pile of stuff.
Come mid-August, when the sun is melting plastic for sport and 3 matching skeins of Koigu have magically appeared in my stash, that might be the time. Now is not the time.

F.O.'d!

I finished the Crusoe socks, and really, thank God for that.



I'm drowning in WIPs right now, and even though I'm plugging away at everything, nothing is actually getting finished. I'm 10 rows, 10 thrums, and a thumb away from finishing the thrummed mitts. 1.5 skeins away from finishing the pinwheel baby blanket (one more skein of yellow on the way, because when you plan out colors on the fly, you're not allowed to order anything you might need, right?). One flap and matching mitt on Dad's They Probably Won't Fit Glittens-cum-Mi-ttens. Still stuck at the toe of Earl Gray Sock #1 because the idea of putting it onto waste yarn and having Other try it on again is alone enough to send me to bed for a week.

Gimme Scarf is about the only thing that's visibly progressing. Other is very happy with it, which means that I am very happy with it. It's about twice as long now as it was here:



Oh, and I knit the entire cuff of the second plain stockinette Felici Arugula sock through the movie There Will Be Blood and in the car on the way home. Putting aside the sock for a second, that movie is incredible and you should see it in the theater if you have the chance. It's not a fun movie, it's not out to entertain. It's more out to blow your mind with sheer quality and awesomeness, and it succeeds.

And back to the sock, Knit Picks is discontinuing all of its Felici colorways and coming out with new ones in March, in case you've been putting off getting some specific one.

Oh, ah, and I may have obtained some sock yarn. Can't be sure.




Oh, also I cast on for two railroad rib socks at the same time.



These I'm allowed to acknowledge the existence of, because they are teaching socks -- I'm helping two of my friends make these as their first socks, and I'd like to be able to model the techniques from the same pattern. Even though most people might find this pattern boring, I really, really love it. I don't really have to think about it at all, and they go surprisingly fast, and I like how they look.

So yeah. Onward.