sock sock funtime

This:



is monkabiddy - Monkey in Chickabiddy. It did that thing that I love in the twisted ribbing, alternating the same colors over two rows, which I believe also happened in my Dreidel Pomatomi. Love that STR + Cookie.

Also, how is it that Monkey socks seem to knit up faster than plain stockinette?

I abandoned the Quill Lace in Maizy socks. After finally getting the pattern going, it was biasing like crazy and looking otherwise unhealthy



-- I think the pattern might be better suited to a slightly more wimpy/relaxed/something like that yarn. I had been pretty determined to get those done before Summer of Socks starts 6/21, and found another pair with lots of holes to try out, but then came upon this perfect solution -- the Summer 2008 Socks that Wendy is designing for SoS 2008. So I'll wait until then. Signups are open until May 15, so if you've been meaning to sign up and also want a really really holey sock pattern, get thee over there!

the quill lace, it is killing me.

Hey, guess what kind of sucks? Casting on in Maizy. Also, casting on in Maizy for the fourth time sucks even worse. Also, I have just learned, does the fifth time.

I'm on try #5 for Quill Lace, and while each frogging after #2 has me deciding to use a different pattern, or start a completely different project instead, I keep coming back. This is one of the simpler lace patterns I've ever tried. It's a centered decrease, 2 yos, and 3 knit stitches. I should be able to handle this, so by God I'm going to handle it.

LOST: Month, 30 days. Responds to "April," white star on its forehead.

Hey yo. What happened? My head is still spinning. In four-ish months, we will move to a city that before two weekends ago, I had never seen. Where things cost double what they cost here. In related news, I haven't bought yarn for over a month. But that is neither here nor there, this here is a knitting weblog, and there has been knitting.

My sweater has been resurrected, and the back is done, and I'm partway through the cabling on the front.



I worked on it in the back of the rental car as we drove all over tarnation looking for an apartment to rent. Here are the ways in which I screwed it up:

1) I placed the first of the three cables wrong. Frogged: about 15 rows.
2) I skipped a couple rows, thereby making the cable circles too squat. Frogged: about 24 rows.
3) I BO on the wrong row, then the wrong row again, then too many, then switched the cables around, then etc. Over and over. Tink tink tink.

The mitered squares are coming along. Have I mentioned this here yet? I'm going to make a big snuggly sockyarn afghan from leftovers, a la everyone else in the universe, and yay is it fun. It's not especially attractive at this point, but I'm planning on lining all the squares with black, and in refusing to plan ahead this will probably take a crochet hook, an undetermined amount of black sock yarn, lots of creative swearing, hours of frustration, and the invention of a new kind of stitch/join that hasn't ever been invented for a reason.



I'm excited.

Finally, the Embossed Leaves are coming along slowly but surely. Counts against them are that I need to concentrate on the pattern, I like to work on them with enough time to complete an entire chart repeat, preferably for both socks, and that the 2.75s I'm using are Knit Picks metal and thus clinkey as hell, which drives Other shouty crackers. So it's a miracle I'm making any progress at all, and I am itching to get them off the needles so I can cast on some summer socks.

Oh, and I signed up for Summer of Socks, because summer is coming and I will be knitting socks. Woot!