Can't blog.

Acorning.

Birthday Yarn

Woot!

Hedwig!!

Here are the next socks. Meet the new socks, same as the old socks. Insofar as it's from an indie dyer (Sunshine Yarns) and the yarn overs, they are plotting against me.

I spend a lot of mental energy on pairing socks with patterns, which is especially given my penchant for colorways with serious internal contrast. But sometimes I'll quickly and easily become fixated on one decision and that'll be it. The yarn that became the crosshatch lace socks could have been 15 other things, but this one was going to be waving lace from the beginning. My Smooshy Giant Peach Charades were the same way.

Anyhow, these are flowing nicely and I'm liking the feel of the yarn (Sunshine Yarns Twist). It's almost cottony or papery or something. If it wears well, I will definitely use it again.

effo: Crosshatch Lace Socks (24 hours early, too)

I've got to say, if I saw a thread on Ravelry dedicated to laughing at the accidentally-phallic nature of one of my designs, I'd be sick with embarrassment. Oh, Ravelry.



Aaaanyway, here are some socks! I have apparently taken it upon myself to knit socks that are bulletproof, and with these suckers got 9.5 spi (on the stockinette soles). On the one hand they probably won't wear through anytime soon, and on the other hand they might because that's some serious negative ease. They fit, they're fine, really, but I need to chill the hell out with the knitting.



I really like the crosshatch lace pattern, although I'll cry if I recall the number of times that I missed a yo or some other kind of stitch count screwery and had to tink. Crazy tension + time constraints + general distractability = serious knitting frustration. Oh, and I don't know wtf happened with the toes, but for the feet I had 36 on the top and 30 on the bottom (as a result of a serious lack of planning going into the heel). On the first sock I actually remembered to put stitches from the top onto the bottom so the toe would be even (but ended up fudging something anyway, I know not what), and on the second I didn't and was at the end with a whopping six stitches more on top than on the bottom. Over sixty that's not so many stitches; over twelve it really, really is. I'd love to say that I frogged the toe and fixed it from the beginning, but it just wasn't that kind of week.

Onward through the sock stash! Up next: Sunshine Yarns in Hedwig, Waving Lace. I cast on tonight. And it's 11:30, zomg, what happened to the evening?

ETA: Flickr, why must you default to the Original size? Who uses the original size? Sorry if I 'sploded your-all's feed reader things.

Mostly words this time

Okay, all words. I have nothing picture-worthy, sorry to say. Or maybe they're picture-worthy but I just don't feel like taking their pictures, *I* don't know, hell, blah blah blah.

The crosshatch lace socks are coming along. I bit the shortrow-heel bullet and got the second one done (in a not-quite-identical way to the first) on Sunday and am making good progress on the feet. I'm realizing that I should have made the cuffs about an inch longer than I did, even though six cuff repeats felt like a lot.

My evenings are once again freed up, so progress should pick up. I've been foolishly splitting time over three different pairs of socks, but am now all crosshatch all the time until they're done.

Wow, that came out a lot more boring than I'd intended. More vim and just... more, tomorrow.

if I knit any tighter, my elbow will burst into flames

ITEM 1: Summer of Socks Summer Socks.



These are the Summer of Socks 08 socks in Maizy, colorway Hibiscus. The Maizy was interesting to work with -- it's not wool, so it should be cooler than wool (one would think) in the summers, but to me it ended up actually seeming kind of bulky. Or at least not as relenting as wool is. Does that make sense? I don't know.

At any rate, these socks were kind of a disaster. The cuff is downright baggy, although it wouldn't be if they would stay up, stretched all the way, but they're just not going to do that. I added a crochet chain right above the heel, which minimized bagging when the cuff is slouching down a little, but which ends up buckling the cuff when it's slouching altogether. Which in the grand scheme of things doesn't really matter much. And on top of all of this, they're incredibly, incredibly biased. So. I'll probably wear them, but blegh.

ITEM 2: Crosshatch Lace Socks.



I've been looking forward to these ever since I decided to put this yarn with this pattern, and I love how they're coming out so far. The yarn is Sunnyside Ellen (on Etsy) Louet Gems Fingering Something or Whatever, in the Kaleidoscope colorway. They're looking different than I'd imagined, because I was thinking that there was much more of the lighter minty color, but this is good too.