What began as a sock-a-week challenge has turned into a sock-a-day challenge in the final week!
After I posted last week I nearly finished the cuff on Eunice before going to work at the shop. I was able to begin the heel flap at work, but had lots of other things to attend to. I went swing and blues dancing after work and continued the heel flap in bed while winding down.
At home on Friday morning I finished the heel flap, turned the heel, and shaped the gusset. I went to work at the bookstore early since Sweetie’s shift started several hours before mine, so I chatted with the boys on their breaks and finished Eunice.
This sock is among my favorites so far and the squishy Jitterbug yarn certainly helps!
I worked at the bookstore on Friday night and knit Bex at the Thirsty Pagan with friends and later watching a movie.
The yarn shop was open on Saturday, but was pretty quiet. I spent the day with Sandy and Julie and managed to finish Bex.
Bex isn’t necessarily difficult, but it’s definitely the most intricate and time-consuming pattern in Sock Innovation as far as I’m concerned. I love the way that the Regia Silk feels, but it was a little too ’splitty’ for cabling without a cable needle.
I didn’t expect to finish Bex while still at work, so I was able to start Milo in the evening and knit the majority of the leg while avoiding both crowds and fireworks by watching movies at home on the 4th. I kept working on Milo at the shop on Sunday and finished it in the wee hours.
I had a bit of insomnia, probably due to the heat and cigarette smoke coming in through our open window, so I started on Vilai late at night. I had high hopes for knitting on Monday, as I had the entire day off, but some hand and wrist pain got in the way. I did a bit of knitting by the lake while a Tall Ship came in.
There’s a much better photo of the ship right next to the bridge with Vilai in the shot, but it’s trapped in my phone since my camera battery died when the ship came close enough to photograph well. C’est la vie.
So this is where I’m at right now:
I’m just beginning the heel flap on Vilai and hoping to finish her and start Rick today. I’m out and about knitting today so as to avoid napping in the tempting summer breeze. And I’ll be at Kathy’s Knitting 101 class tonight knitting along and observing the way she teaches the class so that I can imitate her when I teach it next month.
That’s all for now. 2 1/2 socks to go and I’ve completed the challenge. Wish me luck and freedom from repetitive strain injuries!
And I’m into the second and final repeat of the leg pattern on Eunice, which is moving along so much more quickly than I anticipated.
We picked up a helmet for him today. He hasn’t been allowed to ride his bike since the accident because he didn’t have a helmet, so he’s looking forward to doing a lot of riding now. But only if he wears the helmet!
I went to the ceramics studio with Sweetie and tried wheel throwing for the first time ever. My bowl is the one in the foreground that looks all wobbly. His is the perfect one in the background. It was fun to try, but I think I’ll leave the ceramics to the family expert.
I checked in on Sandy’s sock blankie progress this Thursday night. She’s got a lot done and estimates that it would take her another 3 1/2 months to finish at her current rate. However, she’ll be taking a break in July to write patterns and prepare for fall classes, so it’s anyone’s guess as to when she’ll finish right now. It seems that the sock blankie is, indeed, “crack for knitters”. Sandy and Julie are completely addicted and rarely work on any other projects these days.
Sam is finished and happens to be huge! I did all the repeats that Cookie called for and ended up with a very long leg on the sock. However, Sweetie reminded me that the recipient is very tall, so these socks should be a normalish height for her. I hope that’s the case and she gets a lot of use out of them. Sam is the first pattern that I’ll be knitting the second sock for once my class begins, as the pair needs to be sent along to Ohio in August.
Bex is well underway. I got quite a bit done during a slow day at the shop on Saturday, but the left my sock knitting bag at a friends house, so I had to do without on Sunday. I’m planning on a lot of Bex and TV/movie time today so that I can perhaps bring the finished sock to the shop when I teach tomorrow night. Eunice is next in line out of Colinette Jitterbug.
One pair went to Vermont with my friend for her new little niece and the other pair will go in the mail to my cousin’s new daughter. In fact, they should have gone in the mail today, but the line at the post office was wicked long after I got off of work.
The first Sunshine sock is complete. I won’t be finishing the pair for the ravelry knitalong, as it’s getting close to my Sock Innovation class and I still have a lot of socks to knit.
And I recently got my fall teaching schedule–it’s starting to sink in that I’m really going to do this. It’s odd to see my name on the same schedule as many of the professors that I’ve taken classes from in the past. I’m trying to mentally adjust as much as I can this summer, but I know that it will still be a shock in the fall when I go from undergraduate student to a teaching role in the department.
See? My sink is shining already!
You’re probably wondering what in the world those buttons are. Here’s a close up:
At first I was calling these gnome buttons, because that’s what they look like to me. However, I thought about the ’seven’ theme of this sweater some more and realized that they must actually be dwarfs!
I hunkered down to do the button band on this cardigan last night and ended up doing it twice. Apparently at some point in this project I decided I was smarter than Margaret E. Fisher (Master Knitter, author, designer, the list goes on…) and should really slip the first stitch of every row for a neat edge. That was fine for seaming, but it meant that I picked up way less stitches than necessary for the button band and the ribbing pulled it into a crumpled mess. I took one look at the finished button band and knew it wouldn’t do, so I ripped it out. Picking up the appropriate number of stitches took some creativity on my part, but it’s done and I think it looks nice.
