Surprises Everywhere

Every year I plant a few bulbs or move a few things in my landscape from here to there in an ongoing effort to get it all just right. I move the peonies to one spot, I move the rosemary to another and I plant a few mystery bulbs along the way.

Some things, like my favorite bed of irises never move. They are perfect just as they are and I always know exactly what to expect when I see that area of the yard begin to come to life. In other areas, I find surprises. I just noticed these buds this morning on the way out of the house. I have no recollection at all of what they are but I'm sure that I'll love them because I chose to plant them in that spot. They'll be a pleasant surprise.

It's not just the landscape around the house that's surprising me lately. Sock Madness is a constant source of surprises for me and for the players. As I mentioned yesterday, we're down to the final four now and the sentiment that they all seem to share is surprise at making it this far. There have been injuries, illnesses, pattern mistakes (oops!), and countless froggings but, through it all, this bunch of knitters has helped each other through.

Sometimes I surprise myself. The obstacle that I ran into completing the Here There Be Dragons socks is a great example of this. The picture above is the finished product. I really do love them and I'm happy to share them. (They ought to be reaching their destination really soon.) You may recall that, as I prepared to send them to my pal last week, I noted an error in one sock. I had forgotten a repeat on the leg of it. My first thought was to frog the sock and re-do it but I really didn't want it to be too late and the rest of the sock looked great. I hated the thought of frogging it.

The next idea was to knit up another repeat and graft it to the rest of the sock. It seemed like a workable solution except that I never did a graft before - ever! My thought was that if the graft worked I'd go with it and if it didn't then I'd frog it and re-knit. The graft did work and I did send the socks out last Friday but it occurred to me that some of you may hear about this and be skeptical. I'd hate for anyone to think that I'd send off socks that were less than my best work so I took a few pictures before I sent them.

This pair of pictures shows the outside and inside of the socks. The graft line is definitely in these pictures. Can you see it? Can you tell which sock was grafted?

I think I remember which is which but I'm not sure anymore. After blocking, I don't think that the graft line is obvious at all. If it had been then I wouldn't have sent them. I was very careful about weaving in the ends too so I think that a person woould have to really examine these socks to see where the error was.

I'd never send something that I wouldn't be proud to wear myself and I have to say that i was still sad to send these away. I'd love to have them on my feet.

ECF - Bloomin Feet Edition

I came home today to the very best surprise. My Bloomin Feet socks arrived... from Carole!

Look at the awesome treats Carole sent me. There was candy for my sweet tooth. Umm... it's not fattening if it's a gift - right? The yarn is from A Piece of Vermont. I love it! The colors are so soft, like pebbles along a stream.

Oh yeah... there was something else hidden in that box too... Fiber!

The picture doesn't do it justice. It's a Bag O'Bunny from The Woolen Rabbit. Aside from being gorgeous, this stuff - Merino, Silk & Angora - is soooo soft. I cannot wait to see how it spins up.

I have to admit that I had an idea that these were coming my way. The other day Carole posted a picture of the finished socks and one of the pictures showed the heel. She said it was a hint. The socks were already speaking to me - the colors were very "me" and there was an iris on the label which is one of my favorite flowers but, until the "hint" I was just hoping they were mine. After the hint I remembered that I said on my questionnare that I love wearing my Clarks and that something with heel interest would be cool. Look how great these look with my Clarks! They're perfect!

Thank you to Carole for the fabulous treats and thanks to Amanda for a great swap! I have had the most fun!

SNAFU

Preparing Bloomin Feet socks for mailing.

Notice error.

Missing repeat on one sock.

Seek surgical sock repair.

Failure.

Must reknit.

Tink Happens

On Sunday night I finished the second Bloomin Feet sock. I was all done except for grafting the toe on one sock. I was so flipping close to finished but something was nagging at me. I couldn't let go of the idea that these would be too small for my pal. It's funny because most of the socks I've made for myself are just a little bit too big. They're wearable but I tend to err on the large side because socks that squeeze your toes are worse than socks that are a little too big. These socks were just a little roomy on me but my pal has bigger feet and I just wasn't sure that that little bit of extra room would translate to just right on her. Eventually, my cautious side won out and this is what happened during lunch on Yesterday. Tinking!

At least I was tinking in the sun. Or maybe not because my allergies returned with the warm weather and when I went to get a refill on my rx - I found that it was expired. The horror!

Anyway, I ripped out both toes and redid them after adding another half a pattern repeat. It's no fun to re-do things but I'll feel better sending them now with the extra room. Re-doing them also allowed me to take this neat comparison shot.

I'm not sure how well you can see it in the picture but the toes are different. The Here There Be Dragons pattern included charts and instructions for 2 different toes - depending on where you stop in the foot pattern. Isn't Theresa smart to include 2 toes? On the left is the original toe. You may notice that it has a ridge around the entire toe area and it has an extra scale right at the very end. On the right is the new toe. The decreasing is done differently so there is no ridge around the toe and just one very large toe scale.

I like the look of the sock on the right without the ridge and I like the extra small toe scale on the left sooooo I guess that, for me, both toes have positives. Do you have a preference? I think that when I knit a pair of these for me (and I will definitely do that) I'll probably go with the toe on the left - mostly because I only need 3 full repeats for my foot.

It is lousy to have lost a day because I really need to get these socks in the mail but they'll get sent out tomorrow. They're blocking at home right now to try and fix (or at least alleviate) the rolling at the top. Tonight I'll wrap them up with some treats and put them in the mail. Hooray!

Bloomin Silly

I bought this yarn, along with 3 other skeins of Socks That Rock over a year ago. At the time I was all caught up in a STR frenzy but after a while I kind of got over it. It wasn't bad yarn but the colors just seemed too muted or something. Maybe I had built up unreasonable expectations. It's been sitting in my stash ever since - not really doing anything for me.

Along came Bloomin Feet and this skein, which I was not feeling the love for, seemed perfect for my pal. I put it on my swift and it became a really sweet looking yarn cake. The skein I was not so enamoured of but the yarn cake... oooo that yarn cake, I fell hard for that yarn cake. Apparently there were really good things hidden deep within that skein and the yarn cake brought them out.

Then I needed to find the perfect pattern for this very attractive yarn so I pulled out stitch books, perused my stash of patterns and, again, went for a former love. Here There Be Dragons! I had seen Theresa working on the pattern and watched her blog anxiously awaiting the release of the pattern but when it became available - eh, not so much. I don't know why but suddenly I didn't need it quite as much as I did before it was available.

Well, I have started working on it and I'm in love. The pattern, the yarn - it's all perfect. It's even perfect together. The only things that kill me are... a) that it's not for me and... b) that I didn't appreciate it before.

I'm just a little beyond the heel on the first sock now. (I'd hoped to be done with the first sock by now.) I have to say that it may be my best short row heel to date. The only thing I don't love is the way the top of this sock rolls. If only I hadn't missed Theresa's note about doing a few garter rows to avoid the roll. Sheesh!

But look at this heel. How cool is it that the pattern continues down just perfectly? I think that makes up for the rolling. I'll try to do a little blocking after I wash these and maybe that will coax the roll out of these socks.

I want these socks!

BTW - I dropped off the paperwork last night so I will not be whining about GS Cookies any more - except for those that find their way to my hips. Why, oh why must they do that?

A Weekend in Pictures

It got cold again here this weekend. Friday night it was raining and sleeting and gross. The rest of the weekend was bright and sunny but still bitter cold. Look at these icicles clinging to the shrubs in front of my house. Pretty, right? They would be if they weren't evidence of failing gutters. Uh oh!

This is much better. It's the start of my Bloomin Feet socks. Sorry for the washed out picture - it was taken outside in the sun. I worked on them a lot this weekend. I'll have more on them later this week. Maybe even a finished sock - or two. That's a little wishful thinking for you.



Here's something else cool. I finished spinning the Finn. I'm gonna let it rest a little before I ply it together. It looks ok here but I know there are some really icky parts. Never-the-less, I think it'll be knittable and that's the point.



I rounded out the fiber play with lot's of laundry catch-up, straightening around the house, and a party at my neighbors where I caught up on all of the local gossip. I found out which neighbors received use of a dumpster as a wedding gift. Yep, that's right, a dumpster! Apparently this house (which is hidden from my view by another) was inhabited by a bachelor who is a bit of a packrat. Upon his recent marriage, a friend sent a dumpster over to encourage him to make room for his bride. It was filled in a day! Yikes!

Not a bad weekend over all.

Mo Hairy Than Necessary

Although preparation for Sock Madness is threatening to take over every minute of my day, I've still managed to find a little time for other stuff. Tonight I started my Bloomin Socks twice and I'm still not happy with them so I'll start them again tomorrow night a few times. I want to do something with interest in the back - maybe a funky cable. I don't know though, I could change my mind a million times before these socks get in the mail.

Another thing that I've been working on is this shawl. It's moving right along and it looks nice but I'm 40 plus rows in and I still feel like I'm waiting to get to the good part. Know what I mean? I want action and magic. At the very least I'd like to get to a point where I can read the lace and consult the pattern less often. I'm in no danger of casting this shawl aside but the inability to get in the groove really does frustrate me.

The other issue with this shawl is that I think ( and I could be wrong) that I'm inhaling more fiber than I'm knitting. This yarn has mohair in it which is a fiber I've never used before. Actually, I've avoided mohair in the past because I'm not into the fuzziness. This is Brooks Farm yarn though and it's so amazingly soft and beautiful that I couldn't resist. Maybe I'll get a mask to wear while knitting.

Tea and Cream Puffs

I'm feeling a little under the weather today. I was boxing up a ton of books yesterday and I attributed the scratchiness in my throat to the dust but today it continued. Despite the copious amount of tea I drank, by the end of the day my voice was gone and I felt lousy. Naturally, being sick sucks, but the Drama Queen has been so helpful. Not only did she keep me supplied with hot tea to drink, she was very busy shushing me all night. She didn't want me to strain my voice.
Anyway, I was feeling slug-like even before I got sick because I'm really behind on my Bloomin' Feet. The problem is nothing new - just terminal indecisiveness on my part. My collection of sock yarn in the colors that my pal likes is pretty deep and I had a hard time choosing one. Now I have, Socks That Rock in Lapis. Next I need to choose a pattern but I think I have a good idea about that already. If I can just free up a set of size 2's (my favorite needles) then I can start knitting these up.

On another random note, I did a little baking last weekend. Stinkerbelle and I were at one of our favorite stores recently and they were giving out samples of frozen cream puffs and we bought some. As we drove home, I suggested to Stink that we could try making some ourselves. She was totally up for it. I love cooking with my girls.

Then, last week, I saw Carole's post about Cream Puff Day and it inspired me to fire up the oven last weekend. These are the results. They don't look that bad and they taste really good. We all enjoyed them except for Stink - she decided that it was more fun to make them than eat them. Do you see a little trend here?