Sock Success

Aaah! I knew I should have heeded the warnings of my subconscious!

Ha, ha, actually I think my hair came out fine...pretty much the same cut as I always get. Hey, I've been seeing the same stylist for two years now, I hope I don't get any surprises at this point!
I look kinda pissed off in that photo, but I swear I wasn't. Anyhoo, thanks for all the great comments about the dream--they definitely made me laugh.

I did get my fish scale socks wrapped up: Does everybody else find it as hard as I do to get a decent photo of socks? Here they are, in "Red Sox" mode:
And here you can see what life is like in my shoes...er, socks: Project Notes:
"Child's First Sock In Shell Pattern" orginally an 1899 sock pattern re-interpreted by Nancy Bush in her book Knitting Vintage Socks.
Worked in Jaeger Matchmaker Merino 4-ply, color "Strawberry" on US size 1 needles

The pattern was wonderful--very well written and the stitch pattern was pretty easy to memorize. I did make one mistake in forgetting to knit three plain rows before starting the toe decreases, but that didn't seem to affect wearability.

The yarn--eh. It was a bit splitty for my taste and it was completely impossible to get an even-looking cast-on. My theory is that it seemed to twist up easily and thus some of the cast-on was done with what was basically tighter-spun yarn. Maybe this was the fault of poor knitting technique, though? Also, the color looks more "Raspberry" than "Strawberry" to me, but I guess that's splitting hairs.

And that's all there is to say about that.

I've been so busy I haven't been able to post in a while! Work has been sucking up an inordinate amount of time (much to my chagrin); on a happier note G's grandparents visited us from Thursday until this morning, which kept us busy.

I did manage to finish up one sock:

Sort of an awkward pose, but I am really happy with the sock. My only complaint is it feels a bit tight around the top edge due to a tight cast-on, but I hate socks that fall down so hopefully this will counteract any stretching. Also, to answer Desi Knitter's question in the last comments regarding wrap and turn short rows...I followed the directions for this method in an article about short rows in the Winter 2004 issue of IK. According to that article, the method's purpose is to close the hole that would occur if you made the turn without wrapping. I suppose it may also increase the stability/strength of the heel, but I've never tried any other short row method so I'm not sure of this. I'm definitely not a short row expert...yet!

The weather has been so gorgeous here over the past week that we couldn't resist going hiking last Sunday. We got a lovely view of the lakes and mountains: Another fun thing this week was having some friends over for dinner and treating them to a "chocolate buffet" for dessert: This is the chocolate we brought home from Switzerland and holy cow is it good! Everybody had their favorites...I think mine are the raspberry (which has the delicate flavor of real raspberries, not yucky faux flavoring) and the milk chocolate with corn flakes mixed in. Three words: to die for!

We Have Heel

I am quite pleased with the heel, if I do say so myself! I've only made one other pair of socks (a year ago!) and my grasp of the whole short row concept is much better this time around. Not that I was unable to make them back then, it just seemed like a much larger hurdle at the time.

Here is a close-up of the short row heel:

I used the wrap-and-turn method...I'm not sure if this is what it's "officially" supposed to look like, but I think it looks nice and neat. The heel was stitched as slip 1, knit 1, which is why it has a ridged look.

How about an extreme close-up of the shell pattern, stretched out a bit? I really want to call this the fish scale sock, 'cause that's what it reminds me of! Isn't it amazing how fast you can knit a sock? Especially after making sweaters.

And finally, just thought I'd show you all how much gas has been costing in my town lately: Heh. I guess I better get back to listening to the Red Sox stink up the field. Man, I hope they get better soon. Ooh, they're rallying right now...

Made it home on Sunday afternoon and I'm still tired...though finally starting to feel a bit more normal today. Thankfully not too much work piled up while I was gone which helps a lot (thanks co-workers!).

Vacation was awesome. I have a bunch of pictures that I'm working on organizing and uploading so hopefully I can post a few of them and put the rest in Flikr for those who are interested.

Not much knitting was done. Here's a picture of what all that was accomplished over the last two weeks:

This is the cuff and first couple inches of the shell pattern sock from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush (I think?). This was done only on the plane ride home and then the drive up to Maine. Really cool pattern so far. It was funny when I finally starting knitting and I got the beginnings of a blister on my finger! So I guess I was out of knitting shape.

Not much else to write at the moment. Between catching up at work and trying to clean up the house (which was left in a disastrous state), I'm not quite back in the swing of things. The gloomy weather here isn't helping much either!