Monday, August 25, 2008

Some Pink Socks...

So, it's been a slightly longer while than I expected -- regardless, I come with pictures. (And a post.)




Details.
Yarn: Koigu, Painter's Palette Merino, in one juicy combination of pinks, reds, and oranges.
Needles: Pointy metal size 1s in that powdery metal finish. They made my right hand middle finger go numb, and I'm not totally sure what was up with that.



Destined for my mom -- I had such a great time choosing the yarn, knitting the cables, and doing the first sock. Alas, the second sock dragged like a ... well, you know. Finishing the foot was a day long slog that involved staying up past my bedtime just to GET IT DONE.



And yet ... I love them. There may be a hold on top-down basic stockinette socks (the tedium of not having a pattern repeat to look forward to or count bothered me in a way that I'd never felt before!) for a while, but I'll be back. For real.

Next up, patterned finished socks, and some works in progress.

Monday, August 18, 2008

This is a ...

In middle school, the cool girls used to play this really inane game that went something like this:

This is a (blank).
A what?
A (blank).
A what?
A (blank).
Oh! A (blank)!

The (blank) would be some common object with a one syllable name, or a name shortened to one-syllable -- girls would sit in a circle and gradually pass more items around the circle, and it was theoretically an exercise in concentration. In practice, it was really annoying, and something that only cool girls in middle school can actually get away with.

This is all a long winded way of saying that this is a HAT, that I knit a while ago for Marcia at the Forest Guild to make up for the fact that I got to see a dress rehearsal of Billy Budd the opera with her son who works as an usher at the Santa Fe Opera.



Slightly washed out because of the awesome power of sun, but I really really like this hat -- I improvised the shaping at the top, and it ends in a sweet little point that is just elfin enough.

Dig the cables:



They make it extra squishy, and may have introduced me to the crack that is knitting cables. I love the process and love the effect. So much that I committed myself to knitting two more hats -- one for the woman I lived with in New Mexico (Hi Rachel!) and one for the woman that lived across the path (Hi Ruth!), both of whom I taught to knit socks. How's the syntax on that one?

My attempt to post more frequently went to pieces, but to compensate, I'm breaking up the massive quantity of STUFF that I have to post into many smaller posts.
It's nice to be back!

Edited to Add:
The details! I didn't include any details about this dadgum hat.
Yarn: Cascade 220. Dream yarn! I love it. Like, it's a habit.
Put-up: This took less than a skein of Cascade 220, which is 220 yards (!) per skein.