Uh Oh Moment

I'm kicking up my heels in the air because I finished my second pair of socks! May I introduce Broadripple. They were done in Cascade Fixation color #9916 on size 1 birch DPNs. I went down 2 needle sizes but cast on 56 stitches to keep the pattern directions consistent. I figured using smaller needles would tighten up the sock, especially since I have tiny feet. The result? Well the socks are a little looser than I prefer but are still a decent fit. They haven't gone through a wash yet so maybe they will shrink a bit more afterwards. They look lumpy in the pictures but I'm sure that washing will even them out too. I made a few changes to the pattern; first, I decided to knit them as ankle socks so the leg part is only 5" long. Second, it was confusing to stay in pattern while doing the toe decreases. This was an uh oh moment while doing the second sock. It's a disconcerting feeling to suddenly realize, "Wait a minute...I did this wrong...on the FIRST SOCK!" Basically I hadn't kept track of balancing the yarn overs while I was decreasing at the same time, so I had less stitches on the instep needles. On both socks I did the toes in stockinette for the last 10 rounds. Other notes about this project: the yarn was tricky to use at first because it was so stretchy and I'm a tight knitter. BTW, that combination did not work well on circulars. I tried it; the stitches ended up being really small and hard to move over the joins. The pattern itself is quite easy and the variegated yarn made it interesting. Oh, I haven't worn the socks much yet but I can tell that a person with more sensitive feet would probably want to knit the soles in reverse, i.e., with the smooth stockinette on the inside. Broadripple will always have a special place in my knitting gallery because with the exception of the toe of the second sock, this pair was knit in Germany. It's been on the autobahn, to Prague and at a wedding.

The One Skein Wonder project has been on hiatus for a little while because I actually needed more than one skein! I just picked up a few more balls of Phoenix from Southwest Trading Co. This yarn is 100% soy silk and knits up with satisfyingly defined stitches. It's also soft and smooth. The OSW from Glampyre is a simple, "neat-o", instant gratification pattern. I love the way knitting into the front and back of the same stitch creates the illusion of a seam. Kelly said the same thing and clarified the sleeve seaming for me. As you knit the OSW, it doesn't look like it has sleeves, you have to fold them over. And there isn't really a sleeve seam to sew up until you knit the seed stitch edge. I liked this shrug and yarn so much I decided to buy enough yarn to make a matching strappy tank. That will be the August project. Can you believe summer is more than half way over? Where did it go? I still haven't gone swimming yet.

I don't have much other life news except I've felt pretty good lately. I mean, back to my happy contented self. My new job has started, I'm running again, I managed to cook 5 nights this past week and I still got other things done. Plus the house is clean. This weekend we're going on another hike and I got fantastic seats to the last Sacramento Capitals match of the season. Should be fun! Hope you have a great weekend too.

Until the next day in the life...