What a weekend!  We are hosting Thanksgiving at our house, so I’ve spent the majority of the weekend cleaning, baking and generally throwing things out.  The girls have spent the weekend cutting up paper into teeny tiny pieces and strewing those pieces everywhere.  Currently there are at least three tiny little scary faces in our living room.  Apparently these faces are alien traps.  I don’t know what they’re supposed to do, but I’m afraid to move them as Addie may think something terrible has happened. 

Despite the craziness, or maybe because of it, I have been knitting fast every night.  It’s become that time of year where I feel like I can’t churn out warm knits fast enough.  My little sister has worn through the socks I made her last summer.  She wears them at night while watching TV and occasionally wears them to shovel snow. My sister is a very appreciative knitting recipient and as she’s often telling me, I owe her another piece of knitwear. 

So I decided to surprise her with a sparkly pair of socks.  Since little sis is wearing the socks without shoes for the most part, I decided to make them out of worsted weight to keep them extra toasty.  Honestly, I tried the socks on while I was knitting the second sock and had a hard time giving them away!  I think I need a pair of these for my own TV watching pleasure.  I also sent a tiny bit of leftover sock yarn (from the original green socks) to my sister so that she can try darning her other socks. 

It’s the season of darkness here in the Northland, so there will be a lot of flash photos going forward.  It’s just too hard to get a decent photo during the day, especially since I work full time and have 2 very busy little girls. 

Details:

Yarn:  Merino Gold worsted weight.  94% merino wool, 6% metallic sparkle.  This is the last of the Merino Gold that I had in my stash.  I originally bought it thinking I would make a sweater for Addie with it.  However, she rapidly grew out of the size that I would use that yardage for.  Over the years, I’ve used partial skeins for hats and other little things.  This used just under 2 skeins of yarn. 

Pattern:  Syncopated Rib Boot Socks from Toe Up! by Chrissy Gardiner. 

Modifications:  None.  This was not my first toe up sock, or my first afterthought heel.  However, it has been a very long time since I have done either of these techniques.  I really enjoyed knitting these from the toe up.  I felt like the pattern really flew along – although that could be as much from the worsted weight as from the technique.  Chrissy Gardner has a very good explanation of all the techniques in the book.  I have a couple other patterns from this book bookmarked for knitting later.  In fact, I might be seeking out more toe up patterns in the future.  I would like to find a different heel though, I’m not crazy about the way the afterthought heel looks as compared to a heel flap. However, for speed’s sake, I think I can get over the looks fairly quickly.

I’m still working on the green sock for my husband, but progress has slowed to a crawl.  Something more important has come up. 

You know it’s bad when the child who swears she never sleeps (and only a few people can prove her wrong on that), leaves the dining room table to fall asleep on the couch sitting up.  She has a confirmed case of strep throat.  The part of the day that I didn’t spend in Urgent Care or waiting for our perscription to be filled, was spent cuddled on the couch trying to get her to drink something. 

I did sneak in some knitting time over the last week though.  I knit a bit at the Tall Ships booth (and was able to talk about the blog a bit) and was able to knit while walking around Treasure Adventure.  Something was wrong with me yesterday though.  I started working on the heel flap while at Treasure Adventure.  It must have been the high heat and humidity, because I ripped out the heel flap once only to discover that I had dropped a stitch (while trying to pick up stitches while walking).  So I ripped it out again.  The third time was a charm once I figured out how to actually turn a heel.  Don’t ask me how many times I’ve successfully turned a heel in the past.  And please don’t ask me how I managed to turn the heel on the first sock because obviously I didn’t have 2 brain cells to rub together at that point.  Clearly I needed to be hydrating with what the Renaissance Fair vendors were drinking because water just wasn’t cutting it.  Now that I’m chugging along the gusset decreases, I just hope my yardage will hold out.