Shrink and Bloat

First, the shrink. While I'm climbing Mount Laundry tonight, I decided to split the pair of Cherry Tree Hill socks and wash them in two separate loads. On purpose.

One look at the picture above should tell you why. The sock on the right has been washed. The sock on the left has not.

I've heard from others that CTH tends to shrink, and this certainly did. Even so, I havc to say that the yarn held up beautifully in the wash. It looks fresh off the needles. Just smaller than before.

I made these socks a little roomy because I'd heard about the shrinkage. Lucky I did! The extra half-inch added to length and girth has disappeared, and then some.

Now, the bloat. And boy oh boy, is there a lot of that today.

Yesterday was another insanely busy day. Between 5:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., I managed to eat a best-ever cereal bar ("This Blueberry Walked Into a Bar..." from Trader Joe's -- yum!) and drink a coke all day. So by the time I got to Kris's house for the SnB anniversary party, I was hungry with a capital HUUUUUUU!

Walk up the stairs into her house, and the first thing you see is a dining room table positively groaning with homemade goodies. Homemade salsa and guacamole hot enough to set your hair on fire. Just the way I like it! Homemade brownies and peanut butter bars. A lovely cheese tray and veggie tray -- I nailed the veggies like Cookie Monster with a pile of tollhouses. That made me think it was okay to eat one of every dessert. What? I ate healthy! Carrots and cauliflower are healthy! OK, so there was like a 1:1 ratio of grape tomatoes to cookies, but still. Veggies were well represented.

I still haven't quite recovered from the sugar high. But when I do, I will name a blog post after Kris and tell you all how she, with one casual comment, managed to pull the rug out from under my shiny new sock mojo.

And a book report--

With my belly all bloated and the sugar zinging through my veins, I ended up wide awake half the night last night. Finished the Gigi Grazer book, "The Starter Wife," that ended up in my suitcase at RT. The book is about a 41-year-old woman named Gracie whose husband, a truly unlikeable Hollywood producer, decides to divorce her before their prenup expires on their tenth anniversary. I had a lot of problems with this book, some editorial (lots of small point-of-view glitches that pressed my pet peeve button), and some just bizarre (Gracie's best friend is named Will, and Debra Messing is playing Gracie in the made-for-tv movie, and I couldn't stop obsessing over that). I was also put off by the general value system of these characters, though the idea is that Gracie snaps out of it and grows some dignity by the end. But you had to read a lot of pages about youth-obsessed, spoiled, super-competitive Hollywood bitchiness before you get to the payoff, so that was a challenge for me. Other readers might not mind so much. Me, I just don't consider age spots a physical threat akin to leprosy.

Anway, that was what I thought during the first 2/3 of this book. The last third redeemed the whole thing for me. I won't tell you what happens in case you choose to read it someday, but it got good. Really good. I even forgot to tsk tsk whenever I ran into another little snag that should have been edited out. And for an editor, that's saying something.

But really, I have to read something a little less commercial next just to cleanse my palate. Maybe I'll finish the Dostoevsky even though I lost interest in it when he revealed who the murderer was. And still a hundred pages or more left to read! I'm hoping for some surprise twist ending, a hope which will surely wither on the vine. But I might as well finish it, if only to get it off my night table. That sucker takes up a lot of space!

Reposting Sock Picture

I find it fascinating that a picture can be on my blog, all happy and bright, for a whole day before suddenly morphing into an X box.

Blogger hates me.

FO: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Country Garden

Lest you all begin to worry that this is a blog about misbehaving UFO's and yarn p0rn, here is something I managed to finish. And I didn't have to put them in jail even once.

So, here are the Cherry Tree Hill Supersocks in Country Garden, by the numbers:
Cast on: 64 stitches
Cuff: 1.5" of 2x2 rib
Leg: 7.5" including cuff
Heel flap: About 2.375", give or take an eighth of an inch
Gussets: decrease to 56 stitches
Foot: 6.75" up to the toe decreases
Toe decreases: two per side, every other round knit plain, until 20 stitches remain.
Started: April 18
Finished: May 6
Number of states this sock was knit in: Three (Illinois, Texas, Indiana)

Sometimes nothing is so comforting as the around-and-around of a mindless plain sock.

Later, I'll have a report on our field trip to The Fold. The sheep survived, though they may never return to the front paddock without crying a little. And Toni's son withstood the onslaught quite well. We hear they expect him to stop twitching and whimpering any day now.

More Merlot Than Merino

RT is a party conference, and let's just say that I entered into the spirit of the conference. Though I had few obligations other than pitch appointments, one speaking engagement, and the desire to network, I found very little knitting time in Houston. I didn't touch the Cascade 220 superwash aran watchcap for my nephew, and I knit less than the equivalent of one sock on the CTH Country Garden socks.

I did, however, manage to rack up a $150 bar bill in a single day. They say my lips and tongue turned purple from the merlot, just like a kid with kool-aid. I will admit to these things, and nothing more. I don't care who has photographs of what -- I'll still deny it was me. (*giggle*)

Unfortunately, the requisite RT hangover morphed into the requisite conference cold. Bleurgh. So there's been very little knitting and very little progress to report. It's hard to work up a knitting rhythm when you have to blow your nose every 6.3 seconds.

But there is good news looming on the horizon. The lovely and talented MB has arranged an outing to The Fold for Saturday. Two area SnB groups will be converging and ransacking the place while poor Toni is off at Maryland Sheep & Wool. Toni will leave behind her son and her dog to contend with us, but even though the son is fully grown and the dog is a German Shepherd, we know we can take them.

Citizens of Murengo, brace yourselves.

Sockgress Report

Here's the most recent picture of the sock. The cuff is 1.5" of 2x2 ribbing. The leg is 7", including the cuff. I find this a nice, cozy leg length for a normal sock, though I do sometimes make 4.5" or 5" legs for a shorter, crew type sock.

Because I know knitters like to see the seams and guts, here's the heel flap and the start of the gusset. This picture also lets you see the range in colors on this yarn. See those bits of forest green and darker blue mixed in? There's even a bit of burgundy. How gorgeous is that? Cherry Tree Hill makes me drool. fwiw, on both my camera and my computer monitor, this picture shows the colors best. ymmv.

Another view of the heel flap. For a denser, longer-wearing heel flap, I do a slip one - knit one on the right side, slip one - purl one on the wrong side. The back of the heel is nice and cushy this way, too. But yes, the color pattern does look a little different as a result. Fine by me!

Responses to comments:

Hi Becca! No, I don't get my yarn wet in the tub, not usually. I roll up the knitting and pin it to itself so it's not draping into the water. Also, I set my yarn behind my shoulder on that lovely deep ledge so it drapes over my shoulder from behind. This keeps it dry. For the most part! I do occasionally do something very clever indeed, like drop the whole thing into the bubbles. But that's okay. Yarn dries. :D

Hi Nia! I love it that we can keep in touch through blogging even though you abandoned us for the glamorous big city high life. (sob!) (kidding!) (But you know we do miss you!) No, I don't think I would ever try to publish that pattern because it's basically just a riff on a pattern from one of those page-a-day knitting calendars. That pattern called for worsted, and I altered it for DK, which meant adding another two columns of cables and redrawing Chart B (which will be mailed to you tomorrow or Tuesday). I don't think that's enough of a change to be able to claim that it's original work. But yes, someday, I think it would be great fun to design a pattern all of my own. Because, you know, it worked out so well for me when I tried to design those socks last fall. *cough*cough*

Hi Anne! Thanks for dropping by! Those kiddie playmats are cheap and incredibly durable. Waterproof, pinproof, and with a textured grid pattern pre-carved into the surface. What more could a knitter want for twenty bucks?

Now, if you'll all excuse me, I have to go decide which knitting to pack. Brace yourselves. This could get ugly.

Birth of a New Baby Sock

Aww. Look at how cute and tiny it is! It's only four rows old.

Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in the Country Garden colorway. These colors are insanely beautiful. I want to dive into that teal blue and swim laps. The cuff is on size 1 Brittany Birches, and the body of the sock will be knit on size 1.5 Crystal Palace DPNs, my all-time favorite, all-purpose sock needles. I adore these needles. They're slick like aluminum, but grip the yarn like bamboo. Plus the size 1.5 --no, that's not a typo -- is exactly right for most medium weight sock yarn.

In other news, I've got a raging cold and might have to miss SnB tonight. I'm going to lay down for a bit and see how I feel later. Sob! I want to go to SnB!