Niner!

Wowsa.
Nine finished socks.
Four pairs plus one single sock.
One sock OTN.
46 days.

That picture above is the finished pair of Bearfoot in the wildflowers colorway, made with my standard sock recipe. I know this looks an awful lot like the other Bearfoot pair I finished recently. That's because they are an awful lot alike.

Here they are together.



















Wildflowers on the left, Flathead Cherry on the right.

Both have a neutral (brown for Wildflowers, black for Flathead Cherry) and a base color (purple for Wildflowers, burgundy for Flathead Cherry). The neutral-plus-base forms the bulk of the color repeat.

Both have a shot of a really hot, bright color every so often to wake up the eye. (Hot pink for the Wildflowers, sour cherry for the Flathead Cherry.) Both show some color variations to the base color, especially where blending into the hot accent color.

And both have flaws due to my knitting clumsiness! I screwed up the kitchener graft on one of the Wildflowers, and I found a small (repairable) hole in the toe decreases on one of the Flathead Cherries. I promise to knit better next time.

In other news...

I don't mean to be ignoring this blog for days in a row. Other things are taking precedence right now.

Some of you might recall that Shedir hat I knit for a family member with cancer. She fell critically ill over the weekend when an aneurism near her heart ruptured. It's a miracle she lived through the rupture and the surgery to repair the rupture, but we'll take it. She has to have a second surgery tomorrow. Other organs are showing signs of strain, and we're more than a little worried about all this.

Some of you might also recall a story or two about my daredevil nephew, the boy who likes to dare himself to do dangerous things. Well, he dared himself right into a broken collarbone yesterday. How convenient that the cardiac ICU is such a short walk from the ER. ::eyeroll::

I think tomorrow I will be skipping out on work to watch the daredevil child while others are on hospital watch during the second surgery. His arm is in a sling and his mood is as rambunctious as always. Anyone have any ideas for how to entertain a one-armed 7-year-old maniac?

Eight! (And a Half)

So now the count stands at:
8 finished socks
3 pairs plus two single socks
2 more socks OTN
43 days

This is the Mountain Colors Bearfoot in the Wildflowers colorway. Nice stuff. I'm going to have to fix the toe on the finished sock, though. When I was kitchenering it shut at stitch 'n bitch the other night, the sun was right in my eyeballs and I had trouble seeing what I was doing. The result is very sloppy and I missed a stitch. Yay, me!

In jaywalker -- make that jailwalker -- news, I took the jaywalker out of knitting jail, knit a few more rounds on the gussets, made a few notes about where to leave off the jaywalker patterning, and put them back in jail. This yarn, a Regia self-striping, is hard on my hands. Makes me wonder if I'll be able to wear the finished socks at all if the yarn is this harsh. It's rough enough that I'm swearing off buying any more Regia sock yarn. I mean, I've knit a half-dozen or more pairs of socks from Regia, and none of them have been this tough, so maybe I'm overreacting.

But I just don't see the point of taking a chance on a yarn that burned me when there are so many other lovely yarns to choose from.

Like the Gypsy Girl. Details of a recent indulgence will follow....