Sock Picture Scavenger Hunt

Even though my just begun sock cannot make it to Toronto for the Yarn Harlot's Sock Picture Scavenger Hunt, I thought I'd take a few pictures on this side of the lake (Lake Ontario) anyway.

The sock started out the day gazing wistfully across Lake Ontario, wishing he could swim.

Maple syrup is very big here in New York State. Our state tree is actually the Sugar Maple. To celebrate, this last weeked was Maple Weekend, so we checked out a sap bucket and went to a pancake breakfast.













On our travels, we tried to match some of the items on Stephanie's list. It wasn't easy, but we did come close on a few.

"With one of TO's finest"...nope. "Mounted"...nope. Miniature horse...yep.

"at St. Lawrence Market"...nope. "With eggplant sandwich"...nope. How about with peameal or bacon...sort of...meet Lula.



"With the geese at Eaton Centre"...nope. "With actual Canadian Geese"...yep. The sock was within 12-15 feet (4-5 meters).



"At a Tim Horton's, with a maple-glazed donut, held by a Tim's employee"...yep.



And finally: "With a beer"...nope. With Screech...yep. (Thank you, Mom!)

Things That Never End

Yes, folks the theme today is things that never end...

First item, theme music:



Second item, these socks.

To be honest, they are finished. Finally. Through no fault of the sock pattern, gage, yarn, or stitch pattern, I managed to make almost every mistake in the book on this pair...including ignoring the fact that they were just too small (knitted an entire sock on that premise). I also managed to mess up the toe once, the stitch pattern a couple of times, tried to redesign said stitch pattern to make it bigger. I think I may have actually knitted something like 4 or 5 socks by the time I was done with these.

For those of you interested, it is Cat Bordhi's toe-up Foxglove sock, using the Dragon Skin stitch pattern from A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns (Barbara G. Walker) and from Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Peacock.

Something I discovered along the way...Cat's 2-circular needle method allows you to use US 2's on the sole and US 3's on the top.

Third item, winter:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here it is, St. Paddy's Day about to be. With a little luck, I'll get to the store tomorrow after work and see if they have any corned beef. It just doesn't seem right without it. Besides, it's the only day my family lets me have cabbage without whining hugely.

For now now, I'm settling for a loaf of soda bread, made with all white flour, as I was not feeling like digging around the freezer for the whole wheat flour.

The good news is that I actually finished (or almost finished) the sweater just in time to wear for the holiday. The only thing left to do is to sew on some hem tape to cover the raw edge from the steek. I tried to roll the edge under and stitch it down, but that made the white floats pop out on the edge. Not a good look. I'll do that tomorrow evening.

It's also still a bit damp from blocking, but as long as Bubba leaves it alone, it should be dry by morning. That cat is just in love with this sweater. I had to arrange/rearrange knitting and cat innumerable times.

Blizzard? No.

Well, we finally had a good, old-fashioned snow storm this weekend. Of course, the weather folk were all up in arms over it. It was a storm, even included thunder-sleet and added up to about 16 inches worth of snow.

I did what all reasonable northerners do...stocked up on milk, bread and cocoa krispies. Since there are currently 3 active knitting projects and at least one spinning project, I wasn't going to get bored.

Today, DH cleaned out the driveway with the snowball machine. If you look closely, you can see that Gypsy is impatiently waiting for said snowball machine to get in in range for her.

A couple of weeks ago, I was tipped off to a sale on Lopi-Lite at a LYS. I rummaged about and found some grassy green (9 balls) and some blue (6 balls). I also found, much to my delight, an issue of Knit n Style that I was hunting for. I seriously covet the cover sweater...must visit stash for something suitable to spin.

My friend at work had the perfect pattern. That is the beginning of the yoke. It is pretty much a Lopi-Lite pattern, but I knit up a swatch and wound up reworking the numbers to match my size better (thank you EZ).

Yes, those are Knit Picks Options Harmony Wood needles. I love them to no end; they are smooth, just the right pointiness, the cables are flexible and they are just plain pretty. Thank you, Mom...great Christmas present, that.

I'm hoping to finish it before St. Patrick's Day, as it really is the perfect color. However, Bubba is slowing progress down a bit.

Fired, with cause

Fired.

Fired.

Fired.

Cause: