a tale of 3 socks..

It was an awesome fibrey trip to Maine. On the way up I didn’t score much fibre but made progress on V&J’s wedding gift (not enough, but 1.5 more balls done *is* progress!) and worked on three socks.

First I worked on my swirl socks catching up to the heel of sock number 2, only to realize my tension was much looser than on the first sock so i put it aside and cast on with (note: I now know this, more on that in a second) some Steinbach Wolle : Strapaz – Norweger Ringel in colourway (I think, more on that in a bit) 006 of ecru and browns and grey… on my pair of 16″ Bryspun Circs…

They are known as E’s Almost Instant Gratification Socks Why? In about an hour of knitting I had knit almost to the heel and we made the decision that they were his socks, not mine. (All the guys who have seen this sock really like the colours!) While in Acadia after a bike ride, I lost the second ball. The ball with the ball band. I had never recorded this particular sock yarn because it was supposed to be a surprise gift and that person might read this site on occasion, but I found better yarn and they have already received their socks. I can knit a pair of socks for me out of one ball, but E’s feet are just a little bit bigger than mine. (Not much). So much for LNT. I feel a bit crappy about it. We almost forgot to put the bike tires in too, so I’ll say it was exhaustion after the ride. (The car looked like this! [actually we got better at packing the bikes. They were much more efficiently packed when I lost the yarn.])

We could have returned to look for it when I realized it was missing, but night was falling and did I really want to make a 30-45 minute drive for a $8.95 ball of yarn? We left Acadia the next day and it would have been a much more out-of-the way journey.

So I ripped back on the second swirl sock and started version 2.2 and by the time we returned made considerable progress (and two socks the same size). Last night I finished the first one. It’s photographed next to a Monkey for height comparison. I could go longer on the leg, but decided to stop at this point.

I now have to untangle the other ball as I had wound it loose and it fell apart. Once I do that I’ll finish the pair.

Yesterday I went to Seaport (without the sock) and bought 2 balls of the sock yarn, hoping I was matching colours and style, etc. I had legitimate reason to be a few “blocks” (it is lower Manhattan after all) away at a client meeting and since I was in the area, why not stop?

Score! And the colours match enough that I won’t have to rip the sock and E and I will have matching socks. (shuddup) This morning I knit up the toe and hope to zoom through this one. :)

Next week I’ll try to write of spinning and stash enhancement… for now I’ll wish for sleep. The semester started last night and with class on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I’m exhausted. We overslept this morning. Any typos or grammatical errors are the result of this exhaustion.

• Category: handmade
• Tag: knit