More Socks

Clearly, the part of my brain that comes up with titles has not recovered from Thanksgiving yet.


Lacy Cable Socks

Anyway... I finished these socks last weekend (I think), and finally took a half-hearted picture. The yarn is Anne, from Schaefer. I made them up, using a stitch pattern from a Japanese stitch dictionary I bought when Kevin had a meeting in Singapore in 2006 (and I tagged along). It's a combination of little 2-stitch cables and 3-stitch slipped stitch thingies that look a little bit like cables and have an eyelet in the center. Clearly, I need to learn to read Japanese so I can call the stitch by its real name! Once I write it up, the pattern will be available from Schaefer Yarns, and if I'm super-coordinated, The Garter Belt too.

My parents have been visiting for Thanksgiving (happy turkey-day yesterday, by the way--I had stuffed squash), and there's been lots of knitting while talking. So I wouldn't mess up my sister's shawl, I've been making stockinette stitch hats out doubled-stranded scrap yarn for charity.

I like to use up scrap yarn on hats--I find a bunch of colors that match, then knit with 2 colors held together to make tweedy fabric. Ideally, I have enough of one color for the whole hat, and the other color changes to make subtle tweedy stripes, but sometimes that doesn't quite work out. Then I have to change both colors (ideally, not at the the same time) and the stripes are more noticeable. I feel guilty for not making mittens, but then I'd have to plan ahead a little better, to have enough of each color to make matching mittens.

Anyway--I've made four hats since yesterday morning, and I think I'm all hatted out for the moment. Since I finished the socks from Schaefer and then started knitting insta-hats (which go so fast they hardly count as projects), I'd gotten down to one "real" project on the needles (my sister's shawl), and it felt weird! Once last year I didn't have any project on my needles for nine hours (eight of which I was asleep...), and it felt unnatural. To make sure that doesn't happen again, I've cast on a sock and started plotting a sweater. Much better!