Tense

So, here's the last pair from my flurry of (previously) undocumented sock productivity:



I used some handspun merino, and a size 4 needle. They're kind of a medium-size child's size--the pattern (International Sock of Doom) is stretchy, so they fit me circumference-wise, but not length-wise. Hopefully, there are children with feet that size, somewhere in the world (I'm donating them to charity).

I tried and tried to use this yarn, plus 2 other skeins of handspun in a somewhat similar weight and vaguely related colors, to make a top down raglan, but it barely got past the yoke. In the skeins, the yarns looked fine together, but once I stared knitting them up this one stood out too much--I'd imagine a kind of rich, berry colored sweater (possibly with some grey in the body and lower sleeves, if I ran out?) but I was getting pink and purple stripes and I was not amused.

First, I figured I could give it to charity (Afghans for Afghans is starting to collect kids' stuff to ship in a few months), but then I started worrying that I'd run out of yarn, or end up needing to use a completely random color on just one cuff. I know the charities often say that doesn't really matter, but it was driving me crazy--and I still wasn't crazy about the pink and purple together. So I ripped, and went back to socks.

I really like how the yarn looks in the pattern stitch, see?



And even though I'm now officially ahead of schedule (9 pairs done at the end of 7 weeks, if my calculations are correct), it appears that I have cast on another pair of socks:



The Embossed Leaves Socks from Interweave Knits (Winter 2005, maybe?). The yarn is Leili from the Unique Sheep (part of last year's Woolgirl sock club), and I'm using 2.5 mm needles.

In other news, yesterday I noticed a little problem in the shawl I'm working on--I'd dropped a stitch and the (100% silk) yarn was cheerfully unraveling down from it. Oops. I got it semi-contained at break, then fought with it some more at lunch (poor Kevin--I'm such good company when I have a knitting crisis!), but didn't really get things back on track till after dinner. I needed spare needles, and the unfolded paper clips I tried at lunch just weren't good enough. But it's fixed now (I think)!