Aren’t they beauteous? I’m not sure they’re small enough for A, though…

Pattern: Cookie A.’s Monkey, without the purls

Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock Multi

No purl monkey socks

Regular Monkey socks:

Purlful Monkey socks

If you look closely, you can see the purl stitches (they look like bumps) at the sides of the v design that repeats over the socks. As you can tell,  really like this yarn, and I’m bummed that Purl Soho doesn’t sell it in their store anymore (although the woman did say that she thought they still carry it online). I bought some variegated orange and solid orange Koigu to console myself.

I’m so awesome, sometimes it hurts. I finished poor A’s socks. Luckily, it has taken me so long that it is almost an appropriate time of year to gift somebody with a pair of socks. I’m going to block them tonight and probably put them in the mail on Wednesday (or once I get A’s new address).

Yippee!

Will post pictures soonish.

It’s a good thing that I finished tonight. Tomorrow begins the September phase of the KAL to Cookie A’s patterns. I already have her book, so I will start with Angee, which is in her book, which I already own. The other pattern is Marlene, which is cute, but which I do not yet own. I’m not going to buy that one until I can properly determine my level of commitment to the first pair. I may never finish at all, so I’m holding off on purchasing another sock pattern.

I meant to finish weaving in my the ends of my OpArt Blanket. Really, I did. It was too hot to do anything outside, so it seemed like a good idea to try to be useful in here. Unfortunately, I seem to have left my tapestry needles at work after my last In Stitches meeting, so that idea went out the window. Then I tried to work on A’s socks, but by now I sort of hate looking at them. I think I’m going to go back to one sock at a time. Aside from the first pair I made, when I was still learning what I was doing, I’ve never let nearly this much time go before finishing a pair. I considered starting my Buttony Sweater that I bought the yarn for last year, but I haven’t ever made a sweater before, and I wanted to learn more about sweater construction before I start; it seems that the pattern is pretty bare, and others who’ve knit it stated that they had or wished they had added some shaping. So that was out the window. AND THEN I decided to do the gauge for a new scarf that I wanted to start, but I couldn’t find any size five needles, which at first seemed insane, until I realized that most of my size 5s are circulars, and I think the one straight pair that I own is in use by an In Stitches member (not like I know who, though).

Well, there’s always tomorrow, right?

I’ve figured out which socks to make for my secret exchange person, and I bought this gorgeous yarn for it, but before I start, I want to knock out one other pair of socks using 1) the continental method and 2) the magic loop. I’m making nopurl monkeys. I’ve made the regular pattern before and found it a breeze, so if I have trouble with this easier version, I’ll know that it was my methods, not the pattern that defeated me. It took me a week to do two socks separately, so I think I should be able to finish the two in a similar time frame. The socks that I want to knit for the exchange are more complicated, but I feel like I should have a better idea of my skill level after finishing these socks (or not, as the case may be).