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 love Cookie A.’s socks. Like, a lot. I’ve knit two of her patterns, and bought her first book. I went to her web site today, and it turns out that a lot of her patterns are now for sale. No more freebies. Even the monkey pattern, which was free when I first made those socks, are now $6.00. Sad! I understand that people have to eat and live, so no begrudging here, but I hope that intro sock knitters are willing to pony up for these patterns. They’re a great way to learn socks, and make a pretty awesome product, no matter how otherwise uninspiring your first attempt is.

Satanski, for all of his evilness, is actually pretty biddable when I try to get him to do something. This is true of them times when I enlist him in one of my schemes, and especially when the joke is going to be on his father, who is our favorite victim. One time Satanski wanted his dad to do something for him, and Eric was slow to do it, so I taught the kid how to shame his dad. It involves going up to the shamee, making sure that you have his or her attention, holding your index finger out in front of you, then bringing your whole hand up and down whilst repeating, “Shame.” I think it’s the thing that I’m proudest of teaching the kid (video below).

But I noticed the other day that I have not knit any of the socks from the Socks that Rock club this year. Considering how much I spent to join, it’s a little ridiculous, no? So I will do my best to catch up (unless I think the pattern socks are not interesting to look at or to knit, and then I will just repurpose the yarn). And I think that the next one should be coming out soon, so I will try to do that one along with everybody else. Otherwise my little man will have to shame me (which he would love to do, I’m sure).

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 cleaned up last week, not really in honor of Independence Day, but more because I couldn’t stand the sight of my dresser anymore. I decided that there are a few things I want to accomplish in July, and that includes finishing things that I’ve been working on for a long time. Number one on that list is my Op Art blanket, which I’ve been working on since October. The baby it’s for is almost 6 months old; I do feel a little bit ashamed, although previously this shame wasn’t enough to spur me into action.

Over the course of May and June, I slowly worked the final rows of the second color, and tonight I finished the last few rounds with it. I’m up to 720+ stitches, and I frankly don’t understand any of those brave souls who consented to make the larger blanket. Right now I’m about to bind off using the main color. Then I’ll have to worry about the weaving in and the blocking, but for now I’m just going to be proud of this accomplishment.

I’ll rest on my laurels for a day or so, and then get back to the socks I’ve been making for Amy Sue since January. I feel slightly better about those, though, because I warned her ahead of time how slow I can be at finishing things. I want a pair of socks for me, though, and I’m not allowed to have those until I’ve finished hers.

Oh! And I also need to finish the baby beanie that I’m making with the knit group I lead at work. This is our inaugural group project, and it would probably look bad if I didn’t finish it, right?

My mystery socks are coming along nicely. I really like this pattern, as I think I’ve said before. The odd things, though, is that I am somehow now more comfortable reading the pattern as words, and the chart form is confusing to me. I don’t know why. It’s not in weird notation, and I’ve been reading charts for years now. What is up with me lately? As is my wont, I have made some errors that I find inexplicable. I’m paying a ton of attention, I get the right stitch count every round, I haven’t unknowingly dropped any stitches, and still there are a couple of glaring imperfections. Actually, they’re just glaring to me because I know they’re there, but a lot of people have seen these babies, and they’ve all been in raptures about them.

I’m doing this pair two at a time, as I have been lately. I had to remove one pair from the circular needle when I dropped the stitches for half a sock and had to go back a few rounds, and it was nice to briefly have a pair of dpns. I considered doing one using the magic loop and leaving the other pair on the dpns. I do know people who will do a pair of socks at the same time, but not on the same needle, but I don’t want to try that method now. I’ll see how this pair comes out, and if there are appreciable differences, then I’ll consider it.

I’m now on twitter! Random, I know. Anyway, I’ve starting talking to other knitters there. I’ve given one encouragement about switching to continental knitting from English style. I’m really liking the way this has turned out for me, even though I sometimes still use English if I know I’m not paying a lot of attention or am tired and want the comfort of familiarity. I hope that, in time, I will go back to English style less and less until I don’t do it at all.