the sock report

I've got a bevy of finished knits to show you, but first up will be the knitted good nearest and dearest to my heart: socks!

These are my first Christmas gift of the year -- socks for my brother's girlfriend in Ohio State colors.

Yarn: Loopy Ewe Solid Series in Strawberry and Smoke (about a half skein of each)

US 2 needles

Time to knit: About 2.5 weeks

Rav details

I'm happy with how the joins turned out, too:

I think Meg will really like them. She's been coveting the Ohio State mittens I made for my brother a couple years ago.

Next up is a pair of socks for myself. Also stripey!

Yarn: Vesper Sock Yarn, colorway Lovely Lollipop Sky (a summer 2008 Vesper Sock Club offering)

US 1 needles

Time to knit: a month and a half

Rav details

I'm really happy with them -- I got lazy on the first one and bound off a little early, so they're not the tallest things. But that's OK. They're so bright and cheery, I smile every time I look down at my feet!

These pairs are nos. 9 and 10 of 2010, putting me ahead of schedule for my goal of 12 pairs in 2010. I already have two new pairs on the needles ...

If you'll excuse me, I will return to my knitting. I have a pot of chili in the crockpot for dinner tonight. Yum!

Perhaps I will return to blogging more frequently now that this is in my hot little hands:



I finally upgraded my 6-year-old Compaq laptop! The breaking point was sitting down at the computer as I ate my morning cereal (as I do every day), clicking on Firefox to open a browser window, and eating all of my cereal before the damn thing loaded. I decided to stop waiting and just plunk down the money!

Of course, I'm blogging from the old computer right now ... I have to transfer my iTunes and various files over to the new one with the help of a Flash drive. For some reason I'm being a baby and am insisting on waiting until the boyfriend is home from work to do it. Oh hai, I'm a helpless female.

I can show you this: the socks-in-progress for my brother's girlfriend. These will be her first handknit socks:



They're pretty cute, if I may say so myself. Yarn is Loopy Legends Solid Series -- I didn't care for its hand at first, but it's growing on me now that I'm well into the second sock. I'm knitting these 4-row stripes on size 2 needles, but if they were for me, I think I'd have gone down to a 1 for tighter gauge. She has small feet (US women's 7.5), which is the smallest adult sock I've ever knit! So wee!

This is probably as good a time as any to confess that I am rather ambivalent about knitting any more socks for my family for Christmas. It's not that the socks aren't worn, or that my family doesn't know the work that goes into them. That couldn't be further from the truth. And it's not that I'm pushing sock-making duties off on my mom, now that she's knitting socks. I must confess that I am just itching to knit more socks for myself! I know my feet so well that I can knock out a pair of stockinette socks for myself in a week or so, but gift knitting seems to drag and drag ...

With four months till Christmas, I'm hopeful I can overcome this ennui and kickstart my gift knitting again!

Where am I?

Well, dear readers, I'm in the midst of a summer funk. I've been working six-day weeks. I've been knitting, but not too much. I've taken zero pictures in the past three weeks or so. Just when summer tempts us and gives a day *only* in the mid-80s, the next day it returns to 95 degrees with a swampy heat index of 110. Ugh.

I'm seeing my parents and brother in less than two weeks, so I hope that breaks up my mood. In the meantime, there is some good old summer TV filling my time ("True Blood," "The Colony" and "Mad Men").

I have two finished socks -- one self-striping Vesper yarn, the other stripes of my own doing for a Christmas knit, but again, the camera hasn't left the bag in weeks. Here's hoping I can report back with something to show for myself ...