Not Boring; done.

I finished them!! It was some trial and error knitting socks for someone else with just a shoe size, but we got there in the end. 

I amputated the ribs, then reknit them upwards with fewer sitiches. 

   

I don't know how I cast on using a simple long-tail cast on and it's perfect, but even a loose bind off is too tight. 

I cast off using Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off. 

 It's a bit flary, but this seems normal for the technique, and it functions as a stretchy bind off, so I can let it go.

I'm on the decrease section of the Born Trippy ... pics tomorrow!!  

Sock Love

So he tried on the sock and ... drum roll please ... 

 

His one comment was that the rib felt loose. I'll cut them off and re-knit them upwards. 

I am approaching the toe shaping on the last sock. 

 With luck, I can get it done tonight, then adjust the ribs tomorrow night. 

Also, check the near perfection on the matching!! 

 

With the exception of the heels and toes; I've used a different fluormania colourway as I wanted to ensure that I didn't run short of yarn. Again, a fortunate happenstance, but fluormania seems to do this more than any other yarn I've knit socks with. 

Top to Toes

Born Trippy is trippin' right along! I'm on to the last colour, Coral. It still is a remarkable thing how  blocking transforms wrinkled, undefined stitches into ordered loveliness.

 

 

Another bit of knitting magic that I shall never grow weary of. 

I finished Marks first sock, but I gave it to him last night to take home and try in before I thought to take a picture. Sigh. Hopefully his narrower leg translates into as narrow a foot. 

But I had a fantastically productive night on dock last night and am to the heel flap! 

 I don't know how it happened, but I have a slight bend on the tip of one of my Signature needles!!  

The needles were in the socks, which were in my TARDIS sock bag, which was in my backpack. I certainly don't use these tools as pry bars for anything. It's really a mystery!! Fortunately it doesn't adversely impact my knitting; it's an odd feeling on the tip of my finger as I shift the stitches along, but the knitting clearly goes on. 

We celebrated Craig's birthday a week late because we were both feeling so sick the previous week. The Keg had a prohibitive wait time, so we chose Montanas. Good thing too - there's a Birthday helmet tradition there!!Craig is utterly immune to embarrassment and soaked up his moment. 

 

 

It was a lovely meal and a memorable one. 

If the sock fits ...

Yeah. So it's been about 10 years since I've knit a mans sock, and not having measurements, it was a knit in the dark. 

Definitely looking too big. And Mark is a slight man, so I doubt he has massive cankles. 

 So I stopped short on the leg, powered through the heel and start of the gusset and sent it home with Mark last night so that he could try it on. 

He brought it back today with a 2" excess. Yikes!! So, 16 sts to decrease. I frogged it back to the ribbing, did some maths and am underway. 

Another extended night on dock should, optimistically, see the leg knit to 8". 
 

I am feeling much better! The soup did the trick on The Dreaded Lurgy, and with just a bit of a lingering cough and a healing cold sore, I'm none the worse for wear. 

So Not Boring

So I blocked out Born Trippy last night. OMG - the magic of blocking rivals only the magic of turning a heel on a sock!!

 

 Here it is folded upon itself to show the colour progression. I am thrilled with how it's turning out, and I rarely get so excited for a project before completion! 

While it was blocking, I got a bit more done on Marks sock. I'm loving it as well!! 

 This is the one that I had thought he would pick; there's no way this is going to be considered boring!! I'll have to hit up the stash to find a heel/toe yarn; I don't want to run short.

I had to run out, do a couple of errands today and make a Costco run. I had really been hoping for a whole weekend of couch-surfing rest, but needs must. 

I am home now, wild rice and pot barley simmering for the soup that I made yesterday. 

Ah yes, shit got real. Cold 2.0 vs Wannietta has been stepped up a notch and I brought out the big soup pot. 

Frozen chicken carcasses, celery and extra onions.  It turned out well, even without carrots, but needs the carbs, fibre and toothy bite that the wild rice and pot barley will provide. 

Okay ... now for hopefully my most difficult decision of the day; sock or scarf? 

The end of that, the start of this

I finished Sorrento, pockets and all! Yeah, you know pockets aren't my fave thing, but they really add the perfect touch to this sweater.  

I did discover an small error on the inc section of the back; the correction is on the errata section of the Erika Knight website. 

I'm sure that Julie will post better pics, this one is rather dark. 

I have moved from the plant at Honda to the dock crew. There is more parking, driving, and getting driven back around. It's a smaller crew, just 4-5 of us and Mark is chill and lets me knit while we're in the bus. Seriously, it's just dead head time. I take the expected teasing in stride, just happy to be able to fill in the time productively. 

 I started these on Tuesday, and considering that I spent most of Friday helping out in Plant 2, I'm well pleased with what I got done. I estimate that if I only knit socks in the bus I could get approx 1 sock knit per week. Impressive for straight up bonus knitting time yo!! 

My plans for this weekend fell through and with Sorrento finished, Craig and I decided to head to Ancaster to trade a finished sweater for a potential sweater and chat with Julie and Cathy. It was a decent day for a drive when we set off. Ditto has been in play in Pokémon, and we've both been capturing low level Pidgeys, Rattatas, and Zubats like crazy trying to find one. Well, Ancaster is the place to go! 5 between the two of us, and I caught my first whilst I was sitting in The Needle Emporium!

 We stopped at Costco for my work week snacks (chicken nuggets, eggs to boil and yogurt) and when we came out it started pouring bone-chilling rain. I dozed off on the drive Back and woke up when Craig stopped at a Tims just south of Orangeville. We went in for a coffee and when we came out it was snowing giant, fluffy flakes like someone had just shaken our snow globe!! 
 

Needless to say we started to think that we should stop stopping and just get home!! HA!! 

Since we decided on chili for dinner, there were a couple of stops for provisions, then I set to the making as soon as we got in, getting Craig set to his sous chef duties. 

 This is the start of something delicious!!

We are enjoying a lovely bottle of red while the chili cooks down.

 

 As soon as I post this, I am going to wind one of the giant skeins of Cascade Yarns Eco in Turtle and cast on for Lemongrass  I was admiring pics of her new Vneck Boxy on Jojis instagram feed, so I'm excited to knit this up!!

Bread's ready - gotta go!