Hey, like - WOW

I'm published!

And it only took my turtle-slow backside - what - 8 + months to do it?

Susan's Screwy Sock pattern - now available via The Sanguine Gryphon Fiber Arts.

(Heck - why am I insulting turtles by comparing myself to them???????)

Funny to think that today - the day the pattern is up - I'm here at work with a handwritten, newly-designed sock pattern to type up. I guess they're like potato chips - once you start with just one..............

Vacation Swag

I was able to pick up a few fun things while on vacation - sadly there was nary a single yarn shop on the entire Outer Banks that I could find. I had done some pre-vacation poking around online first to try and find the name/location/phone number of any LYS, but kept coming up empty. So once I was actually on-island I did the next best thing - I asked at my LCS (Local Coffee Shop.)

"Nope," they said. "Not a single one. You'll have to go off-island for something like that."

As off-island in this case meant a full hour & a half drive, I was quite unwilling to go through that just to potentially end up with some novelty yarn at the other end. So instead I contented myself with puttering around all of the beautiful places that we had already planned to go - and on the island of Ocracoke I hit the jackpot in a knitting-related way. (Note to any future vacationers - the island is a 45 minute ferry ride away - BRING KNITTING!)

View from the Ocracoke ferry. Happily, I had brought along my entire vacay knitting posse, so I had a plethora of projects to choose from during the watery wait! Plus, we saw dolphins.

In Ocracoke there are several little fun shops - if you want home-made fudge or hand-made candies there are several nice options (heh - ask my newly-gained 2 pounds how I know this!), but even better if you would like books or clothes there are two wonderful options. The first is called Books To Be Red/Red Drum Pottery an incredibly cool place that has just about everything you could ever want in there - fantastic wooden children's toys, fantastic books (local authors, Oprah authors, you name it!), wonderful cards, postcards, lotions, earrings, locally-made pottery, beautiful woven items like napkins and placemats, and just fun tchotchke items like what I found below.



Oops, that's right! I can't show you what I actually bought, because it is intended for someone who reads this blog, and I don't want to spoil the surprise.... And while I certainly did think about posting a picture of the actual swag behind a link or suchlike, I have to admit that I'm not 100% sure that I credit her with being able to resist the temptation & clicking on the link and peeking ahead of time.

;>

But after she gets her package, I'll share the picture.

So what I show you instead is the package that I will mail out to her tomorrow. Aren't the labels FANTASTIC? They are courtesy of Elli at Elliphantom Knits and I just luuurrrve them. If you visit her blog you can download them yourself for free too! In fact I lurve them so much that I went ahead and used them also on my Book Mooch package - even though the book I'm mailing has not a single thing to do with knitting.


Address blocked to prevent the poor recipient from getting lots of unwelcome attention from a bunch of rabid knitters! I will have you know, though, that the above address is blocked with a new purchase from Books To Be Red - my new little nifty goes-everywhere-with-me notebook where I have everything important written down - how to kitchner, the corresponding inches for men and women's shoe sizes, a list of things to do ("send thank-you note for tomato knife"), and the contact number of the garage where my car is still being worked on. (Three weeks now, folks, three whole flippin' weeks. My advice to everyone out there? Call up your car insurance now and make sure that you have a rental car replacement in your policy. Costs almost nothing to add it in. The cost of a rental car for three weeks? Probably absolutely staggering. I have no clue as to the exact amount because I wasn't even willing to shell out close to that much cash, nor was I willing to risk partial reimbursement from my rental car company who is currently taking the other driver to court...)

Book Mooch, for those of you who do not know, is extremely cool. Pile up books you own but no longer wish to keep around, list them in Book Mooch & send them off to folks when asked. Earn points for doing so. You search the database for books that you want to own, and other folks will happily send them your way when you correspondingly ask. One book = one point. Build up points, use up points. Except for the cost of shipping (and if you use book rate, it's very cheap) it's all free. So far I've sent off a good half dozen or so and we've requested maybe 4 or 5 - and have been thrilled with both sides of the transaction. Laura of Fiber Dreams was the one who turned me on to this - a brilliant idea! When I came home from vacation I found that my most recent request - The God of Small Things - was there waiting for me. Oh, what a lovely occurrence! Brilliant book - brilliant system!

The other really cool shop on Ocracoke that I visited and scored some knitting 'stuff' was a hemp-clothing shop where I found (what else?) some hemp twine. I snatched up two balls of it (400 yards each) and have already started messing around with a design to knit myself a hemp version of a standard brown-paper bag. I know that there is a felted version of this on Knitty, but I don't want a felted version - nosiree - I want a hemp version that I can toss in the washer/dryer and know it won't shrink or get funky. I want something that gets softer and softer with use but won't ever ever EVER wear out. I wanted hemp, and hemp I got. Pictures will come soon after my knitting progress looks like more than a small tan twine rectangle.

No real other knitting news to report - one more embossed leaves sock to finish - size 11 women's, so no small task, that. 1/3 of a Screw-y II sock to finish for Peggers. (God,but size 13 feet are looooong!) Hours and hours and hours left of Seraphim to finish before the really pretty lace parts at the end kick in. Miles of stockingknit to accomplish on Belle before I get to join it back in the round for the other sleeve. (Think I'm exaggerating? Not quite - I have 10" of the back finished - I need only 20" more. U.G.H.) Lots and lots of knitting slogging here at Chez Pointysticks. I do think, however that excitement is on the horizon. Once my current socks are done I'm thinking long & hard about starting a pair of Chuck's Cabled Socks after seeing Mel's latest pair and developing some major knitted-object lust. And once my Belle shrug is finished I'm thinking that it's most certainly the time for me to finally (!) start on my Cable-Down Raglan that I have all that luscious alpaca stashed away for............

Ummmmmm............sooooooofffffffftttttttt. And waaaarrrrmmmmm!!!!!

My only other minorly exciting news to report is that I purchased a new chair for the Munchkin yesterday, as he's outgrown his current highchair and both Peggers and I have grown tired with the constant squirming and feet-on-the-table behavior that a too-small chair causes.

Ducks, meet the Stokke Tripp Trapp chair.


Funky, a bit expensive, European, and I think about to become one of our smarter child purchases ever.

Halfway There

We are halfway to our vacation spot - currently we're spending the night in Virginia, with a final destination of Hatteras, North Carolina, where we'll be relaxing and lounging for a full week.

I have brought with me (in addition to the norm of contact case, toothbrush, shampoo, children's books, beach toys, sippy cups, etc.):

1.) Embossed Leaves Socks - one is currently down to just decreasing the toe. One left to go.

2.) Screw-y Socks - first one is knitted, second one has yet to be cast-on for

3.) Belle shrug - I'm on the first sleeve, currently an inch and a half or so past the crook of my elbow

4.) Seraphim - I'm up to 100 or so stitches on the plain stockingknit part - I get to start following a chart when I get up to 250 or so stitches.

I have high, high hopes.

(And not just because of the 4 hours left to drive in front of me tomorrow morning or the full six hour drive home that we'll do a week from tomorrow.)

Flying the Coop

Icarus has left the building.

Icarus winged it's way away from me this afternoon - in a padded mailer off to it's new home in Florida...... I actually finished it last week - my little teaser to you was showing you Icarus' bag with the size 2 needles (oops! supposed to be size 3 needles but I just grabbed and started knitting without paying proper attention!!!!) stuck in the fabric and the cable was completely empty. That was the {hint, hint} part.

So that was fun to finally finish - and as always the blocking was cooler than cool.

What started out as wibbly and bobbly with only a half hour of soaking in lavender Eucalan turned quickly into something light and ethereal and incredibly defined.....

And just as wonderfully, what happened that very same evening (Thursday) was that as I was sitting at work starting to mourn my now-finished knit I got an invite from frecklegirl Jess in my inbox to join Ravelry! I literally screeched out loud with delight. (Thank god my office-mate wasn't sitting at his desk when that happened!) I had put my name on the invite list way back when Sheep & Wool was going on - and I knew that a ton of other folks had done the same thing and that eventually I'd get added to the site - I just didn't know it would be so soon & that it would happen on the same day that I had finished Icarus and needed something uplifting and all-engrossing as distraction!

Ravelry is literally all-engrossing. It's the only word I can think of to describe it. I'm obsessed. At first I sat around and typed in loads of my projects and simply burned with anger that my Flickr account (and not just a basic Flickr account, but a Flickr Pro account that costs good money!) was snafu'd and that I couldn't get in to upload any new photos (Ravelry links only to your Flickr pics) but then I got over it and instead started uploading specs on some of my stash yarn, counting off my needles, etc. I'ts soooooooooooo good. I actually took formal "stash pictures" today (having first set up a formal "photo shoot spot" in my room for that express purpose!) just so that I could put them in my Stash Notebook spot. Yes, I'm that much of a geek, and yes, it's that wonderful & truly necessary of a thing to do.

I worship Ravelry at the moment, my ducks. Seriously. Mock me at your own risk.

So today when my Flickr problem still hadn't been answered & the problem hadn't been fixed I simply jumped around it & opened another Flickr account (this one a basic free one!) and started uploading my pictures there just so that I could shunt them over to my Ravelry spots. Pictures like this:

.....and this.

.........and these:

* Starting at the top we have my Sockpal sock w/ a grand total of 4 repeats finished. Expect to see some serious progress on this front, like, SOON.

* Next we have a whopping 8 skeins of Nature Cotton in a deep eggplant purple {it's kettle dyed, so in some spots the eggplant morphs into a rich royal purple} that I bought this weekend on clearance! from a Northern VA yarn shop. Eventually it will be transformed into the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I bought it with no specific purpose in mind, so imagine my delight when I checked & found that not only do I have enough but the gauge is spot-on so that I don't have to do any maths fiddling to make the correct size!

* The single crazybeautiful pinkish/orangeish skein is some handspun (?) Gryphon sockyarn in her Sweet Briar Rose colourway that I got a month or so ago when I visited her at the farmer's market. 'Twill be socks for a Certain Someone who I think reads the blog, so I can't say much more than that.

* Two skeins of Misty Mountains Jubilee sock yarn in their Apple Rose colourway. I'm thinking this needs to be a delicate pattern - one that is solid enough to show off the beautiful colours yet not so solid that it's boring. 'twill undoubtedly be a fine line to find it & execute the pattern properly.

* And last but certainly not least is a skein of All Things Heather custom-dyed sockyarn that I got as thanks for my donation to a call she sent out to raise money to buy children's books for a school in South Africa. I'm thinking a pair of Monkeys. I'm thinking for me.

Because I not only finished Icarus last week but I also finished Jay's Screw-y socks last night I suddenly have a lot of project space opening up - with only my Sockpal Socks & Peggers' Vest on my official W.I.P. list. Now granted, I've got a few baby sweaters/ribbed jackets to knit up in the next few weeks, but seeing as how I knitted my very first Debbie Bliss Ribbed Baby Jacket in a mere 3 days (!) over the weekend (a subject for a post later this week) I'm not fussing or even counting those...........

And after all that deadline knitting (backyard leaves scarf, Icarus, Screw-y socks, etc.) that's such a lovely relief!!!!!

A Buggy Florida Progress Report

We have returned!

Florida was lovely. Well, somewhat lovely, as there was this utterly bizarre infestation of something called "love bugs" or "lover bugs" that were literally EVERYWHERE. (And the images in the pics I link to here are nothing even remotely close to the nastiness that we saw!!!) They were mashed all over the cars like sprinkles on a super-fancy cupcake......clustered in huge mounds at the bases of picnic tables and wadded in big lumps all around the spokes of our beach umbrellas. Every morning Mom would wake up and go to the front door of their rental place and see that overnight the Icky Bugs (as I have officially renamed them) had broken into the place and had advanced all the way past the dining area and had made it halfway into the living room.

It was that bad - apparently the worst that any local had ever seen before - bar none. And our luck? They're normally not out & swarming until June/July - but our luck, there came out early this year!!!

So other than the Icky Bugs we had a very nice time. I got to see my wonderful grandmother again (and at 85 years old, every visit with her is a very important & treasured one) and even better she got to spend time with the Munchkin - as I've said before, someone she's not seen since he was a mere 6 weeks old. The two of them were quite taken with each other........

Which was - of course - heartwarming and absolutely wonderful for me to see. Munch and my four younger siblings (ages 4-9) also got along fabulously as well, minus the normal small child squabbles and pushings and arguments over whose toy was whose.

Our days were filled with beach & sand (and bugs) and walks and swimming pool trips - plus a trip to the aquarium for all and a trip to a state park for Mom & the four little ones while the Munch took a much-needed 2 1/2 hour nap one afternoon back in our room. After dinner was over & we had gone back to our room and the Munch was safely bathed, pj'd, and put to sleep (how those little guys can SQUIRM, huh?)



I got in some very relaxing & therapeutic knitting time. Despite the very very annoying and pretty much constant ads for some stupid sort of "meet interesting singles over the phone" scam, I had a wonderful knitting time every evening with some inexpensive yet entirely drinkable merlot (in a coffee cup - my apartment setup was minus any wine glasses), a bag of microwave popcorn, my new comfy pj's, and.................

Ms. Carrie Bradshaw, a.k.a. Sarah Jessica Parker and friends in SATC...

It was really funny to watch the normal broadcast TV version of SATC as I have the 'original' version on DVD. To see how they had changed it so that it was a bit tamer & less provocative was incredibly entertaining.............plus the episode that I got to see was FANTASTIC - the one where Carrie & Mr. Big break up for the first time. I love Mr. Big. Good thing he's a television persona and not a real person, or else I could have ended up with a stalking charge on my up-until-now empty police record......................

During those evenings I was able to chip away at Icarus such that now I am on row 19 of the fourth chart (note to everyone who is keeping score - that is about where Sandy was last Thursday!!! She's well finished now with the entire thing and has a lovely picture on her blog of it blocking........I can hardly wait to see a pic of the finished product in place - especially with that incredible shawl pin she just got!) and the end is approaching with joyful.............well, I can't say that it's approaching with any rapidity, but at least the end is approaching joyfully. I still like this knit, but it's a wee bit long - and a crap one to choose if you've got any sort of a deadline attached to it. So for those who are looking to do a shawl, keep that in mind - the Shetland Triangle is much MUCH faster and a totally mindless knit & pattern repeat every single row while Icarus is more demanding and requires you to actually pay attention once you get to the bottom of it.... Still, because of that increased demand in attention and (dare I say it?) skill, I think the payoff is going to be that much better.......... I showed the shawl-in-progress to Grams and while you guys know that unblocked knitted lace looks like a total "bucket of boiled sh*t" (a phrase that apparently Rabbitch coined in slightly different form) she was nonetheless thrilled with the ongoing progress. Said that she could certainly use it, as the constant AC of Florida just freezes her to the bone, that the colour is just perfect, and that it's so beautiful and soft that she'll treasure it forever. She also said how amazed she was that I could knit something so detailed and intricate.....................this from a woman who knows how to tat lace. Right. Because knitting is so much more detailed and intricate compared to something like this.

So that's good news on the Icarus - I'm trying very very hard to get this finished, as it's such a big project that I feel a bit weighted by it at the moment - plus now that I've shown it to Grams I really really want to get it to her. Especially before the truly cruel heat of summer kicks in and the AC's all over the state of Florida go into overdrive & correspondingly freeze my Grams to a human popsicle.

I brought Jay's Screw-y sock along for the plane ride (a query to the security guy at the airport brought the wonderful news that knitting needles have never EVER been officially banned from carry-on luggage!!!) and for my knitting times when all 5 of the kids were present. While I had to rip out about 2 inches of the cuff because I had managed to screw up the incredibly simple pattern, I nonetheless got that much back during the vacation itself and then in the airport was about at the 5" cuff mark and quite pleased with myself

when something unexpected happened on the last flight home yesterday during liftoff:

He's actually sleeping in both of these pictures.

How anyone can sleep like that for more than a second or two is beyond me.

So between a full hour and half flight where I didn't have to "Play Playdough" or read 'One Fish Two Fish' and a small wait at the airport I not only finished the entire cuff but also the heel flap and turned the heel of the sock. I'm particularly proud of this last accomplishment, as I turned the heel without reading directions on how to do it first. Before I've always very carefully read the Harlot's directions on how to do this, but apparently three is my magic number - for on my 4th heel-flap heel I had it memorized and could do it properly on my own. Then last night I picked up stiches for the gusset and started decreasing back down for the foot. I'm a bit worried that I'm going to run out of yarn (a bit of a puzzle for me, as I had two small balls of yarn and knit the first sock from the smaller ball & had plenty that time around! Maybe a yarn-wound-tightly versus yarn-wound-loosely issue???) but still I'm making visible progress which is just lovely. This is why I think it's absolutely crucial to knit a sock or something similar while you're also knitting a huge project like a shawl or a sweater. They really do help to balance each other out.

So look for more progress pictures scattered throughout the week - tomorrow I'm home w/ Munch as daycare is closed, which means a lovely whopping knitting chunk during his nap (gotta' love those 2 hour naps!) plus some sporadic knitting time in the evenings. I'm thinking the sock will be finished this week as long as I don't run out of yarn (!) and that Icarus will be finished sometime next week.

Ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! I forgot!!!!!!!!!!

CAR KNITTING!!!!!!!!!!!!

My ducks, we're heading up to Northern VA this weekend to celebrate my Dad's 60th birthday - and in keeping with tradition Peggers will be driving for the majority of the trip as he usually does which will leave me free to knit! So yipee! We might see some major major Icarus progress this week after all!!!

p.s. To those of you who like Jessie's yarn so much, check out her post where she details what her recent customers - myself included! - have been doing lately with her fiber offerings!

On a Lack of Willpower

Really, now, is anyone surprised?


I've done shockingly little work on Icarus. Why, you might ask? Indeed, as I had previously forecasted, my Sockpal yarn arrived Monday afternoon once I was home, and as soon as I ripped open the package from Jessie I was Completely And Totally S-U-N-K.

I stayed up Monday night until 2 AM fiddling with gauge swatches (washed & dried with the greatest of ease - came out even softer after than it did before!) trying to figure out how to make everything match up. For example, these were some of the facts on which I was cogitating:

* the pattern is for a 19.5" sock. I want to knit a 16" sock.

* the pattern starts out at the thigh with a 12" diameter. My Pal's calves are 16".

* if I up the number of beginning stitches accordingly, you all know that I have no idea how to decrease them properly so that it doesn't look like a dog's dinner in the end, right?


So what I decided was that - like Emily - I was not doing this sock toe up. While Wendy can do so with the Greatest of Ease I need to try out a toe-up on a very basic sock - not on something like this. Happily I know exactly what yarn I'm going to use for such a thing when I finally get the chance. So while I'm being a chicken, at least I'm only being a chicken temporarily which makes me feel a bit less ashamed to admit it publicly.

I also decided that rather than add in extra stitches, I'm going to try a technique I first heard mentioned on Cast-On - - while I got gauge with size 2 needles, I'm going to knit the first several inches of the sock on size 3s - automatically making the sock bigger than it is 'supposed' to be. Then after a few repeats of the lace panel I'll switch down to size 2 needles and will be back on track while not having to do any fudgy maths work. Apparently this is what someone did in a Knitty pattern and it was all the buzz for a bit. So far it is working swimmingly......................




Here you can see the lovely shade of the SockPal Pink that Jessie created for me and my Pal - even sprinkled amongst the peonies - for like I said earlier - it is a lovely sort of peony pink, isn't it??

Accordingly, I am three and a half lace panel repeats into the sock. I am only on Row 8 of the fourth chart for Icarus. I took a look at the chart and realize that not only was it 25 or so rows, but that as after that there were a good 5 or 6 written-out rows to knit PLUS the final cast-off - - and that I just wasn't going to make it. And that I could stress over it or I could just face facts and ease up considerably and keep enjoying my knitting and alternate Icarus with the SP socks. So now this is my deal - for every lace panel repeat I do, I have to do a full pattern row and a purl-ish back row on Icarus. That way everything stays balanced.

So I am content. I will doubtless not win the race between Sandy and myself, but I am content.

The Munchkin and I leave for Florida tomorrow AM at a disgustingly early hour (makes for a lovely arrival time of 11;30 AM, tho'!) and I will not be bringing my SP socks, as they take a bit of attention. Instead I will be bringing Icarus and Jay's screw-y socks - one knit that I have not yet posted much about. As the pair will almost certainly be finished once I'm back, I'll post about them then. Also I figure I'll be able to get a decent amount done on Icarus, as the Munch goes to bed around 9 PM every night and I'll be sitting w/ him in a studio apartment as he sleeps every night with nothing but quiet knitting time in front of me. I'm bringing my iPod with me loaded with a few new Librivox tales for company! While I will probably not post while gone, you'll most certainly see a few headless shots of various family members of mine posing on the beach once I return...

Because Socks Don't Count.

Nah, they really don't!


I'm suffering from a bit of a knitting ennui at the moment - Icarus is proceeding along nicely but let's be honest - I'm at the end of Chart 1 now which is almost 400 stitches - and mostly it's straight knitting with a few yo's and ssk/k2tog's thrown in. It's a totally and completely necessary evil of the shawl, I know - and makes for a wonderful architectural "bone" structure that is a truly brilliant design stroke on the part of Ms. Mim, but it's a tad dreary to knit at the moment. I worked my way through three separate BBC America disks of Lord Peter Whimsey working on it - it's fantastic movie knitting - but as my Netflix disks are currently in the mail and I have naught to watch it's starting to wear on me a bit. Thank goodness my latest video infusion is due to arrive today, and 2 more disks should show up tomorrow.

I won't bore you with another picture of what currently looks like a blue knitted deflated balloon. It's quite tough to photograph that saggy blue silky blob in an inventive way. I think I might try pinning it out for a photo shot when I move from Chart 2 -> Chart 3, though........

I'm also working on Peggers' vest. A very nice soft Paton's tweed in a brown and orange fleck with an acid-green trim done on size 7 (8?) needles that while it is going along quickly enough is still - no matter how I try to dress it up - nothing more than a hugely mammoth swath of stockingknit stitch. I knit to something like 8 or 10" then shaped for the armholes and am now making the armholes a full 11 1/2" deep. My man - he's a big'un (6'4"!) which means size L and XL in terms of his shirts. Thank god this one isn't a full sweater - his arms are stunningly long - - even HE calls them gorilla arms!

I'm also ready to start pattern repeat #5 out of 11 on my backyard leaves scarf. While I am still truly feeling the love for the yarn, the pattern is starting to suck out my soul in little tiny bits and pieces. I think this is from doing way too much on it in 24 hours when I first started. I'm currently relying on the bus trip next weekend to & from the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival to help me out with the scarf - as I figure I can get a huge whacking amount done on that particular bus ride.

I have no picture updates on that (knitting) front either, though.

What I do have to show is my current attempt to still keep the overall number of my knitting projects at a managable level, while simultaneously boosting my current knitting mojo.

(See now where the socks start to creep in, and why they absolutely & positively don't count as a knitting 'project'???)

I went shopping at the farmer's market this weekend (yes, I was able to entice Kim to come with me, which was a lovely time - we drove, we purchased, we ate, and we let the Munchkin run around and look at "horsey hineys" in the horse trailers that were for some odd reason in the middle of town that afternoon - - and a good time was had by all - and she still got back with some time left in the day to study for her microbiology exam!) and picked up a little sock yarn from La Casa de Gryphon.....

The blue-y yellow-y green-y one is Gryphon's sock yarn in her 'Australia' colourway. One of my bestest & oldest friends was born in Australia and spent some wonderful months traveling around there a few years ago - so these will be for her. I'm pondering some sort of slipped stitch pattern to really show off the wild colours.

The hot pink & orange & yellow skein (again, via Gryphon) is for a very very good friend of mine (who I think might read this blog and so will therefore remain nameless!) who needs some cheering up via a bright pair of socks. I knitted a wee test swatch to determine the best pattern for these and the yarn really kind of..........bloomed in the washer/dryer and lost a bit of the stitch crispness, so I'm pondering some new stitch patterns to compensate for that.

The above was my final purchase - a skein of Gryphon's Traveller sock yarn in her 'China' colourway. This is for a pair of socks for an organic farmer friend of ours who is absolutely one of the nicer guys around we know - and while we've chosen to totally break from tradition this year and are NOT members of his CSA, that doesn't mean that shiitakes and bags of mixed baby lettuces and suchlike won't show up nonetheless on our doorstep....not to mention fresh eggs! As he's very very tough on his feet (and he's also on his feet all the time!) this is truly a man who needs some cushy socks for what little 'downtime' he chooses to give himself.

This Traveller yarn is exactly what is called for. VERY soft and sproingy and just luscious to the hand. And of course machine-washable, which is also very necessary given the current mental scatteredness of the recipient. I sat and stared at it and did some sock pattern searching in Knitty and came up with some things that I kind of liked and then took those patterns and modified them to what I ultimately wanted. It's a very simple idea - a k2p2 ribbing that after a few rounds* shifts to the right one stitch (repeat from *) - so that the pattern spirals down the leg. My current thinking is that I'll do that on the top of the foot as well - and will do the toe in a star decrease - that way it will remind me of a screw with the threads running down it plus the tiny little spiral at the end. And our buddy? Very much a wee bit of a 'loose-screw' kind of guy - too many years spent out in the full blazing sun farming without a hat plus some SERIOUSLY fun days as a carefree youth!

Here is where I stopped after about 45 minutes of casting-on, knitting and munching and sipping this morning (rhubarb coffee cake left over from this weekend's Sunday AM baking fest & a mug of basic java).....

.........taken mere minutes ago while walking across campus (knitting bag slung over my shoulder, scouting the whole time for a Perfect Photographing Opportunity!) for yet more coffee... It struck me as I was knitting how much this colourway actually reminded me of rhubarb - that bright oxalic green plus the splashed tinges of pink and brown - just like the lovely plant itself!

I'm quite pleased with the photo (and not just because I was able to giddily cram the entire yarn cake into this bronze cub's mouth!) but because I think it truly shows the elasticity and spring and body that is in each and every skein of this particular line of sock yarn. Knitting with this stuff is just lovely - it really reminds me of the primo stuff that I first experienced via Sundara. It would make a wonderful pair of mittens and an even better sweater, if it were dyed in (to use Purly White language) a Somewhat Solid type of way! Along those lines I have a design idea that I'm going to submit to Gryphon and will see what she thinks of it - now wouldn't THAT be fun if it worked out??????