You gotta wear shades.

I did promise a photo of my brand new sock yarn and I did warn it was dayglo orange. Alright, so it's really orange and pink and red and yellow, but the overwhelming colour that most pull away from it is screaming ORANGE! A friend asked, after seeing all my socks on my blog, what it was with funny coloured socks. I like colour. I like bright zingy happy colours. I like stripes, I like varigated yarn. I like all the things that would make my ample self look like a circus tent designed by a colour blind lunatic if used in a garment. I'm a pretty confident fat person. Hell, I wear electric blue without blinking twice, but stripes are (nearly always) right out. I do not need to visually make my already wide self look twice as wide. I do, however, have these nice skinny little feet. Which get shoved into shoes. Hot diggety! Perfect spot for stripes and varigations with an added bonus of if the stripes are really ugly, well it was only a sock or two. Not a deep profound commitment of yarn and time. And you can just wear them in boots. Then no one has to see your shame but you.

The lace saga continued. The very next row after yesterday's photo was, to put it mildly, fubarred. 26 stitches on the needle. 24 stitches required for the next row. I know my math can be a little creative without sufficient coffee, but even I can spot that 26 != 24. Well. Damn. So lunch hour looked like this.


The one on top with crayon is my original rechart. (Hey, I cross off rows as I knit them, and during the train game on Sunday, all I had was my crayon. I'm always blue in train games. Just like I'm always SpinBot in RoboRally.) The one underneath is yesterday's rework of the last 6 pattern rows. I kept with what I figured was the original intent of the piece, but what the doily looked like and what the original char looked like had very little to do with each other. Yes, I did make sure that my original chart was correct from the website. Faithful copy. The little wee doily comes in at a mere 6.5" across, as blocked with push pins on a mouse pad.

Next post (whenever that may be), the never ending green shawl. 10 repeats down of 13 (it still looks awfully short), and then edging. Edging generally goes on forever.

Little hit of lace...

Hello, my name is Jazmin and I'm a lace junkie. Chorus of voices Hello Jazmin.

Shawl be damnned (why is it, exactly, that my lace shawl doesn't feel in my own bones like real lace? I think it's the purl rows.), I needed a doily. Just a little one.. take the edge off the lack of crisp cotton and teeny needles that has been my life. I'd say 'I can quit anytime', but I'd be lying and you all know it.

For scale because I stupidly left out the ruler, it's only 3.25 inches across at the moment. Just a little wee hit of lace. It's Bellflower, and I'm working it on 2 mm needles with size 20 cotton. A little smidge of my beloved six strand Coats and Clark vintage cotton that is long long since lost to this world. Crisp and sharp and lovely to work with. *Mournful sigh* That's 28 rows into the 38 row pattern. It will be itty teeny. I recharted it (badly I will add) because the original chart made my eyes cross.

Before I caved to the lace side, I did finish my socks.

I am going to give these some walking time to see how I like the fit of the short row heel and toe with my foot. So far, not bad, but so far I've only walked from house to car, car to office. Not exactly much of a stress test on socks. It doesn't help that I'm trying them in clogs, which equally isn't much of a stress test. Stuff these suckers into running shoes or docs and see how they cope then. Ha!

I stopped by our newest yarn store on the weekend (finally!), to have a wee look around. High end stuff, which actually is a feature and sensible. We have a discount store that has as much red heart and patons and bernat yarn as you can stomach and the wall of slaughtered muppet yarn is more than most can stomach. Trying to compete with slashed discount prices is retail suicide. You cannot, however, get Koigu or Noro or Debbie Bliss yarn or Philosopher's Wool (Yay local supplier!). I am glad to be able to have somewhere to go pick up high end yarns. It's a good compliment to the staples. In honour of a new yarn store, I felt a little more sock yarn into my stash wouldnt go amiss. I mean how can you go wrong with an extra ball of Regia in dayglo orange? I forgot to note the colour number, I'll take a picture of it tomorrow. Or just start it into socks. :)

Nothing grows in the shade..

I sat down at my desk this morning at work and thought 'Well, that whole post a day thing didn't last long, now did it' followed shortly by 'I meant to post about my killer socks' and a little bit of 'mmm, new to me boots'. So while mumbling to myself (It's a good thing I'm the only morning person in the tech alcove) and flipping the page on my page a day quote calendar I read this:

"I have little feet because nothing grows in the shade." - Dolly Parton

Well. My day is full of feet. Socks and boots and quotes, oh my! It's a common refrain in my house that I have small feet. I don't really, they're a fairly standard north american women's size 7 ish (like everything clothing for women, sizes are really only a vague guideline. But that's a whole other post). This is hardly ancient foot binding small, but when put next to the snowshoes that my best beloved tromps around the world on (size 13 mega wide), well they look pretty little. Little and covered in killer socks. Yes, it is true, after over 2 weeks in the loving *cough* grasp of Canada Post, my Sock Wars socks finally arrived.



I am finally dead, but dead with warm feet. And I got the socks I knit (I know! No pictures. Bad Jazmin, no biscuit.) into the mail before I died. Life doesn't get much better for a sock warrior than that. In honour of my death, I am working on my cotton socks. Because nothing says 'you need cotton socks' like snow waiting on the ground in the morning.


8 repeats of feather and fan down, 7 more to go. In theory, shouldn't be too much longer. I might even manage to finish today depending on if I get a seat on the bus or not.

Yes bus. Home again to wait for a furnace repair guy to come and not be able to install the part that I do not think will arrive today as it sure didn't arrive yesterday (as it was supposed to). At least we're starting to get furnace people to arrive. That was a challenge earlier in the week, and we do have heat currently, even if the furnace drains into a bucket rather than condensation getting pumped to where it's supposed to go. Heat is a Good Thing (tm).