Change of Address

http://doggedknits.com

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Beginnings

Thanks for the feedback on the socks, y'all! I am inclined to bow to the common wisdom on this one (current tally--43 votes for; 3 against; and 9 "meh"), but we'll wait and see what the Sockapalooza hordes have to say tomorrow. Not that I don't trust my regular readers ;)

Knitting the sock of possibly-not-hideousness so quickly gave me a little hand pain--the kind that seems to be going around--so for the rest of the weekend I did other things. For example, I picked flowers!



They're only measly little snowdrops, and there aren't that many of them, but they give me hope (for the flowers, as it were). The crocuses should be up any minute now.

(How charming are my salz und pfefferstruers, by the way? My friend Vimala gave them to me once when I was having a poopy day, and they cheered me up immensely and still do. They had German on the box, rather than English, so I always think of them as my salz und pfefferstruers, but in Googling to make sure I was spelling it right I realized that I like the Norwegian (Norwegian? Right?) even better: Pepperbøsser.)

And I also started figuring out my quilt!



Mistakes may or may not have been made that require me to make a return trip to the fabric store this afternoon. Let's just say that math is not my strong suit, and neither, apparently, is cutting a straight line. But that's OK--it's a nice day out, and somebody would like very much to go for a car ride.

Sockapaloooza Crisis

To refresh.

First we had this:



Yay! So pretty! So colorful! I have nothing but love for this yarn!

Then we had this:



Pretty pattern, but ow--impossible with the sproing-less yarn. Also, it was pooling ickily, which, as we know, I hate.

Then, we had this:



Which grew and grew, until I had turned the heel and was a full pattern repeat up the leg, until suddenly, on Thursday night, my hate for its pooling (one side red and purple, the other side blue and green) caused the white-hot heat of a thousand suns to blaze forth from my eyes and incinerate it. Or I ripped it out, whichever.

Now we have this:



and hi, guess what? I HATE IT. I fixed the pooling problem, but I think I just hate all the colors mashed up together. Hate, hate, hate. But here's the thing; these socks aren't for me. They're for a pal who specified bright, unique colors (and a short leg, thank heavens), and who maybe won't hate them, but rather love them and think that they are beautiful. But I don't know, because if somebody made these socks for me, I would be very, very sad. So I put it to all of you:

If these socks showed up in your mailbox, your response would be:
	Yay!
	Ew!
	Meh.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Cherries in the Snow

Isn't it poignant, the contrast between the delicate, flowerlike Cherry Blossom Jaywalkers, and the snow falling all around them? (OK, it would be more poignant if you could see the snow in the photograph. I don't know why it didn't show up. But it's there, I promise, and we're supposed to get 4 inches' worth tonight. Sigh.)

You also can't quite see in the photo how different the two socks are in color. Really, to call these socks fraternal would be generous--they're more like second cousins. It's more obvious in their formal portrait:



I should have knit these by alternating from both skeins, like smartie Carola is doing right now. But I didn't. Oh well.

Oh and hey, guess what? These are my very first heel-flap-and-gusset socks! I've only ever made short-rows before. I think they are quite gussetlicious:



Am I a convert? I don't know--toe-up has the so obvious appeal of guaranteeing that you don't run out of yarn (I actually made the ribbing of the second sock 2 rows shorter than the first, since I was so afraid that I would)--but these do fit pretty darn well on the foot, I have to say, and I like how they look. You know, socky. We'll see...

Roundup
Pattern: Oh my god, do I have to tell you? I know--we'll rename them the Bandwagon. (But, Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Clapotis party.) And yes, Grumperina is a genius. I can barely get these over my heel, but once I do, the fit is superb.
Yarn: Cherry Blossom Sock Yarn, from Sundara Yarn. Honestly I thought each of the skeins was beautiful; I just wish they had matched a little better. But that's hand-dyes for you.
Needles: Clover babmoo DPNs, size 1
Begun: Thursday, March 9
Finished: Thursday, March 16. My fastest socks ever! Woot! Thanks, Spring Break!

Juicy

"Kneeling in the keeping room where she usually went to talk-think it was clear why Baby Suggs was so starved for color. There was't any except for two orange squares in a quilt that made the absence shout. The walls of the room were slate-colored, the floor earth-brown, the wooden dresser the color of itself, curtains white, and the dominating feature, the quilt over an iron cot, was made up of scraps of blue serge, black, brown and gray wool--the full range of the dark and the muted that thrift and modesty allowed. In that sober field, two patches of orange looked wild--like life in the raw."

--Toni Morrison, Beloved

Like petals on a wet, black bough

I made it to Austin just in time for my beloved redbuds:



That made me happy.

Coming back to Michigan? That made me sad.

Although the temperatures have been pleasantly springlike since I’ve been back, there’s nary a flower in sight. But—serendipity or foresight?—waiting for me in the mailbox was some Cherry Blossom sock yarn from Sundara. So I knit my own. Behold: Prunus serrulata sockensis.



Yeah, just one so far (and yeah, it’s a little more “pink tiger” than “cherry blossom” with the Jaywalker pattern). But I’ll be casting on for the next tonight, although I think it will be a slightly different color than the first: the second skein seems to have much less the brightest of the pinks.



But, such is the way of nature, and such is the nature of hand-dyed yarns.

If you have a moment tonight, offer up a small sacrifice to the Yarn Goddess on my behalf. Here, with a Sheepy tape measure for scale, are the leftovers from the first sock:



It was kind of a Yarnukkah miracle: I kept knitting, and kept knitting, and the yarn held out, But just barely. Can I get so lucky a second time?

Homeward Bound

Today:



Tomorrow:



Gone to Austin, y'all--see you next week!

(That's right, I'm not from Texas. But Texas wants me anyway.)

Promising

Look what I saw when I got up this morning:



Rosy-fingered dawn! Do you know how long it's been since I woke up to natural light? [ETA, per Amanda's and Cordelia's comments, that I do not get up particularly early at all (by objective standards. By my own standards, anything before 9 is early). This sunrise was approx 7:15 this morning.]

So that's exciting. Also exciting? The Amazing Race is back! And I do mean BACK--no stupid families, excellent challenges, and HELICOPTERS. And the nerdiest little couple with whom I am totally in love. Happy happy happy. Plus, the season premire was 2 hours long, so that meant lots of knitting time.




Pomatomus? Frogged. Wyvern? Well underway. Thanks for the suggestion, Olga! I have to say, I don't like the pattern itself nearly as much as Pomatomus--I miss the pop of the twisted sitches--but it is not crippling my hands, which makes it a winner in my book. And as Olga wisely observed, fish? Dragons? Both scaly.

(Note that the Wyvern reposes on a stack of blue books. Which remained ungraded while I watched TAR and knitted. Priorities, mes amis, priorities.)