I love the Rivendell sock pattern, as I mentioned in my last blog. I can easily knit a pair of socks over about four days, so they should be done now, right? Wrong. I finished the leg chart on the first sock and it looks great.
But then I got distracted. Why have I never knit traveling stitches before? They're so pretty. The little pattern on the foot of the Firestarter socks is another traveling stitches pattern. And I'd like more practice doing socks toe-up. And I have two circulars in the right size for those socks. I'm liking two circulars now. ... So I now have one leg of a Rivendell sock and one foot of a Firestarter sock. That's worse than second sock syndrome!
Which pair will I finish first? Hard to say. I'm going to Arizona for two weeks and I need some travel knitting, but I don't think I want to be following traveling stitches' charts line by line while touring around or chatting and laughing with friends. The lace pattern for the Spring Forward socks is supposed to be easy. And the Noro Kureyon Sock yarn that my sister gave me is in very springy colors. And I think this bout of startitis is related to spring fever, so it would be a fitting choice of pattern. ... So now I have half a leg of a Spring Forward sock too. At least this pattern really is as easy as described and will make the trip.
My copy of 2 at a Time Socks and my long Addi circular came in. I thought I'd try yet another method of knitting socks. This is supposed to be the answer for people who have trouble getting a pair of socks finished. So I studied the instructions and illustrations and successfully completed the ribbing and half a leg of a pair of plain socks in some Patons Stretch that was on sale a while ago. Socks with some cotton in them for summer, you know. ... I set them aside once I'd done enough to prove to myself that I could do it, but I'm not comfortable enough yet to make these a carry-around, low concentration project.
Feeling guilty about all the recently started socks plus a couple you've seen previously, I decided to finish the fastest pair - the sportweight Regia socks from the yarn leftover from my sweater of about six years ago. You can see that the sweater is well-worn, but it won't take the socks too long to catch up. They get washed so much more frequently. Anyway, at least that's something finished.
What other old projects do I have that wouldn't take too long to finish? What's in that bag? Why, it's that Christmas sweater that's almost three quarters done. An allover design of intarsia multicolored Christmas tree lights on a green duplicate stitch string. No one even uses those old style lights anymore. And now that I'm retired from teaching I'm really not into seasonally themed picture sweaters. There's the Vogue Knitting pattern magazine at the bottom of the bag; I remember that I ordered a kit from one of the advertisers to get the actual yarn used in the model. My God, it's dated 1988! But the Chantelaine black wool tweed background yarn is gorgeous and was expensive. I'm thinking the tweed allover cabled scarf from Scarf Style. ... Ribbit, ribbit. Do you know how long it takes to unravel an intarsia sweater, after you've picked out all the duplicate stitching. Two nights, with the result being four almost complete balls and a lot of little balls, probably adding up to a total of almost eight of the original nine balls. And not something I'm even considering knitting this spring.
Although I did just finish another small winter project. A Thermis cowl from one ball of cream/blue tweed Classic Wool. I wanted to try its variation of waffle stitch, since I liked the stitch from my Back To School Vest so much.
Considering that we got eight inches of new snow last weekend and we're in the middle of a nasty snowstorm tonight, I may even get to wear it this season. I definitely plan to make another one in the fall. I couldn't resist this beautiful yarn from Fresh Isle Fibers and contacted her to purchase two skeins before it even made it into her shop.
What I should have been doing is finishing the pink cotton cabled sweater that's been hibernating since last fall. It would be a nice weight for layering to wear on this trip. So now I'm madly trying to finish a sleeve and a half so I can sew it up and wear it on our flight Tues. I never learn. Wish me luck, and I'll let you know how it went when I get back in about three weeks.
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