A tale of two socks and Fantastic Foto Friday - Part One

(***Edited to add: What is up with Bloglines? It seems like everyone is just now able to see my Rogue post from last Friday!!! This sock post went up Oct. 28th. When did it appear in Bloglines for you? How annoying!)

Howdy! I hate that I haven't been able to post more than once a week as of late but man have I been busy. While there's still no word on my job, I've at least been able to rack up some extra hours. It has taken some of the edge off.

And Monday marks a milestone for me. I will no longer be a part of the 22-35 demographic bracket. Yes folks, I'll turn 36 this Halloween (Any other Halloweenies out there?). But you know, I'm not bitter and I'm not sad about getting older. So I have a few more pounds and wrinkles than I want but I also have gained great knowledge over the last three decades. As people have asked me what I want for my birthday, I've been given the opportunity to ponder my wants. And in the process I realize, I really don't have any "wants." I have everything that I want: great, loving friends; both of my parents and my brother; an incredible roof over my head; a loving husband and children; my health; a job; creative skills; I live in freedom - what more should I want? I personally know people who have tremendous health needs, who have recently lost loved ones, who long for love, who have lost their jobs. No, I have no wants. I'm just happy to have so much to be thankful for :)

Okay, on to what you really came here for, A Tale of Two Socks - the desert sock and the metropolitan sock. I joined Lolly's Socktoberfest (holy cow I just substituted a C for the S when typing. What on earth was I thinking?) in hopes that it would prompt me to finish a pair of socks that I started this summer. Well, that plan didn't work because I was distracted by a skein of Koigu that Heaz gave me that has been calling to me for several weeks. Tuesday night, I decided that I would use it to teach myself a new skill and discover the world of toe up socks (vs cuff down socks). Using Wendy's Knitty tutorial on the figure 8 cast on and with many false starts, I was finally able to get it started. I took the sock with me to a meeting in Richmond on Wed. and knocked out several inches over the course of two hours. Isn't it funny how people are so amazed by anything knit on double points, even knitters!



Me likie! Me likie a lot. And so does Thing 1 who shamelessly asked me if he could have them when they're finished since they look like Desert Storm camo. Considering that this is the first thing that he's asked me to knit him besides a thong (YIKES!), I will happily oblige him.

The sock bug has bitten me in a hard way. Whilst searching for more patterns online, I came across a footie pattern using cashmere. Now who just frogged an extra large men's cashmere sweater and has tons of this stuff sitting around? ME!!!! So I cast on for a pair of cashmere socks too after knitting a test swatch/bookmark to get a gauge sample. Mmmmm, cashmere socks.



Both of the Things commented on how uber soft this yarn is and I have to agree. Cashmere is some serious fiber crack. And it only cost me three bucks! Score. To add icing to the cake (have I mentioned that I'm jonesin' for some buttercream icing?), a friend of mine just gifted me with some old sweaters, three of which are cashmere. I only had the heart to frog one of them (that's the seafoam colored yarn that you see in the picture)though. Let's just say that I won't be frogging any machine stitched sweaters in the future - unless they're cashmere. What a pain in the arse! There were many, many, many, many tiny stitches to rip before you could even frog the yarn. But I'm here to prove to you that it can be done with minimal breaks in the yarn too. How dare anyone tell me that I can't do something?

And in line with the whole sock thing and to get a jump start on holiday knitting, I joined the Fuzzy Feet along that Crazy Aunt Purl dared us all to be a part of. I'm going to love knitting these and all of my family and friends will have happy warm feet for Christmas.

I also finished my first test knit - a Boy Toy dog toy for Annie's new book. It's not a good picture. As usual for Annie, the pattern was well written and fun to knit. Princess Mavis was not impressed but I would think that most normal dogs would have had a ball tossing him around.



She says that more toys are headed my way. I can't wait!

Zira's landed back in the states and has been out partying her monkey butt off (the little lush that she is).






She's hanging in Arizona where the temperature are twice those in SW Virginia - brrr! Check out Zira's blog for more on her adventures.

In an effort not to completely overwhelm you with too many photos, I'm going to post some of the fall pictures that you've sent me over the weekend. In the meantime, check out this sunrise I caught early last week.



We may not have beautiful fall foliage but day-um we can still rock the fall colors in other ways. I'm going to attempt to capture these colors in some hand dyed yarn over the weekend. Catch ya later.

***BTW, thanks for all of the compliments on Rogue. Can you feel me blushing? I *HEART* her so much!