Spoils of victory

Now that Socktoberfest has ended, it's probably a good time to show how I spent the month.

There was the Christmas stocking.
There was the blissfully fast pair of gray socks.
There were several inches of a Mock Croc sock that I suspect is too tight but don't feel like frogging.

And there were three dishcloths, two votive candle holder sleeves, part of a blanket, and a crewel embroidery* kit that I've been working on sporadically for the last 16 months.





I know what some of you may be thinking. No, those last few items don't seem very sock-like. But consider this! Two of the dishcloths were from the Knitting Knonsense collection of Canadian provinces (British Columbia and Ontario, to be precise). If you close your eyes and imagine really hard, the British Columbia image could take on a sock-ish form. And the votive holder sleeves are like socks...for votive holders...maybe?

Sigh...I'm just digging myself in deeper, aren't I?

*No, crewel embroidery is, strictly speaking, not the same as knitting, but it uses yarn, and anything that takes me 16 months to finish, especially anything that involves sewing motions, deserves a mention.

Load of croc

This must be the fastest pair of socks I've ever knitted. I loved working with the yarn (Artyarns Supermerino)--it didn't split, so I could zone out while knitting, and because of the thickness of the yarn it took about 1.5 weeks to knit a pair, compared to my usual month or so.

I think the socks looked uneven because of the way they were lying.

In the spirit of Socktoberfest, I decided to give the Lorna's Laces yarn-with-an-identity-crisis another chance. So far this attempt has been working better, except for a brief frogfest at the start when I did 5 rows of p1-k3 rib instead of p1-k3-p1.

Pattern: Mock Croc socks from Knitpicks. You'll have to scroll past the list of available yarns to get to the pattern download link.
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, in the Purple Iris colorway.

I'm a bit behind on the Socktoberfest questions/postings. Since I'm not at the point where I can post a knitting-related tutorial, I'll pass the time by answering a couple of questions Lolly posted last week:
1) Do you have certain patterns planned for some of the yarns? Do you buy yarn and then choose a pattern?
I tend to buy most of my sock yarn on impulse and figure out what to do with it later. The exception, probably, was the Baby Ull I bought for the Christmas stocking, and even that was only one-third premeditated (I had bought two of the colors earlier for something else, then changed my mind).

2) Does a certain sock yarn you have in your stash take you back to a certain event? (where you were when you bought/received it? what was going on in your life at the time!)
Kind of...sort of...yes and no. I usually remember the store where I bought the yarn, but not much of what was happening with life at that point.

Not sock related
Here's the latest on the blanket. I can't help wondering if somewhere there is a country in need of a garter stitch flag. If it ever comes knocking, at least I'll be prepared!


Meanwhile, the tabby will stand guard behind the stuffed animals, flash his eyes, and send his best to Charlie.

Forgotten holidays

Remembering them is kind of like finding $20 bills in the couch, but only if that happens before the day in question. Fortunately, I did remember Columbus Day in time. Woo-hoo! And a happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving to everyone back at home!

Then, of course, there are the holidays that one forgets (because one doesn't get the day off) until one is waiting to catch the bus to work and realizes that the bus is on a reduced schedule for the day and will only come by once an hour instead of once every 20 minutes and it already passed. Not that I'm bitter from personal experience, of course.

So far I've celebrated the long weekend by finishing the Christmas stocking...

...starting another pair of socks (toe-up socks, based on Wendy Johnson's pattern and adapted for Artyarns Supermerino and 3.25 mm needles)...

...and continuing the log cabin blanket.

I think I'm going to go for a walk now. It's gorgeous out!

My cat, meanwhile, will get high on garlic fumes.


Random thought on culture shock

Speaking of holiday nomenclature, I've noticed some other terminology differences between here in Providence and the places I lived in Canada. It's not just the "zee" vs "zed" thing. I hear people here giving the time as "twenty of" an hour instead of "twenty to", and when I used the word "keener" last week I got a blank look from the other person. I won't even go into the discussion my (American) husband and I had once about the use of "pylon" for those bright orange traffic cones. Are differences like these dependent on region, or are they country-wide?

By the way, keener = a person who is really enthusiastic about something, e.g. getting into medical school.

Cotoberfest

A yarn store once mailed me a postcard advertising a sale that would last through the month of Cotober. Initially I dismissed this as a typo, but then I started wondering. What if, in fact, there were such a month? How long would it last, and what type of days would it have? Maybe February 29th would hang out during normal years. Maybe there would be a year of Sundays, or 30-hour days. Maybe, maybe, just MAYBE, there might even be that extra bit of time tucked away to finish off the gazillion knitting projects strewn about the living room and still get the housework done and have a good night of sleep.

If I ever find the mythical month of Cotober, I will tell you all about it.

But for now we’re still in October, the month of leaf-peeping, brisk temperatures, pumpkins, corn, cats playing with corn husks, and cats fighting with other cats over corn husks. (Have I mentioned our cats don’t get along? This photo was a fluke.)

It’s the month when I listen to multiple recordings of Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz, trying to find ultra-creepy-sounding chimes in the last movement,...and knit the toe of a Christmas stocking.

Speaking of socks, I joined Socktoberfest 2006! Here’s my inaugural shot:

This photo contains about two-thirds of my lifetime sock output. I’m not a very fast knitter, and the last two years I've been concentrating on shawls.

The socks on the left are the first ones I knitted. I used yarn and a pattern from Patons, and both dpn and circular needles. I abandoned the first sock about halfway through because the dpn kept falling out of the stitches, and didn't go back to it until someone told me about Magic Loop. After that I finished sock #1 in (what felt like) no time and went right on to sock #2. I've started using dpn again as well as the circulars; I find that wooden dpn are a lot easier to manage than the metal ones.

All of these pairs have held up marvellously, but not through any magic of their own. I just hardly ever wear them.

And here are some socks in potentia. All they need is a bit of imagination...some more imagination...and Cotober.