Socks, socks, socks

Okay, yes, I have a lot of unfinished socks still lurking about. And, look, oh dear, three of them are the same as the last time I examined my Unfinished Objects. At least the St. Peter Port Stripes are onto the second heel. I'll progress on them when my next two pair are finished. The Hiiumaas haven't progressed at all, but I have decided not to rip out the heel. See? Procrastinate long enough, and the motivation will vanish. I'll work on them on the next road trip. The spaghetti socks haven't progressed, either, and will absolutely have to be ripped out. I can see getting back to them after Christmas. And snuck in there is another little project. I want some 'plain knitting' socks, which they will be after a little bit of effort. But December is approaching, so I started working on the Kai-Meis instead.

Pretty, pretty yarn

I am knitting with the prettiest yarn! It's called Sapphire Sparkle, and it's more of that non-existent Dream in Color Stardust.


It's very tricky to photograph. Both these pictures make it look brighter than it is. It's a very deep, dusky blue with indigo in it. Total twilit-sky colour. I'm working on the ever-popular Kai-Mei from Sock Innovation. The cuff is so easy. Just 3x3. All knitting-heck breaks loose right around the gussets.

Split Pea Curry

It started in an IM conversation. I was confessing to a friend that on the rare occasion that both children are out of the house, we tend to make a curry run. Since we're the only ones who like to dine on Curry in a Hurry, it's the sensible time to indulge. Plus curry is good for preventing dementia in your later years, and has, uhm, other health benefits, so it's really in our best interests, anyway.

So then I had to google "health benefits of curry" to remind myself of the other benefits. Like warding off cancers! And reducing painful swelling for arthritics. I might not be arthritic, but I do have painful swelling from that encounter with the uneven pavement earlier this week.

Suddenly, I wanted curry. While I can walk from work to a lively business district, there is no curry, except that curry soup at Noodles & Co. I decided that it was too cold to warrant a walk to Noodles, and went to the cafeteria. Look! Curry soup! I finally managed to find a worker who was able to tell me that no, the soup was not vegetarian. Drat! I had a sandwich instead.

So when I got home from work, it was obvious that I needed to make some curry. I started combing through the cookbooks, looking for something that called for ingredients I actually had. I found my answer in Vegan with a Vengeance. Well, it called for a pound of split peas, and I only had three-quarters of a pound, but I rounded it out with red lentils. (I love my scale!) I also had to skip the quarter teaspoon of coriander. I decided that the want of coriander would not keep me from split-pea curry. I even made cumin-fried rice to go with it.

I've been reading food blogs lately, and now I'm supposed to post a very appetising photo of the successful, delicious, flavour-packed curry. I'm afraid it made for much better eating than it did photographing. The lentils weren't even noticed, and while I'm sure it would have been better with the coriander, it was still everything I'd dreamed of.

Evil Hat Heels, Laughing

Pattern: Hat Heel Socks



Yarn: Gothsocks in Evil Laugh





It's so not gothy, but this song is all about Gothsocks, if you ask me:

What is love?
What is love?
I think I know what love is.
I think I know what love is.
I think I know…I think
What is love? What is love?
Mmmmmmm
How do you say…
Delicious?
Delovely?
Delectable?
Devine?
How do you say…
Degorgeous?
Dewith it?
Degroovy?
Define?
Ooh lala lalalalala
How do you say delicious?
How do you say delovely?
How do you say delectable?
How do you say devine?
How do you say deGROOVY?

(Lyrics by Deee-Lite)

Knit-along update

Oh, baby, there's a whole lotta socks goin' on round here. My Gothsocks Evil Laugh yarn is knitting up beautifully. Those colourful stripes are so poignant they make me sniffle. The hat-heel pattern seems to work aesthetically well with self-striping yarn.



I decided to do a garter-stitch toe with no shaping. I learned this in Cat Bordhi's New Pathways. The difference here is I did them top-down. I'm very pleased with the results.

Don't bug me

People, people, I am on a schedule here! I have a knit-along to complete, plus I'm expecting some delicious yarn in the mail, and plan to cast on the moment it arrives.

So I have no time for diversions!

Uhm, that said, I have no real good explanation for this little sock. I knit it up Wednesday night out of leftover Duet Sock Yarn, and attached a travel bug tag. This makes it a trackable item that travels about in geocaches. Sadly, when you send travel bugs out into the world, you have to have low expectations, and be understanding that they may well disappear, but the excitement of watching a travel bug travel successfully means that I'll still send them out. Its travel page is here.


And then on Friday night, I finished up the last leg on this alien. It's been in progress for ages. I added a bilingual mission tag to explain what this alien's goals were, and the tag, and sewed them firmly into the little guy's hand. I knotted it in so many ways, that if some one tries to remove the tag, they'll probably ruin the alien's arm. Not that I want the alien ruined, but I wanted to make it less-rewarding to mess with its mission. And this one's travel page is here.


There was a mega geocaching event here in town this weekend, which is why I rushed these babies out into the world. They were sent to the event, where other cachers picked them up to take them to new destinations.

Okay, distractions over, back to sock knitting!

Celebrate Mercedes

Yesterday, my husband, who reads news in Spanish, read that Mercedes Sosa was failing, and this morning he read of her passing. We spent this stormy, wet Sunday snuggled up, listening to her incredible music.



While listening and snuggling, I was naturally also knitting. The Gothsocks group on Ravelry is sponsoring an October Knitalong, and I absolutely had to join in. Once again, I started with the heels. And while I had intended to knit with Business Time, I got diverted to Evil Laugh before I finished the heels.



Once the heels were finished, I joined the socks and knit the feet two-at-a-time. It's gone pretty quickly today, and I'm almost ready to start the toes.

Finished Object--Opa Socks!

When I last blogged these socks, I was knitting like a madwoman, trying to finish the socks by the end of the weekend.


Fortunately, all that mad knitting paid off, and I wove in the ends about 11pm last Sunday evening.


To refresh, these are hat-heel socks made with Dream in Color Stardust.




I chose to do a reversible cable pattern, just because I like how it looks. The reversibility is an added, unexpected bonus, and the socks can be cuffed or not cuffed.


Also, new shoes! On sale from Lands End for $25.

Mitten shoot!

Today many, many photoshoots happened at our house. The first one I wish to share shows my Monochrome blue-ribbon mittens.