Sharing the Needle Arts With My Friend

Although I'm not the world's greatest knitter, I do my best to evangelize about my craft. In the three or so years I've been knitting seriously, I've taught both my best friends and two of my sisters how to knit. I'm especially proud of my California knitting friends Cindy and Brenda. They've both progressed amazingly in their craft in the past year since I moved away to Utah. Cindy's visiting me right now--here's her current project. She's making a couple of potholders and trivets for her new house. She also showed me a blanket she's made her daughter and two scarves she's made for friends, all since February. Isn't she awesome? Of course Cindy was already crafty, but can I say it made me proud to see her and all her FOs! 

And done!

 

Almost done

 

On the Glory of Imperfection

As many of you know, I usually watch TV while knitting. Since I'm a little nerdy, I particularly favor PBS documentaries. The other night, while watching Cathedral, I was sort of half thinking how odd it is that I love the Conwys as though they are perfect, although they are so not. And would you look at what came on the screen a few minutes after?That, my friends, is Lincoln Cathedral. Build 800 years ago in the red-hot new Gothic style, fresh with pointed arches, great vaulted ceilings, and lots of windows to let in the Light of God. And would you look at that great whopping mistake. As the presenter pointed out, an error of "maths". Shall we call it a "design feature"?

So I guess the socks are fine, and I give myself leave to love them.

Going to get that pedicure any day now...

Here they are, the Conwys, a couple of rows short of toe decreases. I'm loving them, but they are not perfect. I fudged a couple of decrease rows on the heel gusset, and I'm pretty sure there are times when I should have knit the third stitch through the back loop when I knit the second stitch through the front. However, the yarn's so lively I'm living with imperfection. More on this later. 

KIP KIP KIP!

Just wanted to say a quick thanks to fabulous Laurie for arranging our Stitch n Bitch's WWKIP event yesterday morning. I had a great time knitting outside, and we did our bit as knitting evangelists as well. It was great to see new faces--hope to see you new grrls at the Jitterbug next week.

Me, I can't make it this Tuesday b/c I'm having company. Hope to have the socks done by then as they are going swimmingly!

But Actually They Do Match

I'll admit I'm a pretty bad photographer. This photo was supposed to show how the heel flaps turned out nicely--right shape and the same size as each other. Instead, I got a weird angle, and the left sock looks like 25% smaller than the right. An optical illusion, I assure you! I'd take another photo to prove it, but the camera's on a holiday just now while its battery recharges. Gotta love technology!

The socks are coming right along. Tonight after putting the kid to bed, I'm turning the heels. Don't you love turning the heels? Magic! 

Tired! And also a nerd...

So no progress on the socks, and I'm TIRED this morning. Reason? I'm rereading Stephenson's doorstop. It's sort of compulsive. There are 3 POV characters so far, and like nine timelines going on, and it's not actually divided into "real chapters", but rather scene breaks and POV shifts, and you keep thinking you can read just one more before putting the thing down and all of a sudden it's one in the morning. You can't tell from the picture, but it's around 1100 pages. I'm about a third in right now. 

Sockin' along

Socks in progress! I am really enjoing knitting two at the same time. As a sock newbie, the process is still new enough that I basically re-learn everything for sock 2.0. This way, it's all fresh and I get to repeat the new stuff I'm still geeked on. I think it will really work to my advantage when I'm on the really cool part of socks: turning the heel, etc.

As a bonus, the stripes are coming out pretty similar. At SnB last Tuesday, I wound half the yarn onto a niddy-noddy so I'd have two even skeins. This was part of the committee redesign I blogged about. Thanks again for all the great advice! 

Conwy: The Honeymoon

I LOVE these socks! They are awesome! I love every little thing about them. I love the way the ribbing looks. I love the way the wee cables form from the ribbing, which first seemed like an odd pattern (k1, p1, k3, p1), but looks great and is quite stretchy. I love doing the wee cables. I love the way the wee cables and ribbing make the socks thicker, springier, and just more hiking-ready. I love the way the directions on how to make the wee cables made sense when I just tried it, which is what Susan said. I love Margene for being right that this pattern suited the yarn much better than the other. And I love my two sets of sharp, pointy size 2 Crystal Palace bamboo needles.

And I love the socks for just being there for me while I watched the new Frontline about AIDS. We all need some comfort when we're confronted by tragedy, don't we? And knitting does that for us. I LOVE it!