I have friends who are amazing photographers and I keep asking them how they do it.  I hear time and time again that it’s all about the light.

About the time I was finishing up on these socks I saw that the daffodils were coming up in my yard and I knew beyond knowing that I had to photograph these socks with the daffodils.  So I watched the light to see when it seemed to hit them best.  Yesterday when the socks were done it was overcast and not at all sunny out so I crossed my fingers for today.

Today, sun!  The time was right.  I got out on the ground and arranged my socks just so.  And then I shot.  And this is what I got.

Which was thoroughly disappointing because this did not represent the beauty I was seeing.  Once again my colors were not true and the sun seemed to be washing out the color when it was clearly quite vibrant to my eye.

Then I remembered the reflector I had been talked into buying.  So I dashed into the house and grabbed the reflector.  When I saw what happened I literally gasped and then started laughing.  THIS is what I have been seeing, and now, here it is, on film to share with you!

The pattern is Jules and the yarn is Madelinetosh in Pink Lemonade.  And I love them.  And I’m a little sad to send them off.  Still, Soozy does send me the most wonderful yarn, some of which I’d never have a chance to knit with if it wasn’t for her.  So I won’t be too sad.

I re-found these socks a little while back but I’ve been working on other stuff.  At first I was surprised to see that I’d knitted on this yarn but then it started to come back to me.  Today I felt like knitting on them as I’ve gotten my current carry around socks to the ribbing on the leg so they are ready to be mindless knitting for a while.

So I went to grab the mystery socks.  Mystery because I went to check to see what pattern I was using and found, much to my dismay, that I’d not recorded one bit of information.  Not even a quick click in Ravelry to note I started the pattern with a mental note to fill in the details later.

Thus began my search.  It seemed like it was a book I owned and since they were toe up I grabbed the most likely book.  Nope.  Nothing in there matched what little of the pattern I could see.  I did a check on the gauge thinking that I’d let Ravelry help me.  For some strange reason I couldn’t get the gauge part of the search there to work.  Probably a little glitch in the system but it was just the wrong time for me for it to be happening.

As I sat there staring at the socks I tried to stretch my memory for any hint of what I would have wanted to do with these socks.  The yarn is tweedy and I kept thinking cables.  But not cables.  Clearly I wasn’t actually knitting cables because of the way the pattern was shaping.  So back to Ravelry to look through my sock patterns.  I love that feature.  I don’t have to look in magazine after magazine, book after book.  I just click a few buttons and Ravelry shows me every sock pattern I have.  Assuming I’ve put the book or magazine into my library.

And there it was.  Favorite Socks.  Mock Wave Cable Socks by Ann Budd.  Ah yes, I remember it all now.  Now I must knit!

I checked the gauge on this pattern when I bought the yarn.  18 st/4 in.  I could easily get that with Silky Wool.  Except it was in linen stitch, not stockinette stitch.  Linen stitch apparently has a quite different knit up gauge than stockinette.  Oh, and I was supposed to knit the gauge on the largest needles which were 11s.  Size Eleven!

There was no way I was going to get gauge without doubling this yarn.  I didn’t have enough yarn to double it.  I also didn’t have something to carry along with it.  Le Sigh.

It’s time to change my sweater.  I have the yarn for the Agatha sweater which is also a lovely sweater.  I’ll be knitting that instead.  I also just got an update through Ravelry that there was an error in the pattern so maybe it’s good I waited to knit it.

I resisted.  And kept working on my other projects.

All weekend I’ve thought about this sweater I want to knit.  I picked up the yarn on clearance earlier this year (Silky Wool) and I have the pattern.  And I love Silky Wool.  And I love the pattern.

Still, I resisted.

Then last night my friend Deb told me she was starting on a sweater with some yarn she had picked up on clearance.  Evidently I helped her pick this yarn out.  I vaguely remember it.  I was a bit jealous but I reminded myself that there are other things I need to knit.  Like socks.  Or the store sample I’m working on.  Or my log cabin blanket.  Or more socks.  Or…what else do I have cast on right now?  Oh…or either of my cross stitch projects.  Any of these need my attention.  But my sweater doesn’t fit.

This morning, while catching up on Twitter, I saw more than one mention of NaKniSweMo, which is National Knit a Sweater Month.  The idea being a knitters version of NaWriNoMo which is National Write a Novel Month.  Knit a sweater in the month of November.

I’m so in!  I mean, after all, it’s a national cause.  I need to support the troops.  The knitting troops that is.  Plus I need a new sweater.

So I’m starting a new sweater tonight.  First with my gauge swatch of course because I’m a good little knitter even when I don’t want to be.  This particular pattern calls for two strands of sock yarn held together but why on earth would I want to follow a pattern?  After all Elizabeth Zimmerman says they are just a guideline anyway.  Granted the pattern is lovely with all that wonderful color going on but me, I’m a neutrals kind of girl.  So I’m knitting mine in a lovely mocha brown.  I’ve never knit linen stitch before so this should be fun.

Before I start though, I have to pick up the living room and do the dishes.  Hopefully at some point a magic fairy will come along and provide me dinner so I don’t have to stop knitting.

I’m a Cowboys girl and this season’s knitting project is a queen sized log cabin blanket. Mind numbingly dull garter stitch. No shaping. Just row after row of knit stitch.

Last year it was a Doctor Who scarf. Fifteen feet of garter stitch. Normally a project like either of these would cause me to either poke my eyes out or take up drinking or possibly both but not when it comes to watching football. I need my eyes and mind on the game so a large project like this is perfect.

Now if my Boys can just give me a win this week!

I’ve decided, as I think I mentioned before, that I’m going to knit this pattern for myself.  I’ve been pondering which yarn to use for it while I’ve been knitting the current sock and while I haven’t decided that I did reach another conclusion today.

When I finished the first sock I tried it on.  I knit this in a medium and I was sure it would be too small for my foot but it turns out I was wrong.  Glad I tried it on.  However, I’m still not a fan of the large (to me) holes left by the yarn overs.  It’s long been an issue for me in choosing patterns for myself.

Then I remembered yet another hint I heard once upon a time while listening to another podcast.  I really want to credit this to Eunny Jang but I could be completely wrong in that part of the memory.  The important part is that this knitter was saying how she also hated the largish holes left by yarn overs so her solution was to not complete the yarn over on the row it was knitted on but rather create it in the next row.  Knittinghelp.com calls this a afterthought yarnover.  Or for a longer description with lots of helpful talking if you need it, here’s a video.

On top of all that, I can make the notes for the changes to the pattern without too much effort because of my lovely note cards.  I love the freedom these index cards are giving me to change things up the way I want them to be.  The more I use them the happier I am that I gave this idea a try.  Now I can’t wait to get started on the new pair!

To recap, the pattern is Ribbed Ribbons by Wendy Johnson.  Without a doubt this woman writes a good sock pattern.  I’ve knit a few of her patterns in the past.

The yarn is Spud and Chloe Fine which is a fingering weight 80% superwash wool/20% silk blend.  The silk gives it a tiny bit of sheen which was what lead me to choose this pattern in the first place.  I thought the yarn would be showcased best with something that had some movement to it.

The friend is news that I can’t share at this point but suffice it to say that I’m very flattered that she asked for my help.

The way I’m knitting it, that’s the new part.  I was listening to a podcast earlier in the week, I don’t recall which one it was, and they mentioned that they were using something they had heard Kelly Petkin of the Knit Picks Podcast suggest when doing lace to write each row out on an index card and then just flip through them as you did the pattern.  No more post it notes falling off the pattern or losing the piece of paper you were tracking your rows on.

Now I recall listening to this podcast but it was one of those many things that I’ve heard in the past and not managed to keep filed away in my head.  Sometimes I plain old forget about this stuff until I hear something that jangles it lose or I’m just reminded of it.  I made yet another mental note to remember this tip.  Especially since I had a ton of index cards that I never used for school.

Then my friend asked me to knit this sock and I thought, hm…that index card idea would be good to use right about now, especially to make this project more portable.  So yesterday, I sat down and wrote out the lace repeat on 24 cards.  Then I punched a hole in the corner and put them on a binder ring.   That part is my own little invention.  Additionally I grabbed a binder clip (I love those for holding pieces together to seam) so when I toss the sock in my bag to go knit tonight I won’t have to worry about the cards flipping to the wrong row on me.

Well I zipped pretty quickly through the foot of the sock last night and this morning I started turning the heel.  This heel is a little different from my usual heel turn, which normally I’d substitute but that’s not a choice this time around as I need to stick to the pattern.  As such I was having a heck of a time remembering which row I was increasing on.  I also kept telling myself I’d need to write down eventually which row I was on in the lace pattern when I started the gusset increases.

Then yet another idea hit.  The reason I was having a hard time remembering, other than just being distracted and trying to carry on a conversation while watching the news, was that as I finished the lace row, I turned the card.  So while I was knitting the increase on the odd numbered rows, the even numbered cards were showing.  As I’d be getting interrupted while knitting the heel just trusting myself to remember this was not going to work.  So on the back of the card I wrote INC in pencil, along with writing on the back of the card for row 7 that this is where I start the gusset increases.

Why in pencil you ask?  Because I know I’ll be knitting this pattern again.  Soon possibly.  I really like this pattern.  For myself I don’t usually chose socks with holes but this is one pattern I simply must knit for myself.

Not only that but I am loving the card idea to make my sock knitting more portable.  For the longest time I always had a sock going for the hubby.  So even if I was working on a more complicated sock for myself, I could carry around his socks to work on in those odd moments I grabbed to knit while waiting.  Granted there are some socks that I’ll still knit just plain for myself but they are few and far between.  I like having patterned socks, even if the pattern is simple.  My most recent sock purchases were solid yarns so I could make some lovely cabled socks for myself.  In fact the one I’m working on right now for me is going to get transferred to cards, even though it’s only a two row pattern at this point.  I keep forgetting which row I’m on and it is hard as heck to tell, especially since the yarn is so dark and so small.

And now, back to the sock.

Lately my knitting time has been devoted to my Moderne Log Cabin Blanket from Mason-Dixon Knitting.  It’s gorgeous and it’s getting close to done.  I’m on block 7 of 9.  I always have to tell folks though that block 9 is almost half the blanket and it’s done intarsia because its two colors.

I’ve also been doing a bit of cross stitch.  I was working on a My Big Toe design “A New Day” that I love but with last weekend being General Conference, I pulled out a easier design.  I knew if I knit garter stitch while watching conference I was going to fall asleep.  So I pulled out a pattern that I had actually selected before the one I was working on that is a nifty little “ho ho ho” in candy cane stripes.  Look!  A crappy picture!

My local yarn store closed, which is a sad thing but the happy thing is that a new yarn store is opening in it’s place and I have high hopes for the place.  More on that once it opens.  Just 10 more days until that happy event.

Since the last time I blogged here I’ve lost just over 50 lbs so most of my sweater knitting plans are on hold because I’ve no idea what size I’ll end up.  Mostly right now I’m going to be concentrating on my blanket because I’d really like to have a nice wool blanket to survive the winter in.  I’m all about keeping heating costs down.

I’ve discovered a new podcast that is a must listen.  My stomach hurt from laughing so hard listening to the 6 episodes that have already been done.  It’s called The Knit Wits and you can find it on iTunes or by following the link.

I was listening to a podcast today that mentioned a project called the Tilting T.A.R.D.I.S. If you don’t know what a T.A.R.D.I.S. is, clearly you are not a fan of Doctor Who.  You should be though.  Anyway, I was a little disappointed when it turned out to be a cowl, however, some clever person made socks using the stitch pattern and so, I must make socks.  First though, I must find the correct shade of blue.  Mmmm…I love a reason to keep my eye open for sock yarn.

Speaking of sock yarn, I’ve got to get cracking on my next project.  Ribbed Ribbon socks by Wendy Johnson, from her book Socks from the Toe Up.

Stitching tomorrow. I’ll at least get a progress picture to show.