Glorious Sock

Dear Sweet Wife,
I sit here now, my marriage solidly certified with my fine and glorious sock,
and think of so many good days to come. It makes me happy that we can joke
and tease constantly even if the world around us spins with unsubstantiated
and reckless seriousness. More importantly, my one foot is very warm and
life is good. Love, m

Well, that's really something, isn't it? A love note. Stirred by a single, solitary sock. And a sock that might well be the single ugliest sock in the world.

But not for long. I am busy knitting its mate - even an ugly sock has a perfect-for-it match.

This is actually my first sock ever. It is Knitty's Widdershins. This is a fabulous pattern - toe up, with a magical cast on that is easy, secure, non-fiddly. A beautifully turned shortrowed heel, slip stitched along the back. Options for cables, which I took because I haven't knit cables yet and thought this would be a good place to start before I begin my epic Cabled Riding Jacket from Teva Durham's Loop d Loop. Anyway, the pattern is awesome!

The yarn, not so much. It's KnitPicks Memories - something I picked up on a whim planning to do something for small children from it. And here it is in its african violet/spring garden glory - all purple, fuschia, apple green and buttercup yellow. On a large sock it makes for a bunch of single row stripes of highly contrasting colors.

And in cables it's just plain fug. I did know that going in, but I figured since it was just a "test sock," it wouldn't matter.

So I sat on the couch and knit and My Pilot looked over and asked what I was making.

"A sock," I answered, Click click click.

"For who?"

"I'm not sure yet - it's pretty ugly." Click click click

"Could it be for me?"

Stop the clicking. I turned and looked at him, reclining back on the couch, his pixie feet propped on my lap. "Sure - but it's really a pretty ugly sock. Would you really wear them?" (It's important for you, gentle reader, to understand that My Pilot is particular about his socks - he likes midweight Thorlos in grey, khaki, or navy. He does not like other midweightsocks, nor does he enjoy wearing Thorlos that are lightweight or heavy, or colors other than those already mentioned.)

"Yes I would wear them. I would wear them all the time," he said earnestly.

"You wouldn't have to wear them all the time. Just once."

"Can I really have them?"

Well, of course he could have them. Sweet soul - how could I resist.

And so I knit away, and finally finished the first sock. It was ugly, but structurally sound and fit him reasonably well.

I slid it onto his dainty dancing foot - pixie-like, as I already mentioned. Man was that sock ugly! He was so happy, he beamed.

"That's one ugly sock. In fact, I think it might be about the ugliest sock ever knitted. I'll make you some good socks that you can enjoy wearing - in fact, when we go to town on Thursday I want you to pick some yarn, and then we'll find just the right pattern for it."

Wiggling his toes happily and gazing at his sweet foot clad in a mishmash of color and texture, he said, "But I want another one just like this!!"

I melted. And today at work he took his single sock and showed it to way too many people - Nan at the cafe, Catherine (a wonderful knitter herself!!), Don, Jean at the gallery across the way from ours. I melted again.

And then he took some pictures - And Blogger isn't cooperating, so I can't even show them to you right now. But I will get them up, and you are most certainly free to make disparaging remarks about this unattractive sock.

Slow knitting and stash organization

I'm still toodling away on my MIL's Cinxia from Knitty - needing to do some sleeves, but just nothappy with how my slip stitch pattern is working ou in the round. I'll need to try it again from the beginning and see if that makes a difference...somehow the little purl bumps aren't lining up nicely and giving me the lovely staggered textural action they did on the hem of the sweater. Oh well.

That said, I have organized my stash, with the aid of Trillian's Yarn Stash Spreadsheet. It's an excel file available on her blog - look on the right hand sidebar. She is brilliant - she's got a page for yarn stash listing (with all the pertinent info), a page for future projects (including recommended yarn and space for your intended subs), and a conversion page, so you can go from ounces to grams, meters to yards and back again. Brilliant, I tell you!

I got *almost* all my yarn cataloged in there - sock yarns haven't been added yet, but I don't have that many of them. So far I'm up to 40,785.89 yards of yarn. Should be plenty for a while, right? And I've got only a few dozen projects listed. I'd really like to go back through the last few years of the knitting mags I've accumulated, plus all my books and downloaded patterns and get them in there. Each day I bring another short stack of book and magazines to the gallery, and duifully flag the designs that intrigue me, enter the info into the spreadsheet and so on. The one final step (for me) would be to figure out how to link the Projects page to the Stash page, so I could perform a cross sort function and have the results delivered to me - which designs I've noted could possibly be worked up in the yarns I've got on hand, given tension and quantity constraints? It's been far too long since I've done spreadsheet stuff, and I'm not certain I could noodle it out at this late date, but it would be a neat option.

I think I'll also create a fourth page to catalog my needles by material, size and length too. While plowing through the skeins and balls tucked into a rolling cart, I found 3 brand new Addi Turbo needles, size 2, 40" long. Magic Loop? Socks on Two Circulars? Who knows what I was thinking. I don't even knit socks.

Yet.

Almost a month ago I entered my sub for the new
Yarn Forward Magazine. The same day, I also ordered the two current booklets in English from Phildar (France). I've been racing to the mail box every day for the last week and a half, hoping to find delicious, sophisicated little parcels from Europe. Nothing yet.

I'm dying to swatch up some Madil Rebus for a sweater for my daughter - it's a soft and gentle merino boucle - picked it up for a song in both a garnet variegated and a sapphire variegated colorway. I'm liking Artful Yarns Cropped Jacket, although I'd lengthen it a little and make the sleeves narrower, perhaps.

So many projects I'd like to do. And so much yarn. And still...

a girl wants MORE!