Yesterday I started to draft a post saying, I'm gonna do random because there ain't hardly no knittin' goin' on 'round here. Certainly no bloggable knittin'.
And then lightning struck and Dame Fortune smiled and hell froze over and the Vikes won the SuperBowl and shazam! I finished a pair of socks!
Note: that "Retouch" feature in iPhoto is magic. With it I was able to make this floor look clean! Zapped away the random blobs of animal hair and lint and cat food. Pure magic, I tell ya.
Kinda wish I could use that magic feature on the socks, each of which has weird sort of ear things on the toe.
They don't show too much when worn and I really don't care much, either, but the socks look darned strange when just lying there. Be glad I didn't show you that view. What happened was that I made them a tad too long before I started the toe decreases, so had to stop the toe decrease before the toes had attained the usual tapered shape. My feet are kinda square so the squared-off toes are, um, appropriate.
Yarn: One strand of Online Yarns Supersocke Highland Colors #838 held together with one strand of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock lightweight in Falcon's Eye.
Needles: Addi US#2 circ for the leg, #1 for heel flap and foot.
Pattern: Generic top-down sock worked on 48st. Leg and instep 1x1 ribbing, slip-stitch heel, stockinette sole and toe.
As I knit and frogged and reknit and refrogged and re-reknit these socks (never mind why) it occurred to me that being willing to frog is the true measure of an accomplished knitter. (Please excuse me while I go have a shoulder massage; just threw it out of joint patting myself on the back.) If said knitter did not think that s/he could improve on what had already been knit, s/he would not bother to frog, right? I have found myself in that unhappy situation more than once, where I knew that what I had knit had some serious problems, but I had no confidence that my reknitting it would solve them. This sad circumstance will most certainly happen again, but probably not on a pair of socks.
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A special for Chris and Deb and anyone else who has a black cat. From tut-tut's blog (she lives in or near Chattanooga):
Yesterday, our local animal shelter, to sweeten the deal, started
offering black cat adoptions for only $13.00 per (to honor Friday the
13th and to dispel any phobias about black cats).
Creative, no?
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Guess what Diane of Wool 'n' Spice sent me?
She said she was going to send me the magazine (The Knitter, the brand-new UK knitting mag), but you know how knitters are about sending packages -- it's never done until there is some chocolate in there :-) I had to take this photo within about 30 seconds of opening the package because the chocolate was gone that fast. The sunflower seeds are to remind me that spring will come... someday. (Smokey was watching me open the package and suggested that we plant the sunflowers on the bank next to the lake. Genius, that guy. We're gonna do it when spring finally comes.) The Whisker Lickin's are kitteh treats for my feline friends. I have never given my kittehs treats.
I wonder if they can figure out what treats are?
It took Hannibal about 2-1/2 seconds to figure out that treats are awesome. I had to close my hand tightly to keep them away from him long enough to get out the camera. (En Esch, the big stupid, licked every part of my hand before f-i-n-a-l-l-y finding the treat. Duh.) Diane, the treats are a big hit, as is the magazine and the chocolate and the seeds. Thank you so much!
I have flipped though the magazine but need to study it a bit more. Then I will figure out a fun way to pass it on to one of my readers.
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Remember Bear, our senior dog, the one with the stylish back feet? We had given her glucosamine chondritin and Rimadyl, the doggie-friendly equivalent of ibuprofen, in the past but it never seemed to help. But last week Smokey started again with the meds, and the change in Bear is astonishing! She is perky and smiley (all dog owners know what I mean about doggie smiles) and perfectly willing to take all manner of unnecessary steps around the house. A couple days ago she actually galloped to Smokey; that's something we haven't seen in months, maybe years. There's life in the old girl yet!
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Melting is happening 'round here. The lake is still ice-covered, but those shiny blue spots are liquid water on top of the ice.
In spite of the warmth and melting, I saw a SUV pulling a sled full of kids across the lake yesterday. Apparently the gene pool is still in need of a little thinning.
Others can walk on the ice safely:
Joan, you are not the only one with honkers 8-)