I’ve nearly finished the straight rows on the Clapotis, so I just have the decrease rows and final rows left. Which means I should be able to finish it this weekend in time for the June 21st kickoff to Summer of Socks! The orange socks are on hold until I’m done with SoS since I can’t participate with socks started before 6/21. As I’ve mentioned, my goal is to knit 3 pairs by September 1st. In order to give myself a little bit of a boost, I’m going to make the 1st pair in sport weight yarn.

One of the “problems” that comes with having quite a nice bit of yarn in one’s possession and an overwhelming availability of sock patterns, is that I’m often paralyzed with indecision about what to knit.

Enter you, my faithful homies.

Which socks to knit first?

Rainy Day Socks in Mama Blue Troika, color “Trifle”:

Citrine Socklets in Pigeonroof Studios Sport Merino, color “Green Ocean” :

Quill Lace Socks in Union Center Knits Sport Merino, color “Plum-Delicious”

Make your vote count in this crucial election year! Thank you!

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk stitch markers! I love pretty stitch markers as much as the next person, but I’m not usually a fan of stitch markers made with standard jump rings. I find that no matter how tightly you close the ring, at some point, the ring comes apart slightly and starts snagging on the knitting. I still use ‘em, but I’m always looking for a better (and still pretty!) solution.

I recently purchased some sock yarn from a fellow Raveler and when she sent it, she included a sample of a new style stitch marker she was making. The stitch markers are made with Swarovski crystals (sparkly!) and soft flexible jewelry wire instead of jump rings so they don’t snag! Brilliant!

I loved the one she sent so much that I bought some more from her store…

…but mentioned that it would also be cool if she made ones with smaller loops for socks. She said that was in the works, and included some with my purchase (shown here on a US 2 needle)…

…but explained that the reason the others came with larger loops was so that you could use them to mark individual stitches. You just pinch the ends of the loop and thread the wire through a stitch, then pull the bead through to secure it! Super brilliant!!

So much prettier than using safety pins or split ring markers! These kind of markers would be perfect for crochet too! Thanks Stacy! I love these!

And finally, I was tagged by my friend Emily for this meme:

What were you doing 10 years ago?

In the summer of 1998 I was living with my parents (I graduated high school in 1997), dating my ex-boyfriend, and working at an art gallery in Rockport, MA. I had to pre-screen artists for display in the gallery, manage gallery openings, train new hires, sell, sell, sell, and other filing/office type duties. This was my first non-restaurant job and while I loved it at first (ooh, commission! Fancy cheese and wine parties!) the owner of the gallery was a real piece of work (aka DOUCHEBAG EXTRAORDINAIRE). The owner (who also owns a gallery on Newbury Street in Boston) wasn’t there often, but when she was, she was a micromanaging, snobby, catty nightmare. She thought I was too young to be working there, didn’t know enough about art, didn’t sell enough, and constantly asked my boss (who ran the gallery from day to day) why she hired me.

I left there in the fall and started my new career in the illustrious field of t-shirt sales! I worked in one of the little tourist t-shirt shops, also in Rockport. Since it was the off-season, we weren’t very busy so I was always there alone. The owner owned a million other stores and was never there, but was very particular about the music playing in the store. He’d call at random times and make sure that the store CD was playing (Negotiations & Love Songs - Paul Simon) instead of my own CDs or the radio or whatever. So of course I just always made sure to turn on the Paul Simon CD anytime the phone rang. While this was the boringest job ever, I got to read all day and was paid under the table in cash, so it was also the best job ever. Funny story: One day a woman came in and asked if she could use the bathroom. We didn’t allow people to use the bathroom because it wasn’t part of the main store, it was upstairs in an apartment/storage area and there are a lot of public restrooms around anyway. The woman pleaded with me and told me she was pregnant and REALLY had to go. So I said fine. She was up there for a few minutes and left. About 20 minutes later, water started POURING through the ceiling, all over the clothes in the store! I ran upstairs and found the toilet completely overflowing EVERYWHERE. I got the plunger out and finally the source of the clog cleared….IT WAS A TAMPON! She wasn’t even pregnant! GAH! It took hours to clean up the gross toilet water, I was so mad! But not as mad as my boss who lost a few hundred dollars worth of toilet watered merchandise.

I left that job in the spring and went to work at my first REAL job, at a software company, where I later met Matt.

What are 5 things on my to-do list?

I actually have a to-do list today! Non work related items:

- June - Doc 9:00 (just a checkup)
- blog
- Pay car insurance
- post office
- check on matt’s b-day gift (his birthday is tomorrow)

Where have I lived?

Beverly, MA, Merrimack, NH, Gloucester, MA, Salem, MA, Danvers, MA

What would I do if I was a billionaire?

Pay off my debts, buy a house, buy a summer house on Fire Island, buy a couple new cars, quit my job, buy our parents new houses, give money to children’s hospitals and animal shelters, buy some yarn, visit the west coast, visit the UK, bank the rest.

I should be back next week with a finished Clapotis! Hopefully that billion will arrive soon.

I’ve already reached the summer blogging doldrums and it’s not even summer yet! This does not bode well. I’m gonna blame it on this:

That was the temperature when I left my office on Tuesday. It’s cooled off slightly since then, but I am still totally over summer and setting my sights on fall.

The heat also means I haven’t really had the desire to hang out with wool, so my knitting progress has been slow, and neither of my current projects make for exciting WIPs as they are both mostly stockinette. Nevertheless, here’s the progress on my orange sock:

I’m just about to turn the heel and then begin my most hated part of sock knitting, the gusset. I really am not a fan of the gusset. Do short-row heels eliminate the gusset? If so, I’m definitely trying that next time. Hate you picking up stitches and decreasing forever!

Here is the progress on the Clapotis:

I’m 1/3rd of the way through the straight rows. I was hoping to finish this before we go away on vacation at the end of the month, but I don’t know if it will happen. Maybe if it cools off a little I’ll be more inspired to work on it!

In that vein, it’s time for Ali’s annual summer knitting goals contest! I actually won a prize in this last year, so here’s hoping I do again this year! I have my eye on that delicious orange raglan kit! All you need to do to enter is post your list of summer knitting goals on your blog and then leave a comment & link yourself on her contest page. Easy!

My summer knitting goals are as follows:

1. Finish Clapotis

2. Knit 3 full pairs of socks between 6/21 - 9/1 for Summer of Socks (and the orange socks don’t count since I already started them so it’s going to be hard!

3. Knit some sort of market-type bag like Everlasting bagstopper or Saturday Market Bag

4. Start a February Lady Sweater in the hopes of it being finished for early fall

5. Something for myself to wear this summer like a shrug or tank

6. Something for June. Cardigan? Dress?

That’s about it!

In closing, random crappy cell phone picture of June from last weekend.

Blogging will probably be a little lighter this summer, but I’ll try to update at least every 2 weeks, even if I have absolutely nothing interesting to say, because that’s just how I roll. You’re welcome!

1. Finished June’s shrug:

Pattern: One Skein Wonder by Stefanie Japel
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca Dyed Cotton in Azul, 3/4 of 1 skein
Needles: US 8

This was like the quickest knit ever! I easily could have banged it out in a day if I had nothing else to do. Thanks to some help from Stacee, I was able to modify this to be baby sized, as she had made one for her young daughter too. I think it will be perfect for chillier spring and summer evenings. Here’s a size comparison with my OSW:

2. Got some great mail from Heather! She had sent out a request around Christmastime for people to brighten her daughter’s day by sending a little mail-love to her and I put together a very small package of crap and sent it along. Heather repaid me by sending me Koigu (not worthy!) and making this adorable kitty for June!

Even though she looks terribly bored here, she loves this kitty:

Thanks Heather!!

(and an aside about that afghan…Matt’s grandmother crocheted it in the 70s, out of the nastiest, squeekiest acrylic known to man. I’ve got pictures of Matt as a baby sitting on it. When Matt’s grandfather moved to a nursing home a few months ago, the family was going to throw it away, and I rescued it. I am charmed by it’s hideousness).

3. Went to Vermont:

That’s the view from our hotel room, Lake Champlain. June was EXTREMELY impressed with the hotel, especially with the quality of the beds for jumping:

We also visited my grandma, June’s great-grandma!

4. And what would the unofficial first weekend of summer be without some trips to the beach?

(the water was FRIGID. She didn’t care)

5. Annnnd bringing it all back around to the knitting again:

Sock progress:

(Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop in Spirit in the Sky)

And the humble beginnings of my Clapotis:

Phew! After all that, what will I have to talk about next week?! I don’t know!

Pattern: Gloria Cowl
Yarn: Handmaiden Casbah in Ivory, double stranded
Needles: size 8 16″ circ.

Inspired by Ashley, Megan, Julie, and Melissa I finished my cowl! I know, it’s not that exciting, just a plain stockinette tube, but this yarn is so, so lovely. It’s hard to accurately capture the colors in this yarn, but it’s a subtle peachy-pinky-greeny-bluey-ivory delight. They only mod I made was to garter stitch the edges instead of seed stitch because seed stitch is my arch-nemesis in life. I should have done a few more rows of garter since the edges curl like whoa, but that’s OK, I love it anyway.

Not much else to report on the knitting front. I ripped my Sand & Sea sock because I was all but finished with one when I tried it on and couldn’t even get it on my foot. STUPID GAUGE, I HATE IT. I have cast on for 2 other projects though! One is a summer shrug for June in some Blue Sky Cotton and the other is a Clapotis for me in Sheep Shop 3 (finally!).

Before I get too into the Clapotis though, I need to learn continental purling. I FINALLY taught myself how to knit continentally on the cowl (there’s a few spots of the cowl knit in continental which I made sure to exclude from the picture because my gauge was so crazily loose, which is odd since my English gauge is death-grippedly tight) and dudes. I cannot believe how much faster it is! SO MUCH FASTER. So much less wrist strain! So awesome! But I haven’t quite figured out the purling part and I want to do that before I get into the long slog of Clapotis straight rows.

I’ve also signed up for Summer of Socks. My personal goal is 3 pairs of socks which is not going to break any records, but which I think is doable for me. That begins on June 21st and ends on September 1st.

Finally, I want to send out a big thank you to Adriana! She sent me yarn for my birthday last week! Including sock yarn that she dyed herself, especially for me! She knows I love Terry Pratchett so she created this colorway called “Death by Pratchett,” inspired by my favorite character! It was much appreciated since I was having an especially crappy birthday due to Matt being super sick (for the second year in a row on my birthday!) which turned into June getting sick for the first time which made for a not so enjoyable Mother’s Day either! Thanks so much for cheering me up and thinking of me Adriana, I LOVE it!

I’m on vacation next week so I don’t know if I’ll find the time to post. I have the whole week off, but Matt’s only got Thursday-Monday, so not sure what we’re doing. We’re planning to go to Vermont over that weekend for our anniversary to try June out on her first overnight trip (and swing by my grandparents who haven’t gotten to see her since last summer). She’s never slept away from home, so I want to see if she can handle sleeping in a hotel room with us before booking summer vacation plans that we’ll regret later! She generally won’t sleep if she can see us, which is why I think hotel travel is going to be difficult, she really needs her own space to sleep. We’re thinking of making her sleep in the bathroom (seriously) but we’ll have to see how it goes! Hopefully I’ll be back from all my time off with some finished knitting!

OK, I know it’s proper blogging etiquette to post one’s works-in-progress on Wednesday, but always one to fly in the face of tradition, I’m posting them today. UnFinished Friday? Yeah, let’s go with that.

WIP # 1: This is the Gloria cowl that’s sweeping the internets. This yarn is heavenly. Handmaiden Casbah in Ivory.

WIP # 2: Socks for meeeeee! I’ve never knit a pair of socks for myself! I’m rectifying that now. The variegated yarn is Hello Yarn Fat Sock in Sand & Sea. I’d heartbreakingly missed out on this color when it was released, but was able to get 1 skein via a swap on Ravelry. Normally you’d need 2 skeins to make a pair of adult socks, so I’m attempting to squeak out a pair of anklets with contrasting heels and toes (Koigu Kersti in a slate blue color). Hopefully I’ll have enough! The pattern is Afterthought Socks by Amy of MadelineTosh.

And finally….

I know! I can’t believe it either! Please don’t laugh at my sadly misshapen granny square, I’m so proud of it! You have no idea how long it took me to do this.

I’m normally not a big fan of teh crochetz, but I’ve recently been wooed by the likes of Babette, Larger than Life, and most recently, Butterscotch. Which is especially odd since I am usually not at all drawn to crocheted garments. I think I like this because it uses sock yarn, so it’s done at a really fine gauge and I think it will be more flattering. I first saw this cardigan when Brainylady queued it on Ravelry, and didn’t even realize it *was* crochet! When I looked closer and realized it was, I was totally bummed! But I picked up a copy of the magazine and noticed it was listed as an “easy” pattern. So I decided to take the hook by the horns and give crochet a shot!

Note that some people will try to tell you that crochet is easier than knitting. These people are filthy, rotten liars of the worst kind. This crap is hard, dudes. I was expecting it to be a lot more similar to knitting (and maybe it is if you’re a continental knitter) but it’s totally not and my hands keep wanting to do knitting type things when I’m trying to do crochet type things, and it’s totally frustrating! I don’t think crochet is going to be something I do super often, but I think it will be a good skill to have in my crafty repertoire.

OK, that’s all I’ve got! Hopefully a couple of these WIPS will be FOs by the end of next week and I’ll have some Juney pics soon too!

I don’t have any Fluvogs so my old Docs will have to do.

Pattern: Vog On - Summer 2007 Knitty

Yarn: Mama Blue Sea Merino in ‘Girl’

Needles: 12″ addi turbo US 2

I had been secretly planning to knit a pair of socks for Sarah’s birthday when she asked me if would knit her a pair of pink socks someday. I decided to let her in on the plan so that I could be sure to pick a pattern she’d really like and this is what she chose! I’m glad she did because I really liked this pattern! The picot cast on is different from other picot cast-ons I’ve used and I found it super pain-in-the-assy & fiddly. But once I got past that, these were a breeze! The 4 row lace pattern was super easy to memorize and the fact that they are ankle socks made them go pretty quickly! The lace pattern is also pretty stretchy, I made these to fit Sarah’s wee little feet, but they stretch enough to fit on my feet fairly comfortably. Since Sarah’s feet are shorter than mine, the cuff will probably come up a little higher when she wears them, allowing them to peek cutely out of her shoes.

I’ve expressed my love of Mama Blue yarns before and I’ll do it again: I loved working with this Mama Blue Sea Merino. It’s super squishy and shiny and gets even lovelier after a wash. And I have enough leftover to make something pretty & pink for June. I also liked using the 12″ Addi. I normally knit socks Magic Loop style or with 2 circs, but Phoe recommended the 1 short circ method so I thought I’d give it a try. It took a little while to get used to knitting with such a short needle; my hands were kind of cramping up at first because I couldn’t figure out the best way to hold them. But eventually I got used to it and these seemed to fly off the needles. I didn’t have to add a second needle to the mix until it was time for the toe decreases! I don’t know that I’d knit complicated socks with a short needle like this (something with twisted stitches or lots of cables), but for plain stockinette or other simple socks, I don’t think I’ll go back! Thanks Phoe!
Happy birthday Sari! I hope you love the socks as much as I loved knitting them for you!

Are y’all aware of Knotions, the soon-to-debut online knitting magazine? Like Knitty, it will be published quarterly and full of free patterns, articles about knitting technique & product reviews. Knotions is the brainchild of Jody, aka Savannahchik, and I’m really excited about it! A little while back, she put out a call for test knitters to provide feedback for her inaugural sweater pattern. She needed test knitters to knit the yoke of the sweater for each bust-size the pattern offered, so I volunteered for my size. The yoke needed to be done within 2 weeks which I thought would be a good challenge for me. Maybe it would be the kick in the pants I needed to finally knit that first sweater?

Let me be clear that the forthcoming whining has nothing to do with Jody’s extremely well written and simple to execute pattern, and everything to do with my not being a sweater knitter (which I’m trying to change, which is why I wanted to do this in the first place)!

Well, it started out easily enough. The pattern is a short-sleeved, mock-wrap top-down raglan. The pattern called for DK weight yarn with a gauge of 5.5 st/inch. I had been planning to use some Silky Wool in my stash, but I couldn’t get gauge, so I went to my LYS and picked up a new yarn from Classic Elite called Cotton Bam Boo. It’s a 52% cotton, 48% bamboo blend. I got perfect gauge on size 6 needles and loved this pretty raspberry color:

Even though I had 2 weeks to knit this, I figured it wouldn’t take that long so I put it off for a week, opting to work on Sarah’s birthday socks instead. Finally, the middle of last week I decided I really should work on the sweater, and began to knit a few rows here & there, figuring I’d finish it up over the weekend. Sunday night was my self-imposed deadline. This was the amount of knitting I had to complete:

If you’re familiar with top-down raglan construction, you know that there’s a lot of increasing happening with that yoke. You may look at the cast-on number of 72 stitches, and at the final end-of-yoke stitch count at 372 stitches and not think much of it. This will be your downfall. Oh my God you guys, why didn’t anyone tell me how long each row would take once I got further into the yoke? At the end, it was taking almost 30 minutes per row! I know that doesn’t sound very long all typed out like that, but when you’ve got like 30 rows left and you’re just dying to click that row-counter, it’s agony!

I don’t know why it was taking me so long. It’s true that I’m not the fastest knitter, but I really think it was the purling that killed me. Since this is a v-neck, the yoke is knit flat & not joined until the bottom of the V, hence the purling. What is it about purling?? Why do I hate it so much? It’s not as if it’s ANY more difficult than knitting! I might be a slightly slower purler, but still, if the knit rows were taking me 25 minutes, the purl rows were only taking 28 minutes, so that’s not *that* much of a difference. But oh, how I dreaded & hated those accursed purl rows.

My hands and wrists were totally killing me by the end too, probably the result of the cotton yarn & desperately trying to knit faster so it would be done. I did not meet my Sunday night deadline, or even my revised Monday night deadline, but I did finish it around midnight on Tuesday. The added pressure of trying to finish this on time is also probably what made this project so difficult for me. As it turns out, I probably didn’t need to worry since most everyone is still test knitting! Phew.

Once the yoke was off the needles, it was time to try it on. Even though I got perfect gauge and knit it exactly as specified for my size, I was not convinced it would fit. I don’t always trust my knitting to do what it should. But behold:

The yoke fits perfectly!

So what now? Jody asked if I planned to finish knitting the whole sweater, and I’m just not sure. While I love the intended design of the sweater, it’s meant to be fitted and I’m actively trying to lose weight. Being a slower knitter, I wouldn’t want to spend all that time knitting something fitted that (hopefully) will be too big to look flattering. Also, this yarn is kind of on the heavy side. Not as heavy as a 100% cotton would be, but I have a feeling a solid stockinette sweater would get saggy at the end of a full day of wear. I don’t want to frog the yoke since it represents so many hours of my life, so I came up with an idea.

There’s a pretty popular sweater making the rounds on the internet known as Juliet. I’m thinking of taking the yoke of my sweater, doing a few more rounds, then adding the bottom part of the Juliet sweater. I’d need to figure out how to modify the bottom part for knitting in the round so that it’s a pullover instead of a cardigan, (see a nice example of this here for the Ravelry inclined, and a flickr pic here.) and do some gauge maths since I’ll be using a sport weight instead of a chunky yarn. With any luck, it will look something like this:

Except, you know, not crappy. I’m still not sure I’ll ever be cut out for grown-up sweater knitting. I’m too impatient for long-term projects. But I think now that the sweater has moved to the round (no more purling!), and now that the sleeves are off the needles (removing over 150 stitches from each row, phew!), and since I’d be knitting something a little more interesting than stockinette, maybe I could pull it off!

For now, back to the sock mines!

The title pretty much says it all, but keep reading anyway.
Let’s start with this: Are you all familiar with the popular Knitted Babes book? It contains patterns to knit 5 dolls & outfits for them, and they are super, super cute. I’d wanted to make one for June for awhile, but hadn’t gotten around to it because despite the success of last week’s knitted bunny, I generally suck at knitted toys. But Stacee had made a couple for her daughter & daughter’s friend, and they were so cute that I really thought June definitely did need one. I was wondering where I’d fit it in to my very tight knitting schedule (ha) when lo & behold, I received a package from Stacee in the mail! I wasn’t expecting anything from her so I was puzzled until I opened it up and found a Knitted Babe inside! With a teeny matching bathing suit (perfect, since June starts swim lessons again this weekend)! I tried to hide it from June until I could get the camera but she immediately saw it and started squealing “A beebee!! A beebee!!” and commenced dragging it around by her hair the entire evening. She’s now taken to calling it “dowy” (dolly?) and it rarely leaves her side. Here they are chilling on the couch together after an afternoon of coloring:

Thank you SO much Stacee!! What a great surprise! I’m definitely going to sew some little dresses for her!

Speaking of mail from awesome people: For her birthday, Phoe splurged on some of the most decadent yarn ever, Hand Maiden Swiss Mountain Cashmere & Silk. This yarn is 65% cashmere, 35% silk, 100% incredible. She made herself the cowl from Last Minute Knitted Gifts & it turned out gorgeous. In a cruel, cruel twist of fate, it turns out that when knitted up, this yarn is too itchy for Phoe to wear. What?! How can cashmere & silk be itchy? I don’t know, but this was a serious bummer for Phoe, as it would be for any of us, but even knowing that she couldn’t wear it, I was shocked when she wanted to send it, and the leftover yarn, to me. I was hesitant to accept it knowing the value of the yarn, but she couldn’t wear it and didn’t want it to go to waste. A swap was agreed upon and I sent some sock yarn her way. I’m now the proud owner of the softest item on Earth, and almost cursing the imminent arrival of spring (almost).

(I swear I’m happier about it than I look in this picture). Thank you so much Phoe!! I will try to resist the urge to sleep in and/or make-out with it.

Even more yarny delights: A few months ago I got some Arucania Nature Wool on clearance at WEBS for $2.99 a skein. On my monitor it looked like a pretty spring green. What arrived looked like this:

Mmm, mustard water. Except for the ‘mmm’ part. I knew I wouldn’t want to knit up yarn this color, but it was such a good deal, a sweater’s worth of yarn for $20! Enter the super great Adriana! She dabbles in the yarn dyeing arts so another swap was set up. I sent up some more sock yarn from my stash, and the 6 skeins of ugly wool. What arrived in my mailbox Wednesday was this:

Beautiful, gorgeous greeny-bluey prettiness! So much better! I’m thinking I may copy Phoe and knit up something like a Brompton with this…we’ll see! Thanks so much Adriana!

Finally, looking for a gift for the knitter in your life (especially if the knitter in your life is you?) I was reading turtlegirl’s blog a while ago and she had mentioned this great yarn bowl she picked up. The bowl keeps your unruly yarn contained while you knit, and looks pretty doing it. I was intrigued at the time, but the only problem is that once you threaded your yarn through the hole and started knitting, you couldn’t remove your project from the bowl until you were ready to cut the yarn. I tend to favor portable projects, so this would be impractical for me…until NOW. Enter the NEW & IMPROVED yarn bowl!

It’s got a little slot in there now! So you can take the projects in and out as you please! So perfect! As soon as I saw this I bought one right away! They are handmade by The Knit Witch and while I purchased a smaller bowl, she also makes larger ones (like turtlegirl’s) that are perfect for Fair Isle! Not affiliated, just a happy customer!

Oh, and the sock you see being knit out of that yarn bowl up there? Finished! I’ve already cast-on for the second one to avoid second-sock syndrome.

Super Grover is pretty excited about it too.

1. Intarsia

2. Sewing together 3 dimensional knitted body parts

3. Making pom-poms

Despite all that, I think this little project turned out pretty cute!

Who’s that peeking out from June’s Easter basket?

It’s a bunny!

With a butt-pom!

My friend Katie wrote up this Easter bunny pattern and asked me to test knit it for her! (The pattern should be available within the next couple days, I’ll link it on my Ravelry projects page when it’s up). This was a super quick knit, finished over the course of 2 evenings. I used “Moda Dea washable wool” in Raspberry for the body & Rose Pink for the ears, nose, and tail. This is a squishy superwash merino and it’s surprisingly nice for something available at the big-box craft stores. It’s not exactly priced like a big-box craft store yarn at $7.99 for 166 yard skeins (seriously?) but I had a coupon so it was cheaper. I probably used less than a 1/3rd of the raspberry & teeny amounts of the lighter pink so I’ll probably make a stripy hat for June with the leftovers.

I knit this tightly on size 5 needles to keep the stuffing from showing, and I didn’t stuff the ears because as I mentioned earlier, my intarsia sucks and I had some holes on the sides of the color changes that stuffing would have highlighted. I think he looks kind of cute and rakish with his floppy ears anyway! I hope June likes him!

I have some other test-knitting to do in the next week, but while I’m waiting for the pattern I’ve been working on Sarah’s socks. Is there anything prettier than an eye-of-partridge heel? I don’t think so.

I’m not usually a big charity knitter. I’d generally rather give my money than my time, as awful as that sounds, because I just have so little time for my own things right now. But when my friend Rob approached me to spread the word about his baby hat contest, I was happy to knit a little something. Baby hats practically knit themselves anyway!

Rob’s contest couldn’t be any easier. Knit or crochet a baby hat, get entered for a drawing to a win a $50 gift certificate to his online shop! He stocks some great high-end yarns like Schaefer and Blue Heron! The hats for this round need to be sent in by 3/31, but he’s going to run the contest quarterly! All hats will be donated to Beverly Hospital in Beverly, MA (where June was born)! Good luck!

In other knitting news, I’m making a pair of socks for my friend Sarah’s birthday at the end of April! She’s requested Vog On socks, which I’ve wanted to make for a while, so I can’t wait to cast on this weekend! I’ll be using my newest yarn crush, Mama Blue Sea Merino! Dudes, this stuff, is so, so gorgeous. I’ve already scooped up 6 skeins and more is inevitable. I first learned of Mama Blue when Ashley raved about her BFL sock yarn. Nikki is the master of semi-solid sock yarns and the sea merino (70% superwash merino, 30% seacell) base is SO squooshy and incredible! And if you finish a project in her yarn and send her a picture, she’ll take $5 off your next order! Which is good for me because I’ll definitely be ordering again and again and again, forever. I can’t wait to try her BFL and regular merino too!

For the birthday socks, this colorway is called “Girl,” perfect for Sarah who loves all things pink:

Have a good weekend!