wristicuffs

Thanks for all the “fives” ideas, guys! Keep ‘em coming! (I should have mentioned that I have until the 29th to collect ideas.)

I was going to cast on another pair of socks right after I finished Monkey, but I hit a snag, and then decided that I might as well play fair, and start the Summer of Socks on the 21st like we’re supposed to. I had some other small projects to tackle anyway… the first of which being these simple cuffs for my friend Meli. She bought this yarn from me ages ago – actually, she was one of my first customers! thanks, Meli! – and told me to hang onto it until she figured out something she wanted knit from it. Tah dah! Of course, there’s a lot of yarn left, and she told me to “surprise her”, so I shall. In the meantime, I have to confess that this is the first project I’ve ever made with my own hand-dyed yarn. HAH! And you know, I freaking love the way it knits up. Suddenly, I’m not caring so much if the yarn in my store sells – I’ll just knit pretty things for myself from it! so there! Oh, I’m such a dweeb.

So… the sock snag? Of course you knew my plans wouldn’t go smoothly, right? The Batik yarn is classified as sportweight, but it’s very soft and smushy, and it really knits up only a little thicker than the fingering yarn I was using for the Monkeys. What this means is that it’s yet another yarn that knits up too tightly on #1s, and too loosely on #2s. Seriously, it makes me want to bang my head against a wall repeatedly. Since I like my socks knit firmly – I like to feel like I’m not going to run the heel through after 2 wearings – I haven’t decided if this yarn is even going to work for socks at ALL. It’s pretty clear it’s not going to work for Twinkle Toes, though, because I couldn’t get gauge with it.

On top of that, the recycled sweater yarn that I was going to use for Snowflake Lace is… well, let’s just say that a couple summers of Maine humidity and being tossed around in my craft closet have done it no favors. I’m having a hard time unraveling the rest of the yarn, because it partially felted. The stuff that’s already frogged feels like sandpaper. I think that whole idea is about to go out the window too.

Thankfully, I’ve got me some Fleece Artist, and since it’s too busy to do justice to the Loksins!, I’m going to kick off Summer of Socks with Carolina. And THAT will teach me to make plans, dammit.

Anyway, tomorrow is Adam’s birthday – the big 3-0! – and we really have nothing too exciting planned.  The poor guy has a doctor’s appointment at 10am, so he won’t even get to sleep in!  But we’ll probably go to Bangor and have our sushi dinner (yum!), which is our birthday tradition, so that will be lovely, at least.    The present dilemma, by the way, solved itself:  he came home from work on Thursday and said that what he really wanted was this used speaker cabinet (for his guitar-playin’) that a coworker was selling for $100, which was an outrageously good deal.  Done!  No surprise to it, but he’s happy, and that’s all that matters!

~ by Casey on 19 June 2007.