Now With Pictures!

Well, this will be my first attempt at throwing a picture up on the blog. Shall I start with the obligatory cat shot? Gizmo, in the gray, and Duncan, in the tuxedo, barely tolerating one another.








But, no, you came here for the knitting content, right? So here we have a couple of things currently on the needles. I am working on a scarf for my cousin's daughter. She is a North Carolina girl who is braving the cold of Chicago for the winter, while taking a course at Northwestern. I figured the least I could do was knit her a scarf. The only request that she had was that it be "Carolina Blue." So I hied myself off to the new and wonderful shop that opened near me this summer (The Black Sheep) and found some Debbie Bliss Rialto in what people assured me is Carolina Blue...or as close as it came in the yarn available. (It looks more periwinkle to me...but what's in a name?)

I started off with a lovely lace stitch. And that stitch pattern kicked my butt! I ripped back so many rows, I'm surprised I didn't have some sort of negative-space scarf hanging off my needles. In four months, I had managed about four inches. So Saturday morning I faced the inevitable with grace and dignity...and ripped the sucker out. Started over again an a simple moss stitch rib and I love it. By the end of the first day I had about fourteen inches done and, as I write this, I am now almost at the end of my second skein. It looks nice, it's reversible, it's a more solid fabric (better for Chicago) and it's getting done! So I've gone from hating this to loving it. Though it still looks periwinkle to me. (Not in this picture, though. It's purplier in real life.)

And then there are the socks. Want to know how long these (embarrassingly) simple socks have taken so far? About 2 years. Not 2 years of constant knitting, but I started them (for myself) about 2 years ago. Simple ribbed cuffs with stockinette body. I started the first one, busted right through the cuff and then hit the stockinette....and I knit and I knit and I hated the way it looked. So it got set aside for a while....like 10 months. Then, when I got so embarrassed about my family saying, "So, when exactly is this sock going to be done?" that I picked it up again, I saw....dropped stitches....way back in the beginning of all that stockinette. So - zip - out it came. Like an idiot, I didn't think that I could have just ripped back to the cuff! Cast on again, this time heartily sick of the yarn (which is Trekking and which, normally, I adore). So I decide that I would knit this for my daughter. And before you know it, the first sock is reknit.... and the second sock is on the needles.....and the second sock is about an inch from the toe....and other things intercede and this poor second sock has been sitting there for a couple of weeks. What?! It's better than 10 months!
















Now, of course, I am back in love with the yarn, but the socks are sized for my daughter's tiny feet. (Really. Tiny. I'm surprised she doesn't tip over more often.)