Saturday Snippets of Similitude

1.
I might have talked previously about my obsession love for hand knit socks. We need not cover the fact that I might have forty+ a few pairs of socks in my sock bin. Skip right over that part.

These may be the softest, most wonderfully cushy sock that I now own. The yarn is part cashmere, part superwash merino and some nylon. My feet wanted to love me forever when I wore them this week.

2.

These are the newest socks on the needles. Polka dot fair isle socks. Can you say fiddly and yet oh so obsessive knitting? The first sock is done.

The inside is a pretty as the outside.

The second sock was cast on last Thursday and I had made it through one pattern repeat (that consisted of the cuff and four rows of dots) and I figured that I could try it on to see how it would look next to the other sock. I was confused when I went to put it on and it was too tight. Too tight to even fit over my heel. No way, no how.

I should probably to tell you new or non-knitters that fair isle socks can be a bit on the tight side if not handled/knit with the correct tension.

And now back to our story.

Puzzled a bit and wondered what had changed between the first sock and the second sock. The first socks fits like a dream. I always hold my yarn in the same way when knitting fair isle. My tension was obviously correct…..and then I remember one salient fact.

When knitting these socks you knit the cuff on size 1 needles and then you go up to size 2 needles for the body. I forgot, in my enthusiasm, to make the all important switch at row 13.

Frogging back a Fair isle sock is not as much fun as knitting it in the first place.

3.

Despite my best intentions, this yarn just doesn’t want to be this sweater.

I will let you know a secret in the knitting community. Many of us have what might be called an UFO bin. That is not, by the way, a place where we store our extra aliens until we need them.

Un Finished Objects bin. If you are a knitter and say you don’t have one of these…..you aren’t being truthful.

I started this sweater…..um…….a while ago. I have had the yarn for a long time. It was a gift from a friend who has A LOT of stash, trunks full actually. She came up from her fiber repository in the basement and handed me a big bag of Jaeger aran weight yarn. Oh it is lovely stuff. I was a new knitter and I didn’t really think about the fact that there was enough yardage in that bag to produce a MAN SIZED aran sweater with cabling. If you are not a knitter you are scratching your head at that. If  you are a knitter you are saying, “That is a boat load of yardage.” Yes, it was…and I used some here and some there and soon there was barely enough yardage to make a sweater. But there was possibly enough and so I cast on a sweater…..and I didn’t like it all that much but sometimes you just have to wait these things out. I got the body done and half way down the first sleeve and it was still Meh! to me so I put it down and did another short project (probably a pair of socks…or two) and then worked a bit on the never ending sock yarn King sized bed coverlet (yes I am crazy) and then Christmas came and there was knitting for that and then traveling which means socks. All that time the sweater sat, in plain sight, waiting to be taken up again. Every time I looked at it my heart went Meh!

What I really mean to say is that this sweater isn’t in my UFO bin, it is in my NGFO bin. Never Going to Finish Object. It still says Meh! to me so I am going to frog it back and put the yarn back in the stash for a bit. I still think it wants to be just a plain raglan cardigan but just not yet.

4.

And speaking of sweaters…….This came today.

You see, in May our niece is getting married, in Sedona. Even though it will be May the evenings are chilly and we will be outside a lot partying with family around the fire pit and dancing under the stars. We are so excited for this wedding and I love my niece even more than fresh baked bread so I thought I should have a sweater that was made just for this occasion.

Besides, who could resist a yarn with the name “Toad”. I have told myself that I can cast on the sweater when I get that darn second Prikkedilla sock done. HHBL is going out of town this afternoon and I can see an “Inspector Lewis” marathon in my future with the second sock prominently featured.

I really want to cast on that sweater.

5.

When others in the office are on the phone, I can’t concentrate on what I am doing. We have an “open office” environment. When I put in my earbuds and my hair is down……..

This is just so that Chris and Jordan don’t scare the everlovin’ poopee out of me anymore.

6.

Yesterday I might have gotten out the ice cream maker and produced something that tastes pretty darn close to a Wendy’s Frosty. Oh my stars and garters and all the saints in heaven this stuff is good.

Pilot Man sent me the recipe. He had kindly put it through it’s taste testing and said it was good.

He didn’t lie.

7.
Instagram. Because that is what the iPhone is for, right?