After a highly productive January, I finally, late in the month, have my first February FO to show! I kept reminding myself that its about the process, not the product, but I do have to say I am greatly relieved to be done with my Anna socks... though the Knitpicks Gloss is a wonderful, yummy blend of merino and silk, and the pattern is an easy, but eyecatching, eyelet rib that I will undoubtedly use again sometime, it will be a long time (like, never!) before I make another pair of black socks!! My eyes are tired just looking at them, but they really are pretty fab. I know I will love wearing them this spring with a gauzy black skirt and hand-knit tank top.
Black is not easy to photograph, either. I put the finished socks on my sock blockers, then took them out into the sun in the garden to snap a photo. They are sitting atop the newly-built and planted asparagus bed, which has a sheet of plexiglas warming up the earth (that DH is really a gem when it comes to building raised beds).
I was so excited to be done with black, that I spent the rest of the afternoon casting on not one, but TWO colorful pairs of socks:
Here at the home workshop, you will see my still life tribute to sock knitters everywhere, and Susan Lawrence in particular. In the background we find my handy-dandy sock kit bag (which is really a make-up kit that zips completely closed and has a nifty handle and lots of interior pockets) next to my mug of Earl Grey tea and my lucky bamboo (there's a photo of the bamboo below). The just-finished socks on their sock blockers are also in the background, as well as a tin of beaded stitch markers.
Lying atop the multitude of sock patterns I downloaded a few weeks ago while too sick to actually knit are DPs and Cascade Superwash 220, at the beginning of becoming Susan's Socks in Seriatum (they will be getting a 'real' name next week, as soon as one of us bloggers guesses it right). At the left is the beautiful STF "Highway 30" colorway I got as a birthday gift back last fall from Margene, with the first row cast onto my two circs, on its way to becoming Susan's Mock Croc socks, the pattern for which you can download free at Knitpicks (do I sound like an infomercial? Not really my intention, I swear).
How did this particular combination win out when I have these yarns all clamoring to be made into socks as well?
To the left, we have Trekking in a lovely brown combo, but too close to black to warrant attention anytime soon, and another STR colorway, "Mist", as well as the wonderful and springlike yarn my sock kit pal, Kat, sent me last summer (which really wants to be a pair of Feather and Fan socks, though I might have to make those toe-up to get the right appearance)... along with some Patons Classic Wool that might well become another worsted-weight pair of boot socks. These yarns have been sitting out, calling to me like sirens for the past few weeks as I tried to hurry up and finish my black socks and let color into my (knitting) life. Highway 30 won out, because I kept envisioning the subtleties of shading that it would make when made up into the fairly easy-to-knit, yet dramatic crocodile skin appearance of the Mock Crocs... I am hoping that the love of color and the wonderful STR yarn will fly through my fingers a bit faster than black did:). And of course I was influenced by winding all that red yarn for Valentine's Day in my choice for my worsted weight socks.
Lastly, I wanted to share some of the Valentine love that came into our lives this week... I found this darling lucky bamboo plant, already trained into and entwined heart shape, at a local nursery last Sunday and had to get it for DH! An auspicious Happy Chinese New Year to everyone.
