These Are Not the Socks You're Looking For

I think I am worse than a grandmother.

Do grandmother's make people hold their child in such a manner to get "just the right shot" of be-stocking'd feet?

I made these socks for L&L's little girl about 4 times. See, she keeps growing. I finally gave up all hope of making a heel and created tube-socks for the ever growing legs. Yep, they are knee-highs right now, but give or take a week, she'll be using them as anklets.

For all your knitters:
US 2 needles, CO 32 stitches and 2 x 2 ribbing until I thought I'd go blind. Then I made an eye of partridge "back of the heel" but never turned the corner, just kept the ribbing going on the "front" of the sock so that it would maybe stay on the child's foot longer than 5 seconds...until again, I thought I might never finish, and then made a toe.

The yarn? The left overs of my Vesper Sock Yarn in Cantaloupe. Yey bright colors in far-too-grey Seattle!

I do love having a bit of color in my pocket during the dingiest time of the year here.

I use to joke about this and now I am so very much eating many bitters about it...it has been "All Summer In A Day" around these parts for far too long. And when the sun is out and shiny and bright and tempting from the window??? It is still not anywhere near 50 degrees outside.

Andy and I (more Andy than I...my mouth runneth off lately) were pondering how we would walk around in shirtsleeves in Tahoe when it was just touching 50 while here we are still dragging around scarves and pea coats while the hard core PNWers are busting out their shorts...

I think I've acclimated...It has not been 15-28 degrees all winter and now the temps are melting snow like it would a mile up by the lake. So now I am grumpy-mc-cold-pants and NEED to go to to Mexico or Hawai'i or anywhere where I can break a sweat AND catch a sunburn while wearing shorts and a t-shirt...and not my pea coat cuz someone's left the heater on too high as I'm running errands.

And now my break is over...I have to finish some toes tonight so I can maybe get my nerve up to trying a new-to-me heel.

Rough and Tumble I am Not

And yet, how can I be so hard on socks?

Or is it me at all? I don't exactly keep up with any and all knit-boards/groups/lists/what have you. Has there been a big to-do about Fleece Artist sock yarn that I completely missed?

So maybe let me explain where my head is first. Here are the socks I finished back when it was still summer:
Fleece Artist Merino Sock Yarn "kit" in a lot of different colors that don't at all seem so pink in real life purchased at least 2 years ago.

Pattern - Totally made up to fit my stumpy legs: Using US2s I cast on um, was it 80 stitches? Maybe 76, I can't remember...and knit my heart out until I got somewhere near the middle of the leg. Then, instead of shaping I started switching out needles, one row at a time for US1.5s then US 1s. Yep, this kept the stockingette from making my brain ooze out of my ears from boredom. It also made me feel really smart for figuring out that you can carry a heck of alot of DPNs in one of those $.99 toothbrush tubey things.

After all the stitches were picked up and I was going to start decreasing for the gusset I switched back UP to US 2s in the same manner...then down again to do the toes.

These socks are so comfy! But they are not going to last very long at all.

I have worn them twice, TWICE, and my vans have pulled and pilled and "matted" (not quite felted) the heel flap and that bit I'd call my big toe's knuckle if toes had knuckles...you know, where bunions usually develop? Yeah, that bit. (I know I amaze you with all my fancy vocabulary, but you get the picture, eh?)

And yeah, the picture was taken this morning. But no matting to be seen thanks to my favorite as-seen-on-teevee purchase from the 80s! A $5 sweater shaver from Tar-jay. I think I shaved them to within an inch of their lives. This does not please.

I realized that this is my second pair of fleece artists to disappoint me in such a way. The second pair of socks I ever made myself is sitting in my sewing basket awaiting to be darned...A BASEBALL sized hole appeared in one of them after only maybe 6 wearings.

After coming to this realization that maybe this sock yarn and I are not meant to be, I had a huge sigh of relief that I haven't actually made anyone else socks out of this yarn! But then again, I've yet to hear back from anyone with regards to how any of my knitting has held up (or not) with the exception of Andy's "safari" cap (made with Lorna's Laces sock yarn). It's going to see it's fourth winter this year and really doesn't look bad at all. Granted, he's not wearing it on his feet.

I totally understand the whole "socks are meant to be used and worn out and yey I get to make more!" attitude, but dude! They should last more than a couple wearings. I don't have acid oozing out of my feet or anything...I'd think I would have noticed. And before anyone chimes in with the whole "maybe wool and you don't get along" or something similar...the "sunshine" socks I made from the Vesper sock yarn and worn much more often look a whole lot better than the "Dublin Bay"'s I made in fleece artist that might be a bit older, but not worn as often (the lace + windy winters = BAD socks for keeping warm.)

Yet another "live and learn" lesson, I guess.

Where do I begin?

The title might mean a long post, which I will try to avoid...but there's just so much...

Let's start with the fact that I love Andy's camera. I must find a way to steal...I mean BORROW it more often. At least until I find a remedy to my lack of digital means of photography.

Okay, since I got, um ahem, several comments from Aloha & Oreos Jill, let's go there next.
These (yes, I went for "more than one" since you last saw it), are the wooden sock suitcases that I first saw on the Yarn Harlot's page (scroll down a bit).
I dutifully emailed the address she'd first posted but, alas and alack, the email bounced! So I searched high and low and up and around until I tracked down (scroll WAAAAAY down) the latest and most viable email to date: jhd [at] atlanticbb [dot] net (change the words in the brackets to their appropriate symbols please).
So her name is Joan Debolt. She's in Pennsylvania. And for $20 plus shipping, you too can have a wooden sock suitcase. Her hubby cuts them to the length you need. As you can see, I have an 8" and a 7" one, as my 6" needles are really almost 7, and my 7" ones are happy in the 8" tube. Go figure.

Only one cap of the tube comes off. That's why I have the hair tie on the "non-removable" end. Cuz you know I'm the type to try until I wrench my hand...or damage myself in some other silly, but permanent, way. Prevention is the something or other...right?

The wood is not finished. I took a super fine bit of sand paper to one of them, there was a "scratchy" spot. I'm also thinking of coating them with Tung Oil, at least the outside bit, to keep the wood looking nice and prevent any sticky fingerprints, mine or others :).

You can also see that I've progressed on the greenie sock a bit more than the second bootie, eh? I've realized I really really really like US1s over US0s. The sock seems to grow so much faster, and as I stated before, the yarn is much softer. I so took a break. Now that I'm down to toe decreases in the green sock I've gone back to the bootie...I couldn't stand the guilty feeling I got every morning that I packed my bag for work. Poor bootie...so I'm working away on the gusset decreases, today at any rate. Because I'm trying really really hard not to look at this:
In fact I have to wrap the yarn back up because I just want to touch and touch and make a skein and maybe get some needles...Vesper Sock Yarn! Again, from JILL!!! It's my prize for the 10-15-20? week-long Swatch Contest she held. I think I was last place. I never expected to get anything and it's just so awesome! The colors are 10x brighter than what you see above. I'm thinking this will be perfect "dead of Seattle winter" knitting. When the gloom and grey get to me, I'll have CANTALOUPE in bright and soft and squishy colors to make it all seem better.

And see, Jill? I still have the box of Meles there. Though, um, I'm not quite sure how many are left. The package arrived on an UNUSUALLY warm day for these parts...maybe in the high 80s? The metal mailbox may have been a tad bit warmer...right. So the packaged smelled yummy(!) as there was mele soup inside that little box. Happily it was all contained. But when the temperature came down, it um, became, um, one big mele. So I've been chipping away at it little by little, always so very happy when I get a piece of macadamia nut...man I miss Hawai'i like you don't understand in those seconds. You know, before I remember why I needed to leave so very badly.

So much more to share, but I'm stopping here as I need to run those errands I avoided yesterday. Besides, Andy chopped all my hair off and I need to see what it looks like after a good shampooing. No, he's not a hairstylist, he's a computer programmer. Yes, I trusted him to cut my hair. I wanted a trim as I've not had one in about a year. He, um, yeah trimmed it. I was thinking 2-3 inches. As he said, "I thought it was going to be 3 inches, but that's the length your hair wanted to be." So it's just a tad below my shoulder now...about 6 inches worth of hair on the floor of the bathroom. What's funny here is that it really is no biggie. I got over that "long hair" trauma when a college housemate cut my 20" of tresses. I don't think I've had my hair that long since. I think it's that "long hair is for little girls" thing that my family has. They were all a bit shocked and amazed when I did it.

Aack, diarrhea of the fingers...I'm gone. Happy Sunday!