Rats

I recently bought some sock yarn (oh quelle surprise!). It’s very pretty sock yarn of nice soft colours, mostly beiges and yellows with some light blue mixed in. I was certain this yarn was going to make beautiful socks, as had the same yarn in a different colour. It looked pretty and perfect and was going to make a great Christmas gift for my unrelated cousin/aunt, don’t ask, it’s difficult.

See? Doesn't it look purty?

So I found a pattern, got out the yarn and started knitting. Oh the shock. Oh the disappointment. I think I can say that this yarn is without a doubt some of the ugliest yarn I’ve ever purchased. The yellows are banana yellow, the blues a minty colour and the beiges are brown and altogether, they look like someone ate a banana split with blue sprinkles and then, well, didn’t keep it down. I am so disappointed. However, the very small optimist in me (you know, the one that makes Tom Thumb look like Hagrid?) says that maybe it will be ok in another pattern, one with more stockinet stitch in it. This particular pattern has a lot of purl stitch, so maybe with something else it will be much, much better. I hope so since I optimistically bought 2 skeins of it. The optimist in me just shrank to microscopic proportions. Oh well, live and learn.

In other news, thanks to Mary Lou over at the Yarnerina’s, I might actually be able to vote. OK, she didn’t actually make that happen, but she did kind of nudge me to take another look at the voting regulations. To my surprise, either I was fed inaccurate information or things have changed in the last 15 years and I should be able to vote! I’ve sent in what I think is the proper form and am hoping it works. It would be nice to be able to vote, especially as it would be the first time in 16 year. I’ve only ever voted in one presidential election, which the first after my 18th and the last before I moved overseas. I did try and vote in the one they told me I would still be eligible for, but they failed to send me my ballot and the embassy was very unhelpful. I did eventually get the ballot…several days after the president was sworn in. So basically, I’m very excited that I might actually get to vote. I’ve now got a lot of reading to do before the 4th.

Knitting, oh yes, that little thing. It’s very unexciting. I’ve been going through a handwamer phase and these are the results thus far:

Ionian

Ravenclaw

Evangeline

These are two hats I did for down and out people in Canada. They'll be going off to Zoom soon just as soon as I get one or two more things done to put in the package.

And finally, my latest pair of Journey Cables which I LOVE. I love the yarn, I love the pattern, I love the finished product and I love the person who's getting them. The perfect project.

Oh, and because I love fall, a gratuitous picture of the yard where I live

The Knitting Gods Are Cruel. Very Cruel.

Remember the Iain sweater from yesterday's post that literally screamed Made for Theblacksheep? Apparently, it's only there to taunt me. I just got an e-mail from the vendor saying that the designer doesn't release her patterns electronically so a download or PDF is not available. They do ship internationally, but even I balk at paying that kind of money for a pattern. I do appreciate the work designers put into creating a pattern and I'm quite willing to pay a fair price, but with shipping the price becomes ridiculous. I'll have to forgoe this time. Maybe I'll make up my own pattern someday.

As a consolation, I've been working on a pair of Evangeline Handwarmers (or the Rav link in case that one doesn't work) and discovered that there are things other than hats that provide instant knitting gratification. I love these handwarmers. The pattern is cool, the wool is nice and warm and they knit up really quickly. Now, if I just hadn't been so stupid as to knit one pattern repeat too many on the wrist part, I'd be in butter. Unfortunately I did and now I'm going to have to frog back to before the thumb hole on the second one tonight. On the otherhand, I did say instant gratification and I meant it. It will only take a half hour or so to re-knit correctly, so it's no biggie.