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

COLD!

I’d like to thank whichever poor snowed in person who has been concentrating on sending their snow here. It worked. We got snow yesterday and last night. It started when I got up on Sunday morning to walk the dogs. It was still dark out, but I could hear the wind. Then when it had gotten a bit lighter, I looked out the window and Lo! It was white. Blizzard type white. Not that we really had a blizzard, but it looked a bit like it with the wind. Fortunately where I take the dogs for their walks, there is always less wind and we had a fairly nice early morning jaunt. We even got a nice walk in at noon because, although it had stopped snowing, it was still raining and people were still waiting for it to stop. Just as I got back to the car, the dog owners who realized that they could no longer force Fluffy to tie a knot in it were starting to go. I love it when it rains on Sunday. Keeps the crowds down and we get the place to ourselves.

Up where I live it continued to snow a little all day, but it didn’t really stick. Then last night, it started up again and by this morning there were several inches of very compact wet snow on my car. It was nice, aside from having to dig at 6am. It will all have melted by tomorrow, but still, it was nice to have it cold again. I’m also hopeful that the continuing cold will mean that we’re going to have a relatively cool summer. In 2003, the summer from Hell, it had already warmed up by March and never got cold again. I live in hope that this will never be repeated. I should have waited for an ice age to be born.

There is, of course, an added benefit to the cold: it makes knitting sweaters, especially ones all knit in one piece, much more comfortable. I’m down to the hem on the Eris and it’s all getting a little heavy and warm. I would not want to have to do this in summer. I’m still liking the sweater, although I wish there were a little more cabling to break up the monotony of the stockinet stitch and the wraps. It seems like it’s never ending. Still, it does make it all go a little faster.

I’ve also CO the Journey Cable Socks (see list of things to knit on right hand side of screen for the link) and these are just fun. It’s simple enough to be a relatively easy knit, but there is enough cabling to keep you interested. Add to that that the recipient will love them and they really are a great pair of socks to knit up. I foresee the knitting of several pair of these.

Unfortunately, this means that I have a pair of plain phone socks languishing on the needles. I really should continue with them, but I’m afraid I won’t until the Eris is finished. Poor phone socks. I used to love doing them because they were easy and now they’re boring. Cast away for more interesting knits before they ever even really get started. It’s terrible what we do to our old friends sometimes.