Yarn prize!

Thanks to everyone that posted about the 42 socks. I received my prize package in the mail yesterday. What a wonderful surprise to have it arrive so fast! Here is what was in it:

From the top and then left to right: Fleece Artist Sea Wool in Rainbow and Lime & Violet Kayley-Did, Perchance to Knit in Frozen Grapes, Tausendschoen in Schlangengift, and Woolbearers in Frosted Glass. There are still a few other things coming too. The links take you to the places that donated the yarn. I think that I might have found a few new places to shop. ;-) I have to say thank you to everyone that donated the yarn and to Jessica for arranging the Summer of Socks.

This is what I'm working on now. It's the Dancer's Wrap from Not Just Socks for Kids. The body of the wrap is knit in one piece. You start with the loooong garter stitch tie, increase for the left front, decrease for the armhole, increase for the back, ..., until you get to the other loooong section of garter stitch tie. The tie is cut off from the left side of the picture. I'm using Lana Grossa sock yarn. This yarn is not at all soft. I'm really hoping that it will soften up a bit when I wash it. Thankfully, this is a wrap and E will be wearing a layer underneath it. The colors are really off in this picture too. The red should be a bright candy type red and the darkest color is really a dark brown. There are a few other colors in there, but they're really subtle and you can barely see them. So far, I'm still enjoying this knit. It's not so bad knitting a sweater for E on size 3 needles.

I'm still working on the Star Flower chart. I thought that I would post the chart today, but I just checked it and it's missing something. Yikes! I can't have that.

I love seeing something like this out of our windows. We see deer a lot and then we see turkeys a lot--separately. It's rare that we see them this close together. (Keep in mind that these pictures were taken with a lot of zoom, through a screen, and through a double glass window.)

The end at last and I won!

Here they are, all 42 of them. I won the most socks contest!

I want to send a big thank you to Jessica for hosting the Summer of Socks. My blog reader was Jen. I want to send out a thank you to her too for commenting here and for her entertaining weekly summaries. It has been a lot of fun. I took me out of my sock comfort zone. Previously, I was stuck with toe-up plain stockinette socks with the occasional pattern knit out of Sensational Knitted Socks. During the SOS, I bought my first sock pattern (Thelonious), tried a different construction technique from New Pathways for Sock Knitters, and tried many different patterns from More Sensational Knitted Socks.

A few things of note:

• No, my hands aren't that sore. I'm currently knitting a sweater for my daughter--out of sock weight yarn.
• I couldn't have done it without the help of Dwight. He watched the kids so I could have uninterrupted knitting time in the evening. He even washed dishes a few nights to give me more time.
• I knit during E's homeschooling lessons, especially while she's reading aloud.
• Dwight asked how much this has cost him. I told him I couldn't remember. ;-)
• SOS did push me to knit with some of my older yarns.
• SOS got me to be more comfortable with knitting socks for others. It helps that my Mom's and sister's feet are similar in size to mine. They will be getting a lot of socks this holiday season.
  

I'm off to knit again. It's the Dancer's Wrap from Not Just Socks for Kids. It's easy so far, but the 32 inches of 9 stitch wide garter strip seemed to go on forever.