Through the fog...

Allergy fog, that is. Ugh. Either I can't think straight when my head is all stuffy or I feel drowsy and out of it on allergy meds. This allergy season is brutal. You can see the stuff flying through the air. Our porch had a lovely yellowish blanket on it until Dwight washed it off last week. I think it's already covered again.

I have gotten a few things done since my last post. These Marie Antoinette socks were finished earlier this month, but have waited a long time to be photographed. Even then, I tried to dash outside quickly to avoid the pollen. Most of the pictures of me wearing the socks turned out blurry. :-( I'll try to get better shots of the sock on my foot. These socks were a lot of fun to make. I've put them off for a while because I thought they were too complicated. The top edge is knit first in one strip, you sew it into a circle, and then pick up stitches to work the sock down to the toe. The directions are very clear (as always with Anne's patterns). The socks were surprisingly fast to knit.

The yarn is a new one to me. It feels a little rough, but softened up after a wash. The yarn feels on the thicker side of most fingering weight sock yarns. The semi-solid colors are perfect for patterns like this one.

Details:
Pattern: Marie Antoinette by Knitspot (Anne Hanson)
Yarn: Araucania Ranco color 103 (used 70gms)
Needles: size 1 (2.25) Knit Picks Harmony dpns for the top edge and Classic Circulars for the rest
Start: May 3, 2008
Finish: May 8, 2008

I've also finished two lace scarves and I'm working on another one. For one of the scarves, I found a great stitch pattern that I liked. I drew it in excel, mirrored it, flipped it, and it came out great! I plan on trying to write that one up as a pattern. I've known how to make a chart in excel, but I've now figured out how to get the charts out while still looking decent.

I've joined the Summer of Socks again. It's going to be different than last year. I'm not going to try to knit the most socks. Instead, I'm trying to make a few new patterns. I've searched through my stitch dictionaries and I think that I have a few stitch patterns that would look great on socks.

I've also joined the 52 Pair Plunge. I saw that last year and didn't think that I would want to knit that many in one year. I did knit more than that last year. I've gathered together most of the sock patterns that I want to try into one binder. Between this and Summer of Socks, there should be a lot of sock knitting this summer.