By rumour, today is Mother’s Day. We had absolutely nothing scheduled. Once the basic errands were finished (getting some groceries in the house) the rest of the day was mine to sit and play. The cheese cake was baked by the eldest just for me. The dog just decided to stay with me in case I was willing to share my food [not].

Sockapalooza4

If you think these socks are for you – you might be right. But then again, with so many of us involved, the odds are not high. I don’t know if my “victim” has ever been here to look. Not posting would take a lot of fun out of the process.

After working out as much as I wanted with my sample yarn – I discovered the following: using 2,0 mm needles made too stiff a fabric with a gauge around 4 sitches per cm. Plus if I want to stay with this gauge, I will have to expand the number of stitches. Hitting the stash, I found a skein of J-Knits in colorway Newbury Port. which I had purchased from theYarnGrove.. The best I can describe it is as a semi-solid falling between rose and lilac. I have been to my pal’s blog. She has pink, she has purple, she has red socks on the pages. I think this color is going to work out better than my previous choice.

Starting on 2,25 mm needles, I went with a long tail cast on and knit a cuff in twisted rib that I think is long enough. It measures 4 cm. Which led me to a bit of research and a curiosity – how long a cuff is long enough? Is it a standard length, which seems to be common for most German patterns, or is it more reasonable to be proprotional either to the length or the pattern? I have noticed that I seem to knit about the same length cuff, and it is related to how much cuff is needed to hold up the sock. And that means that it may very with the receipient. What do you think?

After 13 rounds the patterns are coming clear. I am quite pleased with how well the colour, stitch definition and pattern combination came together. The front and the back. I can see right now that this is not mindless knitting. The side panel repeats are only four rows long, but the back pattern is 13 and the front is 15 for the center and 8 for the side. Once I am completely done, I should properly write out this pattern in case anyone else is interested. Working from xeroxed sheets cut and taped together is fun [I have some shore front property in the desert].

Knitting

The second grasshopper is progressing. It is my break knitting when my eyes are too crossed from the Trautenfels Tulip. Going toe up again (my consession to the pattern) I even decided to do the mesh stitch. We will not talk about the one stitch that jumped off the needle and made a break for freedom down four rows before I could blink. Rather than reknit, I picked it up as best I could and kept on going. Since the other sock became a stitch sampler, one irregular hole in the mesh is not going to bother me.

Audio, Visual, etc

The winner of the Eurovsion was Marija from Serbia. And if you have any interest in listening – all the songs can be heard over the internet by following the links to each of the participants pages and hitting audio or video.

-Holly
going back to her knitting.