Second First Sock Complete!

Here is the newly made second first sock and what's left of the unraveled first first sock. Had I been thinking clearly last night, I'd have taken a photo of the two first socks before I unraveled the one that is too short in the leg. The sock in progress will have a red heel and an orange toe, so will essentially be the "opposite" sock of this one.

I believe I will have sufficient yarn left to make a third sock to go with the first two. The third sock of the pair will be a helix-striped sock with one-row stripes for an even less identical pair of socks on my sister's feet. (She already buys the mismatched socks that come in sets of threes, so this will make sense to her and won't bug her a bit.)

This weekend should yield quite a bit of knitting time. I feel myself coming down with either a cold or an influenza-like illness today. If I develop a fever in the next day or two, I'll end up stuck at home for 7 days or until my symptoms resolve. That makes for lots of knitting time, assuming I'm not too miserable feelign to knit. (I'd really rather just go to work, but given that I'm the person who sends out the public health guidance about isolating sick people at home for a week, it would be rather inappropriate for me to blow off the recommendations and work while ill.)

Now for the Important Question....
What do I knit next? Start another pair of socks for me? Finish Errold's Grove? Start a new shawl? Start a completely different project? Finish spinning up the merino/tencel roving from months ago? Decision, decisions....

Travel Knitting Redux....

I headed north this past week for my sister's graduation from nursing school. I had her try on the first of the striped socks and, as I feared, the leg was too short. I did, however, get most of the second first sock knit with a longer leg, though I just realized (now that I'm three hours away and on my way home) that I failed to have her try on the new first sock to verify the leg length is good. Sis is thinking that to lengthen the first sock that all I will need to do is add on to the top of the leg. That would be true if this was a toe-up sock, but it's not and I wouldn't be happy with the sock if I just tacked on an extra couple of stripes. I'm perfectly fine ripping out the entire sock and re-doing it right. But then, you knew I was crazy.

Nearly all the progress made on the second first sock came while driving my Grandmother back to Iowa. Or rather, while sis drove and I knitted in the front seat. Grandma sat in the middle row, while the niece and nephew sat in the back row and watched DVDs. Niece is enthralled with my knitting (which she sometimes calls "sewing") and likes to hold the ball of yarn while she watches me. Perhaps I'll get her some needles and yarn for Christmas. She's just about to turn 6 years old. She could manage a garter stitch potholder/project, I think.

Travel Yarn Buying....
You may or may not remember that when Sis visited Nashville a few months back that she became enamored of the February Lady Sweater. We made a foray over to the Fine Line Creative Arts Center in St. Charles. I figured we might at least settle on a yarn color, if not actually find the yarn itself. We very nearly actually got the yarn, except they were a couple balls short. Sis has chosen Brown Sheep Naturespun in Plumberry.

While we were at it, Sis bought a pair of earrings that a student in a lampwork class made and I picked up three skeins of handpainted sock yarn, plus a skein of lace yarn with a label entirely printed in Chinese. I was only going to buy two skeins of sockyarn but when I asked Sis to help me decide between two particular colors, she said she'd buy one of them for me and then I wouldn't have to choose at all. Gotta love a sister who not only wears, but also requests hand knit items *AND* enables fiber purchases. I'll post pictures in the next few days.

Travel Knitting Report...

I knit exactly one round on the travel sock. While killing time before my poster presentation. That's it. That is all the knitting I got done.

Now that I'm back home, I'm looking at a long weekend with very little work that I have to do. I have decided that I'm going to throw in some DVDs and knit myself silly. I have some socks to finish by Thursday and I'm only to the heel on the first one!!

Travel Knitting!

I've decided that the Eastery/Spring-y colored yarn will become Monkey Socks. I was tempted by the Spring Forward pattern too, but Boy thought the texture of the Spring Forward pattern would get lost in the variegated color of the yarn.

Coincidentally, I have decided that when I make Sis and I the Crabby McHappypants socks that they will also be Monkey Socks.

As the backup knitting project (in case I get to a stuck spot or something bad happens), I'm taking the striped socks for my sister too. They'll go in my suitcase.

Tomorrow morning I head to the airport. I should get a couple of hours of knitting in between the airport and the plane. The meeting starts tomorrow evening with the keynote speech and a wine/cheese reception that is, oddly enough, sponsored by Kraft. I wonder if it will actually be Kraft cheese that is served or if it will be just paid for by Kraft. The technical sessions start bright and early at 8am Monday. The meeting ends Wednesday at 5pm and I fly back that night. That will be a looooong day. Of course, that's also the day of my presentation. On the other hand, with travel on Sunday and a couple of long days, I will have put in a full work week by the time I get back to my house on Wednesday. After a conference call on Thursday morning and turning in my timesheet, I'll have to flex off the rest of the week according to company policy. (We're not allowed to accrue overtime or comp time.)

Travel Knitting Time Coming Soon

I'll be travelling part of each of the next two weeks. That means I get to knit on planes! and knit in the car when other people drive! Too bad I can't knit while I drive as I'll have two 7+ hour drives.

For travel knitting, I will be good and take my sister's striped socks. Errold's Grove is too big to travel well. I don't want to risk snagging it on something or dropping any stitches. Part of me really wants to start a new pair of socks. Like either another pair of Fawkes or maybe a pair of Monkey Socks or Pomatamous. I haven't had a new pair of socks for me in ages a month or two. *sighs*

The only down side to my sister's socks is that they're striped, so I have two active balls of yarn, instead of one smallish ball per sock. Maybe I'll have a plane-knitting sock for me and hotel-knitting sock for her. Then I wouldn't have to worry about accidentally yanking a ball of yarn out of my backpack and having it roll to the back or front of the plane, tangling up everybody's feet and leading to a mid-air yarn disaster.

Ok. That's it then. I'm knitting myself some new socks. I think I'll pick a cotton/wool blend and see about some pattern that reminds me of spring/summer weather.

Update: Just snagged a ball of OnLine Supersocke 100 in color 788. This is a self-striping yarn in spring/Easter-y shades of pink, purple, gree, yellow and blue. Now I just need to pick a pattern....I think something with a wee bit of lace perhaps. Any ideas or suggestions?