Lots of Movement--Not Much Progress

First, let's start with some eye candy, since it's Friday, shall we?

And now, we'll move on to knitting news. This is where I'd show you a modeled shot of the Boyfriend Socks and tell you all about them, but since I didn't get a modeled shot yesterday, I'll show you a quick "laying there looking like handknit socks" shot to prove that they really are done,
















and go on to the Summer of Socks update, such as it is, pitiful little progress and all.

Here's my sock-in-progress.

Not much done in the last two weeks, is there? Yeah. Hmm. Let me explain--no, there is too much. Let me sum up*: Poor planning.

It was perfect, or so I thought. (You knew I was going to explain anyway, right?) I signed up for a sock club during the months of June, July, and August, so somebody else would decide on one pair of socks for me to make each month during the summer of socks. Each kit should arrive on or around the 15th, so it seemed like a shoe-in (so to speak...) for the first pair of SOS socks. What could go wrong? Me. That's what.

Apparently, I've forgotten that I'm not so good at having other people pick things out for me. I got the kit the day before the -along started, and although the yarn is a nice Tofutsies, and the pattern looks interesting, the colorway is really not me. Don't get me wrong--I will knit these socks, and the whole concept of knitting a pattern you might not have chosen in yarn you wouldn't have chosen is part of the appeal of a sock club. They just weren't right for the first pair. And I determined this the day before the -along. With no back-up plan.

So, I had a "brilliant" idea for my first pair of "Summer of Socks" socks. Managed to find the yarn I needed, and started playing with charts. I still want to do those socks, but it was going to take too long to get it all figured out, and I needed to cast on IMMEDIATELY. It just so happens that in procuring the yarn for the more ambitious project, I also bought (ahem, among a couple of other items) some Panda Cotton in the most gorgeous "Misty Greens". This stuff is beautiful, and it's bamboo, cotton, and elastic nylon. It feels very nice--especially knit up, and it just seemed so darned summery that I needed to cast on immediately. Without knowing what I was knitting.

I wasn't sure how much sock I could get out of the 170 yard ball, and one of my goals was to do a toe-up sock. I had just seen Ann Budd's article about toe-up socks in the Summer '07 IK, so I cast on. But it was too loose. So I tried again. And again... Finally leading up to:

Discovery #1: For me, it is best to do the Eastern cast-on on needles about two sizes smaller than the needles I'm knitting with. I'm using 2s for the socks, so a cast-on using 0s worked well for me.

I moved on to the foot. (We're ignoring the whole "toe incident" where I skipped a section of instructions twice, saying to myself "if I were creating this pattern, I'd have decreased every round at first so the toe wasn't so dang pointed, but Ann Budd knows more about knitting than I do, so... oh look--Ann Budd says decrease every round at first. $#@!" ...and I frogged. Again.) So, ignoring toe incident, we move onto the foot. I thought a lacy rib would look nice, so I got out the stitch dictionary, found a stitch I almost liked, modified it and tried it. And hated it. And frogged again, leading to:

Discovery #2: I cannot just "design on the fly"--without swatching. There's actually no proof that I can design "off the fly", with copious swatching, but I digress.

-and-

Discovery #3: The knitting gods aren't crazy about my starting a new sock when I haven't quite finished the last bit from a pair that have been on my needles for almost a year. I had to finish the Boyfriend Socks to appease the knitting gods before moving on to my SOS socks.

As soon as the Boyfriend Socks were done, I picked this baby up again. Since the yarn got more and more unravelled every time I frogged (and, truth be known, so did I), I used my fall-back, tried and true, 2x2 rib.

So, not much progress, but a whole lot of frogging and restarting. Also, I may have been a little distracted by Ravelry. And the whole Mystery Stole 3 thing.

Oh yeah--there's also that pesky little "work" thing.

A note of caution to anyone considering the Panda Cotton. I love this yarn--truly love it--BUT it is very splitty. And it becomes increasingly so with each frogging. (I got to the point where I was just knitting with the plies held together.) Just something to think about.


Have a great weekend!

*Anybody out there get the reference? No prize, but I'm curious to know if I'm the only one who gets me...