"I could have been at a barbecue!"

Happy day after the 4th of July! I hope everyone had a very safe and entertaining holiday. I didn't make it to see any fireworks this year. I did not want to deal with downtown Pittsburgh traffic and trying to catch buses in the dark in a big crowd. I was hoping to be able to see some from the apartment but I took a pretty nasty fall on my run and so spent the night with my ankle iced and elevated.

I did get some significant knitting done, however. I blocked the Traveling Taryn Shawl that I finished last weekend, so it is all set and ready to go in the mail tomorrow. I also finished . . . drum roll please . . . the Wendy Socks!

These are my first fully patterned socks from Wendy Johnson's first book, Socks from the Toe-Up, and are knit in Wendy Happy, a sock yarn that incorporates bamboo. The colorways from this line are named after constellations and this particular blue is called Pises. And so the entire time I was knitting them all I could think about was Wendy from Peter Pan, thus the name Wendy Socks (actual pattern is called On-Hold Socks).

My only complaint with the pattern is that she tells you to knit as many "repeats" of the chart as are needed to get three inches before the heel but then you continue knitting the top of the foot as you knit the gusset before the heel increase. Maybe a more experienced knitter would have known that they would continue knitting in pattern as they moved up the sock, but I didn't, so the socks are a tiny bit too big. But other than this I highly recommend the pattern. I knit it with my customary two inch leg. I know most people knit their socks longer, but I can't have a sock go that far up my leg and not roll it down anyway. Maybe that just comes from my years wearing uniforms in school. Like my aversion to any and all polo shirts.

I have a feeling I'll be getting a lot of wear out of these over the next few weeks as I'm confined to sneakers for better ankle support. Guess this means I should start on another pair.