FO: Mom Socks

One of the things I love about visiting home is getting to photograph knitwear around flowers.  Over the years my parents have worked hard to cultivate a yard that is full of fun photograph opportunities (like making my sister pretend to be an elf on Christmas).  It is still rather chilly here, but there is definitely spring in the air, so what better way to photograph obnoxiously bright pink socks then next to a box of pansies?

These socks have been almost a year in the making.  My mom bought the skein of Wendy Happy last May for me to knit for her and it literally took earlier this week for me to finish and block them.  The poor yarn has had many false starts and missteps, but I finally decided to forgo patterning and knit a fun pair of blinding ankle socks.

I knit these toe-up using Judy's Magic Cast-On and a short row heel.  These are the socks that officially made me a short-row toe fan.  The toes just turned out too pointy and I don't really like the look of the increases.  But Mom loves them and that's really all that matters.

I'm especially partial to this heel because the striping worked out perfectly.  Sadly not to be replicated in the second sock but it was still cool!

It's Randomly Sunday Again

1.  It's November.  Any university student will tell you that it is one of the most stressful months of the entire year.  I think this is the most stressful November on record.

2.  Because of the fact that it's crazy stress-inducing November I've been especially bad about posting, replying to comments, and emailing people.  If I owe you some form of contact, don't worry, I haven't forgotten.

3.  Something I tend to do when I am very stressed out is shift my mental focus to obsess over something non-scholastic when I'm not working on school.  When I was in high school it was Star Wars, and lately it's been Doctor Who.  I used a birthday gift to Amazon to pre-order series 5.  It finally arrived last week.

4.  I love Matt Smith

5.  I finally cast on the other sock for my mom.  Should be done sometime next summer.

I took this photo of the first sock a few weeks ago.  It is modeled on the foot of my friends' two year old daughter.

6.  I've also been working on Christmas presents, because of course I am insane enough to decide to knit presents again this year.  And, wouldn't you know it, I'm almost out of yarn on one. Not quite sure what I'm going to do.

7.  I love Matt Smith.

8.  Chris visited this weekend.  We went shopping yesterday (or rather, I went shopping and he tagged along) and found this:

It's a set of Star Wars baking supplies!  So of course I bought the apron

And maybe one set of cookie cutters?

9.  There is no Sherlock on tonight.  Makes me very sad.  If you have yet to check it out and you live in the US, go to pbs.com and check out the Masterpiece Mystery episodes where they aired the three episodes that make up series 1.

10.  Did I mention I love Matt Smith?

WIP Wednesday: Something New

It's WIP Wednesday again and oh my gosh, Faith has something new to talk about! Yes, thanks to the finishing of the Featherweight Cardi, I now have moved on to other languishing wips.

First up, my mom's socks. This is the yarn that she picked out back in May for a pair of socks. The socks I tried to knit all summer and just kept screwing up. Yeah, those socks. I recast them on (again) after I finished the Fairytale Princess Shawl in DC making them super basic toe-up socks. And as you know, super basic toe-up socks, while pretty, can be very boooooring. So I often get distracted by other shiny projects.

But they returned to the top of the project pile in Austin as good plane knitting. And boy were they ever. I have to say that the colors looked rather puke-ish when I was knitting top down, but toe-up they are making these really pretty zig-zag sections of pink and red. The stewardess on the plane loved them (actually what she said was, "oh that's cool. Those aren't even knitting needles, are they. . . . They are? But they're so small!), so I hope Mom will too when I finally finish them.

Our fall break here was also this week, so I took some much needed time to rest from school work and travel and just do some knitting. I've had the yarn and really awesome buttons to make the Shawl Collared Cowl ever since the pattern came out, but I never got around to buying the pattern. Now I'm really glad I waited. Alana recently redid all of her patterns this summer in this new theme -- scrapbook pages! So the pdf I downloaded was just as pretty and personal as the actual print pattern.

I'm loving this pattern, and so is Mr. Irish Bear. I'm almost done with the middle section and will be decreasing soon. Mr. Irish Bear thinks that I should just stop here and turn the other skein of Knit Picks Decadence (sadly discontinued but oh so soft in its bulky alpaca goodness) into a blanket for him.

And since we're speaking of works in progress, let me give you a little update on a project I like to call Birthday Week! Last night a package from my sister arrived containing some items that we're swapping and my birthday present. Eva makes some really awesome jewelry, so while I was home we worked out a jewelry to knitting ratio. She's getting a cowl and beret and I got this gorgeous jewelry set that she designed to go with the Featherwieght (I actually gave her part of the yarn so that she could match the red).

Ok, maybe that's not the best shot of the jewelry, but I promised her a picture of me wearing it. Let me try again. Oh, and that creepy face on my mirror? Yeah, she freehanded that during a test.

Aaaaaaand it's not letting me rotate the picture. But I'm work so that's the best you get.

Matching bracelet. Yes, that's a C3PO head on the end. Because it's awesome. And you're getting a sneak peak at the Featherweight which you will hear more about after I have my photographer (Chris) here to help me.

And my actual birthday present. A new giant gaudy beaded ring. Isn't it gorgeous?