It's hard to know what to blog when I'm trying to keep the only thing I'm actively knitting on a surprise. I could let that tempt me into casting on something bloggable, but I'm trying to be monogamous because the craft-along project I'm working on has a deadline, and I'm probably only 10% into what I ultimately want to do. And I have about a month, during which I will be on vacation, which means, while I'll certainly bring the project along, I can't count on having much knitting time. Which I suppose should inspire me to stop putzing around on the computer and start working!

I'm still here...

Re-reading Harry Potter 4, 5 and 6 and then of course number 7 (and yes, I did re-read it too, as soon as I finished it the first time), and then absorbing it all, distracted me somewhat. But I was knitting while I read, and here are those Trekking socks finished! I have a surprisingly large amount of yarn left over, so this colorway might pop up again.

I promised to update with whatever I decided to cast on next yesterday, so here it is:

Yep, Trekking! I think I'm going to do another plain stockinette sock, although I might do a heel flap this time.

I've also been knitting this

and knitting a laceweight that fine on size 10 needles is not as easy as I thought it would be. It's like trying to knit cobwebs. Here it is side by side with the Trekking for comparison

I also need to get moving on a project I'm doing for an Anne of Green Gables craftalong, but I won't be posting about that here until it's all done - I like the element of secrecy!

Here's a pic of them on (I had help! It turns out to be so much easier that way!). They're so soft and squishy - really comfortable.

As Promised!

I finished the cuff late last night and bound off this morning before my eye appointment (I'm getting new glasses! The ones I'm wearing are around 8 years old - I can't remember exactly, it might even be 9).
I'm away from home, housesitting, which means I'm very limited in what I cast on next - I can only choose from what I brought with me. Update tomorrow!

Why I love sportweight sock yarn

This is two days of knitting (Tuesday and Thursday - Wednesday I didn't get to it). I've turned the heel on both socks. It may look familiar, unfortunately.
This time there are no pooling issues, and hopefully will be no fit issues (if there is one it'll be bagginess). I'm using beaded rib, which isn't my favorite for this yarn but if it means I don't get crazy pooling I'll deal. I'm hoping to have an FO post up by Saturday!

One more pair done

The Geranium socks are done! And here they are:

I really wanted a picot edge at the cuff, but after some googling and thought I decided against the kind where you do a row of yarnovers and then keep knitting a stockinette bit that gets turned inside the sock and sewn down to the inside edge - I don't yet want picots that badly, i.e. I'm too lazy. I tried Knitty's picot tutorial but found it was rolling. So I ended up doing 3-4 rows or so of 1x1 rib and using a sewn bind-off as usual. The very tiny bit of ribbing is also cute - not quite as cute as picots, but I like it too.

I ended up frogging that Fleece Artist sock - once I got up close to my heel, it was too tight. I keep forgetting that I should make them a little *too* big down by the toe in order to end up with a sock that fits exactly how I want. Oh well. I've set it aside for now because that failure killed my motivation for working with it for the moment.

So now I get to go shopping (in my own stash, of course) for my next project. Excitement!

In the knit-blog tradition of doing things with strawberries, taking their picture and then blogging about it, here's what I was doing last weekend:

I was in Connecticut visiting my sister, and we went to a u-pick farm and picked a ton of luscious strawberries (plus some barely ripe raspberries and more summer squash than we knew what to do with - I just finished eating it yesterday). She made gluten-free strawberry shortcake out of it but I think I forgot to take a picture of that.

No way this weekend is going to be as fun. But I am going to make good old-fashioned all-American hamburgers (and fries and macaroni salad) for some guests from Far Far Away, who may have never had any ever, tomorrow - if I remember I'll try to take a picture.

I really wanted to post today, but I don't have much in the way of knitting progress (I picked up the Geranium socks and have been halfheartedly knitting along because I realized there are 10 days left of the Lime and Violet Sock Marathon and I could get another pair in if I work on them instead of the single Fleece Artist sock) mostly because of this:

I've dived, maybe a little obsessively, into sewing! I got a sewing machine at the Black Friday sales back in November, but haven't found the time to do much with it until now. So far I've made a skirt and top (not pictured; maybe I can get Sweetie to help me with that), and am in the middle of two bags. I'm stalled waiting for an answer to a question about bias tape (I think my go-to sewing question answerers are going to kill me if I call them AGAIN, so I resorted to online forums. The downside of which is that I have to wait until someone responds) so I took a blogging break which is soon to become a knitting break. Then maybe a cleaning-the-house break!

I finished something!

And I'm inordinately psyched about it! Sweetie's New Blue socks are done:

They're a little short for his taste but that was all the yarn there was. After a short discussion of how nice the yarn was and how much I liked it, and how he insisted that *he* liked it, and how I unselfishly decided to knit it for him instead of myself, I think we have an understanding about the shortness of the socks. (That said, I do have another skein in the "Congo" colorway - softly variegated muted green - that will be for myself, and when I knit it up I think I'll do contrast toes and heels because ankle socks drive me nuts.)

The Fleece Artist non-pooling stockinette sock is moving along slowly, and I'm not sure I've picked up the Geranium socks at all since my last post. I'm just not motivated to knit red - I'm sure as soon as Project Spectrum switches to orange/purple/brown I'll be nuts about red. Right now I'm eyeing a green and yellow Trekking stripe as my next pair...