What is it about orange?

I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to citrusy colors lately, but I'm crazy about this Fleece Artist (Autumn). No pooling, no striping, just a subtle play of pretty colors. Yay!

Soon it'll be time to cast on some socks for someone else; on my list I've got my mother-in-law, Zeliha Abla #1, and Zeliha Abla #2 (abla means older sister, a common form of address for women older than you, but not so much older you can call them "auntie"). Zeliha Abla #1 is probably going to come first, just because I know which yarn I'm going to use for her:

Her kids say she likes blue, on the lighter side. I think it's going to be perfect...inshallah!

Actually, I've already frogged the new sock - I made it too wide, and then it was pooling badly. Which means when I do restart it (um, I've cast on two completely different new socks since then) I'll have to do a short-row heel and not a heel flap - if I don't want the pooling, that is. And I've discovered that heel flaps fit me much, much better. Hmm, I wonder if this could be a sign that I might want to knit this yarn up for *gasp* someone else? I recently decided to do just that, and have two wonderful women in mind, and I think one of them would like this yarn. It might be fate...

The Happy Orange Socks are blocking! I finished them late, so I'm going to wait for better lighting tomorrow before posting a picture (hopefully... assuming I get home while there's still light).

Sweetie's birthday was yesterday, and we had a nice dinner at Dervish, yum. At one point Sweetie left me alone at the table, and I had a brief inner conflict about whether or not it was appropriate to pull out my knitting in a fancy restaurant... especially when I was on the cuff and so close to being finished. At first I was intimidated, but finally decided that if knitting in public is gauche, I don't want to be right, and pulled it out. (There was no visible reaction, unlike once in a less fancy Turkish restaurant when I got an eyeroll from a girl dressed like Paris Hilton, which I thought was rich!) None of the fancy people there who know my husband (apparently we just missed a chance to meet Emine Erdogan , and I am so sorry we didn't. If you ever thought a big deal was being made over Hillary's hair, then you should see the press over Ms Erdogan's headscarf. She's banned from attending almost all government functions because of it) seemed to notice.

I cast on for a new sock! I'll try to post that tomorrow as well.

Baby Love

Either babies love yarn, or I found a little knitter. This is what happened to my Trekking after about 1 minute with the seven-month-old sitting on my lap:

(Sorry for the poor lighting.) She alternately waved the yarn around maniacally as she thrashed her whole body and shrieked "Bah! Bah!" and tried to stuff it in her mouth - good thing Trekking is superwash. (I'm sure at least some of us would be tempted to do one of the two with prize stash members if it were more socially acceptable.) When her aunt took the yarn away she freaked out, but I substituted the finished sock and it was just as fun.

I felt too shy to ask her mom if I could put her baby on my knitting blog (I was imagining the lengthy explanations and incredulous looks - she's a non-knitter - in my head) but trust me, it was very cute.

My goal is to finish the second Happy Orange Sock before I go back to work on Monday... so I'd better cut this short and go knit.

They're done! And the fit is amazing. The colors aren't my favorite ever (I think it's the greeny-yellow flecked stripes - I really really wish they were just green) but they fit so well that I just don't care.

Now I'm fighting the urge to cast on something new, and trying to finish my second Happy Orange Trekking sock - today is my day off and since I'm exhausted, I'm not planning on making even the pretence of doing any housework. I'm going to knit and watch my Netflix movies, and that's it. (Can you hear the sigh of relief?)

Oops, so much for posting twice more this week - although if I post again tomorrow I suppose I will have managed it.

I've had a few days of quiet knitting time - Ramadan started Thursday, and coincidentally we had Thursday and Friday off for Rosh Hashanah. It's been really nice to not have to go to work for the first few days of fasting, and I've been able to start and (so far) get through the heel turn and flap on the second Luna Park sock. I have to say, it is hands down the best-fitting sock I've ever knit for myself (well, the first one is, and hopefully the second one's going to resemble it). I'm definitely converted to heel flaps, although now I'm not sure what I'm going to do with variegated yarns that will pool with a gusset - I might have to knit short-row heels, knowing how badly they're going to fit (they slip and slide around on my foot - down into my shoe, or up over the heel - everywhere but where they're supposed to sit).

My newest knitting challenge just transpired to be much bigger of a challenge than it was supposed to be. I finally remembered to have Sweetie ask my mother-in-law (I could've asked myself, but I forgot until I'd passed the phone onto him) what size her foot is and what color she'd like. She insisted to him that I already knew what size her feet were, and exactly what color she would want, but was inveigled into giving away her foot size at least. But now I have to pick out The Perfect Color of Her Dreams, and of course I have no idea what it is. The only solution's going to be to knit at least 3 pairs in different colors and hope that she likes them. Gahhh...

The Happy Orange Trekking Sock is coming along - I've turned the heel and done the heel flap (it goes in that order toe-up, of course) and I love how it looks!

I'm using leftover 110 for the heel flap - I might have enough of it left over to do the same thing on a pair of BLUE Trekking socks, and that would be cool. I couldn't decide whether to use what I had on the orange stuff, or wait for the blue, but maybe just maybe I can do both.

I just wish I could knit more - I'd either have to slack off on my work, or my housework, and while last year I pretty much had to ditch it all and knit just to preserve my sanity, at this point I think I need a clean house to be sane.

Apologies for not being around! I've had quite the week - ridiculous, funny, but stressful nonetheless. To sum it up, I had the police called on me at work! (Not by my work) On a complaint that would have been serious if it had any basis in truth, but since it was all made up it was quickly dismissed. After all, there were over 20 witnesses! The whole thing was pretty funny, but still stressful.

I've been hoping to move on to more complex patterns in my sock knitting, but now that I'm back at work again, I'm having to accept that I'm just not going to have the time and concentration I'll need, and I shouldn't feel bad about knitting stockinette sock after stockinette sock.

On that note:

Here are my latest efforts. This is Luna Park yarn, which I came across in a yarn store and just had to buy because I'd never heard of it before. I bought this rainbow-y colorway, and a pretty olive and navy one.

Then there's the Happy Orange Trekking sock, on which I'm also plugging away, and which I think I'll work on today since I could use that orange color's powers of cheeriness.

Next week I'll make it my goal to post at least twice.

Here they are...

but I kind of want to put that in tiny letters, because these socks too are *sigh* deeply imperfect.

I still love my idea of these socks; they are for an "Anne of Green Gables" craft-a-long. The guidelines were simply read the book, and do something inspired by your reading of the book, before September 1st. I was inspired by the scene at the end of Anne's trip to White Sands to recite at a concert at the hotel.

The girls are talking about how fancy and impressive everything "in town" was, and Jane says "Did you see all the diamonds those ladies wore? They were simply dazzling. Wouldn't you just love to be rich, girls?" and Anne answers "We are rich. We have sixteen years to our credit, and we're happy as queens, and we've all got imaginations, more or less. Look at that sea, girls - all silver and shadow and visions of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy it's loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds. You wouldn't change into any of those women if you could. Would you want to be that white lace girl and wear a sour look all your life, as if you'd been born turning up your nose at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so stout and short you'd really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans, with that sad, sad look in her eyes? She must have been dreadfully unhappy sometimes to have such a look. You know you wouldn't, Jane Andrews! ... I don't want to be any one but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life. I'm quite content to be Anne of Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads. I know Matthew gave me as much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady's jewels."

So my socks are Anne socks; she was wearing a white dress in that scene, though (with a pearl bead necklace) and I just can't make my handknit socks white. So I used Claudia's Handpaint in Butter Pecan - it's a cream sort of color, with shots of a yellowy color that reminded me of the infamous ugly yellow dress Anne first wears, and another color that sometimes looks purple and sometimes looks auburn. Purple reminded me of the amethyst brooch of Marilla's that Anne admired so much and then was accused of stealing, and of course auburn would be for Anne's hair. So instead of white for the dress she's wearing in that scene, the socks represent the things that have helped make Anne who she is.

I'm also working on a pair of "Pink Lady" socks with crystal beads that will be a frilly, lacy pattern, but I haven't finished yet. Unfortunately, my Anne socks a) don't fit me and b) don't match each other. The second one is smaller than the first, but even the larger first one won't fit on my foot, and I'm kicking myself. Right now I think I'm going to *gasp* frog the second one and re-do it to match the first, and then I'll find someone they fit and give them away. But I'm really mad at myself for having stopped trying them on once I turned the heel.