Sunday challenge accomplished, now I'm trying to get a head start...

The Blue Heron Shawl for Manang Pining was successfully completed at around midnight-ish on Saturday and was gifted with much love and pride on Sunday. The one thing I forgot to do in my haste (as I am a bad blogger) is get a photo of the finished work and the happy recipient. Flog me why don’t you. But take my word for it, the shawl turned out beautifully and will not be the last garter stitch shawl you’ll see me crank out.

So as you can probably tell, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were mostly consumed by shawl knitting. But in between, during breaks, and much feet dragging during laundry, I was working on a new pair of socks using some turquoise blue Fortissima Socka from the stash. The pattern being applied is Knitty’s Hedera Socks by Cookie A. Very simple 4 pattern sock that adds a bit of challenge but not overly consuming of brain power.

Photo by Cookie A. of Knitty.com

Another thing I am working on, or at least began to work on, or am trying with all my might to make a gauge swatch for is some Shaeffer Yarns fingering weight in Clara Barton. I know, I know, gauge is very, verrrry important, but I hate doing it. I hate making swatches because it cuts into my actual project knitting time. I understand that the effort is not useless, but it always seems that way. I’ve refused to make swatches on several occasions and just took the plunge and found myself starting the project and frogging it several times. And more often than not, that knitterly voice in the back says, “see, you should have swatched” and I reply with a crinkled nose and a curl in my lips “swatch, smatch, whatever”. I’m trying to be a better knitter this time, so I am trying to make a swatch with a happy heart. I figure one can always work on their patience, no?

a few days later...I have no patience

So the swatch didn't go over too well, and I ended up just knitting with different sized needles until I got the right size. The sock I'm knitting now is HeartString's Country Girl Socks. In the midst of all this and the impending beginning of my long long journey to get my PhD starting the end of August, I managed to delude myself even further that I could get started on Christmas presents (hahaha, ya right?), partly to spread out the holiday spending over a few months rather than in one month, and partly to have a reason to try all those wonderful sock patterns out there like the Lacy Alhambra Socks, Sock Bug's Lacy Scallop Socks, River Rapids Socks, and Sheri's Lace Socks, partly to give myself some milestones during the fall semester, and partly to save myself some sanity to enjoy the holidays instead of scampering and frantically freaking out to achieve unrealistic self-imposed deadlines. To motivate myself, I visited Simply Socks Yarn Co. and got a bunch of really, really, really, yummy yarn. And you ask...for who pray tell are the socks for...mmm, dunno yet, it's secret. I'll let you in on the progress, but can't really tell who they belong to just yet.