In Which the Pirate Gets Stripey.

I ordered these shoes last week from a store in the mall, and I am so thrilled that they fit! They are just perfect for showing off handknit socks (shown – last year’s toe-up Plain Old Socks, Regia Canadian Colour 4743). They are also suitable for wearing to an office, when I find a job. Too cool.

This Stripy Striped Scarf alternates two colors of Noro Kureyon (147 and 158) in a 1×1 rib over 49 stitches on size 8 needles. I like to have a project going that doesn’t require a lot of concentration. I can take it to the Stitch ‘n Bitch, or watch TV, or have a conversation while I’m working. From this blog entry at BrooklynTweed I got the idea of slipping the first and last stitches on every second row to make a nice neat edge. It’s working quite well! One thing that had really frustrated me when I was working on the So-Called Scarf is that when I was alternating between balls of yarn (in that case, to keep from wild color changes between skeins), the yarn that was carried up the side didn’t look right. Slipping the first and last stitches on the second rows keeps everything tightly together, which looks a lot better to me.

The traveling sock traveled up to Pennsylvania this weekend to visit family, and began looking stripy too. I like the reactions that I get from different people when they see me working on a sock. It’s everything from “How long does it take you to knit a pair of socks?” to “Wow, I’d never have the patience to do something like that – but I do like counted cross-stitch,” to “How hard is that to learn? I need a new hobby.” Since I’m back home, the traveling sock has been returned to its resting place, awaiting Thursday’s airplane ride.

I got my Ravelry invite today, and as a result had to set up a Flickr account. There probably won’t be much there that isn’t here anyway, but feel free to check it out! Ravelry looks like it’s going to be a very cool community. When the site goes live, I hope there’s a personal page for me to link to.