Stitch & Pitch

Phew, I am really stressed about leaving for vacation in six hours (at 3:00am), but I thought a quick update was in order before I left. Last night several of the Fiberphiles and I attended the Seattle Stitch & Pitch, where we watched the Mariners lose their 7th straight 2-6 to the Oakland As. My sockapalooza sock enjoyed the trip immensely:So much so that it flew off the needles and the socks were completed this evening, just under the wire. Although I'm not planning to mail them until I get back from vacation, I didn't want them hanging over my head uncompleted.

Project Stats: Angel's Rest Socks

Pattern: Angel's Rest, from the Peak Experience Socks leaflet (Fiber Trends AC-49).

Yarn: Angora Farms Monarch, colorway Ivy. Yarn purchased at the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival this past winter.

Needles: Size 2 Brittney birch DPNs, the little 5" ones.

Time on the Needles: The second sock took less than a week but the first lanquished. I'd say about a month.

Impressions: These were much easier than my first choice for my sock pal, Cookie A's Twisted Flower Socks. I really like this Monarch yarn - it's similar to Socks that Rock mediumweight I'd say, and generally it stripes instead of pooling, although it did pool a bit on these socks, probably due to the increasing and decreasing, or perhaps just the stitch number. It bugs me a bit that the yarn behaved differently on the second sock, but I'm working hard to just let that go. I do find it surprising though...I really hope my pal likes these, and that they fit. Her feet are slightly larger than mine but only a bit so I think these will be good. We'll see.

A brief note on my impending absence. Dave and I are going camping in Utah for the next week with both sets of our parents. This will be the first meeting of the parents, so I'm sure I'll have good stories when I come back. I sense there is a movie script in here somewhere - whether it's a comedy or tragedy is yet to be determined. For knitting, I'm planning to start the Ruffled Tuxedo Tank from the Summer 2007 Interweave, using Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy. I'm also going to take some sock yarn for simple socks just in case the tank proves to be more problematic than expected. This is not unlikely as I'm converting the pattern into the round, as well as knitting it in stockinette instead of reverse stockinette. I was thinking of doing that anyway, because I think reverse stockinette tends to look a bit sloppy no matter how evenly one knits, but I was sold when I saw someone else on Ravelry used stockinette. Have I mentioned how I love Ravelry? It's great. Hope you all have a good week!