Second Sock, Baby, Second Sock, That's where it's at....

Now that you have love sack in your head and will curse me for the rest of the day...... I give you the second sock. A great way to get the second sock done quickly without getting bored is get a horrible stomach ache as soon as you get on the train. Then the sock becomes a wonderful thing that takes your mind off the pain. Especially if that pain continues all night long. uggggg.

Happily enough there were yarn related packages waiting for me at home. The little lamb is a tape measure that was thrown in free since my Destiny circular needle was back ordered a month. Thanks Sophie's Yarns! The pretty Tiffany teal package I have thanks to Jennifer at Woolgirl.com. I seemed to have forgotten to take a picture of the yarn inside but it's from Pigeon Roof studios and is beautiful. You'll be seeing that knit up soon. Orrrrrr maybe not since I have Yarn Pirate on the needles. And there will be a Yarn Pirate sock club shipment on it's way to me in another week.

Frog thinks that the sock makes a nice hat with some extra to sit on. Chicken isn't so sure.

Dear Hollywood, You've made worse movies than this...

I give to you a sure money maker. A movie about knitting socks based on my experiences with only a little embellishment. I swear.


Socks on a Train!

In a time of i-pods and cell phones she marched to the beat of a different drum, brandishing double pointed needles and brightly colored yarn in a quest to make second socks. The path she took was not an easy one, fraught with lost needles in the seats and extra large people taking up all the elbow room. But our plucky heroine soldiers though horrified stares of young children, striving to complete the holy second sock.
Feel the excitement as our knitter rushes to complete a round before the last stop!
Feel the suspense as a double points springs from her hands and flips toward the eye of the muggle sitting next to her!
Gasp in horror as her ball of yarn falls to the floor and rolls seven seats backwards!
Laugh at her hijinks's as she tries to download episodes of Cast On onto attractive men's i-pods.

Starring
Sandra Bullock as The Knitter
Morgan Freeman as The Conductor
Steve Buscemi as The Annoying guy who sits next to you
Christian Bale as The Sexy Guy with the I-pod

Will our heroine ever complete that second sock before throwing it down in boredom? Will she ever find her dream knitting man? One with beautiful cheek bones? Find out in Socks On A Train!!!!!! Coming to a theater near you!

Elves that knit at night

How else can I explain the rapid growth of this Somewhat Cowl? It must be elves. My second sock keeps on getting smaller (stupid mistake 4 rows back) but the cowl, she grows. See, a week or so ago we have this picture above. (Notice all the acrylic grandma afghans well have. LOL) I was crying about the massive amount of stitches I had to purl across that was just getting bigger. Frog wasn't helping either, playing with the yarn ball the whole time. He gets bad when his daddy is around. But anyway I was praying for the time that I could start knitting in the round and it..... was.... taking..... forever! Then BAM! I have a sweater that is the full length with only one weekend where I got to sit around and do nothing but knit. This picture was a couple days ago and the sweater is not much further along. I have to roll another skein of yarn into a ball and I keep knitting the second sock instead. But still I'm feeling pretty pleased. Now if frog will keep his little mitts off my strawberry stitch markers things will be perfect. Maybe I can get him to roll that ball of yarn instead. He tries to distract me by looking cute in the sweater sleeve, I'm on to you frog.

How to photograph a sock?

Truthfully when I put on my first sock I wasn't happy. It seemed like the ribbing was a little loose and there were stitches near the heel flap that aren't tight enough. I took it off and disgustedly thought that I'd have to rip the whole thing out. But I put it away for a couple of weeks while I started the "Somewhat Cowl."
The next time I put the sock on the same flaws were there, but suddenly that sock seemed to be the most comfortable thing in the world. I walked around with the one sock on for an hour until it was time to leave for work. I was sad that I didn't have it's mate to put on and wear out of the house. Then it fit me like a lead weight that all those other knitters were right, hand knitted socks are the best thing in the world. So I've put my sweater down long enough to get that second sock a little further. So these socks are going from being a Christmas present for my mother, to being a present for me. She has wide feet anyway and I don't think they would fit her as comfortably ....... that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'll make her a nice sock with ribbing across the foot instead and everyone will be happy.
Meanwhile the fluffy children find uses for the lone sock. I swear they get along fine most of the time!

Sock on Vacation

Knowing that I'd be on vacation for an entire week I figured that a lot of knitting would get done. Here is the amount of yarn that I brought with me:
The 6 skeins of light purple to start an Almost Cowl
Two skeins of Black to start a shawl
The purple sock and all the yarn so I could make the second sock
Two skeins of Claudia hand paint to make more socks
One skein of Fleece artist to make more socks

I completed the purple sock on the plane ride down to Turks and Cacaos. (Let's not talk about how many times I had to do the Kitchener stitch for the toe) I cast on (again) for the Somewhat Cowl and started to knit. This sweater was the hardest thing to cast on for some reason. I actually had my fingers go numb on a train ride to work on morning as I tried to cast on for an hour. So anyway I had knitted about 2 inches and I decided that I was knitting too loosely and ripped the whole thing out. (Maybe you shouldn't knit and drink rum drinks at the same time). I cast on again and went into autopilot with my raglan shoulder increases. About this time I came down with a nasty cold that made it impossible to breath. But it was OK, really it was, because I had been knitting for 3 days and I had about 4 inches of that sweater done. Then I decided to count my two shoulders and make sure the stitch count was the same. No No they were not the same, in fact one side had almost 5 more stitches. As I stared in horror at my sweater I found that back in the 5th row of knitting I not only missed an increase I also managed to knit half way down the row and then turned around and knitted back making the extra stitches.
I had to rip the whole thing out.
I didn't knit again until I got on the plane and started the ribbing for the second purple sock.
At least there were more free rum drinks.

My first sock is still waiting for it's brother who hasn't been touched since I got off the plane but at least it got to roam around the resort for a bit with frog.