The Perfect Vacation

The girls are in NYC with their nana and aunt, having a great time. Michael just got home last night from his little ski trip. I stayed home and had my own fun.

I finished these for Al on Christmas Eve:


(obligatory photo of socks without ends woven in)

Here's a close up:


Pattern: GI Dennis socks, by Jeanie Townsend, which is free, if you're a member of Jeanie's yahoo group, TSKAL (TSocksKnitAlong)
Yarn: 2+ balls of Lana Grossa Meilenweit in color 1289, which I believe is called "Shades of Boring Manliness" (I used more than 2 balls of this because I made the legs longer than normal)
Needles: Five Inox 2.75mm dpns

Christmas morning, I drove the girls, et al to the airport. I spent the day sitting on the bed with the dog, eating food that was bad for me right from the containers --Ben and Jerry's Fudge Brownie ice cream along with diet Coke and sour cream and onion potato chips -- and watching Pride and Prejudice (the version from last year with Kiera Knightly) all the way through, with no one interrupting me at key moments. Then I watched The Family Stone on DVD, followed by Failure to Launch, followed by Pride and Prejudice again.

I also started these:

My first toe-up socks in Regia Silk, which is really slippery, but wonderfully soft. My stitches are a bit wonky on the foot. They were fine when I was increasing for the toe, but when I got to 64 stitches and started knitting plain rounds, I did what I always do at that point, which is to knit past the end of one dpn and onto the first couple stitches of the next one. Which resulted in crappy looking stitches, for some reason. I switched back to knitting the stitches to their assigned needles and it got better. Go figure.

I'm not a big fan of knitting toe-up, but this is one case where I think it'll eventually end up to my advantage. I'm using the heel flap and gusset in Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks. She has just one set of toe-up socks using this method in the book, and because of that, the directions don't seem to be as complete as they are for the cuff down socks, making this project a bit frustrating. The main issue I have is where to start the heel flap on the sole. This heel flap is under the heel, and done in stocking stitch, so knitting it to the length I would normally knit a flap results in fewer slipped end stitches than with the condensed heel flap stitch--which gives you more rows/inch than st st--which means the back of the heel doesn't come up far enough to the ankle once the gusset stitches are decreased.

These will be the Flamingo socks I began to design in November. The flamingo is in reverse stocking stitch, with twisted stitches and slanting decreases bordering it. I totally stole this idea from the Tsarina of Tsocks (www.tsocktsarina.com) after I received my long-awaited sock kits. One of the kits, Poseidon, has reverse stocking stitch dolphins, which is what gave me the idea for the flamingo socks to begin with, but her technique of outlining the dolphins is totally brilliant, so naturally, I stole it.

The Flamingo socks are knit mostly in Regia Silk, but will have fuzzy pink novelty yarn with bits of metallic gold used as embellishment on the wings and head. Maybe a bead or two here and there for added excitement. I decided toe-up would make the chart easier to follow because I'll be able to see the flamingo right-side up as I knit it, but for now, I'm struggling with the @!#$% heel flap and gusset.


Tuesday I watched Pride and Prejudice again, then I read the book to see what they had to cut/change in order to condense it to movie length. It's tough to read the slower paced, wordy, omniscient writing of the early 19th century when you're used to the fast-paced world of 3rd person limited fiction written 200 years later. I think this screen adaptation did the story great justice. Sigh. I totally get the whole Darcy thing now.

Wednesday I went to knitting group in the morning, and then went to Target and bought Pride and Prejudice on DVD so I could listen to the commentary (I'd been watching it on TiVo). Then my honey came home from Colorado, we went out for dinner, and here I am, ready for more knitting. Plus I'm going to go to the movie theater to see The Holiday.

Oh wait a minute! I just now thought of this...I'll do the decrease rounds less frequently so as to end up with a longer heel. Oh, duh. Excuse me while I go frog a gusset.