Sock Life

I've been catching up on reading a bunch of blogs and I was impressed with all the socks that have been finished and blogged about recently. Angela at Pans & Needles has two pair: one pair for herself and one secret pair for her beloved's Christmas gift this year. Monica at Sweet Purls has just finished a fun purple pair of socks. And Tahnee over at Woollen Wilderness has finished not just one, but two pairs of socks in just the last month: Pixel Socks and Spring Fern Socks. And those are just the finished ones. Andi at My Sister's Knitter has a cute pair on the needles while Wei Siew at Kiwiyarns is knitting a party for her feet. (She also just finished her Southern Skies... so you should all go "ooo and ahh" it.)

I have not been as successful in the knitting arena. I had hoped to have a finished something to show off by now, but it just hasn't worked out.

What I do have is one almost finished first sock and a second sock that is almost ready for its heel to be put in. Why an "almost finished first sock" you ask. Well, I am a perfectionist, especially in the self-striping sock arena. They joke about it at knit night. Not only do I need my socks to match perfectly... apparently I have a thing about having a tiny bit of a new stripe showing up on the toe. This almost happened on my Geographer socks, but there was more than one row of the hot pink on the toe, so I let it go. But just one tiny row of orange on a sea of purple? No thank-you!

I got halfway through grafting the first sock before deciding that I was going to knit the second sock to see if the orange showed up in the exact same spot. "What if the orange shows up in the exact same spot and matches perfectly?" you wonder. Good question. I don't care if it matches perfectly. It is still the same orange problem and I'm going to remove it one way or another.

In other knitting news, I've completely abandoned Mum's cowl for now (sorry Mum) in favor of working on a wedding gift and baby shower gift. But in between that, it's all about these socks.

Scooter's Sweater

Every year I say I'm not going to do holiday knitting. And every year, a week or so before Christmas, I start feeling bad that I haven't made Scooter anything. I know what you all think; dogs don't care about knits. Well, Scooter is a dog after my own heart. He loves knits. He seeks them out. Nothing makes him happier than cuddling in something knitted. (Of course this is a problem when I'm actively knitting the thing he'd like to be sitting on.)

This is Scooter's new trick, "Wave." I'm teaching him to wave with his left and right paws on command.

Scooter has been without a sweater that fits for several years now. He has outgrown the one he has and gets upset when we put it on him. He looked a bit like a stuffed sausage when it was on. But he's 10 years old now, and I think he gets a bit colder than he used to.

There were various family theories over whether he hated sweaters or if he didn't like the one that was too small. I was on the side that felt that he would like a sweater if it fitted him. So I sunk some money and bought three skeins of Cascade 128. I knew he liked that yarn because last year's present was made of it. 

Since Scooter could care less if it is Christmas or not, I went ahead and put it on him as soon as I was done with it. He appears to like it! As he should. I measured him and custom knit it to his sizing. And I added extra leg room so he could run all he wanted without sleeves feeling funny. Here is the project's ravelry page if you want yarn and needle details.

 

He's catching a treat in this photo. It does a good job of showing the shaping I put into the chest.

There's one last thing to note. I made the sweater to match mine. Yes, that's a bit dorky, but I don't care. He's my little buddy.

"Give me the treat, human."