Have Sock Will Travel

I do hope you're in the mood for photos. If not, well... skim ahead to the text portions, because it's a photo day here! I'll lead off with the Charmed Knits beanie. The colors are a touch off; the blue isn't so vivid, and the heather is a cross between the bronze in the books and the silver in the movies. It's the small size, so it's moving right along. When not in the study for its photo op, it lives on the arm of the sofa, so that I can garter stitch away while using my laptop. I hope to finish it up tomorrow or Monday, so it can be owled away as my first finished object for that worthy cause of a knit along.

Next, we have the sock's travel entourage. The book with the pattern within, my own Booga bag, in service as intended, toting a little project, and the sock itself, with its supporting cast of Inox teflon coated 6" dpns, and the nifty little thingee from The Loopy Ewe to hold it all (yep, FIVE needles) together. (The Pampered Chef potholder didn't travel. It is merely an aid to better display the colors of the Lorna's Sheperd Sport yarn, also from The Loopy Ewe. The sock and its ability to travel kept me from acting like a bored eight year old as we shopped for a truck for the hubby. No, there's nothing wrong with what he has, other than it's not precisely what he wants, and as his sweet cousin (a manager at said dealership) tried to explain to me, my hubby just likes to get another vehicle every 3-4 years, whereas I am a "use it up" kind of gal. Now, mind you, I love trucks. I like what we looked at today. But... Never mind. This is a knitting blog, and the point is, the sock had its first road trip and we were both happy.

There's the happy young sock. You can't see the four-row repeating pattern (beyond the cuff) so well, but you can see the great colors in the yarn, somewhat. Browns, dark mossy greens and a nice, strong blue... The stuff jeans and clogs dream of, or at least, mine do. Come fall, I'm going to have some happy feet, jeans and clogs. For what it's worth, I couldn't visualize shoving all ten points into those bright blue caps, but it's not bad at all, and it worked like a charm. Believe me, we had lots of starts and stops. First, we had to make the 45 minute drive across the twisty-ist roads in two counties to get to the cousin's house. Put away the sock. Then, switch to the cousin's truck. No knitting, as I hadn't seen the cousin in ages, and we all grew up together and always have much to say, even when we did see each other almost daily. Then, we arrived another 30 minutes later at the dealership. Looked at three trucks. Drove around. The sock got to see that part of the world, got tucked away for lunch, and then tucked away again for a return to the dealership... You get the point.

Here's a picture of the pattern, sorta'. Hey, I've learned to blog, knit socks via Magic Loop AND now, dpns. You can't expect great photography too. I do like the addition of the cuffs, at least, as they stretch and live on the needles. Of course, the difference between sport weight and worsted weight yarn could have something to do with the whole feel thing too, but there's still so much smaller to go with these sock yarns! Thank goodness The Loopy Ewe carries all sorts. (When is the next sneak up? Hubby's asleep now... Why wait?)

That last paragraph was written with Mugsy in my lap. He thinks he should go truck shopping too, especially if the sock gets to go. He requires a lot of exercise and cuddling, and he got little of either today, so I need to wrap this up and take care of the poor boy.

One last little piece of business, before I tend to Mugsy's wishes. THAT is why I chose this book for my first dpn sock. Each little section (the blocks you can barely see) is a ROW. One single row, although the repeats aren't written out. The red lines denote a change in the portion of the sock being constructed. Very detailed, bite-sized direction. That's right up my alley, at least until I get comfortable with the sock lingo and such. But, we're getting there. I seem to have found my groove. Anne seems to think she'd rather gouge her eyes out that knit with dpns, especially after her most recent effort, which I think will be documented in her blog. Me? I'm feelin' the dpn mojo. Those little buggers just shift a bit as needed, and it flows, where the Magic Loop (as in noose?!!) was a lot of pushing and pulling for a bit of knitting in between, for me. I stopped almost mid-stitch a time or two today, shoved the points in their caps, and had no trouble figuring out where I was in the row or pattern, which would hardly have been the case with the ML. My mind evidently likes circles better than loops, as crazy as that might sound. I guess even the best of friends can't agree on EVERYTHING. ;)

Coming, Mugsy...

PS - I have my yarn for my Felted Bag Exchange's pal's bag now! (And no, you can't see!)