I know you can't see the pattern at all, but we were rushing home from karate, and my recipient/model has started JV swimming and is too sore to stand for very long. Excuse the pants in the way, our uniforms were still on.
Anyway, I babysat my two younger cousins for two days so the oldest could stay at a friend's house, and as I sat on the couch with my first Monkey sock they all ended up bringing out various projects of their own. They all sat down with me, and soon were asking if we could start a knitting group. Later that day, I was chaperoning a trip to the yarn section of Ben Franklin, supervising the purchase of yarn and the appropriate needles, and doling out patterns from the library I am attempting to build.
My sister is working on a shawl for our older cousin's baby, with some ambitious finishing for her consisting of backing the shawl and embroidering the baby girl's name onto the fabric. I didn't attempt that at her skill level, and although she refuses to acknowledge the fact that a quarter yard won't be enough to back the whole shawl, I'm proud of her for doing her own thing. I have a feeling she'll get into free forming as she learns more and more about garment construction.
The middle cousin was working on a rectangular shawl for her mom, with stripes of normal and reverse stockinette in kinky white cotton. She desperately wanted it over with and begged me to think of any way at all she could end it NOW. I suggested a doll blanket, so she happily cast off and handed it to my sis for her American Girl doll. She picked up a ball of sock yarn at the store, and with my size 2 US needles and a written copy of one of my patterns, she's working on a sweater each for her and her sister's American Girls.
The youngest had been knitting a simple potholder, a solution to avoid a whole scarf, but her yarn tangled and she cut it off. So at Ben Franklin, she grabbed two skeins of Grande yarn in white and navy, her school colors, and size 13 US needles for a striped school spirit scarf. (She also got some thick woolly tweed I'm unbelievably jealous of, and will have to buy at some point before it sells out).
I? Well...sock yarn for a change...haha I was restricted to two skeins each of different brands by my wallet, and had to pass up that gorgeous tweed :( I think I'm starting to understand that lecture I received from my mom before we left. Something about me never having money, and a yarn addiction...nope never mind. There's no way she was talking to me. She must have been on the phone with someone. I also finished one of the Monkey socks, and aside from varying tightness in my kitchener stitch that made for a wonky toe, they look fairly good. I like the lace pattern a lot, and knitting thought the back loops of the picked-up gusset stitches works better than I had expected. I could kick myself for not listening to that advice when I heard it months ago. The heel was giving me aneurysms for not being reinforced, but I think it would take attention from the lace and we wouldn't want that, now would we? Besides, tall-ish socks look funny in shoes. I prefer to bum around the house in them, where a reinforced heel isn't needed. I can only hope my friend agrees with me.
And by the way...Ugg boots are really comfy with hand knit socks for anyone interested. Just thought I'd throw it out there.
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