Holiday roundup 2014

With the holidays now behind us, I can post what I made as gifts in that compressed post-surgery period where I was supposed to be all caught up on everything and ended up making absolutely nothing for anyone else.

For my college best friend, J, a Capitan hat in a moss green:

Modeled by her niece, E, who is just adorable and maybe should get her own version of this hat, now that I've seen her in it.  This was one of those gifts that I handed over, and the recipient went absolutely crazy for it.  It is exactly the right reaction to have if you want more hand-knit items from me.  And J was wearing it when I saw her this past weekend - score another point for her.  She'll probably get a scarf out of me before the winter's over, at this rate.

I also did another Capitan for my 14-year-old cousin, S.  Here it is, unfinished:

I am going to be giving it to her this weekend for her birthday, and hope to get a shot of it on her before I leave.  Unless she doesn't like it - then I'm taking it back.  Someone will wear it, by god.  Won't be me - I look ridiculous in this hat. 

I finished the Men's Winter Wheat Socks, by Donna Seex, for my husband:

Here they are, on his feet - he has subsequently worn them since this photo, since he knows I'll steal them back - his feet are only a little bigger than mine, so unworn socks are commandeered into my own collection.  These were originally supposed to be for my father, then husband casually mentioned he liked how they looked, and he's usually pattern-averse.  So dad still has not gotten hand knit socks from me, although he has several hats.  Someday, dad.

I did the usual pair of socks for my goddaughter, E:

I used Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet 100 Splash and it was nice to work with, but notice that the socks are essentially two different colors.  It's fine because the current trend for middle schoolers to wear two different socks, so this kind of works, but I don't think I would buy the yarn again because I am a little particular about having socks match.


Except this year, non-matching socks seems to be a theme.  To wit, mom's birthday socks:

And of course, I only had one sock finished by the time her birthday arrived.  Given that I finished E's socks on 12/22 for a gift date of 12/24, last minute was the theme of the holiday season, apparently.  I brought over the one finished sock and the second under construction sock and asked mom if she wanted them to match.  She did not care, figuring she will be wearing these with jeans and who will know?  I will. But I'm learning to let go.

Finally, I currently have a baby sweater under construction for our neighbors' daughter, who will be 1 at the end of February:

It is called Cherry Cobbler Sweater, by Lorna Miser, and calls for three skeins of Malabrigo Rios for the 12 month size, which I just happened to have in my stash and was wondering what to with when this pattern was in the Winter 2014 Love of Knitting magazine.  Granted, the pattern calls for the color English rose, and I had Lavanda, but I decided on the substitution because it's a purple / grey-lavender colorway and before the baby was born, her mother asked for a grey knit hat with knit flower options if the baby was a girl (which she was.)  I know they'll like the color and I think the sweater could be worn by any future siblings as well.  I just started the sweater on January 5 and I have already nearly finished the back, leaving only the 2 front pieces and sleeves to do.  I like the pattern and the yarn - I would definitely recommend both.


Happy New Year, everyone!

Keeping out of trouble

In early October, I had knee surgery - nobody's idea of a good time, but I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get a jump on all my Christmas knitting. After all, this was how I spent 10 hours+ per day:

No brainer to get all that knitting done, right?  Not exactly.  I was in far more pain than I expected, and I had a difficult time overcoming the effects of  both the anesthesia and the prescription pain killers, so I was far less productive than I had envisioned.  It also did not help that everyone and their brother came to visit, and very few of them were knitters, so I had to focus on talking to them rather than knitting, because it was too hard to do both.


Despite this, I did get a few things started:

This pattern is the Iced Aqua Scarf by Julie Farmer, in the Fall 2014 Love of Knitting.  Obviously, I did not choose an iced aqua yarn - this is Caron's Simply Soft Paints, in Oceana.  I loved loved loved the colorway, and I loved that it was on sale at Joanne for $2.99 a skein.  I bought 3 - 2 of the same dye lot for the scarf, and another to make myself a hat.  I decided this would be my Winter 2014/2015 hat & scarf project - two years ago I used another Caron yarn to make a pretty purple basketweave scarf, complete with fringe.  I love that the yarn can go in the washer and the dyer.  With all the handknit socks around the house, flat drying space is at a premium some weeks after I do laundry.


Speaking of socks, I also managed to start, and finish, a pair for myself:

I decided these would be my Thanksgiving socks, because they have the right shades of yellow, red, brown & orange and remind me of those childhood construction paper turkeys we all did in school.  The yarn is Decadent Fibers Savory Sock yarn, made by Decadent Fibers out of Kinderhook, NY.  I bought it last year at the New England fiber festival - it was part of that sock yarn-a-palooza that happened:

That's it over there on the bottom right-hand side.  I do love how they turned out.


So, that was my 3 week knitting extravaganza.  Note that not one of the projects was actually a Christmas gift.  I would express remorse, except I've got (or will get) new knit items to keep and wear, so I'm not the slightest bit sorry.  Except that I now have to knit twice as fast for the holiday items.

Project fails

So, socks.  It has been established I enjoy knitting them, and those around me enjoy receiving them.  My mother usually gets one for her birthday and Mother's Day - I say one, because generally I have one sock finished and the other 3/4 done when the holiday rolls around, so I show her what she'll be getting in just another few days.  No matter how much time I leave to finish the project, it never happens.  Anyway, sticking with tradition, mom got one sock on Sunday:

....and it didn't fit.  The pattern is called Sand Dunes, by Phyll Lagerman, and it is really beautiful.  It calls for Madeline Tosh sock yarn and a size 1 needle.  I had this Regia Jet Set color that I thought would be a great substitution for the recommended yarn, and I am using size 1 1/2 needles.  My mother cannot get the sock over her foot.  It's my own fault - I don't test knit a swatch (although in this case, I don't know that it would have helped) to check size & gauge, but I almost never have a problem.  The silver lining, however, is that the socks are now up for grabs for anyone who they fit.  I will be like Prince Charming, only with socks.

In other project fails, I had nearly finished the winter cardigan I started in November:

The yarn is Alpine Lake by Tucker's Woods, a dyer out of Connecticut who is discontinuing production of these yarns.  Which is a total shame; I totally adore this yarn.  Anyway, this is a shot of the back, the only thing I currently have done.  Why, you ask?  Well, when cast on for the first front piece, the number of stitches for size large (46) seemed too small to me, so I cast on a few more (70.)  I finished the piece, then noticed I had changed the size of the cables, making them larger.  Knitting friends assured me no one would notice, so I made the left side to match.  I got a little nervous, because there was not a lot of yarn left over to make the sleeves, and it's not possible for me to get more since the dyer is no longer creating new product.  And there's no guarantee of color matching anyway.  But I decided to risk it. 

To start the sleeves, I needed to sew the shoulder seams together, which is when I discovered that if you increase the front, but you have not correspondingly increased the back, when you sew the seam, the cardigan front will come more than halfway across, creating a sweater that is unwearable.  So I ripped back both front pieces into nothingness, and cast on for the right front again.  The silver lining in this project is that I have now made the cables to match the back, so I won't be thinking about that mistake when I am wearing the sweater.  If I ever actually finish the sweater.

I think my next project will be a stockinette scarf.  Pretty hard to mess that up.

Whew!

Christmas has come and gone, and I have just about recovered from my crazy knitting spree.  In the middle of the scheduled Christmas knitting, my husband threw me for a loop by asking for a new hat because his was itchy.  I dutifully knit him a new hat in non-scratchy yarn but it bumped my mother's birthday socks out by a few days, and she ended up receiving only one sock for her birthday.  No matter, she was happy with them, when I managed to get her the other one five days after her actual day:

The pattern is called Winter Wheat by Donna Seex.  This is the women's version -I found it in the Love of Knitting Winter 2011 issue.  Check out the pattern either on Ravelry or by Googling it - the photo accompanying the pattern shows a beautiful raspberry color yarn, which shows the pattern off much better.  However, my mother was very taken with this yarn - it's called "Dream in Color Starry" and it has little silver threads running through it, which you can just about see in the photo.  There's also a men's version that is, you guessed it, "too fancy" for Himself but I'm rather intrigued by, so I might knit myself that version as something different.  It has just a little bit of patterning in a 1/4" stripe up one side of the sock.  Scandalous!

Speaking of knitting for myself, I had started a pair of socks before Christmas but had to abandon them due to the accelerated holiday knitting schedule.  I finished them just last Friday, and happily wore them over to my volunteer job on Saturday inside a pair of slip-on shoes so I could show them off:

It promptly snowed an unscheduled 6" of heavy wet snow.  Probably because I was tempting fate with those shoes.  Sorry, fellow New Englanders!

To take a break from all the sock knitting, I made myself some pint-sized pines, which are little knit tress you stick on wine corks (or the top of an unopened bottle of wine as a hostess gift.)  I found them on my friend Dorothy's Ravelry page (she of the, "If you buy the alpacas, I will bring them home in my mini-van if you agree to get it cleaned afterwards.")  I think they are really cute.  I asked a few friends to save wine corks so I can make a lot more for next year, and I have discovered my friends are drinkers.  Which might be why I love them.  Anyway, my little trees on the kitchen windowsill:

So cute.  They take about 30 minutes to make when I am distracted while knitting, and they use just a few yards of yarn - the perfect amount for when you have no other use for that last scrap of yarn.  I am experimenting with making them in a variety of colors.

 I also wove a scarf for my close friend and favorite food blogger, Stella Caroline, using a hand-dyed sock yarn as a base.  (That's the stripe on the bottom as well.)  I also used a coordinating light blue and light lavender to create wide stripes in the weft.  I love how it came out:

Stella Caroline is a petite woman, something I did not consider as I warped the loom and made an extra-long scarf.  When I took it off, Himself looked and me and said, "Are you trying to smother her?"  I prefer to think that I am guaranteeing she will not have any exposed skin in this vile winter weather.  Or she can wrap herself and the children up all at the same time.

The stockings will be hung by the chimney with care

I am knee-deep (pun intended) in sock knitting right now.  I have confidence that I will be finished all pairs by the intended gifting date, and for once, Himself will not be getting shafted on socks:

I did these sleep socks for Himself first, which means that for the first time in memory, he will get two complete socks, not one finished sock and one still on the needles, in the gift bag.  The yarn is Viking of Norway Raggan, and while the colorway is similar to one I have made for him before, these socks are much thicker and fluffier, and they knit up in about a week, which was amazing.  Looing at the photo, though, from the ankle down they do not match.  I did not notice this when I was working on the socks.  Now, if I thought these socks were ever going to be worn out of the house, I might be bothered enough to do something about it.  But they will never be worn in public, because they are "too flashy," so I'm not saying a word about the mismatch of patterning.  I would probably not fix a pair of my own socks, which are always worn out of the house, if a similar problem occurred, because recently I've realized people take a quick look at your hand-knit socks, which are almost always covered by shoes or boots, and move on with their day.  Look at me, getting all Zen in my old age.

I have also started work on socks for my goddaughter E:

This is another purchase from the Fiber Festival, from Enchanted Knoll Farm.  The colors in this yarn just called out to me, and I couldn't leave it in the booth.  It's more than I normally spend on sock yarn for someone who's feet are still growing, but I'm knitting them in a modified ladies' size, so I think they'll fit her a little bit longer.  The colors are just fabulous - well blended and sharp, and the same old-same old classic sock pattern is not seeming at all boring while looking at this.

I am about done with socks these days, though.  Even new patterns aren't all that appealing.  If only they weren't so quick and easy, or if cardigans knit up as fast as the socks do.....

Squirrels gather nuts, I make socks

My preparation for colder weather continues as I am on a sock-knitting binge.  I finished those Halloween socks in 13 days, and they came out great:

I was so pleased with them I decided to make myself another pair:

.....which took me 14 days this time.  The yarn is Araucania Ranco Multy, and the photo above does not do the beautiful color blend justice.  It is a random variegated yarn, which meant that I didn't need to unwind any of the skein to start the second sock.  It is the little things in life that are so thrilling to me.  Or I'm easily amused.  Probably both.  They are a lovely neutral color that will look great with everything.  I could almost say I'm looking forward to cooler weather.  Almost.  Notice I did not say, "winter."  I will never look forward to winter weather.

I have also started a new project with leftover sock yarn called The Beekeeper's Quilt. I must have seen this pattern for the first time on Ravelry, (although for a long time I thought I might have seen in in a past issue of Love of Knitting) and I have been dreaming of it for quite some time now.  I finally broke down and bought it, and I've knit up the first few half-dozen of what the designer calls "hexipuffs" for this quilt. 

It will probably take me more than a year to make enough (a 3' x 4' quilt calls for more than 300 of them) but I knit up a half dozen in 2 days, while simultaneously finishing a pair of socks, returning to a pair of fingerless gloves for my best friend I had stashed, working on a shrug, and, you know, working full time.  The pattern is cute and quick and not at all expensive, so buy it if you're interested, or you have a lot of bits 'n bobs of yarn gathering dust in your yarn storage area, because you cannot ever.toss.yarn.away.  Perfect use for it!

From the commuter knitting bag - fingerless gloves for my good friend Aideen:

I started these back in June and then completely lost interest.  However, it is now August, and the start of Christmas Knitting Season, so I needed to get cracking.  I've made great progress these past two weeks - it took about a week per glove, and they are now DONE.  The pattern is the same Woven Fingerless glove pattern used for the ones I did for myself last fall:

Aideen is an usher, and has complained that her fingers are cold during the early December performances of The Nutcracker.  So these will be an early Christmas gift, since she starts that ushering job the day after Thanksgiving.  The gloves are solid black with a hint of sparkle in them - perfect for an usher.  And for Aideen, who likes shiny things.

It's Still Wool Weather

So this is the view out my back deck today:



 .....which may or may not be clear enough for you to see that it is snowing.  HARD.  Sigh.  First day of spring is tomorrow.  Most of us in New England think that's a joke.  On the upside, it is cold enough that I have an excuse to wear my fingerless gloves in the house (because it's far cheaper than turning up the heat) and I am still enthusiastic about any project involving wool. 

Currently I am working on a couple of pairs of socks.  Shocking, I know - you had no idea I knit socks.  (More likely, you had no idea I knit anything but socks.)  Currently on the needles, a pair of socks for my friend Holly's birthday, coming up April 1st:

I am using my classic sock pattern, because time is of the essence (these socks are a suprise) and I'm using Regia Design Line "Random Stripe" yarn.  It tangles.  A lot.  Still, the socks are turning out nicely, but I'm under the gun at this point since there are only 13 days until her birthday, and because we ride the train together, I am losing some of my most valuable knitting time because I can't do it in front of her.  I am a little nervous about this one.  I have just finished the cuff on the second sock.  It will be close.

Also on the needles, those long-delayed socks for Himself:

It is an olive green/gray blend, also Regia but Jet Set Color this time, and it ALSO tangles.  A lot.  I'm thinking maybe it's the yarn.  (Fool me once......)  I am using a new pattern called Macho Socks, which does something of an architectural design in the sock.  Mine is coming out differently from what is photographed on that blog, mostly because I am doing top-down socks and decided not to reverse the pattern from the bottom up.  I knit these on the train, so they will be a surprise for Himself, and while they are not quite as snooze-inducing as the last pair I made him, they are up there.  Hence the thinking to go with a new pattern - it might be just interesting enough to keep me awake.

Finally, I managed to get a good daylight shot of the shawl that's being woven:

I am still struggling with warping as it looks crooked in this photo.  When I unwind the tension at the end, it straightens out. I will have to ask my friend L, who got me into weaving, what I am doing wrong.  Still, it should look fine when finished.  It will likely be something I only wear in the house anyway - in New England, you are pretty much either in a parka or short sleeves when you leave the house.  And it would be a little fancy to wear while out gardening.

Birthday Socks

January & February are big birthday months on my calendar - almost every day for both months I know someone who is having a birthday.  Sometimes I know more than one person on a particular day.  Very few people get birthday socks, however.  That's because I am so fried from Christmas and because Facebook makes it easy for me to zip off a quick post and call it done.  I had three pairs go out in the first 34 days of 2013 - a pair of socks for my mother (Jan. 2), my toddler cousin M (Jan. 4) and M's big sister A (Feb 3.)  That's a lot of socks in a short time span.  Of course, I only remembered to photograph my mother's:

Accurate color of the socks, but no visible pattern

Hello, Vorticity!

This is the Vorticity pattern that I have used on my own socks & the pair I did for my MIL for her birthday back in November.  The original book pattern uses a darker colorway for the socks than I had previously used, and is very simliar to the yarn I chose for this (Regia Blitz Color - gray) so I was happy to see that the pattern still shows well.  Of course the Sock Mon....I mean, Mom, loves the socks.  She keeps raving about how warm they are.  Which they are, but that's the yarn, not the pattern.  My pair is made out of a bamboo/rayon blend, and they are as cool and breezy as a fan blowing on your feet.  Not really, but that paints a nice picture, doesn't it?

Currently on the needles are socks for Goddaughter E's birthday, March 21.  I picked a Lorna's Laces hand-dyed yarn in Girly Stripe, which I though would make thicker bands of color, but instead does alternating pink and purple stripes by row:

I am using Classic Socks for the Family as the pattern, which is what I use for all the childrens' socks I make.  I like variegated yarns (as do the kids - "Look ma, wild socks!") so I don't put the effort in of following a chart for a sock pattern because they are going to outgrow whatever I make them anyway.  I do hope the socks are being saved somewhere, or handed down to another family, because it would kill me to think they were just being tossed when they didn't fit.  (If anyone is doing that, stop it.  You're killing me.)

Can I just tell you how much my wrists ache these days?  And how sick I am of socks?  And yet there are more to come.  I am going to switch everyone over to woven throws.  Bet that will be real popular with the kids.

Holiday 2013 Roundup

Apparently I've been doing more crafting than blogging for the last couple of months.  I finished a slew of projects in the days leading up to Christmas.  A couple of children's hats:

Mmm, cupcakes

This hat looks better on a small person. 

These hats were for two of my favorite children, Super G and Marvelous M. Sadly, the designated hats did not fit their intended recipients, but their mother is not rigid in her observation of colors for genders, so she put the cupcake hat on her son and the Viking hat on her daughter.  Both children immediately yanked them off.  But in their defense, we were inside at the time.  And they're toddlers.

I also wove a scarf for my mother for Christmas:

My mother has been referring to it as a "neck warmer" because it is apparently shorter than she would like.  She also mentioned that she'd like a throw for the couch made from the same yarn next year.  I don't have the heart to tell her what the yarn for the "neck warmer" cost, but suffice to say I'll be using a base color purchased in 1 pound bulk from Michael's or Joann Fabrics for that throw.

Dad got a hat:

I feel guilty because my father's never gotten anything hand-knit from me - by the time his birthday rolls around in May I'm burned out from the holidays & late winter birthdays and all I want to do is knit stuff for myself.  Plus, he's not a scarf or sweater guy (just like my husband) and who wants a knit item for a May birthday?  (Besides my mother, the Sock Monster.)  I had started this hat last year but never finished it.  He was very pleased with the hat - he apparently needed a new one.  I figured he would wear it out around the yard, shoveling the driveway, etc., but he's been wearing it out everywhere, according to mom.  And now my guilt is lessened.  J has the same hat style, in gray.  He got his last year.

Goddaughter E got some socks:

I love the colors, but I am sad I had to adjust the sizing from child's large to a modified ladies' small when I knit this pair.  Stop growing up, damn it!  Only 8 more years until college.  Her mother shrieks when I mention that.

And once again, J got the shaft on the handknit gifts and received....nothing.  Which is worse than last year, when he got one sock for his birthday.  I intended to knit him a new pair of socks - I even special ordered two yarns I felt would match nicely to the 12,432 pairs of khakis in shades of green-grey that currently populate his section of the closet.  He's been muttering that he would like socks that coordinated better than tan or black and he's still muttering.  The road to hell, good intentions and all that.  Ah well, our anniversary is coming up in April.

Checking Off My List

It is a great week when I finish more than one knitting project.  In fact, I can't think of another time when it has happened so quickly, and for two very different and very challenging projects.  Of course, I am conscious of how much more knitting I need to do for the holidays, so perhaps that's encouraging my current speed.

Back in August I started another pair of socks using Alice Yu's Voricity pattern.  Once I figured out the tricks to getting past the challenges in the pattern, the socks go much faster:

I love the color combination but it does make the pattern less visible than the simpler colors in the socks I made myself this summer.  I couldn't figure out a way to get it to come out in the photograph this morning.  That might have to do with having only had one cup of coffee.

Done!

I was so excited to finish these socks.  When I cast them off the needles, I heard this in my head, I was so happy to be finished:

The pattern is totally amazing, but each sock took eons and for the first time in my life, I developed Second Sock Syndrome.  Possibly because I had to restart the first sock three times, and then on the second I had to rip back 25 rows to the heel, due to a mistake I made in the gusset.  After all my years of knitting, this was the first time I had ever tried to follow a chart.  I need more practice, clearly.

I persevered, though, and they're ready to go:

It's a shame that it's now over 90 degrees with 70% humidity in New England.  I have them sitting on a chair in my bedroom rather than in a drawer so I can admire them daily.  My husband leaves his store-bought socks out on top of his dresser all the time, so what's one pair on the chair?  I like them even more now that they've been cast off the needles.  And now, onto the next  project!

Third Time IS the Charm!

I am pleased to say that I appear to be smarter than a sock knitting chart - I have finished one sock of the Vorticity pattern from Alice Yu's Socktopus - but not without significant help from the internet.  That chart VEXED me, until I found the Ravelry group and the errata page done by Ms. Yu herself.  I noticed that I pop up pretty high in the results when you do a Google search about the Vorticity pattern and problems, so for those of you who are just here to gawk at what I'm making, you can skip ahead to the pretty photos at the bottom.  For those of you in a vexed state about your own version of the Vorticity sock, read on.

First off, read the chart left to right, starting at the bottom right corner and working left, then up.  In the book, the leg chart (p. 88 in the U.S. version) is properly numbered - there are 21 rows, and the numbers are right next to the appropriate row (they are not for the instep chart, but more on that in a minute.)  The stitches for the rows repeat until you get to the last 10 or so stitches.  At row 11, you knit three, then knit 2 together, and that is the end of that row.  Place a stitch marker, mark your paper (or whatever you do to keep track of where you are in the pattern), and immediately start row 12.  (This is where I went wrong the first two times I started.)  Row 12 is knit normally, and the last stitches of that row are the ones that were the four stitches that made up all of row 11.  Continue on with the chart.  When you get to row 19, you don't knit the last 4 stitches.  Those 4 stitches become the start of row 20.  The shifting stitches help contribute to that lovely rippled pattern.

The heel, heel turn and gusset were all pretty straightforward.  As I was knitting, I was thinking, "Hmm, I wonder if this pattern will feel strange on the bottom of the foot of the sock?"  Turns out, you don't do the pattern on the bottom of the sock.  After you knit the heel, and as you start the gusset, you use a stitch marker to establish the instep portion of the sock, and that's the only part that gets the pattern - the rest of the stitches are straight knitting, leaving a smooth sole on the sock.

When using the instep chart, you'll notice that there are 21 rows, which is not accurate - there are only 20.  Alice Yu explained on Ravelry that the printer's typesetting caused the numbering to be off from the actual rows.  I re-numbered the rows, starting at row 3 (where they start to go off-center of the row) so that my pattern chart has the correct number of 20 rows.  (I put my knitting down and pick it up often and tend to knit in the morning on the train, before my second cup of coffee.  I need every crutch and clear set of directions I can get my hands on.)  Knit the instep pattern for only the stitches found on the instep needle, and then straight knit the remainder of the row.  The instep chart doesn't have the same stitch-shift that the leg chart does, so I found it a little easier, and it was smooth sailing right through the toe decreases and binding off (I used the Kitchner stitch to close the toe.)

I cannot wait to wear these socks.  Too bad it's summer, and I'll have to wait a few more weeks.

Socks! (As if I could knit anything else....)

A friend of mine was in a terrible car accident at the beginning of February in Texas.  Thankfully she is home now with her husband and children but she still has a long way to go to normal.  Rather than send flowers, I knit her a pair of socks:

They were mailed off to Texas on Saturday.  Be well, K.

New Year, New Leaf

The holidays are over and that, my friends, is a very good thing.  I knit 7 1/2 pairs of socks as Christmas gifts this year.  Seven and a half, you ask?  Yes, it's only half a pair when your husband only gets one sock on his birthday, which was the 3rd of this month.  Here's my 2011 holiday sock gallery:

Goddaughter:

My lovely goddaughter opened her socks on Christmas Eve and immediately put them on.  Her mother later told me that she had to bribe E on December 26 to take the socks off to be washed before they walked away on their own.  I will be making her another pair for her birthday, in March, just so her mother can rotate them!

Cousin A (age 6):

Cousin W (age 4):

Cousin M (11 months):

A, W & M are all siblings.  One cannot knit socks for one child and not the other two.  Well, I could probably have skipped M, since he's not part of his siblings' sock craze and does not talk, but the goal is to be fair and equitable, unlike many things in life.

I spent the week between Christmas and New Year's pretending that mom would not be getting socks.  On Christmas, when she first asked about the socks, I made the excuse of having to knit for so many people this year.  Then the next day, when we were headed out on a shopping expedition, I brought over a bag of sock yarns I have stashed in my knitting bin for her to, "....chose a yarn for her next pair of socks."  She did, and it was similar to the yarn I had already knit her socks with.  Finally, on her birthday I showed up with those air-activated toe and foot warmers and a pair of SmartWool socks, layered on top of the hand-knit socks to leave them for last.  Of course, I don't have a photo of them, as I was too busy being devious about their actual appearance.  Someday a birthday or Mother's Day will arrive where she will not get socks, and that will be a dark, dark day indeed.  Probably for both of us.

I also lack photos of the matching pair I made for Stella Caroline and her lovely daughter, SuperG, but they are a spectacular set with a red base color and lots of striping, and they did me the honor of wearing the socks when they came to visit me last week.  They have discovered the secret to staying on the hand-knit gift list - wear what I gave you when I can see you wearing it.  Mom also adheres to this principal, but she's getting close to having enough pairs of socks to wear hand-knit ones every day.

Currently, I'm finishing the last pair, those of the man who is eternally shafted when it comes to hand-knit gifts, my husband.  While he chose the yarn for the socks, I was attempting to give him his pair as a surprise and thus could not knit in front of him.  So I struggled desperately to finish the socks before his birthday, knitting furiously on the train in and out of Boston, and getting up early on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to work on them before rushing to hide them when I heard him get up.  He was genuinely surprised by the sock when he opened the package: 



I photographed this going in a different direction, just for some variety.

It's a nice German sock yarn (Schoeller Stahl) 75% virgin wool, 25% polyester and I'm knitting it on size 1 1/2 double-pointed needles.  It's a very manly-looking sock - very sedate, good for wearing out in public.  I am so bored knitting it, because it doesn't make patterns.  I've fallen asleep at least a half dozen times on the train while working on it.  I have the same problem with "Pulp Fiction" - I've tried to watch that movie five times and I've fallen asleep every.single.time. 

I should point out that he did get a homemade gift for Christmas - new sleep pants:

Ole!

For some reason, Cinco de Mayo has become this HUGE holiday in our Western European-ancestry household, and when I saw this ridiculous flannel on sale, I could not leave it behind.  For what it cost me to make them, they almost qualify as a stocking stuffer.

After I finish his socks, I'll return to the pair that I was knitting in front of him over the holidays, the ones I refer to as my Cinco de Mayo socks.  The yarn is red, orange, yellow and magenta and I just love it.  Particularly after weeks of this Schoeller yarn!