Challenge and reward

Pattern; Clematis Vine in New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One by Cat Bordhi

Yarn; La Primera Junmou Chu-boso, color 13 (pink) 13g, La Primera Wool Multi Color Chu-boso color 105 (pink-orange-purple multi) 34g, Kanebo Cattleya color 201(white) 40g  - 40g of MC (white) and total 47g of CC (pink & multi)

Needles; US 1 1/2 (2.50mm) Brittany 5 inch DPN, set of five and KnitPicks nickel 24 inch circular

This is my Sock Knitters Anonymous Group Sockdown! challenge for March.  Challenge, it was.  I had to carry the charts and instructions everywhere I go.  I didn't imagine I would say "oh, it's nothing - just K1-K1 stripe with two colors!" 

I'm sure it's a gauge issue, but my socks have extra room (more like extra suite rooms) at heels.  I should have stop increasing for the heels two or three stripes earlier, to make gusset shorter and fit a little more better.  I'm OK with this pair, though, because it's my bedroom socks to wear over another pair.  I love these colors.  Original pair in the book used orange and blue yarn, stunning beauty of autumn blue sky and leaves just starting to change their colors.  Mine is meant to be more like dreaming spring flower garden (too girly?).  I am very proud of myself that I did it and did it from my stash - "leftover" stash, that is.  All the skeins were partial at the beginning.  I didn't have to buy any to finish.  

On the first sock, I read the instruction wrong and made only one round of CC stockinette after the picot row.  I wondered why the cuff rolls up so bad, and crochet SC one round to keep it from showing the gut.  It worked, and I somewhat proudly even took a picture of it, and wondered again, why THAT Cat Bordhi publish such pattern.  I read it again, and found "inch" after "k1" at the cuff instruction.  I deeply regretted while I re-do the hem the right way, not to have been more careful.

The second sock was on hold for days after finishing the toes.  

My daughter had lost Gaspard and I promised her to make the identical doll again, and the demand was enough to wake me up from ignorance (not really ignoring, but y'all know what I mean).

 

After Gaspard, I was all obsessed to make Penelope and her doll Doudou completed with the carry basket for him. 

And I had to finish something for a brand-new big sister of my friend's new baby (Welcome to the world, Ahren Kazuma!).

Of course, my daughter had to have one for herself.

Those amigurumi craze made the girls (including the one in myself) really happy, but took longer than I expected.

My mother went home the day before I finished the socks.  I helped her to leave the hospital, do the filling-an-empty-fridge-and-an-empty-pantry shopping with her.  My daughter and I stayed for two nights with her to fill her emptiness a little more  and help her go back in the action (meaning let her cook for us).

I finished the Clematis socks at her home, actually. (It's why the lighting was so bad and the color of the carpet is different.)

I am not so confident about consuming the now humongous stash of mine in my lifetime.  The final (big) box filled with Mom's yarns arrives on Friday.  There are acrylics in worsted and fingering weight, and beautiful wools in rainbow colors.  I am thinking of a log cabin acrylic afghan/rug/whatever and a few wool vests for my daughter to wear under her Kindergarten uniform bolero.

I totally agree with "Life is too short to knit with bad yarns".  Looks like my criteria for "bad yarn" leaves very few yarns in that category.  Acrylics has its own niche.