Some Socks

I had long been eyeing the Embossed Leaves socks from Interweave's Favorite Socks book, but it wasn't until I saw Alligator's that I took the plunge.

Embossed Leaves socks, knit with Socks That Rock Lightweight in Jasper on US 1 needles.
It's funny... when I first started knitting socks, I turned my nose up at lace socks. I mean, first of all... lace... socks... I don't own any commercially purchased lace socks, why on earth would I want to spend hours knitting some? And they seemed so impractical... wool, to keep you warm... counteracted by lace... which has tons of HOLES! How silly! But I looooooove knitting lace, and wearing lace socks is not the problem I thought it would be. Bring on the lace!

And here are a pair of boring stockinette stitch socks I knit for that dude I live with :)

These are also Socks That Rock Lightweight in Corbie, US 1 needles.

And, because he's the best cat ever, I give you Pickle

(kindly ignore the baking soda on the fabric cubes behind him. We tried some green- as in environmentally friendly- carpet cleaning last weekend and made a mess. Oops!)

Blackbird Shawl- FO

Another shawl! I love to knit lace (just not in laceweight yarn)! Here is the Swallowtail Shawl knit from a little less than 4 skeins of Elann Baby Cashmere in Black, US 5 needles. Love it!


My hair looks very Anton Chigurh in this photo for some reason.

Luna Moth Shawl- FO

I recently took a trip to visit Bek in Saint Louis. We had some seriously good food (srsly) at Everest and LemonGrass and an Ethiopian place I don't know the name of, amazing strawberry lemonade at Mokabe's, a fantastic custard sundae at Ted Drewes, and (AND! AND! AND!) I went to three (THREE! THREE! THREE!) yarn stores! It was kind of funny... we went to the first one because I was dying to shop for Malabrigo in person (none of the three major yarn stores in Columbus had it until about a week ago, and the one that now carries it, Knitters' Mercantile, carries a lot of the variegated stuff that's not that great. Maybe they'll get the solids and semi-solids in soon?). I bought some Malabrigo Silky Merino for a shawl, and was thinking I had brought the right size needles, but then realized I hadn't. So we went to a different yarn store (where they had more Malabrigo!) and I got my needles and Bek got some yarn for some hats. Well Bek got home and realized she didn't have the right needles for the hat she was planning, so out we went to the third yarn store in St. Louis! And let me tell you, they were all awesome. If I could knit with one kind of fiber for the rest of my life, it'd be 100% wool. But coming in a close second are 50/50 wool/silk blend yarns. I LOVE them. Srsly. Love. And Malabrigo did not let me down. Out of 2.15 skeins of Silky Merino in Marron Oscuro and US 9 needles came this lovely shawl




This is the Luna Moth Shawl, I did 4 body repeats instead of the recommended 6. My shawl has a 52" wingspan and a 33" height. I really love the finished product, but the lace pattern didn't make as much sense and wasn't as easy to memorize as other lace I've knit. Overall, I'm very happy with it and I'm really excited that I have almost two whole skeins left over!