treeskin

Before I forget...remember I told you on the phone that your socks needed to be handwashed? Well, they'll need to be handwashed by themselves for the first couple of times. I realized last night that the yarn was turning my needles blue, which means it'll definitely bleed when you wash it.

* A warm, filling lunch of split pea and sausage soup, with garlic bread and tea.

* Got a 2' wide chunk of the pantry counter cleaned off. (That's a bigger accomplishment than you realize, if you haven't seen it.)

* By finished loading the dishwasher, and hand-washed a few things, so the kitchen's mostly clean, too.

* Several loads of laundry done, and are folded on the sofa (will put the stuff away later this evening). It's not everthing that needed doing, but it's a damn good start.

* One of T's kilt hose is COMPLETELY DONE!!!!!! I still have 9" or so to knit on the second one, but the end is finally in sight.

* I started a pair of colorwork socks for myself this weekend, although I'm still planning out most of the design. But I had to figure out the gauge, and try out the colors together. I'd taking the 'Blueberry Hill' colorway of the Cherry Tree hill merino sock yarn, and cream Kroy sokc yarn, and adapting a blanket pattern I found years ago into socks. It's a graph of the word for peace, in 15 or so different languages. I may chart a basic peace sign and put that on the heel, too, just for giggles. That's will in the pondering stages, and at 9 sts to the inch, this won't be a fast project.

* A few inches on the Eleanor stole (from Scarf Styles), as a reward for finishing one of T's giant socks. I think I've figured out how I'm going to adapt the design, to keep my texture and color stripes symmetrical. I've only got about a foot left on that piece, to reach a comfortable wearing length for me.

Oh, and not progress, but needs passing on lest I forget: Tristan, you left your Spiderman 2 disc in our dvd player this morning. I think you've got the case. We'll babysit it for you until next weekend.

Filling third tank. Truck returned the pencil it ate earlier, but not the sock needles. Oddness. Am halfway done with the foot of the current sock (the other is still stuck at "heel flap done"). Am knitting much slower now...between two and a half days of knitting in the truck, and hoeing weeds on Wed, and gardening last night, my hands ache. Not to that "numb enough to work at my previous speed" point, which is good and bad--good, long-term, but bad in terms of simply getting the progress done that I wish.

Talked to By a little bit ago. He's working on loading up the truck at Albert's job, then he's home to sit in the AC for a while.

I *think* I've got the design for By's firebird socks done...a stylized firebird, sitting at the ankle of the sock, with the tail falling onto the foot, and the wings wide enough to spread around to the back of the leg. I may do some sort of key pattern to fill in the rest of the back, and foot, maybe something dramatic and Persian. By had shades of blue in mind, on a dark background, so now I'm wondering if I could actually manage 3 colors per row on some of this. It'd be ever so much cooler if I could. Hmm.....must also print out more graph paper, at a smaller size, so I can get the whole @#@#$ chart on one page.