Socks just fly off the needles when it is just knit knit knit!

My next sock, however, will be colorwork.  Something I have never done on a sock (cause stripes don’t count).

But I got the second finished over spring break.  Ah, a week of knitting.  That trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain cut a day out of my knitting, but the coasters were so fun that I’ll let it pass. ;]  Seriously, though, Six Flags is hardcore.  I hadn’t been there for about 6 years, and since then they’ve added a ton of crazy roller coasters.  I overdid it and lost my $12.07 fries and shake (lunch).

Ok, ok, back to the topic!  here are my socks, in all their purple glory.

Diamonds Within Pattern on Ravelry (it’s a free download!)

Knit

Knit

Knit

Why, you ask?  It’s Spring Break, of course!  Whereas many of my fellow students will be out partying, I will be sitting and knitting.  After a quarter of studying and tests, it is a nice break to just go zen and knit a sock.  Plus, this sock in particular has been giving me guilt-making stares for awhile now.  You see, I finished the first sock a couple months ago.  But I haven’t been able to get to the second one.  And it is an original pattern, too.  Shame on me!  Hopefully the situation shall be remedied, and the sock shall gain a mate.

(You see what academic stressors do to people?  I’m feeling guilty because I haven’t knit the second sock and the first one is slowly shaking its metaphorical head at me.)

Must sleep, then knit!

So, for your viewing pleasure, here they are in front of pretty flowers!

And, look, sky!  Buildings, too, since it is really difficult to take a picture of your hand against the sky.  Seriously, have you ever tried it?

Now, I am taking a little break from knitting.  That means that I will not be knitting every idle moment.  Some idle moments (i.e in front of the tv box) are best left brainless.  No worries, spring break is 2 days away.  I already have a ton of projects lined up to do then.

Gloves, I thought.  I should make gloves.  I had never made gloves before, but that didn’t matter.  How hard could it be?  I browsed through patterns to find the perfect pair.  Not too simple — that would be boring.  But not so fiddly that they would be WIPs until the end of time.

Enter Miss Sophie’s Hands.  They had cables, sure.  But it wouldn’t take too long.  I bought the pattern and excitedly set out to start knitting them.  It was going well, until I hit the bobbles.  A whole row of bobbles.  Ever done that before?  It took forever, which probably was aided by the fact that I was watching random whatever’s-on TV.  Phew, I thought, done with that!

Then, the charts began.

I usually get tired of charts, but this kept me amused because I could anticipate the pattern.  That’s what I thought, anyway, until I realized I had messed up about two inches back — an eternity in Chart Land — and had to rip it out.  All while reknitting what had been frogged I was depressed by how I failed at life.  It was laid out in front of me, but I could not follow a simple chart!  No, I had to go and “figure it out”, thus dooming my future.

This little setback soon was behind me, and I knit like a demon until I finished the first glove.  Ecstatic at my accomplishment, I spent more time than I’d like to admit admiring my now-gloved hand.

I have suffered from Second Sock Syndrome many times before, but this was my first case of Second Glove Syndrome.  Instead of starting the next glove right away, I took a “break”.  How glorious it was!  But, alas, I had a deadline.  A trip to a climate colder than SoCal warranted gloves.  Though it took a little longer, I did manage to finish the pair!

Tonight I took them on a test run to go walk the dogs and they performed nicely.  My fingers stayed toasty warm!

You see, I love to make my own patterns.  Usually, however, I will write a pattern and not actually ever finish the item.  I enjoy organizing and creating, but the follow-through–not so much.

I have the cable pattern that I made up out of my own brain and am just putting it into a toe-up sock.  I figure I should start simple.  Who knows, these socks may make it into actual pattern form!

The toe is currently done, though I admit it is not much to look at!

Click for the PDF

With my last pair of socks, I realized that striped is much more fun to knit than variegated.  So I wanted to dye my yarn to be self-striping.  I measured how long the stripes were in Felici and pushed two chairs into position to form a loop that size.  Let me tell you, winding 100grams of yarn takes a while.  It was a sort of Yarn Aerobics because I had to take four steps forward, then eight back for every loop.  After about twenty loops, I started to get a little too into it, I think…  I was listening to music, so it sort of became a strange dance.

I steamed the yarn in two plastic bags so that the colors would stay separate.  Plastic bags work really well for this.  They are hardier than plastic wrap.  The only reason I thought to use plastic bags was because we are out of plastic wrap, actually.

I wish it was summer!  Yarn dries so much quicker when I can put it outside in the 90 degree weather.  It’s currently hanging in my shower to dry because it is colder outside.

I knit them using Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s Sock Recipe.  My only problem was a mistake with the toes.  I didn’t decrease as much as called for, so I ended up grafting 32 stitches instead of 16.  This was when I was sick.  That’s my excuse. *nod*  I wore them for a day, and they worked out wonderfully!  My feet stayed nice and warm.

Now I’m wondering if I should try to knit some knee socks…