A pain in the neck

Ugh. I woke up with my neck in serious pain and ibuprofen has not helped it.  This has happened to me before, but usually by afternoon I'm all back to normal.  Not today.  Today the pain has lingered & lingered & lingered.  My only hope now is that by the time I wake up tomorrow that the pain will be gone.  But enough about that.  Where am I at knitting wise?  I have a myriad of projects going on! I got on a mission to finish up some of them, but no matter how many I might finish up there are always more that I want to cast-on.  

My most recent finished project is a pair of socks that I started last June, the Indian Corn Socks. The pattern is the Classy Slip-Up Socks by Betsy Lee McCarthy from the book Knit Socks!: 15 Cool Patterns for Cozy Feet.  I knit the fingering weight version using Farmhouse Yarns Fannie's Fingering Weight yarn in colorway Indian Corn. If you haven't checked out this sock book, then I recommend checking it out.  There are a variety of sock patterns from beginner to advance as well as options for fingering weight & sport weight for a couple of the socks. 

This is yarn that I inherited from my mom and spent time looking for a pattern that I thought would work well with the colorway.  Now, I don't have the sock book in front of me, but I believe that the description of the pattern says something about how the slipped stitch pattern is perfect for showcasing variegated yarns.  It was this description that hooked me and convinced me that this was the pattern for the yarn.  I was really curious to see how the color of this yarn was going to knit up because looking at it I just couldn't tell if it was going to come together.  Well, I had no reason to wonder or worry because the colors knit up beautifully.  I should also mention that this yarn was wonderful to work with and I'd recommend it if you come across it.

The details: I knit these using US 1 (2.25 mm) DPNs following the fingering weight version of the sock.  The only modification I made was casting on 64 stitches instead of 68 stitches.  This subsequently required me to modify other parts of the pattern  in the following areas: 31 heel stitches, 17 stitches after turning the heel, picked up 17 stitches on each side of the heel, and then decreasing back down to 64 stitches for the Gusset decreases.  I shaped the foot as directed in the pattern.  I'm really fortunate that I took good notes while knitting the first sock because I was able to replicate it for the second sock.  The fit turned out perfectly for me, so I'm really happy with my initial decision to cut out 4 stitches from the cast-on.

Yarn Party 5/14/12

We attacked the cheese plate. Yum!!!

One of my favorite parts of my trip to MD (besides seeing my family) was a yarn party that my mom arranged for us to have at Fibre Space.  Fibre Space has this unique program where as you spend money you move up a ladder of sorts of prizes.  The first tier prize is t-shirt and so on; well my mom was at the point where she achieved Space Commander level which meant that her "prize" was a private yarn party that included a cheese platter, sparking cider & use of a private room for 2 hours.  When my mom asked me if this was something I was interested in doing I of course answers "ABSOLUTELY".  She also informed me that we would a 10% discount that day as well!   Our yarn party was scheduled for Monday 5/14/12 @ 11"30 AM and it was awesome.  It was just a great time for my mom, my sister and myself to just sit and knit and hang out.  

Mary & Mom getting their knit on

Mary & me knitting!

Mary knits!!

Mom knits!!

I love this little guy

I've spent the last week visiting my family in MD and tomorrow is my last day.  I was pretty busy getting ready for the visit and I've been pretty busy while visiting, so my blog has been neglected :o( I can report that I've finished my socks (yay) and cast-on for another pair of socks (yay)!  For now I will leave you with my second sock when it was in progress with Arthur watching over it.

Why would you knit when you could pet me????!!?