Where has this week gone?

Well, I fully intended to tell you all about Howdy's Anniversary socks on Monday.  My kids were still out of school and I took Daughter the Younger to spend her saved money to buy her iPod and then I had to spend the entire rest of the day trying to figure out why iTunes wouldn't talk to her computer.  Grrr. 

Tuesday I spent knitting an iPod cozy.  When I originally started, I was using this pattern as an inspiration.  I knitted it flat, and decided that I'd use garter stitch, because it had a little more padding, and I added a pocket on the front (which isn't really easy to see in this picture...)

This is the leftover Biberon from the Negative Bricks Socks.  It's pretty cushy.  It splits a lot.  When I went to pick up the edges to make the icord strap, it looked like crap.  So, I moved on to iPod cozy 2.0...

This time, I used this pattern as an inspiration.  I knit it in the round, after I cast on 36 stitches using a figure 8 cast on.  At the top, I purled one round, knitted one round, did one round of k2tog, YO, one round of knit and one round of purl and bound off.  This made a nice little eyelet thing.  Then I picked up some stitches and knit an icord strap.  Much better.  I have about enough Biberon to make a pocket for the earphones.  Next time, I'm sewing one, it's got to be easier!

That took all day Tuesday.  Wednesday, Howdy decided he wanted to play hooky from work and we went Geocaching.  (13 finds for 15 attempts, if you're into that kind of thing.)  I cast on for his new socks while we were heading to our destination.  (Gosh, I should've gotten a photo of the socks Geocaching!)

Thursday, I determined that my Palm Pilot had eaten all the data from the previous day's caching, so I spent the day trying to figure out how to fix the stupid thing.  This involved hard booting it, and uninstalling and re-installing my Palm Desktop as well.  Grrr.  Do you know how hard it is to find tech support information for a three year old Palm Pilot on the web?

That brings us to today...do you still want to hear about the socks, or have you completely forgotten about them?  Okay, they were Mountain Colors Granite Peak...64 stitches on Addi Turbo 2s.  Started 12/1/05.  Completed 12/31/05.   Maybe I can get a pattern written up and posted by Monday.  Would you like that?  I am running out of clever ideas for sock titles, though.  I am pretty sure that "Howdy's Anniversary Socks Pattern" isn't going to conjure up any images for anyone looking for the pattern.  Hmmm.

Is that enough for one day?  Do you want to hear about the new socks that I cast on for on Wednesday?  Well, if not, you can stop reading here and come back over the weekend to finish or something.  I cast on with some of the Lorna's Laces sock that Howdy gave me for Christmas.  I asked Howdy if it was too loud for him.  He said, "no, but you should make some socks for you now, I got the last pair!"  (You gotta love a guy like that.)  I told him that Valentine's was coming and he consented.  I've been listening to a book on CD (The Lighthouse by P.D. James), so I got a ton done last night...

I've got to tell you...these socks are LOUD!  The back of the sock on the right looks just like the sock on the left, with the red lightning bolt going up it.  Howdy says that he wants this to be the front of the socks.  This is Lorna's in Amish, BTW, if you're keeping track of such things.  The pattern is the stitch pattern from "Gentleman's Fancy Sock" on page 81 of Knitting Vintage Socks : New Twists on Classic Patterns, that I also got for Christmas from Howdy.  Now, I have to tell you, it sure seems like Nancy Bush really goes the long way in most of her sock patterns.  All I really wanted was the stitch pattern for these socks...I knew I was going to cast on 72 stitches already.  There's a whole column of verbage for this sock pattern!  I will tell you my interpretation...8 rows K2P2, 2 rows K, 8 rows P2K2, 2 rows K.  After one repeat of this, she goes into some major shaping and stuff, but I'm not doing all that stuff.  If you want to know more, buy the book.

While I'm on the subject of this book, I'll tell you what I think of it.  Nancy is definitely a sock master.  if you are the type that wants to know a lot about specific sock construction issues, this would be a great book for you.  The photos are gorgeous, the spiral binding is wonderful, the charts are nifty, but in the grand scheme of things, there are only 24 sock patterns in this book.  The first four are just ribbed.  Two are plain stockinette, two are bed/sleeping, two are baby socks.  That leaves 14 patterns.  That's about par for Nancy Bush books, Knitting on the Road has 17 patterns total.  If you want more patterns for your buck, a better purchase would be Sensational Knitted Socks (my write up on it is here).  If you want to try every possible heel/toe combination, this is the book is for you.

Phew!  That's a lot of ground to cover for the week!  No wonder I'm tired!  Have a great weekend!