Lichen Rib

For some reason, sock number two took forever to finish. It must have been that sock number one was done in the 11 hour ride down to the outer banks - my knitting time hasn't been that plentiful since we got back. I did manage to sit down and get them done the other night. Hubby wasn't around for a photo session, so you get my feet - the socks are a touch big (Thank goodness! His feet are about 4 sizes bigger than mine!) but the yarn is wonderful. (the photograph is horrible however - I took them the night I finished and had to use the flash)

Pattern: Lichen Rib Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Interlacements Tiny Toes in color #220
Needle: #2 (2.75mm) Inox circular
Modifications: I used an eye of partridge heel and increased the stitch count to accommodate hubby's bigger feet.

The yarn is really nice. The colors are beautiful and the twist is really tight. I'd highly recommend getting some from Alison.

It seems that is the only positive knitting progress I've made this week. After reading all the comments and advice about Licorice Whip, I decided to rip back to the armholes and start the decreases there. Per the pattern they are every 5 rows, so I may just keep that interval and start right at the armholes. I like the fit across the chest, so I'm reluctant to rip back and make the chest smaller. Running out of yarn is a huge concern. I hate trying to race the yarn to the end!

Finishing the Lichen Rib socks gave me permission to start on my sister, Naomi's socks. I promised to design her a pair of colorwork socks. After she saw the Mamluke, Turkish and Heart Crook socks, she wanted a pair of her own! I looked through many books to seek just the right colorwork pattern. I wanted something a little different. Inspiration struck when I saw the preview of the Fall 2007 Vogue Knitting.

I fell in love. The pattern was beautiful! (if only I could wear a dress like that!) After looking at the chart and having Naomi approve the pattern, I started on the ribbing.

I'm using Tess Yarns Supersock & Baby purchased at this year's Sheep and Wool. It looks like sherbet! (as a total aside, why is there no "r" in SherbeRt? That is how everyone says it!) The contrasting color will be a dark blue Tess yarn purchased at Stitches East last year. This should be a fun one! I'm not sure if I'll do solid color heels and toes, or continue the pattern down the heel. That's up to Naomi.

Puppy watch continues. She is growing bigger and bigger every day!

Post Vacation Post

Ahhhh. Vacation was purely wonderful. Sun, sand and plenty of relaxation.

Before we headed down to Corolla on Sunday morning, I managed to squeeze in a little friendly meet up at our halfway stop in Maryland.

Lolly picked me up and we went to a wonderful, tasty lunch at Great Sage. It was deeeeelish! I managed to easily eat my entire sandwich even after we got an appetizer. It was too good to put down! We missed each other at this year's festival so I was really glad we were able to connect before she left for her big trip!

The ride down was pretty uneventful. (In comparison to the shutdown of the New Jersey Turnpike in the northbound direction on the way to Maryland causing a 3 hour backup on our southbound side due to nothing other than curiosity factor!) I did manage to knit and finish the first Lichen Rib Sock (can't read in the car, but I can knit!). Here it is enjoying the porch swing at the beach house.

After a traditional stop at The Border Station on the Virginia/North Carolina border for gas and last minute provisions we arrived at the beach.

We couldn't have asked for better weather. High 80's, low 90's and not a cloud in the sky. A bit of rain on the first day didn't dampen our spirits - it just gave us time to unpack and get settled! We still managed a trip to the beach that day before the showers came.

I even managed to get Hubby to go to the beach with me one day. You can see how happy he is.

He isn't the biggest fan of sand, though he loves to swim, he just prefers his water surrounded by concrete. I was truly appreciative of his sacrificing his comfort to keep me company for a while in the sand. His week was filled with scuba adventures off the coast - his new passion. Lucky for him, we did have a pool at the house, which also got plenty of use - it provided a great salt water rinse off station after a long day at the ocean.

Not a heck of a lot of knitting was done during the week due to a persistent intruder to my knitting time.

I started it on Monday and finished on Saturday. I will hold all opinions and information private for those who are still reading or have not started! I will say it managed to hold my attention for over 700 pages. That is an accomplishment in itself.

Being a typical vacation, it was full of good food. Being at the seashore, this food consisted of a lot of seafood!

Two nights we got tons of super fresh seafood (crab, scallops, shrimp, oysters) from Steamers. My vegetarian cousin and I, the seafood disliker, had spinach and mozzarella ravioli....everyone who did eat it raved how good it was. Ordering loads of food from them has kind of become a tradition.

Good food was also had by the turtles of the area. The lake that the house we stayed in backed up on is home to many turtles and snakes. Down by the community pool, there is an area where you can feed the turtles. They come in swarms as soon as a piece of bread hits the water.

This is a very small representation! It's pretty funny - you look out over the lake from the dock area and you can just see their little heads just swimming towards you. Like we were being invaded! They are always more than hungry and snatch up any bread we throw to them. Always a favorite activity for the kids. We usually end up going more than once!

Most of the week was spent on the beach reading or just simply sitting and listening to the waves and the kids play. Overall, it was a pretty darn perfect week. It was really hard to go back to work this morning!

We drove back on Sunday in one big trip - we left the Outer Banks at 4:45 AM and arrived on our doorstep at around 3:30 PM. We were so lucky - we hit pretty much no traffic at all and had a pretty pleasant drive.

I can't wait until next year.....

Good Intentions

Well, I was planning on posting pictures of both progress on the new sock for hubby as well as Licorice Whip. Yeah, we all know how the best laid plans go.....between packing for our vacation, working both my jobs and other errandy and life stuff, it just hasn't happened. Both projects did have one thing in common these past few days besides photogenic absenteeism - they both took a fun trip to the frog pond.

I was happily knitting away on Licorice Whip and started to really look at it. Something wasn't right. After a trip to Ravelry to scout out the other Whips, (isn't Ravelry the best for project research? No more Googling and searching everywhere for a picture!) I noticed my center and side lace panels looked different. Turns out I totally excluded the twisted stitches on either side! Plus, after doing the collar and trying it on, it was a bit high for me. So, a date with the ball winder and we cast on again. Now that I have the pattern right, it looks much better. I'm really hoping for a comfy fall sweater with a little flattering shaping. We'll see what happens! Since I'm knitting it with size 10.5 needles, my yarnover holes are a bit bigger than average, therefore making my lace a bit more "lacey" - undergarment will definitely be required on this one!

The socks trip to the pond was a bit more dramatic. I started off really nicely - the ribbing was done and I had knitted up about an inch of the Lichen Rib Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks. No pooling, no striping. It was all good. Then, I saw these socks on Lolly's blog. "That pattern would really work with this yarn!" I thought. Plus, hubby had hinted that he would like a pattern of some kind on these socks as he knows how I like to challenge myself in my sock knitting. His best fitting and probably favorite pair so far are the Madder Rib socks I knit for him a while back. Ribbing seems to fit his feet very well, so I wanted another well fitting pair. Especially with this super variegated yarn, I figured ribbing was the best choice - let the yarn do the work.

Well, I ripped the inch or so of ribbing (the Lichen rib is basically a k3p1 rib) back to the cuff and started in on the Classy Slip Up Socks from Knit Socks! (yes, the title does actually have an exclamation point in it.). I was knitting away when I noticed something horrible happening. My once nicely variegated sock started pooling. Horrible, icky, ugly pooling! One side of the sock was all teal and purple, the other was green and blue! I tried to take a picture, but the camera refused to document the repulsiveness that was ensuing. So, I ripped again. I do have to say, this yarn is holding up very, very well to all the ripping and re-knitting. The twist is still super tight. Back to the Lichen rib, and - whoosh - there goes all the pooling and we are back to variegated once again.

I probably won't be posting again this week - we leave tomorrow at noon for the Outer Banks! First, we are making an overnight pit stop in Baltimore to break up the 11 hour drive. Then, we leave bright and early Sunday morning to spend a week in a beautiful house at the beach with lots of family.

How nice is that! My aunt always gets such pretty houses. This one is right on the lake and is a short way to the ocean on the other side. It has a pool and a foosball table! I see lots of knitting out on one of those decks.

The boys are heading out to their grandparents tomorrow - they are quite excited. My dad loves to walk, which luckily is one of the boys favorite activities. We will have Internet at the beach, so I hope to be able to post once or twice while I'm there. Maybe I'll have some progress to show!