Socks, Baby.

So last weekend was Sock Summit which by all reports was crazy and overwhelming and wonderful. I wasn't there. Sort of disappointing but realistically it was just too far to go. Of course had the summit taken place at this time last year I would have been a few hours away by car. Alas.

I did think of Tina and the Blue Moon ladies though while working on my socks. Blue Moon Socks that Rock (lightweight) in Garden Daze:


This was the yarn for the July shipment of the Rockin' Sock Club. It is very, very far outside of my usual colour family but I liked it as soon as I opened up the package. So far I have been letting my sock club yarn mellow in stash a bit, in fact a few earlier shipments have not yet been cast on. Not so this, I cast on a couple of days after it showed up. Unfortunately the club pattern and I were not seeing eye to eye. It's a lovely pattern, but I thought it obscured the colours and I was getting some unfortunate pooling. Sometimes a really pretty handpaint just want to be a plain vanilla sock. So it is (with a little picot cuff thrown in for variation). I am zooming through these, not least because I can't wait to wear them no doubt alarming my friends and co-workers.

Another reason it is probably best I did not make it to Sock Summit: I would almost certainly have bought sock yarn and I don't really need more sock yarn. Being in the sock club fills the hand-painted niche very nicely so I've bought some solid colours lately but not much else.

Working in a yarn shop is not without its hazards and going home with more yarn than pay is one of them. Now that I've been there for a while though the effect has changed. I'm at the yarn store all the time. I'm surrounded by the lovely yarn all the time. The yarn fumes have lost some of their power perhaps but mostly I have gotten over that feeling that "If I don't buy it right mow I might never see this yarn again" feeling. The yarn is always there and even if a particular yarn or colour goes away more yarn will come to fill its place.

All very nice and philosophical sounding. We'll see how well this has held up in October, after Rhinebeck.

Socks aside it's been all gift knitting lately. Which of course does not make for good blogging, as some of the recipients read here from time to time. The gift of the moment should be safe; another apple hat for another anticipated baby.

Adam is flying west this weekend for work and hopes to have a chance to visit friends who have just announced they are expecting their first in February. One apple hat coming up. Cast on at Pub knitting on Wednesday and should be done this afternoon (I need to burrow into the stash to find a few yards of brown for the stem).

Blogger tells me that this is the 100th post since I started this blog a little over two years ago, which doesn't sound like a very good pace. Just have to keep going, I guess.