Yarn Along: October

I am joining Ginny today for this month's Yarn Along. 

In the past month, I finished the Ephemeral Stream socks, and they are soon to be shipped for a surprise gift to a very good friend of DD2 who is an unofficial sister to my girls.  Apparently I forgot to take a picture of them. *sigh*

As soon as they were cast off (probably why I forgot the photographic evidence), I picked section 4 of my Hue Shift afghan back up.  It had been languishing most of the summer, and I determined I should work on it, and not cast on anything new until it was once and for all finished.

Well, I did finish section 4. And I did get all the sections laid out according to directions and mattress stitch them together.

doin' the stitchin'

So pretty!

The next thing to do was to pick up stitches and knit the black edging all around it, one side at a time.  I got about 10 rows (or half-way) through edge #1, and I had to set it down to go out of town.

Of course, I couldn't go out of town (which included airplane flights) without a portable knitting project. The afghan was now way too big to be portable.  So I had to cast on something new: socks!  

In August, I had broken down and bought more yarn because K3 has requested a balaclava like I made Toad two years ago, and she was very specific about the color scheme.  Whilst shopping for the right shade and weight of yarn, I fell in love with some pastel sock yarn with long color changes that begged me to make it into more shortie socks (shortie socks might be my new fav thing to wear around the house).  

What could be a more perfect travel project than a pair of short socks!  They knit up really quick, and take up hardly any room in my carry-on luggage.

The yarn is Knit Picks Chroma fingering in the colorway Pixie.  I am using my typical shortie sock formula of CO 64 stitches, K2P2 for 10 rows for the cuff, do 12 rows from the leg chart of my chosen pattern (this time, Basket Rib from the book Sockacular!), divide for the heel flap worked 32 rows on 32 stitches, turn the heel, pick up 17 stitches on each side for the gusset.then continue working the chart for foot and stockinette on the instep until desired length for size has been reached, then toe decrease every other round until only 24 stitches remain and graft the toe in kitchener stitch.

As you can see, I have started, and finished one sock as well as gotten nearly half of the second sock done.

That's the knitting report.  Not a whole lot of reading for this edition of the Yarn Along. I did start and finish Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini, which I found very good.