Dear friends, if you at all cherish your socks, for the love of all you hold sacred, knit them toe-up so you don’t end up running short, discovering that the original store you bought your skeins at no longer carries the brand, and having to hunt all over Manhattan until you finally discover the same colorway in, of all places, HOBOKEN, but it doesn’t make a difference anyway because the dye lots are SO completely off that you end up with a chimeric oddity that mocks you with its mismatched stripes, leading you to wail repeatedly at your husband to look at the sock, until all he wants is for the crazy woman to stop making him check out her freaky sock. It is the PATH TO MADNESS, I tell you. MADNESS!

Yarn: Artyarns Supermerino in colorway SM115, 100 percent superwash merino, 104 yards (x 2.25 skeins)
Pattern: Embossed Leaves Socks by Mona Schmidt from Interweave Knits (Winter 2005)
Needles: Size 1 Addi Turbo circulars
Comments: Cuffs were 3 inches

I am the s-l-o-w-e-s-t knitter in the world. I’m still on the first of Nancy Bush’s Embossed Leaves Socks. Sigh, at least I’ve turned the heel and am working on the foot now. Maybe I’ve contracted that infamous knitter’s malaise.

I’m knitting the Embossed Leaves Socks by Mona Schmidt from the Winter 2005 issue of Interweave Knits, using Art Yarns Supermerino in the romantically named SM115 colorway. (It deserves to be dubbed “Rubaiyat” or anything other than an alphanumeric code.)

I do love knitting with the Supermerino; at a light-worsted weight, the 100 percent merino wool is buttery-soft and pliable—almost the antithesis of the cold steel of the knitting needles. The pattern’s no slouch either. Watching the little leaves reveal themselves with every row continues to amaze me.

The first sock of Nancy Bush’s Fancy Silk Socks was finally bound off last week, but I’ll have to block it before I take any pictures. You know how lace tends to be—it’s one big, blobby mass until the alchemy of water, air, and wool works its magic. Until then, it’ll be my ugly little orphan duckling, with a bow-necked swan bursting to get out.

Comrade Chekhov, why aren’t you plowing the fields? No borscht for you.

Have you met Fred, undercover kitten and Brooklyn’s favorite son? My Chekhov is a native Queens boy and kitty defender of the proletariat. (Okay, not really, but I’d like to think so.) Anyway, he demands lubbins.

Something from the sock archives for Danielle’s contest.

Yarn: Sunshine yarn in “Harvest” colorway, 100 percent merino, 440 yards (purchased from Knitting Sunshine, and yes, that’s my foot on her site if you click on the same colorway)
Pattern: Columbine socks from Cat Bordhi’s Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles
Needles: Size 1 Addi Turbo circulars
Comments: I had a baseball-size ball of yarn left over. If I had to do them over again I would make them taller (mine are 5 inches) and cast on less stitches for the cuff (pattern called for 72, which would fit a women’s size medium, but sag a little on my thinner ankles.) The pattern is relatively easy to memorize, but I would pay particular attention to the yarn-overs at the end of each needle.

Here are more Jaywalker pictures, as promised, helpfully modeled by my sister, who was visiting.

And as Adelin again demonstrates (not at all against her will, no not in the least), we were the darlings of our supermarket checkout line because we did all our own bagging, making the paper-versus-plastic conundrum as moot as a cow’s opinion. Yeah, we don’t need no steenking bags, no sirree bob.

I’m sad to report, however, that we never did discover How Jen Found Out, to my eternal regret.

My kitchen, which is so tiny it seems like an architect’s idea of a joke, or an ironic afterthought, has a wall of tea just above the doll-size stove. There is no room for my two teapots, however, which would otherwise multiply like oversexed bunnies if it wasn’t for the scant square-footage. I love teapots almost as much as the leaves steeping within—such a simple equation of form and function working in concert to brew the perfect cup of tea. And it’s their simplicity that draws me. (I veer away from painted ladies with garish florals, overwrought pastels, or those that try too hard at being “whimsical”.) I like my teapots classic, streamlined, and absolutely mindful of their singular purpose. You can always be sure of an ordinary teapot. It will not transmogrify into something else or lay a golden egg when you’re not looking. (I cannot vouch for coasters, though, those sneaky bastards.)

Is anyone still knitting socks that aren’t Jaywalkers? I just finished the cuff of Nancy Bush’s Fancy Silk Sock (part one of two!) with gorgeous, gorgeous Fleece Artist Merino in “Mahogany”. If you don’t have her delectable Knitting Vintage Socks: New Twists on Classic Patterns (it’s well-worth the sticker price, folks), the pattern can also be found reprinted here, uh, hopefully with permission.

Does anyone dig furnishing and kitchenware catalogs as much as I do? I fish them out of our mail piles with glee, and devour them slowly like I do a good book. (Then, much to the consternation of my much-beleaguered husband, I repeat the browsing process while tugging at his sleeve, going “Lookit! Lookit!”) I plan to get a thick binder, rip out pages from my catalog collection (eeks!) and then organize those disembodied parts into different sections of our dream home. I’ve already managed to pull said husband into watching various home-improvement and decorating shows on cable television with me, insisting that we are amassing knowledge we can put to use when we buy our first house. (My hunch that his cheapskatedness would overcome his disdain for interior decorating proved correct.)

A non-sequiter: I watched snatches of Merlin on the Sci-Fi Channel this afternoon. What’s up with their portrayal of Nimue? The Nimue (also “Vivien”) of legend was what my husband calls a skankoid¹ who seduced Merlin into imparting all his magical knowledge to her and then used it against him to seal him in a cave for all eternity. None of this mushy/kissy rubbish.

¹He has also taught me words like “ASS-plode,” as in “I just ate something that didn’t agree with me and I’m about to ASS-plode.” I’m so glad we’re still discovering new things about each other after all these years.

Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock (Superwash Merino) yarn in “Serengeti” colorway (purchased from Simply Socks Yarn Co.)
Pattern: Jaywalker socks by Grumperina
Needles: Size 1 Addi Turbo circulars

More pictures over the weekend, hopefully. An overcast morning sky doesn’t do indoor photography any favors.

I’ve finished my Jaywalker socks, but have been procrastinating on blocking them into shape. Yarnstorm’s horror story about washing her superwash Cherry Tree Hill socks also has me worried about any potential color-bleeding, especially since this is my first experience with the yarn.

We haven’t seen the sun for days, smothered as it has been by a thick, wooly blanket of gray. New York City in the movies never rains unless it’s to bring two would-be lovers together. Where is my swell of violins? The crashing cymbals and singing uteruses? The picturesque drizzle over a horse-drawn carriage ride around Central Park as Harry Connick Jr. croons his left ventricle out? Monochromatic weather always leaves me sullen and pensive.

I turned to my husband last night, cocking my head to the side and frowning, “Do you think you know my secret, inner soul?”

“Yes, I love your tea-drinking, manic-depressive, Gothic, Elizabethan soul.”

And this is why I married the man. He doesn’t think I’m a loon.

I’ve been following discussions about fair trade, especially regarding Starbucks and its less-than-truthful claims. According to its policy, you can walk into any of their stores and ask for a cup of fair-trade coffee, and have the baristas brew it for you if it isn’t already percolating. GreenLaGirl has been putting Starbucks stores to the test, with varying results. Here’s another less-than-visible Starbucks policy that may sour your macchiato.

I’m not as militant as my very socially conscious (and involved) sister, Adelin, but this why I prefer to caffeinate from my local tea shop. Transfair USA, which provides the fair-trade certification, has a list of fair-trade coffee retailers.

One Jaywalker sock down, one more to go. I love how the colors pool to form stripes.

I also made some Christmas stockings out of a couple of old sweaters that were long past their prime. The leftover fabric, married with some ribbon and buttons from my stash, found new life as floral embellishments.

I’m taking part in my first knit-a-long, hosted by Cara of JanuaryOne.com, using Cherry Tree Hill’s Supersock Merino in their “Serengeti” colorway. The pattern by Grumperina can be found in the Sept 2005 issue of MagKnits.