The List is Shrinking...

The list of unfinished knitting projects that is. I can't believe I'm getting such a rush out of finishing things, especially since I'm such a "process" person who loves to start stuff but doesn't always feel compelled to finish everything I start.



Today's finished project is a pair of socks I'm calling the Little River Socks (LRS). I saw this lace pattern in a scarf design and I really liked it. I took a brief gander around the net looking to see if I could find a sock pattern that incorporated this lace, but I didn't see one. I had a nagging suspicion that a pattern existed somewhere, but I decided to unvent a pattern for myself using Crystal Palace Panda Cotton, one of my favorite sock yarns. I started my 1st pair of LRS using a variegated yarn and a cast-on of 64 sts. I finished the 1st sock and found the variegation obliterated the lace pattern and 64 sts was too many for a nice fit with this chubby sock yarn.


Rather than knit the 2nd sock, I decided to use a solid color Panda Cotton in blue and try again, this time knitting over 56 sts. The 56 sts proved to be just right and the 1st sock fit perfectly, so I went ahead to finish the pair. I cast-off this morning and in a few minutes I had the ends tucked away. You gotta love that star toe--no grafting! My LRS were ready for their photo shoot.


I headed out to the garden to shoot some pictures. The pictures I took of Meida's socks in the garden were such a hit I thought I'd try and replicate the experience. My garden looks quite pathetic after a summer of record heat and record drought. I find myself envying the folks who are getting all the rain, even if it's flooding. It's been so dry here in East Tennessee it feels more like the summers I spent in the Utah desert. Fortunately the lantana I planted is drought resistant and I have several "hedges" of it in my front yard. Besides being a nice backdrop for photographing knitted socks, lantana is a magnet for butterflies and bees. Just by coincidence a big, beautiful black Eastern Tiger Swallowtail happened to be dancing from blossom to blossom right where I was photographing socks. I snapped several shots of the butterfly and was delighted to find they turned out. You can't see the iridescent shimmer of the blue on the hindwings in the picture, but I think the butterfly surpassed the socks for a great garden picture.

I took more pictures of the socks which will be posted on my Flickr page here along with all the details of the project. You might want to buzz on over and feed on the eye candy there :-)

PS. After going through all the working of writing out my own pattern, I did find a published free pattern using the same lace on the SockBug's site. I don't know how I missed it! I guess that means I won't need to post my pattern after all. Cool, I prefer creating to pattern-writing any day!