Finally done! Once I put them on my feet, I realized that I really should have flipped the chart on the second sock to make them symmetrical. I love me some symmetry. The pattern is Pomatomus, knit with Koigu KPM, in a color that is impossible to photograph correctly. The pattern is really great - all issues that I had were due to me not paying attention.

Blackina is moving along. I started knitting the other side of it - I’m procrastinating about figuring out the waist shaping. I’m adding waist shaping because I dislike the little pouf that happens above the ribbing. Ew, pouf. Somewhat Cowl needs some major revisions, and it’s on the back burner for now. And also, oh yeah, it’s about 80 degrees in TX these days. I just ordered a boatload of Knitpicks Shine to make Green Gable, which is also hot shit right now in the blogosphere. It’s a cute little top though!

Rob and I drove out to Galveston yesterday - a perfect day to enjoy a little sun and coastline. We went to the Moody Gardens rainforest, and we had a bet as to whether there would be monkeys there. There were two of these little guys with floofy white hair in the trees, which means I lost the bet. Boo!

It’s strewn awkwardly over my mother’s couch, but at least it’s blocked. I finally gave the blanket away last weekend to my friend Denise. Every time we go to Buffalo, it winds up being a weekend of excess. Too much drinking, staying out late, and eating terrible, terrible food. But yum, I heart the pierogis!

The pretty yarn below is Socks that Rock. The yarn does rock. The color looks much different from the website - it is color Pebble Beach. I bought 3 skeins because Mo has made some lovely lightweight Clapotis out of this stuff, but I feel very eh about the brightness of this stuff. I think I’m going to try to return 2 skeins and make socks out of the third.

Lately at work, I have been listening to podcasts. Knitting podcasts. That’s hardcore, man. I blame Staci, who introduced me to Cast On. Brenda has the most lovely voice, and the show makes me want to knit. At work! Shhh, don’t tell anyone I’m listening at work. Also very good - Knitcast and Craftypod.

Pretty flowers, huh? Rumor has it that they are some variant of Jasmine. When I pull my car into the driveway after a long day of work, I get to smell the beautiful flowers, yum!

This past weekend in Houston was gorgeous - perfect, sunny, warm weather. Sitting outside drinking cheap margaritas weather. Rob and I put in some quality time at Aztecas doing just that on Saturday.

Amy and I drove out to Katy for the Yarntopia grand opening last weekend. Now I’m not one of those people who refuse to travel outside the loop, but Katy is quite a haul from Montrose. Especially since I-10 was closed at the west loop this weekend. In any case, the store was lovely, and they carried lots of very pretty yarns. Like Fleece Artist, which is really gorgeous stuff. We both picked up some Classic Elite Renaissance (hers was orange), which I hadn’t seen before. It will likely become a very shrunken sweater of some sort.

I’m still pissed at the socks. Blackina is growing, and I begun the Somewhat Cowl from Knit and Tonic. I’m somewhat unhappy with the pattern so far - the raglan depth is waaay off, which requires knitting about 3 inches less before dividing out the sleeves. Which makes the body much smaller. Which requires some increases under the arms to fix the body measurement, so the thing isn’t tiny once you join for the cowl. Boo. It’s being knit in Jo Sharp Soho Summer in the Grove color.

Flash your Stash day was yesterday - I’m a day late and a dollar short, I suppose. I’ve been wanting to inventory my stash for awhile, and now’s a great time to do so. I realized that I have entirely too much yarn. The good news is that not one of the bags of yarn was full price! It really paid off to live 10 minutes from Webs. All of it lives in a closet in our study - the left side is all yarn.

Click through any of these photos to get more details.

First off, thanks so much for your comments! The blog was configured oddly and was hiding them, but now they are all up and posted.

Take a nice long look at the photo on the left - those socks aren’t twins. I misread the instructions for the sock on the left (the second sock), and the heel is half the height it should be. I wondered why I had so much yarn left over after the second sock. I totally thought I was done - the ends are woven in, the birds are chirping, everyone is happy. Was happy.

The photo on the right is the true color of the Koigu. Much better than the bright pink of the rest of the photos.

In any case, I’ve moved on. I need some space. Enter Black-ina.