a little project

It snowed today. I'm from Boston, and snow is common in the winter. Snow in April is pretty unusual, though. It might be on the ground, but it's not falling out of the sky. Snow in April in Seattle is just wrong. We don't get snow here in January; I don't see why spring decided to beat a fast retreat today, especially as it was over 70 last Saturday. Fortunately, the abrupt change of weather doesn't appear to have killed the garden I planted 2 weeks ago and that is starting to push up tender little leaves into the suddenly frozen air (and I thought I was starting late in the season!). It's now tucked in under trash bags, and I'm hoping that it survives the night. It's too bad wool is so heavy; it would be so nice to be able to wrap my little plants up in sweaters to keep them cozy warm!

I realized a few days ago that the only knitting I'd get done this week would be on the bus. I normally don't knit on the bus because my ride isn't very long, and I am usually just getting going when it's time to stop. So, I needed something small. I mentioned a while ago that I'd bought yarn to make socks for Branden's co-workers' two little girls. Four year olds have small feet, so ankle socks definitely qualify as a small project:



I was originally going to use these as the project to try the sock-inside-sock method from knitty. I even cast on both pair of socks and started double knitting them. I'm not sure if it's the yarn or just the method, but I wasn't really interested in a challenge project for the bus ride. Really, the method is very simple as long as you're only knitting straight, with no increases, decreases, or patterns. I don't know if it's this yarn or just me not being used to the double knitting, but I didn't like the way the fabric was turning out, and my yarn seemed a little too prone to tangle for travel. All of this, of course, means that I gave up on the double knitting method for now, and just made the darned socks (well, they're not darned yet, but you know what I mean...).

I did stick with the original plan as far as the heel goes. Or rather, the lack of heel. I have always done short row heels. They're just the most intuitive to me, and I've always stuck with them. Since I like each project to have something a little new (and because I was planning to double-knit these), I decided to do an afterthought heel. So, when the sister pair is knit I will be attempting an afterthought heel, which will be my first foray into cutting my knitting open. Hopefully I didn't choose an awful yarn for that; this is Tofutsies Chitin yarn, which is a little more slippery than wool. I guess I'll find out when I try it. (The other advantage of socks you can knit in 15 minute chunks in a week...you don't mind so much if you destroy them...).

I'm hoping to make some lace/sweater progress over the weekend, so maybe I'll have something a bit more substantial to share soon.