Pink Flamingo and Random Other Things

Well, the hats are in the mail, winging their way to my favorite "aunts-in-law". (I think I'm going to coin a new term here...I mean, why isn't there a term for anything other than mother- or father-in-law, brother- or sister-in-law? What about cousins and aunts and uncles?)

We had some lovely sunny weather here this weekend and went for a nice long walk in a park near where we live. It was so pleasant. Walked for about an hour. There's a loop path there that's 5 miles around, although we didn't park right on the loop so we just did a half hour out and then turned around. I'm not really sure how far we went, maybe 3 miles? Yesterday was crazy warm (we noticed our tulips are starting to come up!) and today is supposed to be warm too. Which is fine and all but it's only early March, and besides, we're going skiing this week!

Oh, and one more aside...my friend just reminded me of something...did you realize that this weekend is when Daylight Savings Time starts?! Already?! I'm not complaining here, but that sure snuck up on me!

In knitting news, I actually do have progress to report on my Fall Embossed Leaves socks, however I have no photos to share at the moment. I had thought I would leave them be for a while, partly because the fall colors are more fun to knit in the fall, but also because the first time around I knitted an entire sock before I realized that I'd made two rather large errors causing me to rip it back and start over. See, when I did the gusset decreases for the foot, I mis-read the pattern (totally my fault, a real "duh" moment) and didn't decrease enough...but didn't realize this until I started the decreases for the toe. Whoops. Meanwhile, I'd tried the thing on and my cast-on was WAY too tight, so that was the end of that sock.

So, back when I was home sick a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly had the urge to work on a patterny sock, and I got them out. I made some decent progress, and then this weekend I finished sock #1 (which felt like sock #2 since I've done almost the entire thing twice now but with only one sock to show for it). It came out great! Yes, I know this blog is lacking in the photo department at the moment. You'll just have to trust me on this for now. See, I was going to do this Sunday night but truth be told, the movie my husband was watching (during which I was going to not really watch while I uploaded photos and blogged) totally sucked me in. It also had subtitles so no knitting got done. I'm not much of a knit-without-looking person.

ANYway...the sock came out great although I was a little afraid it was going to be too long in the foot for me, since you have to follow the pattern or it won't look right (the toe decreases mimic the leaves in the foot...very clever...but you have to stop at a certain point in the pattern for this to work). But it worked...it's maybe a tad too long but not by much.

I also started a new pair of plain socks...I'd been itching to start some, and I can totally justify having plain socks on the needles because the way I see it is, they're a must-have for travel and such, and I have so much sock yarn in my stash that I really should have some on the needles at all times anyway. So I dug out this Opal in Flamingo.



Here is a very exciting WIP shot of a couple of inches of a sock ;)



So far I like the yarn, although the patterning hasn't really shown itself off yet. I'll get moving on it soon.

I'm curious about other people's sock sizing...see, I have different patterns that I use, depending on the yarn:

- 56 stitches on size 3's for thicker sock yarn (I don't use this often though)
or
- 64 stitches on size 2's for "average" (that's what I'm calling it) sock yarn

But then there are the yarns like Trekking that are thinner still...and to me this Opal seemed a little thinner as well. These I feel are better suited to size 1's so I decided to do 72 sts on size 1's. I had started a pair of socks with Trekking on size 0's with 72 sts, but they ended up being too tight, so next time I'll try 1's. I am hoping that the size 1's with the Opal will do the trick too. We shall see.

What do you guys do? Do you have a system like this to follow depending on the yarn? Just curious.

So, as I mentioned above, we're going skiing this week. Heading up to Bear Creek for a few days and staying at the lodge that's right there on the mountain. I've never been there and am inclined to think that it's going to be more of a hill than a mountain, but should still be fun. I really wanted to go someplace where we could stay "on mountain" and not have to drive to the slopes...it's always a fun atmosphere at such places anyway. Now I'm just hoping the forecasted rain doesn't mess with our plans too much.

Anyway, I might not be blogging for a few days so if I disappear, that's why. Keep your fingers crossed for us that the weather holds and we get some decent skiing in! :)

Knitting-wise, I'm bringing my new Pink Flamingo socks and one other thing...perhaps the Fuchsia Lace Scarf? I need something simple for when there's people-watching or something else going on, but then I need something that'll hold my attention when it's quiet.

So, chat with ya later!