Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Fishy socks!

Last August a woman in my knitting club brought in skeins of alpaca yarn from her own personal alpacas, and my husband decided he wanted a sweater. With cables. Oh, wait, no, how about a sweater with a Norse colorwork pattern? Well, maybe there's not quite enough yarn for that... how about SOCKS with a Norse colorwork pattern?

I tried. If anybody knows how to make Fair Isle or other color knitting stretchy, please tell me. In the meantime, last August, I announced that unless he had size 2 feet and didn't mind his socks being completely slouchy, these stars and reindeer weren't gonna work.

So he drew a couple squiggles on a page that looked vaguely like a fish, and said, "do cables like these." And I said, "I don't know how to do cables like that!" And he said, "figure it out" and left the room.

He sounds really mean, doesn't he? I thought so too. Only, an hour later, I had completed a swatch that looked quite a bit like fish, which proved to me that I did in fact know how to do cables like that. So he wasn't being mean, he just knew my abilities better than I did.

Now, I am going to beg a favor from my readers. Please kindly ignore the fact that by my own admission this project has been on my needles since AUGUST, and be duly impressed at the completion of...

THE FISHY SOCKS.


They're not green, they're gray, but my phone was on life support, and the life support cord didn't reach from the kitchen table where the light was good to the plug in the living room. And I'm not about to let you see the state of my linoleum; it's embarrassing. Not dirty embarrassing, but should-have-been-replaced-fifty-years-ago embarrassing. Thus we have distorted colors. Such is life.


I'm modelling because, well, the socks are warm and fuzzy, and I wanted to try them out first. Am I a bad person?

Monday, February 08, 2010

Conversations about dogs...

(I'm looking out the window)
Him: Are the puppies ok? Are they still fighting over their bone?
Me: They're fine. They're just eating some vines.

************
(He walks in the door)
Me: What are the puppies doing?
Him: Sir Gawain was chewing on glass.
Me: HOW did they get glass?
Him: You think I know???

************
Him: Well, I guess I have to go get the puppies in trouble. They're chewing on fiberglass insulation again.

************
Him: Sir Gawain isn't going to have any teeth left if he doesn't stop chewing on metal!