Pretty Purple Socks

I thought I'd celebrate the first day of Spring by sharing my newly finished socks, toes grafted this morning, photographed in frosty early morning sunshine.

This is my first pair of socks from Blue Moon's Socks That Rock yarn. Now that I've actually had these on my feet, I can add to the chorus of praise for the STR yarn. Like everyone else in Blogland, I love this yarn. It's soft and cushy and has a nice tight twist that makes it feel almost crisp at the same time. The colors have extraordinary depth and richness and the finished socks please me no end.

The color is Purple Rain which I believe I bought from the Blue Moon booth at the Black Sheep Gathering this past summer. The pattern is garter rib - 1 round of K2, P2, 1 round of straight knitting. It has a wonderful elasticity to it and worked beautifully with this yarn. No dramatic pooling, just a lovely all over mottled effect. I used a size 1 Addi Turbo, 64 stitches and the Magic Loop method. Nothing fancy about the heels or toes, just a basic heel flap, which I love and a standard toe.

I may have mentioned before that I knit just about everywhere. One of my favorite times for sock knitting is when I take a walk. Since I don't need to watch simple round and round knitting, I can enjoy the beauties of nature - or dodge speeding cars, depending on the location - and get some knitting done on the latest sock-in-progress. A couple of weeks ago, the socks and I went to a local park for a walk. At the beginning of the path I usually walk, there was a new sign warning of the possibility of mountain lion attacks. I paused to glance at it before continuing on. (Lest you think I have a death wish, I'd like to point out that this was a generic warning, rather than an indication that cougars had been seen prowling the local bike paths.)

As I walked further from the main part of the park, my imagination began to chew over the whole idea of a mountain lion attack. What would I do if a great tawny beast suddenly appeared, eyes gleaming with blood lust, fangs dripping with...well, drippy stuff? Okay, in reality, what I'd probably do is become cougar kibble but what's the fun in imagining that?

Scenario one went something like this: I'd give the big cat a cool and threatening look, putting forth the image of a dangerous predator and hope that this cougar would mistake the smell of glazed donut on my breath for the odor of freshly killed mule deer. Impressed by my dangerous demeanor, the great, hulking beast would turn and go off about its business.

Scenario two involved the cat ignoring my cool and threatening look and lunging for my throat. Naturally, I would react with lightening speed, defending myself with all the tools at my disposal. My tool kit was pretty limited. I had a cell phone but I could hardly count on the damned thing to ring at just the right moment to send the great cat fleeing in terror from the tinny sounds of Sugar Shack. The only other weapon at hand was my knitting. A size 1 Addi Turbo and a half finished sock. I could maybe poke the cat in the eye but it seemed unlikely that any self-respecting cougar was going to sit still for this. With images of a slavering maw opened wide to engulf me, I thought of shoving the sock down the cat's throat.

And immediately, the internal knitter shrieked, "You can't do that. This is Socks That Rock yarn."

I guess that says something about my priorities.