Somebody Stop Me

I need an intervention. Seriously. I can't seem to stop knitting Baby Uggs.


They keep popping onto my needles when I'm not looking and a couple of hours later, there I am embroidering the white fluffy parts and wondering how I ended up with another pair of finished Uggs.

Believe me, they're cuter than the photo would lead you to believe. I should've stuffed the toes with cotton and done all the stuff a serious knitwear photographer would do but I'm a writer, Jim, not a photographer and sometimes the best I can do is point, shoot, and pray.

Speaking of socks, there's still something to be said for the thrill of knitting a very plain sock in a very fanciful yarn. That's Regia 4-fadig Square below and I can tell you it was a pure joy to knit with. Bright juicy colors, fun patterning, Regia quality. Square made plain old stockinette fun.



Did I mention my cowl obsession? It started late last year with Tudora and continues apace. That's the start of Thermis below. I'm about 80% finished now so a (bad) finished photo should be coming in the next day or two.

Don't say I didn't warn you!


GIVEAWAY WINNER: Kathy M won the evil baby yarn. (Say a prayer for her, okay?)

NEW GIVEAWAY: If you'd like to win two skeins of Regia Square in the colorway shown above, drop me a note here with Square in the subject. Winner will be announced Tuesday evening.

The Mystery of the Missing Socks

I can't even blame the washer or dryer because neither of the two missing socks has a completed mate yet.

And at the rate this is going, they never will.

I've been on a sock binge this year. One freaking sock after another. If I'm not at the laptop I'm curled up on the sofa knitting socks like my life depended on it. Cozy, comfy socks but butt ugly. Definitely nothing camera-worthy. Mostly they've been my plain old cuff-down, heel flap, gusset knit-'em-in-your-sleep method that doesn't require any intervention from my brain. (Which is a good thing since my brain has been taken over by work and has nothing left to give.) (Did I tell you I tried to microwave a container of soy milk?) (Do you know how hard it is to wedge a quart of soy milk into a microwave?)(Will I ever run out of ( )?)

Here's a partial list of sock progress:

• Plain white cuff down for Goldisox in Berroco Comfort - worsted
• Plain white toe up for me (love love love Judy's Magic Cast-on)
• Plain heather blue cuff down for Goldisox in Lion Brand Wool-Ease (an aside: of all the different yarns I've tried, he loves Wool-Ease the best. Go figure.)
• Spiral cuff down for Goldisox in Lion Brand Wool-Ease - oatmeal
• Spiral cuff down for me in leftovers from above
• Cuff down for me in something bright and colorful for which I no longer possess labels (smart, huh?) (unfinished)
• 1 Best Foot Forward in Cash Soft DK
  
• 1 cuff down, 7-1 ribbing, in Crazy Colors Stretch (muted manly brown tones)

See the last two? They're my problem children. The Best Foot Forward was going to be for me (hence the pink) and I was very excited about them. I love the pattern, love the yarn, love the color. I don't love the fact that the finished sock, the pattern, the yarn, and the needles have disappeared from the face of my universe. I swear I turned around and poof! They were gone.

And that other one, the manly brown stretchy sock--well, you won't see me posting its ugly face on a milk carton any time soon. I was about to start the toe when it went missing and made the mistake of trying on the stupid small-needled time-waster and gasped in horror and what I saw. I mean, if it looked so stretched out, holey, and horrible on my foot what in the name of Elizabeth Zimmermann is it going to look like on Goldisox's size 11+? It looked so gorgeous on the needles. The ribbing provided just enough textural interest to bump up all of that understated neutrality. I haven't a clue why 7 knits and 1 purl stretches to a wildly unattractive degree while 5 knits and 1 purl behaves itself.

If you have any ideas, please leave them in comments because if I ever find that sock I just might turn it into a parrot toy.

And, trust me, that is a sad end for a sock.

ANOTHER STASHBUSTER GIVEAWAY: Regia Line Steps for the Manly Man

The winner is: ARUNI.


This is Goldisox-approved "guy" yarn. Even the most color-phobic male out there would approve of this sober yet sophisticated sock yarn.



The details:



Regia 4 ply Line Steps Color #5371 - Anthracite.



100 grams - almost 4 ounces


420 meters - around 430 yards



75% Wool


25% Polyamide



Machine washable.



It knits up like a dream.



Stake your claim in Comments and I'll pick a winner on Tuesday March 6th!