Good News Bad News

Good News! Today will be a great day because my darling dear husband comes home from his trip to Connecticut (for work). The kiddos and I get to pick him up at the airport around 4 p.m.

Then he gets to set aside the frustrations of travel and pick up the performance jitters -- Running in Circles has a show tonight.

Yesterday the kids and I all caught some kind of cold. We had very little school yesterday as I had an appointment. I took the kids to a playground and when we came home we were all sniffling and sneezing. But, oh my! They had a good time! It looks like we will just be doing reading work today as well.

Bad news...As we were rather subdued yesterday afternoon I did get to do some knitting. I started with my baseball sock while I listened to my team on the radio. My sock and my team were both decidedly uninspiring. I found myself thinking, "I had better like wearing these when they are done!"

Although this work is tedious, I get the distinct impression it is preparing me to be a better knitter when I move on to other projects. I liken it to penmanship practice. All in all I added only about 16 rounds to the sock. It probably does not look much different from the last time I posted a picture of it.

I broke up the frustration (caused by the baseball team more than the sock) by making a swatch of an alpaca/wool/polyester blend I had bought on-line. I wanted to determine whether it would shrink felt at all. As it turns out, it does not.

Can someone more experienced tell me, it this because of the 7% polyester, or were the fibers treated to be a superwash?

Now I want to buy a red alpaca/wool blend that will be a nice contrast to this grey. And I now know I'll need to shop for a superwash. I hope to make a red & grey winter tunic sweater.

My daughter calls these socks my 'Slinky socks' because the colors remind her of our cat. One sock needs about three more inches to complete the toe. On the other, I have just begun the gussets. I have a big decision to make on these socks. When I try them on the ankle is still a bit tight. Even after I ripped out a few inches on the ankles and lessened the taper. It does go on my foot, but it is more difficult that it should be. I'm not sure how much of the difficulty I should attribute to the needles and how much is a property of a too-narrow sock. I have decided this pattern will go in the garbage when I am done. While I like the idea of the socks being fitted, these particular socks don't seem fitted *to me* as much as I'd hoped.