SOCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

O. my. gosh. I've learned how to turn a heel! I'm sooooooo excited!

OK, let me slow down. first off, sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I have a growing list of knitting, and a list of Jane Austen books as well. I think I will be put off Jane Austen after this month, because it took me forever to finish Emma, and now I have to start in on Sense and Sensibilities. I think I need to make a schedual for each day, where I knit a little and read a little, because I will not get 3 projects done by the end of the month otherwise. Projects for this summer:

my ribbed ribbon tank top
Grandma's mittens
Grandpa's mittens.
choir teacher's mittens
Teresa's birthday socks
my frilly simple first socks.

I spent a whole day, Thurseday, to be exact, knitting up a sock. and I cast it off yeasterday . .. no, 2 days ago, since it's now 1:05 AM Saturday (happy fourth!).

To answer the impending questions, yes, I am up at 1. no, I was not doing something super useful or important. I am burning the midnight oil, as they used to say, for socks. I know.

Before this, and I think I have mentioned it before, I would have NEVER knit socks at all, much less at 1 in the morning! you must be wondering, what the heck did they feed Cimorine at knit night?

no drugs, I promise. I didn't even buy anything this time. :)

No, the secret of the heel was revealed to me through a book about toe-up socks. and since I love toe-ups, and will most likely knit nothing else for the rest of my life, I picked it up and started to read (wisely avoiding my knitting project, for I doubt that it is doing anything but distracting me from the mittens!).

I was amazed at how simple heels could be! turns out, I was struggling to learn a completely different heel. Granted, this heel apparently is better because the heel doesn't wear think, as in the simple version, but I talked to a fellow knitter, who also helped me figure it out (she's making an awesome pattern for a sock, and I so want to knit it when the patt is out!) said that she makes all her heels/toes garter stitch instead of stockinette, and she and her husband never wear through their socks. So, garterstich heels are the secret to knitting heels.

so, as a tribute to my newfound knowledge, I began socks using a spare skein of purple wool. I finished the first sock, as I said, 2 days ago, and I am working on the second one last night/this morning, while listening to Lime and Violet podcast, because they are big sock knitters.

And guess what? I ran out of yarn. Oh foo. I swear I have half of the skein split, because I remember vaguely trying to knit socks with this yarn before, and I split them to work on both at the same time, and I think the other half when to my cousin. I scanned my mini-stash, didn't find it, and now I have an unfinished sock. I really want to finish it soon, because I feel these extra projects are just getting in my way. I've changed grandma's mittens to the mitred, so that I can work on them quicker, but I also need to do Grandpa's, and Teresa's birthday gift.

Also, it was boiling hot today, and I took everyone out to fountains in downtown, and we were all exhausted by the time we reached home. I'm gonna go to bed now. wish me luck in getting that darned sock yarn back from my cousin . . . ..

ciao for now,
Cimorine