two knits of ivory

Oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes, my Firestarter socks are finished! After struggling so miserably, and inelegantly, I might add, with the syntax of the pattern, I am very excited to present this fabulous FO. I absolutely love this colorway from Socks That Rock. Very American southwest, which is perfect because that is where they will spend the rest of their days, or so I expect. I hope to send them off to my sister as a belated birthday gift (her b'day was yesterday!) Yarn: I started out with two skeins of Lorna's Laces in the Gold Hill colorway. I abandoned the Lorna's Laces midway. I next tried Socks That Rock in the medium weight Jonagold colorway. Needles: Initially, with the Lorna's Laces, I knitted up the first toe on size US1/2.25mm bamboo and rosewood dpns. I found working the traveling stitches in the confines of the toe daunting with the blunt edges of my dpns so I started a second sock using size US2/2.75 bamboo dpns. After finishing the toe I used Cat Bordhi...

Feeling stupid makes me unfathomably angry. I just want to lash out at people. I came up against another mysterious segue in the Firestarter pattern Saturday night and revisiting it today on the KAL makes me want to punch someone in the face, thank you very much. I realize I haven't posted a single picture of this project here, just over at the KAL . This toe left me sleepless one night and angry for even longer. It's so pretty that the anger was quickly forgotten until I finished the gussets and began turning the heel. Living with a learning disability has gotten worse with age. Maybe it's because I have less patience now that I fully understand my limitations. When I was younger I just figured out ways to get around things or maybe it was that more often than not I was blissfully ignorant of my limitations. Now when they are wont to trip me up I feel like a cornered cat. My anger is ferocious. I have yet to find a coping mechanism for it. I began turning the hee...

As to be expected the Firestarter pattern is a struggle for me. First, there are two sets of directions in the packet. So to better my odds I'm reading both at the same time and going crazy for my effort. One set of instructions says to CO 30 using the provisional cast on; the second says to make a provisional cast on using a crochet chain the length of a little over half the needed stitches. Literal me reads this and thinks the crochet chain should only have 15 stitches plus a few. And yes, I would be wrong. And wrong in an eventual "it'll be funny how wrong I was" way. Yet this funny wasn't evident to me while I was wracking my brain at the seeming contradiction of the two statements. I was not given any pattern reading DNA. None whatsover. And my laugh at myself gene could use a little bolstering as well. It seems obvious now that the pattern writer meant half the total stitches needed for the full circumference of the sock. But it wasn't even remotel...

I'm really hoping to join Peaknits ' sock knit-a-long using Yarnissima's firestarter pattern . All I'm waiting for now is an invite! Seriously, the Lorna's Shepherd Sock cakes I whipped up this weekend are screaming to be firestarter socks. Who cares if I have two socks on needles presently? Not me. Not having enough needles was quickly fixed by running out to a LYS at lunch and picking up two sets of US1 dpns. (I know the pattern calls for circ's but I'm sure I'll wind up wanting to use dpns.) This will be good practice for me to face my pattern fear. Really. Right?