Retro Daffodil Ribs

Pattern: Retro Rib Socks by Evelyn Clark from Interweave's Favorite Socks.

Yarn: Knitpicks Stroll in Dandelion

Needles: Knitpicks Options Nickel, size 2 (3.0 mm)

Started: March Something, 2011

Finished: June 30, 2011

These are for Rhiannon, who demanded happy, yellow socks. Women's size 9-10.

Always Do Your Best

Saturday was our Fourth Mostly-Annual Apollonian MidSummer Games. The event entailed Nine Games of Strength, Wisdom, Cleverness, Endurance, and Bad-Ass Pie Baking Skills. We competed in a Marathon (three miles of race-walking. Real athletes would scoff, but even so), the long jump (our longest jumper went 103" -- approximately 30" longer than his own height), coloring pages of the gods, and also pie.

A Plate of Pre-Prepared Pie Contest Entries

It was awesome.

All throughout the day, the same message was repeated, "Always do your best." We weren't competing to win (I lie. We were totally competing to win.) But we were also competing to give the very best of ourselves as a gift to the divine and to our community.

We ate the very best foods for lunch and also for dinner.

Don't You Wish Your Caprese Was Hot Like Me?

And we played a hard-core game of Twister.

Game On.

Always do your best.

It's a good rule to live by, even when you aren't trying to throw a frisbee across the yard like an Olympic Athlete.

It applies to baking.

Rhiannon is baking buns for tonight's cheeseburgers.

Mmmm. Cheeseburgers.

And also to knitting (you knew there was going to be a tie-in, didn't you?)

Nemesis...Aptly Named Socks Take 2

I started over. It's important to always do your best.

Conspiracy Theory

I'm starting to think I might be cursed. (Okay, not really) But you remember my May-June Sock Club Socks? "Ooh, look at the pretty depth and shading" I said.

Well, the thrice-blessed things don't fit.

The same problem I had with my doomed Jerkwalters. I've been successfully knitting socks for many years. Sometimes socks with patterns. And fancy work. Heck, I made a Nancy Bush sock once, and it fit me. What the eff is the matter with me now? I am so ready to frog this frakker and knit something in stockinette.

Okay, not really. I'm about to go cast on the next size up and try again.

At Least I Didn't Have to Make Any of This Up

I told myself that I had to blog today, even if I hadn't done anything interesting. "If you haven't done anything interesting, make something up," I says to myself.

As it happens, I have done some things — although whether or not they are interesting is at worst debatable, and at best, in the eye of the beholder. You'll have to let me know.

Rhiannon's Retro Daffodil Socks aren't any farther along than they were when last we spoke, but I did take another pretty picture of them.

Three-quarters of a pair of pretty socks.

I have worked on my Sock of the Month Nemesis socks. I'm not super sure they'll fit, but gosh they're pretty. I was worried that the pattern wouldn't show well in the Happy Feet, but it doesn't look like that's an issue.

Isn't the depth and shading pretty?

That's all done with increases and decreases.

And lastly but not leastly, I've dug out my Ab-Fab Afghan kit from 200...and something, 2004, I think, and have started working on it again. It's been a zillion years. We all know that I have a bit of a problem with project monogamy...this comes as a shock to no one, but at least this is an old project revisited. I get some credit for that...right?

One square of many.

And there you have it, all the news that's fit to print. Oh! And I am still working on Robert's quilt too. Every Tuesday night, the Sock Monkey quilt and I settle down in front of NCIS for some quality together time.

At this rate, I might be able to blog about finishing something, and we all know how rare that is.

The First Rule of Sock Club

The first rule of Sock Club is that you DO NOT BLOG ABOUT Sock Club.

That's my official excuse for not telling you about my May-June Self Imposed Sock Club socks until June 1.

The rules about Sock Club should be considered as the Pirate Code.... more like guidelines really. Somewhere around Rule 11.b.ii is: You should eventually knit the socks.

So anyway, after entirely too much ado, I introduce you to June's Nemesis.

Pattern: Nemesis

Yarn: Plymouth Happy Feet, Color "4"

Needles: Two

I'm not far in, but I'm dedicating every Wednesday in June to their creation, so I have great hope (especially after the failure of my Mar-Apr Jerkwalters.)

I like them already.

(I now only have two pairs of socks on the needles, these and my Retro Daffodil Ribs. It feels weird. I may cast on a "plain" sock... just to keep my options open.)