The socks are done! Now onto the lace...

It's been a while since I last posted so I have a lot to talk about, but I'm thinking that shoving twenty photos in one post might not be so great. So I'm not going to bog you down with that many photos. The plan is to space them out a little bit. But apparently I have a tendency to *cough* not blog, so we'll see how that plan goes... :)

First things first, I beat the socks that had left me so thoroughly disheartened last time. I took a deep breath and frogged to the gusset. Then I looked down. And I saw this:

Then I took another deep breath and wound that all into a ball. But the good thing is that now I have this:

Pattern: Just plain-old stockinette socks
Yarn: Elann Sock It To Me Harlequin in Blue Stonewash
Needles: Inox 1.75mm DPNs

Even though these socks gave me hell, I love, love, love the wide fair-isle stripes that this yarn knits up in! It makes it all worth it.

And I think from now on, I'm going to try and stick to one project at a time. (We'll see how long that lasts....)

My one project for right now isn't going to be the cursed Somewhat Cowl though. No. I'm so upset at that project that it's been shoved into the closet. Maybe I'll post about it when the bitterness wears off.

My one project for now is going to be for Lacevember! I've been a bad blogger (surprise surprise!) and I haven't put up my linky or my button. I am lame. But I'll try to get that done soon. I'll also have to update my linky to the amazing, wonderful Danielle, one of the hosts of Lacevember. (If I link Lacevember enough, will that make up for my not having put up my button yet?)

I digress. Before we get to my actual project though, I'm going to introduce you first to the failed starts. First off, let's meet the Chinese yarn that looked like a good fingering weight, but was too light.

I was hoping to use this for Knitty's Baudelaire, but it's just far too thin. I was using my trusty 1.75mm Inoxes and the fabric was still too floppy and the gauge was too small.

I was intent on the idea of socks though, and I thought I'd give Knitty's Hedera a shot, using the Jawoll I have. My gauge was 9 sts/in, which is slightly stiffer than the pattern recommended, but was what I thought was suitable for the yarn. The author mentioned that the lace was stretchy so I figured I'd go for it. I got the cuff done... (You can kind of see it in the background. I should check photos before I turn off the camera.)

Problem? Cuff isn't going too high up my leg. I always knew I had fat legs. I'll credit this goof to blind optimism.

I searched and searched for more lace sock patterns, but couldn't seem to find anything that would suit the yarn in the stash (stash enhancement just isn't as easy as when I was in Vancouver anymore). I'm not really feeling up to re-writing or writing up a new pattern, so I decided I'd break into the Zephyr stash and go for the Kerry Blue Shawl from Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls by Martha Waterman.

It's going well so far. It looks like it'll be a pretty easy pattern though. I hope I can get it done for December. I'd like to give this one to mummy.

I didn't mention my trip to Xi'an yet either and I should because it was great. It used to be the capital of China so there's a lot of history and a lot to see there. The Terracotta Warriors are there, as well as other things. In the Tang Paradise, we managed to catch some acrobats and the dragon (lion?) dance. One of my favourite shots from the trip: