Stick a fork in it...

They're done!

Pattern: Anastasia socks
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Country Garden
Needles: 1.75mm Inox DPNs

I got this yarn from an awesome SP and I love it. I think I've already waxed poetical on it, but I honestly cannot get enough. The yarn was amazing; it was a delight to work with and the colours worked up beautifully. As much as I appreciate pooling because of it being the nature of the beast, this was so much easier to deal with because I wasn't stressed out about colours stacking on top of each other.

The pattern was also great. Simple, easy to remember and worked well with the yarn. I did adjust my short-row heel in that I did it over about 60% of the stitches. I also adjusted the total number of stitches on the foot and leg, to adjust for my own foot size and the fact that I like a tight fit in a sock.

The real triumph in this is the fact that it was finished despite this:

After the screams subsided, I trimmed my nails and wrapped a bit of tape around the tear.

Much better.

As an aside, China's gone and blocked blogger blogs again. Boo.

It's been a while...

A fibre-y update is well overdue.

If you recall Mariah, well she is no more. I finally decided that the sleeves did nothing for my fat arms, plus the shoulders on the sweater were not fitting across my linebacker shoulders too flatteringly either. So to the frog pond it went, and what emerged was this:

What that is is a partially finished Cinxia. I'm almost done with the collar, which means that I'm pretty much almost done. But I'm not sure that I'm entirely happy with how short this is on me. I think this is something that's going to have to be worn with a solid outfit to be flattering. Maybe this is the excuse that I've been waiting for to get a good LBD (little black dress).

There's also the issue of the rolling hems. And this is something I was completely expecting. I'm knitting something in twisted stockinette without a border? Of course it's going to roll. I still have no idea how it looks so wonderfully flat in the picture, that is unless it was blocked and not touched until photo time. My plan is to do a little bit of a border down the front. I was contemplating picking up stitches and doing the slip-stitch pattern down the front, but I don't think that's going to look as good as I would like it. I'm leaning towards a row or two of single crochet. And of course, I'm open to any other suggestions as well.

The other thing that I've been working on is the Anastasia socks. I've had a rough ride on this one too. I've been working both socks at a time, trying to avoid problems I've had in the past. (Hey lookie! Same post that I linked to earlier. Problems I reference are regarding the feather and fan socks.) The heel as written (over 50% of the stitches) was far too small for my chubby little insteps. So I ripped both back to the heel and reworked the heel over 61% of the stitches. That had better work, because I refuse to rip again. With all the bumps in my road, I need a little victory. And I'll take a semi-victory.

Having said that, I'm loving the pattern. I love how simple it is. I love how well it works with the yarn. It's beauty.

It's a super easy pattern to memorise too. And I've fallen in love with the yarn. It's caused me to buy even more of it. I would marry the CTH. Those socks? I even brought them to the Great Wall with me.

Yes, I know you can't actually see the Great Wall. You'll have to trust me on this one.

Stupidly, when I had the camera out earlier, I forgot to take a photo of the one FO I have from my absence from the bloggity blog blog. But it was a little bit of a cheat in that it only took a few hours to make. I'll try to snap a picture later.

On another note, I saw a bird in the courtyard below my flat today. It was nice. I can't wait for it to feel more like spring.