Vacations are good for my knitting mojo

I had hoped to make quite a bit of progress on the Flickering Flames Skirt during our drive to Atlanta and back, but it didn't work out that way. On the drive down I made it to the next increase round, but the resulting 640 stitches were just too much for the needle I was using. I had to abandon the skirt in favor of the socks.

I put the finishing touches on them on the ride back from Atlanta. Please ignore the "nipple toe" effect. They don't look like that on my feet thank goodness. I'll remember not to decrease so many times on my next star toe lol.



Another project that got some attention in Atlana was Granite. I finished up the back and have started on the front. I love this yarn! Must buy more.





Yesterday I met some of my knitting buds at a local yarn store for some knitting goodness before we all headed off to lunch. While there, I spied some Claudia Hand Paint Fingering 55 Silk/Merino blend that I thought would work perfect for the La Mer Scarf in the Summer 08 issue of Interweave Crochet. I was right. I love the way the stitch pattern is playing with the colors in this yarn. The project I am not so happy with right now. I think I will rip it out tomorrow morning so I can start over. There is a chain 1 at the beginning of each forward pass (this is tunisian lace crochet, how fun!) that is making the right side of the scarf all wonky. I'm going to leave that out and see if it helps any. All in all though, I think I will really like the scarf once it's finished. I still need to get the beads for the edging though. I'm leaning toward blue to pick up the hint of blue in the yarn.





Never one to think I have enough projects going (15 isn't too many is it?), I cast on a pair of socks for my stepdad. I had some Trekking Pro Natura in variegated browns, but I always use a tad more than one skein for Ron's socks. Off to the Merc I went to get another skein in a coordinating color. I fell in love with some lovely green and happily went home to pick out a fair isle pattern for the socks. After the first repeat I realized that once again I had done what I always manage to do. The green was too similar to the brown in a knitted project. The pattern was completely lost, and since I was going to all the trouble of following a fair isle pattern for socks, I darn sure wanted it to show up. The sock was frogged back to the ribbing, and I went down to the craft room and dug around in the sock yarn baskets for something suitable. I wound up with a skein of Cider Moon Haiku silk in a brilliant blue. That did the trick. The pattern shows up beautifully now, and I'm a happy knitter.



I am officially half way done with the Ab Fab Throw. Forgot to get a photo of it tonight, but tomorrow for sure. This is knitting up so quickly, I can't believe it!

Hope everyone had a happy fourth and didn't wind up stuck with a terrified dog like I did. Poor Doppler is traumatized by the fireworks :o(