F.O. and more

Seven’s Socks, off the needles and right onto his feet Monday afternoon.

You’re not imagining things if you think the socks look as if they’re different sizes. Seven is standing with one foot slightly in front of the other, which is making one sock look way longer, when in fact they’re the same length. But look closely around the cuffs and the ankles: the sock on the left is slightly baggier than the one on the right. Way back when I started sock #1, the charts in Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks put Seven right on the mark for a 40 stitch sock. Oh, the perils of knitting for growing children. By the time I was done, sock #1 fit, but just barely. So for sock #2, I went up a size, to 44 stitches.

Even without a scale to be precise about it, you can see the difference in how much more yarn those 4 stitches per round use up:

Sock #2 was finished very quickly, thanks to a trip Saturday to Concord, NH and back, for a mini family reunion. My uncle and aunt who live in California were on the East coast to visit their daughter (my cousin), who had moved to near Boston last year, and we all met half way for lunch. The whole time I was probably about a skein’s throw from the Elegant Ewe, but that’s a trip for another day.

This is what the socks looked like Friday night:

That’s Kate Jacobs (holding sock #1 and the very beginning of sock #2), author of The Friday Night Knitting Club, being introduced (I think) to the traditional celebrity and sock blog photo. Kate was in West Lebanon NH on her book tour. She was kind enough, after a red eye from the west coast and an earlier event at (yup) The Elegant Ewe, to do an interview with me afterwards, which at some point in the next week or so will be here as an author Q & A. I’ll give you all a heads up when it’s close to ready.

About a third of the audience for Kate’s bookstore reading were obviously knitters, either wearing handknits -- badges of the tribe -- or knitting or both. A compliment to another sock knitter yielded news of another LYS opening in the area, and, even better, an invitation to a guild meeting this week (Hey Elaine: it’s Wednesday, from 7:00 to 9:00 in Norwich).