Today’s a day for thawing out. I’m happy to see that the camelia seems none the worse for wear, although I expect that some of the blossoms may drop.

#1 Son, now that he can come home instead decided to spend the afternoon at the zoo, followed by band practice, followed by work. He called very excited because tonight he gets to actually prepare food, rather than just wash dishes. A step up in the job department is always a good thing! So, congratulations, #1 Son!

And here’s hoping that it doesn’t refreeze tonight and I can pick him up after work!

In the mean time, I’ve been knitting like a mad woman trying to get the alpaca socks-from-hell completed so that I can start on my sock scarf.

“Socks From Hell” because I’m finding the Plymouth Baby Alpaca D.K. yarn difficult to work with. It has a yummy soft hand, but it’s very slick. I’ve tried birch and bamboo circular needles and sets of DP needles in bamboo, metal and plastic (Pony Pearl needles) — and different sizes of most of these. After many false starts, and one entire sock knitted and then rejected, I’ve finally settled on bamboo circular needles in size three, which seem to be giving me the correct gauge and keeping most of the stitches on the needles. I’m getting a lot of practice at picking up dropped stitches, though.

The rejected sock was too small, even though I thought I was checking well enough as I went along, and too irregular to give as a gift. It was my needle-experimenting-sock, and ended up with a lot of gauge changes and strange looking stitches.

The socks themselves are striped in an off-white shade and a dark purple. The stripes are fairly wide at 10 rounds per. I’m knitting these toe-up with a figure-8 cast-on and short-row heels. I’m not sure of the size of my friend’s feet, but I think they’re about the same length as mine and maybe a little wider. I’m making them long enough to provide some “room for growth” in the toes. I want them to fit snugly, but not too tight. They are intended as bed-socks, not to be worn in shoes, so I am working them all-over in k3 p1 ribbing, except the toe and heel which are stockinette stitch. I’m considering a fairly short ankle (not super short, but not as long as usual), with a rolled top instead of ribbing, since the whole sock is ribbed anyway. I’ll post a pic when I get them done.

In the cool-new-info department, I found out that, if you knit the entire row after a color change, the knit stitches don’t look weird in the rib pattern — in fact you can’t tell at all they aren’t perls without looking very closely — and the color changes are much more crisp. I first learned to knit something like 37 years ago, but this technique is new to me and I’m grateful to learn it!

Now I just need a better jogless jog.

In the miscellaneous department, being number 3 result in the MSN search phrase need different potatoes use warms the cockles of my Idaho-born-and-bred little heart. But leaves me wondering exactly what “different” uses would be?