The cupcakes are done! The cupcakes are done!

Only about a week late! not bad, I think.

These are gifts for the guys in #1 Son’s band. No, I don’t know yet what a punk band is going to do with four cupcake hats. #1 Son has promised pictures, and I will pass them along.

I made a few changes to the pattern. Since my hats need to be adult-sized, I cast on 88 stitches and used US#7 needles. I knit the cake part for 3″ and the frosting for 4″ before beginning the decreases. About 1/2 way into the “nubble” row (the dripping icing edging) on the first cupcake, I realized that knitting 44 little nubbles would be the death of me, so I crocheted them.

The particulars:

• Needles: Size US#7, one Inox gray, one Crystal Palace bamboo
• Cascade Sierra (cotton/wool) in color #50 for the cake part
• Cascade Indulgence (alpaca/angora) in color #9434 for the frosting. (These kids better appreciate that fiber!)
• Crystal Palace Little Flowers (nylon metallic novelty) in color #409 (Spring Picnic) for the sprinkles

In other crafty news, I’m still turning cables on the Sockapaloooza socks. I’m thinking of getting started on the sock pattern I promised Alice at Tangle. But good intentions are being derailed by a bag idea. Stay tuned.

I visited Kidd in the kitty hospital today, and he’s looking pretty chipper. He’d eaten some solid food. Dr. Specialist believes he will be able to come home tomorrow. Moo Cow is missing him, and so am I!

Poor #1 Son. He came home last night really sick, with chills and fever. I sent him right to bed. I know he has to go to class today (it’s the last one before finals). I woke him up briefly this morning before I left and gave him some Advil and a glass of water, then left him sleeping while I headed to work.

Captain Kidd, although he seems generally better, will not eat much and has gained no weight. Tomorrow he goes back to the vet where he will be kept a few days. Dr. Specialist believes that Kidd has developed a food aversion because eating made him sick before. The only way around this is to take the eating choice out of his hands (er… paws) for a couple of weeks and try to get him plumped up. Poor baby. He will be able to come home, probably Sunday or Monday.

I’m off to the ol’ root canal shortly.

At least my cold seems to be of short duration. It’s down to the mostly just annoying stage. I managed to work a few rows on the brim of cupcake #3. And I’ve turned the cables again on the Sockapaloooza socks. I now believe that they will fit.

And tonight things will be looking up because I will be amongst my people as I knit at Tangle. The first sock class is tonight. I hope I can talk. I can just see me trying to teach via gesture. Thankfully, knitting is something that can be taught by example.

Today I was nearly attacked by a mad squirrel when I came between him (her?) and an old acorn. He (she?) was obviously feeling feisty.

There are signs of rummaging in the old squirrel’s nest that perches in a tree outside my work window. I’m surprised it made it through our winter storms, but it did.

Some of the flowering trees are starting to bloom. My iris, glads and daylilies have been up for a month.

Last Friday, as I stood outside admiring our (not sticking) snowfall gently wafting down, I heard the first songbird of the year. This morning the dawn chorus woke me up. Soon the peepers will sing me to sleep.

I will finish the cupcake hats because they have a purpose other than keeping heads warm. Score: 2 down, 1 cast on, 1 not started.

I may finish the green sweater before it gets too hot to even think about knitting sweaters. Or it may languish until the seasons turn again.

A new pair of Fair Isle gloves for #1 Son (he lost one of the other pair) will probably be put on the back burner until fall.

In other news, I am now completely ready for the sock class starting on Thursday. I know I said I was ready before, but now I’m ultra-ready.

I have turned the cable twice on the Sockapaloooza socks, and I think they’re going to fit. I still have my fingers crossed on that one.

Since #1 Son released me from the need to have four cupcake hats completed by today, I went back to working on my Sockapaloooza pal’s socks. I really should get these finished, or at least far enough along to tell if they will fit, before starting a bunch of other projects. (Yeah. I know. Like that’s gonna happen. I can see you rolling your eyes out there.)

The pattern for these socks was fairly vague about gauge. It offered suggestions for the number of rows per inch. But stitches per inch? Oh… whatever…

I do have the rows-per-inch gauge. The toes looked wide, but I think the cables are pulling the width in enough. Of course I’m knitting the things backwards, since I’m a toe-up person. It’s a top-down pattern. But cables are cables in either direction, right? The toes look long and pointy. But, if you look at the pattern picture, the toes there look sort of long and pointy, too. I tried them on, and so far it looks like they are just slightly wide on my skinny feet. So I think I’m good to go! [fingers crossed]

I really want these socks to be nice, since they’re going off to someone I don’t even know. Hopefully the wonderfulness of this fiber will help my pal to overlook any little flaws. (I’m not suggesting overlooking not fitting. That would be a big flaw!)

I’m finding it extraordinarily difficult to get a good pic of this yarn. Of course, if there were any light around here it might be easier. As it is, I’m stuck with a gray sky (and snow fall). This was the best I could get. But you can see how I’ve done the first cable. The needles, unfortunately unseen in this picture, are my brand new 3.0mm Suzanne ebonies. ooooo… ahhhhh… yum!

If the last few entries have seemed disjointed, well… that’s how my week has been. Disjointed to the max.

The good news is that the basket weave socks are finished! Yea!!!

Note the lovely pinwheel toe and the non-crocheted crochet bind-off. I debated over the ribbing at the top. It doesn’t seem very basket like. In the end oh-dark-30 dead brain common sense prevailed, and ribbing it was. I finished them up last evening at Tangle, while drooling over the new Noro that just came in and trying out some Suzanne ebony circs.

The particulars:

• Blue Moon Socks That Rock in colorway Falcon’s Eye.
• Inox Gray US#2 (2.75 mm) needles.
• Basket weave stitch pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch.
• My own non-pattern sock pattern

Yes, my feet are happy and warm!

I tried some new things out with these socks. The octagonal pinwheel toe was new. I also tried out a method for having ankles wider than feet without increasing post-heel-flap. Someone who might sign up for the sock class said, You’re going to to teach how to have ankles that are larger, right? Since I nodded and agreed that of course I was going to do so, I thought I’d better come up with a method to teach. 😆 I think it worked out pretty well, and it fits within the whole “non-pattern” pattern theme.

I also swatched for my sock pal’s socks last night. The pattern says Gauge: eleven rows equals one inch. And that’s the only clue it gives me. So I knit a dozen rows (why go overboard?) on my new Suzanne 3.0mm ebony circs (I am in love with these needles). Approximately 11 rows yielded approximately 1 inch of knitting. I don’t know what to do other than call that “good” and adjust as necessary as I go along.

Today I cast on and knit a few rows on the toes. I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful this yarn feels. It’s not the best stuff to knit with — tends to split and such. But… ohmygod… angora, silk and cashmere. It’s almost sinfully soft. I might have to keep these for myself. (Just kidding, sock pal.) The ebony needles grip that slippery fiber just perfectly. I’m now keeping my fingers crossed that I’ve got gauge (whatever it is) and I won’t have to go down a needle size.

Also, if you’re keeping score, this means that there is nothing currently on my Inox grays. Nothing. There are several skeins of sock yarn calling my name…

Must… Be… Strong…

… yep, that’s me!

Have you ever noticed how four-day weeks seem much busier than 5-day weeks? Perhaps because we try to cram 5 days worth of work into those four days. That’s certainly what happened to me this week. Work. Lots of it!

On the knitting front, I have 5 more pattern repeats to do on the ankles of the basket weave socks, and then I’ll be done, done done! And my needles will be free to start on my Sockapalooza pal’s yummy cabled socks.

I also have to get ready for the sock class. It’s coming up in 3 short weeks, and I have no materials ready. It turned out to be so popular that we are adding a second class. I don’t want to have more than 10 in the class, and I’m being hard nosed about people being able to make it to all three sessions. But it looks like both classes will fill.

So I’d better come up with a lesson plan, eh? 😆

Tangle will be having it’s first anniversary in June, and will be starting to carry Blue Moon yarn at about the same time. Alice has asked me to develop a sock pattern with Socks That Rock. I have a stitch pattern and a name, so now I just need to figure out how to turn my basic trial-and-error sock pattern into something that others can follow and actually end up with a pair of socks that fits. I’ll probably also do a toe-up cast-on clinic. We’ll see.

The pattern will be available here some time this summer, after a lot of test-knitting. Hopefully Knitty.com will have published the cast-on by that time also, so I can link to it.

The green sweater, Clapotis #2, the PNW Shawl and at least a couple of other pairs of socks languish in neglect.