Monkeying Around

I had a really good weekend. 

Friday, I got to hang out with my sister, Beth, and her daughter Samantha.  Those two were in town to visit Beth’s son Rob and his girlfriend Attalie, so we all met up for dinner (Mr. Martini included) and hung out for a bit afterwards at our apartment.

We had a great time at dinner, lots of fun conversation, but the best part had to the moment Beth asked, “Can I see your stash?”  Beth is also a knitter, so the two of us went through my stash cabinet and petted the yarn and talked alpaca and wool vs. cotton socks and Philosopher’s Wool and fair isle knitting.  We completely ignored everyone else in the room while we went through the yarn, and by the end I was throwing sock yarn and needles at her to bring home so she could knit her own socks.

(OK, maybe not “throwing” it at her, but I did pass along some Koigu KPPPM and Louet Gems so she could experiment.  Plus some bamboo #2s, so she could get them on the plane.)

It was so nice to get all crazy about fiber and have someone to talk to who understood just what the fuss is about.  It was a blast.

In addition to all the fiber talk, I did some marathon knitting.  I had cast on for a pair of Monkey socks Thursday night, and by last night, I had this:

Not the best picture, I grant you, but I was just so excited that it fit me I had to take a picture, even though it was dark and the flash wouldn’t cooperate.

I had seen a lot of these socks around, and everyone was saying how fast they were to knit, and I thought “oh, please, they’re socks, it’s knitting, how can they be ‘faster’ than any other pattern?” But now I know – there’s something about the 11 row repeat that just makes you want to knit them in chunks, rather than a few rows here and there.

By the time I was on the foot, I was thinking “oh, I may as well knit until the gusset decreases are done.” Then it was, “Well, I may as well finish this pattern repeat.” Then “it’s only 1 more repeat until the toe.” Finally, “I may as well knit the toe and finish these up at this point.”

And voila! A finished sock. My only mods were knitting all of the stitches (the pattern calls for purl stitches as well), using a slip stitch heel, and decreasing the toe down to 20 stitches instead of 28 (four extra decrease rows).

Let’s see if I can keep up the pace for sock #2.