The sock

Today, le chaussette d'anniversaire is exhausted. She has been riding for two days, through the streets of London, through northern Belgium with a crosswind, fighting crashes, rain, long, long stretches of flat road, and the humiliation of Robbie McEwen's sprinting ability. Already she is tired of eating 10,000 calories per day. Always the sock can feel the voiture balai breathing down her neck. She does not want to ride home in disgrace.

But the sock, she has a heel. She has gussets. She has part of a foot. For now, she needs to sleep.

The sock is tired, but she is also happy.

Progress on Many Fronts

Progress, on many fronts:

My project for the Tour de France knitalong is the Anniversary Socks from Favorite Socks. Thursday I knit the heel flap as written and turned the heel. I thought it looked a bit short; by Friday morning I knew it was true and would never fit around a regular foot. Riiiiip.

I decided to make up my own heel using the cable motif from the rest of the sock. On RS rows I worked (over 32 sts): sl1 pwise, *LC2, k2, rep to end, end LC2, k1. On WS rows: sl1 pwise, purl to end.

I also turned the heel in my new favorite way. I start on a purl row so I don't get those weird little corners you get when you begin a heel on the knit side.

So here's the progress:



As you can see, I stand by my earlier assertion that the pics along with Nancy's patterns do not do them justice.

I was out of town Friday and Saturday (both fun trips!) and today I tackled the front closet and my bedroom closet. I got rid of about 50# of magazines from the front closet and I have room for shoes and other stuff now. Not perfect, but a lot better.

Then I went to Spr*nt, exchanged my K*tana for an LG Fus*c phone (I am rockin' the pink faceplate, y'all) - the features on the Katana weren't what I personally wanted - and then...T*rget.

Anybody who knows me has heard me say I have a $50 minimum at this store. Today was no exception! For my bedroom closet I bought a 4-drawer Sterilite cart and 2 45-qt drawers. Also 4 flat stacking boxes, approximately 18 x 24. I went all through my closet and got everything out of cardboard boxes and transferred to the stacking boxes, put away the stuff that was out into the drawers, put most of my cds into one of the drawer (sadly, not all but it works), and generally cleaned things up. My clothes need a little attention - laundry and hanging up, mostly. I rolled up the towels and stacked them. The only regret I have is that I didn't find one of those Space Bag cubes there. (Maybe another time.) The result is a much cleaner closet and a happier Jen.

On the negative side, I made progress in learning that black pepper isn't so good on popcorn. (Lately I've been making it with a dab of olive oil, browned butter and parmesan. Pepper didn't work.) Progress nevertheless!

I am watching le Tour (congrats to Fabian Cancellara!) and I just made up my bed with clean sheets. I feel like I had a good weekend.

I can think of too many titles for this post

Like possibly, "Oops, I did it again":



I think it goes without saying that this time around I am not feeling the love about Monkey. So I put sock 1 on hiatus while I decided to play around with this pattern, which is the Anniversary Sock from Favorite Socks. (Still working the sockapalooza angle.) I cast on for it last night, and have about 4 inches of sock completed. (I am farther than this, I've finished another chart repeat of the yarnovers.)

Another possible title for this post is, "Why does Nancy Bush always have such crap photos of her socks in the books?" I mean, y'all, I am a card-carrying Nancy Bush fanatic. I ***love*** her sock patterns. I ***adore*** her technical knowledge. But if I ever, ever get excited about one of her patterns it is usually because I saw where somebody else took a chance and knitted them and has gorgeous pictures. Because her books just don't. I do not like the idea of sock pictures posed on sock blockers. Socks are three-dimensional, and should be modeled that way!

I am sorry lately for all the cat-picture-on-the-porch offerings, which are slim pickings, but Grady looked so cool tonight I had to take his picture. Maybe you can see a little of his personality because there are two. (Catonality? Felinality?)





Happy Independence Day, y'all. Call me crazy but I love this country and I am durn proud of it, politics and all. Because I am free to be a card-carrying Jesus freak, Nancy Bush fanatic, artist, mouthy chick, sort-of-libertarian. Nobody tells me what to wear, and nobody is going to sell me off to a husband. I am glad we can all be our crazy selves, with the right to vote, to speak, to pray. There are people in the world who believe I should be put to death for saying those things, and I have one thing to say to that:

God Bless America.