Fired Up

Happy New Year! Hope everyone celebrated (or not, depending on your preference) to their satisfaction over the last few weeks. Lots of catching up to do now that life is settling back into its regular routine, but first, some very important knitblog business:

1. Carolyn over at Jolly Ewe is in the running for being January's Knit Girl! Please go vote for her here. She has a bitchin' knitterly tattoo, dyes a mean skein o' yarn, and has an artichoke plant intent on world domination. Or, in other words, totally deserves to win. Voting ends on 1/6.

2. Don't know what they were smokin', but Jen and Laura picked humble l'il ole me as one of the Fresh Blood winners (#12 on the list) in their Fourth Annual JenLa Blog Awards for 2007. Wow, I guess that santeria priest did know what he was doing when I asked him to make me famous. Thanks, grrls, for the shout out. I'll try to live up to the infamy in a style worthy of you both. Smoochies.

Now, onto the catching up. The holiday knits have all been delivered, so I can finally post some FOs.

Pattern: Campfire Socks by Cider Moon
Yarn: Artyarns Ultramerino 8 in color 127 - 2 skeins
Needle: US 4 Bryspun dpns
Mods: None. I knit the top down version.
Rating: Third time's a charm.

As I mentioned here, this is the first pair of socks I've knit entirely on my own. (They're really my third pair of socks.) I know, I'm like the first person ever who knit a pair...yeah, yeah...but I can't help being proud of them. Yarn, gauge, pattern, needles, the planets, everything came together and created a pair of socks that fit. They were gifted to my Mom as part of her Xmas present; her house is cold in the winter, and I wanted to make these as a pair of house/bed socks for her. She reports back that they're comfy and even match her pyjamas. Right on.

The pattern is perfect for the beginning sock knitter. The larger gauge yarn allows for a quick knit, the simple pattern holds your interest while teaching you how to read a patterned (vs. straight stockinette) sock pattern, and the instructions are clear and thorough. I, for one, loved the spoon feeding on working the heel and gusset, and felt pretty darn good when I grafted my toes. This pair certainly isn't perfect: there are those loose gusset stitches on the left hand sides of each sock, and one of the toes looks more like a nipple than a toe, but them's small potatoes compared to the enormity of me knitting socks. Oh, and that matching striping? I totally meant to do that.

Now, for the yarn chosen. The Ultramerino 8 makes lovely bed socks, but is very splitty and probably won't hold up for long; by the time I finished knitting, the cuffs already were blurred (can yarn be blurry? well, you know what I mean) and fuzzy. I knew these things going in, however, and chose the yarn more for the soft feel and the cheery colorway. Plus, it came from Mary, who sweated through my first pair of socks with me. (Thanks again to her and Barbara for all their help.)

Next up? More frakkin' lace. See ya later, taters.