Slipped Stitch Ribbed Socks

I'd like to start off this post by wishing everyone the very best of the season and hopes that we have a great 2009. Pray for peace and for a more stabilized economy this coming year.

Next up, actual knitting! We're all spun out, time for a post of some nice new socks that I made for my little girl. I finally finished the slipped stitch ribbed sock. Ravel it for the details. I was very happy with the way they came out; they're just a wee bit small. The little girl has grown about six inches in 10 months and I did have to buy her new shoes, new sneakers and new clothes. These are snug around her ankle now so next pair will need to be bigger. I bet I can't get two pairs out of one ball of yarn much longer. She needs to go to a 50-56 st sock in order to get them on her little feet.The colors are awesome! I made them out of a STR mill end that I got at the Fold booth at Rhinebeck. These are all her favorite colors, Dora and Neopolitan ice cream all mixed up with a little blue. No attempt was made to match the striping, obviously. I deliberately used this pattern to break it up. Straight stockinette would've worked, too.

The toes are different but they're really cute!

As for this pattern, eh, so-so. It wasn't that fun to knit (as you can tell, these took me two months!) and I'm not so thrilled with the fabric. It's somewhat dense because of all the slipped stitches (maybe why they came out so tight?). I really liked the pair that I made my son, the Seeded Ribbing, much better. I made them slightly larger, anticipating growth as I made them this past summer. You can see them on the Ravelry page for this pattern. (Notice I told you that the other day as well as today, you can see that I'm still happy about that. I don't know if they chose my picture because they came out nice or the photography was nice but I think it may be a little bit of both! I sure hope so! DH, who is discovering that hand knitted socks are a wonderful thing, truly liked this pair and wants some for himself. I have some woodsy brown Lang Jawoll that I can make him a pair out of but I have my eye on the Merino Lace from Favorite Socks. The picture in the book doesn't do it justice. I was checking out a few on Ravelry and they're beautiful!

Alas, while I'm in get things finished mode, I'd like to finish up the Shawl Collar Sweater which has suffered a major setback. I was sailing along until the stupid instructions had me knit "20 rows less than on back" for the front and it just didn't work for me. I finished the front, seamed the shoulders and guess what? The front was about 1.5" longer than the back. So, finally, I got up the mo-jo to take out the seam and rip out out down to a point where I can fix that, along with the decreases for the collar. What a pain in the @(!&%@. Of course, it's now sitting on the needles and every night he says, "So, how's my sweater? I could've used it today, it is wintertime".

I'm adding some craft books to my library, I'll show you to them next time. I got a gift card for Christmas so I used it. I also think I'm going to order a camera bag with my other AmEx gift card, or maybe save it and use it towards a lens....we'll see. Gotta wait until things turn around a bit.

Have you seen mortgage rates? Hmmnn...maybe refi the house at 4.3%, pull out enough money for an alpaca farm....get the bag and the lens...some fiber...