Socks and Sweaters

I finished up the Narragansett Bay Socks almost two weeks ago, but the pictures have been languishing.

Unfortunately, since Nagoya currently lacks such necessities for good knitting pictures as ample sunlight and willing photographers, they didn’t come out great.

As I mentioned before, these are the Narragansett Bay Socks, a pattern from Lisa Lloyd and only available in the book, A Fine Fleece. A Fine Fleece is specifically intended to be full of projects for people who spin their own yarn, though they provide commercially available substitutions for every pattern. I myself used Knit Picks Gloss, in the colorway ‘Dolphin,’ which, admittedly, looked more grey than blue online.

I first heard about A Fine Fleece on brainylady’s blog (here) back in April and my interest was peaked both by her review and the mention of these socks, wince my family has spent almost every summer since I was born at Narragansett beach in Rhode Island.. I checked it out the next time I was at the bookstore and snatched it up once I realized how many patterns I needed right now. I’ve finished three, including these socks and the matching Narragansett Bay scarf (which I gave to a professor), and another 5 or 6 are waiting in my queue on Ravelry.

In the meantime, however, I’ve started up something new.

Care to make a guess?

I finished something!

Okay, technically, a half each of two somethings. Socks are complicated that way.

Some of you may have noticed that the knitting dropped off precipitously when I arrived in Japan. Probably because my sitting in front of the internet time was severely curtailed.

However, every year, I participate in 14valentines, a community geared towards raising awareness about womens’ issues. For the first fourteen days of February for the past three years (though the first year was a single person effort), people have posted stories, essays, recipes, and pictures to draw attention to specific issues facing women today. For the past two years, I have participated by posting about a knitted object of mine (or a group of knitted objects) each day for the whole period.

Just thinking about that and planning my list of items for 2009 was enough to get the itch going again. I promptly dragged out my needles and yarn…and finished two socks from two different pairs. Right. Whoops.

The blue sock on the left is the first of a pair of Naragansett Bay Socks, from the book A Fine Fleece by Lisa Lloyd. The yarn is the Dolphin colorway of Knit Picks’ Gloss. I love this yarn and wish it came in more colors. Knit up in this pattern, it’s very smooshy and warm.

I’ve already started on the second sock, because the pattern is easy enough to memorize and knit on the train. Gives the Japanese people something to stare at besides my hair.

The sock on the right is one of a pair of Slippery Socks, available free from the online knitting magazine Knitty. The yarn is Mountain Colors Bearfoot, that I got from a friend for my birthday last year. I’m a little worried that I didn’t bring enough to finish the second sock here in Japan, but experience has taught me that I’m almost always wrong about these things. The pattern isn’t too difficult, but it’s definitely not train-proof. I only finished it because there was only about three or four inches left to go when it made it’s international voyage. Definitely boot sock quality, so I’m looking forward to January in Minnesota.