And now for some knitting

So I'm still on my "small fiddly things on tiny needles" kick to recover from all the Christmas knitting. I'm pondering taking on the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics with the teddy bear fair isle sweater as my project. We'll see.
Terry's socks got finished, as you can see here. I altered the cuff ribbing slightly for the second sock (the one on the left in the photo). It's a k2 p2 rib, but I started with only one knit stitch, purled 2, then repeated the ribbing ad nauseum and ended with the remaining k1. This meant that needles 1 and 2 ended with a completed 2 stitches, rather than the ribbing being "stretched" across two needles. As you can see from the picture, this gave me a much tighter cuff, and also avoided the slight ladder I was getting in the first sock. So that's all good. Terry loves them, but wishes I'd done ribbing all the way down the leg so they'd stay up better. Pah.
And now for the big project of the moment.. the Pomatomus socks from Knitty. This has become a matter of pride for me.I started off. Got through the cuff, no problem. Then I took them to Stitch'n'Bitch to keep working on them. Got to row 6 of the pattern and realised I'd made a mistake. Ripped back to where the ribbing began (with all the yarnovers and knit 2 togethers I failed hopelessly to pick up any earlier rows),and started a second time. Got to row 7 ... and yet again, something was wrong. Now it was personal. I ripped back to the cuff once more ... and headed home to give this my full concentration. This time I was sailing along, felt like I was reading the pattern and understanding how it was progressing and had almost finished the first repeat... when...
	See how nicely the scale pattern on the right of the sock comes to a sharp point in the middle? See how that fails to happen on the left hand scale. Yes, once again I'd made a mistake somewhere around row 5 or 6, and hadn't spotted it because I was so busy following what I thought the pattern should be, I hadn't noticed my count was off. I was too depressed to rip it out and start again a fourth time... so...
...I figured that there were two ends to the ball of yarn, and I might as well just start on the second sock right away. Thus saving my pride, and yet not abandoning the project. As you can see, this one is progressing quite nicely - and I was even able to work on it at last night's SNB. It's really a great design - the twisted ribbing makes for a nice tight fabric, and despite how complicated the charts look, most of the time you're just knitting the knits and purling the purls, and keeping the rib pattern going. Here's a close-up of the scale pattern as it should look:
	The yarn, by the way, is merino wool from the Fleece Artist, who also creates the most wonderful hand dyed colourways. So now I just have to figure out what to do with the second sock. I was pondering reversing the chart pattern so that the scales went in the other direction ... which would mean ripping back to the ribbing again, but for a good reason so I don't mind that! The other option is trying to weave in a lifeline just before the mistake, but that may feel like too much work. We'll see.
So that's the updates. Lots of yarn, and a fair bit of knitting going on. We're off on retreat this weekend and I'm hoping to get a good chunk of the foot done during the free time on Saturday afternoon. Keep checking for updates - I'll try hard not to neglect this blog so much. If nothing else, I now have to inspire my sister in her knitting efforts!