Back in the saddle

Houseguests really take a lot out of you :) My husband's sister, her fiance and their baby were here from Sunday through Thursday - they're awesome people, but I'm just not used to so many humans around. The baby is very sweet and didn't cause trouble at all. Of course, it's pretty depressing to have a sweet new baby in the house when I can't seem to have one of my own, but those are the breaks.

I finally got pictures of some of the stuff I finished two weeks ago :) The carrot and rabbit hanging on the couch:



and in their potting soil:



I loved making these and I'd make them again. They were a hit.

And now, the piece de resistance (small so you can see the whole thing):



This is my tweaked version of the prince of the wood elves socks. These went comparatively fast, and would have been faster but for my arm injury.

I used the spade pattern from Barbara Walker's 2nd treasury (pg 292 in my book). I need to find somewhere else to use it because I love how it looks. I started the lace panel 3 stitches from the right side of the sock and moved it over one stitch every 6th round. Because the top of the cuff is the same all the way around, I just spun the sock when it was time to do the heel so that I could keep moving the lace to the left as I continued down the foot. It gives the impression that I started the lace panel further to the right.

I can't explain why I'm so happy about how this turned out, but I could truly sit for an hour and admire my handiwork on this. I realize now that it would have been better to use a smaller lace pattern so that it's movement around the sock would have been more obvious, but I wanted to stick with a similar stitch count and row height. I could also have moved it to the left quicker (one to the left every 3rd row or something) but moving it on the 6th row made it easier for me to remember to do it!

Eep - I forgot to tell you - I'm calling these "birchies", since the color was inspired by birch trees. DP initially thought the color was not lotr-ish but amended his opinion once he saw them finished.

Now I just have to figure out what my next pair will be. I should probably make a pair for my sil's fiance since I already have the yarn for it. I surreptitiously measured his shoes while he was in the shower, 12 inches, so I'm thinking an 11 1/2 or 11 1/4" foot length. The yarn is paca peds HT (I think I wrote about it when I got it from the Sheep in the City gathering) and I'm hoping I'll have enough yardage. I'll be going toe up, and I might even work one foot through the heel, then the other through the heel and do both legs together to make sure they're even. I don't have any other skeins of that yarn, but I'm sure I have something of the same weight running around somewhere. I guess the real question is how many stitches around? 72?