Starting Again

I am happy to report that my mother-in-law is back home and stable now.  They don't call her the come-back kid for nothing.  The cardiac socks are almost done, just need to bind them off.  The yarn is a hand-dyed Peruvian wool in shades of brown/terra cotta/black which was a gift from my sister-in-law a while back.  It's a little heavier than most sock weight, but not much, so I knit it up on the same needles I always use.  The size is fine, and the socks are just a little extra heavy and warm.  With the wintry temperatures we're having this week, I'm happy to have them.  Okay, wintry for Maryland, I know you Chicago types would laugh at this. 

Sock sadness over the weekend.  I put on a pair of lacy socks I knit in a self-striping yarn, and discovered a big hole in them!  Yarn breakage, moths, don't know why, but it looks like some of the yarn gave way and then it unraveled a bit.  I think I'm going to try darning them.  I really like these socks, the combination of the lacy pattern and the stripes did some really cool looking things.  The stripes became waves, and as the socks were washed the yarn felted a bit so the lace pattern is more of a visual texture now.  So they are textured with funky wavy stripes.  I love it.

And now I face the new project dilemma again.  Will the next project be the Lion Suede sweater jacket we all helped design at the NSKO?  I'm quite excited about the design, I think it will be fun to make.  Or will it be the gloves I'm dying to try?  On the NSKO trip to the yarn shop, I bought a book because it has good, basic instructions for knitting gloves, which I am eager to try.  I also bought some blue/green speckled sock yarn, and when I got home I realized it's the perfect colors to go with my berber fleece jacket that I wear in spring and fall.  So now I am dying to knit a pair of gloves with this yarn to go with the jacket.  Decisions, decisions!

Of course, neither project is a good traveling project, so there will also be another pair of socks started soon.  I have picked out a variegated yarn in muted sunset colors, yellow to peach to salmon sort of shades.