I'm now officially on vacation, yay! I have one week off, then the following week, although a work week, will be spent in Vancouver at a big adoption conference. I'm actually away from the office now until August 12, a very nice break from the everyday routine.

I had a very productive knitting day today. I made lots of progress on Chickami. I hope to wear it to a family birthday barbecue on Thursday. We're celebrating three birthdays, including mine! I'm now just a couple inches from the raglan shaping, so it shouldn't be a problem at all. My only dilemna now is which shoulder straps to make since Bonne Marie so nicely revised the pattern and added wider straps, seen here at Chicknits. I think I'm leaning towards the original thinner straps, but we shall see.

Off to knit on the toe-up socks now, while I listen to Chicago on PBS's Soundstage. I loved that band in the 70's!

posted by Brenda 9:45 PM

. . .

Yay, I'm finally doing my first toe-up sock:



I even managed to do the figure-eight cast on. I used my handy dandy crochet hook to tighten up each individual stitch from the figure-eight, and am pleased with the result. The heel took me a couple tries, mostly because I was rushing before making dinner and got mixed up with my stitch count, then neglected to slip a stitch at the beginning of each turning row. I'm overall very pleased, as toe-up socks had been somewhat of a mystery to me. The yarn I'm using is Fortissima Colori 1000 colorway 474, purchased on sale from Elann.com a while back. I'm a little disappointed that this yarn doesn't self-stripe, but it will still look nice with my black Naot clogs once sandal season ends (which hopefully won't be for a long, long, time)!

Buttons sleepily watched today's photo shoot from her favourite perch, a basket on top of the cupboards. Since I just joined the Knitting Kitty webring a few days ago, I thought it appropriate that I share her picture:



Hope you're all having a good week. Nice hot weather here on Vancouver Island, gotta love it!

posted by Brenda 8:07 PM

. . .

Finished the Broadripple socks:



This is one of the favourite sock patterns I've used. I'll definitely be making this pattern again. I'm actually thinking of frogging the one Blueberry Waffle sock I completed, for two reasons: First, I knit the first on DPNs, and now prefer to use circs, and second, I think the broadripple pattern is much more suitable for the intended recipient.

Jo commented on my WIP picture that with the colour and the pattern, they appeared to be a very girly sock. I hadn't really thought of it, but Jo you are right! (since then, squawkbox has been down, hate that).

I leave you with a close-up of the sock, isn't the pattern pretty?

posted by Brenda 7:46 PM

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