River Rapids

Tada!


I finished these a few days ago, but didn't have good light/tapestry needles for weaving in the ends. They are totally fininshed now (and yes, mom, I'm gonna send them off in the mail tomorrow).

The details:


Pattern: River Rapids socks from Sock Bug
Yarn: Nature's Palette sock yarn, 2 skeins in "medium indigo"
Needles: Inox dpns, US 0
Started: 20 June 2006
Completed: 2 August 2006

Thoughts: I love these socks. The only problem I had was the sock-yarn-needlesize didn't cooperate. I ended up having to knit the socks on size 0 needles to get closer to gauge, but the yarn really deserves a looser, more breatheable knit. It was so lush and cushy knit on size 1s (my first attempt), but was waaay too big. Rather than do the math to size down the pattern, I just dropped down a needle size. As a result, the socks are a little tight on me (the intended recipient) and so now my mom gets them (which she deserves, since I am several gifts behind in my knitting for her). But... I have nothing but good things to say about both the yarn and the pattern. LOVE this yarn. love it. Everyone should go out and get some. It put quite a strain on the needles -- I bent my first pair so severely that my mom's LYS actually replaced them. But that is due more to my iron fist and knitting under the recommended needle size than anything else.

I'm "home sick" today. I put that in quotes because I'm always home (I work from home), but I "called in sick". I've not been sick in ages and ages, so I don't feel too bad about it. I did a little work this morning and I'll do some more tonight, but this afternoon, I've been drinking tea, watching movies, and knitting. My new Knitpicks circular came today, so I'm going to try it out on TSALP. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

I leave you with this:


What is that, far off in the distance? Why it's the Gauley Bridge, over the New River in West Virginia (when first told the name of this bridge, I thought they meant "Golly!" because... well, it's a sight to be seen). I guess it's the tallest bridge in the world, or something like that. It's tall. How tall is it?


It's also phenomenally beautiful.


But I really like things like bridges. Julie and I stopped here on our way to Clifftop, where I had a terrific time. I pretty much spent the weekend doing this:


Except usually there were instruments other than fiddles (this is an awfully fiddle-heavy photo) and I was usually dancing. All day, and almost all night. So much fun (and probably why I feel under the weather today). And I get to do it again this weekend, this time in Galax, Virginia. I've got a pretty cool "job".

Ok. back to being sick.