Light at the End of the Yarn Supply. Maybe.

Well folks, it looks like I might be getting my hands on some more Merino Style. The details are still being worked out, but it looks good at this point. I'll post the story when everything gets the okay; in the meantime, I've been making do with what I have, and here's the progress on the first border section. I have three more rows to go with the black, and then six more rows of Vanilla before I cast off.

I've encountered the first mistake in the pattern (haha, other than the yardage requirement!) on this section. When you get to the garter stitch rows, it says to knit all stitches. However, these rows start on the wrong side, so if you knit them (in black) the loops from the last row of white show up on the right side. Luckily it's an easy solution: purl every stitch. Seems to look right, so I'm going with it.

As you can tell from this picture, Blanche is now a little too big and hefty to carry back and forth to work (my Jordana Paige bag has a big knitting compartment, but it's not that big!) I've been busying myself in the meantime with a cute little sock for J. It's Nancy Bush's "Gentleman's Plain Winter Sock," in Knit Picks Essential in a lovely gray shade. Here we are as of this afternoon, about an inch short of the heel:

Now the coolest thing about this sock is what you don't see. That's because the last stitch of each round is purled, and it's of course pretty much hidden because of the mass quantities of stockinette around it. But if you peek on this inside, you see this:

See that adorable little column of stitches? It runs all the way down the back of the leg and the heel. It's not obvious at all, but I just love it. I have no idea if it serves a functional purpose, but I get a kick out of the fact that it's there and only the knitter and the wearer of the sock will know about. And all of you who are reading this. I guess the secret's out.

Tomorrow is a big day -- my birthday! By some amazing stroke of luck, my office is closed on Friday, so I can relax and celebrate tomorrow night. Tomorrow is actually going to be fairly low key. I'll have a busy day of work and then will go over to my parents' for dinner. J has an event to go to, but he'll try to stop by for cake. We're doing our real celebrating this weekend, first with dinner with my parents and J's parents on Friday night, and then an evening alone with J on Saturday. We're going out for dinner here and then to see these guys, my special request. (I just hope they don't do their usual Spring Fling act! Fellow quakers will know what I mean...)