Finished: Garter Rib Socks

Stitch Pattern: Garter Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch
Yarn: South West Trading Company TOFUtsies (50% superwash wool, 25% Soysilk, 22.5% cotton, 2.5% Chitin), colorway 724, one skein
Needles: two US 1 (2.5 mm) 12" Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: July 8/July 18

These were my Stitch 'n Pitch socks and proved to be an easy mindless knit (although don't think that means I didn't make mistakes!). The most pleasurable thing about the was the yarn. I'd been hesitant to knit with it for a while because of the high cotton content, but I found that it didn't feel at all like cotton. It was smooth and soft and only a little splitty. And the yardage! Look at how much I have left:

That's the ballband for scale. I wish I had a digital scale to know how many grams are in that skein, but it appears to be significant amount. I'm not going to use it to make baby socks, though, just on the offhand chance it could trigger an allergic reaction. (Last night at knit night, Amy wore the first completed sock for a while in an entirely unscientific experiment -- she's allergic to everything that lives in the sea, but not deathly so. She rated it a 1.5 on a 10-point itchiness scale.) I am definitely going to be buying more of this yarn in the future, so I think for now I'll just save the leftovers to be combined with the leftovers in future skeins.

I cast on (finally!) my June Rockin' Sock Club socks and have the toe done so far. I also cast on for another French Market Bag the other night, after the power finally came back on following a ridiculous storm. I'm using the four leftover skeins of Patons SWS from my MIL's Lady E stole.

This chunky, fuzzy yarn is certainly quite a change after all the socks and the baby sweater, and I'm quite enjoying it. I'm going to get as much out of the yarn as I can and make the bag bigger than the last one. I have to say, with all the stress at work and the stress of wedding stuff, I am really looking forward to the miles of mindless stockinette of the body!

Last night's meeting of the Hurricane Knitters was a real hoot (I hope we didn't scare the newcomers away!). Amy joined us for the first time, as did Mary Beth (Marybeth?), who was a NEW knitter -- but boy, was she a natural! I showed her how to cast on one stitch using the long-tail cast on, and she was off. The same thing happened when I showed her how to make a knit stitch. I really should have taken a picture of her swatch -- I've never seen such even stitches from a beginning knitter! In any case, the group made a decision to increase the number of our meetings; we'll now be meeting on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. That should really freak 40 Guy out, don't you think?