On Finishing and Not

Have I mentioned recently how much I hate January? I think I have. One of the things about it that displeases me is that it seems to move at a snail's pace. At least we only have a week left!

In the past week or so, I've been focused on finishing up some WIPs. My first finished pair of socks for the year were completed over the long weekend, and I couldn't be happier with them.

Pattern: My regular stockinette recipe, worked over 68 stitches
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in Dyer's Favorites 2018, with coordinating speckled mini skein for contrasting heels and toes
Needles: US 0/2.0 mm Addi Sock Rockets, magic loop
Started/Completed: December 22, 2018/January 20, 2019

There's not much to say about these socks; I let the yarn do all the work. They did do a lot of traveling, though: They were cast on in the car on the way to the airport to catch our flight down to Florida, got a bit of action while we were away, and then went to see Hamilton with me. The colors in the stripes are wonderful, and this photo doesn't do them justice (this terrible winter light is another reason to hate January!). I haven't worn these yet, but they'll be going into regular rotation soon.

Next, I finished up what I thought was going to be a charity hat:

Pattern: Alder by Faye Kennington
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Worsted (100% superwash merino) in Peapod and Squirrel Heather, less than one skein each
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm for the brim and US 5/3.75 mm for the body and crown
Started/Completed: January 15/January 21

If you can already tell from the eerie glow of the green yarn in the above picture, I've edited the photo so that you can see the colorwork. In real life, the contrast is much more subtle, to the point that from far away it's probably close to impossible to tell that there's a colorwork pattern in the hat. While in the end I didn't make any modifications to the pattern, I very nearly had an unintentional mod. As I was finishing up the last round of the crown, I looked at the colorwork and thought, "Hmm, that doesn't look right." Then I reread the pattern and realized I'd totally misread one key instruction. So I had to rip back and redo it all, which fortunately took only an evening. Fresh off the needles, it seemed a little shallow, but a good blocking evened out the stranded work and gave the hat a little more depth. I originally intended this hat to be for me but quickly changed that when I saw the lack of strong contrast between the colors, so I figured it would be added to the charity pile. But then Rainbow got her hands on it and declared that it was hers, so I guess now it is. She wore it to school today (though she's informed me that it still need a pompom).

While I work to finish up other WIPs, I have been reading as much as possible. I was in the middle of a book when I got an e-mail that a hold had come up at the library, so I rushed to finish that and get started on The Overstory, which I have been reading all this week and thoroughly enjoying. It's a great book with beautiful writing, but at 500+ pages, it's not exactly a quick read. This morning when I checked my e-mail over breakfast, I found that my hold on Where the Crawdads Sing has come up, so now I'm in that annoying situation where I have more to read than time to read it. Here's hoping I don't get a third book off my holds list or I'll have to take a day off from work just to get caught up!