Before your eyes, that icon of knitterly propriety, the Swatch.

This one is for the grape heather socks I'm starting. It's telling me that I'm knitting 6.25 st. and 8 rows per inch in stockinette. This is very good, as when I was knitting the Baby Sockie, I was getting 7.5 st. and 9 rows, so I've loosened up quite nicely. However, I'm only knitting the toes, heels, and soles in stockinette, so the Swatch is only of marginal use. I don't really feel like knitting another three swatches to take measurements of the various textures I'm going to be using on the rest of the sock. So, I'm going to use the impirical method to get these socks to fit properly.

This is really a very simple procedure. Every so often, at points where, knowing my feet as I do, I think it's needful, I'm going to try the sock on. If it goes on smoothly, so much the better. If it seems a bit tight, I'll increase a couple of stitches in the next row or two. If it's *really* tight, I'll frog back a ways and start increasing there.

However, the socks are going to be put on hold for a short while, as the mail yesterday brought to me the first two of many models I'm going to be cross-stitching for a designer just getting started in Germany. This is actual *paid* work, people! Sheckles in the travel fund. Not many, alas, but better than none. Therefore, I shall be cross-stitching for the next few days. I can't even post pictures for you, as the designs haven't been published yet. "Secret" projects!

The Baby Sockie

is finished, or at least I'm done messing with it. For one thing, if I frog it any more, the yarn is going to die, I think. I've learned all I can from it, and by the time you read this, in all likelihood the sockie will have undergone its final frog, and the yarn will be rewound onto the ball. I like this yarn too much to waste it on a learning sample. I am still not happy with the short-row business, and need to try yet another approach to it. I *must* be doing something wrong without being aware of it - so I'm going to work on it in a larger scale, and see what comes of it. I also, selfishly, want to be able to document what I come up with when I follow the instructions, before I start "fiddling", as I have done many times on the sockie, to try to fix things, so I can show pictures to my mentor. I absolutely *must* master this short-row technique, because there are too many things out there that use it that I want to knit!

The picture is bluer on my monitor than the actual yarn, which is a lovely heathery green/grey color, but my monitor is screwed up and shows everything bluer than it really is. I hope the true color comes through for you. I meant to put something in the picture to show you the scale of the sockie, but I forgot, and I'm too lazy to set it all up again to take another picture. To give you an idea, the sockie measures 5 1/2" from the front of the toe to the back of the heel, and is 36 stitches in the round. It was knit toe-up on #2 DPNs with Jennifer's Super-Strong-Sock, in Sage Heather, pattern is Tsocks 101 with short-row toe and heel.

A bit of history is in order here, I think, about me. I learned to knit as a kid, many moons ago, but I put my needles down in 1969, when motherhood, with a usually absent (and now ex-) husband, overcame knitting time. I haven't touched them since (though I have been doing other needlework), until about two months ago, when, wandering from blog to blog, I found the Yarn Harlot. Her links have led to some really fantastic people out there in Knitopia, and I'm really glad to be meeting them and renewing my acquaintance with knitting.