Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Deadline Knitting

Or how to take a completely soothing and enjoyable hobby and turn it into a high-pressure sport.

Okay, not really. I mean, if I were a normal person, I'm sure I could handle such things as sock swaps. But I am an easily-freaked out, obsessive-compulsive, deadline-dreading, procrastiknitter. Also, when faced with a mistake that involves either frogging or a highly-involved fix, I can get thrown off for a whole week before I finally make myself do the work. Ridiculous, I know. [When I finally did face the task, I astonished myself by actually dropping 3 sts down 35 rounds, putting the yo, sl1, k2tog, psso, yo in the three places it was supposed to go, and coming back up to the round I was on. It was not perfect, but it did work.]

At any rate, here they finally are.


pattern: Fancy Silk Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks
yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, blackberry, 2 skeins (with some left over)
needles: size 1 dpns
start: January 21
finish: February 14
modifications: none
verdict: I love them, and I hope my sock pal does too.

I love the scalloped cuff and the lace details


And you know what I think of the yarn.
Love me some Lorna's.


You may recall my disappointment with the length - of lack thereof - of the Fabulous Lace Inset Cardigan, which I finished in October. I don't wear it as much as I had hoped, because cropped is just not my style (and I haven't yet had the time or inclination to knit some more inches on the bottom). Since it is a nice rich red, I did wear it maybe twice during the Christmas season. And with today being V Day and all, I decided to try to "rock an outfit out of it" as goodkarma suggested.

You can't really tell in this pic, but the shirt I'm wearing under it is pink. I love the whole red-pink thing together, partly b/c as a kid I was taught that those two colors shouldn't be worn together. I'm also wearing my pink lace socks. Today's Valentine's experiment has confirmed for me that if I ever plan to wear this again, I do in fact need to suck it up and add those five or so inches. And not just because of the following conversation:

me to My Old Man: Is this outfit totally goofy?
My Old Man: Well, I know it's the style, but you know I don't really get that look - a long shirt hanging out from under a ... - what do you call that kind of sweater?
me: Cropped
My Old Man: Cropped. Right. Well, it's just not my style.
me: I know. It's not really my style either, and I don't really like showing my stomach, but I want to wear the sweater today. Is it totally goofy looking?
My Old Man: I don't know. I'm sure it's fine.
me: Okay, thanks.

So I wore it, even though it might look goofy. Because I'm a risk-taker like that. But next time? It'll definitely have a few more inches.

Hey, thanks y'all, for all the very sweet anniversary wishes!

9 comments:

schrodinger said...

Those socks look great, lorna's looks like a great sock yarn, hope your pal loves them :)

Alisha said...

Love the socks!!!

I think the sweater looks great on you!!!

Julie said...

LOL Stacey -- I wore mine on Valentine's Day too! :)

Meredith said...

The socks look great! And I think the sweater looks very cute like that, but I'm a cropped sweater kind of gal.

goodkarma said...

Beautiful socks. I adore the blackberry color, too. And I think you looked great with the cropped sweater. I understand your discomfort -- I, too, am not so sure about cropped sweaters on me -- but I think you definitely pulled it off.

Rachel said...

Hey, look at it this way, if it's nearly wearable as it is, think how very wearable it'll be when you add inches! For a very small amount of (additional) work, you'll get a fantastic FO.

Love the socks. I need to do some LL socks -- they always look and feel so wonderful. I'm sure your sock pal will be thrilled.

Knitting Bandit said...

WOW! I can't believe you worked down 35 rows! How did you keep it from getting too tight to pull a stitch through? I'm impressed! The socks are gorgeous!

Yarngineer said...

I totally understand the whole thing about putting off fixing mistakes for a few days. I do the same thing. I totally love the socks! I posted the pics of them on my blog! :)

Oh, and I think you look cute in the sweater. I could never pull off a cropped sweater, as my hips are too big. :P

Janice (5 Minutes for Mom) said...

okay - the knitting jargon went totally over my head - but i do know all about procrastination and stress! ;)

the sweater is a fabulous colour - How great that you can just make it longer though! but it does still look cute!

thanks for delurking - so nice to meet you! :)