I had a lovely, busy weekend. Saturday afternoon Sara (aka fletchersmama) hosted a great barbecue at her ever-so-cute house (that has the most wonderful knitting/craft room). We had a lot of fun despite the fact some horses tried to eat me and several small children. Don't worry, we're all safe. My husband, brother and dad laughed at my frantic gathering of children and cries of, "Move, move! Drop the frogs! The horses are coming!" but also helped to calm said horses and kept them otherwise occupied as I and several teary eyed (they wanted to continue gathering frogs from the pond) youngsters slipped out the gate. Then everyone including the kids laughed at me as I shook and said, "Dad, they really were going to get us weren't they? They were scary, right?" And I even ate a hot dog which is generally not on my list of acceptable foods.
Sock Update:
In knitting news, the socks are complete! Or they were. Here they are after I spent the time it takes to watch six movies finishing them:
And these feet have never been happier:
Jason wore the socks from the time I handed them over on Sunday until he took his shower Monday morning. He struggled a bit getting one of the socks off over his heel and ripped right through the bound off edge. I didn't have the stomach to snap a picture of the unravelling upper edge, so no picture of the tragedy yet. I just can't believe that I have more work to do on these things!
Weekend Cast-Ons:
I've finally ordered the Cash Iroha #8 for the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. As reported previously, I bought one skein of the beautiful yarn at my local yarn shop a couple of weeks ago, and this weekend finally allowed myself to begin swatching (I made myself wait until the socks were finished--this swatch was worked during the sixteen hours in which they were finished). Since this sweater is knit in the round, I cast on for a sleeve as my swatch. I also wanted to see how the hem worked and to decide whether or not to knit the part that gets turned under on smaller needles (yes). This yarn is beautiful, soft and wonderful to work with. Love it. Here's what I've got so far:
In less promising starts, I worked on the Craftster Circular Shrug (pattern available in pdf form at Peony Knits) that I thought I wanted to make for myself. 
And I still may, however, I bought the wrong yarn. I bought Frog Tree Sportweight Alpaca (color 000) which is a beautiful, luscious, soft, amazing yarn. But. It does not want to be a Circular Shrug. It has told me so. 
It tried to tell me while I swatched different patterns for the center section. It tried to tell me again as I swatched for the seed stitch I settled on. And, finally, it began screaming at me as I stubbornly worked nearly six inches of ribbing on the actual shrug. What? You didn't think yarn could talk? Then you haven't read Maggie Righetti's Sweater Design in Plain English (or maybe she talks about it in Knitting in Plain English). Yarn WILL tell you what it wants to be, or at least what it absolutely DOESN'T want to be. You just have to listen. Well, I'm listening. And hoping my local yarn store will let me exchange the six balls of unused yarn for something else**. And this, well, this will be FROGGED (hmmm...is there something in the name? Frog Tree?):
The only other knitting I did this weekend was on a new dishcloth; it's nearly complete but I haven't taken any pictures yet. I am making it from Sugar 'N Cream (I think, no ball band on it--all the 100% cotton yarn I have was purchased years ago) in a pale yellow and it's in my new favorite stitch--seed stitch. A really good one for a dishcloth too, I think.
A word about dishcloths. I don't have a dishwasher. A mechanical one anyway. What I do have is my own two hands. I hadn't made myself knitted dishcloths in years, until the recent green one (and another more recent green one that is so similar to the first I never posted about it). I can't believe how different it is using these as compared to store bought dishcloths. Somehow, I forgot what it was like. Now I know. Heaven. Dishwashing heaven. If you have to do dishes by hand and have never had a knitted dishcloth you are missing out. Seriously. And I recommend using kind of large needles for the yarn (US #9 or #10 in my case). The resulting fabric is great for washing dishes and dries quickly if you wring it out and stretch it a little. Trust me, they are worth it. Wow, I'm passionate about dishcloths! Go figure.
I also managed to put my garden in this weekend and was going to blog about it in this post, but as this post seems long enough already, I'll save that for another one.
** Normally I would just add this yarn to my stash, but seeing as how I I've already spent my entire yarn budget for this month (and next) and have a baby shower gift to make, I'll make the switch. I'll keep two balls of the Frog Tree--the one I started with and the one Ted got a hold of and carried around in his stinky dogbreath mouth.
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