Blanket Frog and New Socks

Greetings! It's Sunday night, and I have much to report from the weekend.

Friday I was bored. I stared at a giant blanket I had crocheted out of hand-dyed chenille tape back in college, and decided I'd had Enough. The thing was too long and too skinny. Here is a picture of it before I frogged - you can see where the colorway changes, too, because, well, I had run out of yarn and bought more, and of course the colorway was different (this was years ago, before I discovered little tricks like "buy enough before you start"):

Look how long it is!

So I frogged. And frogged. Thank god I have a niddy-noddy; I was able to wind off everything into 2 yd skeins. This blanket weighed at least 5 pounds:

I know that my skills have vastly improved since the days of pure crochet with giant hooks. I had followed a "granny blanket" style zig-zag pattern (in my family we call them "Mrs. Rolfe Blankets", because the old woman who my parents had babysit all 3 of us kids would crochet these giant acrylic afghans in lovely retro 70's colors of burnt orange, mustard, and olive, and I also remember an itchier (presumably wool) one in butter yellow, red, and turquoise. They were always that same zig-zag stripe pattern...ah, memories. Anyway, I had tried that pattern, and because both the tape-yarn and the hook were so big, there were way too many holey areas in the blanket. My toes would always get caught. I figure now I can do some easy / neat looking blanket type thing knitting the yarn, and both get a bigger and better looking blanket out of my $100 + investment. :-) I love recycling.

Next up are my new socks - well, they're really socks for my sister for Xmas. I am doing the "Dove" sock pattern in the Upstream architecture chapter out of Cat Bordhi's "New Pathways for Sock Knitters, Book One". I thought I could do two-at-a-time, toe-up with this, but in the first few rounds, my needles and yarn balls kept getting in the way of each other, so I said Eff It and took one sockey off, for later knitting. I did split the ball of yarn in two, though (by weight). I am using Blue Moon Socks That Rock midweight in "Rhodonite", size 1.5 (grr) Addi Turbo 16" circular needles, and.... a Whirlwind Toe out of Cat's book. The cast-on for the toe is pretty interesting. I like how the increases sort of spiral out in the toe. And I think it will be nice for my sister's feet, which are wider than mine.

Yes, this is the yarn that I had in a previous post that was starting the cuff of "Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks" from the same Cat B. book. I had to start over anyway - I think the cuff would have been too big for my sister, anyway.

Onward! Tomorrow is Monday (ech).

In different news, I just booked a b&b for Daniel and myself, and my friends Kris and Randy, in Leavenworth, WA, for next weekend. It's the last weekend of Oktoberfest out there, and Leavenworth is known for being a quaint little Bavarian village out in the middle of... well, towards eastern Washington, anyway... I am excited. And the room price wasn't at all bad for a b&b - the total for each room is around $104, including tax. Pictures will be coming! :-)