Accomplishment!

Hey, I made a plan and carried it out! Behold samples of wool: raw, scoured and carded. Sorry about the flash.

I feel special; I got my first official blog comments! Whee! Now I need to visit other bloggers and get to know my fellow stuff-makers.

Last night's rehearsal was fun. I get to do some Patsy Cline, some Beatles, even a Frances Langford. We'll have a fiddler, bass, harmonica, and two guitars. Plus Himself's dobro and mandolin. I love doing stuff like this! Last weekend, it was the String Band Rendezvous. Bluegrass, Trail Songs, Celtic and Swing, all over the campground. Between and during songs, I was knitting my brains out on a sock. Oh, but not just any sock. Let me explain the Sock Curse, or perhaps it's a gift?

I love to knit socks. The yarns are fun, the techniques are interesting, and the results are endlessly fascinating, not to mention practical. I knit them a LOT. I have one pair. ONE. Here's where the Curse/Gift comes in. Happy knitting silfert goes into the LYS to browse. She spies a cool and groovy yarn that will make for a great pair of socks. Although nothing like her preferred colors, she buys said yarn and sails into the cast on. I know what you're probably thinking. Has she measured? Is there to be no swatch? Why did she buy bubblegum pink and lime green when she doesn't even WEAR those colors? Read on.

Pooh to swatching and measuring. Happy knitting silfert scoffs at such questions. Happy knitting silfert knows that the sock gods are at work, so those issues won't even matter. She listens to the little voices that dictate needle size and stitch count. She follows the clever and intricate patterns that make the first sock say "LEFT LEFT LEFT" around the leg and "SOCK SOCK SOCK" around the ankle. The sock-in-progress, henceforth known as SIP, accompanies happy knitting silfert to play rehearsal, where they are spied by a castmate. The castmate immediately flips out. The SIP is BEAUTIFUL. It is in her FAVORITE colors. Happy knitting silfert is covertly casting "the Look" toward the sky now, because she knows that this is the result of the intervention of the sock gods. Golly gee, the SIP, when studied with an eye to the castmate's foot, appears to be (gasp) the right size.

At the cast party, the completed socks are presented, and are received with shrieks and hugs. The finest kind of payment.

This is not an isolated incident. It happens with most of the socks I make. I start with a sock just for the heck of it, with no real thought to size, color, or even why. Before the first one is finished, along comes someone that needs them. And they FIT!

Huh. Maybe it IS a gift. :) Oh, and at the String Band Rendezvous? Old friends showed up. They had just gotten married, so the socks became part one of a wedding gift. Knocked out sock #2 in under five hours. Now to make the"his" pair...