Hedgehog Knitting: Saturday Sock Wash and Shiny Newness

It's hard to get laundry done during the week. I usually don't get home until after 7 p.m., often closer to 8, and my energy for sorting clothes, running the washer, running the dryer, folding clothes, etc on top of dinner and whatever work I brought home is pretty low. Weekends can turn into a marathon then of running to the dry cleaner, running lots of loads of laundry, folding, ironing etc.

Today isn't too bad but I do have a load of socks on the drying rack. I keep telling myself that we're past wool sock season, or we should be, it's May. Then my feet are cold and I go looking for another pair. Socks at Chez Hedgehog go through the washer on gentle cycle with cold water. Everything is knit out of superwash and so far this has worked out well. The Philosopher's sock drawer went in today too and, seeing them all hanging up, it's cool to see many of the socks that I've knit in the past couple of years.

I know, truly glamourous aren't they? Here, let me try for a slightly more arty shot.

A lot of Blue Moon Fiber Arts up there, plus the socks I knit in Egypt and Hawaii, the really bright blue socks from earlier this year, lots of memories and a whole lot of work from my needles. It's nice to see it all together sometimes, so get a sense of just how many pair I've knit.

And I have a new project to show you! (Sweater, what sweater? It stalled when I needed to the sleeves to waste yarn, it'll be back.)

This is the second of the Philosopher Triangles. The first one, Flannel, Brass and Steam, that I told you about before, has been worn regularly and gotten a whole lot of comments/compliments. One of the advantages of having the knitwear where someone can see it rather than on feet, I suppose. Anyway, good knitwear wearing behavior gets rewarded and I pulled out another skein.

I'm using Stephen West's Westlake pattern. It seemed inevitable that I'd pull a SW pattern at some point, he writes a lot of small uni-sex shawl/scarf patterns, and this one looked like it would break up the colors of a Blue Moon Fiber Arts skein well.

The yarn is from the March purchase, this is the Metaphysical Angst colorway. The Philosopher tells me it looks like fire. The red is bleeding onto the wooden needles and my hands just a bit, so washing the first time will be interesting. If it tones down the blue a little though, I think that will be okay.

I'm working on the second section and I've got 6 more rows to go.

Unfortunately, unlike the Brass and Steam pattern, while this is fairly memorizable, it's only so in chunks, at least for me. I will need to consult the pattern at the end of each chunk and that's going to slow me down. It's also complicated enough that it's not good public knitting.

Today's cat fur courtesy of Pyewacket. Both she and Gypsy went to the vet this week for a check up and shots and are brimming with health, though Gypsy's returning for a teeth cleaning in 3 weeks. That should be loads of fun.

I did want to point out the stitch markers that I'm using though. AudioGirl got them for me a year or two ago and I've not had the chance to use them before. They're too bit to put on a sock and nice enough that I was worried about losing them if I took them on a small project where I was tossing it around a lot. It has just the right number for the pattern though (5) and they've worked really well. Sadly, I have no idea who made them.