Here is the first of the Smoke and Mirrors socks.

And a close-up:

I didn’t spend a lot of time knitting this weekend, so not a lot of progress.

In case you noticed . . .

Photos are not (as I write this) showing up for older blog entries, and the free patterns seem to be unavailable. It seems to be some issue with the location where my media is stored. I uploaded the photos for this entry to a different place. Hopefully all will be resolved eventually.

Lucy sez:

Thank you, Steven and Meredith!

Lucy’s mom had lunch on Friday with Steven and Meredith’s mom (better known as Anne-Marie in Philly) and she brought a couple of gifts from her 2 kitties, Steven and Meredith, for Miss Lucy, some treats and a lovely hand-knit catnip mouse. Here is a video of Lucy playing with her new mouse.

Last night I finished the second of the Ida’s Delusions of Grandeur socks.

To recap, these are knit from Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn in the Pansy Golightly colorway, on 2mm needles. The pattern will be available for sale at The Loopy Ewe, probably in a couple of weeks.

I will be sending Sheri three new patterns soon — this one, the Einkorn socks, and the Ribbon Candy sportweight socks. I’ve been remiss lately in finalizing sock patterns so I’ll make an effort to get these three to her by the end of the month.

A completed sock project means only one thing chez WendyKnits: a new sock project!

As promised, I started knitting with one of my new skeins of Cherry Tree Hill Select Supersock, in the Java colorway. Oh my, is this yarn ever yummy! It is softer than the regular Supersock, but still has the tight twist I love so much in sock yarns. and the colorway is simply wonderful!

Speaking of wonderful, I managed to snag some Wollmeise from The Loopy Ewe this week.

Why did I want these two colorways particularly? Look at the labels:

My uncle’s name is Frantz and my grandfather’s name was Emil.

Speaking of wonderful, look at the surprise that was waiting for me when I got home today:

This is a giant gourmet fortune cookie, sent to me by the totally awesome Dani. Thank you, Dani! I can’t wait to dig in!!

Lucy sez:

“Busted!”

The week is more than half over. Come, rejoice with me.

We have not named Lucy’s new little sidekick yet. I don’t think Lucy has much interest in giving it a name. You should have seen how long it took me to get the photo of her nose-to-nose with the toy kitty yesterday. I kept picking Lucy up and plopping her down on the couch and attempting to put the toy next to her, but she wouldn’t stay still. She was in one of those moods here every time I’d point the camera at her she’d walk towards me. It was just dumb luck that I managed the somewhat blurry shot that I got.

I am coming down the home stretch on my second “Ida’s Delusions of Grandeur” sock and ought to be able to finish to finish it at some point tonight or tomorrow.

I’m going to use some of the Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Select for my next sock project. My last few pairs of socks have been in bright and/or summery colors, so I decided the next pair will be in the Java colorway.

Because this is a rather dark colorway, the pattern will be a relatively simple all-over lace design.

Speaking of colorway, I’ve used the Cherry Tree Hill Java colorway before, in their Suri Alpaca for my Inky Dinky Spider Stole. Quite a different look, huh?

Remember the cute feather toy Lucy got a couple of weeks ago? This is what it looks like now:

And here is Lucy, pretending she has no idea how it got in that state.

Okay, so I’m a day late. Story of my life.

Here is the second ”Ida’s Delusions of Grandeur” this morning as it rested on my desk.

Speaking of Ida (she who named the sock), check out her most recent blog post. Ida is involved in a project called Patterns for Paws.

This is a joint project of The Lily M. Foundation, Inc.’s Lily’s Friends and the Purebred Cat Breed Rescue. Ida is asking knit and crochet pattern designers to donate a pattern that will be sold under Patterns for Paws. Patterns will be made available for download, and the proceeds from the sales, minus expenses, will be split evenly between The Lily M. Foundation’s Lily’s Friends, and Purebred Cat Breed Rescue.

If you are a knit or crochet designer, would you be willing to donate a pattern to the project? It doesn’t have to be animal related, and it can be for anything.

If so, please contact Ida at the email address in her blog post, linked above.

Ida happens to be test-knitting my Ivy League sock pattern and I am donating that pattern to her cause.

Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Select

I purchased some of the Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Select from The Loopy Ewe last week when Sheri put it up for sale. Isn’t it gorgeous?

I’m hoping Johanne will forgive me for posting that photo.

Lucy’s Little Sister

Lucy has a new little sister — see?

Lucy is not sure how she feels about the new arrival.

(ETA: This is a stuffed animal, not a real kitten!)

Meanwhile, my office sheep is ready for hot weather!

I am working along on the second “Ida’s Delusions of Grandeur” sock.

Yes, I am knitting them one at a time. No, I do not like to knit both socks at the same time. Why?

My reasons are threefold.

First, 99.9% of the time the socks I’m knitting are my own designs. Sock Number One is knit while I make any adjustments to the pattern. Sock Number Two is knit from the pattern to test it.

Second, two socks at a time is less portable than one sock as a time. At the very least, I’d need a bigger bag to carry my work in.

Third, and most important, I don’t wanna.

Sara asked in the comments: Did I miss how you came up with the name?

No, you didn’t. I didn’t say.

Ida is one of my Plurk buddies and she suggested the name upon seeing a photo of the sock in progress. Simple as that.

But I will not be naming my next sock design “Unspeakable Chicken,” as suggested by Turtlegirl on Plurk.

See the fun we have? I guess it is one of those “you had to have been there” moments. But I did get a good sock name from it.

As I said, I’m knitting along on the second sock. The pattern will be available eventually, but at this point it is still in development phase.

This is what I would consider a “busy” lace pattern and of course the busier the pattern stitch, the more solid you want your yarn colorway to be.

One of the things I really love about Dream in Color yarn is that there is a nice mix of shades in their colorways, but it does not knit up stripey or splotchy. At least none of the colors I’ve knit with so far have.

While this is a somewhat busy lace pattern, I do not think it is a particularly difficult knit. The only tricky bit is that it does employ a k3tog here and there — but not very often!

Meanwhile, Lucy is resting after a particularly stressful day of lying around doing nothing.