Hearts of Space

So, these are my husband's Valentine socks, finished (mumble, mumble) today:



Patterns in self-striping yarn aren't worth the trouble because they disappear, but I didn't want to slog through another pair of plain ribbed socks on my trusty 00s. I saw some funky short-rowed socks on Magknits and I borrowed the idea. My short-row stripes are pretty much random, but when I decided I was bored with stockinette and wanted to start a short row I usually did it at a color change. When I was short-rowing back the other way to make the length of the sock even up, however, the colors would do their own thing. I think it looks like one of those colored-sand-in-a-jar things we did as little kids in Vacation Bible School.



As you can see, I continued the short rows up into the ribbing, and so the ribs jog a little bit. I like the effect more than I thought I would. These socks actually look really lumpy when they're not being worn, because of the short rows pointing in all different directions, but I made sure all the numbers even up.



Of course, since the entire sock was short-rowed, I decided I didn't feel like doing a short-row heel, so I did a toe-up heel flap. I'd never attempted this before and although I had a reasonable idea of how it worked architecturally, my printer went on the fritz so I had to wing it without directions. I like how it turned out and I think for my next sock class I'll have to add another pair of "object lesson" socks where I do one toe-up and one top-down and try to get my students to tell them apart.

I've also finished a sweater, but I'm not feeling the photogenic love about my torso lately, so you'll have to use your imagination. The sweater is pretty cute - it's the chevron coat from "Fitted Knits" and it's in the increasingly-notorious-and-now-defunct Mystical Creations Yarn. It's just the gut that is under the sweater that isn't dying to be posted on the Internet.

In other, non-knitting (or knitting, first cousin once removed) news, this is what my living room looks like after today's KITH session:


Less than a week to go!