My swap socks

Nutse sent them from Catalonia, they fit perfectly and I love the colors and texture. She sends a crochet flower brooch along with stitch markers, Opal sock yarn and a postcard and bookmark from Barcelona.



I was in Barcelona many years ago and I loved that city, especially all the Gaudí architectural feats. I even keep a Gaudí memento on my bookshelf, see?



That bookmark and that yarn will be put to use immediately. Thanks Nutse!

Not posting does not mean no knitting. I'm contributing two squares for the Raibow of Heroes afghan. I'll post the pictures later. I also finished a couple of books. The first one, by Ibargüengoitia, was somewhat disappointing. It was a volume containing three plays by him, none of which I liked much: Clotilde in her home, The Superficial Trip and Bird in Hand. I believe he must have based his novel Two Crimes on the last play. The novel is great, but the play isn't.

The other book I finished was The Gospel of Food, by Barry Glassner. It is refreshing to have someone tell you to stop worrying about what you eat, especially in this culture where skinny people are all over the media and everyone's complaining about how fat the rest of us are. Still, I do watch what I eat, and enjoy my food. I can't see why one thing would exclude the other.

Coriolis

I was late in sending in my swap socks. To make it up to my sock recipient, I sent them by UPS instead of regular mail. The pattern I used was Coriolis, by Cat Bordhi. I believe the web version of the pattern contains two mistakes (hopefully  her book does not), but I liked it a lot.  The increases are on the top of the foot, curving diagonally. A very interesting way to construct a sock, but not the best choice when you have a deadline and little time to learn new techniques. Anyway, the socks are on their way and I have a few pictures to show.

I followed the pattern as written except for the toe and the bindoff.  Here is the heel, which is just like an ordinary toe-up heel with a heel flap:



You can see how he diagonal ridge continues after the heel just as a decoration. Here is one sock right before the edging, showing the ridge on both sides of the sock:

      

The pattern calls for a seed stitch edging, which I was unsure of but I went ahead and used it.  What I did not do according to the pattern was the bind-off, which required four strands of yarn. Instead, I  did a purl bindoff, using the technique I learned from Vaxgirl. Here is the result:

      

Please ignore my hairy legs. The sock is a tad big for my foot, but I should fit the recipient. For the record, I did wash both socks before sending them in.

This very unusual sock design has piqued my curiosity. I am itching to try Cat's new book: New Patwhays for Sock Knitters. Does anyone recommend it?

Eight days

Oh no! My intentions were to at least turn the heels this weekend but it just did not happen. I like this pattern a lot but I do believe there is a mistake in it. After starting the arch increases I realized that the socks were not symmetrical, so I had to rip... again. Luckily, I only had to rip one of the socks, and now that I caught up they look just right. Here's one of the socks on my own foot:

     
Can someone attempt a guess at the pattern? It's really cool, but I hope it gives me no more trouble, since I do want to finish these socks on time. I'm planning to knit tonight until I turn the heels, or until I drop, whatever happens first.