Purple Socks!

My socks are here! They were knit by Nutsue, who used a lovely  embossed leaves pattern.



I have to show you a close up, this is a very pretty pattern indeed.



The socks themselves are wonderful, but she also sent me a few goodies, including a postcard from Paris, a Monet fridge magnet, two pens and some Fortissima Socka yarn with beautiful tweed colors.



All in all, a wonderful Spring package. I hope  mine arrives soon to its destiny too. I never took the time to post a picture of the finished socks, but here they are:



I also tackled the task of culturing some S.  marcescens and figuring out how to use the pink pigment from the bacteria to dye some yarn. It wasn't easy! The bacteria produced very little pigment when grown in a liquid culture, and also the pigment has low solubility in water. I did get a skein to absorb some color:



But that pale pink is very different from what  I was hoping for. I am thinking of giving this skein a second dye bath. Should I?

Plan B

After weeks of knitting and ripping one single argyle sock, I realized I was not going to meet the deadline if I did not switch to another pattern. But having mastered the grafted toe, I searched for a top down sock. I settled for one of Cat Bordhi's innovative patterns. I chose the "sky" architecture, which has the heel increases on top of the foot. Her pattern is called Bartholomew's Tantalizing socks, which has a very pretty linen stitch between the increases. I did not like the fold over cuff so I made a regular ribbed cuff.



Another change I made was to put the reinforced heel stitch on the back of the heel. I don't know why Cat likes to put it on the bottom of the heel for all her top down socks. It makes no sense to me.



These are my readings since the last post:

The Dark Elf Trilogy, by R.A. Salvatore (three books!)

Lyonesse, by Jack Vance

Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer

The Green Pearl, by Jack Vance

Escape, by Carolyn Jessop

All of them Fantasy with the exception of the last book, about a woman who escaped a polygamist mormon cult. I find it hard to believe that such groups still exist.

Finally, here is a picture of a plate inoculated with the bacteria Serratia marcescens. Whenever I look at that beautiful pink pigment I have the same idea.... Can you guess what I'm thinking?