I’m determinedly knitting away at my current pair of socks…

I have to confess here that I don’t like fake fair isle sock yarn. Oh, I love self-patterning stripey yarn. In fact, I have discovered through knitting that I really love stripes. But I like the look of real fair isle and self-patterning fair isle sock yarn just doesn’t cut it. These socks are a compromise. The patterned sock yarn was a bargain, and I’m a sucker for a bargain. I decided to add stripey goodness to counteract the fake fair isley badness by doing alternating rows of it and black. So far I’ve knit a sock and a bit, and I’m liking the effect.

But that is all I have to report, WIP-wise. The Liquoish Allsorts jumper has gained a few cm of black, which really isn’t exciting enough for a photo. I’m not a fast knitter. So in the meantime I shall entertain you with pics of my recent FOs:

The Summer Stripes top, in the classic headless supermodel shot:

Front

Back.

And a project I worked on before that, the Thneed:

Which is basically a ruanna with an extra rectangle added as a collar. This took me, um, about three months to knit. Lots of mindless stocking stitch. And then there was the lace edging, which was a revelation. Every time I’d tried lace knitting in the past I’d been siezed by the notion that it didn’t look right and I’d rip it and give up. This time I trusted the pattern and kept at it, and discovered lace knitting wasn’t as hard as I thought it was.

Still, you won’t find me knitting one of those big lace shawls any time soon. I just don’t have the patience. And they’re just a bit too, er, girly/granny for me.