Rainy days and Sundays…

…don’t bring me down at all. In fact, they’re rather wonderful. A quiet, wet day, with rain against the window and coffee in the pot… bliss. Don’t you think? Especially if you have knitting in your hand.
I don’t, as it happens, but maybe I’ll get to settle down on the couch later and spend some quality time with the Gilmore Girls. First, a little work. You know how I said I was devoting two weeks to catching up on stuff? How do you think that went? Yeah, almost that well. Not that I haven’t made progress; I have. I just have to acknowledge that, like housework, there really isn’t ever a point at which things are Done. Oh well. Never mind all that – let me show you something. Did you know I knit? It’s true! Look, proof:

Finished at last; and with the weather still so changeable, I might yet get to wear them out before September. Hurrah!
Pattern: Susan Gutperl’s Lacy Cables Knee Socks
Yarn: Indigo Moon sock yarn in Blue Spruce. This was a Christmas gift from the lovely Gabrielle and inspired me to start stocking Indigo Moon. (As it happens, this colour is from the Vancouver Series (chemical dyes) and I chose to stock her natural dyed yarns, but the Nature’s Harvest would work very well in this pattern too.)
Mods: I lengthened and expanded the calf shaping to accommodate my big chunky calf muscles (I’d like to blame all that running, but in fact I was just born chunky) – an extra 3 pattern repeats vertically, plus a few extra purl stitches to maintain the usual 2st column between repeats. I also made a shallow toe, which I’ve decided is totally the way to go (who has such long and pointy toes as the standard sock calls for? Please!), but then this pattern’s attitude to toes and heels is pretty much “eh, you know this part”, so I’m not sure this counts as a mod.
I’ve completed a couple of other things too, recently. I made Armin a long-promised washcloth.

The browny yarn is Colinette Banyan – a cotton/viscose blend, very soft and lovely. I think it’s made a great washcloth, especially in combination with the pure cotton (a hard-to-find but fabulous South African brand called Vinni’s Colours). I can’t quite decide whether a pure Banyan washcloth would be too soft, or utterly lovely. Someone find out for me, would you?
And I finished something that I’m rather proud of – but you’ll have to wait a while to see it. Let me show you instead what I’m working on right now. There’s the gorgeous Lace Ribbon Scarf, using Handmaiden’s Swiss Mountain Silk Cashmere; everything about this project is a treat.

There’s socks for Armin in a good, manly brown with a good, manly simple stitch pattern. Looking pretty good. (Old Maiden Aunt merino sock yarn in Black Coffee; Primavera pattern.)

There’s something incubating in Indigo Moon’s gorgeous wild silk – I played with this for a while, trying a few things, waiting to see what the yarn wanted to be. I think it has finally spoken. And if I’m right, this is the last you’ll see of it for a while.

Same applies to this. But this one I’m pretty sure of. Interestingly, both of these New Sekrit Projekts involve my learning the same new-to-me technique (one of them with an Added Twist). Hurrah for new techniques and all, but if I decide I really hate it, that’ll be two projects screwed up instead of just one. Sucker for punishment, moi?

Arguably, I shouldn’t even bother showing you these secrets-in-progress. But I want to for two reasons. One, to try to convince you that I *am* a real knitter, I *do* have things on the go, even when I don’t show them to you for ages. It’s not all just an elaborate con to sell yarn, honest.
Two, as illustration of an idea I have. But I think I’ll have to germinate that properly and share it with you tomorrow.