Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis

Old Rose Jaywalkers
Originally uploaded by lothruin

I was preparing for a last-minute business trip to St. Louis where I would spend the majority if my time either in an airport, an airplane or a hotel conference room. I wanted to take knitting, but didn't have any projects started, so I took a deep breath, grabbed one of my forlorn and abandoned skeins of sock yarn, stuffed it in a bag with a package of sock needles and absolutely no plan at all, and in the final minutes before leaving for the airport from work, found and printed the pattern for the Jaywalker socks, with which I was familiar, but on only an aquaintance basis.

You see, I first tried knitting socks as my third knitting project. The DPNs were such a struggle, and I was using some cheap acrylic sock yarn, and I decided then and there that I hated knitting socks, and somehow, that attitude has stuck with me in the five years since. But I had this sock yarn (beautiful sock yarn!) and the good intentions to use it, and just never had the, er, balls, so to speak. The opportunity presented itself for me to literally lock myself in a room with nothing but sock knitting to keep me company, so I'd have nothing but pure boredom to fall back on if I lost my nerve. And lo, turns out that after 5 years of experience and with some gorgeous merino sock yarn, knitting socks is fun. Whee!

So in the picture above, you can see my Jaywalker sock, half-finished, posing with Charlie, my Swedish Ivy. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill's Supersock, 100% merino, in Old Rose, and it is gorgeous. It comes out in a sort of subtle spiral stripe, and it has these flashes of HOT pink throughout. I love it. I did adjust the pattern somewhat, to make the socks a little shorter. Being my first sock experience, and since my feet are somewhat long, I wanted to be sure I didn't run out of yarn. But also, that sort of mid-calf sock length is not my bag. I like either a knee-high or a slightly tall ankle sock.

Anyway, I'm loving the tiny knitting, really a lot, which shouldn't surprise anyone, and as I was knitting along and looking at how the chevron pattern was shaping up, I literally thought to myself, in so many words, and then said outloud to anyone who wanted to listen, that it was flawless and gorgeous, and practically perfect in every way. Behold the picture below.