Moving On

Okay, I'm going to try to make this super quick and short.  Zeta's remnants are blowing through today.  We've gotten a little over two inches of rain so far (I know - not much for a hurricane  but it's a lot considering all the other rain we've had,) the wind has already blown down several fairly large tree limbs and the power is blinking.  But one of my goals for October was to not miss a blog post so...  Here goes.

Shoot!  I just realized I failed to take a photo of the second finished stocking.  You'll just have to take my word for it.  I finished it.  And I finished a pair of Christmassy beaded socks for Hayden.

Wow!  Are you seeing what I'm seeing?  A big giant blur?  Something must be wrong with my phone camera/computer.  The photos look nice and clear on my phone but when they transfer to Google/my computer, they get all pixelated.  Or something. I'm lacking in camera knowledge!  

Anyway, since I got the two stockings and Christmas socks for Hayden done, I decided to move on to Christmas knitting instead of having a strong Socktober finish.  The big blur is Minnetonka and I'm knitting it with some unlabeled Malabrigo I bought several years ago at Sarah's request.  Back then, the yarn was supposed to turn into socks for her so I feel like it's okay to be using it to knit a cowl here at the end of Socktober.  

So, NaKniSweMo starts on Sunday, November 1st.  First of all, can you believe November is on Sunday?  Where did October go??  Anyway, will you be participating?  I hope to.  I have a pattern picked out and the yarn has been wound and is sitting at the ready.  But while I'm excited for NaKniSweMo (National Knit a Sweater in a Month) and I have a sweater I really want knit, I'm also beginning to panic just a bit about Christmas.  What are the chances I can get Minnetonka knit in the next 48 hours?

Well, maybe if I focused on knitting instead of eating Halloween candy.  Yeah, right.  That's not likely.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Three on Thursday - Christmas Socks

Well, Stockings.  This final Socktober themed Three on Thursday post is more about stockings than socks.

Holiday Stockings designed by Michele Bernstein for Knit Picks.  I understand many of you are no longer Ravelry fans but this pattern can be purchased either from Ravelry or Knit Picks.  The pattern calls for Wool of the Andes so you know it wouldn't cost much to knit one. Or twelve.  Why twelve?  Because I have the sudden urge to knit these in college colors.  Or NFL colors.  Or any sports team for that matter.  Oh Lord, please don't let me take that project on!

Celtic Noel Christmas Stocking from Julie Steinhafel.  I love, love, love that Celtic cable around the top of the stocking.  Just love it!  The stocking would be pretty with just that single cable design but it's gorgeous with the addition of the cabling on the leg.

Stuff It Stocking by Heather Walpole.  This one is very simple and should be super quick to knit.  Should be, I say, seeing as though I've been knitting one very similar and it seems to be taking me a lifetime.  Of course, my lack of speed may have something to do with Covid causing me to become obsessed with doing jigsaw puzzles.  But I digress.  This should be a simple and quick to knit stocking.  I like the idea of adding the pompoms and may have to do that to mine.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!

Almost

 

I had high hopes of having a completed stocking to show you but alas...  It should be finished by the time you see read this post though.  It really should have been finished in plenty of time to show off the finished stocking today but the weather turned cold suddenly and instead of knitting, I spent yesterday hunting for and unpacking my winter clothes.

And in an effort to make this not the world's most boring blog post ever written...

That meme popped up on my Facebook page the other day and I don't know why, but I thought it was funny and worth sharing.  

And because I now have it stuck in my head, I thought you should too.

Sunday Supper - Creamy Mushroom, Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

This recipe for creamy mushroom, chicken and wild rice soup from Closet Cooking was a surprise.  See, I don't like mushrooms.  you will never convince me they don't taste like swamp mud and don't even get me started on their texture.  Ick!  But, a few weeks ago Sarah wanted to fix dinner and she wanted to fix this recipe so I was happy (well, I put on a somewhat fake smile at least) and told her to go for it.

The first two bites were normal swamp mud mushroom flavored but the mushrooms were in big slices so they were easy to eat around. The third mouthful wasn't too bad and by the fifth mouthful, I was scarfing it down like I actually enjoy mushrooms.  I may have even gotten seconds.

Now, I'm hoping I can talk Sarah into cooking dinner again.

On the Needles

 I feel like I haven't had a plain OTN post in a while.

I took a brief break from stocking knitting to work on the poinsettia needlepoint but the Gods weren't with me.  I'm assuming it's something to do with the way I was holding the canvas and the fact that I was holding said canvas for six or seven hours in one day... (Yeah, I know.  Not a good idea.)  I don't know what else it could be from but it's left me unable to use my left arm.  I've pinched a nerve obviously because my skin is numb, it feels like I've hit my funny bone except that weird not so funny funny bone sensation doesn't go away, I gasp when I bend my elbow and I down right curse when I touch it.

Happily, it doesn't bother me to knit so I'm back to stocking knitting. The photo doesn't show it but only four more rounds and I'll be ready to start the heel.

By the way, thanks for everyone's thoughts on meatballs last Sunday.  Grace suggested using beer instead of jelly which I thought sounded a little iffy but also odd enough to be worth trying.  I made them that way last night and they were good.  Thank you!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!

Three on Thursday - Textured Socks

For today's Three on Thursday, I'm continuing with the sock theme.  I hope you aren't sick of socks yet.  Today, it's textured sock patterns.

Wohin from Caoua Coffee.  I like the way the pattern goes into stripes on the underside of the foot.  And I LOVE that green and blue striped yarn!  I also love that this is another free pattern.

Morning Coffee Socks from Crazy Sock Lady Designs.  This design is very simple and there's a small fee for the pattern but I think they look great with multicolored yarn.  I have a thing for multicolored sock yarn but it never looks good in anything other than stockinette.  But I like this multicolored ribbing.  Of course, solid colored yarns could be used as well.

Swirlagon by Kristen Hall.  Okay, so I'd never actually go to the trouble to knit these but I think they are very pretty and some of you may not be quite so lazy as me when it comes to sock knitting.  Whether you plan to knit these or not, you should take a look at the pattern page on Ravelry.  The pair in the photo are knit in a single, solid color, obviously.  But take a look at the ones that weren't.  The socks are made up of what I think are individual hexagons.  The color combinations could be endless!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!

Benign

I'm benign!  I finally got my thyroid biopsy results back (the "results" they sent last week weren't actually the results.  Good Lord!)  But after cursing to (not at) my doctor's office yesterday then actually cursing at the Hospital Administrator.... I was finally able to get the results sent to my doctor.  And yes, I know I shouldn't curse at the Administrator but I'd already tried crying and that didn't work so....  Anyway, I got my results and they were good.  

I celebrated by doing a little porch knitting.  

I'm sure you think I do nothing but porch knit.

You might be right. 

I finished the first stocking and started the second.  And when I say "finished," I mean I finished the knitting.  I'm going to line it with fabric and create a fabric hanger so that it can be stuffed full without sagging out of shape.  Of course, I have no idea how to go about creating a lining and I don't even know where my sewing machine is, but those are problems for another day.  I've got a month plus to figure it out.

The toe of the red and white striped stocking is a darkish green rather than the black it appears to be.  The green and white striped stocking will have a red heel and toe.... except I have to find some red yarn that's the correct weight.  Again, it's a problem for another day.  Actually, it's probably a problem for tomorrow.  But I refuse to worry about it today.  I'm too busy celebrating the word benign to worry about anything today.

Another thing I'll have to worry about one day soon, but not today, is my failure to include names on the stockings.  Major Oops!  I'm thinking I might add some dangly beads, a few jingle bells or a tassel or something to the hanger and include an embroidered felt name tag.  Try to make it look like I planned it that way.  Your ideas would be most welcome.

Oh hey - something else almost as exciting as the word benign... Hayden got her first tooth this past Sunday.

And her second car. 

She's not spoiled rotten or anything.  😊  Actually, she's not.  Well, not really.  She's just very lucky to have a dad with a best friend with a two year old daughter who likes to pass things down.

Sunday Supper - Crockpot Meatballs

 Does this even count as a recipe?

The recipe for these crockpot meatballs from I Heart Naptime is so simple, she doesn't even list quantities of the ingredients.  I imagine most of you already know this recipe but it's one of my favorites and when not in party mode, I serve them over rice.  

For those of you not in the know, use as many meatballs as you wish and standard size bottles of the other two ingredients.  If you are serving them at a party, or your family likes them as much as mine does, you might want to double all the ingredients.  

I prefer the chili sauce version but to each his own.  My sister uses the grape jelly version and they are still great and my MIL, back in the day, always made the Hawaiian version but she also added finely diced green pepper.

What's your favorite?

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!

Why?

 Why do my stitches look like this?

They look twisted but they aren't.  Is it something about the yarn?  It's Dona from Fibra Natura which is 100% extra fine merino superwash.  Or could it have something to do with me knitting from the outside of the skein instead of from the inside?

Both yarns are Dona but the red looks worse than the white.  And, when I stretch the knitting then let it snap back into place, the white fixes itself but the red stitches don't?

Why is it doing that?  

I'm knitting stockinette in the round on dpns, US5's if that matters.  Wooden dpns and yarn in my left hand, to be thorough.

I've knit on it over several days and with various degrees of tiredness and/or frustration, and with and without alcohol in my system.

Those weird, twisted looking, not flat knit stitches persist throughout.   Why?

On a happier side note, the hospital now has my records and faxed them to my doctor minutes before the office closed yesterday.  I had to contact the hospital administrator and mention that my family, including extended family members who work in the medical field, all thought I should be filing a complaint with the state medical board and/or contacting an attorney in order to get them sent to my doctor.  But I called and confirmed the records made it to the doctor's office.  Yay!! 

I didn't tell y'all the whole story but it was a whopper.  It was such a whopper, I'm not sure the Administrator believed me.  For now, I'm going to keep the story to myself but if a single other thing goes wrong, boy, you will hear me shouting about it from the rooftops and on every social media platform I can find.

Meanwhile, thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers for my health.  They were/are very much appreciated.

Three on Thursday - Lacy Socks

Continuing with the Soctober theme, today's Three on Thursday post is all about lacy socks.  Or socks with lace.  "Lacy socks" makes me think of those white socks with the scratchy ruffle around the cuff that I was always forced to wear at Easter as a child.

Anyway...  Three sock patterns that involve lace...

Diagonal Lace Socks from Wendy D. Johnson.  There isn't a Wendy Johnson pattern that I don't love.  Her designs almost always look super complicated but are actually quite easy to knit.  I also like the ways she writes/words her patterns.  She just makes sense to me.  You know how some bloggers find Blogger simple to use but struggle with Wordpress and vice versa?  Like how one platform just makes absolutely no sense while the other is super simple for you to use?  Well, Wendy's patterns are like that for me.  Super simple to follow and understand.

I am kicking myself though.  I recently tossed a half completed sock I found down deep in my yarn stash pile.  It was just a sock with its needles, but no pattern, no notes, no nothing.  I remember loving the yarn and being excited to start the sock.  I remember not loving the way the yarn was working with the pattern.  And I remember putting it aside.  But I had NO idea what pattern I'd been using and of course, I'd never put it into my Ravelry projects.  I deemed it too much trouble to try to figure out the pattern on my own, cut the yarn, pulled the knitted piece off the needles and tossed it.  Now, here I am, two weeks later, searching Ravelry for lacy socks and Presto Magic!  There's the pattern.  Doh!

By the way, Diagonal Lace Socks is a free pattern.

Here's another free pattern, Lacy Rib Baby Socks from Evelyn Skae.  These would be cute to make for Hayden although I might have to enlarge them a bit.  Poor Hayden.  She got her grandmother's huge, giant, boat feet.  And if I'm enlarging them for Hayden, I might as well do the math and enlarge them enough for me too.  Or not.  Wouldn't want to have to do a bunch of math.

And yet another free pattern - Lacy Mock Cable Socks from Kat (katinkorea).  I love free patterns.  I also love mock cables.  And if you go to the Ravelry page, you'll see photos of the sock knit in self-striping yarn too.  The design looks great either way.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!

Tiny Steps

 I'm slowly taking tiny steps towards my Socktober goals.

I've finished one pair of socks, made no additional headway on another, started, ripped, started, ripped and restarted this Christmas stocking.  Yes, in my world, Christmas stockings count as socks and therefore count for Socktober.  And no, I am no longer following the pattern that came in the stocking kit.  It was way too detailed for the time I have available and besides, the kit stocking was going to be miniscule.  My version won't be huge but it will be at least twice as big as the kit version.

On a different note, thank you all for the well wishes on my biopsy.  I still don't have the results and may have to have it redone.  The hospital can't find any record of me being there.  What????

And on another different note, for those of you who wanted to see what we were going to do with the house with the giant glass bathroom....  Sorry to disappoint.  Believe me, I'm very, very sorry.  I loved the potential that house had but.... it's out in 'the sticks' and it turns out, there's no internet service in the area.  No matter how many bedrooms, nor how awesome the kitchen, nor how big the bathroom is, nor how many sheep are across the road, we aren't moving into another house without internet.  That's a hard no for us.  The search continues.

Sunday Supper - Pumpking Cheesecake with Sour Cream Topping

Can y'all help me out?  If I didn't think she'd literally kill me in my sleep or poison my dinner, I'd simply give you Sarah's email and phone number so you could all bug her until she makes this cheesecake again.

You see, she's sworn to never bake again.  And I desperately need and want this pumpkin cheesecake with sour cream topping from Taste of Home.

Sarah made this cheesecake a few weeks ago for a family gathering we were having.  She made it a day in advance so that it had plenty of time to cool and set up properly.  She put it in the refrigerator and we all went to bed...

And the next morning, the cheesecake was gone and the empty cake dish was sitting on the counter.  Yes, the "house elf," as we lovingly call her, had gotten up in the middle of the night, snuck downstairs and ate the entire cheesecake.  The ENTIRE cheesecake!  The house elf likes her sweets!

We are all pretty upset about it.  Besides Sarah going through the hassle of making a cheesecake from scratch in the half-busted oven, the cost of the ingredients, we didn't have cheesecake to serve at the gathering, and the fact that the house elf had the nerve to complain of indigestion the next day, there was what Sarah calls an 'overflow bowl' of cheesecake.  You know - when there's more batter than pan.  The overflow bowl was still in the fridge.... so I know what we missed out on.

I need a pumpkin cheesecake!

So please, please, please... Send Sarah cheesecake making thoughts.  I'm confident that if enough people consciously send her pumpkin cheesecake with sour cream topping thoughts, she'll subconsciously hear them and maybe, just maybe, she'll cave in and bake another one.

Or, if it's easier for you, just bake one of your own and invite me over.  I'll happily travel for it.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!

Gone

First, before we get into this post, let me explain the other day's post because several of you asked about it.  Boycotting Michael's isn't "a" thing, it's just my thing.  Believe it or not, I've been boycotting them for over two years now.  Yes, I can hold a grudge!  They had a sign posted on their Mildliner highlighter display saying "All highlighters on sale..."  Sarah and I both LOVE Mildliners and go through them almost as fast as I go through yarn.  I think it was a buy 2, get one free type of sale but I really don't remember.  All I do remember is that I had a cart full of Mildliners and when I got to the register, they said the Mildliners weren't part of the sale.  I asked for the manager.  She said nope.  Even though the sign said "all" highlighters and was hanging on the Mildliner display, they weren't on sale.  So I got pissed, didn't purchase anything in my cart and haven't been back since. Michaels lost a good customer who spent hundreds of dollars in their store each month that day.  And yes, I may be being petty and a little ridiculous about it, but dammit!  The sign said "All highlighters."

So on to today's post...

This never leaving the house, covid life in the country can get a little monotonous so we take our thrills where we can get them.

There was a sycamore tree right beside the pool that was going to destroy the pool eventually plus its branches were hanging down and blocking the driveway.  (Just ignore the cooler and a cup of what was at one time a strawberry daquiri still sitting beside the pool a month after we stopped swimming.  Good Lord!)

Tri-Cities Tree and Stump Removal to the rescue.

They cut...

And used the chainsaw...

And got the tree undressed....

Then they pulled and pulled and pulled....

And with a nice crack and a tha-wunk, the tree was gone.

And while I watched all the tree excitement, I cast on another sock.  (Patons Kroy Socks in Zebra Stripe on US1 dpns)

By the way, if you happen to be local and have a misbehaving tree, the guys from Tri-Cities Tree & Stump Removal were great.  They removed a few other much larger trees for us as well.  They arrived at a respectful time in the morning, were polite and friendly without being overly chatty, did a great job removing the trees, did an even better job cleaning up after themselves (I was pretty impressed with their raking and stick picking up skills!) and I never heard them curse the entire time they were here.  They even managed to dodge the lawn mowing company guys who showed up near the end of the tree cutting.  The mowing guys Fly through our yard going Way too fast around corners and blind spots.  I thought for sure the mowers were going to take out a tree cutter dude but thankfully, no.  I guess the tree cutters are good at dodging large, fast things coming at them.

Cabled Socks

 I'm still celebrating Socktober over here and thought I'd share a few cabled sock designs for today's Three on Thursday.

Lemino Socks.  A free Ravelry pattern from Sarah Jordan.  I like how in some of the examples shown on the pattern page show the cabling only going across the front of the leg.  That would make these socks knit up much quicker.  I'm all about quick socks at the moment.

Woodland Walk from This Handmade Life aren't exactly what I think of when I think cables but I like the design.  Once again, I also like that the cabling is not all the way around the sock.  And, I simply like their name.  We've found some heavily wooded property that we are thinking about buying for our next house and I'm currently obsessed with the idea of living in a woodland cabin type home.  These socks would be perfect for when I don't go for a walk because I'm afraid of the critters that might be lurking in the woods.  😏

Or what about Socks of Kindness from Chawne.  I can't decide if it's the green color, the orange, or the design but for some reason, these look Halloweenish to me.  I think it's the combination of the green and orange.  I don't know.  It doesn't even matter.  I do love that shade of green though and while this cable pattern does go all the way around the sock, I see no reason why I couldn't just knit it on the fronts of the legs.  Or perhaps all the way around, but knit the foot in plain stockinette to speed up the knitting process a little.

I hope you enjoy these patterns.  They are all free on Ravelry.  

House Hunting

The past five days have been busy!  I'm exhausted!  For someone who's only left the house once or twice a month for the last six months, the last five days have been nuts!  Thursday I went to the zoo with my sister then Hayden and her parents came for dinner that night.  Friday, Saturday and Sunday we went house hunting.  

Sorry.  My fish tank is modeling my first finished sock of Socktober.  I just need to graft the toe.  I can't believe how much knitting I was able to get done while spending three days driving from one vacant house to another.

And yesterday, I finally had the biopsy on my thyroid.  The biopsy went fine and I should have the results by the end of the week.  My neck is a little sore and bruised and I look like I've been attacked by an angry mob of vampires, but the soreness was expected and the bruising isn't too bad and well, I'm just pretending I'm a Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast member.

On the way  home from the biopsy, I stopped at Hobby Lobby to by a $2.59 calligraphy pen. (I'm still protesting Michael's and refuse to shop there.)  A hundred dollars later....  I did get some other stuff besides yarn.  And I did remember to buy the pen I'd gone in for.  But I also got two sets of Patons Kroy Sock yarn.  I'm somewhat motivated to get the black and white striped skeins quickly knit into Halloween socks.

Take a closer look at the yarn on the right hand end.  I had no idea it existed.  It's Yarn Bee yarn.  I've used Yarn Bee cotton and acrylics before and they aren't terrible. But this yarn is superwash wool.  And hand dyed!  420 yards of hand dyed, 100% superwash merino wool for $14.99 a skein.  I can not wait to see how it knits up!  It feels great in the skein and I have no reason to expect it won't knit up well, other than my own prejudiced yarn snobbery.

But what I really wanted to talk about is the house hunting.  We may have found our next house.  We may also have totally and completely lost our minds.

So, the photos aren't great.  I wasn't taking them to show them off, I was taking them to remember certain things as we look at other houses.  This house is pretty hard to forget though. 

Did I mention the house is bank owned and needs some work?  It has a giant arse living room, some hideous carpet, and speakers built into the walls.  Those black round things near the floor are a few of the speakers.

It also has an even bigger bathroom.  This room was THE strangest thing any of us have ever seen.  If you look close enough, you can see three sections partially walled off with those glass blocks.  Section number one is surrounding the three seater hot tub.  

Section two is the toilet.  Yes, you can sit on the toilet and look out over the glass half wall and see the rest of the room.  And the backyard too, since there is another glass wall and a sliding glass door directly opposite the toilet and tub.  

Section three is a party shower large enough for eight really, really fat people to stand in comfortably without touching.  It didn't have eight shower heads, but it did have more than one.  And all of that is in a 22 feet by 35 feet vaulted ceiling room with two exterior glass walls.  Can you  imagine how cold you would be getting out of the shower or off the toilet in the winter?

What kind of drugs were the previous homeowners on???  What ever they were taking, they liked their music because there were speakers in the giant bathroom too.  Oh, and also on the outside of the house.  I'm sure the neighbors just loved these people!

Four out of five of the bedrooms had full kitchens in them.  They each had full bathrooms too.  This room wasn't accessible from inside the house although it is attached.  If we take on this monstrosity of a house, this will be my craft/knitting studio since it has it's own separate access.

The house did have a few nice things going for it though.  Things like the two room heated shed that will become my husband's home office, a huge garage large enough for six cars or two dump trucks and a pickup truck.  The garage had two rooms above it that could easily be turned into a man cave.  Other than getting them up there, it would be perfect for a pool table and maybe a few foosball and/or air hockey tables.

There was also a grape arbor and a small potting shed.

But my favorite thing was the kitchen.  There is SO much counter space!  The gas cooktop (which I love!) is on the center island along with a second sink.  Behind the stove to the right is the refrigerator, directly behind the stove is the microwave and another small counter space, and to the left is the double wall oven.

But even better than the cooking arrangement is the main sink.  Can you see it?  The sink is in a bay window and there is a good two feet of counter space between the sink and the window.  Can you imagine how many herbs I could grow there?

Oh my goodness, I just love that kitchen!

That kitchen totally makes up for the moldy carpet, freaky giant bathroom, the leaky roof and the rotting exterior wall that will need to be replaced.  Totally!

Oh and you know what else?  There's a sheep farm across the street.  Sheep!!  Sheep, right across the road!  I'll be able to watch them and probably pet them without having to pay or care for them.  Can it get any better than that??

Sunday Supper - Hot Chicken Salad

I wish I had my mom's recipe for hot chicken salad.  I remember seeing it in her recipe box.  She'd written it on an index card that had a picture of brown and orange mushrooms on it.  Very '70's.  I only remember her making it once or twice and she probably got it from some random church cookbook.  It was delicious and it kills me that I've never been able to find her recipe.  If she was to come back to life, even for minutes only, I'd be begging for her hot chicken salad recipe.  And her fudge recipe.  That's another one I've never been able to come close to duplicating.

I haven't given up my search for the perfect hot chicken salad recipe though.  We'll try this one from Plain Chicken tonight.  The picture doesn't look like I remember Mom's looking but it does have french fried onions in it so, Yum!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!

October - Socktober

I welcomed in October 1st in with a sock cast on for Socktober but I didn't get much knitting done.  I'm okay with that though.

My sister knew I'd been struggling with life stuff recently and took me to the Metro Richmond Zoo yesterday to cheer me up.

It was an absolutely wonderful day and exactly what I needed.  We got to visit with each other which we don't begin to do often enough.  We were outdoors in fresh air most of the time and the weather was perfect.   We got our steps in walking around the zoo, and we saw some friendly animals and few pretty fierce ones too.  

The komodo dragon smiled for us and best of all, I got to hang out with my all time favorite - the giraffes.  I'd warned my sister about my giraffe obsession and that she'd have to pull me away from them kicking and screaming.  Being the experienced mom and grandma that she is, she handled me well.  She maneuvered us around the zoo so that the giraffes were almost the last animal we saw and we'd already used up a lot the animal food we had.  Those giraffes are pretty greedy and once I'd fed them all we had left, they lost interest in us fairly quickly.  It's not that much fun watching someone else feed the giraffes so it wasn't too terrible of a struggle to get me to move on.

I would love to work at the zoo, but that poor girl has THE WORST job ever!  I can not fathom being in the same enclosure with those giant bats.  They were literally a foot or more tall.  I'm all twitchy just thinking about them.

Happy almost Halloween!

Socktober

 Welcome to Socktober!  In addition to knitting a pair of socks for donation, my goal is to also knit as many pairs as I can for myself.  I'm in desperate need.  Ten plus years ago I went through a sock knitting phase where I obsessively knit nothing but socks.  Once that phase ended, I haven't been able to force myself to knit another pair.  And being that I walk around in my sock feet, even outdoors...  Let's just leave it at, yes, I'm in desperate need of some new socks.

For my version of Socktober, Christmas stockings count as socks too.  I have a few of those to knit as well.  October is going to be a very busy month!

Since Socktober starts on a Thursday this year, I thought I'd share a few Halloween sock patterns today.  I highly doubt I'll be making myself any of these since my goal this year is quantity, not quality.  Or cuteness.  But I wouldn't say no if someone wanted to gift me a pair of these.  😊

Halloween Skull Socks from Fir Tree Knitwear.  That's a lot of design work considering the pattern costs less than three US dollars.

These are Halloween Socks by Lotta Pirttimaki.  Although I'd never take the time to knit them, I'm tempted to purchase the pattern just for the designs. I just love the witch and the little house with a picket fence.

These Boo-tiful Bat Socks from Rosemary Chapman look a little more doable.  I would probably leave off the toe design, mainly because I'm lazy, but I love the designer's suggestion to use beads for the bats' eyes.  Her suggestion is to use neon green beads to match the socks but I'm thinking some glowing red or orange bat eyes would be awfully evil and Halloweenish.

So, are you participating in Socktober?  Will you be knitting a pair of Halloween socks?  While writing this post I've been thinking about how strange Halloween will be this year without trick or treating, or parties, or even me having to work.  Maybe I do need a pair of Halloween socks after all.  

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!