Cleopatra - click for bigger

Hi, I don’t see the Cleopatra Socks in my post, so I’ll try again with that photo. Janet

Cookie’s Garden - click for bigger

The Iceman Cometh - click for bigger

I have finished all 3 of the socks from the club so far: Cleopatra, Cookie’s Garden, and The Iceman Cometh. They were fun and challenging. Thank you so much for having this contest to get me motivated to get the kits out of the bags and start knitting. Also, thank you for the link to the sock blockers made with wire hangers. I’m looking forward to starting the Turandot socks! Janet

PS. I hope I’ve correctly managed to upload all of the photos.

There was a princess who knit socks (surprise).  She had quite a stash of yarn hanging about the castle, and no matter how fast she knit, there was always more yarn.  One morning, the princess sat down to cast on for a new pair of socks, but could not find her needles!

Add to the story, get entered in a drawing for a bag of goodies from the yarn fairy - there may even be chocolate in this gifties.

The story needs a conflict, some magic, a dashing Prince Charming, and a Happily Ever After.

Almost all of the Turandot kits have gone out the door.  I have a small number left, and those are waiting for Yarn Fairy deliveries.  She’s expected to deliver yarn tonite so they can go out tomorrow.  I’ll be sure to leave out a nice guinness for her.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Behold, my Cleopatras!!!

I finished them about an hour ago.  I haven’t sewn the eyes on yet, because I need to dig out a beading needle, but otherwise, they’re done!  Yay!

I’m especially happy because this means I can start a new pair of socks.  I picked up Cleo #2 last week and started working on it again, and I swore I wouldn’t start something new until it was done.  I managed to stick to that promise.  Now that the nice Knit Picks circs I was using for Cleo are free, I am probably going to cast Iceman onto them this weekend.  Of course, I’ll be filling my head with Fair Isle this weekend (in an all-day class at Knitters’ Day Out in Pennsylvania), so I may not have any brains left for socks.

Most popular color overall:   
blue raspberry (followed by black cherry, lime, pina colada and strawberry)

 Most popular color combo choice (heel, ankle, cuff order):

Keeping in mind that there were a few who did not choose custom colors but instead took my choice, this most popular color combo is taken from those who actually sent in their choices.  It seemed unfair to tally things with MY favorite combo repeated a few times

Anyways, here it is:  
blue raspberry for the heel, black cherry for the ankle, and lime for the top.

The Winner (s) for contest number 1:
Kym, Pat, Vicki, Sue and Janet.  Congratulations!

The Winner (s) for contest number 2:
…actually, no one guessed it in the correct order, and only Janet got the correct color combo.   I guess Janet wins by default - go Janet!  2 for 2!

Cleopatra…

Cookie’s Garden…

The Iceman Cometh…

The first person to post pics of a finished pair of each of them wins.  What do you win?  2 skeins of bamboo/wool/nylon sock yarn, hand-dyed in your colors, and skein of hand-dyed lace from the Yarn Fairy (my choice of colors).

I said there would be a contest based on the ‘IceMan Cometh’ and by golly we’re going to do that.   We’re even going to have 2 contests.

First Contest: 

Your goal is to guess which color was the most popular over-all of the flavors.

Second Contest:

Which combination was most popular (heel, ankle, top)?

 To review, your color choices were Black Cherry,  Blue Raspberry,  Strawberry,  Lime, and Pina Colada.  Pictures are here if you want to check them out again.

I’m sorry to say that there is a honking big mistake in the pattern for The Iceman Cometh.

My thanks to Pattie Macauley for bringing the problem to my attention; my apologies to all of you that I didn’t catch it myself at proofreading time.

I’m not sure whether to call it one mistake or a whole series of them - it comes under the heading “what was I thinking?” and the answer to that seems to be that I can’t have been thinking at all. Most embarrassing. At any rate, I got muddled over the number of garter stitch rows and somehow managed to get the whole upper section out of sync with itself.

Herewith the corrections.

After the cast-on, you knit a row, do the k2tog to secure the join, purl a row, and then work TWO more rows in garter stitch - not three - for a total of four. So the last garter stitch row before you begin working in pattern is purled.

Next problem: in both the directions and the chart for the Ice Cream Cone stitch pattern, there should NOT be a Row #32. The last row of the pattern should be Row #31, with the LT in the middle.

This means the last pattern row will correspond with a knit row in the spacing stitches, so the color section ends with an all-knit round. Your next color section therefore begins with an all-purl round, which is what gives the color join that sloppy melt-together effect.

The logical conclusion of all this is that at each color change there should be an odd number of garter-stitch rounds, so I was again wrong in telling you to work FOUR. The question Pattie raised at this point was, naturally, should it be three or five? My answer was a firm, decisive “up to you.” What I meant was… I think if I were starting fresh I’d opt for five; but after a good close look at the prototype truth compels me to confess that what I actually did was three. Since this applies to both color changes it makes for an overall difference of 1/3″ in length over the whole ankle, so it really is up to you - if you like the idea of making the sock a tiny bit taller, and/or if you really love garter stitch, then by all means do five rows; otherwise do three.

(And if you really hate the look of the purled join, then by all means do four and start the new section with a knit row for a cleaner transition. Hey, I’m the designer, not the knitting police!)

I think that brings it all back into line.

Again, my apologies for letting myself get so divorced from reality.

Sigh.

I received yarny happiness in my mailbox yesterday.  The color are gorgeous, and the pattern looks like it’ll be fun.  I’ve already inserted the new pages into my little tips and tricks booklet.

 Receiving the kit was, apparently, the kick in the pants I needed.  I finished my first Cleopatra sock months ago, but I never cast on the second one.  Last night, inspired by reading the Iceman pattern and rereading the Cookie’s Garden pattern (and trying to decide which one to work on first), I guilted myself into casting on Cleopatra #2!  I knitted the entire toe plus the rounds up to where the snake (long version) joins!  Tonight, I will knit the snake’s tail and start it on its journey up the foot…..unless I get obsessed with finishing the plain stockinette foot of the pair (Regia Cotton Surf) I’m working on now.  I mean, four inches of plain foot plus a toe.  I might get that done during my writing group meeting.  That will let me justify casting on some other sock this weekend!  :-)  Startitis?  Me?  Only occasionally.

 Anyhow, love the Iceman!