I'm so happy about my violet that I couldn't avoid posting a picture. See, when I first got this pretty plant I immedately overexposed it to sunlight and ruined a few leaves with water marks. But look at it now! Thank you Heather, for the beautiful plant and the great advice.

And now, some knitting content:

I started a new project with mystery yarn. When I first got it I planned on making a Frankenvest, but the texture is so rough that I thought it could only be used to make rugs. As you can see, I changed my mind again.

Yes, I overcame my second sock syndrome without straining my pinkie:

I would have worn them right away, were it not for the fact that they tend to roll down to my ankles. But I'm going to fix them:


Do you think this will work? I've never incorporated elastic to ribbing, but my mom used to do it, so I'm hoping I'll be able to do it too. If it doesn't work, I'm going to ask her for some help.

By the way, she is the one that taught me how to knit, and she was taught by her aunts and grandmother, so I assume people in Mexico and Spain have been using the "combined" method all along. Can anyone check on that? The so called "English" method is also used in Germany and in Italy, according to Marta (I did ask her once). I'll just call it the popular method, since it's the one most books and magazines assume you will use. Modeknits calls it the "Western" method, which gives the false impression that this method is used throughout the Western hemisphere.

I'm a combination knitter. At least according to this excellent site, where an expert knitter is trying to gain some converts.

I've knit this way all my life and it never occurred to me that this was an anomaly until I noticed that sometimes patterns did not make much sense. And now, after 20+ years of knitting, I discover that my method actually has a name, and someone is trying to teach it to others. I sure see the advantages: no wrist pain ever.

Oh, and that sore pinkie? Well, that comes from ordinary knit stitches, which I learned to make in order to knit in the round (though I still do weird things when I purl in the round).

Well, I'm not alone then. I feel better. Though I hate labels, don't you?

Albeit a small one. No, it's not the awaited second sock. It's a camera case:


That's not my camera, of course. It's a birthday gift for my father from my sister, my mom and me. Technically, the case is not yet finished, it needs some blocking and a piece of velcro on the bottom, that's why the flap is hanging. It's not a very professional looking case, but I know he'll use it. It's made with the yarn I got from the retirement home's spring cleaning.

Remember my first Kool-Aid yarn? I thought about different things to do with this very irregular yarn and finally decided to make these two potholders:


One is larger than the other, but not by much. Making these potholders gave me an opportunity to rest my pinkie (so far no pain) and also to practice a couple of new stitches. The small potholder was made in Shaker stitch (from Buss's Big Book of Knitting). I modified the stitch in order to make the larger potholder, and got a less stretchy fabric, but it's just as thick as the Shaker stitch.

I also took a picture of a doily I started about a year ago and then abandoned. Maybe if I post it here I'll get myself to finish it:

It seems that getting my hands on the computer is getting harder and harder. Just to give you an idea, my husband spends about 14 hours per day working on it. Which I hope means that he will finish his dissertation soon, he really needs to rest.

Here's the picture I took of my nephew's scarf before packing it:


And here's a picture of the striped yarn I recently dyed:


I'm curious to see how it knits up, but I'm putting this yarn away, since I must finish my yellow and green socks first:


I'm going very slowly, I don't want to get a sore pinkie again.

Yes indeed, I finished that beaded scarf, blocked it and packed it. Those two scarves are the only Christmas presents I'm knitting this year. I took a picture of the scarf before packing it, but I'll post it when I get another chance at my husband's computer. I started working again on my striped socks, hoping my pinkie won't resent it. Michele asked for a link to the beading tecnhique that I used for the scarves. I tried two other techniques, (I'm sure there's more out there) but this is the one I liked the most. The website does not mention that you cannot have two adjacent beads either vertically or horizontally. That is something I discovered by trial and error. And it kind of makes sense, once you see how it's done.

And if my very depressed husband means it, I won't have to. He said long before the elections that we would leave this country if Bush won.

I have not knitted much, because I want to give my sore pinkie a break, but I hope to finish soon my nephew's scarf. I already finished the airplane, take a look:

I read today that someone does not like pets pictured on knitting blogs. Which is foolish, since Wendy has tons of useful information and a lot of knitting pictures in her blog. I don't see what's wrong with adding pictures of a gorgeous pet that is happy to pose for her owner. Me, I only have Bertoldino, who's a little camera shy, but I still love him and am proud to show him off:

I'm off to pamper myself, I'm not over the elections yet.

I've heard some people complain about knitter's wrist, but what I have is a sore left pinkie. This has never happened before and I think it's related to the very thin dpn's I'm using to knit these socks. So in order to rest my pinkie, I chose a different activity: another Kool-Aid experiment (with more sock yarn, not very smart of me).

This time I want the width of the stripes to vary a little bit. So I alternated 15 turns around the top of the same old bottle with eight turns in the middle and 15 turns at the bottom of the bottle. And then, going up, another 8 turns in the middle and 15 turns around the top. The idea is that the color in the middle will create narrower stripes. However, this color will appear twice as often. After winding the yarn, I ended with three connected skeins:


Which I dyed with Sam's Choice cherry flavor (bright red), Wyler's fruit punch flavor (pink), and black cherry Kool aid (dark red). This is the result:


The Wyler's fruit punch had a white precipitate that clouded the jar and it was hard to tell whether the yarn was properly absorbing the color. I was worried about getting yellow "borders" between the colors, but that did not happen. Yarn acts as a candle wick, so the color traveled through the connecting strands. The problem actually was to keep the water at the same level in all three jars to prevent color mixing, since I was dyeing the three sections at the same time in three separate jars.

I am convinced that this would be much cheaper and work perfectly well if I were using food coloring and white vinegar. But I don't usually have any of these ingredients in my kitchen, so I'd rather stick to my little envelopes of junk drinks. They probably smell much better than vinegar anyway.

But not for long, so let me quickly show you the gloves I knit for my hubby:
That's him at his desk. And yes, he's wearing his pijamas. Did I mention that he works until very late? Incidentally, I made that coaster that you can see in the back. I used a CD-ROM and cotton yarn. Also, here's how my mouthwash yarn looked once I wound it into two balls:

Here's two views of the short row toe. I wanted to see which side looked better, and chose the second one (it's too late to disagree, the sock is finished):



Here's the short row ankle, which I didn't like much because all the green yarn was used up for the ankle, with no stripes. And on top of the ankle I have a yellow stripe twice as wide as the rest. This made me think that I should try an afterthought ankle, that way the striping would continue with the same pattern.

Finally, this is the ribbing and the kitchener bind off. It's very wobbly, but considering this was my first attempt at kitchener bind off, I'm not complaining.

Froggy mentioned not using Buss's "Big Book of Knitting" much. I confess that I have only consulted it twice. And twice I had the same impression: the diagrams and pictures are perfect, but the explanations are too short.

Isn't it too soon to have second sock syndrome? I'm going to work a little more on my nephew's scarf and then I'll finish the other striped sock.