Yarrrr, Mateys!

Yesterday at Stitch 'n' Bitch, I asked for some advice in keeping the floats on my skull and crossbones socks loose enough to get the sock on--unfortunately, it pretty much amounted to what I already knew: do it more loosely. Me? Knit loosely? That's a pretty tall order.

I managed, though. :)

I don't have a picture of it on my foot, but rest assured I obsessively tried it on every few rounds and it does fit. I am completely enchanted. I barely spoke at SnB yesterday, because I was so fascinated by watching this take shape. Colors! Pattern! Stripes! Skulls!

I'm changing the colors a bit from the original pattern; I was supposed to knit the body of the sock in grey (based on my assignment of colors as "main" and "contrast"), then the heel and toe in black, but I decided I wanted a black sock with red (multi) heel and toe and just a few grey accents. I'm such a renegade! It's the pirate in me.

I just couldn't put it down. I worked on this pretty much all afternoon and evening, and I knit from the top of the skulls to the heel gusset.

So cool. These are going to be the best socks ever!

Friday and Saturday were devoted to Calorimetry. I finished the first one on Friday night.

Yes, I said "the first one." You can't tell from the picture, but that thing is stretched so tight I'm afraid it'll snap and take someone's eye out. I really should have swatched. Where did I go wrong? It was a combination of picking a random (smaller) number to cast on and being too lazy to find the right size needles (and therefore using smaller ones), I think. Note to self: 90 is too few if I'm using 7s. I immediately cast on another, this time with 100 stitches, and that one fits much better. It worked out perfectly; I had just enough yarn, and the second Calorimetry is perfectly symmetrical, color wise. Not just almost symmetrical, like the one on the picture.

The only thing wrong now is that it's too damn warm to wear it! It's not supposed to really cool down until Thursday.

But I'm completely enchanted by this pattern, too. I want to make about 8 more of them, in many colors. I really, really love the way the colors worked out in Soy Wool Stripes (the yarn I used), but I want to try it with solids and variegates. More Calorimetry!

At the very least, I need one that matches my red gloves. Perfectly reasonable, right?