Finished Socks

These are Miss S's new pink socks. They are short because that's how she likes them. I used the pink Elann Esprit that Mom sent me and had a little left over because they were so short. They were knit in the Bulky Boot sock pattern from Charlene Schurch's Little Box of Socks (at least I think that's the pattern I used). They were knit on big needles because of the pattern and the yarn, so they didn't take any time at all to knit. She nabbed them out of my hand before I'd even cut off the dangly ends and wore them to rehearsal. That's why the picture has some slight brown on the bottom of the foot. Oh well, at least she likes them.

I've cast on the turquoise Elann Esprit for Miss M but haven't gotten past the cast on yet. Hers are going to be knit with a pattern from Favorite Socks by Ann Budd - the Flame Wave pattern, which calls for this type of yarn. It's a pretty pattern that I wanted to knit and talked Miss M, into wanting . . .

I also cast on for the Norwegian Sweater. I did that huge guage swatch - used up all of two balls of yarn doing it. Finally decided on the size needle I needed and thought I was done with that. Measured a favorite sweater so I'd know how big it should be, and did the calculations necessary to start the sweater. Dropped one size needle and cast on the ribbing. I think the needle is still too small!!! The ribbing is kinda stiff and hard. And it's taking forever to knit because it doesn't want to slide around the needle like it should. Might have to rip it out and start over again for the 3 or 4th time.

On the upside, the yard is done and the painters are painting instead of washing or replacing wood. There is no gas to be had in Atlanta and my car is sitting on empty. If there isn't gas in the landrover, I'm in big trouble. The girls won't be going to school for a while . . . .


Gas update: After visiting 17 gas stations, I have a tank full of gas and it's the right grade. I hit about 15 this morning after dropping the girls off. Of those 15, 2 had gas and neither of those had anything but regular and my car wants premium. So I went to another ex-gas station and had my tire with a hole repaired and asked the guy who owns it (a mechanic) if it would kill my car to get regular gas. He said no, that one tank wouldn't kill it. Part of the problem with those two lone gas stations was that each of their parking lots was completely full and both were on busy highways so I was concerned about stopping outside the parking lot. I did pull into one gas station and get up to a pump but before I could stick my credit card into the machine the lady came out with bags to put over the nozzles cuz they were out of gas.

At this point, the car was riding on empty. I checked the Landrover and it had almost a quarter of a tank so I had the painter try to syphon it out but he couldn't. Hubby had a small container of gas in the garage for the lawnmower so I called to make sure it was ok for a car and it was. Put it in the car to give me enough to go looking for gas. Headed out and the second station I found had gas - not only that, they had premium. I was really lucky that they were on a one way street, so one side of the pumps on that street had nobody at them. I turned the car around and backed up to the pump and started pumping. The owner came out and said he had about enough gas to last another 15 minutes, so I got there just in time. I paid about 30 cents more a gallon than I should have paid, but I got gas and didn't have to wait in line on a dangerous highway for an hour. I'm a happy girl. Heck I even refilled Hubby's gas jug for the lawnmower (well, I put a little in there anyway.)

The joys of living in Georgia with Governor DumDum.