Fall is in The Air

The heat wave has broken in Rochester. Days are cool and the evenings are even cooler. It is back to work for me soon. I've always enjoyed the beginning of the school year with the new school supplies, new clothing and new shoes. I am the eldest of three so was always the beneficiary of the new clothing; my younger sisters were not so fortunate mostly inheriting my hand me downs. My mother was a seamstress and back to school shopping was almost always the same. She would decide that she was far too busy to sew the new school clothing and would proclaim that we would be buying ready made. This was always an exciting announcement but greeted with some suspicion after the first few years it was heard.

Shopping was an all day event as we were about an hour away from a major city so we would begin our day at the department stores where clothing was closely inspected and always rejected because of the poor quality. "Look, they didn't even match these plaids." "Look at the poor job they did on the hem." Mentally she was comparing the cost of the ready made clothing with the cost of sewing it herself. And, so it went with none of the ready made clothing meeting my mother's exacting standards. She was not a knitter so there were some sweater purchases and she didn't make our underwear so that was purchased. But at the end of the day we always ended up at the fabric store for the patterns, fabric and notions for blouses, skirts, and dresses.

My school preparations are different now but there is that same sense of new beginnings and new possibilities. Almost the same excitement one feels beginning a new knitting project. This is a knitting blog after all and I must stay on topic.

My vacation sock project kept me busy for some time and is now complete. I present:

Pattern: Jitterbug Ballband Simple Sock Pattern

Needles: Knitpicks Size 1.5

Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug - Gauguin Colorway

Comments: The yarn is lovely - 100% merino which is very soft and enjoyable to knit. Skein yardage is short (292 yards) compared to many sock yarns and I knew many knitters had problems running out of yarn. For that reason I decided to stick with the ballband pattern which is a simple top down stockinette sock. I wear a woman's size 9 - 9.5 shoe. The pattern sizes are in European sizes S (34/35), M (38/39), L (42/43). Since my size falls between M and L and my feet are not particularly wide I opted to make the M and add extra length to the foot which worked well. To my surprise I ended up with a lot of yarn left over (26 grams from a 100 gram ball) and the socks are shorter than I usually wear.

Another skein of Colinette Jitterbug was purchased on vacation at Mosaic Yarn Shop in Blacksburg, Virginia.

I'll be going toe up with this one and possibly incorporating a contrasting (charcoal gray) heel and toe to maximize that yarny goodness. I'm thinking stockinette for this one also. The color repeats are short and I mostly avoided pooling on the first sock except on the ribbed cuff.

I've been working on a number of small knitting projects including a Branching Out scarf in olive green Silky Wool and a Simple Trekking Sock designed by MimKnits.

Trekking is such a joy and I find myself wanting to knit just one more row so I can see what the colors will do next. I'm looking forward to wearing these socks this fall.

Cheryl, glad to see you've stopped lurking and I appreciate your comment.