Canada Day Tragedy

Before anyone gets too upset I'll tell you what the tradegy was... Our camera was dropped and broken!


This is the last picture taken successfully with it on Friday. We were packed up to go to Salmon River to a cabin with some friends. As soon as we got there the camera fell out of Troy's pocket (don't ask what it was doing in his pocket, that's a touchy subject) and smashed to the ground. The boys thought the display screen was just broken so continued to take pictures with it. I had my doubts... and unfortunately I was right. When I uploaded the photos today they were all black after this one.

Now on to some good news....

I finished my step Dad's socks on Wednesday night, the day BEFORE his birthday. That was great, except one sock was smaller than the other and I had no time to fix it. I should know better than to make one sock smaller, I've been making socks for a while. I think it was in my rush that I saw what I wanted to see, that the second one was as long as the first before I started the toe. I did a shameful thing and gave them to him anyway, he's a man, he won't notice, right? And doesn't everyone have one foot smaller than the other anyway? He didn't notice, but my Mom did and pointed it out to him. He wouldn't give them back and wore them the very next day to prove to me that they fit and he loves them. They did turn out pretty nice (I forgot to take a picture of them). I used Austermann Step sock yarn in nachtbleu and it has Aloe Vera and Jojoba oil in it. (Did anyone catch the irony in using Step yarn for my Step Dad) Very nice wool to work with.

I've started 2 new projects that are both due to be completed for the first week of August. One is the Perfect Pie Shawl from Weekend Knitting and the other is the Hedera socks from Knitty.
I was having trouble getting the holes to look right in the Pie Shawl until I found this post from Thimble.ca. It seems that she and many others have had the same problems but she figured out how to make the holes look triangular and I've since started the shawl over again and it's working. The cobweb affect was ok, but I like the triangles in the book much better.

The Hedera socks are being knit up in 100% merino wool in a purple/violet color. They are for my Secret Pal. The pattern was a bit tough to get used to at first but now I've got it memorized. The only issue is that the lace needs to be flattened out. I'm going to try blocking this first sock when it's complete. I'm almost up to the toe so it should be done soon. The other horrible thing that happened with these socks is that while I was coming back from the cabin yesterday and knitting them in the car TWO of my needles broke within 5 minutes of each other. I have now sworn off the Brittany bamboo needles when you are using size 2.5mm... I had never broke one before and others said they had. I guess I had just been lucky, but 2 right in a row was a bit ridiculous. Maybe the dampness got to them over the weekend, I don't know. But I'm not taking the risk of being stranded without needles because they broke again. I'm going to get a pair of Pony Pearls in size 2.5mm as soon as I can get out to London-Wul to pick them up.

** UPDATE **
I found an old camera and here are pics of the Hedera socks and the Pie Shawl. The shawl is actually a fushia pink but it looks very red here. The Hedera socks really need to be flattened but when they are on the lace spreads out nicely.