Does a Pomatomus says frog?

I'm sure that sure that even though the Pomatomus is a genus of blue fish, I really don't think that Cookie A. meant it to be a frog. Well, sadly that is where my Pomatomus went last night. Luckily only for a few rows.

Let's start at the beginning...

I'm making these socks for the girls who keep giving Erika their gorgeous clothes when they're finished with them.


For the oldest girl, I decided that I wanted to something a little more funky. Her favorite colors are purple and green, so I went scouring the Blue Moon site for just the right purples and greens. The colors in these pictures just don't do it justice, and it's been raining and grey here for the last few days so I had to take indoor/flash photos. I'll try to get outside shots of the FO to see the right colors. It goes from a nice olive green (and I normally don't like olive green) to dark green to dark purple and then a little hint of the light purple/lavender. The way that the blue moon girls mix their colors is truly genius.


The timing was just perfect, I'd just finished her sister's socks and this came in the mail. After fondling the yarn for a while - it's just sooo soft - I wound it into a ball. When I wind just a little loose on my ballwinder, it makes this neat pattern.



With these colors, it reminded me of the Pomatomus socks from Knitty a while back, and I couldn't resist. I'd been wanting to make myself a pair of pomatomus socks for so long, but didn't think that I'd ever wear them, I figured that a 12 year old girl would love these!


This is the most amazing pattern. So intuitive and easy to follow. I did the top repeats (2 instead of the prescribed 3) in no time at all. I love the way that the top ribbing melts into the scallops and then how the pattern flows into the heel flap. The heel flap and turning the heel went smoothly . Then the foot came along.


I had been going along so well, had practically memorized the pattern and the top of the foot started out the same as all of the others. But there's a difference. I didn't realize that difference until about 6 rows after I'd screwed up and forgotten about the k2tog tbl that I needed to start, and I don't get the nice scallop on one side. You can see on the left of this picture the nice little bit of what looks like ribbing and it should be curving back to the left. Well, that bit of knitting is gone now.


I decided to frog it back to where I knew I was OK, which took a little longer than expected (but no mishaps). After some long conference calls where I just have to listen and not participate too much, I'm back to where I was - with proper pomatomusing on the foot.


There was much rejoicing. I hope to finish the first one this weekend and then get started on the second one before second sock syndrome sets in -- though I don't' think it will for the pomatomus.

I showed these to Dave last night - who complimented me by saying that these were the coolest socks that I'd ever knit. He seemed quite impressed. by knitting. nuff said.

Just as an afterthough to this post - every time that I had to write pomatomus, I needed to go back to Knitty and verify the spelling. You'd think that after writing it 7 times I would have figured it out... Does being the mother of a 4 year old still quality me for pregnancy-brain or have I past that stage and am just a dork who can't write p.o.m.a.t.o.m.u.s. [ you don't need to answer that ]

Stripe Generator

I found this really cool stripe generator today. I have a couple of ideas requiring stripes, so this will come in handy.

The next pair or orange socks are almost done - just a few more rows on the toe to finish.

Socks for S.

So, the first pair of thank-you socks are done and given away already - before I could take a picture of them even!! They were well appreciated though. It was quite cute, C. opened the socks, exclaimed that she loved orange and put on the socks right away. When she started walking around on the hardwood floors in her house, she was slipping and sliding, and had quite a good time figuring out ways to slip around in her new socks.


The socks for her sister, S., are well on their way now. I cast on for these socks last Thursday and they're coming along quite nicely. I'm a little dissapointed in how the picot cast on curls down, but I think that's a function of the stocking stitch. When I put the sock-in-progress around my arm, the picot edge does 'stand up' properly, so I'm hoping that when the socks are worn, they'll look ok.


Just a few more rows and I'll be able to start the toe decreasing. I'm hoping that I can finish this pair at guild tonight and then cast on for the second one on the train tomorrow.

Oh - it's Jennifer's birthday today - go send her good wishes!