Back on track

Or, adventures in trying to accurately photograph a gorgeous sock yarn at night in my apartment.

While it certainly seems like I've been knitting only on my Pea Vines scarf for the last week and a half, I did manage to finish another of the items on my knitting to-do list: Kai-mei. I put down Pea Vines to finish these lovelies partly because I wanted to get a start on Hallett's Ledge since I want to finish the sweater in time to wear it this fall. But the bigger motivation came from the fact that I recently challenged Rachel to a bit of a race to see if we could both finish our Kai-mei socks (and blog about them - that takes a bit longer) before next Wednesday. Hence me pestering DH into taking pictures after dinner last night since we won't have time this weekend for a sock photo-shoot.

Pattern: Kai-mei from Cookie A's fantastic book sock innovation
Yarn: Fiberphile Super Squish Sock in colorway Copper Rose
This is a new-to-me yarn that I picked up as a souvenir on our trip to Maine this past June (if you're in the Brunswick area, be sure to swing by Purl Diva - the shop owner, Ellen, is wonderful and stocks a very choice selection of yarns). It's a superwash merino with instructions to hand wash (presumably because of the dye) that I'll probably ignore since machine-washed socks get worn far more often in this household than hand-washed ones. More importantly, the hand of this yarn is beautiful - slightly drapey but with great stitch definition - and the dye job is absolutely stunning. As you'll hopefully see in the pictures in this post, the yarn just shimmers with washes of reds, coppers, and deep pinky-red shades of rose. It's just gorgeous. Moving along . . .
Needles: size 1 addi lace circulars for magic loop
Mods: None. I just march the little bugs across the top of the foot until they've eaten up all of the ribbing stitches. Then I work one row plain and start the toe decreases. The only important piece to note is that you want to have 17 slipped stitches along the heel flap for picking up gusset stitches. The details on why this matters can be found on my last blog post discussing this pattern.

DH was great last night, trying to get decent shots in artificial lighting last night, and he managed to get some nice ones.

Usually, we were two for three in terms of getting focus, color, and the right amount of light.

 But as you can see, everyone in the household enjoyed the attempt.

Nayyir just loves the camera. He followed us over to the couch, where we had moved to try the light on that side of the apartment, in order to investigate and model a bit more.

There, now you can see a bit more of the yarn's shimmer (even if the color is still off).

The color is closest on this next series (even though the glow doesn't come across quite as much):

Great yarn, great pattern, 'nuff said. Go cheer on Rachel as she finishes hers, too.