A Finish and a BSP

As of yesterday I should have had 17 projects done to be on track with my "52 Projects in 52 Weeks" plan. Unfortunately, I've only finished 11, but that's still not bad, considering how many UFOs I have stashed around the house. First up, the socks:

These are the "Gansey Socks" from Socks From the Toe Up by Wendy D. Johnson. You can see it at the bottom of the page in my Amazon linky thing. It's a great book, and if I could only recommend one sock book, this would be the one. She shows several different methods for casting on, heels, and casting off, so if toe-up socks are your thing, this is the book to get. I hate to cast on 64 stitches on DPNs and I hate to graft toes, so I can't imagine why anyone would want to do "cuff-down" socks, but to each her own, right? Even if you do like "cuff-down" socks, the patterns in Wendy's book would be easy to adapt to read the other way.

These socks were done in superwash yarn I bought from Knitting Notions a couple of years ago. The pattern was super-easy, but Wendy is correct in saying that the pattern will show up better in light-colored yarn. I was dying to use this yarn, though, so I ignored Wendy's advice and made them anyway. They still have a nice texture and feel wonderful on my feet, so I'm happy with them. I'm sure I'll make them again, only in the light color as directed.

This is one of my BSPs (or Big Stinkin' Project. I have a lot of those stashed away around here.)

This is The Weeping Tree Sampler designed by "The City Stitcher", Janet Miller. (It's the fifth one down on this page.) I started this in March of 2001. (See, I told you I had some really old UFOs, and that's not even the oldest!) This piece has given me fits, mainly because once again I didn't follow directions and chose to use a different color of linen than what's stated in the pattern, meaning that some of the floss colors should have been adapted. Did I adapt? What do you think?

Soooo, as I was stitching along a little tiny voice in my head kept saying, "That's not going to show up on this fabric. That's not going to show up on this fabric." Now, I have no idea why I thought that voice is going to turn out to be wrong just because I insisted on continuing to stitch with the wrong darn color of floss (another question would be why I would suddenly feel compelled to stitch with the exact color listed in the floss table, especially since I clearly have no problem with switching out the linen color, but that's a whole 'nother post.) It wasn't until I was three-quarters of the way through the border that I decided to start listening to that tiny little voice. Probably that would be because the tiny little voice was beginning to get a little abusive, with words like "idiot" and "moron" getting tossed around.

Not only did I have to rip out the whole border, but I also had started the outer border, which is totally satin-stitched and was also totally wrong. As were the eighteen letters of the alphabet that I had also already stitched. So a-ripping I did go, and a-restitching I began. I had the border half done again when I discovered that I was off by a couple of stitches. More ripping and restitching ensued. And again I was off far enough that it couldn't be fixed and had to be ripped again. Long story short: I've stitched the inner border on this stupid thing THREE TIMES!!!

But I'm beginning to feel hope that it will be done soon. I'm aiming for the last day of September, which means I have about 55 hours left. I'd better get busy. And I'd better learn to count.