As promised – knitting content follows.  After a lovely week spent stitching away, it was nice to just sit in the car traveling, enjoying the beautiful sights and knitting.  I took along lots of of projects and actually came home with an FO – a pair of Austermann socks for me:

These were started quite a while ago and had been sadly neglected.  As you can see, they are fraternal twins.  I would have preferred identical, but the color runs on the Austermann are so long, it just wasn’t possible.  The obsessive side of me is dealing with this.  The pattern is just a generic top down, flap heel and picot edge.  This is the second pair I’ve made with the picot edge.  I had originally thought that socks with this type of edge might not stay up well, but they work great and I love the look.  There will definitely be more in my future.

Once these were done, I cast on for some gift socks for my sewing friend Lisa.  Once sock was finished on the trip and the other shortly after:

This is some Opal that has been hanging out in my stash for next to forever.  In fact, I think it was probably one of the first sock yarns I ever bought.  The pattern is again the good old generic top down with flap heel.  I have to admit that I started a picot edge on these.  I use the waste yarn method and usually use cotton because it’s easy to zip out.  I didn’t have any with me so used a scrap of wool.  When zipping it hung up on itself and I used the scissors to snip it.  However, I snipped rather more vigorously than intended and cut my sock yarn too.  I didn’t feel like starting over so just recast on with ribbing.

Also started on the trip was another CIC sweater – I’ll post pictures of that later.

I did work one day last week and paid the price for having two weeks off.  I went to the post office to pick up our accumulated mail and let’s just say that I’m still diving through all of it.  On Monday the doctor comes back and I have to inform him of our latest staffing nightmare.  Let the games begin (again). 

This weekend I’ve discovered the fun of machine applique and made some cute little tops for Izzy:

But enough of this stuff – I have some projects that have deadlines and I really need to get working on those.  So this afternoon I will begin working on a knitted sheep.  I’ll either love it or be tearing my hair out by the end of the weekend.  Stay tuned for the next chapter.

And Happy Mother’s Day to all you Moms out there.  I’m spending the day relaxing and enjoying a great meal cooked by hubby – barbequed ribs, potatoes and fresh green beans with almonds – Yum!