Now I need to sit back and find something else to work on until the next shipment comes along.

Last week I received the first shipment from my subscription to the Ram Club The yarn was so nice that I couldn’t wait to start knitting it into socks. Last night I finished the first sock and started the second.

The included pattern is fun to work and has taught me a couple of things. This is the first time that I have knit with two strands of yarn. I like the results as it gives more depth to the color of the sock. I also enjoyed knitting gussets and a heal flap in reverse as I knit from the toe up.

The only change that I made to the pattern is that I used a short row toe a la Priscilla Gibson Roberts. I prefer using yarn overs at the beginning of each short row instead of wrapping the next stitch. I think that the toe looks much better that way.

The sock fits my foot perfectly and feels wonderful. I can’t wait to have a pair.

O Jerusalem can be a little daunting because there are huge patches of it that are basically the same color. I have to confess that I had a hard time starting work on it because it seemed a little boring. However, as areas started to fill up I was excited by how good they looked. I felt compelled to continue stitching so that I could see other parts fill in. There is still a long ways to go before this really starts to look like something, though. At the rate I am going I sometimes wonder if I will live to see it finished.

Those rocks look good in real life, but they look much better in the photograph. I think that the camera blends the colors together a little more and makes the rocks more life-like. Now I can see the logic behind where there are light and dark colors. I can see the shadows cast by the setting sun. I can see the seams and cracks and uneven texture of the rocks. I like the result so much that I want to spend even more time on this piece so that I can see other features come to life.

In all honesty, I think that my patience for stitching with black is starting to run out (I have never seen a piece that uses as much black as this one does), but I am also very tempted to skip over the next piece in my rotation. The thought of working on Noah’s Ark is dispiriting. I don’t want to do any more over-one animals that take forever to stitch such a small area. I want to continue working on big landscape pictures. Maybe I’ll skip to O Jerusalem instead.

Part of the reason for this is probably that I have felt blocked with this piece (no pun intended). The carolers really caused me problems for some reason and the snowman is stitched with blending filament. I have come to dread blending filament. If I stitch with floss and filament together the filament always seems to work itself behind the floss so that it doesn’t really do anything. My solution to that problem is to stitch with floss and then stitch with blending filament over the top of the last leg of the cross stitches. This leaves me with a feeling that I am covering ground that has already been covered and I feel like I am not accomplishing anything.

I am glad that I finally sat down and finished these two blocks. Now I can say that I have stitched from A(ngel) to P(resents). I think that next time I will work on the header before I start working on any of the other letters.

To review, I am knitting a sock for my son using a stranded pattern that I took from Knitting Workshop. When I decided to do this, I was a little worried that there would be too many rows in the pattern for the sock. To compensate for this, I decided to knit from the toe up thinking that I could put the heel where it belonged and then just have an extra-long sock.

Yesterday as I approached the end of the pattern, I decided that the sock was all out of proportion and I still had to knit the ribbing for the cuff. This sock was so long that it looked like it would eventually reach over the top of my son’s knee. There are also a couple of bands in the pattern that look a little strange to my eye. My son has also mentioned that they don’t look quite right to him either.

After a few minutes deliberation, I decided to rip back to the heel so that I could take out the two offending bands. My wife thought that I was nuts for doing this and a part of me agreed with her, but I think that the sock will look much better in this new configuration.

I had hoped that with all of the knitting time I had this weekend I would have pictures to show. Now the sock only has about four more rows than it did on Friday night. This setback coupled with the prospect of having to knit the same pattern a second (and eventually a third) time has made this project a little less attractive to me. I may have to let things sit for a little while.

Besides, my cross stitch projects started calling to me yesterday morning.