Fraternal twins

The Latvian socks from the Vogue pattern book are finally finished.  The first one took 3 weeks of off and on work, working out the mistakes in the published pattern and getting used to the stitch pattern.  The second one went quicker (1 week!) because I was more familiar with the pattern, and I made a point of holding the first sock up against it to make sure I was starting the heel in the right place so that they would match.  And yet I didn't.  It was only after I wove in all the ends and held them together that I realized that, although there are the same number of total pattern repeats, one of them has a shorter leg and longer foot than the other.

It's not obvious at first glance, but when you hold them together you can see it.  So all I need to do is find someone with one foot longer than the other to give them to.  Grrrr.  They're still going to go into the silent auction, but I feel like I need to explain their disability.  And there's no way I'm making this pattern again.  Sigh.

So to take the taste of that pattern out of my brain I started the Evenstar hat, and found mistakes in the pattern, mostly in the form of omissions, but also calling for much smaller needles than plausible to get the hat in the picture, so after 12 rows I pulled it out and started over with size 7 needles instead of size 3, and plenty of notations on the pattern.  Much better now.  I ordered some faceless foam heads from eBay for blocking and displaying hats, because patterns like this and the Lauren hat need blocking, and doing it flat won't do the cables justice.

I also started a rainbow scarf with clouds, using odds and ends from my stash.  There are a number of similar patterns out there, and I'm not actually doing it the way this pattern says to.  They use 2 rows of single crochet for each stripe, and I'm using 1 row of double crochet - faster, and more flexible.  But I don't have a lot of green yarn at home, so I may have to actually buy some next time I cruise past Joann.  Part of the reason for this is to make something quick after all of these long-term projects (like the still uncompleted sweater), but also to see whether my thumb is up to gripping the crochet hook, which it is.  It's still not 100%, but getting there.

In September, Yarnworks will have the library display cases - what are you going to display?