Flash your Sock Stash!

Of course, every time I took this photo, I walked away and found more sock yarn, so went back and took it again! But here is seventeen pairs of socks worth of my sock yarn stash, which does NOT include a skein of Magic Stripes (thanks SP) I found later in the day, or the Trekking XXL that is already on the needles. Or, now that I think about it, the six skeins of DK Mexico that might want to be socks when they grow up.

Like other sock knitters, I always wondered what to do with the leftovers. Someone on the Knitty Coffeeshop was looking for scraps for a project so I sent a bunch of longer pieces her way. But there always seems to be ten or so yards left – not enough to really do anything with, but too pretty to throw away. So I started this oddball project that will take me the next five years to finish –

This is the Yarn Harlot’s Circular Shawl Method 2, as laid out in the Knitting Rules book. I cast on 160 stitches on US size 1 needles with the first bit of sock yarn I laid my hands on, knit until it ran out, then added the next bit of sock yarn I laid my hands on.I knew I didn’t want to weave in 1200 ends, so I am tying the new yarn to the old in neat little bows, making sure they will all end up on the same side, and calling them a design choice. As you can see, all of the early colors were really short pieces. But now I am using up a fairly sizable end from the Cherry Tree Hill socks that you can see in the post below.

Here is the top of the shawl, the point of the wedge shape that this pattern calls for.

I understand that this will take me the rest of my life to finish, as I can’t add yarn until I finish a pair of socks. I understand that making a shawl with every color found in nature (and a few that aren’t) isn’t for everybody. I understand that people will stare at me on the street if I ever finish this and wear it out of the house, if they don’t run screaming first. But it makes me happy anyway.

On the work front, things are slow and steady right now, which is a fine thing. The only stress-making part of my work life is that my agent is shopping a new book proposal around. She has gotten really positive, fast responses from the publishers we were hoping to hear from (which means they read the one page query and asked to read the sample chapter and support materials), but it is too soon to hope for an offer. Which does not, of course, mean that I am not checking my email every seventeen seconds hoping someone has already bought this book. Oy… I know this is a high quality problem to have, but I am slowly going insane.

And YAY for the kid! My little step dancer moved up in rank this past March (the soloists are divided by age and by experience level), and suffered somewhat of a trophy drought. She was dancing well, but not winning much because the competition was so much greater. Until Saturday that is, when she walked out smiling with four third place trophies (out of the five events she competes). We are both extremely happy. She has a little bit of a summer break for the next two weeks so she can bask in her glory, which is also pretty cool.

Back to the shawl – there is still some Cherry Tree Hill yardage left!